how to investigate interpretation in slavic experimentally?
TRANSCRIPT
To appear in Tanja Anstatt et al. (Eds.), Slavic Languages in the Black Box. Tuebingen: Narr-Verlag. Final accepted copy.
How to investigate interpretation in Slavic experimentally?
Roumyana Slabakova
University of Southampton and University of Iowa
Abstract
This chapter raises the issue of high and unpredicted variability in the performance of native
Russian (Slavic) speakers. Two case studies are discussed where much more categorical
contrasts were expected, but experimental findings attested highly variable interpretations. One
case study, Slabakova (2004), investigated the interpretation of bare plural and mass objects in
perfective sentences. The second case study, Cho and Slabakova (2014), looked at the
acceptability of fronted objects when they are Topics or Foci. In both studies, native speaker
participants revealed complex patterns of acceptability sensitive to ambiguity permitted by the
grammar. A view of the grammar is discussed, Ramchand and Svenonius (2008) which provides
an explanation of the variable findings. Implications of this situation with respect to
psycholinguistic experiments are considered.
1 Introduction
In the investigation of meaning that speakers attribute to linguistic strings, Slavic languages
present a curious empirical and methodological challenge. They often allow grammatical
meanings (such as definiteness, specificity or quantization of the object) to be expressed without
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morphological marking on the noun phrase. Instead, the meanings under discussion are signaled
by the perfective marking on the verb, by information structure (Topic, Focus) or by the word
order of the whole sentence. From the outset, it is important to make the distinction between a
semantic or grammatical category expressed by some language, say Number, and the linguistic
expression, or exponent of that category, for example the functional morphemes –s (as in cat-s)
and –en (as in ox-en) in English. In general, mapping one category (meaning) to many exponents
is not an unusual situation across languages of the world: variability in exponents abounds while
the semantic and grammatical categories are arguably universal. Many factors, including lexical
and phonological considerations, may influence which linguistic exponent appears where.
There is a possibly parallel situation in psycholinguistics. Linguistic theory often makes
categorical claims or behavior predictions about the availability of certain interpretations of
strings, while native speaker judgments reveal a lot more intra‐ and inter‐personal variability than
predicted. Very often, this situation is a result of several linguistic factors affecting the
judgments. As a result, we researchers have a problem on our hands: how to make sure that
speakers really have the interpretations that we think they have, for a certain string. Furthermore,
how can we make sure that the interpretation depends on the linguistic factors we think it
depends on? How can we control for the effect of various factors over the interpretation? In this
article, I will address this important issue from the perspective of Slavic languages. I will show
results from two psycholinguistic experiments involving Russian native speakers that reveal a lot
of unpredicted variability in interpretation. At the same time, this variability appears exactly with
judgments where more than one grammatical factor influences the interpretation. To preview the
answer, I will conclude that experimental psycholinguistic research needs to pay enhanced
attention to a multitude of factors: grammatical, contextual, lexical, but also psycholinguistic
variables such as the type of task, presentation, order of tasks, fillers, etc. The take-home
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message of this discussion is that if we are aware of the pitfalls to our experimental research, we
are halfway to meaningful solutions.
2 Case Study 1: Quantization and Perfectivity
The linguistic process of quantization (Krifka, 1989) has proven relevant to the proper
characterization of verb phrase (VP) telicity and count/mass nouns. I start by defining the
relevant terms, since terminological confusion abounds in this literature. Telicity refers to the
property of sentences to present events as bounded or unbounded in time (Vendler, 1957; Krifka,
1989; Filip, 2001). For example, to eat an apple is a telic VP because the apple-eating event has
a potential endpoint with the end of the apple, while to eat apples or to like apples are atelic VPs
because there is no such potential endpoint to the event or state. A quantized nominal expression
is such that, whenever it is true of some entity, it is not true of any proper subparts of that entity.
Count nouns are quantized; mass and bare plural nouns are not. Let us see why, taking an
example. If something is an apple, then no proper subpart of that thing is an apple. If something
is water, then many of its subparts will also be water. Hence, an apple is quantized, while water
is not quantized.
