RUcore Resource Object
RUcore Resource Object
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TitleResolving Wh/quantifier ambiguities
NameAchimova, Asya (author), Musolino, Julien (chair), Deprez, Viviane (internal member), Kawahara, Shigeto (internal member), Rutgers University, Graduate School - New Brunswick,
Degree Date2011-01
Date Created2011
SubjectPsychology,
Grammar, Comparative and general--Quantifiers,
Psycholinguistics,
Subjectivity (Linguistics)
DescriptionThe interaction of wh-words and quantifiers in questions has long been characterized as exhibiting a subject/object asymmetry, when a pair-list answer is available for object questions with subject quantifiers, like Which book did every student read? but not for subject questions with object quantifiers Which student read every book? (May 1985). Yet, the availability of pair-list answers to subject questions remains debatable and individual acceptability judgments reported in the literature vary significantly. We ran three experiments to test what factors proposed in the syntactic/semantic literature contribute to the availability of pair-list answers. The experiments confirmed the subject/object asymmetry. The data show that plurality of a wh-phrase does not make pair-list answers more readily available; pair-list answers are more likely to arise for questions with each than with every. We have also uncovered a group of individuals whose acceptability of pair-list answers is high both for subject and object questions and therefore does not show a subject/object asymmetry. We make an attempt to account for the behavior of that group by extending the analysis proposed in Beghelli (1997).
NoteM.S.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
Noteby Asya Achimova
Genretheses
Persistent URLhttp://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000057501
Languageeng
CollectionGraduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.