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

语言学家和认知科学家之间有一个广泛的共识，即人类语言涉及一个“组合系统”，它决定如何将单词组合成语法结构，以及一个解释这些语法结构的“语义系统”。然而，对于这两个系统之间的确切关系并没有达成共识。特别是，目前尚不清楚组合和语义系统是否完全独立运行，或者某些组合模式是否实际上是意义驱动的。为了解决这个问题，“嵌入子句的谓词”，如“think”和“wonder”提供了一个重要的测试用例。这些谓词可以组合的补语类型各不相同。例如，“think”只与陈述句连用（例如，“that Jo left”），而“wonder”只与疑问句连用（例如，“who left”）。此外，只有其中一些词可以与名词短语结合使用。“believe the rumor”符合语法，但“think the rumor”不符合语法)。在像西班牙语这样的语言中，它们在补语（指示语气或虚拟语气）的语法语气方面也有所不同。有初步证据表明，这种组合模式与这些谓词的细粒度语义属性之间存在系统联系。例如，表达未实现愿望的谓语(例如：“hope”， “wish”)永远不要与疑问句连用。“Jo希望谁离开了”是不符合语法的)。然而，到目前为止，由于缺乏对跨多种语言的这种联系的系统研究和统一的理论框架，阻碍了对这种潜在的意义驱动组合限制的彻底理解。本项目将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，采用综合的方法研究组合系统和语义系统在子句嵌入领域的关系和相互作用。它将利用该领域的最新发展：新颖的语义理论，可以清晰地表达关于意义和组合限制之间关系的非常精确的假设，以及新颖的心理语言学方法，可以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14种语言的关于子句嵌入谓词的组合和语义属性的数据；2)对子句嵌入中潜在的意义驱动组合模式的机制提出复杂的理论假设；3)基于心理语言学实验对这些假设进行定量评估。这些结果将对组合系统和语义系统如何在人类语言系统中共同运作的基本问题提供新的启示。结果数据将公开提供，以进一步研究和计算应用。

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.