Each grammatical construction has its own function, and typically multiple constructions are combined to express a message. When the functions of two constructions conflict in a way that cannot be reconciled, their combination is judged ungrammatical. Here we consider one such type of case: “syntactic island violations.” Specifically, we consider combinations of wh-questions with 11 other constructions. Wh-questions request direct information about a particular constituent. Using a new Discourse task, we quantify how directly 11 constructions convey information in simple declarative sentences. Results demonstrate acceptability judgments on the wh-questions correlate with the degree to which the 11 constructions convey information directly. Thus, we argue that degrees of unacceptability of “island violations” result from the extent to which the discourse functions of the constructions involved conflict (N=240).

Recent work has raised a question about whether adult language learners take advantage of indirect negative evidence (here, statistical preemption) while learning a new language. Statistical preemption predicts that exposure to conventional formulations results in better recognition that unconventional formulations are unacceptable. In a preregistered study, 61 undergraduates enrolled in Spanish classes were exposed to instances of conventional constructions in Spanish for 3 days to determine whether the exposure would bring their responses to unconventional formulations into closer alignment with those of native Spanish speakers. Judgment data confirms an effect of statistical preemption: students showed an increased recognition of the fact that unconventional (unwitnessed) formulations were unacceptable. These results are consistent with the idea that learning a new language is, in large part, learning which formulations to avoid: learning what not to say.

It has recently been suggested that the different valence possibilities of a single verb stem can be accounted for by postulating lexical rules that operate on the semantic structure of verbs, producing different verb senses. Syntactic expression is then taken to be predicted by general linking rules that m a p semantic structure onto syntactic form (Alsina and M c h o m b o 1990, Bresnan and Moshi 1989, Levin 1985, Pinker 1989, Rappaport, Laughren, and Levin 1987). In this pauper, general problems with such approaches are discussed, including the following: a) such theories require a large number of both distinct verb senses and lexical rules, b) ad hoc and often implausible verb senses are required, c) an unwarranted asymmetry between different argument structures is posited, and d) many generalizations are obscured. An alternative is suggested that involves considering the various valences as templates or constructions that are paired with semantics independently of the verbs that may occur with them. For example, abstract semantics such as "X causes Y to receive Z," "X causes Y to become Z" etc. are associated directly with the skeletal syntactic ditransitive and resultative constructions, respectively, allowing the verbal predicates to be associated with richer frame-semantic representations.

Accessibility plays a major role in speech production. Here we investigate and measure four factors that influence speakers to produce one word over another more optimal word form. Three experiments asked participants to label images of insects and instruments. Participants were incentivized to produce an accurate specific label (e.g., bee), over a more general label (e.g., insect), so that specific labels were more optimal. Each of three experiments manipulated a different factor that could influence accessibility – word frequency, priming, and interference – and all experiments additionally varied whether labels had to be produced under time pressure or not. Results showed that each variable significantly influenced the accessibility of labels: participants produced more specific labels when those labels were higher frequency, when they were primed, when a visually-similar label had not been primed, and when participants were unconstrained by time pressure. These findings demonstrate that multiple factors influence the accessibility of familiar words during production, regularly leading participants to rely on “good-enough” rather than optimal options to convey their message.

In a series of experiments. Bock and colleagues have demonstrated that subjects show a reliable increase in the use of particular syntactic constructions after having heard and repeated that construction in an unrelated sentence. Aspects of the data seem to indicate that it is syntactic constituent structure, independent of meaning, that underlies the facilitation in these situations. In this study we investigate whether more semantic factors might also lead to priming, and specifically whether the assignment of a semantic role to a particular participant in a prime sentence can increase the probability of a target sentence whose structure allows a similar assignment. To test this we replicate Bock's study and include a further set of primes (provide-with primes) which have the syntactic constituent structure of the dative, but share semantic role assignment with the ditransitive. If syntactic priming were triggered by constituent structure alone, primes like this would lead to more dative responses, relative to a ditransitive prime. If semantic involvement were crucial, on the other hand, this prime should elicit more ditransitive responses. In this study we find significantly more ditransitive responses following the provide-with sentence than following a dative prime, and no difference between the provide-with and ditransitive primes, suggesting that semantic factors indeed play a role.

When do children extend a construction (“rule”) productively?A recent Threshold proposal claims that a construction isproductive if and only if it has been witnessed applying to asufficient proportion of cases and sufficiently few exceptions.An alternative proposal, Communicate and Access (C&A),argues that children extend a construction productively becausethey wish to express an intended message and are unable toaccess a “better” (appropriate and more conventional) way todo so. Accessibility, in turn, is negatively affected byinterference from competing alternatives. In a preregisteredexperiment, 32 4-6-year-old children were provided withexposure to 2 mini-artificial languages for which the twoproposals make opposite predictions. Results support the C&Aproposal: children were more productive after witnessing 3rule-following cases than after 5, due to differences ininterference. We conclude that productivity is encouraged by adesire to communicate a message and is constrained byaccessibility and interference.

Notably, while English tends to prefer shorter before longercomplements (explained to us a very clear effect), Japanesedisplays the opposite tendency. Far less cross-linguistic workhas investigated possible differences in the ordering of nounswithin conjunctions (“binomials’), although a corpus studysuggests that the same factors predict binomial ordering inJapanese and English. To investigate the issue experimentally,we report Japanese and English speakers’ productions of namesof the members of couples that they knew personally. Resultsconfirm that conceptual accessibility is the most importantfactor in the ordering of familiar name binomials in bothlanguages. That is, both groups tended to name the memberthey felt closer to first. Length (syllables/mora) was not asignificant predictor in either language. Differences in thepreferred order of verbs’ complements are then attributable toother factors, possibly a very general preference to minimizethe average distance between semantically related elements.

How are exceptions to a generalization learned? 20 participants were exposed to a mini-artificial language in whicheach word (prefix + wordstem) was associated with a unique image. One of two prefixes generalized probabilistically:it appeared with 40 stems associated with faces and 8 exceptions, which were associated with scenes. The other prefixoccurred with 8 faces and 8 scenes. The prefixes and the image categories (faces vs. scenes) were counterbalanced acrossparticipants. Participants performed a 2 alternative-forced choice task on all items, with feedback, over 6 repeating blocks.Results show that image-word pairs that included the generalizable prefix were learned better than those which appearedwith the other prefix, despite having 48 items in the first class and 16 in the other (d = 1.28, d = 0.80, p = 0.023). Weinvestigate the neural representation of these words and how they change over the course of learning.