RESUMEN
Introduction: We present a cross-linguistic experimental study that explores the exhaustivity properties of questions embedded under wissen/to know and korrekt vorhersagen/to correctly predict in German and English. While past theoretical literature has held that such embedded questions should only be interpreted as strongly exhaustive (SE), recent experimental findings suggest an intermediate exhaustive (IE) interpretation is also available and plausible. Methods: Participants were confronted with a decision problem involving the different exhaustive readings and received a financial incentive based on their performance. We employed Bayesian analysis to create probabilistic models of participants' beliefs, linking their responses to readings based on utility maximization in simple decision problems. Results: For wissen/to know, we found that the SE reading was most probable in both languages, aligning with early theoretical literature. However, we also attested to the presence of IE readings. For korrekt vorhersagen in German, the IE reading was most probable, whereas for the English phrase "to correctly predict," a preference for the SE reading was observed. Discussion: This cross-linguistic variation correlates with independent corpus data, indicating that German vorhersagen and English to predict are not lexically equivalent. By including an explicit pragmatic component, our study complements previous work that has focused solely on the principled semantic availability of given readings.
RESUMEN
We examined cross-domain semantic priming effects between arithmetic and language. We paired subtractions with their linguistic equivalent, exception phrases (EPs) with positive quantifiers (e.g., "everybody except John") while pairing additions with their own linguistic equivalent, EPs with negative quantifiers (e.g., "nobody except John"; Moltmann, 1995). We hypothesized that EPs with positive quantifiers prime subtractions and inhibit additions while EPs with negative quantifiers prime additions and inhibit subtractions. Furthermore, we expected similar priming and inhibition effects from arithmetic into semantics. Our design allowed for a bidirectional analysis by using one trial's target as the prime for the next trial. Two experiments failed to show significant priming effects in either direction. Implications and possible shortcomings are explored in the general discussion.