Table Of ContentSpringer Series in Language and Communication 16
Editor: W J. M. Levelt
Springer Series in Language and Communication
Editor: W. J. M. Levelt
Volume 1 Developing Grammars
By W Klein and N. Dittmar
Volume 2 The Child's Conception of Language 2nd Printing
Editors: A Sinclair, R J. Jarvella, and W J. M. Levelt
Volume 3 The Logic of Language Development in Early Childhood
By M. Miller
Volume 4 Inferring from Language By L. G. M. Noordman
Volume 5 Retrieval from Semantic Memory
By W Noordman-Vonk
Volume 6 Semantics from Different Points of View
u.
Editors: R Bauerle, Egli, and A von Stechow
Volume 7 Lectures on Language Performance By Ch. E. Osgood
Volume 8 Speech Act Classification
By Th. Ballmer and W Brennenstuhl
Volume 9 The Development of Metalinguistic Abilities in Children
By D. T. Hakes
Volume 10 Modelling Language Behaviour
By R Narasimhan
Volume 11 Language in Primates: Perspectives and Implications
Editors: J. de Luce and H. T. Wilder
Volume 12 Concept Development and the Development of Word Meaning
Editors: Th. B. Seiler and W Wannenmacher
Volume 13 The Sun is Feminine
A Study on Language Acquisition in Bilingual Children
By T. Taeschner
Volume 14 Prosody: Models and Measurements
Editors: A Cutler and D. R Ladd
Volume 15 Metalinguistic Awareness in Children
Theory, Research, and Implications
Editors: W. E. Tunmer, C. Pratt, and M. L. Herriman
Volume 16 Dynamic Aspects of Language Processing
Focus and Presupposition
By J. Engelkamp and H. D. Zimmer
J. Engelkamp H. D. Zimmer
Dynamic Aspects
of Language Processing
Focus and Presupposition
With 17 Figures
Springer-Verlag
Berlin Heidelberg New York Tokyo 1983
Professor Dr. Johannes Enge1kamp
Dr. Hubert D. Zimmer
Fachrichtung Psychologie, Universitiit des Saarlandes,
D-6600 Saarbriicken-ll, Fed. Rep. of Germany
Series Editor:
Professor Dr. Willem J. M. Leve1t
Max-Planck-Institut fUr Psycholinguistik, Berg en Dalseweg 79,
6522 Be Nijmegen, The Netherlands
ISBN-13: 978-3-642-69118-8 e-ISBN-13: 978-3-642-69116-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-3-642-69116-
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data. Engelkamp, 10hannes. Dynamic aspects oflanguage proces
sing. (Springer series in language and communication; v. 16). Bibliography; p. Includes indexes. 1. Oral communi
cation -Psychological aspects. 2. Psycholinguistics. 3. Comprehension. 4. Knowledge, Theory of. I. Zimmer, H.
D. (Hubert D.), 1953-. II. Title. III. Series. P95.E53 1983 001.54'2'019 83-12407
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Preface
This book deals with the conditions and the consequences of the production
of different syntactic sentence structures. During the sixties the syntactic
structure of sentences was one of the most intensively studied topics in
psycholinguistic research. The dominant interest did not, however, lie in the
function of syntactic structures but in the ability to understand and to utter
them. Later, in the seventies the interest shifted to the semantic structure of
sentences. Many studies centred around the structural aspects of the repre
sentation of knowledge. The leading question was: how can the meaning of
an utterance be described? The widely accepted answer was: the central unit
of meaning is the proposition. From this point of view, the aim of an utter
ance is to transmit propositional meaning, and syntactic structure is of inter
est only insofar as it influences the comprehension of propositional meaning.
