Speaker: Yosef Grodzinsky — McGill University
Date/Time: Friday 3/9 3:30 pm
Location: 32-141
Title: The Analysis of Negative Quantifiers: Multi-modal Evidence
Abstract:
Recent discussion of
negative
quantifiers
(see
Penka,
2011
and
references
therein)
focuses
on
two
main
questions:
do
these
quantifiers
decompose,
and
if
so,
what
are
the
mechanisms
for
decomposition?
In
this
talk,
I
will
describe
a
series
of
neuro-
and
psycholinguistic
experiments
my
colleagues
and
I
have
conducted
with
healthy
and
brain-damaged
participants
that
aim
to
provide
relevant
evidence.
These
experiments
recorded
responses
from
several
modalities,
as
participants
were
analyzing
sentences
with
positive
and
negative
proportional
and
degree
quantifiers
in
German
and
English
(e.g.,
mehr/weniger-als-die-Hälfte
die
Kreise
sind
Gelb,
many/few
of
the
circles
are
blue).
All
experiments
used
a
Parametric
Proportion
Paradigm
(PPP):
participants
were
exposed
to
sentence-scenario
pairs,
and
were
requested
to
make
truth
value
judgments.
Sentences
contained
a
quantifier
in
subject
position,
and
scenarios
depicted
a
proportion
between
2
types
of
objects.
Proportion
was
a
parameter,
systematically
varied
across
images
that
were
presented
with
each
sentence
type.
Our
first
experiment
used
functional
MR
imaging
to
extract
a
signal
that
represents
localized
brain
activity.
It
aimed
to
identify
brain
loci
that
evince
an
intensity
differential
between
the
contrasting
stimuli.
Signal
intensity
for
sentences
with
negative
quantifiers
was
higher
than
that
for
their
positive
counterparts
only
in
Broca’s
region.
Importantly,
no
other
localizable
intensity
contrasts
were
found.
A
second
experiment
(currently
only
a
pilot)
confronted
English
speaking,
focally
brain
damaged,
Broca’s
aphasic
patients
with
the
same
task.
However
here,
the
dependent
measure
was
error
rate.
The
results
suggest
a
remarkably
selective
deficit:
While
patients
performed
near-normally
on
the
positive
quantifiers,
their
scores
were
drastically
reduced
when
the
stimuli
contained
negative
quantifiers.
A
third
experiment
attempted
to
take
a
deeper
look
at
the
behavioral
signature
of
quantifier
analysis
through
a
study
of
complex
RT
functions
obtained
from
healthy
participants.
Here,
too,
we
observed
that
the
signature
of
negative
quantifiers
is
quite
distinct
from
that
of
their
positive
counterparts.
In
this
talk,
I
will
try
to
connect
these
results,
obtained
through
different
modalities
from
different
populations,
to
previous
ones
that
come
from
parametric
studies
of
overt
syntactic
movement
with
healthy
participants
in
fMRI,
and
with
Broca’s
aphasic
patients.
I
will
propose
that
a
generalization
over
the
experimental
results
supports
an
analysis
of
sentences
with
negative
quantifiers
that
assumes
covert
movement.
I
will
then
try
to
situate
these
results
in
the
broader
context
of
a
research
agenda
that
tries
to
create
a
brain
map
of
syntactic
and
semantic
knowledge.