This paper provides a binary, token-based classification of German particle verbs (PVs) into literal vs. non-literal usage. A random forest improving standard features (e.g., bagof-words; affective ratings) with PV-specific information and abstraction over common nouns significantly outperforms the majority baseline. In addition, PV-specific classification experiments demonstrate the role of sh...

A boolean formula in conjunctive normal form (CNF) F is refuted by literal–once resolution if the empty clause is inferred from F by resolving on each literal of F at most once. Literal–once resolution refutations can be found nondeterministically in polynomial time, though this restricted system is not complete. We show that despite of the weakness of literal–once resolution, the recognition o...

The present study examined the role of the left (LH) and right (RH) cerebral hemispheres in processing alternative meanings of idiomatic sentences. We conducted two experiments using ambiguous idioms with plausible literal interpretations as stimuli. In the first experiment we tested hemispheric differences in accessing either the literal or the idiomatic meaning of idioms for targets presented...

To comprehend figurative utterances such as metaphor or sarcasm, a listener must both judge the literal meaning of the statement and infer the speaker's intended meaning (mentalizing; Amodio and Frith, 2006). To delineate the neural substrates of pragmatic comprehension, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with 20 normal adult volunteers. Participants read short stories fo...

We consider dynamic scenes consisting of moving points whose motion is constrained to happen in one of a pencil of planes. This is for example the case when rigid objects move independently, but on a common ground plane (each point moves in one of a pencil of planes parallel to the ground plane). We consider stereo pairs of the dynamic scene, taken by a moving stereo system, that allow to obtai...