In the literature on aspect, two major mechanisms of “composing” telicity at the level of
the VP have been identified (Krifka, 1989, 1998; Verkuyl 1972, 1993, 1999). One mechanism is
to combine a non-stative (dynamic) verb with an object that is marked as exhaustively countable
or measurable (a quantized object, in Krifka’s terminology; a specific quantity object, in
Verkuyl’s terminology). English and other Germanic languages use this object-marking
mechanism in (most) accomplishment and activity predicates. For example:
(1) Claire ate an apple/the apple/three apples/a bag of popcorn. (telic)
(2) Claire ate apples/popcorn. (atelic)
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Dowty (1991) introduced a theta role, most often mapped onto objects, called
Incremental Theme. The objects in (1) are such Incremental Themes because the progress of the
event can be measured by looking at the affected participant. In an apple-eating event, for
example, we know how close to its end the event is by looking at how much of the apple is eaten.
In English, quantized nominal arguments linked to the Incremental Theme theta role combined
with dynamic verbs bring forward a telic interpretation as in (1); cumulative Incremental Theme
objects contribute to an atelic interpretation as in (2). This relationship is known as the Event–
Object Homomorphism: when the object is completely affected, the event is over. Notice that
quantization is orthogonal to definiteness, since both the indefinite nominal argument an apple
and the definite the apple are quantized.
However, the homomorphism only holds for Incremental Theme objects (Dowty, 1991),
those objects that are created (effected) or consumed (affected) by the verbal action. Compare (3)
and (4):
(3) Mike drove a red car. (atelic)
(4) Mike made a red car. (telic)
The difference in interpretation is due to the two verbs. Verbs of creation (make, write) and verbs
of consumption (eat, drink), among others, are unified in having Incremental Theme objects.
These objects are affected by the event in a special way, and according to three recent theoretical
accounts, “measure out” the progress of the event (Tenny, 1994), their discrete parts map to parts
of the event (Krifka, 1989), or serve as an “event odometer” (Verkuyl, 1993). On the other hand,
a verb such as drive does not take an Incremental Theme object, and even if the object is
quantized as in (3), it does not make the whole VP telic. In the rest of this chapter, we will be
dealing with Incremental Theme objects and their verbs.
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Now, marking the same meaning, telicity or boundedness of the event, happens in a
completely different way in Slavic languages. (Same meaning, different exponents!) In Russian
(as well as in Czech and Polish, languages without articles), the verbal form carries the
quantization information, while the objects are overtly unmarked in this respect (Wierzbicka,
1967; Forsyth, 1970; Krifka, 1998; Filip, 1993, 2000; Di Sciullo and Slabakova, 2005). Compare
the sentences in (5) and (6).
(5) Ja el gruši / tort (atelic)
I eat-PAST.1sg pears-ACC/cake-ACC
‘I was eating (some) pears/cake.’
(6) Ja s’’-el gruši / tort (telic)
I PV-eat-PAST.1sg pears-ACC / cake-ACC
‘I ate all the pears/the whole cake.’
These two sentences differ only in the verbal form: in (5) the verb is imperfective while in (6) the
verb is perfective-marked by the prefix s-, which carries completive meaning. Note that the
objects gruši/tort ‘pears/cake’ are a bare plural and a mass noun in both sentences. If these non-
quantized nominals had any effect over the VP telicity, the objects would have made both VPs
atelic, contrary to fact. In fact, it is the verbs that actually change the interpretation of the NP
objects: in (5), where the verb is imperfective, we are talking about an unspecified quantity of
pears or cake that I used to eat, or was eating, while in (6), where the verb is perfective, all the
pears and all the cake involved in the eating event are understood to be completely consumed.
Note that the analysis assumed here relies on Krifka and Filip’s work, as well as on Di Sciullo
and Slabakova (2005). There are other linguistic analyses (e.g., Borik, 2006) where perfective
prefixes are not treated as telicity marking morphemes. However, it will take us too far away
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from the main point of this chapter to discuss these different analyses, which I leave for further
research.
