Cultural evolution of scalar categorization: how cognition and communication affect the structure of categories on scalar conceptual domains

Concepts can be thought of as regions of geometrically structured conceptual domains. Of all such possible regions, only very few are lexicalized, i.e. expressed by natural language in a morphologically simple fashion. In the thesis, I discuss lexicalized concepts on conceptual domains that are scalar, more specifically the concepts expressed by gradable adjectives and quantifiers. I consider two generalizations about such concepts. The first generalization is that lexicalized scalar concepts are monotonic, i.e. they can be defined in terms of a single threshold on the scale. The second is that if the conceptual domain has a maximum or a minimum, the threshold is often positioned at one of the extrema. I show that these two properties are non-trivial, in the sense that some scalar concepts, while semantically coherent and cognitively plausible, fail to have these properties. The main of this thesis is to develop an account of how these two properties of monotonicity and extremeness evolve. I focus first on monotonicity, and show with a computational model that its emergence can be explained as an adaptation of language to two pressures, namely a pressure favouring languages that are easy to learn and a pressure on languages to be useful in communication. This explanation of monotonicity relies on the assumption that language users are pragmatically skilful. Moreover, the model makes assumptions about the cognitive biases of the language users. These assumptions are tested in a series of six category learning experiments. The results of three of these experiments are analysed with a Bayesian cognitive model. Overall, the experimental results are inconclusive. I present an agent-based model where learners are neural networks, which provides evidence that monotonic categories are easier to learn than non-monotonic categories. Finally, I turn to the evolution of extremeness. Previous literature has focussed on the role that communicative accuracy plays in the evolution of extremeness. In contrast to previous approaches, I study the role of learning. I show with an evolutionary computational model that extreme categories evolve more often than chance even under a pressure from learning alone, as long as the language teachers and learners are pragmatically skilful

The acquisition of prepositional relative clauses in european portuguese by native chinese speakers

