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Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 22:4 (2017) ► pp.521–550

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Association with explanation-conveying constructions predicts verbs’ implicit causality biases

 | University of Freiburg
 | University of Freiburg
Published online: 1 December 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.16121.hov
Abstract
Given a sentence such as Mary fascinated/admired Sue because she did great, the verb fascinated leads people to interpret she as referring to Mary, whereas admired leads people to interpret she as referring to Sue. This phenomenon is known as implicit causality (IC). Recent studies have shown that verbs’ causality biases closely correspond to the verbs’ semantic classes, as classified in VerbNet, a lexicon that groups verbs into classes on the basis of syntactic behavior. The current study further investigates the relationship between causality biases and semantic classes. Using corpus data we show that the collostruction strength between verbs and the syntactic constructions that VerbNet classes are based on can be a good predictor of causality bias. This result suggests that the relation between semantic class and causality bias is not a categorical matter; more typical members of the semantic class show a stronger causality bias than less typical members.
Article outline
  • 1.The implicit causality bias
    • 1.1Defining the IC bias
    • 1.2Lexical semantics and IC bias
    • 1.3Semantic structure, syntactic constructions and IC
    • 1.4Collostructional analysis
  • 2.Corpus study
    • 2.1Corpus search
    • 2.2Analysis
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1The corpus study
    • 4.2Empty slots in verbs’ semantic structure
    • 4.3IC bias, language use and meaning
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Solstad, Torgrim & Oliver Bott
2022. On the nature of implicit causality and consequentiality: the case of psychological verbs. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 37:10 ► pp. 1311 ff. DOI logo
Bott, Oliver & Torgrim Solstad
2021. Discourse expectations: explaining the implicit causality biases of verbs. Linguistics 59:2 ► pp. 361 ff. DOI logo
van den Hoven, Emiel & Evelyn C. Ferstl
2018. The Roles of Implicit Causality and Discourse Context in Pronoun Resolution. Frontiers in Communication 3 DOI logo
VAN DEN HOVEN, EMIEL & EVELYN C. FERSTL
2018. Discourse context modulates the effect of implicit causality on rementions. Language and Cognition 10:4 ► pp. 561 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Context in language comprehension. In The Context of Cognition: Emerging Perspectives [Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 75], ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo

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