Lobo, Nicole Simone
(2024)
Influences of Negation on the Predictability and Informativity of Sentence Continuations.
Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
This is the latest version of this item.
Abstract
This study investigates how negation influences expectations for upcoming words in sentences, examining the interplay between negation, semantic constraints, and informativity. Experiments 1 and 2 extended Albu et al.'s (2024) findings by using a regular cloze task to explore how negation and modal adverbials affect sentence completions. Results showed negative sentences yielded completions with lower semantic relatedness, higher entropy, and lower cloze probabilities compared to affirmative conditions, with modal adverbials further reducing informativity and semantic constraint. These findings suggest negation serves multiple functions, including describing negative events and denying plausible ones. Building on these results, Experiments 3 and 4 focused on comprehenders' expectations about speaker informativity with negation. Experiment 3 employed a two-choice cloze task, while Experiment 4 used a regular cloze task. Results revealed a preference for negating antonyms, preserving the meaning of affirmative counterparts, indicating a tendency to use negation for describing events rather than solely for deviating from expectations. The study highlights negation's complex, context-dependent role in language processing and production. Future research directions include investigating shared knowledge among interlocutors, exploring interactions between pragmatic markers and negation, and conducting corpus analyses to complement these experimental findings.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
| Creators | Email | Pitt Username | ORCID  |
|---|
| Lobo, Nicole Simone | nsl19@pitt.edu | nsl19 | |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
29 March 2024 |
| Approval Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
22 July 2024 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
83 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Psychology |
| Degree: |
MS - Master of Science |
| Thesis Type: |
Master's Thesis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Negation, Semantic Constraints, Plausibility, Denial, Cloze Task, Informativity, Predictability |
| Date Deposited: |
27 Aug 2024 13:29 |
| Last Modified: |
27 Aug 2024 13:29 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46745 |
Available Versions of this Item
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Influences of Negation on the Predictability and Informativity of Sentence Continuations. (deposited 27 Aug 2024 13:29)
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