23.3373, Diss: Cog Sci/ Pragmatics/ Psycholing/ Semantics/ English: Kim: 'Generating Alternatives...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-3373. Fri Aug 10 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.3373, Diss: Cog Sci/ Pragmatics/ Psycholing/ Semantics/ English: Kim: 'Generating Alternatives...'

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Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:55:17
From: Christina Kim [ckim at bcs.rochester.edu]
Subject: Generating Alternatives: Interpreting Focus in Discourse

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Institution: University of Rochester 
Program: Brain and Cognitive Sciences 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Christina S Kim

Dissertation Title: Generating Alternatives: Interpreting Focus in Discourse 

Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science
                     Pragmatics
                     Psycholinguistics
                     Semantics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Dissertation Director(s):
Michael K. Tanenhaus
Jeffrey T Runner
Gregory N. Carlson
Tim Florian Jaeger
Christine Gunlogson

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation investigates a class of context-dependent expressions 
— focus-sensitive particles — as a way of addressing how language 
users draw on contextual information to interpret expressions whose 
meanings are underdetermined by their forms. While the problem of 
context dependence has been widely studied, the question of precisely 
what cognitive processes and representations are involved in 
interpreting context-sensitive meanings online has been relatively 
under-researched. The current work picks up where the work of 
semanticists leaves off after defining context-invariant aspects of 
meaning, trying to characterize the workings of the pragmatics as a 
kind of interface between context-invariant meaning and particular 
situations of language use.

By investigating the online interpretation of focus particles in spoken 
language, this study tackles an additional source of indeterminacy: in 
addition to semantic representations being underspecified by virtue of 
being context-dependent, the forms corresponding to these 
representations are indeterminate at each timepoint over the duration 
of an utterance. The observation that listeners are able to fluently 
interpret partial linguistic inputs given available contextual information 
tells us that the information contributed by small units of linguistic input 
can be used immediately by the processor, in addition to meaning 
representations that specify the relation of a linguistic expression to a 
complete sentential meaning.

Investigating these two forms of indeterminate meaning in tandem will 
provides insights that asking these questions in isolation would not, 
and ultimately allow a reformulation of the research question that cuts 
up the explanatory pie in a way that departs from the classical division 
of labor among grammatical competence, language (and non-linguistic) 
processing, and communicative goals.
 






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