To summarize the linguistic facts according to the analysis I assume here, verbs and their
Incremental Theme objects are in an Event–Object Homomorphism. In order to signal telicity,
the potential endpoint of the event, either the verb (Slavic) or the object (English) can be marked
for quantization. Because the VP with a perfective verb denotes a telic event in Slavic, the object
in such sentences takes on a quantized interpretation. When such a sentence is additionally
marked as past, the interpretation of the object is as completely affected (consumed of produced).
I will not spend time here on ascertaining that the English part of the claim holds: I have
tested this in my dissertation work and so I point the interested reader to Slabakova (2001). The
other part of the claim is more interesting for our purposes here. In other words, we want to find
out what interpretation Russian speakers attribute to the objects in perfective and imperfective
sentences as (5) and (6). In order to do that, we have to check construals (interpretations) in the
absence of context and word order variations. Why is this necessary? If there are many factors
affecting an interpretation, we want to keep the number of variables in an experiment at a
minimum. Otherwise, we will not know which factor is producing the experimental effect that
we see.
Slabakova (2004) attempted to check the claims in the literature as to the event–object
homomorphism and how Russian native speakers compute the telicity and completion of an
event. The participants, 45 monolingual native speakers of Russian living in Russia, were asked
to read some experimental sentences and choose the possible continuation, from two
continuations spelled out below. There was also a third choice, that both continuations were
possible.
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(7) Petja pro-čital ėtot roman,
Petja PERF-read this novel
A. no eščë ne zakončil čitat’.
but yet not finished reading
B. i uže zakončil čitat’ do konca. ⇐ the only possible answer
and already finished reading.
C. oba A i B vozmožny.
both A and B possible
(8) Petja Ø-čital ėtot roman,
Petja IMP-read this novel
A. no eščë ne zakončil čitat’. ⇐ also possible
but yet not finished reading
B. i uže zakončil čitat’ do konca.
and already finished reading to end
C. oba A i B vozmožny. ⇐best answer
both A and B possible
The judgments expected by the researcher, as marked in (7) and (8) are in keeping with
the long-established claim that in Slavic, imperfectivity is unmarked, hence fluid, while
perfectivity is the marked value in the opposition. Note that if this is true, continuation (7A) and
(7C) are logical contradictions, and the only expected choice is (7B). In the case of (8), the
incomplete interpretation (8A) was expected, as well as the ambiguous construal (8C); however,
(8B) on its own would be a contradictory choice. The experiment had three conditions (with six
tokens in each condition) in which Perfective and Imperfective verbs were crossed with three
types of objects:
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a) quantized objects with demonstrative pronouns, this novel as in the examples (7) and
(8);
b) objects with quantifiers (two sweaters, a glass of beer);
c) non-quantized mass or bare plural objects (beer, tea).
Recall that the type of object is not supposed to have any effect on the telicity (completion) of
the event; only the perfective prefix can change telicity values. Figure 1 presents pooled results
from the three conditions described above.
Figure 1: Percentage of Expected Choices made by Russian native speakers in interpreting
perfective and imperfective sentences
The distinctions between the conditions were not significant, that is, as expected, there was no
statistically significant effect of type of object. These findings confirm the Event–Object
Homomorphism, since the native speakers of Russian interpreted the sentences with perfective
verbs in the past to mean that the whole event was complete, no matter the type of the object.
These findings also validate the test instrument as capable of eliciting the expected behavior.
94 93.3 89.2 93.3 94 85.9
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
100
Imperfective verb Perfective verb
Non-quantized object Quantized object Demonstrative object
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The last experimental condition (again n = 6 tokens) looked at the interpretation of the
object, not of the event. There is supposed to be a homomorphism here: if one changes, the other
changes. The objects in this condition were all mass or bare plurals, non-marked
morphologically.
