Self Paced Reading of Bare Plural and Singular Kinds in Brazilian Portuguese

1. ThirdInternationalConferenceonBareNominals:TheoryandExperimentThirdInternationalConferenceonBareNominals:TheoryandExperiment Self Paced Reading ofBarePlural andSingularKinds in BrazilianPortuguese Sílvia PereiraThiago Motta SampaioRoberta PiresAniela França www.acesin.letras.ufrj.br www.lapex.net.br

2. Experiment 1: DefinedKinds

3. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds THE IDEA: InnerKindComparison Non KindComparison Roupa – CamisaCloth – Shirt Queijo – ParmesãoCheese – Parmesan Baleia – OrcaWhale – KillerWhale Brasileiro - PaulistaBrazilian – Someonefrom S. Paulo Roupa – BrinquedoCloth – Toy Queijo - SalameCheese - Salami Baleia - FocaWhale – Dolphin Brasileiro – JaponêsBrazilian - Japanese

4. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds • METHODS: Participants • 24brazilianvolonteers(11 male and 13 female) • 9femalefromLanguages • 7 male fromLanguages • 4femalefromBiblioteconomy • 4 male fromEngineering • 18-25 yo • Normal orcorrectedto normal vision

5. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds METHODS: Stimuli 4 versionsof 8 groupsofsentences: - Singular Kind-InnerKind (greenery - lettuce)- Singular Kind-Kind (greenery – vegetable) - Plural Kind-InnerKind (greeneries – lettuces)- Plural Kind-Kind (greeneries – vegetables) Examples: a) Embora não tenha verdura na feira, tem alface na barraca da feiraadversativethereis no greenery in themarket, thereislettuce in themarket stand b)Embora não tenha verdura na feira, tem legume na barraca da feira vegetable c)Embora não tenham verdurasna feira, têm alfaces na barraca da feira (Plural of A) d) Embora não tenham verduras na feira, têm legumes na barraca da feira (Plural of B)

6. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds • METHODS: Stimuli • Fillers • - 1/3 of experimental sentences (includingExperiments 1 and 2) • 1/3 ofsentenceswith similar structureincludingsentencesofotherexperiments. • 1/3 offillersentences

7. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds • METHODS: StimuliandTask • ThisExperimentran in theappPsyscope X B57using a Macbook White Unibody 14” 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2Gb 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM runningMac OSX 10.5.8 Leopard; • Stimuliwerepresented in a Word-by-Word Self Paced Reading withaninterpretationquestionattheendofeachstimulus; • The volonteers use the [spacebar - in yellow] tonavigatebetweenthewordsofthesentenceandthe [k] and [l] toanswer [yes] or [no] respectively. • Stimulywerepresentedin a blackbackground • Font: Times New Roman 24 white.

8. + 1s

9. Embora

10. não

11. tenha

12. verduras

13. na

14. feira,

15. tem

16. legumes

17. na

18. barraca

19. da

20. feira

21. Tem verdura na feira?(Istheregreenery in themarket?)

22. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds • METHODS: Data Analysis • Weanalysedthepsyscope log data in theMs Excel 2010; • Weconsideredthewords 8-12 as thecriticalareaduetothecritical NP (Seg 8) and its Spill-Over (Segs 9-12); • WeobservedtheSum oftheAveragesofthe times ofeachword, ofthecriticalareaandoftheReaction Times in orderto build thegraphics; • Significancetestedwithbicaudal T-Student Test type 1 in theMs Excel for eachpairof data. • Times < 200ms and > 7s wereremoved as outliers • Weconsideredthefollowinglevelsofsignificance: • High: P-value<0.02 • Medium: P-value<0.05 • Low: P-value<0.08 • No Significance: P-value≥0.08

23. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds METHODS: Results Increaseof total reading times for Plural Kind-InnerKindCondition

24. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds Significativeincrease for the Plural Kind-InnerKindcomparedto Plural Kind-Kindand Singular Kind-InnerKind Notsignificativeincreaseofthereading times for thelocative NP for Plural Kind-InnerKind METHODS: Results The critical NP time in Kind-InnerKindConditionincreases for the Plural Condition andRed- Purple

25. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds METHODS: Results * However, theeffect for the Singular Conditionsis theinverse!! Increaseof Reading times for thecriticalarea for Plural Kind-InnerKindmayindicatethedifficulttoprocessthe “negation” ofthematrixclausesense. “There are no greeneriesbutthere are lettuces” *

26. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds METHODS: Results * In RTsanalysiswefoundthesameeffect for bothcomparisonsbutonlythe plural conditionreachsignificance

27. Experiment 1: WellDefinedKinds DISCUSSION: 1) The increasingreadingandreaction times only for the plural conditionsmayindicatethatpluralsare more difficulttoreadthanthesingulars. 2) Weexpectedtofindaneffectofthenegationofthematrixclause, however, ifthereis some effect, wecanfind it only for the plural conditions. 2) It mayindicatethatbare singular generics are lesscomplexthanthebare plural genericssowecandismembertheinnerkind NP fromthegenderexpressed in thematrixclauseofthe singular conditions, butnotfromthe plural ones.

28. Experiment 2: Not-WellDefinedKinds Krifka (1995) apud. Ionin, Montrul & Santos (2011: 116)

29. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds THE IDEA: Non KindComparison InnerKindComparison Livro Novo – Gibi AntigoNew Book – OldComic Pomada Cara – Xarope BaratoExpensiveOintment– CheapSyrup Urso Zangado – Leão FamintoAngryBear – StarvingLion Livro Novo – Livro AntigoNew Book – Old Book Pomada Cara – Pomada BarataExpensiveOintment – CheapOintment Urso Zangado – Urso FamintoAngryBear – StarvingBear

30. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds METHODS: Stimuli 4 versionsof 8 groupsofsentences: - Singular Kind-SameKind (angrybear – starvingbear)- Singular Kind-Kind (angrybear – starvinglion) - Plural Kind-SameKind (angrybears – starvingbears)- Plural Kind-Kind (angrybears – starvinglions) Examples: a) Embora não tenha urso zangado no parque, tem urso faminto na jaula do parqueadversativethereis no angrybear in thepark, thereisstarvingbear in thecageofthepark b)Embora não tenha urso zangado no parque, tem leão faminto na jaula do parque lion c)Embora não tenham ursos zangados no parque, têm ursos famintos na jaula do parque (Plural of A) d) Embora não tenham ursos zangados no parque, têm leões famintos na jaula do parque (Plural of B)

31. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds METHODS: Results Largertotal reading time for Plural KindKindcondition. In Experiment 1 thelarger time wasrelativetotheKind-SameKind

32. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds Plural Kind-Kindconditionrequire more time tobeprocessed in almosteveryword in thecriticalarea. Larger time for every NP. METHODS: Results Bearangry in thecageofthepark ABCD

33. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds METHODS: Results * Significance for thelarger time ofthecriticalareacomparedtotheotherconditions

34. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds METHODS: Results *B-D In RTsanalysiswefoundthesameeffect for bothcomparisons. Larger times for Kind-Kindconditions Larger times for plural Kind-Kindconditioncomparedto Singular Kind-Kind. D B A C

35. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds Discussion: Againsttheresults in theexperiment 1, in thisexprimenttheKind-Kindconditions are theonespresentinganincrease in processing times. The behaviourofKind-SameKindconditionsmayreflect na effectoffacilitationduetotherepetitionofthesamewordwith a “subkindspecification” (angrybear / starvingbear). SotheKind-Kindconditionsthat do notrepeatthe NP presentlarger times thantheKind-SameKindconditions. Again, wefound na increasing in theprocessofpluralscomparedtothe Singular condition. HoweveronlytheKind-Kindconditionpresentedthisdifficulty.

36. Experiment 2: NotWellDefinedKinds METHODS: Results