On the psycholinguistics of argumenthood
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Verbs are often understood in terms of the events they denote and the events' participants. These participants are typically classified as core or peripheral participants, which correspond to arguments and adjuncts, respectively. Consider Cathy won the contest last year. Cathy and the contest are core participants and arguments whereas last year is a peripheral participant and an adjunct, respectively. Despite an intuitive distinction between arguments and adjuncts, the exact nature of this distinction has been difficult to characterize. This thesis contributes to our understanding of argument structure through two different approaches. We first conducted a cross-linguistic investigation of instrument phrases, which are notoriously difficult to characterize as arguments or adjuncts. This study revealed three factors that contribute to the controversial status of instruments: the semantics/syntax misalignment, the allow/require distinction, and the body-part/external instruments distinction. Next we conducted an investigation of verbs and their participants in atypical populations. This study provided evidence that individuals with high functioning autism and individuals with loss of diagnosis may present with subtle argument structure impairments; proposed novel measures of language assessment that capture individual differences otherwise missed; and advocated for an alternative method of analysis that accounts for within-group variability. Together, the two studies contribute to our understanding of some of the factors involved in distinguishing between arguments and adjuncts and highlight how argument structure concepts can be applied to better serve individuals with high functioning autism and with loss of diagnosis.
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Copyright © 2020 the author(s). Theses may be used for non-commercial research, educational, or related academic purposes only. Such uses include personal study, research, scholarship, and teaching. Theses may only be shared by linking to Carleton University Institutional Repository and no part may be used without proper attribution to the author. No part may be used for commercial purposes directly or indirectly via a for-profit platform; no adaptation or derivative works are permitted without consent from the copyright owner.
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- 2020
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barbu-psycholinguisticsofargumenthood.pdf | 2023-05-05 | Public | Download |