(9) Anja po-stirala odeždu…,
Anja PERF-washed (the) clothes
A. voobšče odeždu.
in general clothes
B. vsju odeždu kotoraja nuždalas’ v stirke. ⇐ expected
all clothes which needed washing
C. oba A i B vozmožny.
both A and B possible
(10) Anja Ø-stirala odeždu…,
Anja IMP-washed (the) clothes
A. voobšče odeždu. ⇐ also possible
in general clothes
B. vsju odeždu kotoraja nuždalas’ v stirke.
all clothes which needed washing
C. oba A i B vozmožny. ⇐ best answer
both A and B possible
The choice in (9A)-(10A) was intended as to convey the generic interpretation of clothes
in general; the choice in (9B)-(10B) was intended to refer to a specific set of objects: all the
clothes that needed washing. The speakers’ choices of construal were very different from the
ones in the previous three conditions. The patterns of choices of perfective and imperfective verb
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sentences are roughly the same, but they should not be. Figure 2 presents the speakers’ expected
and unexpected choices in this last condition.
Figure 2: Object construal choices made by Russian native speakers in perfective and
imperfective sentences
What should we be seeing in Figure 2? For the imperfective verbs, looking at the first group of
columns, one would expect speakers to choose that the object can be generic, such as “clothes in
general,” or that the object can be specific, such as “all the clothes that needed washing in the
family, that day.” In this group of columns, (10A), a possible choice of interpretation, was
chosen in about 44% of answers, while (10C), the ambiguous construal in the black column, was
chosen about 47% of the answers. So the speakers are performing very much as expected.
On the other hand, choices of object construal with perfective sentences go against the
predictions of the theory. Recall that in the perfective verb sentences, non-quantized objects
should be interpreted as specific, or quantized, because the event is completed. The construal in
(9B), “all the clothes that needed washing in the family, that day” was the only expected answer.
44.4 52
12.4 4
46.8 48.8
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
100
Imperfective verb Perfective verb
Expected Not expected Both interpretations
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These choices, 52%, are represented in the checkered column. Generic objects “clothes in
general” should not appear with perfective verbs, and as the grey column shows, these choices
are only 4%. However, speakers choose both interpretations are possible, the black column,
almost 49% of the time. While speakers are not choosing the wrong answer in this condition,
they are signaling that the expected construal is not the only one possible for them.
So, what is going on in these data? To reiterate, Russian native speakers behave in the
expected way in interpreting the telicity, or completion of the events in simple sentences, based
on the perfectivity of the verb. They choose completed construals for perfective sentences, with
roughly 8% optional choices (both interpretations are possible), which is the wrong choice for
perfective sentences. However, this relatively high accuracy, which supports the effectiveness of
the test, is not replicated for the object construal condition. The speakers do not significantly
demonstrate that they interpret bare plural or mass objects as specific quantity/quantized,
depending on the perfectivity of the verb. Importantly, their behaviors on the event construal and
on the object construal diverge. Why would this be the case?
If we think in universal terms, the behavior of the Russian speakers seems even odder.
Compare the following English sentences, attempting to create equivalents of the Russian
sentences in (9) and (10).
(11) She washed clothes (for a living).
(12) ??She finished washing clothes.
The construal of (11), containing a generic object, is habitual, such as She washed clothes for a
living, or every day. When we impose a finished one-time event interpretation for (12), the
generic object sounds unnatural. So why are Russian speakers going for that unnatural
interpretation? We have to look to the other factors affecting object interpretation to answer that
question.
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In Russian, the relatively free word order, or scrambling, gives rise to different discourse
information structures. The preverbal position is normally related to Topic, or old information,
and the postverbal position is related to Focus, or new information (see Yokoyama, 1986;
Holloway King, 1995; Bailyn, 1995 for more discussion). Let me exemplify with some examples
from Ionin (2003, p. 111-112):
(13) Košk-a v-beža-la v komnatu
cat-NOM.fem PERF-run-PAST.fem into room-ACC.fem
‘The cat ran into the room.’
