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Understanding Semantic Ambiguities THÈSE DE DOCTORAT de l’Université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres PSL Research University Préparée à l’École normale supérieure Understanding semantic ambiguities. An experimental perspective. La compréhension des ambiguïtés sémantiques: une perspective expérimentale. Ecole doctorale n°158 ED3C - CERVEAU COGNITION COMPORTEMENT Spécialité SCIENCES COGNITIVES COMPOSITION DU JURY : M. SCHLENKER, Philippe Ecole Normale Supérieure, Président du jury Mme. WELLWOOD, Alexis University of Southern California, Rapporteur Soutenue par Mora Maldonado M. SAUERLAND, Uli le 05 Juin 2018 Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine h Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Rapporteur Mme. SCHMITT, Viola Université de Vienne, Membre du jury Dirigée par Benjamin Spector & Emmanuel Chemla M. SPECTOR, Benjamin Ecole Normale Supérieure, Directeur M. CHEMLA, Emmanuel Ecole Normale Supérieure, Co-Directeur ! Universite´ de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres Ecole´ Normale Superieure´ Departament´ d’Etudes´ Cognitives UNDERSTANDING SEMANTIC AMBIGUITIES AN EXPERIMENTAL PERSPECTIVE Mora Maldonado Supervisors: Benjamin SPECTOR and Emmanuel CHEMLA Ph.D. Thesis Institut Jean Nicod Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique Ecole´ Doctorale 158 Cerveau Cognition Comportement Defense date: 5th June 2018 Durante un segundo de lucidez tuve la certeza de que nos hab´ıamos vuelto locos. Pero a ese segundo de lucidez se antepuso un supersegundo de superlucidez (si me permiten la expresion)´ en donde pense´ que aquella escena era el resultado logico´ de nuestras vidas absurdas. ROBERTO BOLANO˜ , Los Detectives Salvajes Smokey bear: Only who can prevent forest fires? Bart examines the response panel, which has two buttons, marked ‘you’ and ‘me’, and presses ‘you’. Smokey bear: You pressed ‘you’, referring to me. That is incorrect. The correct answer is ‘you’. THE SIMPSONS, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX1x7pfH8fw Abstract Sentence ambiguities have been at the center of the research on language comprehension for some time. For semanticists, these ambiguities have been taken to suggest the existence of dif- ferent abstract mechanisms that may apply to the same syntactic structure at the interpretation stage. For psycholinguists, semantic ambiguities have provided a tool to analyze the dynamics of sentence parsing: since ambiguities tend to be solved incrementally (i.e. before the end of the sentence), the processing pattern of ambiguous sentences might allow identifying the linguistic and non-linguistic factors that play a role during online comprehension. This dissertation informs theories of language comprehension by exploring two complemen- tary questions: (1) how are different meanings associated to a single sentence form, and (2) how are we able to access and compute these alternative interpretations during parsing. To address these questions, the present work mainly focuses on the so-called plural ambiguities, which arise by the interaction between certain predicates and their plural arguments. For instance, the sentence Amir and Milica built a sandcastle has a non-distributive, collective, interpretation (i.e. Amir and Milica together built a sandcastle) as well as a distributive one (i.e. Amir and Milica each built a sandcastle). Most linguistic approaches assume that distributive readings are derived from more basic non-distributive interpretations by the application of a covert “distributivity” operator (Link, 1983; Champollion, 2014) . The first part of this dissertation presents two studies that aim to identify the abstract mechanisms underlying the distributive/non-distributive contrast through a priming paradigm. This priming method is then extended to other semantic phenomena (i.e. scope ambiguities) in the second part of the dissertation, where some interactions between plurality and scope phenomena are also tested experimentally. To assess the dynamics of ambiguity resolution, the third part of this work presents a mouse-tracking study designed to establish the features of mouse-trajectories that correlate with decision making and disambiguation. The methodology developed in this study is then used to analyse preliminary data on the processing of plural ambiguous sentences. i Resum´e Les ambigu¨ıtes´ de phrases sont au cœur de la recherche sur la comprehension´ du langage depuis un certain temps. Pour les semanticiens,´ ces ambiguit¨ es´ ont et´ e´ utilisees´ pour suggerer´ l’existence de differents´ mecanismes´ abstraits qui pourraient s’appliquer a` une memeˆ structure syntaxique au stade de l’interpretation.