Ayaka Sugawara, Hadas Kotek, Martin Hackl, & Kenneth Wexler
MIT
Glow in Asia IX at Mie University 9/6/2012
Slides available at http://web.mit.edu/ayakasug/www/acd.pdf
Do English speaking children correctly interpret the
Antecedent Contained Deletion (ACD) sentences like these?
The Mermaid baked himi the same food that Cookie
Monster*i did.
Dora gave himi the same color paint that Smurf’si father
did.
Hei jumped over every fence that Kermit*i tried to.
(Kiguchi & Thornton 2004)
Miss Piggy wanted to drive every car that Kermit did.
(Syrett & Lidz 2011)
Kids behave like adults for the at least first three sentences.
2
In this talk:
I will show how the previous studies revealed
that kids have adult-like knowledge to
interpret those sentences.
I will discuss the results from a new set of
experiments to test whether kids can do
long-distance QR. The results support and
strengthen what Syrett & Lidz (2011) report.
3
1.
2.
Introduction – What is ACD?
Previous studies
- Kiguchi & Thornton (2004)
“Kids know Binding Principles in ACD sentences”
- Syrett & Lidz (2009)
“Kids distinguish ACD from coordinate structure”
- Syrett & Lidz (2011)
“Kids can interpret both short & long distance QR”
3.
4.
Our experiment
Results and discussion
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1.
What is ACD?
ACD is a special case of VP-ellipsis. (Bouton 1970, Sag 1976)
“John watched every movie that Mary did.”
VP-ellipsis requires the structural identity at LF between
the VPant and the VPelid.
John will [VPant eat an apple], but Bill won’t <VPelid eat an apple>.
*<eat an orange>
*<peeled an apple>
*<have eaten an apple>
In ACD sentences, for the VPelid and the VPant to have the
identical LF, Quantifier Raising (QR) is necessary.
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John watched every movie that Mary did.
Without QR
TP
Antecedent VP
3VP
John
3DP
watched 3NP
Elided VP
every
3CP
movie 3
Op
3TP
that
3
Mary
3
did
< VP >
(1)
7
John watched every movie that Mary did.
Without QR
TP
3VP
John
3DP
Antecedent VP
watched
3NP
every
3CP
Elided VP
movie
3
Op
3TP
that
3
Mary
3
did
< VP >
(1)
J (did) [VP watch every movie that M did <watch every movie that M did
<watch every movie that M did
<watch …
“infinite regress” problem
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John watched every movie that Mary did.
With QR
qpDP
3VP
3NP
John
3
every 3CP
watch
t
movie 3
Op
3TP
Elided VP
that
3
Antecedent VP
Mary
3
did <watch t >
(1)
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ACD necessarily involves the operation of
QR.
The target site of the QR must be above the
antecedent VP in order for the elided VP to
be identical to the antecedent VP by
generating the trace.
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Processing study on local and non-local ACD with
adults (Hackl et al. 2012)
“The lawyer was careful to remember …
a. the/every fact that the young defense attorney presented
b. the/every fact that the young defense attorney did
c. the/every fact that the young defense attorney was
… during the second cross examination period.”
-
Self-paced reading, followed by a question to ask the
understanding of the sentence, with a rating task added.
180 sentences including fillers were presented word by word
on a computer screen.
Reaction Time was measured.
The lawyer was careful to remember every fact that the attorney did.
Local ACD
TP
wo
L
wo
was careful
wovP
to
qp
3
6
remember
t
every fact that A did
<remember t>
The lawyer was careful to remember the fact that the attorney was.
NonNon-local ACD
TP
qp
L
qp PredP
was
qp
qp
6
careful
3 every fact that A was
to
3
<careful to remember t>
remember t
Hackl et al. (2012): Results (N=48)
• Non-local QR
requires more
processing load
than local QR.
• Local QR induced
by every facilitates
ACD resolution.
Non-ACD RC
local
non-local
2.
Previous studies
Sentences they tested:
The Mermaid baked himi the same food that Cookie
Monster*i did.
Rejection of coreference: 85%
Dora gave himi the same color paint that Smurf’si
father did.
Acceptance of coreference: 93.3%
Hei jumped over every fence that Kermit*i tried to.
Rejection of coreference: 94.2%
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K&T in a nutshell
Children (4- and 5-year olds) understand ACD sentences.
QR is in child grammar.
What kind of ACD sentences?
ACD sentences in which Binding Principle B is relevant at LF.
They know how Principle B works.
ACD sentences in which Binding Principle C is relevant at LF.
They know how Principle C works.