In this book both aspects, i.e. the syntactic and the semantic structure of
sentences have been considered. The dynamic aspects of knowledge use and
its relationship to the syntactic structure of sentences are thoroughly analysed
and studied empirically. The main question is how semantic knowledge is
communicated through syntactic structure. Syntactic structure has causes and
consequences. In general we assume that the syntactic structure reflects
dynamic aspects of the knowledge base of the speaker and determines
dynamic states in the listener. The main concept of this analysis is therefore
the activation and deactivation of knowledge, its givenness or newness for
the listener, and their expression in the syntactic structure of sentences. The
syntactic features studied are subjectivization, clefting of concepts, and arti
cle use. The central hypothesis is that prior perception, thoughts, or utter
ances determine the speaker's activation of knowledge, 'which in turn deter
mines the syntactic structure of sentences. This structure determines the
activation of knowledge on the part of the listener and, as a consequence, his
pictorial perception, for example. Picture inspection time is therefore
regarded in this study as one of the indicators of sentence-processing by the
listener. Sematic and syntactic structure are thus integrated by the concept of
dynamic aspects of knowledge. This concept allows not only of the descrip
tion of sentence structures as linguistic forms but also of considering the
function of sentence structures in their communicative context.
For these reasons, this book should be of especial interest for linguists
and psychologists. Yet everyone else who is interested in the influence of our
language on others as well as in the influence of others' language on ourselves
will profit from reading this book.
Saarbriicken, July 1983 J. Engelkamp . H. D. Zimmer
Acknowledgements
This book was produced as part of a project called "The Influence of Lan
guage on the Processing of Visual Information" promoted by the "Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft". We wish to thank the "Deutsche Forschungs
gemeinschaft" for its support. Our thanks are also due to Ulrike Becker and
Rosel Bruckbauer for their help in carrying out and evaluating the experi
ments, to Anne Charlton for her assistance in producing the English version
of the manuscript, and not least to Uta Plisch for her careful preparation of
the typescript.
Contents
1. Introduction . ............. ...... 1
1.1 The Aim ofthe Book . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Propositional Model of Understanding 3
1.3 Drawbacks of the Propositional Model of Understanding 5
1.4 The Organization ofthe Book . 7
2. Typology of Knowledge . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Entities and Predicates .... 9
2.2 Factual and General Knowledge 10
3. States of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.1 Given and New Knowledge . . . 14
3.2 Activated, Deactivated and Focused Knowledge 19
3.3 Thematized Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . 25
4. Speech and the Visual Processing of Information . 27
4.1 Three Kinds of Verbal Influence on Perception 27
4.2 Speech, Focus of Attention, and Perception . 29
5. General Reflections on Communication 31
5.1 A Model of Communication . . 31
5.2 The Process of Understanding . . 33
6. Verbal Communication of Given and New Information 36
6.1 Verbal Communication of Conceptually Given and New
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 6 .
6.2 Verbal Communication of Relationally Given and New
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . 3. 9 . .
6.3 Verbal Communication of Conceptually Given and New
Information in the Context of Relationally Given and New
Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
7. Verbal Communication of Focused Concepts . 45
7.1 Verbal Communication of the Thematization Focus . 45
7.1.1 Actional Structure and Subjectivization ... 46
7.1.2 The Size of Reference Objects and Subjectivization 47
X Contents
7.1.3 Known Concepts and Subjectivization .... 49
7.1.4 Comparison of Active and Passive Sentences. 51
7.2 Verbal Communication of Gap-Motivated Focus .. 52
8. Verbal Communication of Relationally Given and New Information
in Standard Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
8.1 Passivization and Relational Given-New Structure 54
8.2 Article Use and Relational Given-New Structure 56
9. Causes and Consequences of Focusing . . . . . . . . . 61
9.1 Subjectivization and Focusing. . . . . . . . . . 62
9.1.1 Subjectivization and Focusing for the Speaker 62
9.1.2 Subjectivization and Focusing for the Hearer . 63
9.2 Clefting and Focusing . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
9.2.1 Clefting and Focusing for the Speaker 64
9.2.2 Clefting and Focusing for the Hearer 66
10. Interaction Between Subjectivization and Clefting 73
10.1 Subjectivization and Clefting for the Speaker 74
10.2 Subjectivization and Clefting for the Hearer 80
10.3 Subjectivization and Clefting for Speaker and Hearer . 87
11. Conclusion 89
References . . 92
Author Index . 99
Subject Index 101
1. Introduction
1.1 The Aim of the Book
This book is a report on some of the most significant results of a research
project supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft which took place
between September 1, 1978 and August 31, 1981. The fundamental aim of
the project was to gain insights into the function of various syntactic-stylistic
characteristics of utterances, in partiCular by examining the interaction
between the processing of linguistic information and visual information. Of
special interest were the conditions under which a speaker produces such
characteristics, and more particularly, what effect they have on the under
standing process of the hearer.
