Papers by Luis Paris Molina
The English Resultative Construction (ERC) is a satellite-framed structure with no identical equi... more The English Resultative Construction (ERC) is a satellite-framed structure with no identical equivalent in Spanish. In a series of studies, we analyzed and compared recognition (acceptability judgment task) and comprehension (sentence comprehension task) of three ERC subtypes with the English Depictive Construction (EDC) (which has a Spanish counterpart) by Spanish speaker learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Results showed that: 1) EDCs were better recognized than ERCs by L2 learners, but highly proficient participants were closer to English native speakers' performance, 2) Less proficient EFLs comprehended EDCs better than those ERC subtypes that were further from Spanish (ERC Property and Fake reflexive). We interpret our findings in terms of an interlinguistic distance gradient, where those constructions present (EDC) or closer (ERC-Path) to L1 are more readily acquired. This effect seems more prominent at lower EFL proficiencies, and fades as proficiency increases, evolving towards a more native-like pattern.
Traslaciones. Revista latinoamericana de Lectura y Escritura
La comprensión de textos depende de habilidades lingüísticas específicas (como el vocabulario y l... more La comprensión de textos depende de habilidades lingüísticas específicas (como el vocabulario y la fluidez de lectura) y procesos cognitivos de dominio general, como las funciones ejecutivas. Si bien existe evidencia de la participación del control inhibitorio en la comprensión en niños de escolaridad primaria, hay aún cierta controversia en cuanto al rol de procesos específicos, como la inhibición perceptual o la supresión de respuestas prepotentes. Por otra parte, los modelos teóricos y la evidencia empírica sugieren que el tipo de procesamiento y la demanda cognitiva sería diferente al comparar textos expositivos y narrativos. El presente estudio se propuso: 1) analizar y comparar la contribución del vocabulario, la eficacia lectora y el control inhibitorio (resistencia a distractores e inhibición de respuesta) a la comprensión de textos expositivos y narrativos, en niños de cuarto grado; 2) examinar la contribución de estas variables al rendimiento académico. Participaron del es...
Mind, Brain, and Education, 2019
Electrophysiology studies have identified two event-related potentials that are modulated by pred... more Electrophysiology studies have identified two event-related potentials that are modulated by predictive processes during language comprehension: the N400 and a frontal positivity. The N400 is smaller when words are presented within highly restrictive sentences, indicating reduced lexical retrieval costs. Violations of strong predictions generate larger frontal positivities, possibly reflecting inhibitory processes. More skilled comprehenders may exhibit enhanced predictive processing, but this possibility has seldom been investigated with event-related potentials (ERPs). We analyzed the association between predictability ERP modulations and reading comprehension abilities. Twenty-four undergraduate students were exposed to strongly and weakly constraining sentences, ending with an expected or unexpected final word. Their comprehension skills were assessed with a cloze task. Better comprehenders showed smaller N400s for expected words, and larger posterior positivities for unexpected endings, in strongly constraining contexts. These effects correlated with reading comprehension scores. The results suggest that better comprehenders take more advantage of predictions
Frontiers in Psychology, 2021
Word order alternation has been described as one of the most productive information structure mar... more Word order alternation has been described as one of the most productive information structure markers and discourse organizers across languages. Psycholinguistic evidence has shown that word order is a crucial cue for argument interpretation. Previous studies about Spanish sentence comprehension have shown greater difficulty to parse sentences that present a word order that does not respect the order of participants of the verb's lexico-semantic structure, irrespective to whether the sentences follow the canonical word order of the language or not. This difficulty has been accounted as the cognitive cost related to the miscomputation of prominence status of the argument that precedes the verb. Nonetheless, the authors only analyzed the use of alternative word orders in isolated sentences, leaving aside the pragmatic motivation of word order alternation. By means of an eye-tracking task, the current study provides further evidence about the role of information structure for the c...
Implicating and Focusing on Lexically Underspecified Information
Where Semantics meets Pragmatics, 2006
The role of prominence in Spanish sentence comprehension: An ERP study
Brain and Language, 2015
Prominence is the hierarchical relation among arguments that allows us to understand &amp... more Prominence is the hierarchical relation among arguments that allows us to understand 'Who did what to whom' in a sentence. The present study aimed to provide evidence about the role of prominence information for the incremental interpretation of arguments in Spanish. We investigated the time course of neural correlates associated to the comprehension of sentences that require a reversal of argument prominence hierarchization. We also studied how the amount of available prominence information may affect the incremental build-up of verbal expectations. Results of the ERP data revealed that at the disambiguating verb region, object-initial sentences (only one argument available) elicited a centro-parietal negativity with a peak at 400ms post-onset. Subject-initial sentences (two arguments available) yielded a broadly distributed positivity at around 650ms. This dissociation suggests that argument interpretation may depend on their morphosyntactic features, and also on the amount of prominence information available before the verb is encountered.
