Do Verbs Act as Implicit Quantifiers?  

Oleh:

Newstead, Stephen E.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Semantics (Sebagian Full Text) vol. 11 no. 3 (Mar. 1994), page 215-230.
Topik: implicit quantifiers; verbs
Fulltext: vol 11, no 3, p 215-230.pdf (775.72KB)

Isi artikel

A number of studies suggest that verbs can act as implicit quantifiers on the subjects and objects of the sentences in which they are used; thus a sentence such as Children like animals has truth conditions which fall short of the universal. Furthermore, it has been claimed that the quantify implied varies as a function of the type of verb used, for example, whether the verb describes an observable event or a subjective state. The present research investigated this effect further by asking people to provide direct numerical estimates of the quantity implied. Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that there are differences between verb types, but that these are rather different from those obtained using other techniques. Experiment 3 showed that, with appropriate controls for the subjects and objects, there were no differences between the verb types. The results are interpreted as indicating that people base their estimates not on the quantity implicit in the verb but on the expected frequency of the activity described by the sentence. It is suggested that expected frequency, rather than the semantic properties of the verb, may help explain not only implicit quantification but also implicit causality in verbs.

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