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Semantic values as latent parameters: Testing a fixed threshold hypothesis for cardinal readings of few & many

  • Anthea Schöller und Michael Franke ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 24. August 2017
Linguistics Vanguard
Aus der Zeitschrift Linguistics Vanguard Band 3 Heft 1

Abstract

Certain uses of vague quantifiers few and many intuitively compare a true quantity to a priori expectations about that quantity. A concrete proposal for the truth conditions of such readings stipulates a contextually-stable threshold on a contextually-variable representation of a priori expectations (Clark, H. H. 1991. Words, the world, and their possibilities. In Lockhead G. R. & Pomerantz J. R. (eds.), The perception of structure: Essays in honor of Wendell R Garner, 263–277. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; Fernando, T. & H. Kamp. 1996. Expecting many. In Galloway T. & Spence J. (eds.), Proceedings of SALT VI, 53–68. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.) The main goal of this paper is to introduce data-driven computational modeling as a means to implement and test complex semantic theories of this kind, which may be hard to assess based on solitary introspection of meaning intuitions. Based on an empirical measure of a priori expectations, we use Bayesian inference to estimate likely values of the latent threshold parameters given empirical data from production and comprehension tasks. We demonstrate how posterior inference and statistical model comparison can help assess the plausibility of the fixed threshold hypothesis.

Keywords: few; many; computational modeling; experimental data; context-dependence

Appendix

A Experimental material

  1. book – A friend’s favorite book has been published only recently (and has few/many pages). – How many pages do you think the book has? – intervals: 0–40, 41–80, 81–120, 121–160, 161–200, 201–240, 241–280, 281–320, 321–360, 361–400, 401–440, 441–480, 481–520, 521–560, 560 or more

  2. bus – Vehicle No. 102 is a school bus (which has seats for few/many passengers). – How many passengers do you think can sit in Vehicle No. 102? – intervals: 0–4, 5–9, 10–14, 15–19, 20–24, 25–29, 30–34, 35–39, 40–44, 45–49, 50–54, 55–59, 60–64, 65–69, 70 or more

  3. calls – Lisa is a woman from the US (who made few/many phone calls last week). – How many phone calls do you think Lisa made last week? – intervals: 0–4, 5–9, 10–14, 15–19, 20–24, 25–29, 30–34, 35–39, 40–44, 45–49, 50–54, 55–59, 60–64, 65–69, 70 or more

  4. class – Erin is a first grade student in primary school. (There are few/many children in Erins class.) – How many children do you think are in Erin’s class? – intervals: 0–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–11, 12–14, 15–17, 18–20, 21–23, 24–26, 27–29, 30–32, 33–35, 36–38, 39–41, 42 or more

  5. coffee – Andy is man from the US (who drank few/many cups of coffee last week). – How many cups of coffee do you think Andy drank last week? – intervals: 0–1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–7, 8–9, 10–11, 12–13, 14–15, 16–17, 18–19, 20–21, 22–23, 24–25, 26–27, 28 or more

  6. cook – Tony is a man from the US (who cooked himself few/many meals at home last month). – How many meals do you think Tony cooked himself at home last month? – intervals: 0–3, 4–7, 8–11, 12–15, 16–19, 20–23, 24–27, 28–31, 32–35, 36–39, 40–43, 44–47, 48–51, 52–55, 56 or more

  7. facebook – Judith is a woman from the US (who has few/many Facebook friends). – How many Facebook friends do you think Judith has? – intervals: 0–69, 70–139, 140–209, 210–279, 280–349, 350–419, 420–489, 490–559, 560–629, 630–699, 700–769, 770–839, 840–909, 910–979, 980 or more

  8. friends – Lelia is a woman from the US (who has few/many friends). – How many friends do you think Lelia has? – intervals: 0–1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–7, 8–9, 10–11, 12–13, 14–15, 16–17, 18–19, 20–21, 22–23, 24–25, 26–27, 28 or more

