Exclusive/inclusive reading · Negation · Number · Plural · Stroop effect

What is it about?

The number meaning of grammatically plural nouns is to some extent context sensitive. In negative sentences, plural nouns typically receive an inclusive reading referring to any number of individuals (one or many). This contrasts with their more frequent exclusive reading referring to a group of two or more individuals. The present study investigated whether a plural noun in a negative sentence is treated as inclusive immediately when it is encountered or whether this interpretation is delayed. In an experiment using a technique based on a numerical variant of the Stroop effect (Berent et al., 2005; Patson and Warren, 2010), participants counted visually presented singular and plural Polish nouns embedded in either affirmative or negative sentences. The nouns were displayed once or as two copies. Plural nouns were easier to count when they were repeated twice on the screen than when only one copy was displayed. For singular nouns this pattern was reversed and the effect was weaker. Crucially, no difference was found for plural nouns appearing in affirmative and negative sentences. This indicated that an inclusive (“one or more”) reading of plural nouns in the scope of sentential negation was not immediate. The results are in line with past research suggesting that the semantic processing of a negative sentence may proceed in two phases (Fischler et al., 1983; Kaup et al., 2006; Lüdtke et al., 2008; Spychalska, 2011).

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Why is it important?

Grammatical number allows language users to express meanings related to the numerosity of objects under discussion using systematic contrasts, like 'dog' vs. 'dogs' in English. However, number markers are not always reliable indicators of number meaning. The plural suffix usually indicates that the noun refers to a group of two or more things. This is known as the exclusive plural reading. Yet in negative sentences plural nouns are typically interpreted as referring to any number of things, one or many. This is known as the inclusive plural reading. The inclusive/exclusive distinction has been studied by both theoretical linguists and psycholinguists. One aspect of the distinction that has attracted relatively little attention is the question whether the inclusive reading of a plural noun in the scope of sentential negation is available already at the point when they are first encountered in the sentence or whether the inclusive reading arises from the interpretation of the sentence as a whole. Investigating this issue is the goal of the present study. Answering this question should lead to a better understanding of both negation and grammatical number processing. It should also reveal more about the timing at which different sources of information become available to comprehenders, which is part of the research on incrementality in language processing.