Listeners expect that a definite noun phrase with a pre-nominal scalar adjective (e.g., the big …) will refer to an entity that is part of a set of objects contrasting on the scalar dimension, e.g., size (Sedivy, Tanenhaus, Chambers & Carlson, 1999). Two visual world experiments demonstrate that uttering a referring expression with a scalar adjective makes all members of the relevant contrast s...

This paper presents a linguistic analysis of emotions by introducing some concrete linguistic rules in identifying the important elements of an emotion, which are the experiencer and the cause. It specifically discusses two primary emotions, happiness and surprise, in Chinese. These rules can be very useful for emotion detection and classification. We also examine the features of a cause event ...

Linguistic research to date has determined many of the factors that structure the spatial schemas found across spoken languages. It is now feasible to determine the comprehensive system that these factors constitute. Among its features, this system has a relatively closed, universally available inventory of fundamental spatial elements that are combined to form whole schemas; it has a relativel...

This paper examines variation in the expression of aspect both from a language-internal and a cross-linguistic perspective. We make the following proposals: (i) the morpheme already encodes the meaning of two contrasting phases; (ii) several types of event structures, including that of the Perfect, also encode a similar meaning of contrasting phases, but with particular orderings of phases spec...