How adults and children manage stress in ambiguous contexts
| Abstract | This paper investigates the influence of contrastive stress in resolving potential semantic ambiguities. The sentences under investigation contain the focus operator only. Sentences with only have three main properties: (a) some sentential element is typically in focus, (b) the speaker presupposes that a set of alternatives to the focus element (the contrast set) has previously been introduced in the context; and (c) the speaker makes the assertion that the focus element has some unique property which other members of the reference set lack. Previous literature on focus has concluded that stress plays a role in the interpretation of only-sentences in many natural languages, including English (Rooth, 1992). In processing terms, this suggests that contrastive stress could immediately determine which NP bears the semantic focus (and therefore the NP that presupposes a contrast set in the context). On this scenario, the processing cost associated with contrastive stress should be no greater than the cost associated with neutral stress. | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesWim J. Steen & Martin Scholten (1985). Methodological Problems in Evolutionary Biology IV. Stress and Stress Tolerance, an Excercise in Definitions. Acta Biotheoretica 34 (1).
Alicia M. Evans, David A. Pereira & Judith M. Parker (2008). Occupational Distress in Nursing: A Psychoanalytic Reading of the Literature. Nursing Philosophy 9 (3):195-204.
Christopher Read Hitchcock (1996). The Role of Contrast in Causal and Explanatory Claims. Synthese 107 (3):395 - 419.
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