TY - JOUR
T1 - The meaning of 'Most'
T2 - Semantics, numerosity and psychology
AU - Pietroski, Paul
AU - Lidz, Jeffrey
AU - Hunter, Tim
AU - Halberda, Justin
PY - 2009/11
Y1 - 2009/11
N2 - The meaning of 'most' can be described in many ways. We offer a framework for distinguishing semantic descriptions, interpreted as psychological hypotheses that go beyond claims about sentential truth conditions, and an experiment that tells against an attractive idea: 'most' is understood in terms of one-to-one correspondence. Adults evaluated 'Most of the dots are yellow', as true or false, on many trials in which yellow dots and blue dots were displayed for 200 ms. Displays manipulated the ease of using a 'one-to-one with remainder' strategy, and a strategy of using the Approximate Number System to compare of (approximations of) cardinalities. Interpreting such data requires care in thinking about how meaning is related to verification. But the results suggest that 'most' is understood in terms of cardinality comparison, even when counting is impossible.
AB - The meaning of 'most' can be described in many ways. We offer a framework for distinguishing semantic descriptions, interpreted as psychological hypotheses that go beyond claims about sentential truth conditions, and an experiment that tells against an attractive idea: 'most' is understood in terms of one-to-one correspondence. Adults evaluated 'Most of the dots are yellow', as true or false, on many trials in which yellow dots and blue dots were displayed for 200 ms. Displays manipulated the ease of using a 'one-to-one with remainder' strategy, and a strategy of using the Approximate Number System to compare of (approximations of) cardinalities. Interpreting such data requires care in thinking about how meaning is related to verification. But the results suggest that 'most' is understood in terms of cardinality comparison, even when counting is impossible.
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U2 - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2009.01374.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1468-0017.2009.01374.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:70350520082
VL - 24
SP - 554
EP - 585
JO - Mind and Language
JF - Mind and Language
SN - 0268-1064
IS - 5
ER -