  9. hair – Betty is a woman from the US (who washed her hair few/many times last month). – How many times do you think Betty washed her hair last month? – intervals: 0–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–11, 12–14, 15–17, 18–20, 21–23, 24–26, 27–29, 30–32, 33–35, 36–38, 39–41, 42 or more

  10. movie – Nick is a man from the US (who saw few/many movies last year). – How many movies do you think Nick saw last year? – intervals: 0–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–11, 12–14, 15–17, 18–20, 21–23, 24–26, 27–29, 30–32, 33–35, 36–38, 39–41, 42 or more

  11. poem – A friend wants to read you her favorite poem (which has few/many lines). – How many lines do you think the poem has? – intervals: 0–3, 4–7, 8–11, 12–15, 16–19, 20–23, 24–27, 28–31, 32–35, 36–39, 40–43, 44–47, 48–51, 52–55, 56 or more

  12. restaurants – Sarah is a woman from the US (who went to few/many restaurants last year). – To how many restaurants do you think Sarah went last year? – intervals: 0–3, 4–7, 8–11, 12–15, 16–19, 20–23, 24–27, 28–31, 32–35, 36–39, 40–43, 44–47, 48–51, 52–55, 56 or more

  13. shoes – Melanie is a woman from the US (who owns few/many pairs of shoes). – How many pairs of shoes do you think Melanie owns? – intervals: 0–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–11, 12–14, 15–17, 18–20, 21–23, 24–26, 27–29, 30–32, 33–35, 36–38, 39–41, 42 or more

  14. tshirts – Liam is a man from the US (who has few/many T-shirts). – How many T-shirts do you think Liam has? – intervals: 0–2, 3–5, 6–8, 9–11, 12–14, 15–17, 18–20, 21–23, 24–26, 27–29, 30–32, 33–35, 36–38, 39–41, 42 or more

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Received: 2016-8-29
Accepted: 2017-3-27
Published Online: 2017-8-24

© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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  10. Semantics & Pragmatics
  11. Semantic values as latent parameters: Testing a fixed threshold hypothesis for cardinal readings of few & many
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  13. Language Acquisition & Language Learning
  14. Individual differences in second language speech perception across tasks and contrasts: The case of English vowel contrasts by Korean learners
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  19. Sociolinguistics & Anthropological Linguistics
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https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2016-0072
Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel
few; many; computational modeling; experimental data; context-dependence

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Editorial
  2. Editorial
  3. Phonetics & Phonology
  4. Acoustic correlates of word stress: A cross-linguistic survey
  5. A two-decade-interval variation in vowel insertion after word-final English and French postvocalic plosives in Korean adaptation: A sociolinguistic account
  6. Methodological issues in the study of word stress correlates
  7. Morphology & Syntax
  8. From the past into the present: From case frames to semantic frames
  9. Valency and expectation in Bantu applicatives
  10. Semantics & Pragmatics
  11. Semantic values as latent parameters: Testing a fixed threshold hypothesis for cardinal readings of few & many
  12. The Role of Prosody in the Identification of Persian Sentence Types: Declarative or Wh-question?
  13. Language Acquisition & Language Learning
  14. Individual differences in second language speech perception across tasks and contrasts: The case of English vowel contrasts by Korean learners
  15. Language Documentation & Typology
  16. Topological Relations in Pohnpeian
  17. Psycholinguistics & Neurolinguistics
  18. Incremental parsing in a continuous dynamical system: sentence processing in Gradient Symbolic Computation
  19. Sociolinguistics & Anthropological Linguistics
  20. Frequency effects over the lifespan: a case study of Attenborough’s r’s
  21. Is like like like?: Evaluating the same variant across multiple variables
  22. The linguist’s Drosophila: Experiments in language change
  23. Seseo, ceceo, and distinción in Andalusian Spanish: Free variation or sociolinguistic variation?
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