Object vs Subject Experiencer Psych verbs: A step towards understanding the nature of the syntax-semantics interface
In a study about sentence comprehension, Gattei, Vasishth and Dickey (2010) performed a self-pace... more In a study about sentence comprehension, Gattei, Vasishth and Dickey (2010) performed a self-paced reading task using Spanish Object Experiencer Psych verbs and Dative Agentive verbs. Both types of verbs differ in the way the semantic arguments are mapped over the syntactic structure, and can therefore show possible differences in processing coming from the syntax-semantics interface. The results showed that when the semantic arguments of a sentence are mapped indirectly over the syntactic structure (e.g. gustarle), readers take longer time to process the second argument than when the semantic arguments are mapped directly (e.g. gritarle). Besides, the study showed that readers also took longer time to read the second argument when the syntactic order was manipulated (SVO vs OVS) and the order of the sentence did not respect the semantic hierarchy required by the verb. The present study investigates whether both effects (type of mapping and semantic hierarchy order) occur due to dif...
Spanish Psych-verbs: Do Case constraints influence incremental parsing?
Previous results from a self-paced reading study using Spanish Object Experiencer Psych verbs (e.... more Previous results from a self-paced reading study using Spanish Object Experiencer Psych verbs (e.g. ‘gustarle’) and Dative verbs (e.g. ‘gritarle’) showed that readers took longer to process the second argument of the sentences when the verb belonged to the first group. This could mean that differences in the way the semantic arguments are mapped onto the syntactic structure could have an impact on on-going comprehension. Apart from this, the mentioned study shows that comprehension is enhanced when the arguments follow the canonical semantic order (i.e. ‘Experiencer’/’Actor’ – ‘Undergoer’). However, it might be the case that these differences in both the on-line and the off-line tasks are the result of using verbs from two different semantic categories, mainly Psych-verbs and Action verbs. To account for this possibility, a second study using two types of Psych-verbs in Spanish was performed. These groups of verbs map their semantic arguments into the syntax in different ways as wel...
This paper shows that the Gerund Phrase (GP) in the Spanish Gerund Construction (e.g., El jefe en... more This paper shows that the Gerund Phrase (GP) in the Spanish Gerund Construction (e.g., El jefe entró a su oficina corriendo, lit. 'The boss entered his office running') is sometimes a complement (in SGC C ) and sometimes an adjunct (in SGC A ). Although in both cases, the GP expresses a non-argument of the main lexical verb's denotation, it is a syntactic adjunct in SGC A and a syntactic dependent of the main clause's head in SGC C . We argue that there is a semantic correlate of this syntactic difference and propose a general principle that constrains the semantic relations that can hold between the denotata of heads and added members of their ARG-ST lists: The two denotata must be part of a larger macro-event in the sense of . We further show that the relation between the events denoted by the gerund and main verbs involves four semantic conditions and that which subset of those four conditions are satisfied in a particular SGC C sentence determines what subkind of SGC C is involved.
Implementation of a SDH STM-N IC for BISDN using VHDL based synthesis tools
European Design and Test Conference, 1994
A general VHDL description, allowing to synthesize a set of B-ISDN user network interface (UNI) K... more A general VHDL description, allowing to synthesize a set of B-ISDN user network interface (UNI) KS for the different SDH levels (155, 622,... Mbit/s), is presented. The synthesized UNI ICs allow a STM-I on STM-Nframe multiplexation or to directly perform the payload mapping of N 155 Mbit/s ATM cell streams on a STM-N frame in a compact and cost-effective manner.
Revista signos, 2006
Resumen: Del conjunto de relaciones entre eventos lógicamente posibles, las gramáticas de las len... more Resumen: Del conjunto de relaciones entre eventos lógicamente posibles, las gramáticas de las lenguas naturales solo codifican un subconjunto de ellas, bien al interior del léxico o bien en construcciones. Una de ellas es Medio E , largamente considerada parte del inventario de relaciones semánticas necesarias para la descripción de las lenguas naturales, pero nunca definida hasta ahora. En este trabajo se define a Medio E y se describe su impacto gramatical en la construcción SGC C-MEDIO del castellano. En particular, Medio E es caracterizada como una categoría semántica consistente en una relación entre dos argumentos eventivos que: I) guardan una relación de parte propia; II) están en el mismo 'curso de eventos' (categoría que se introduce y caracteriza aquí) y III) satisfacen las condiciones φ, esto es, (a) comparten participantes y, al menos, una relación entre ellos, y (b) progresan interdependientemente ('incrementalidad'). Además de estas propiedades referenciales Medio E consta también de una asimetría informacional tal que la descripción eventiva más específica debe denotar el segundo argumento de la relación mientras que aquella queda subespecificada al primer argumento.
