Cover not available
Article published In:
Asymmetries, Mismatches and Construction Grammar
Edited by Nikos Koutsoukos, Kristel Van Goethem and Hendrik De Smet
[Constructions and Frames 10:2] 2018
► pp. 234–268

Match, mismatch, and envisioning transfer events

How verbal constructional bias and lexical-class concord shape motor simulation effects

| University of Colorado Boulder
| University of Colorado Boulder

Prior studies suggest that language users perform motoric simulations when construing action sentences and that verbs and constructions each contribute to simulation-based representation (Glenberg & Kaschak 2002; Richardson et al. 2003; Bergen et al. 2007; Bergen & Wheeler 2010). This raises the possibility that motorically grounded verb and construction meanings can interact during sentence understanding. In this experiment, we use the action-sentence compatibility effect methodology to investigate how a verb’s lexical-class membership, constructional context, and constructional bias modulate motor simulation effects. Stimuli represent two classes of transfer verbs and two constructions that encode transfer events, Ditransitive and Oblique Goal (Goldberg 1995). Findings reveal two kinds of verb-construction interactions. First, verbs in their preferred construction generate stronger simulation effects overall than those in their dispreferred construction. Second, verbs that entail change of possession generate strong motor-simulation effects irrespective of constructional context, while those entailing causation of motion exert such effects only when enriched up to change-of-possession verbs in the semantically mismatched Ditransitive context. We conclude that simulation effects are not isolable to either verbs or constructions but instead arise from the interplay of verb and construction meaning.

