ABSTRACT

This article presents a self-paced reading study comparing the online processing of interclausal discourse relations in native speakers of English and German. The study aims to contribute to two overarching questions: First, it puts to the test the so-called causality-by-default hypothesis, which states that causality is a default assumption, whereas concession is less inferable and thus cognitively inherently more complex. Second, it explores the hypothesis that native speakers of English rely more strongly on online inference than native speakers of German. This hypothesis derives from the well-established description of English as exhibiting looser form-function mappings than German. The results of three self-paced reading experiments (one lab-based, two crowdsourced) confirm that readers of German benefit significantly more from the presence of interclausal connectives than readers of English. Moreover, as expected, concessive connectives provide greater processing advantages than causal ones in both languages. Finally, the bias to take causality for granted is only found in English, whereas readers of German do benefit from the presence of causal connectives. It is argued that an account inspired by typological and information-theoretic perspectives is best suited to accommodate these results.

摘要

本文提供了一个自定进度的阅读研究，比较了以英语和德语为母语的人之间的语篇间话语关系的在线处理。这项研究旨在提出两个总体问题：首先，它对所谓的违约因果关系假设进行了检验，该假设指出因果关系是违约假设，而让步则不可推论，因此在认知上固有地更为复杂。其次，它探讨了以下假设：英语为母语的人比德语为母语的人更依赖在线推理。该假设源自对英语的公认描述，该描述显示出比德语宽松的形式功能映射。三项自定进度的阅读实验的结果（一项基于实验室，两位众包信徒）证实，德语阅读者从句间连接词的存在中获益远大于英语阅读者。而且，正如预期的那样，在两种语言中，让语连接词都比因果连接词提供更大的处理优势。最后，将因果关系视为理所当然的偏见仅在英语中发现，而德语读者的确受益于因果关系词的存在。有人认为，受类型学和信息理论观点启发的帐户最适合容纳这些结果。而德语读者的确受益于因果连接词的存在。有人认为，受到类型学和信息理论观点启发的帐户最适合容纳这些结果。而德语读者的确受益于因果连接词的存在。有人认为，受类型学和信息理论观点启发的帐户最适合容纳这些结果。