Afstudeercolloquium: Marieke van der Feen

Dit jaar gaat CoVer ook de (afstudeer-)colloquia promoten. Zodoende kunnen leden een duidelijker beeld krijgen van het onderzoek aan het eigen instituut. Wil je meer van de colloquia weten? Kijk dan op www.ai.rug.nl/nl/colloquia

Deze week: Marieke van der Feen: \"Do rules add up?\"
Toelichting bij dit colloquium:

Cumulativity of constraints in the interpretation of incomplete coordinate constructions

In Optimality Theory, determining the optimal candidate is traditionally done on the basis of strict domination.
A violation of a higher ranked constraint is always more serious than no matter how many violations of lower
ranked constraints. Recently, there have been indications that strict domination is not suitable as an evaluation
method for some types of linguistic data. An interesting question is whether in some linguistic fields
cumulativity of constraints - in which a combination of violations of lower ranked constraints can overrule a
higher constraint violation - is a more accurate way to evaluate candidates.

My research focused on the interpretation of (possible) gapping constructions. The central issue is the ambiguity
in sentences such as: \"Grace geeft Stan een shirt en Will een trui.\" (Grace gives Stan a shirt and Will a
sweater). Will can be the person giving Stan a sweater or he can be the person receiving the sweater. The factors
influencing the interpretation this kind of sentences can be defined as OT constraints.

I implemented an OT computer model of the interpretation of gapping. This model evaluates interpretation
candidates according to different constraint evaluation methods: Strict domination and three methods in which
constraints interact in a cumulative manner. These four hypotheses on the evaluation of interpretation candidates
were then tested in a pilot experiment, in which subjects were asked to give their interpretation of sentences.
The experimental results point to an explanation in which cumulativity of constraints plays a role. In my
presentation I will discuss my results further.