A cross-linguistic investigation of meaning-driven combinatorial restrictions in clausal embedding

在语言学家和认知科学家中有一个广泛的共识，即人类语言涉及一个“组合系统”，它决定了单词如何组合形成语法结构，以及一个“语义系统”，解释这种语法结构。然而，对于这两个系统之间的确切关系，没有达成共识。特别是，它仍然不清楚是否组合和语义系统完全独立运作，或者是否某些组合模式实际上是意义驱动的。为了解决这个问题，“子句嵌入谓词”（如“think”和“wonder”）提供了一个重要的测试用例。这些谓词在它们可以与之联合收割机组合的补语类型上各不相同。例如，“think”只与声明性从句（例如，“that Jo left”）而“wonder”仅与疑问句组合（例如，“谁走了”）。此外，只有其中一些可以联合收割机与名词短语（eidogg“believe the rumour”是合乎语法的，但“think the rumour”不是）。在像西班牙语这样的语言中，它们还根据其补语的语法语气（指示或虚拟）而变化。有初步证据表明，这种组合模式和这些谓词的细粒度语义属性之间存在系统性联系。例如，表达未实现的愿望的谓语（例如“hope”、“wish”）从不与疑问句联合收割机组合（例如“Jo hopes who left”是不合语法的）。然而，由于缺乏跨语言的系统研究和统一的理论框架，到目前为止，人们无法彻底理解这种潜在的意义驱动的组合限制。本项目将采用综合的方法，通过多语言数据收集和心理语言学实验，结合统一的理论分析，研究小句嵌入领域中组合系统和语义系统之间的关系和相互作用。它将利用该领域的最新发展：新的语义理论，使人们有可能阐明非常精确的假设之间的关系的意义和组合的限制，和新的心理语言学方法，提供细粒度的数据来评估这些假设。具体而言，该项目将1）收集来自世界各地的14种语言的小句嵌入谓词的组合和语义属性的数据，2）开发关于小句嵌入中潜在意义驱动组合模式的机制的复杂理论假设，以及3）基于心理语言学实验定量评估这些假设。这些结果将为人类语言能力中的组合系统和语义系统如何共同运作这一基本问题提供新的线索。由此产生的数据将公开提供，以服务于进一步的研究和计算应用。

There is a broad consensus among linguists and cognitive scientists that human language involves a "combinatorial system" that determines how words can be combined to form grammatical structures, and a "semantic system" that interprets such grammatical structures. However, there is no consensus on the precise relationship between these two systems. In particular, it is still unclear whether the combinatorial and the semantic system operate completely independently, or whether certain combinatorial patterns are in fact meaning-driven. To address this question, "clause-embedding predicates" such as "think" and "wonder" provide an important test case. These predicates vary in the types of complements they can combine with. For instance, "think" only combines with declarative clauses (e.g., "that Jo left") while "wonder" only combines with interrogative clauses (e.g., "who left"). Also, only some of them can combine with a noun phrase (e.g. "believe the rumour" is grammatical but "think the rumour" is not). In languages like Spanish, they furthermore vary with respect to the grammatical mood of their complements (indicative or subjunctive). There is preliminary evidence for a systematic link between such combinatorial patterns and the fine-grained semantic properties of these predicates. For example, predicates expressing an unfulfilled desire (e.g. "hope", "wish") never combine with interrogative clauses (e.g. "Jo hopes who left" is ungrammatical). However, the lack of a systematic investigation of such connections across multiple languages, and of a unified theoretical framework, have so far prevented a thorough understanding of such potential meaning-driven combinatorial restrictions. This project will pursue an integrated approach to investigate the relation and interaction between the combinatorial and the semantic system in the area of clause-embedding, by combining multi-lingual data-collection and psycho-linguistic experiments with the development of unified theoretical analyses. It will make use of recent developments in the field: novel semantic theories that make it possible to articulate very precise hypotheses about the relationship between meaning and combinatorial restrictions, and novel psycho-linguistic methods that deliver fine-grained data to evaluate such hypotheses. Concretely, the project will 1) collect data from 14 languages around the world on the combinatorial and semantic properties of clause-embedding predicates, 2) develop sophisticated theoretical hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying potential meaning-driven combinatorial patterns in clausal embedding, and 3) quantitatively evaluate these hypotheses based on psycho-linguistic experiments. The results will shed new light on the fundamental question of how the combinatorial and the semantic system operate together in the human language faculty. The resulting data will be made publicly available to serve further research and computational applications.