In the following we outline the general reflections on the production and
reception of linguistic utterances which formed the starting point of our
work. This should help the reader to place the research reported here in a
larger framework, and to follow our motivation in examining specific
research questions.
During the seventies, many analyses of the comprehension process and
the representation of sentence meaning centred around the concept of prop
osition (e.g. [Clark and Clark, 1977; Engelkamp, 1973, 1976; Kintsch,
1974]). To simplify matters, we have summarized such models here as the
propositional model. Although the models differ in certain details, they share
the common idea that cognitive states of knowledge are expressed in sen
tences in the form of propositions. In other words, propositions form the
underlying structure of sentences.
We assume in this book that these cognitive states of knowledge are
structured. The propositions which form our knowledge consist of combina
tions of concepts. The assumption of structuredness implies that the concepts
are of unequal value; one of them forms the nucleus of the knowledge struc
ture, and the rest are non-nuclear. We call the central concept of such a
knowledge structure its focus.
The states of knowledge which we are concerned with here are referred to
as activated states of knowledge in information-processing psychology. We
describe the process of knowledge activation as the directing of attention.
The knowledge activated at a certain time has a more or less strongly marked
focus, which we call the focus of attention. It corresponds to the central
concept of the propositional knowledge structure.
2 1. Introduction
The propositional knowledge structure postulated here is, in other words,
more discriminating than that assumed in the simple propositional model of
understanding. This is relevant to the hypothesis which follows.
We assume that the structure of the speaker's activated knowledge deter
mines the syntactic-stylistic structure of the sentences he utters. The structure
of knowledge, or, to be more accurate, the activated knowledge structure,
may itself be determined by preceding utterances or perceptions, for example
by pictures.
With regard to the hearer we assume that sentence structure plays an
important role in determining and triggering the activation of the knowledge
structure, and that the knowledge structure arises among other things as a
result of sentence processing. The knowledge structure thus activated deter
mines perception (in our case, of pictures). The perception of pictures can, in
other words, be indirectly determined by the speaker's choice of syntactic
stylistic structure.
The main difference between our approach and the propositional model
is that we take more aspects of the knowledge structure into consideration,
and assume that these aspects are portrayed in the verbal structure. Thus, the
function of syntactic-stylistic sentence features, as yet not considered in the
propositional model, is explained at the same time.
The research reported here, however, is restricted to a few selected sen
tence features. It centres on the communication of focused concepts. The
following two questions were of fundamental importance in our work:
Why are there passive sentences such as (1.1), as well as active ones?
The Home Secretary was seriously injured by demonstrators. (1.1)
Why do cleft sentences like (1.2) exist alongside standard sentences?
It was today's distribution of reports which drove the boy to his death.
(1.2)
With the structure of activated knowledge as our starting point, the central
questions of this book are: how is the focus of attention expressed in utter
ances, and what effect does it have on the hearer? As can be inferred from
what we have said so far, we assume that both the grammatical subject and
the clefted phrase in the cleft sentence form a focus of attention, or corre
spond to one.
Our reflections relate not so much to the question of what knowledge is
activated during an utterance, as to how strongly that knowledge is activated,
and what effect the degree of this activation has on the processing of the
corresponding visual information.
