Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie

17.1. Mojmír Dočekal, Michaela Hulmanová & Aviv Schoenfeld (Brno & Tel Aviv): Slavic episodic and generic sorting: Experimental evidence from Slovak [zoom]

In this talk, we report on an experimental study of the sorting in Slovak episodic and generic sentences. The experiment shows that Slovak sorting is very much constrained, unlike the previously reported universal sorter in English (see Bunt, 1985 a.o.: *fuels* meaning 'kinds of fuel', e.g.).

Based on the suggestions from the previous literature, we tested both verbal and nominal factors that might influence the availability of sorting. The results show that the sorting is influenced by the type of the predicate (episodic vs. generic) but also by the count/mass/object-mass denotation of the noun.

The inferential statistics of the experiment suggest which factors are more important than others. Finally, we discuss some possible reasons for the observed differences between Slovak and English sorting.