Search

Semanticists have debated the extent to which modality and causation are related in natural language. This paper aims to promote a theory in which overt causatives share core components of meaning with deontic modals. We report a sentence recall experiment that suggests that priming can be used to target the high-level semantic representations shared between two syntactically distinct linguistic expressions. Our results show that it's possible to prime the production of the deontic modal 'had to' (e.g., ``George 'had to' go to the store"), with causative 'made' (e.g., ``Jane 'made' George go to the store''), suggesting that the two expressions share a component of their meaning. Our results contribute to the methodological development in experimental semantics by establishing the utility of the priming effect to target meaning.

Syntactic structures can convey certain (subtle) emergent properties of events. For example, the double-object dative ("the doctor is giving a patient pills") can convey the successful transfer of possession, whereas its syntactic alternative, the prepositional dative ("the doctor is giving pills to a patient"), conveys just a transfer to a location. Four experiments explore how syntactic structures may become associated with particular semantic content - such as these emergent properties of events. Experiment 1 provides evidence that speakers form associations between syntactic structures and particular event depictions. Experiment 2 shows that these associations also hold for different depictions of the same events. Experiments 3 and 4 implicate representations of the semantic features of events in these associations. Taken together, these results reveal an effect we term syntactic entrainment that is well positioned to reflect the recalibration of the strength of the mappings or associations that allow syntactic structures to convey emergent properties of events.