Authors
T.J. Klochowicz
F. Schlotterbeck
S. Ramotowska
O. Bott
M.D. Aloni
Date (dd-mm-yyyy)
2025
Title
Neglect zero: evidence from priming across constructions
Publication Year
2025
Publisher
Cognitive Science Society
Document type
Conference contribution
Abstract
Recent studies use semantic structural priming to show that various cases of linguistic strengthening happen through a common mechanism: generation of implicatures through alternative-based (scalar) reasoning. In this paper, we used
priming to investigate another group of cases, where strengthening is postulated to follow from the tendency to systematically neglect structures that verify a sentence by virtue of an empty configuration (neglect-zero): empty-set quantifiers (at most/fewer than) and disjunction under a universal quantifier. We report data indicating semantic priming between these two structures, but not between them and scalar some. We propose that 1. there is a common mechanism in use for strengthening constructions postulated to follow from the neglect-zero tendency, and that 2. this mechanism is different from the one involved in alternative-based reasoning.
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/11245.1/933a7b09-4609-4550-a8bb-8e210af66c01