Outline and discuss any evidence that Relevance (or QUD) is computed incrementally

1、Outline and discuss any evidence that Relevance (or QUD) is computed incrementallyIthasbeenwidelyacceptedthatthecomprehensionofasentenceinvolvestheprocessofbothinterpretingsentencesmeaningandunderstandinghowthatsentenceisrelevanttothecontext.Thetime-sensitivedatacollectedfromcomprehensiontaskssugges

2、tedthatthesetwoprocessesareincrementalandinteractiveTian，2020.Inthispaper，weoutlinetheideasthatrelevanceisachievedincrementally，anddiscussastudyofnegationprocessingtosupportthisidea.“QuestionunderdiscussionQUDs;seeGinzburg，inpressisatermtodescribetherelevanceachievingprocess.Itcharacterizesrelevance

3、asasetofsemanticinquiriesthatrequiretobesolved.AccordingtoRoberts2020，theconceptisdevelopedbasedonhisideaofinformationstructure，astructureonpursuinginquiryindiscourseandacquiringinformationthatinquiryyields.Thebasicideaisthatlanguageusersrepresentpartsofutterancesasquestions，andwhateverutterancesthe

4、yencounter，theytendtoprojectthemostprominentQUDsofittoachieverelevance.ThepropertyofQUDsindicatesitscomputationprocesstobeincremental.TheprominenceofQUDschangeasdiscourseunfolds，andcanbeadjustedbyamechanismofaccommodation.Thiskindofadjustmentisinresponsetofeaturesoftheutterancesoffered.Whatsmore，QUD

5、saccommodationhappensinparallelwiththecontentprocessing，andthelikelyQUDofanutteranceisanticipatory.ThecurrentstudyofnegationprocessingprovidesanevidencefortheincrementalcomputationofQUDTian，2020.Fordecades，ithasbeenobservedthatnegationprocessingisdifficultwithoutcontextsincethatittakeslongertoproces

6、sandtherearemoreerrorsoccurcomparedwiththeprocessingofpositivesentencesWason，1965;ClarkChase，1972.Twokindsofapproachesrisetoaccountforthedelayofnegationprocessing.Truth-functionalapproachesassumethatthecostofnegationprocessingiscausedbyextrastep.Bycontrast，contextualistapproachesassumethatthedelayis

7、causedbytheneedforacontextfornegation.Inpreviousresearchofnegationprocessing，manystudiespointoutthatwheninterpretingnegativesentences，participantstendtorepresentpositiveargumentofnegationfirst.Somesentenceverificationexperimentssuggestthatwheninterpretinganegativesentence，peoplefirstrepresentthenega

8、tedinformation，andthenrejectit.Kaupandcolleaguesestablishedarejectionmodelbasedontruth-functionalapproachtoaccountfortherepresentationofpositiveargument.Avisualproberecognitiontaskwasconductedandtheresultsshowthatgivenanegativesentenceeg.Thebirdisnotflying，within250ms，participantsrespondfastertoapic

9、tureconsistentwiththepositiveargumentofnegativesentenceaflyingbirdthantoatargetpicturearestingbird.Thereforetheconclusionwasmadethatnegationisrepresentedwitharejectionmodelthatinvolvestwo-stepsimulation：firstsimulatethenegatedinformationandthenrejectit.However，itisnotalwaysthecasethatthepositiveargu

10、mentisfirstlyandnecessarilyrepresentedinnegationprocessing.Thereforethetruth-functionalapproachfailstoaccountforsomecases.Tian，BrehenyandFerguson providedsuchapieceofevidencethattherepresentationofpositiveargumentdoesntoccurininterpretingcleftnegativesentencesItisTomthathasnotironhisbrothersshi

11、rt.Herecomequestions：whydoesthepositiveargumentsometimesoccurinnegationprocessingwhilesometimesnot？Whatactivatestherepresentationofnegatedinformationduringtheprocessing？ThecontextualistsapproachesprovideanalternativeaccountthatisbasedontheincrementalpropertyofQUDaccommodation.Thedynamicpragmaticacco

12、untsuggeststhatitisQUDaccommodationtriggersthepositiverepresentation.basedontheviewthatnegationrequiresspecificcontextualmotivationandnegativequestionaremarked，givenanegativesentencewithoutanycontext，participantsareassumedtoaccommodatethemorefrequentpositivequestionqueryingeitherapositiveornegativea

