5. Paraphrase relationships among clefted sentences.
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Paul Fletcher
Abstract
Paraphrase relations among defied sentences were examined using the syntactic cohesion between question and answer as an experimental paradigm. It was assumed that paraphrase sets would be defined by the syntactic reflexes of the semantic notion of focus. Subjects were 77 High School seniors and juniors. The focus hypothesis was generally supported, but there were two groups of subjects who differed from the majority in either not maintaining focus across all sentence-types, or in apparently not utilising focus at all.
Abstract
Paraphrase relations among defied sentences were examined using the syntactic cohesion between question and answer as an experimental paradigm. It was assumed that paraphrase sets would be defined by the syntactic reflexes of the semantic notion of focus. Subjects were 77 High School seniors and juniors. The focus hypothesis was generally supported, but there were two groups of subjects who differed from the majority in either not maintaining focus across all sentence-types, or in apparently not utilising focus at all.
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
