tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post4329135474254194347..comments2023-10-23T11:13:35.712-04:00Comments on Games with Words: Findings: The Causality Implicit in LanguageEdwardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04295927435118827266noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-71372966449084424132011-01-03T10:41:25.505-05:002011-01-03T10:41:25.505-05:00@Uzza: I suspect it just means that one couldn'...@Uzza: I suspect it just means that one couldn't study the pronoun effect by asking about interpretation of pronouns that have already been produced, but you could study it other ways (as you suggest, by doing a kind of "fill-in-the-blank" method; I don't use that method often, but I have used it and lots of other people use it more).<br /><br />Still, it's worth thinking about whether this different pronoun system might give rise to useful effects that could be tested in ASL but not spoken languages. Thank you for bringing it up.GamesWithWordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15107067137612954306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-12874477160465345212011-01-03T02:58:33.422-05:002011-01-03T02:58:33.422-05:00Yes, the pronouns are marked for a specific locati...Yes, the pronouns are marked for a specific location in space, and since its impossible for more than one person to occupy said space at a given time, there's no ambiguity possible. Rather than he or she, a better translation might be “person in location X”. Then, with first mention of Mary made to your right, at location R, and first mention of Sally to your left; <br /><br />(a) Location-R-person loves location-L-person because location-R-person …<br /><br />The only interpretation possible is: Mary is the lover, Sally the lovee, and the reason is something about Mary. This appears to eliminate the pronoun effect, no? Then, ASL has pretty free word order, so I can sign <br /><br />(b) person-at-R loves person-at-L, because, really nice is person-at-R. <br /><br />If I were to cut that off just before the last word, I believe that would generate your causal attribution effect, leaving the signee wondering whether Mary loved Sally because Sally is so lovable, or whether she did so because Mary herself was just a loving type person. <br /><br />When I signed the last word I'd be pointing at Mary (or her location) and the issue would get resolved in favor of Mary just being so lovey. Wouldn't such a test separate the two effects you are looking at?uzzahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02494141255401096538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-91726618001912214632011-01-01T13:11:38.054-05:002011-01-01T13:11:38.054-05:00@Uzza: How do third-person pronouns work in ASL? T...@Uzza: How do third-person pronouns work in ASL? That is, suppose you're referring to someone who isn't there. Do you do this through a spatial reference (pointing to the spot where you previously signed the name of the person)? More detail would help.GamesWithWordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15107067137612954306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-55056666738522442962010-12-30T14:43:06.517-05:002010-12-30T14:43:06.517-05:00Hi. Stumbled over your blog and have been reading ...Hi. Stumbled over your blog and have been reading about pronouns. I have to ask, have you considered signed languages?<br /><br />In ASL for example, the example sentences are not ambiguous at all, because signed pronouns are not. However, I can sign them so the causal attribution effect shows up. This seems provide a negative answer to the question of whether the causal attribution effect and the pronoun effect are one and the same.uzzahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02494141255401096538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-85783512840930992042010-10-20T20:01:08.474-04:002010-10-20T20:01:08.474-04:00@jvn0: You have some interesting points. I think y...@jvn0: You have some interesting points. I think you are focusing on the fact that subject of "hate" and the object of "frighten" have to be animate (people, animals, etc.), and animates are usually subjects. On the other hand, though, the object of "hate" and the subject of "frighten" are in some sense the cause of the emotion, and causes are usually subjects. So while there are good arguments that "frighten" is somehow backwards, there are just as good arguments that "hate" is the weird verb. <br /><br />In terms of research, there was a movement in the 80s to argue that basically the language system can't figure out what the subject should be, so for some verbs people agree to make the animate the subject (e.g., hate) and for some the object (e.g., frighten). <br /><br />In the 90s, other linguists pursued a theory close to what you advocate here. It didn't do well. It turns out that most of the data they thought supported the theory were simply misinterpreted. When I started my work a few years ago, I actually was pushing the opposite claim: that "frighten" is the normal kind of verb and "hate" is weird. But the data I've gotten in the last couple years suggest that something much, much more complicated is going on.<br /><br />What I think is going on will require a number of posts (I said it was complicated!), so I won't go into it here.<br /><br />In any case, I'm not sure anything in my data suggest that people were confused by the "frighten" verbs. Which part of the post were you referring to?GamesWithWordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15107067137612954306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-69207840780652303802010-10-19T08:36:18.456-04:002010-10-19T08:36:18.456-04:00Are "hates" and "frightens" co...Are "hates" and "frightens" comparable verbs?<br /><br />"Hates" is an active verb expressing a relation from subject to object.<br /><br />"Frightens" is a passive verb expressing a relation from object to subject (or with those reversed).<br /><br />"Mary hates Sally" is comparable to "Mary fears Sally" because "fears" is an active verb.<br /><br />"Mary frightens Sally" is comparable to "Mary disgusts Sally" because "disgusts" is a passive verb.