Attention-focusing by mass-noun quantifiers in sentence comprehension
William H. Levine, Joel A. Hagaman, Cari Anne Bogulski, Rebecca R. Green, & Dorthie S. Ortigo
University of Arkansas
Background
We examined whether mass-noun quantifiers – like little and a little – direct comprehenders' attention toward
different aspects of a situation involving a quantified entity. Similar research with count-noun quantifiers – like
few and many – has shown that quantifiers direct attention toward different subsets of the quantified set of
entities (e.g., Sanford, Moxey, & Paterson, 1996). For example, in the utterance, A few fans went to the game,
focus is almost exclusively on the fans who went to the game (the reference set), as revealed by an analysis of
pronominal reference in continuations provided by participants (given the quantified expression and the prompt,
They ___ ). Reference to the fans not in attendance (the complement set) is essentially blocked. By contrast, the
negative quantifier few, as in, Few fans went to the game, tends to direct attention toward those fans not in
attendance. Moxey, Sanford, and Dawydiak (2001) have argued that this latter effect is a product of (implicit)
denial, an inferential process by which a negative quantifier is understood as a denial of an expectation; in the
example above, the sentence is essentially understood as, “A small number of fans went to the game, fewer than
expected”. Evidence for this has emerged from a content analysis of participants' continuations.
Experiment 1
We extended this line of investigation to mass-noun quantifiers. We asked 40 participants to provide
completions for sentence frames such as the following:
The girl ate little / a little popcorn at the movie because _____
The ghost story inspired little / a little terror in the children because _____
We manipulated quantifier polarity – half of the sentences contained the positive quantifier a little, half
contained the negative quantifier little – and noun type – half of the quantified nouns were physical (e.g.,
popcorn), half were abstract (e.g., terror).
We classified continuations for whether they: provided a reason "why any" of the quantified noun was acted on
or produced (e.g., ... she wanted a snack); provided a reason "why not more" of the quantified noun was acted
on or produced (e.g., ... it was not very scary); or were ambiguous.
Based on the implicit denial hypothesis and the results of studies with count-noun quantifiers, we expected
participants to provide overwhelmingly reasons why any for the positive quantifier a little, and to provide a mix
of reasons why any and reasons why not more for the negative quantifier little. We had no a priori predictions
for the difference between noun types.
Experiment 1 Results
Experiment 1 Results: Continuation types
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
why not more
ambiguous
why any
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
a little physical
little physical
a little abstract
little abstract
condition
Experiment 1 Discussion
Generally, the results confirmed the predictions. In particular, the continuations provided following the negative
quantifier little were overwhelmingly reasons why not more of the quantified noun was consumed, experienced,
acted upon, etc. However, unlike with count-noun quantifiers, the positive quantifier a little did not block
continuations that provided reasons why not more (cf. Sanford et al., 1996), especially for abstract nouns.
Experiment 2
Using a simple comprehension paradigm, we sought converging evidence that the positive quantifier a little
focused attention on reasons why any of the quantified noun was acted upon, and that the negative quantifier
little focused attention on reasons why not more of the quantified noun was acted upon. In particular, we
measured reading times on clauses that provided reasons why any or reasons why not more, as seen below:
The girl ate little / a little popcorn at the movie
because she ate a snack before. (why not more)
because she wanted a snack. (why any)
The ghost story inspired little / a little terror in the children
because they didn't believe that ghosts were real. (why not more)
because they thought that ghosts might be real. (why any)
Participants (n = 24 thus far) read these sentences and made judgments as to whether they made sense. Based on
the results of Experiment 1 and the implicit denial hypothesis, we expected that reasons why any would be
felicitous following the positive quantifier and thus be read faster, and that reasons why not more would be
felicitous following the negative quantifier and thus be read faster.
Experiment 2 Results
400.00
Sensibility advantage
200.00
0.00
-200.00
a little - physical
a little - abstract
little - physical
little - abstract
Experiment 2 Discussion
For the abstract, non-physical nouns, the pattern of reading times was consistent with predictions. However, for
the physical nouns, the pattern was not as expected.
Conclusions
Some support emerged for a straightforward extension of findings from count-noun quantifiers to the massnoun quantifiers. In general, the positive quantifier a little appeared to focus attention on the amount of
something that was present, whereas the negative quantifier little appeared to focus attention on why more of
something was not present. However, there are two qualifications on these statements.
First, unlike with positive quantifiers like a few, a little does not appear to prevent focus on the mass-noun
analog of the complement set, or that part of something that is not present. One plausible (though speculative)
reason for this may be that conventional usage of a little (e.g., “When I was a young boy”) may tend to focus
somewhat on the equivalent of the complement set (roughly when I was not older in the example).
Second, the reading-time results for the physical nouns from Experiment 2 are surprising. The results of
Experiment 1 suggested that a little focused attention on reasons why, and that little focused attention on
reasons why not more, but sentences that instantiated these reasons do not apparently facilitate or disrupt
reading in a systematic fashion. An explanation for this awaits further analysis and research.