Semantics and focus in immediate discourse interpretation
The aim of utterance interpretation is to integrate what is being said with what has been said so far. This paper examines some factors which affect the ~on-line~ construction of a coherent discourse representation. Building on ideas presented in Garrod and Sanford (1977) and others we report a series of studies showing that the time taken to assign an antecedent to a gerund can be influenced by semantic featural overlap between material in the prior discourse and the New/incoming material. Whether the effect is facilitatory or inhibitory depends on the item's role in the discourse representation. The data distinguish between two types of response to semantic overlap between the immediate input and the semantic properties of the discourse representation. The first is a reflexive allocation of processing resources to discourse entity linked to semantic overlap information. The second is a facilitatory effect on the evaluation processes which determine the appropriate antecedent. When the prior discourse contains a word (e.g., jogging) denoting a conceptual property which is semantically similar to the immediate speech signal (e.g., Running towards ... ), antecedent assignment is facilitated but only when the
Durrant-Peatfield, Mark Robert
Linguistics
Semantics and focus in immediate discourse interpretation. The aim of utterance interpretation is to integrate what is being said with what has been said so far. This paper examines some factors which affect the ~on-line~ construction of a coherent discourse representation. Building on ideas presented in Garrod and Sanford (1977) and others we report a series of studies showing that the time taken to assign an antecedent to a gerund can be influenced by semantic featural overlap between material in the prior discourse and the New/incoming material. Whether the effect is facilitatory or inhibitory depends on the item's role in the discourse representation. The data distinguish between two types of response to semantic overlap between the immediate input and the semantic properties of the discourse representation. The first is a reflexive allocation of processing resources to discourse entity linked to semantic overlap information. The second is a facilitatory effect on the evaluation processes which determine the appropriate antecedent. When the prior discourse contains a word (e.g., jogging) denoting a conceptual property which is semantically similar to the immediate speech signal (e.g., Running towards ... ), antecedent assignment is facilitated but only when the
semantics focus immediate discourse interpretation aim utterance_interpretation integrate say say far paper examine factor_affect line construction coherent discourse_representation building idea present others report series study_show time take assign antecedent influence semantic overlap material prior discourse new incoming material whether effect depend item role discourse_representation data distinguish_two type response semantic overlap immediate input semantic_property discourse_representation first reflexive allocation processing resource discourse entity link semantic overlap information second effect evaluation process determine appropriate antecedent prior discourse contains word denote conceptual property semantically similar immediate speech_signal running towards antecedent assignment facilitate