Alternative Sets in Language Processing
How Focus Alternatives are Represented in the Mind
Authors: Gotzner, Nicole
Free Preview- Examines linguistic alternatives, which play a key role in various linguistic phenomena
- Takes an interdisciplinary approach
- Sheds new light on long-standing issues in semantics and pragmatics
- Provides key insights for psycholinguists, semanticists and pragmaticists
- Employs a variety of psycholinguistic methods to test mental representations
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- About this book
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This book presents a novel experimental approach to investigating the mental representation of linguistic alternatives. Combining theoretical and psycholinguistic questions concerning the nature of alternative sets, it sheds new light on the theory of focus and the cognitive mechanisms underlying the processing of alternatives. In a series of language comprehension experiments, the author shows that intonational focus and focus particles such as ‘only’ shape the representation of alternatives in a listener’s mind in a fundamental way. This book is relevant to researchers interested in semantics, pragmatics, language processing and memory.
- About the authors
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Nicole Gotzner is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS) in Berlin, Germany. She is affiliated with the DFG Priority Programme Xprag.de “New Pragmatic Theories Based on Experimental Evidence”. Her research combines semantic and pragmatic theory with language processing and child language acquisition.
- Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Introduction
Pages 1-10
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Theoretical and Empirical Background
Pages 11-40
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Long-Term Representation of the Entire Alternative Set
Pages 41-69
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The Mechanisms of Activation and Competitive Inhibition
Pages 71-101
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What’s Included in the Set of Alternatives?
Pages 103-122
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Alternative Sets in Language Processing
- Book Subtitle
- How Focus Alternatives are Represented in the Mind
- Authors
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- Nicole Gotzner
- Series Title
- Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition
- Copyright
- 2017
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Copyright Holder
- The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
- eBook ISBN
- 978-3-319-52761-1
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-319-52761-1
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-52760-4
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-3-319-84979-9
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XIV, 162
- Number of Illustrations
- 3 b/w illustrations, 12 illustrations in colour
- Topics