´ Pour les psycholinguistes, les ambiguit¨ es´ semantiques´ ont offert un outil d’etude´ de la dynamique du traitement de phrases: puisque les ambigu¨ıtes´ tendent a` etreˆ resolues´ incrementalement´ (c’est-a-dire` avant la fin de la phrase), le schema´ de traitement des phrases ambigues¨ peut permettre d’identifier les facteurs linguistiques et non linguistiques qui jouent un roleˆ dans la comprehension´ online. Cette dissertation traite des theories´ de la comprehension´ du langage en explorant deux questions complementaires´ : (1) comment differents´ sens peuvent-ils etreˆ associes´ a` une seule tournure de phrase, et (2) comment sommes-nous capables d’acceder´ a` ces interpretations´ alternatives et de les traiter pendant l’analyse syntaxique. Pour repondre´ a` ces questions, la presente´ etude´ se focalise principalement sur ce qu’on appelle les ambigu¨ıtes´ de pluriel, qui surgissent par l’interaction entre certains predicats´ et leurs arguments pluriels. Par exemple, la phrase Amir et Milica ont construit un chˆateaude sable a une interpretation´ non distributive, collective (c’est-a-dire` qu’Amir et Milica ont construit ensemble un chateauˆ de sable) mais aussi une interpretation´ distributive (c’est-a-dire` qu’Amir et Milica ont chacun construit un chateauˆ de sable). La plupart des approches linguistiques partent du principe que les lectures distributives derivent´ d’interpretations´ non distributives, plus el´ ementaires,´ par l’application d’un operateur´ de “distributivite”´ phonologiquement nul (Link, 1983; Champollion, 2014). La premiere` partie de cette dissertation presente´ deux etudes´ qui visent a` identifier les mecanismes´ abstraits qui sous-tendent le contraste distributif/non distributif a` travers un paradigme d’amorc¸age. Cette methode´ d’amorc¸age est ensuite etendue´ a` d’autres phenom´ enes` semantiques´ (c’est-a-dire` des ambigu¨ıtes´ de portee)´ dans la deuxieme` partie de la disserta- tion, dans laquelle des interactions entre pluralite´ et phenom´ ene` de portee´ sont aussi testees´ experimentalement.´ Pour evaluer´ la dynamique de la resolution´ des ambigu¨ıtes,´ la troisieme` partie de cette dissertation presente´ une etude´ de suivi des mouvements de souris, conc¸ue pour etablir´ les caracteristiques´ de trajectoires de souris qui se correlent` avec la prise de decision´ et la desambigu´ ¨ısation. La methodologie´ developp´ ee´ dans cette etude´ est ensuite utilisee´ pour analyser des donnees´ preliminaires´ relatives au traitement de phrases a` ambigu¨ıtes´ de pluriel. ii Acknowledgments To begin with, I would like to thank the members of my committee: Philippe Schlenker, Alexis Wellwood, Viola Schmitt and Uli Sauerland. I genuinely enjoyed the exchange during my defense with each and everyone of you. Your comments, suggestions and questions have made me rethink some important aspects of my work, refreshing my motivations for it. When I arrived to Paris, I had a bunch of ideas about what it is to be a scientist, but I had never really thought about what kind of scientist I wanted to be. It is thanks to my supervisors, Benjamin and Emmanuel, that now, almost five years later, I am leaving Paris with a clear idea of who I would like to become. Benjamin and Emmanuel were the perfect supervisor-couple. Their co-supervision had the right balance of pressure, support and care, so synchronised and appropriate that many times I thought it was premeditated. They not only took the time to discuss with me even those ideas that they knew wouldn’t work and to correct my unintelligible and ungrammatical writing, but more importantly, they showed me that the best science is done with passion, honesty and generosity. So thank you for all this! Beyond my supervisors, I also profited from collaborating with many other people, as it becomes clear by looking at the table of contents of this dissertation. Besides playing a fundamental role in the conception and development of the paper on mouse tracking, Ewan Dunbar spent many hours patiently explaining to me different modeling tools and teaching me all I know about them. I have also really enjoyed collaborating with Roman Feiman and Jesse Snedeker, from whom I learned not only how to cleverly control for potential confounds in priming experiments, but also how to challenge some of the assumptions I was generally taking for granted. I would also like to thank Salvador Mascharenas who, together with Benjamin, gave me the opportunity of TA in his Introduction to Linguistic class and showed me how a wonderful, engaging class is taught. This experience made realize how much I enjoy teaching and gave me the tools I need to do it on my own in the future. This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of my trench com- panions: Amir Anvari, Manuel Krizˇ and Milica Denic. In addition to making our office a fun place to be from sunrise to sunset, you have repeatedly interrupted your work to answer each of my questions, teaching me most of the English, semantics and English
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