台灣留學生出席國際會議補助

2009年5月5日 星期二

Constructional Meaning and Mental Simulation

論文發表人:  韓文瑋(夏威夷大學語言所博士班)

 

http://artsci.case.edu/csdl9/

 

Constructional theories of grammar propose that grammatical constructions contribute meaning to a sentence beyond that of the individual words. For instance, Goldberg (1995) argues that the ditransitive encodes a transfer-of-possession meaning, while the dative encodes a caused-motion meaning. If grammatical constructions encode meaning in a psychologically real way, then there should be measurable differences in how individual language users interpret dative versus ditransitive sentences. For instance, ditransitive and dative constructions should evoke measurably different mental simulations in understanders. In particular, understanders should more intensely mentally simulate a path when processing a dative sentence than when processing a ditransitive one. Results from a behavioral study showed that participants performed significantly longer physical movements while processing dative sentences, as compared with ditransitive sentences. This suggests that dative sentences more strongly activate path representations in understanders than do ditransitive sentences, confirming the notion that grammatical constructions contribute meaning to the utterances they occur in.

 

 

結構語法理論提倡句構語意。人們對語句的理解不單來自對各個詞語的認識;語詞、單字的組合固然賦予語言意義,在句法層次上,不同句子結構亦衍生不同涵義。傳統結構語法分析近趨同義的不同句式,歸納其細微語意表現差異來為結構語法佐證。本研究採用心理行為實驗,探討英語使用者處理兩種可交替代換句式─雙賓式(ditransitive)及與格句式(dative)─時產生的不同行為表現。其結果提供結構語法量化實徵證據。

如果句構語意有其心理真實性,經由實驗分析我們應該可以測量出不同句式的心像理解差異。過往的結構語法分析歸論雙賓式引申所有物的移轉,與格句式強調致使行動路徑。據此理論,我們讓受試者聆聽兩種句型,並執行一無關乎語言理解的「打靶作業」。在每一句子結束之後,受試者移動游標並點選目標物。依變量為反應時間及游標移動距離。實驗結果顯示與格句式之後反應時間較長,由實驗中的對照組可知此反應時間差異並非來自句子字數的不同。此結果支持句構語意理論。儘管兩句式使用一模一樣的內容字,與格句式相較下突顯路徑表徵。