Syrett & Lidz (2009) confirmed that children understand this type of
ACD sentences correctly, instead of misapplying coordinate structure
to them.
The Mermaid baked him the same food, and Cookie Monster did so, too.
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S & L (2011) in a nutshell
Children (4-year-olds) can access the multiple possible
interpretations in non-ACD VP-ellipsis & ACD sentences.
Non-ACD
Clifford asked Goofy to read the big books because Scooby did.
(7)
a.
read the big books.
b.
asked Goofy to read the big books.
ACD
“Miss Piggy wanted to drive every car that Kermit did.”
<drive t.>
<want to drive t.>
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Experiment 1 (non
(nonnon-ACD VP Ellipsis)
Embedded condition:
There are two piles of books, big books and small books.
Scooby “Goofy, read the big books.”
(Scooby reads the small books.)
Clifford “Goofy, read the small books,
because Scooby read them and liked them.”
Puppet “Clifford asked Goofy to read the small books
because Scooby did.” Yes (A: 81%, C: 69%)
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Experiment 1 (non
(nonnon-ACD VP Ellipsis)
Matrix condition:
There are two piles of books, big books and small books.
Scooby “Goofy, read the big books.”
(Scooby reads the small books.)
Clifford “Goofy, read the big books,
because Scooby always has good ideas.”
Puppet “Clifford asked Goofy to read the big books
because Scooby did.” Yes (A: 94%, C: 71%)
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Summary for Experiment 1 (nonnon-ACD VP Ellipsis)
Children (4-year-olds) can access the
multiple possible interpretations in non-ACD
ambiguous VP-ellipsis sentences.
They behave like adults.
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Experiment 2 (ACD)
Subjects: 24 four-year-olds, 30 undergrads
Procedure: Truth Value Judgment Task followed by
justification of the answer.
Embedded/matrix condition is a between subject
factor.
Target sentences:
(8)
(9)
Miss Piggy wanted PROsubj to drive every car that Kermit did.
Clifford asked Goofy PROobj to read every book that Scooby
did.
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Experiment 2: Embedded condition
Kermit has red cars, which are old, and black cars, which are
new.
K drives
K wants to drive
He has driven the red ones and is tired of them.
He wants to drive the black ones but is not allowed to do so.
Miss Piggy asks him to drive some, and he reluctantly drives the
red ones.
After the drive, Miss Piggy gets very excited and wants to drive
some.
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Experiment 2:
Embedded condition:
Miss Piggy wants to drive the red ones.
K drives
K wants to drive
Puppet “Miss Piggy wanted to drive every car that Kermit did.”
Yes (Adults: 68%,
68% Children: 46%)
46%
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Experiment 2: Matrix condition
Kermit has red cars, which are old, and black cars, which are
new.
K drives
K wants to drive
He has driven the red ones and is tired of them.
He wants to drive the black ones but is not allowed to do so.
Miss Piggy asks him to drive some, and he reluctantly drives the
red ones.
After the drive, Miss Piggy gets very excited and wants to drive
some.
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Experiment 2:
Matrix condition:
Miss Piggy agrees that the red ones are not exciting
enough, and wants to drive the black ones.
K drives
K wants to drive
Puppet “Miss Piggy wanted to drive every car that Kermit did.”
Yes (Adults: 50%,
50% Children: 38%)
38%
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Miss Piggy wanted to drive every car that Kermit did.
Embedded
wo
P
wo
want
wo
to
qp
3
6
drive
t
every car that K did
Matrix
<drive t>
qp
P
qp
qp
6
want
3 every car that K did <want to drive t>
to
3
drive
t
Discussion
Although children do poorly (Emb: 46%, Mat: 38%), the
justifications for rejection suggest that both adults and
kids are accessing the other reading.
e.g. Miss Piggy wanted to drive the new cars. Kermit drived the old
cars. (in Matrix condition)
In this experiment, embedded and matrix condition was a
between subject factor, so each person is assigned only
one condition. 7 kids and 12 adults provided justifications
for both readings within an experiment session.
Drawing on those justifications, they conclude that kids
can access both interpretations.
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The reliable justifications (clearly indicating either
reading) by children were given to them 54% of the
time (52/96).
We are not sure if the justifications are good enough to
make arguments. So we’d like to clarify.
Where is the difference between chance-level and good
understanding?
Accuracy rate by children was “Emb: 46%, Mat: 38%.” Is
there a possibility that they just guessed, and only to
defend themselves they randomly picked one of the
possible antecedents when asked for justifications?
Adults’ accuracy rate was low (Emb: 68%, Mat: 50%).
This does not show that the correct interpretations are
what children should know.