Revista signos, 2012
El objetivo central de este trabajo es captar un aspecto esencial del contenido interaccional en ... more El objetivo central de este trabajo es captar un aspecto esencial del contenido interaccional en una conversación-entrevista médico-paciente en salud mentalmediante la categoría <queja> definida en el marco de la teoría de las Acciones Verbales (París, Car & Doffo, 2008). Las Acciones Verbales (AVs) remiten al mismo dominio de sentido conversacional que los Actos de Habla (Searle & Vanderverken, 1985), los Pares Adyacentes (Sacks, 1995) y los Actos Discursivos (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1992). Sin embargo, mientras los Actos de Habla se concentran en la intención del Hablante, las AVs son eminentemente interaccionales. Su foco es la co-construcción dialógica del sentido. Esto las asemeja a los Pares Adyacentes (Sacks, 1995; Heinemann & Traverso, 2009) pero se distinguen de ellos al proveer una caracterización específica y detallada de cada categoría que permite así diferenciar <queja> de <lamento>, <acusación>, <reproche>, <culpa> y <victimización> a la vez que captar los rasgos compartidos por esta familia de AVs. En contraste con los Actos Discursivos, las AVs se circunscriben eminentemente al orden del sentido y no se concentran en detallar la realización lingüístico-gramatical. La <queja> es descripta aquí mediante una estructura abstracta de rasgos según un esquema general válido para toda categoría de AV. Esta estructura puede ser satisfecha total o parcialmente por cada instancia. La teoría distingue así entre realizaciones 'sólidas' y 'líquidas' de la categoría, respectivamente, ejemplificadas aquí mediante [queja 1 ] y [queja 2 ]. Este dispositivo permite una especificación detallada de la categoría mientras su realización es enteramente flexible.
Revista signos, 2007
Spanish encompasses an elaborated grammatical assembly of morphemes in order to build temporal re... more Spanish encompasses an elaborated grammatical assembly of morphemes in order to build temporal representations. This grammatical subsystem has not been properly described. On the one hand, descriptive grammars provide epistemologically fragile characterizations (Bello, 1970; Rojo y Veiga, 1999). On the other hand, formal grammars offer well-defined categories that have poor empirical coverage (de Swart, 1998). Couched in formal semantics, my proposal aims at overcoming both of these shortcomings with two strategies. First, it claims that certain meaning properties of temporal morphemes are semantic whereas others are pragmatic. Second, it represents the semantic knowledge needed to manipulate temporal expressions in Spanish in terms of an event structure and an interval structure. Both structures are systematically connected but they consist each of their own individuals and relations. This theory is able to define in terms of event properties the categories pertaining to Lexical Aspect (Aktionarten). In contrast, Grammatical Aspect ((im)perfectivity) as well as Tense (temporal location) are described as interval properties. This distinction between semantic structures neatly captures the opposition 'Pretérito-imperfecto' as well as that one 'imperfectoprogresivo'. The presence of each morpheme in the system is, thus, justified on their unique contribution to the Spanish semantic system.
El apotegma gnoseológico de Platón (“...conocer es recordar...”) puede ser reinterpretado y pensa... more El apotegma gnoseológico de Platón (“...conocer es recordar...”) puede ser reinterpretado y pensar, entonces, que conocer implica evocar las estructuras semióticas del lenguaje, aquello dado previo a todo pensar filosófico. La identificación de los esquemas del Evento Motriz en una lengua que presento aquí, así como sus proyecciones a otros dominios cognitivos, pretenden contribuir a explicar cómo a través del lenguaje somos capaces de alcanzar conocimientos con cierta validez universal intersubjetiva a partir de una mente corporeizada y, por ende, limitada a un contexto de experiencia específico. Describo los esquemas semánticos básicos subyacentes al sistema verbal del castellano y que permiten a los hablantes la captación y expresión de sus experiencias motrices. Siguiendo a Talmy (2000) caracterizo, además, la particular estrategia representativa de nuestra lengua y la comparo, por oposición, con la del inglés. Por último, sugiero que estas estrategias determinan una particular ...