13、rgumentastheprominentQUD.Forexample，whentheyhearasentencelike，“Tomhasntironhisbrothersshirt，participanttendtoprojectthemostprominentQUDaskingwhetherTomhasironhisbrothersshirt，andthisisapositivequestion.Thisisbecausethemajorpropertyofnegationisdenialandrejection.However，whenthegivensentencehasanegati

14、vequestionasitsprominentQUD，thentherewillbenopositiverepresentationinsentenceinterpretingprocess.Cleftnegativesentenceisanexampleofthiskind.Forexample，whenparticipantshearasentencelike，“ItsTomthathasntironhisbrothersshirt，participanttendtoaccommodateaQUDqueryingwhohasntironhisbrothersshirt，andinthis

15、casenopositiveargumentispresented.InordertotesttheexactpointthatQUDsaccommodationoccurandwhetherithappenincrementally，Tianetal.conductedavisualworldeye-trackingtasktocomparethetimecourseofnegativesentencesprocessingandtheirpositivecounterpartsrepresentations.AccordingtoincrementalQUDaccommodationacc

16、ount，thepredictionisthattheresultsoftime-coursetaskofprojectingQUDsshouldbethesameineitherpositiveornegativecondition.Theexperimenthasthesimilartwobytwomaterialsentencesformatclassifiedbypolarityandcleft-nessasthepreviousone，butthevisualcontextsoftwopropositionsconsistentornotconsistentwiththegivens

17、entencearegivenonesecondbeforeparticipanthearingtheaudiostimulitoeliminatethedisadvantageofnegativestatesinferences.Forexample，forthegroupof4sentencesof“turnontheTV，thevisualcontextshowstwostatesofTV，eitheronoroff.Togetherwithapersonandtwodistractors，therearetotally5itemsoneachvisualscene.Participan

18、tsareinstructedtosimplylookatthevisualscenewhilelistening，andtheireyemovementsforeachtrialarerecorded.Theeye-movementanalysisofthestudyfocusesonthecomparisonbetweenthepercentageofparticipantslookstothetargetandcompetitorfromtheonsetoftheverbtotheoffsetofthefinalnoun.Thelooksarecalculatedastargetadva

19、ntage，whichdirectlyshowthecomparison.Theaveragetargetadvantagescoresarecalculatedbypersonandbyitem.Resultsshowthatinsimplesentences，participantsshowabiastotargetimmediatelyaftertheoffsetofverbinpositivesentencesbutbeforetheonsetofnouninnegativesentences.Inotherword，inthedurationbetweentheoffsetofver

20、bandonsetofnoun，participantsfixatethetargetearlierinpositivesentencesthannegativesentences.However，intermsofcleftsentences，participantsshownosignificantdifferenceinprocessingpositivesentencesandnegativeones，whichindicatesthatpolarityincleftsentencesdoesntinfluencetheprocessingtime.Ananalysisoftime-c

21、ourseisalsoconductedtoinvestigatetheexacttimewhentargetbiaswasdevelopedinbothsentencetypes.Thetimethatstartsfromtheoffsetoftheverbtotheendofasentenceisdividedintoseveral100mstimeslices，andthetargetadvantagescoresforeachslicearecalculated.Inthefirst5slicesaftertheoffsetoftheverb，simplesentencesshowgr

22、eatdifferencebetweenpositiveandnegativewhilecleftpositiveandnegativesentencesshownearlythesametargetadvantagescores.Aftertheslice6，bothsentencestypeshowdifferentscoresbetweenpositiveandnegative.Theanalysisofeye-movementandtime-courseprovidesevidencestosupporttheideathatQUDsaccommodationisincremental

23、andhappensinparallelwiththecontentprocessing.First，theresultsforcleftnegativesentencesindicatesthatthemeaningofnegationisintegratedincrementally.Whenprocessingcleftnegativesentences，participantsfixatethetargetonly600msaftertheverb，whichmeansthatafterhearingtheverbtheyimmediatelycombinethenegationinf

24、ormationandtheverbtogethertodirecttheirlookingpreference.Second，thereisnodelayincleftnegativecomparedwithcleftpositive，whichindicatesthattheprominentQUDsforcleftnegativearenegativequestionsaswell.Thisisbecauseduringtheincrementalprocessing，whenhearing“has/“hasnt，participantsusingthiscuetorecognizeth

25、esentenceformcleftsentence，andthenstarttopredictthesentencemeaningandtheprominentQUDatthesametimeincrementallyaslinguisticinputunfold.Languageisprocessedincrementally，andthisprocessinvolvesnotonlythecontentprocessingbutalsotherelevanceachievement.QUDaccommodationservesasawaytoachieverelevance，andthecomputatio