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An underinformative sentence, such as Some cats are mammals, is trivially true with a semantic (some and perhaps all) reading of the quantifier and false with a pragmatic (some but not all) one, with the latter reliably resulting in longer response times than the former in a truth evaluation task (Bott & Noveck, 2004). Most analyses attribute these prolonged reaction times, or costs, to the st

Within Relevance Theory, it has been suggested that extended metaphors might be processed differently relative to single metaphoric uses. While single metaphors are hypothesized to be understood via the creation of an ad hoc concept, extended metaphors have been claimed to require a switch to a secondary processing mode, which gives greater prominence to the literal meaning. Initial experimental e

Irony is a heavily context-dependent pragmatic phenomenon. But what is it about context that facilitates or blocks irony comprehension? Based on the echoic account, we suggest that a context facilitates irony comprehension when it makes manifest a speaker's intentions and attitude, i.e., when a context makes it easy for participants to engage their mindreading abilities. In two pre-registered self

When a word is used metaphorically (for example "walrus" in the sentence "The president is a walrus"), some features of that word's meaning ("very fat," "slow-moving") are carried across to the metaphoric interpretation while other features ("has large tusks," "lives near the north pole") are not. What happens to these features that relate only to the literal meaning during processing of novel met

Upon hearing the phrase Some cats meow, a listener might pragmatically infer that 'Some but not all cats meow'. This is known as a scalar implicature and it often arises when a speaker produces a weak linguistic expression instead of a stronger one. Several L2 studies claim that pragmatic inferences are generated by default and their comprehension presents no challenges to L2 learners. However, th

In the present study, we used eye-tracking to investigate formality-register and morphosyntactic congruence during sentence reading. While research frequently covers participants' processing of lexical, (morpho-)syntactic, or semantic knowledge (e.g., operationalized by means of violations to which we can measure responses relative to felicitous stimuli), less attention has been devoted to the ful

In the present review paper by members of the collaborative research center "Register: Language Users' Knowledge of Situational-Functional Variation" (CRC 1412), we assess the pervasiveness of register phenomena across different time periods, languages, modalities, and cultures. We define "register" as recurring variation in language use depending on the function of language and on the social situ

Regeringsformen (RF), Europakonventionen2(EKMR) och unionsrätten upprätthåller på olika sätt grundläggande rättigheter i form av tillgång till domstolsprövning, rättvis rättegång och effektiva rättsmedel. En på senare tid omdebatterad fråga är hur nämnda regelverk förhåller sig till utrymmet för att inför svensk domstol föra en fastställelsetalan jämlikt 13 kap. 2 § rättegångsbalken (RB). En särsk

Meeting the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals requires limiting future carbon emissions, yet current policies make temporarily overshooting the 1.5°C target likely. The potential climate feedback from destabilizing peatlands, storing large amounts of carbon, remains poorly quantified. Using the reduced-complexity Earth System Model OSCAR with an integrated peat carbon module, we found that acros

This study investigates how individual multilingual engagement modulates brain oscillatory activity and cognitive control across the lifespan, using both resting-state and task-based EEG with a Flanker task. We assessed whether degree of multilingual engagement moderates age-related changes in theta and alpha power and examined how these changes impact task-specific neural dynamics and behavioral

China's new soft power is being embraced by the world

Despite its increasing prevalence worldwide, ageing without children remains insufficiently studied. This article presents a scoping review of existing qualitative research examining the social aspects of childlessness in midlife and later adulthood. A total of 3,444 papers were retrieved from nine electronic databases (Web of Science, PubMed, CINAHL Complete, APA PsycINFO, SocINDEX, Academic Sear