Keywords: simulation semantics, lexical class, construction grammar, verb complementation bias, verb frequency, dative alternation, transfer verbs
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical and methodological background
    • 2.1The dative opposition, verb classes, and syntactic preference
    • 2.2Motor simulation effects and methodologies
  • 3.Predictions
  • 4.Methods
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Materials
    • 4.3Design and procedure
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Construction type significantly predicts motor simulation effects
    • 6.2Frequency-based concord significantly predicts motor simulation effects
    • 6.3Lexical-semantic concord significantly predicts motor simulation effects
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 January 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cf.00020.gou
References
Anderson, S. E., & Spivey, M. J.
(2009) The enactment of language: Decades of interactions between linguistic and motor processes. Language and Cognition, 11, 87–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, E., Bretherton, I., & Snyder, L.
(1988) From first words to grammar: Individual differences and dissociable mechanisms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W.
(1999) Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 221, 577–660. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bergen, B., & Chang, N.
(2005) Embodied construction grammar in simulation-based language understanding. In J.-O. Östman & M. Fried (Eds.), Construction grammars: Cognitive grounding and theoretical extensions, 31, 147–190. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2013) Embodied Construction Grammar. In T. Hoffmann, & G. Trousdale (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 168–190). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bergen, B. K., & Han, W.-W.
(2008) Constructional meaning and mental simulation. Paper presented at the Fifth International Conference on Construction Grammar. University of Texas, Austin.
Bergen, B. K., Lindsay, S., Matlock, T., & Narayanan, S.
(2007) Spatial and linguistic aspects of visual imagery in sentence comprehension. Cognitive Science, 311, 733–764. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bergen, B., & Wheeler, K.
(2010) Grammatical aspect and mental simulation. Brain and Language, 1121, 150–158. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J.
(1994) Locative inversion and the architecture of universal grammar. Language, 701, 2–131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J., Cueni, A., Nikitina, T., & Baayen, R. H.
(2007) Predicting the dative alternation. In G. Bouma, I. Krämer, & J. Zwarts (Eds.), Cognitive foundations of interpretation (pp. 69–94). Amsterdam: Royal Academy of Science.Google Scholar
Bybee, J.
(2001) Phonology and language use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010) Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campbell, A., & Tomasello, M.
(2001) The acquisition of English dative constructions. Applied Psycholinguistics, 221, 253–267. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, W.
(2012) Verbs: Aspect and causal structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, N.
(1979) Discourse constraints on dative movement in discourse and syntax. Syntax and Semantics, 121, 441–467.Google Scholar
Fellbaum, C.
(Ed.) (1998) WordNet: An electronic lexical database. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, C. J., & Kay, P.
(1995) Construction Grammar coursebook. Unpublished ms., University of California at Berkeley.Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. J., Ruppenhofer, J., & Baker, C. F.
(2004) Framenet and representing the link between semantic and syntactic relations. In C. Huang & W. Lenders (Eds.), Computational Linguistics and Beyond (pp. 19–62). Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
Fischer, M. H., & Zwaan, R. A.
(2008) Embodied language: A review of the role of the motor system in language comprehension. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 611, 825–850. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gahl, S., & Garnsey, S. M.
(2004) Knowledge of grammar, knowledge of usage: Syntactic probabilities affect pronunciation variation. Language, 801, 748–775. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006) Knowledge of grammar includes knowledge of syntactic probabilities. Language, 821, 405–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gahl, S., Menn, L., Ramsberger, G., Jurafsky, D., Elder, E., Rewega, M., & Holland, A.
(2003) Syntactic frame and verb bias in aphasia: Plausibility judgments of undergoer-subject sentences. Brain and Cognition, 531, 223–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garnsey, S. M., Pearlmutter, N. J., Myers, E., & Lotocky, M. A.
(1997) The contributions of verb bias and plausibility to the comprehension of temporarily ambiguous sentences. Journal of Memory and Language, 371, 58–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, T.
(1984) Direct object and dative shifting: Semantic and pragmatic case. In F. Plank (Ed.), Objects: Towards a theory of grammatical relations (pp. 151–182). London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M., & Kaschak, M. P.
(2002) Grounding language in action. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 91, 558–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A.
(1995) Constructions: A Construction Grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
(2006) Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gropen, J., Pinker, S., Hollander, M., Goldberg, R., & Wilson, R.
(1989) The learnability and acquisition of the dative alternation in English. Language, 651, 203–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Groefsema, M.
(2001) The real-world colour of the dative alternation. Language Sciences, 231, 525–550. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hauk, O., Johnsrude, I., & Pulvermüller, F.
(2004) Somatotopic representation of action words in human motor and premotor cortex. Neuron, 411, 301–307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jackendoff, R.
(1990) Semantic Structures. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Levin, B.
(1993) Verb classes and alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
(2008) Dative verbs: A crosslinguistic perspective. Lingvisticæ Investigationes, 311, 285–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mazurkewich, I., & White, L.
(1984) The acquisition of the dative alternation: Unlearning overgeneralizations. Cognition, 16(3), 261–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Michaelis, L. A.
(2004) Type shifting in Construction Grammar: An integrated approach to aspectual coercion. Cognitive Linguistics, 151, 1–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Michaelis, L. A., & Ruppenhofer, J.
(2001) Beyond alternations: A constructional model of the German applicative pattern. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Mukherjee, J.
(2005) English ditransitive verbs: Aspects of theory, description and a usage-based model. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S.
(1989) Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pulvermüller, F.
(1999) Words in the brain’s language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(02), 253–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001) Brain reflections of words and their meaning. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(12), 517–524. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rappaport Hovav, M., & Levin, B.
(1998) Building verb meanings. In M. Butt & W. Geuder (Eds.), The projection of arguments (pp. 97–134). Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
(2008) The English dative alternation: The case for verb sensitivity. Journal of Linguistics, 441, 129–167. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Richardson, D. C., Spivey, M. J., Barsalou, L. W., & McRae, K.
(2003) Spatial representations activated during real-time comprehension of verbs. Cognitive Science, 271, 767–780. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ruppenhofer, J. K.
(2004) The interaction of valence and information structure. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Thompson, S.
(1995) The iconicity of “dative shift” in English: Considerations from information flow in discourse. In M. Landsberg (Ed.), Syntactic iconicity and linguistic freezes: The human dimension (pp. 155–175). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wasow, T.
(2002) Postverbal behavior. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Zwaan, R. A.
(2014) Embodiment and language comprehension: Reframing the discussion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 181, 229–234. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zwaan, R. A., & Taylor, L. J.
(2006) Seeing, acting, understanding: Motor resonance in language comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1351, 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Insaidoo Appah, Clement Kwamina & Gladys Nyarko Ansah
2020. DumsorandDumsor-Based Neologisms. Ghana Studies 23:1 ► pp. 28 ff. DOI logo
Winter, Alice, Carolin Dudschig, Jeff Miller, Rolf Ulrich & Barbara Kaup
2022. The action-sentence compatibility effect (ACE): Meta-analysis of a benchmark finding for embodiment. Acta Psychologica 230 ► pp. 103712 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.