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The conceptual inactiveness of implicit arguments: Evidence from particle verbs and object categorization Holden Härtl The linguistic system generalizes over rich conceptual structures and, at the same time, has to guarantee that the correct inferences can be drawn as to what the message is intended to convey. The question needs to be answered whether entities not realized in grammar, i.e. implicit arguments, are a necessary part of the interpretation of the expression. That this is the case is a wide spread assumption in the linguistic as well as the psycholinguistic literature (cf. e.g. Mauner et al. (1995); Williams (1987); Roeper (1987)), who argue that implicit arguments are somehow covertly present as unlinked thematic roles in the lexical representation. Here, in contrast, it will be shown that these analyses cannot be applied to one specific type of implicit argument, i.e. unrealized prepositional objects as they occur with particle verb complexes as in 'stick s.th. on'. These do not denote a reference object as their prepositional pendants do ('stick s.th. on s.th.'). Departing from theoretical evidence it will be shown that in null contexts with German particle complexes no reference object is conceptualized on the basis of two reaction time studies with an object categorization task: It is only full prepositional phrases that prime a potential reference object, which is revealed by the reaction to conceptually situationally congruous target line drawings presented right after both prepositions (i.e. after 'on the') and particles (i.e. after 'on and'). The findings lead to the conclusion that an adequate truth-conditional description of implicit arguments should discard them as being conceptually inactive and referentially empty. It is only under specific contextual conditions that a construal of the corresponding argument is coerced. Only then the semantic representation needs to be adjusted, which can be characterized as an instance of lexical re-analysis (cf. Härtl (2002)). In this context, two additional, procedural aspects will be dealt with. First, the type of priming triggered by inherent sortal information (as by 'stick the label on the___') needs to be discussed. It will be shown that a semantic fit between the sortal restrictions activated by the preposition and a depicted object results in inhibitory effects. This finding qualifies the traditional assumption that a semantic fit results in a facilitation (cf. e.g. Kutas & Hillyard (1984)) and can be explained as the result of a competition between two object representations for conceptual activation. Second, there is evidence that certain grammatical information about an object expression does not enter the conceptual processing of a corresponding target object drawing. This, at the same time, shows that the processing difference between the particle and the preposition condition cannot be explained by the mere presence of the article in the preposition condition: A modification of the article's gender ('on the') does not influence the effort to process the depicted object. References Kutas, M. & S. Hillyard (1984) Event-related brain potentials (ERP's) elicited by novel stimuli during sentence processing. In: Karrer, R. & J. Cohen & P. Tueting (eds.) 'Brain and Information: Event-related brain potentials, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (vol. 425)'. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 236-241. Mauner, G. & M. Tanenhaus & G. Carlson (1995) Implicit arguments in sentence processing. 'Journal of Memory and Language', 34, 357-382. Roeper, T. (1987) Implicit arguments and the head-complement relation. 'Linguistic Inquiry', 18, 267-310. Williams, E. (1987) Implicit arguments, the binding theory, and control. 'Natural Language and Linguistic Theory', 5.2, 297-315. |