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

本文介绍了一项自定进度阅读研究，比较了英语和德语母语者对句间话语关系的在线处理。该研究旨在解决两个首要问题：首先，它对所谓的默认因果关系假设进行了检验，该假设指出因果关系是默认假设，而让步不太可推断，因此在认知上固有地更加复杂。其次，它探讨了英语母语者比德语母语者更依赖在线推理的假设。这一假设源于对英语的完善描述，因为它表现出比德语更松散的形式函数映射。三项自定进度阅读实验的结果（一项基于实验室，两个众包）证实德语读者比英语读者更能从句间连接词的存在中受益。此外，正如预期的那样，在两种语言中，让步连接词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只存在于英语中，而德语读者确实受益于因果连接词的存在。有人认为，受类型学和信息论观点启发的帐户最适合容纳这些结果。而德语读者确实受益于因果连接词的存在。有人认为，受类型学和信息论观点启发的帐户最适合容纳这些结果。而德语读者确实受益于因果连接词的存在。有人认为，受类型学和信息论观点启发的帐户最适合容纳这些结果。