(14) V komnatu v-beža-la košk-a
into room-ACC.fem PERF-run-PAST.fem cat-NOM.fem
‘A cat ran into the room.’
(15) Lena pro-č-la (kakuju-to) knig-u. Ja ne znaju kakuju.
Lena PERF-read-PAST (some) book-ACC.fem I not know which
‘Lena read some book. I don’t know what.’
In (13), the prenominal subject is interpreted as Topic, hence known, contextually unique or
definite. The same subject is postverbal in (14), and it is interpreted as Focused, an unknown cat.
Indefinite non-specific objects also appear postverbally as in (15).
Is it possible that in the Slabakova (2004) experiment, there was a clash between
perfectivity and word order? All sentences testing the Event–Object Homomorphism had SVO
word order. On the one hand, the mass and bare plural objects were in the scope of a perfective
prefix, which would purportedly give rise to a quantized interpretation. On the other hand, the
objects were in postverbal position, which would normally lead to an indefinite specific as well
as non-specific interpretations, depending on the context. It is perhaps this clash of two sources
of semantic information that makes Russian native speakers accept both quantized and non-
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quantized object construals in perfective sentences. Of course, these are post-hoc speculations.
The point worth retaining from this discussion is that if variation in native judgments is
uncovered, it is likely that two or more factors have contributed to these judgments.
3. Case Study 2: Definiteness, Topicalization and Word Order
Word order and Topicalization is involved in the second case study I am going to discuss here,
this time in relation to definiteness. Definiteness is not a simple concept: it consists of a number
of semantic components such as familiarity, presupposition of existence, and uniqueness (Heim,
1991). In the study whose partial results I will use here, Cho and Slabakova (2014), we assumed
an informal definition of definiteness based on presupposition: a nominal is definite when there
is a presupposition of its referent being unique in the domain of discourse, where uniqueness can
be established through previous mention or world knowledge. This definition is valid for singular
nouns only, while for plural nouns there is a presupposition of maximality, that is, all members
of a specified set are included. Consider these examples from Holloway King (1995, p. 78). It
looks like there is another homomorphism, this time between definiteness and preverbal position,
indefiniteness and postverbal position. But that of course is because preverbal DPs are Topic,
and postverbal DPs are Focus (marked T/F in the examples).
(16) Na stole [+def/T] stoja-la lamp-a [−def/F].
on desk stand-PAST.fem lamp. NOM.fem
‘A lamp was on the desk/there was a lamp on the desk.’
(17) Lamp-a [+def/T] stoja-la na stole [−def/F].
lamp-NOM.fem stand-PAST.-fem on desk
‘The lamp was on a/the desk.’
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(18) Na stole [+def/T] lamp-a [+def/T] STOJA-LA (a ne leža-la).
on desk lamp-NOM.fem stand-PAST.fem (but not lie-PAST.fem)
‘The lamp was standing on the desk (it was not lying).’
However, Geist (2010) showed that if the familiarity condition is met, a DP receives a
definite interpretation regardless of word order position.
(19) Na tom stole leža-la knig-a i gazet-a. Anja vzjala knigu.
on that table lay-PAST book-NOM and newspaper-NOM. Anja took book-ACC
‘A book and a newspaper were lying on that table. Ann took the book.’
The referent kniga ‘book’ in the first sentence is in the postverbal position and there is no
presupposition that the referent is familiar to the hearer as well as the speaker; hence, kniga
‘book-NOM’ receives an indefinite reading from being in the postverbal (Focus) position. The
referent knigu ‘book-ACC’ in the second sentence is also postverbal; however, it is definite
since the referent kniga ‘book-NOM’ was introduced in the previous discourse, which
established familiarity. Corpus data confirm linguists’ intuitions and the fact that there is just a
tendency but not a 100% correlation between word order and information structure in Russian.