Onomázein, 2019
Este estudio tiene dos objetivos enmarcados en el establecimiento de contrastes entre lenguas med... more Este estudio tiene dos objetivos enmarcados en el establecimiento de contrastes entre lenguas mediante una gramática de interfaces. El primero es describir la estructura característica de la construcción resultativa del inglés (KR), analizar una muestra representativa de sus subtipos y explicitar las condiciones sintáctico-semánticas que la hacen posible. KR es una Macrosituación que fusiona dos Situaciones -una Actividad y un Evento- en la secuencia de un 'curso causal de Situaciones' tal que el Evento es el Resultado de la Actividad. Alcanzar esta caracterización requiere subsumir Manera bajo Actividad, Resultado bajo Cambio y CAUSA bajo ‘curso causal de Situaciones’. El segundo objetivo es exponer los factores que habilitan la presencia de KR en inglés y que solo permiten una escueta presencia en español. KR es la Macrosituación complementaria de la Situación prototípica del inglés, Situación que se opone a la del español ya que presenta una Actividad como verbo principal...
La construcción resultativa del inglés en contraste
Onomázein Revista de lingüística filología y traducción
The thematic hierarchy in sentence comprehension: A study on the interaction between verb class and word order in Spanish
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006), Jan 20, 2014
Linking is the theory that captures the mapping of the semantic roles of lexical arguments to the... more Linking is the theory that captures the mapping of the semantic roles of lexical arguments to the syntactic functions of the phrases that realize them. At the sentence level, linking allows us to understand 'who did what to whom' in an event. In Spanish, linking has been shown to interact with word order, verb class and case marking. The current study aims to provide the first piece of experimental evidence about the interplay between word order and verb type in Spanish. We achieve this by adopting Role and Reference Grammar and the extended Argument Dependency Model. Two different types of clauses were examined in a self-paced reading task: Clauses with object-experiencer psychological verbs and activity verbs. These types of verbs differ in the way that their syntactic and semantic structures are linked and thus, they provide interesting evidence on how information that belongs to the syntax-semantics interface might influence the predictive and integrative processes of se...
The thematic hierarchy in sentence comprehension: A study on the interaction between verb class and word order in Spanish
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006), Jan 20, 2014
Linking is the theory that captures the mapping of the semantic roles of lexical arguments to the... more Linking is the theory that captures the mapping of the semantic roles of lexical arguments to the syntactic functions of the phrases that realize them. At the sentence level, linking allows us to understand 'who did what to whom' in an event. In Spanish, linking has been shown to interact with word order, verb class and case marking. The current study aims to provide the first piece of experimental evidence about the interplay between word order and verb type in Spanish. We achieve this by adopting Role and Reference Grammar and the extended Argument Dependency Model. Two different types of clauses were examined in a self-paced reading task: Clauses with object-experiencer psychological verbs and activity verbs. These types of verbs differ in the way that their syntactic and semantic structures are linked and thus, they provide interesting evidence on how information that belongs to the syntax-semantics interface might influence the predictive and integrative processes of se...
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Dec 20, 2014
Linking is the theory that captures the mapping of the semantic roles of lexical arguments to the... more Linking is the theory that captures the mapping of the semantic roles of lexical arguments to the syntactic functions of the phrases that realize them. At the sentence level, linking allows us to understand “who did what to whom” in an event. In Spanish, linking has been shown to interact with word order, verb class, and case marking. The current study aims to provide the first piece of experimental evidence about the interplay between word order and verb type in Spanish. We achieve this by adopting role and reference grammar and the extended argument dependency model. Two different types of clauses were examined in a self-paced reading task: clauses with object–experiencer psychological verbs and activity verbs. These types of verbs differ in the way that their syntactic and semantic structures are linked, and thus they provide interesting evidence on how information that belongs to the syntax–semantics interface might influence the predictive and integrative processes of sentence ...
In this paper I propose two complementary hypotheses on the construction of event representations... more In this paper I propose two complementary hypotheses on the construction of event representations. The first one is that English displays a preference for codifying Processes in the semantic representations of verbs while Spanish favors Events. I call this thesis ‘aspectual preference’. The second hypothesis –called ‘compensatory’- is that the two languages have syntactic constructions that introduce the devalued semantic resource –either Process or Event, respectively- and, therefore, these constructions counterweight the unbalance produced by the aspectual preferences in the lexicon. The Spanish Internal Gerund Construction (IGC) allows speakers to introduce Processes that specify the internal parts of an Event. The English Resultative Construction (RC) permits speakers to introduce Results into Processes that, hence, become enclosed and turned into Events. The compensatory interpretation is further backed up by absence of IGC in English and the lack of RG in English. This contrast between the procedures for construction of event representations is further corroborated by the causative alternation. The point of departure in English is a simple, mono-event semantics that gets richer by incorporating a causative subevent through syntactic means. In contrast, the Spanish strategy is not of enrichment but of extraction: A complex Event is split apart by morphosyntax.
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Papers by Luis Paris Molina