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3.
Our experiment
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Motivation
Can children really target multiple landing sites of QR in ACD
sentences?
Do they make judgments according to the reading they get?
Target sentences
(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
Donald Duck wanted to be the same color that Mickey Mouse was.
Elmo wanted to be the same animal that Lisa was.
Donald Duck wanted to be the same color that Mickey Mouse did.
Elmo wanted to be the same animal that Lisa did.
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(10)
(11)
(12)
(13)
Donald Duck wanted to be the same color that Mickey
Mouse was.
I know what happened. Elmo wanted to be the same animal
that Lisa was.
Donald Duck wanted to be the same color that Mickey
Mouse did.
I know what happened. Elmo wanted to be the same animal
that Lisa did.
Contributions
The sentences (12, 13) test whether kids can do the longlong-distance
QR (and give the judgment sticking to the interpretation).
“No” conditions allow us to see whether children can correctly reject
the unavailable reading.
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TVJT: stories on a computer screen
61 children (4;2-7;9, mean 5;4) at daycare centers in
Boston area and at Boston Children’s Museum.
4 target trials (all designated to be false) and 3 filler
trials (2 to be true, 1 to be false)
Yes-sayers (N=12), no-sayers (N=4), those who did
not complete the experiment (N=2), and those who
did not answer two filler items correctly (N=11) were
excluded
Short vs. Long ACD was a between-subject factor.
Short ACD (N=15), Long ACD (N=16)
We only had target sentences that are
designated to be false, to strengthen the
argument.
We have unambiguously matrix-targeting
ACD sentences, to see whether children
actually access the interpretation.
Filler items are quite similar to target
sentences, e.g. “Mickey Mouse wanted to be
at the same party that Donald Duck went to.”
Short ACD
Cookie Monster
wanted to be the
same thing that
Dora was.
No (short QR)
Total participants: 61
Included participants: 31
(excl. 12 yes-sayers, 4 nosayers, 2 not-completing, 11answering 0-1 fillers correctly)
Short condition: 15
Long condition: 16
Accuracy rate w/ short: 62%
(per item: 73%, 40%, 60%,
73%)
Accuracy rate w/ long: 81%
75%)
(per item: 81%, 94%, 75%,
Significant difference between long QR and short
QR. Long QR is significantly better than Short QR
(81.2% vs. 61.5%).
Accuracy rate
Long QR
81.2%
Short QR
61.5%
Wilcoxon rank sum test with continuity
correction, W=1544, p=0.016
Calculating p-value according to the standard deviations
(SD) (assuming that the chance=.5) and their z-scores also
results in significant results (p=0.017)
Both above chance. (Assumption: chance = 0.5)
Long QR
SD
z-score
p-value w/.5
Short QR
0.063
0.064
4.96
1.86
2*pnorm(-abs(long.z))
7.0e-07
2*pnorm(-abs(short.z))
0.06
Given that we only had false target sentences and
that children have yes-bias, the “chance”-level
would be smaller than 50%. We observe
significant (long) and marginally significant
(short) differences from “50% chance.” This
suggests that children do understand ACD
sentences, both short and long.
As for the reason why children do better with
long ACD than short ACD, we have ideas to be
tested by running another set of experiments.
We are currently running two versions of the experiment.
With “every”
Elmo wanted to be every animal that Lisa was/did.
With “about to”
Donald Duck was about to look into the same box that
Mickey Mouse did/was.
We anticipate that with “every,” the trend will flip, i.e., lower
accuracy rate for long QR and higher accuracy rate for short
QR.
This anticipation stems from the processing data from
adults (Hackl et al 2012).
Bouton, L. F. (1970) “Antecedent contained pro-forms,” in Papers from the
Sixth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, 154-167.
Hackl, Martin, Jorie Koster-Moeller & Jason Varvoutis (2012) “Quantification
and ACD: Evidence from Real Time Sentence Processing,” Journal of
Semantics 29 (2), 145-205.
Kiguchi, Hirohisa & Rosalind Thornton (2004) “Binding Principles and ACD
Constructions in Child Grammars,” Syntax 7, 234-271.
Sag, Ivan (1976) Deletion and Logical Form, PhD dissertation, MIT.
Syrett, Kristen & Jeffrey Lidz (2009) “QR in Child Grammar: Evidence from
Antecedent-Contained Deletion,” Language Acquisition 16, 67-81.
Syrett, Kristen & Jeffrey Lidz (2011) “Competence, Performance, and the
Locality of Quantifier Raising: Evidence from 4-Year-Old Children,”
Linguistic Inquiry 42, 305-337.
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