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The other side of johnson‐laird's interpretation of the passive voice
Author(s) -
COSTERMANS J.,
HUPET M.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1977.tb01564.x
Subject(s) - sentence , subject (documents) , psychology , focus (optics) , object (grammar) , linguistics , meaning (existential) , interpretation (philosophy) , function (biology) , cognitive psychology , computer science , philosophy , evolutionary biology , library science , optics , psychotherapist , biology , physics
Two studies by Johnson‐Laird (1968 a, b ) were guided by the notion that the function of the passive is to emphasize the importance of the logical object (LO) by placing it in the grammatical subject position. However, the a priori meaning assigned to the subjects' responses implied that ‘importance’ attaches to the entity which is represented by the larger area in a coloured strip. It will be shown that this is merely one of two possible interpretations for it may just as easily be argued that importance attaches to the narrower area which might be regarded as representing the focal point of the new information imparted by the sentence. In the present study, subjects were required to refer sentences which involved a clear distinction between given and new information to different types of coloured figures. Pattern of responses clearly shows that subjects were more likely to refer a particular sentence to the figure in which the colour stressed in the assertional focus of the sentence is physically the less important. Present data as well as Johnson‐Laird's are thus interpreted as supporting the recent view according to which the logical subject (LS) is really that which is emphasized in passives as the assertional focus while the LO is presuppositional.