Constanze Vorwerg:
Consistency in successive spatial utterances
Abstract
This contribution reports experimental data suggesting that internal consistency
is an important factor in reference-frame, lexical and syntactic choices
across successive spatial utterances. Speakers tend to use the same word
category (adverb, preposition, or prepositional adverb, and subcategories)
for encoding direction throughout a localization sequence. Speakers are also
more likely to use the same reference frame to locate an object as the frame
they had used in their initial utterance. Importantly, this effect is influenced
by manipulating the initial location on the possible reference axes and can
therefore not be accounted for by cognitive styles. The basic mechanisms
leading to intra-individual consistency are discussed with respect to deliberate
strategies and automatic activation, and in relation to interactive alignment
in dialogue. |
