4. A performative definition of sentence relatedness.
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Gary D. Prideaux
Abstract
Three sentence families were constructed and the semantic relations among the members of each family were investigated experimentally. A scaling technique was developed to allow subjects to evaluate the degree of semantic similarity between each pair of sentences in each family. It was found that pairs of sentences normally related by optional transformations were judged most similar by subjects. However, a strong semantic cohesion appeared among all yes-no questions but such a cohesion did not appear among the declaratives. Such results are not predicted by a formal grammatical analysis. It was concluded that the intuitive notion of semantic similarity so often adverted to in formal descriptions is very different from the naive native speaker's notion of semantic similarity.
Abstract
Three sentence families were constructed and the semantic relations among the members of each family were investigated experimentally. A scaling technique was developed to allow subjects to evaluate the degree of semantic similarity between each pair of sentences in each family. It was found that pairs of sentences normally related by optional transformations were judged most similar by subjects. However, a strong semantic cohesion appeared among all yes-no questions but such a cohesion did not appear among the declaratives. Such results are not predicted by a formal grammatical analysis. It was concluded that the intuitive notion of semantic similarity so often adverted to in formal descriptions is very different from the naive native speaker's notion of semantic similarity.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
PART I: THEORETICAL BASES FOR EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS (editorial introduction)
- 1. On paraphrase. 21
- 2. What is structural ambiguity? 35
- 3. On theories of focus. 55
- 4. Preliminaries to the experimental investigation of style in language. 65
- 5. English pluralization: A testing ground for rule evaluation. 81
-
PART II: EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS (editorial introduction)
- 1. Grammatical properties of sentences as a basis for concept formation. 121
- 2. Grammatical voice and illocutionary meaning in an aural concept formation task. 141
- 3. Grammatical simplicity or performative efficiency? 157
- 4. A performative definition of sentence relatedness. 175
- 5. Paraphrase relationships among clefted sentences. 185
- 6. The recognition of ambiguity. 203
- 7. An experimental investigation of focus. 215
- 8. A discriminant function analysis of co-variation of a number of syntactic devices in five prose genres. 231
- 9. Rule learning and the English inflections (with special emphasis on the plural). 247
- 10. Perceptual dimensions of phonemic recognition. 273
- Epilogue 293
- Bibliography 309
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
-
PART I: THEORETICAL BASES FOR EXPERIMENTAL LINGUISTICS (editorial introduction)
- 1. On paraphrase. 21
- 2. What is structural ambiguity? 35
- 3. On theories of focus. 55
- 4. Preliminaries to the experimental investigation of style in language. 65
- 5. English pluralization: A testing ground for rule evaluation. 81
-
PART II: EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS (editorial introduction)
- 1. Grammatical properties of sentences as a basis for concept formation. 121
- 2. Grammatical voice and illocutionary meaning in an aural concept formation task. 141
- 3. Grammatical simplicity or performative efficiency? 157
- 4. A performative definition of sentence relatedness. 175
- 5. Paraphrase relationships among clefted sentences. 185
- 6. The recognition of ambiguity. 203
- 7. An experimental investigation of focus. 215
- 8. A discriminant function analysis of co-variation of a number of syntactic devices in five prose genres. 231
- 9. Rule learning and the English inflections (with special emphasis on the plural). 247
- 10. Perceptual dimensions of phonemic recognition. 273
- Epilogue 293
- Bibliography 309