<br /><br />Sorry I don't know technical linguistics terms for what I call active/passive.<br /><br />We can explain uncertainty of users because passive language is known to be difficult.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-58645016250950889912010-10-10T22:18:51.745-04:002010-10-10T22:18:51.745-04:00"A proper study of pronoun resolution would r..."A proper study of pronoun resolution would require several invented words in order to cancel out this effect."<br /><br />You raise a good point. I agree, and I do control for such things. Well, I did in Pronoun Sleuth (the novel word is randomly assigned for every participant for every sentence). <br /><br />It happens that I didn't do so in this particular study; instead, I controlled for the potential confound other ways (for instance, by running experiments with and without novel words -- which incidentally gave the same results). <br /><br />I don't usually go through all the methodological details in posts like this on the theory that most people don't care. But I'm always happy to discuss details in the comments.GamesWithWordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15107067137612954306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-53720162263971874332010-10-10T20:27:49.399-04:002010-10-10T20:27:49.399-04:00Way back when I did the 'Find the Dax' exp...Way back when I did the 'Find the Dax' experiment, I remember thinking what I still think now, that sound symbolism will be a significant factor in the results. That is, when a sentence could be either subject-biased or object-biased, people will be swayed in part by what sort of image the look and sound of the word "dax" conjures up (e.g. it may sound alien, robotic, untrustworthy, etc). A proper study of pronoun resolution would require several invented words in order to cancel out this effect.<br /><br />Do you discuss such things in your report on the experiment? I do hope so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-32964200016619582592010-10-07T09:02:15.803-04:002010-10-07T09:02:15.803-04:00@DW Errors in the "More evidence" sectio...@DW Errors in the "More evidence" section are fixed. What an I say? Don't write blog posts at night. (I wouldn't normally, but this post also serves as additional debriefing for participants in the experiment, and it was overdue as was.) It should make more sense now.<br /><br />As far as how people continue the sentence after "he". I find your intuitions there very interesting and probably relevant. For instance, I get different intuitions for<br /><br />Sally liked Mary because she is a dax.<br />Sally liked Mary because she daxed.<br /><br />with the second sentence being slightly less object-biased (the word "dax" here is just a made up word -- a noun in the first case and a verb in the second). <br /><br />Overall, though, the difference between "like" and "frighten" shows up across many different ways of doing this experiment. I gave only one example. Another one is the method used above: write out the full sentence and then ask people to interpret the pronoun.GamesWithWordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15107067137612954306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7701757403364514168.post-92216290362161427952010-10-07T02:45:00.139-04:002010-10-07T02:45:00.139-04:00Hi
Thank you for an interesting post.
It seems ...Hi <br /><br />Thank you for an interesting post.<br /><br />It seems that this effect is linked to cognitive biases. Our brains are have various mechanisms for dealing with information gaps in the world around us - and these heuristic systems lead to predictable errors in judgement.<br /><br />There are fundamental qualitative differences between the sentence 'Sally hates Mary' and the sentence 'The boss hated the employee'.<br /><br />In the first sentence, we know nothing about Sally and Mary. We don't know who they are and what relationship they have with each other. Lacking this contextual information we tend to fall prey to fundamental attribution error and allocate causality to some personality-based explanation. Lacking any other information, we conclude that it must be something to do with how one of the protagonists behaves rather than the situation in which they find themselves or the history of their relationship. The object-bias of 'hates' combined with fundamental attribution error encourages us to ascribe causation to Mary. So, when we add 'because she...' we are likely to complete the sentence 'because she is...'<br /><br />In the second situation, we are given more contextual information about the protagonists. We know something about their relationship: one is the boss, the other is the employee. We know something about their situation and can make experience-based inferences about their history. This reduces the likelihood of fundamental attribution error. Rather than attributing the cause of the hate to personal characteristics of the boss or the employee, we are just as likely to attribute it to something that has happened between them in the past, or just the fraught nature of the boss-employee relationship. Now when we add the explanation 'because he...' we are less certain how it will continue. It could be 'because he is...' or it could be 'because he did...' or 'because he failed...', 'because he lied about...', etc.<br /><br />Added to this, there's the the fact that one uses the present tense and the other the past. The use of the present tense implies an ongoing situation which is not changed by situational actions and so is more likely to be attributable to personal characteristics. The use of the past tense implies causation linked to a specific event that happened at a particular time. <br /><br />(By the way, you may need to edit the first paragraph of the More Evidence section - it doesn't seem to make sense. And have you got object and subject mixed up or am I just confused?)<br /><br />Without more detailed information about the data it's hard to know whether these concerns are relevant to your experiment or not. Apologies if I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.<br /><br />DavidDavid Winterhttp://careersintheory.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com