TESTS OF SOME WHOLE SENTENCE EFFECTS

Conjunction and disjunction.

When two or more contrastive entities are perceived as participating in a common action or state, the corresponding NPs are likely to be conjoined by and. Comparison of # 15 (A BALL, A SPOON AND A POKER CHIP ARE ON THE PLATE) with # 17 (A CARDBOARD TUBE IS ON THE PLATE) tests the multiplicity-of-entities requirement and comparison of #15 with #26 (SOME POKER CHIPS ARE ON THE TABLE) tests the contrastive- entities requirement; that both are necessary is indicated by the production of 84% and constructions for # 15 as against o % of both #17 and # 26.¹ Similarly, when the same entity is perceived as displaying contrastive actions or states, the corresponding VPs are likely to be conjoined by and. In demonstrations #7 (ONE BALL ROLLS AND HITS THE OTHER) and # 10 (A BLACK BALL ROLLS AND HITS THE BLUE BALL) we have a single entity entering into two contrastive actions (ROLLING AND HITTING), and these can be compared with the single-entity, single-action case in # 3 (THE BALL IS ROLLING ON THE TABLE); #7 and # 10 yield 30% and 42% and coupling two verb phrases as compared with 0% for #3. Although no demonstrations were deliberately set up to produce disjunctive sentences with but, #28 (THE MAN REACHES FOR BUT DOES NOT TAKE ANY CHIPS) as compared with #27 (THE MAN TAKES SOME CHIPS) happens to fit one of the conditions - same entity involved in antagonistic (as well as contrastive) actions. #28 produced 46% but as against 0% but for #27.

¹ All poker chips in #26 were white. Interestingly enough, no one wrote a tube and a plate are on the table for # 17 ; presumably the unique relation between tube and plate (STANDING IN) dominated cognition of this perceptual event.