Sirotinina (1965/2003) offers counts of VO and OV word orders in various Russian registers
related to information structure. She reports that objects are preverbal in 7–9% of the cases in
scientific speech, 10–12% in literary texts and up to 60% in colloquial speech. Note that these
counts are compatible with the ones cited in Bailyn (2012, p. 249): OSV in 4% and OVS in 11%
of written sentences. Sirotinina’s distribution, given in Table 1 following Slioussar (2007),
shows a rough division of 40% to 60% for the word order–information structure correlation.
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Table 1: Correlation between word order and Given–New status of the object in Russian, from
Sirotinina (1965/2003)
Given object/Topic New object/Focus
VO 166 (39%) 206 (59.7%)
OV 259 (60.9%) 139 (40.3%)
The Cho and Slabakova (2014) study looked at how second language learners interpret
DPs in Russian in terms of definiteness, in two different constructions. One had to do with the
type of adjectival and nominal possessors (not discussed here), and the other had to do with word
order. This study investigated the second language acquisition of Russian definiteness by English
and Korean native speakers. However, I will only look at some results by the native Russian
speakers here. There were 57 native speakers of Russian participating, all were tested in
Moscow. This time we gave the participants contexts that clearly identified Topic and Focus.
Example (20) is a test item from one of our experimental conditions. The object sup ‘soup’ is
definitely given, or Topic, so it should be acceptable in preverbal position (Kovtunova, 1976,
1980).
(20) [+def]/Topic object in preverbal position (OVS should be accepted)
Oleg and his brothers Sergei and Aleksei always help their mom make dinner. Today
they made mushroom soup, baked potatoes and beet salad. When their dad came home and tried
the soup, he asked:
Q: Kto svaril takoj vkusnij sup? (‘Who made such delicious soup?’)
A: Sup svaril Oleg. 1 2 3 4 5 (expected)
soup boiled Oleg
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In (21), on the other hand, sup ‘soup’ is the answer to the wh-question, so it is new formation and
should be unacceptable at the beginning of the clause.
(21) [−def]/Focused object in preverbal position (OVS should be rejected)
I was watching TV when Aunt Galja called. She wanted to talk to Mom. I told her that
Mom was busy cooking. Aunt Galja asked:
Q: Čto gotovit tvoja mama? (‘What is your mom cooking?’)
A: Sup gotovit mama. 1 (expected) 2 3 4 5
soup cooks Mom
We asked Russian native speakers to rate these answers in terms of aceptability in the
context, in a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is unacceptable and 5 is perfectly acceptable. The mean
ratings on the test sentences (n = 6) are presented in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Russian native speakers’ mean ratings (out of 5) of two word order–context
combinations
Again, as in case study 1, this was an unexpected finding since the focused (indefinite)
DPs should have been rejected much more categorically in preverbal position (see example 21
4.44
3.24
1
2
3
4
5
Topic Object in OVS Focus Object in OVS
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and the right-hand column above) but native speakers rate them above the middle of the scale,
that is, 3. There is absolute clarity with respect to familiarity here. The object that the Russian
speakers accepted in preverbal position was in answer to a “what” question, so clearly Focus,
that is, unfamiliar, new information. The group results showed that there was a significant
difference between the ratings of the purportedly acceptable and unacceptable sentences. A
paired samples t-test indicated that the rate difference is statistically highly significant (t = 9.532,
p < 0.0001). However, on an individual level, only 33, or 58.93%, of all 57 participants made a
statistically significant distinction. In addition, there is quite a lot of variation in the Russian
native ratings. Nine native speakers of Russian incorrectly accepted the OVS order in the
contexts with a Focused object, giving average rating of 4 or higher. Seven native speakers
unexpectedly rejected the OVS order in the contexts with a topicalized object. The standard
deviations of the two mean ratings in Figure 2 are .67 and .75, respectively. I try to make sense
of these findings in the next section.
