SENTENCE MOOD CONSTITUTION AND INDEFINITE NOUN PHRASES

The sentence-composition effect: processing of complex sentences depends on the configuration of common noun phrases versus unusual noun phrases.

In 2 experiments, the authors used an eye tracking while reading methodology to examine how different configurations of common noun phrases versus unusual noun phrases (NPs) influenced the difference in processing difficulty between sentences containing object- and subject-extracted relative clauses. Results showed that processing difficulty was reduced when the head NP was unusual relative to ...

Preschoolers' use of morphosyntactic cues to identify generic sentences: indefinite singular noun phrases, tense, and aspect.

Generic sentences (e.g., "Birds lay eggs") convey generalizations about entire categories and may thus be an important source of knowledge for children. However, these sentences cannot be identified by a simple rule, requiring instead the integration of multiple cues. The present studies focused on 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 91) use of morphosyntactic cues--in particular, on whether children can (...

The Discourse Structuring Potential of Indefinite Noun Phrases. Special Markers in English, German and Romanian

Identifying Generic Noun Phrases

This paper presents a supervised approach for identifying generic noun phrases in context. Generic statements express rulelike knowledge about kinds or events. Therefore, their identification is important for the automatic construction of knowledge bases. In particular, the distinction between generic and non-generic statements is crucial for the correct encoding of generic and instance-level i...

Weak Definite Noun Phrases

Semantic accounts of the definite article have tended to fall into two general classes: ‘uniqueness’ accounts (Russell, 1905), and ‘familiarity’ accounts (Heim, 1982; see also Abbott, 2004, inter alia). It is also generally known that there are instances of definite descriptions that are resistant to such analyses, and are difficult to subsume under either treatment, or even a combination of bo...