The present study reports a large, cross-sectional of Mandarin-speaking children’s ability to compute quantity implicatures. To chart the developmental trajectory this pragmatic ability, we tested 225 children aged 4–8 years on their interpretations scalar and non-scalar implicatures, as well numerals. Scalar implicatures were difficult did not observe consistent success until age 6. In contras...

the present study aims to investigate the relative effectiveness of different types of pragmatic instruction including two collaborative translation tasks and two structured input tasks with and without explicit pragmatic instruction on the production of apologetic utterances by low-intermediate efl learners. one hundred and fifty university students in four experimental groups and one control ...

1. Preliminaries In general, for languages which allow a flexible order of major constituents, the grammatical variations of simple sentences are truth-conditionally equivalent regardless of the constituent sequences and of the intonational patterns. In Spanish, for instance, the six logically possible variations of sentences containing three constituents, namely, subject, verb, and object are ...

In Chinese language processing, the recognition and analysis for serial verb constructions (SVCs) is a fascinating research topic. Chinese language researchers each may have a different definition and interpretation of SVC since the structure of SVC makes Chinese unique to other languages and contains complex semantic and pragmatic information. This paper proposes a formal definition of SVC and...

We examine a popular practitioner methodology used in the construction of linear factor models whereby particular factors are increased or decreased in relative importance within the model. This allows model builders to customise models and, as such, reflect those factors that the client and modeller may think important. We call this process Pragmatic Bayesianism (or prag-Bayes for short) and w...

In natural communication, humans enrich their utterances with pragmatic information indicating, e.g., what is important to them or what they are not certain about. We investigate whether and how virtual humans (VH) can employ this kind of meta-communication. In an empirical study we have identified three modifying functions that humans produce and perceive in multimodal utterance, one being to ...

objective: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) is a common mental disorder in adults that was under-diagnosed until recently. due to probable consequences of adhd such as occupational and educational dysfunctions and substance use, this disorder is becoming more and more of a concern. this study aimed to investigate adhd symptoms among students of zahedan university of medical scien...