Optionality of Movement

Titov, Elena

doi:10.1111/synt.12202

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The notion of emphasis also presupposes that the referent of the focused constituent belongs to a contextually salient set of alternatives. It must occupy an extreme scalar position with respect to all other members: it must be either the least or the most expected alternative in this set (Titov 2020).…”

Section: P R E V I O U S S T U D I E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

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SOV in Russian: A corpus study

Slioussar,

Makarchuk

2022

jsl

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This paper analyzes the SOV order in Russian. Various hypotheses concerning its distribution have been proposed in previous functional and formal studies, but none of them became widely accepted. We tested these hypotheses on the large "Taiga" corpus and found that the main factor that triggers SOV is pronominalization: if the object is pronominal, it is highly likely to be preverbal. The absolute majority of non-pronominal objects follow the verb, although both giveness and contrastive, emphatic or narrow focus increase their (altogether very small) chances to be preverbal. Thus, the factors discussed in many previous studies play a role, but this role is extremely small. We propose a syntactic account to capture different information-structural properties of preverbal objects and the optionality of this construction.

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Section: P R E V I O U S S T U D I E Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some authors argue that they have particular IS properties (e.g. King 1995, Kovtunova 1976, Titov 2020. Others claim that they are characteristic of texts of a particular style or genre (Sirotinina 1965, Kodzasov 1989, 1996.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SOV in Russian: A corpus study

Slioussar,

Makarchuk

2022

jsl

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“…The structures in (9) involve the same words and interpretations, yet the more computationally costly process of searching for and then moving the more deeply embedded element cannot be licensed 6 . 6 Relatedly, it has been suggested that the behaviour of constructions involving optional movement of contrastive foci can be explained through recourse to principles of economy during interpretation, rather than the positing of a particular syntactic feature (i.e., a part of the lexicon) that triggers such behaviour (Titov 2020).…”

Section: Minimising Free-energy Maximising Interpretabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scope Economy (Fox 2000), Phase Impenetrability Condition (Chomsky 2004) Frampton & Gutmann 1999, Fukui 1996, Titov 2020.…”

Section: Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural language syntax complies with the free-energy principle

Murphy¹,

Holmes²,

Friston³

2021

Preprint

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Natural language syntax yields an unbounded array of hierarchically structured expressions. We claim that these are used in the service of active inference in accord with the free-energy principle (FEP). While conceptual advances alongside modelling and simulation work have attempted to connect speech segmentation and linguistic communication with the FEP, we extend this program to the underlying computations responsible for generating elementary syntactic objects. We argue that recently proposed principles of economy in language design—such as “minimal search” and “least effort” criteria from theoretical syntax—adhere to the FEP. This permits a greater degree of explanatory power to the FEP—with respect to higher language functions—and presents linguists with a grounding in first principles of notions pertaining to computability. More generally, we explore the possibility of migrating certain topics in linguistics over to the domain of fields that investigate the FEP, such as complex polysemy. We aim to align concerns of linguists with the normative model for organic self-organisation associated with the FEP, marshalling evidence from theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics to ground core principles of efficient syntactic computation within active inference.

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“…Word order alternations in Russian and information-structural requirements associated with them were studied by many authors working in different frameworks (e.g., Sirotinina, 1965 ; Kovtunova, 1976 ; Krylova, 1992 ; Bailyn, 1995 ; Yanko, 2001 ; Slioussar, 2007 ; Titov, 2017 , 2020 ). For some orders, these requirements are easier to formulate, while for the others, they are a matter of debate [for example, Slioussar and Makarchuk (2022) discuss this problem for SOV orders].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Word order and context in sentence processing: evidence from L1 and L2 Russian

Slioussar,

Harchevnik

2024

Front. Psychol.

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IntroductionIn this paper, we studied how native (L1) speakers of Russian and speakers of Mandarin Chinese learning Russian as a foreign language (L2) process Russian sentences with different word orders. We compared SVO (canonical) and OVS (non-canonical) orders in isolation and in context. Experiments focusing on the L2 processing of different word orders are still not very numerous, and those using context are extremely rare.MethodsIn Experiment 1, target sentences were presented in isolation. In Experiment 2, one-sentence contexts introduced one NP mentioned in the target sentence, either the first (so that given information preceded new information, which is characteristic for Russian and many other languages) or the second. As a result, two factors could be compared: the syntactic (word order) and the contextual (whether the context is appropriate from the information-structural perspective). We used different measures to capture online and offline effects: word-by-word reading times, question-answering accuracy and sentence rating on a 1 to 5 scale (for L1 participants).Results and discussionIn both experiments, RTs and question-answering accuracy data showed that non-canonical orders were difficult for L2 participants, but not for L1 participants. However, L1 participants gave non-canonical orders lower ratings in isolation, presumably because in naturally occurring texts, they are used only in particular contexts. As for the context factor in Experiment 2, some effects were the same for L1 and L2 processing: all participants read given NPs faster than new ones and preferred sentences with a ‘given – new’ word order. The latter may reflect the universal principles of narrative coherence. However, unlike native speakers, L2 readers are not sensitive to more subtle contextual requirements of different word orders.

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Optionality of Movement

Cited by 12 publications

References 36 publications

SOV in Russian: A corpus study

SOV in Russian: A corpus study

Natural language syntax complies with the free-energy principle

Word order and context in sentence processing: evidence from L1 and L2 Russian

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