How do we distinguish fact from opinion? We tested whether people's ability to detect opinion-based content--as indicated by the use of subjective adjectives (e.g., "amazing," "frustrating")--depends on the linguistic position of the adjective. Our results show that simply changing the linguistic structure of a sentence…

When making requests, speakers need to select from a range of alternative forms available to them. In a corpus of naturally occurring Italian interaction, the two most common formats chosen are imperatives and interrogative constructions that include a turn-initial dative pronoun "mi" "to/for me", which is referred to as the "Mi X"? format in this…

The issue addressed in this study is whether propositional integration and world-knowledge inference can be distinguished as separate processes during the comprehension of Dutch "omdat" (because) sentences. "Propositional integration" refers to the process by which the reader establishes the type of relation between two clauses…

The research demonstrated that there are differences in the processing of sentences containing anaphoric pronouns (e.g., "After Mark arrived, he used the phone.") and cataphoric pronouns (e.g., "After he arrived, Mark used the phone."). Reading time was measured on sentences containing 2 clauses; a pronoun appeared in 1 clause, and a proper name…