4. Discussion
Let us first take stock of the findings in case study 1 and case study 2. In study 1, speakers were
asked about construal without context, and they did not show that they obeyed the Event–Object
Homomorphism. Perfective verbs did not impose a quantized construal on Incremental Theme
objects. In study 2, speakers were asked about acceptability of preverbal objects (OVS) in clear
focused context (answer to a wh-question). The expectation was that the focused object would go
at the end of the sentence. Again, there was a lot of variation, and over-acceptance of Focused
objects in preverbal OVS positions.
Is it the case that anything goes in Russian grammar? Obviously not, but we have just
seen that some categorical claims in the literature, like the Event–Object homomorphism, and the
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discourse mapping of Topic > Focus, are not observed in 100% of cases, and that variation is
pervasive. Again, we have corpus support reflected in Table 1. What kind of concept of the
grammar, or more specifically, of the syntax-semantics interface, do findings such as these
support? And how is Russian grammar different from English grammar in this respect? In order
to make sense of this situation, I will use here a concept of the grammar that is proffered and
supported in Ramchand and Svenonius (2008). In this view of the grammar, all languages have
the same formal syntax (which the authors dub syn/sem) and Conceptual-Intentional systems
(Chomsky, 2004), or Conceptual Structure (Jackendoff, 2002). Consequently, all languages can
express all (grammatical) meanings. Some languages express those meanings morphologically or
syntactically, and some languages express those meanings postsyntactically through context.
Thus, language variation lies only in the way languages express the universal meanings.
However, Ramchand and Svenonius (2008, p. 225) also argue against identical syn/sem (or LF)
representations in all languages. They argue that some meanings are underspecified, and thus it is
left to the context to fix them, or fill in additional meanings. To be more concrete, let us take an
example from Northern Sámi first person plural and dual pronouns, in comparison with English
nominative pronouns.
(22) Northern Sámi and English first person plural and dual pronouns
Syn/Sem Conceptual-Intentional
Northern Sámi: mii “I and others”
moai “I and one other”
English: we “I and others”
we “I and one other”
Northern Sámi has a plural we and a dual we. One can think of the Sámi and English pronouns as
represented in (22), where English has two homophonous pronouns we, one with the meaning “I
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and one other” and another with the meaning “I and others.” We can also think of the same
situation in another way, as represented in (23).
(23) Underspecified English system:
Syn/Sem Conceptual-Intentional
Northern Sámi: mii “I and others”
moai “I and one other”
English: we “I and one or more others”
Context will make it clear whether “we” refers to two or more individuals, including the speaker,
or it truly doesn’t matter. The grammar (syn/sem) underspecifies that feature.
To come back to the definiteness discussion, Ramchand and Svenonius (2008) capitalize
on the fact that some semantic features are left underspecified by the syntax and interpreted by
the C-I systems, for example tracking of referents in the discourse. Their approach forces all
languages to have a DP projection so that nominals can be interpreted as arguments; however,
some languages have overt morphophonological material in the
D head while others have null D heads. English has two distinct D elements (a, the) of type <<e,
t>, e>, making the whole DP to be of type <e> (mapping a predicate to an individual), each of
which carries different information as to the familiarity of the NP referent. Russian has an
underspecified null D whose concrete interpretation is filled in each discourse situation by the C-
I system. As mentioned above, in the table ‘syn/sem’ stands for the meaning being fixed by the
syntax at LF while ‘C-I’ stands for the interpretation being resolved by the Conceptual-
Intentional systems.
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Table 2: Parametric variation in encoding nominal meanings across languages
Meanings Norwegian English Lillooet Salish Russian
Argument-hood syn/sem syn/sem syn/sem syn/sem
Definiteness syn/sem syn/sem C-I C-I
Specificity syn/sem C-I syn/sem C-I
Argument tracking C-I C-I C-I C-I
Table 2 is cited from Ramchand and Svenonius (2008, p. 227) and, in my opinion, omits
some meaning expressions while trying to make a bigger point. For example, the table
incorrectly asserts that Russian does not mark specificity overtly, while in fact Russian has a
range of indefinite pronouns and determiners derived from them (koe-kakoj, kakoj-to, kakoj-
nibud’), which do mark specificity and/or scope, and whose acquisition we investigate in other
work. The bigger point, even if not all attributions in the various cells of Table 2 are completely
accurate, is still a valuable insight. It is not only possible, but also profitable to account for some
of language variation in this way.
