Set size and Reference

• In this talk, we present the results from a semantic plausibility study investigating the effects of setsize on anaphoric reference to quantified expressions (QEs) in Swedish. Determining the referent toanaphoric expressions is at the heart of discourse processing (see e.g. Schumacher, 2017). It is wellknownthat focussed entities have a privileged status for being the antecedents of anaphoric pronouns (Gundel, Hedberg & Zacharski, 1993, among others). QEs are interesting in this connection becausea sub-group of them, negative QEs (monotone decreasing), consistently allows for a switch in focuswhen referred back to (see e.g. Moxey & Sanford, 1987). Positive QEs do not allow this switch. In (1), the intersection of the set of fans (set A) and set of people going to the game (set B) is known asthe REFERENCE SET (REFSET) while the part of Set A that is not in Set B is the COMPLEMENT SET (COMPSET) (i.e. fans not going to the game) (Moxey & Sanford, 1987). Both of the sentences in (1) talkabout fans going to a game, i.e. the REFSET. While (1a) can only be followed by (2a) (still talking aboutthe REFSET), (1b) can be followed by either of the sentences in (2) although many speakers actuallyprefer (2b), where the anaphoric pronoun has the COMPSET as antecedent. (ex. from Sanford, Moxey & Paterson, 1996, 145):(1) a. Some of the football fans went to the game. (Positive QE)b. Few of the football fans went to the game. (Negative QE)(2) a. They watched it with enthusiasm. (REFSET)b. They watched it on TV instead. (COMPSET)(3) Few [small QE]/not all [big QE] fans went to the game and they watched it on TV instead [compset]/with enthusiasm [refset].Although positive QEs and negative QEs as groups show the reference patterns described above, contextual factors such as explicitly stated expectations can have an effect on the set focus (Moxey, 2006; Moxey, Sanford & Dawydiak, 2001). In addition Filik, Leuthold, Moxey and Sanford (2011) have shownthat in online processing, the REFSET seems to interfere in processing of negative QEs. These issues havebeen extensively studied for English, but hardly at all for other languages. In this study, we investigate how polarity and relative set size affect speakers’ judgement of sentences with anaphoric reference to QEs in Swedish. The results from the study indicate that QEs of both polarities make both REFSET and COMPSET cognitively available to the extent that the unfocussed set interferes with anaphoric reference. However, this availability does not seem to be so strong as to switch set reference. An outstanding question is if the unfocussed set is available to the same extent as any other unfocussed participants ina discourse, or less. We suspect that offline studies of processing cannot answer this question, but it requires online measures of processing.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Quantification

complement set

reference set

Lingvistik

Linguistics

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)