The access of adult learners of a second language (L2) to Universal Grammar (UG) has been widely studied in generative L2 acquisition research. Following the Representational Deficit Hypothesis (RDH), certain features not available in the native language (L1) are not accessible in adult L2 acquisition (Hawkins, 2005; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007, among others). On the contrary, according to the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (FRH), adults can access UG to acquire configurations that are not present in their L1 nor in the explicit input (e.g. Lardiere, 2008; Slabakova, 2016). This dissertation aims at contributing to this debate through the study of the L2 acquisition of prepositional relative clauses (RCs) in European Portuguese (EP) by Mandarin Chinese (MC) native speakers. EP displays wh-movement in prepositional RCs formed with standard Pied-Piping (PiP) and non-standard P-Chopping (P-Chop). Non-standard resumptive RCs do not involve movement (Alexandre, 2000). In MC, prepositional RCs involve a mandatory resumptive pronoun (RP), without movement. P-Chop is also attested in the L2 acquisition of prepositional RCs and wh-questions (Klein, 1993; Jourdain, 1996; Perpiñán, 2010), being analyzed as a developmental stage (Perpiñán, 2010, 2020) or evidence of a wild grammar (Klein, 1993). In MC, prepositional RCs display a mandatory resumptive pronoun (Pan, 2016a, 2016b, a.o.), not involving movement (Wen, 2020). The main goals of this dissertation are to understand if MC learners of EP L2: 1) transfer resumption from the L1 into the L2; 2) can acquire new functional features or reorganize (reassemble) L1 features to configure wh-movement in the L2, producing and accepting PiP and P-Chop RCs; 3) show a developmental path in the acquisition of prepositional RCs. To achieve these goals, an oral production task and two self-paced reading acceptability judgement tasks (SPR-AJTs) were used. One SPR-AJT targets relativization strategies and the other focuses on the learner’s implicit knowledge of wh-movement, both contrasting argument and adjunct prepositional RCs. Intermediate (n=36) and advanced (n=36) native MC learners of EP L2, and native EP speakers (N=30) participated in this study. Results show that: 1) learners do not transfer resumption from their L1; 2) both groups of learners produce and accept preferentially PiP RCs; 3) intermediate learners have larger percentages of production of P-Chop with adjuncts than advanced learners; 4) in island configurations, argument RCs are rated worse than adjunct RCs; and 5) RPs do not rescue islands for any group. Overall, these results support the FRH, indicating that L2ers are able to acquire the features that trigger wh-movement, producing PiP and P-Chop. The results also corroborate that P-Chop exists as a developmental stage (Perpiñán, 2010, 2020), with distinct properties from P-Chop in native EP, arguing against previous research that treats P-Chop as evidence of a wild grammar (e.g., Klein, 1993). Finally, the results with syntactic islands challenge the idea that RPs improve these structures in both native and non-native grammars. The convergence between EP natives and Chinese speakers rejecting argument RCs more assertively than adjunct RC also indicates that adult Chinese learners are sensitive to the same grammatical constraints and processing principles of native speakers, and that L2 learners are able to reassemble the wh-features accordingly.O acesso de aprendentes adultos de uma segunda língua (L2) à Gramática Universal (GU) tem sido muito estudado no âmbito da gramática generativa. De acordo com a Hipótese de Défice Representacional (RDH, em inglês) (Hawkins, 2005; Tsimpli & Dimitrakopoulou, 2007, e.o.), determinados elementos não adquiridos na língua nativa (L1) não estão acessíveis na aquisição de uma L2 na idade adulta. Pelo contrário, a Hipótese de Reconfiguração de Traços (FRH, em inglês) (Lardiere, 2005, 2008, 2009) defende que os falantes adultos de uma L2 podem aceder à GU para adquirir elementos novos, não disponibilizados na sua L1. A presente dissertação pretende contribuir para este debate através do estudo da aquisição de orações relativas preposicionadas em português europeu (PE) L2 por falantes nativos de chinês mandarim (CM). Em PE, as frases relativas preposicionadas envolvem movimento-wh quando são formadas através das estratégias de arrastamento da preposição (PiP) (standard) e cortadora (não standard). Podem ainda ser formadas, não convencionalmente, com um pronome resumptivo (PR), não implicando movimento (Alexandre, 2000). A estratégia cortadora é igualmente descrita na aquisição de L2 de relativas e interrogativas preposicionadas (Klein, 1993; Jourdain, 1996; Perpiñán, 2010), sendo analisada como uma fase de desenvolvimento (Perpiñán, 2010, 2020) ou uma gramática selvagem (Klein, 1993). Em CM, as frases relativas preposicionadas são formadas com um elemento resumptivo obrigatório (Pan, 2016a, 2016b), não envolvendo movimento (Wen, 2020). Nesta dissertação, pretende-se compreender se os falantes nativos de CM, aprendentes de PE L2: 1) transferem a estratégia resumptiva da sua L1 para a L2; 2) adquirem novos traços ou reconfiguram traços existentes na L1 para adquirir o movimento-wh na L2, produzindo e aceitando frases relativas com PiP e cortadoras; 3) mostram um percurso de desenvolvimento na aquisição de frases relativas preposicionadas. Para responder a estas questões, foram aplicadas uma tarefa de produção oral e duas tarefas de julgamento de aceitabilidade com leitura automonitorizada (SPR-AJT, em inglês). Uma das tarefas SPR-AJT visa as estratégias de relativização e a outra testa o conhecimento implícito de movimento-wh. Ambas as experiências SPR-AJT contrastam relativas preposicionadas argumentais e adjuntas. Quanto aos participantes neste estudo, eles distribuem-se por falantes nativos de CM, aprendentes intermédios (n= 36) e avançados (n= 36) de PE e falantes nativos de PE (n= 30), o grupo de controlo. Os resultados mostram que: 1) os aprendentes não transferem a estratégia resumptiva da sua L1 para a L2; 2) os dois grupos de aprendentes produzem e aceitam preferencialmente PiP; 3) os falantes intermédios apresentam percentagens mais altas de produção da estratégia cortadora com adjuntos do que com argumentos; 4) as frases relativas argumentais formadas com extrações de ilhas são pior classificadas por todos os grupos do que as adjuntas; 5) os PRs não melhoram as extrações de ilhas para nenhum grupo. Estes resultados corroboram a FRH, indicando que os aprendentes de uma L2 podem adquirir os traços que desencadeiam o movimento-wh. Os resultados também indicam que a estratégia cortadora (P-Chop) surge como uma fase de desenvolvimento na L2 (Perpiñán, 2010, 2020), tendo propriedades distintas da estratégia cortadora no PE L1, contra a proposta de gramática selvagem (Klein, 1993). Os resultados com as ilhas sintáticas desafiam os estudos que indicam que os PRs melhoram a aceitabilidade destas construções, na gramática nativa e não nativa. Finalmente, a convergência dos falantes nativos e não nativos na rejeição mais expressiva de frases relativas argumentais do que adjuntas, nas ilhas sintáticas, indica que os aprendentes são sensíveis a restrições gramaticais e princípios de processamento idênticos aos dos falantes nativos, e que os aprendentes acedem à UG para reconfigurar adequadamente os traços que definem o movimento-wh na L2

Making Worlds Accessible. Essays in Honor of Angelika Kratzer

Every linguist knows how colossal Angelika’s impact on our field is. Hearing aboutthis would not be informative for anybody who might (virtually) pick up this volume, including Angelika herself. So, instead of writing about, say, Angelika’s crucial role in the development of our understanding of modality, we will write about what Angelika means to us, as a teacher, advisor, mentor, colleague, and friend. We know that these words will resonate with many of you (Angelika has meant so much to so many people). We just get to be the lucky ones to tell Angelika publicly.https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ak_festsite_schrift/1000/thumbnail.jp

Mathematical linguistics

but in fact this is still an early draft, version 0.56, August 1 2001. Please d