Ramchand and Svenonius’s (2008) proposal may be speculative at this point and in need
of significant empirical support; however, it bears important implications for language
acquisition and language use. If all languages have the same universal syntactic/semantic system
and parametric variation captures the way universal meanings are encoded (i.e. morphologically
or contextually), then speakers of some languages may be more attuned to, and as a result more
sensitive to, variation, ambiguity and fuzzy meanings ultimately fixed by context. Inevitably,
higher standard deviations will be attested in ratings or evaluations of meanings and strings in
these languages. In other words, linguistic judgments will be more flexible. To be sure, this
parametric variation may come in addition to other, more categorical, parametric variation in
features.
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How can this idea of the language architecture explain what we observed in the two case
studies? In study 1, speakers evaluated sentences without the benefit of context, and they
signaled that the Event–Object Homomorphism may be violated if context pushed against it.
Note that the speakers are not offering some wild judgment, such as that only generic objects are
possible in perfective sentences (see Figure 2), but that generic and definite specific object
construals are possible, if supported by context. In study 2, the speakers allow Focused objects in
preverbal positions, although they do distinguish them from Topicalized objects in acceptability.
If we look at Table 1 again, we can see why: there are about 40% of new information objects in
preverbal positions. The Topic-Focus distinction is not exclusively marked through word order.
One can think of at least one other factor that may play a role in this marking, such as intonation.
It is in fact possible that the native speakers who accept the OVS word order are attributing some
Focus intonation to the fronted object in silent pronunciation.
If this concept of the grammar is on the right track, the implication for psycholinguistic
methodology is clear. If a lot of grammatical meanings in Russian are underspecified, hence
dependent on context, lexical items, word order, Information Structure, intonation, and possibly
other factors to fix the exact meaning in every case, then our elicitation methods will have to take
this fact into account. For example, the newer methods such as ERPs and eye tracking might not
be able to get a good reading of speaker construals, because speakers are aware of a multitude of
possible meanings and strings. ERPs and eye tracking depend on sharp contrasts and minimally
distinct baseline and experimental test items. Thus these methods would not be appropriate for
testing fluid, flexible meanings.
In conclusion, it may be the case that some languages leave certain linguistic meanings to
be fixed by context, or by subtle combinations of multiple factors, while other languages fix
grammatical meanings more often through functional morphology. Slavic languages may be
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among the former with respect to aspect, definiteness, word order, information structure, etc.
Hence, experimental psycholinguistic research in Slavic languages needs to pay a lot more
attention to a multitude of linguistic factors: grammatical, contextual and lexical. This variation
is in addition to psycholinguistic variables such as the type of task, presentation, order of tasks,
fillers, etc. and sociolinguistic variables such as amount of proficiency of native speakers,
exposure to type of language, education levels and socio-economic status. If we are aware of the
pitfalls to our experimental research, we are halfway to meaningful solutions. At the same time,
we should not be so petrified by the factors that bring variance into our experiments, so that we
stop making experiments.
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Author introduction
Roumyana Slabakova is a Professor and Chair of Applied Linguistics at the University of Southampton, UK, and a Professor Emeritus at the University of Iowa, where she taught previously. Her research interest is in the second language acquisition of meaning, more
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specifically phrasal-semantic, discourse, and pragmatic meanings. Her monographs include Telicity in the Second Language (Benjamins 2001) and Meaning in the Second Language (Mouton de Gruyter 2008). She co-edits the journal Second Language Research (Sage). Her textbook entitled Second Language Acquisition will be published by Oxford University Press in March 2016. Address for correspondence: Roumyana Slabakova, Modern Languages, University of Southampton, Avenue Campus 65/3029, Southampton SO17 1BF, UK. <[email protected]>