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Anticipating the Damn Referent : How Comprehenders Rapidly Retrieve the Speaker's Attitude When Processing Negative Expressive Adjectives

Ronderos, Camilo R LU orcid and Domaneschi, Filippo (2023) In Cognitive Science 47(5). p.13295-13295
Abstract

Theoretical accounts of negative expressives such as damn have ascribed two main properties to this type of adjective, namely that they are typically speaker-oriented, and that they can be flexible with regard to their syntactic attachment. However, it is not clear what this means during online sentence processing. For example, is it effortful for comprehenders to derive the speaker's negative attitude conveyed by an expressive adjective, or is it a rapid, automatic process? And do comprehenders understand the speaker's attitude regardless of the expressive's syntactic position? The current work provides the first evidence supporting theoretical claims by investigating the incremental processing of Italian negative expressive... (More)

Theoretical accounts of negative expressives such as damn have ascribed two main properties to this type of adjective, namely that they are typically speaker-oriented, and that they can be flexible with regard to their syntactic attachment. However, it is not clear what this means during online sentence processing. For example, is it effortful for comprehenders to derive the speaker's negative attitude conveyed by an expressive adjective, or is it a rapid, automatic process? And do comprehenders understand the speaker's attitude regardless of the expressive's syntactic position? The current work provides the first evidence supporting theoretical claims by investigating the incremental processing of Italian negative expressive adjectives. In an eye-tracking study, we show that expressive content is rapidly integrated with information about the speaker's attitude, resulting in the anticipation of an upcoming referent, regardless of the expressive's syntactic realization. We argue that comprehenders use expressives as an ostensive cue that allows for automatic retrieval of the speaker's negative attitude.

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author
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publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
keywords
Humans, Comprehension, Language
in
Cognitive Science
volume
47
issue
5
pages
12 pages
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • scopus:85159755319
  • pmid:37203252
ISSN
0364-0213
DOI
10.1111/cogs.13295
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
© 2023 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Cognitive Science Society (CSS).
id
d04834e8-a7d5-4af4-ac4b-ee25f01ef2dd
date added to LUP
2025-07-02 14:52:42
date last changed
2025-07-17 04:51:04
@article{d04834e8-a7d5-4af4-ac4b-ee25f01ef2dd,
  abstract     = {{<p>Theoretical accounts of negative expressives such as damn have ascribed two main properties to this type of adjective, namely that they are typically speaker-oriented, and that they can be flexible with regard to their syntactic attachment. However, it is not clear what this means during online sentence processing. For example, is it effortful for comprehenders to derive the speaker's negative attitude conveyed by an expressive adjective, or is it a rapid, automatic process? And do comprehenders understand the speaker's attitude regardless of the expressive's syntactic position? The current work provides the first evidence supporting theoretical claims by investigating the incremental processing of Italian negative expressive adjectives. In an eye-tracking study, we show that expressive content is rapidly integrated with information about the speaker's attitude, resulting in the anticipation of an upcoming referent, regardless of the expressive's syntactic realization. We argue that comprehenders use expressives as an ostensive cue that allows for automatic retrieval of the speaker's negative attitude.</p>}},
  author       = {{Ronderos, Camilo R and Domaneschi, Filippo}},
  issn         = {{0364-0213}},
  keywords     = {{Humans; Comprehension; Language}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{5}},
  pages        = {{13295--13295}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Cognitive Science}},
  title        = {{Anticipating the Damn Referent : How Comprehenders Rapidly Retrieve the Speaker's Attitude When Processing Negative Expressive Adjectives}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13295}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/cogs.13295}},
  volume       = {{47}},
  year         = {{2023}},
}