Joan Borràs-Comes
Biographic Data
| ID | 143908 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joan Borràs-Comes |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joan |
| FAMILY NAME | Borràs-Comes |
| SIGNATURE | BORRÀS-COMES J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2855-7340 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 78 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Bridging Inferences and Reference Management: Evidence from an Experimental Investigation in Catalan and Russian
This article focuses on the choice of nominal forms in a language with articles (Catalan) in comparison to a language without articles (Russian). An experimental study (consisting of various naturalness judgment tasks) was run with speakers of these two languages which allowed to show that in bridging contexts native speakers’ preferences vary when reference is made to one single individual or to two disjoint referents. In the former case, Catala…
Greek non-negative min, epistemic modality, and positive bias
Modern Greek displays two variants of the word min ; one corresponds to a negative marker, and the other corresponds to an epistemic modal. We focus on the latter and provide, for the first time to our knowledge, experimental evidence on its exact interpretation, showing that (i) non-negative min is incompatible with the overt realization of polar propositional alternatives { p ,¬ p }, (ii) it conveys medium speaker certainty with respect to the …
Multimodal mitigation: How facial and body cues index politeness in Catalan requests
Recent cross-linguistic research has demonstrated that speakers use a prosodic mitigation strategy when addressing higher status interlocutors by talking more slowly, reducing the intensity and lowering the overall fundamental frequency (F0). Much less is known, however, about how politeness-related meaning is expressed multimodally (i.e., combining verbal and multimodal channels). The present study investigates how Catalan native speakers encode…
On the interpretation of response particles méi(yǒu) and bù to negative polar questions in Mandarin Chinese
Polarity Items in Basque: Experimental evidence for their existential reading
This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation that looks into the acceptability and interpretation judgements that Basque native speakers give to sentences with multiple i -/ bat ere indefinites in declarative sentences. It is argued that Basque i -/ bat ere indefinites are Polarity Items (PIs) rather than Negative Concord Items (NCIs), as they are consistently associated with an existential reading in unacceptable declarative …
Greek polydefinites revisited: Polydefiniteness as resumed relative clause modification
This article focuses on the interpretation of the adjectives that appear in Greek polydefinite DP s. It provides empirical support to the established position that restrictive modifiers are preferred in polydefinite environments (Kolliakou 1995). At the same time, it shows that non-restrictively modified polydefinites are not excluded by grammar (Manolessou 2000). To reconcile the facts, a novel syntactic analysis of polydefiniteness as involving…
The interpretation of plural mass nouns in Greek
Mismatches in the interpretation of fragment negative expressions in Mandarin Chinese
Epistemic intonation and epistemic gesture are mutually co-expressive: Empirical results from two intonation-gesture matching tasks
Question intonation contours as dynamic epistemic operators
Single negation interpretations in sentences with multiple negative expressions in Mandarin Chinese. An experimental investigation
Prosodic mitigation characterizes Catalan formal speech: The Frequency Code reassessed
Epistemic and evidential marking in discourse: Effects of register and debatability
The use of evidential and epistemic marking as a rhetorical strategy has received little attention in the literature. Speakers often make judgments on the basis of perceptual, reported, or inferred evidence, thus the relationship between epistemicity and evidentiality is often close and difficult to demarcate. However, whereas epistemicity involves the speaker's or writer's evaluation, judgment and degree of commitment attached to the truth-value…
Communicating Epistemic Stance: How Speech and Gesture Patterns Reflect Epistemicity and Evidentiality
This study investigates how epistemic stance is encoded and perceived in face-to-face communication when language is regarded as comprised by speech and gesture. Two studies were conducted with this goal in mind. The first study consisted of a production task in which participants performed opinion reports. Results showed that speakers communicate epistemic stance both verbally and non-verbally, and that specific prosodic and gestural patterns ar…
Vocative Intonation Preferences are Sensitive to Politeness Factors
Although intonation has been traditionally associated with the expression of attitudes and intentions on the part of the speaker, little is known about whether sociopragmatic factors, such as power or social distance, or situational ones, like physical distance or insistence, can constrain the use and felicity of pitch contours. This article investigates the felicity conditions underlying the choice of three vocative pitch contours in Central Cat…
Exploring the contribution of prosody and gesture to the perception of focus using an animated agent☆
The role of pitch range in establishing intonational contrasts
One of the unresolved issues in the field of intonational phonology is whether pitch accent range differences are used by languages to express discrete linguistic distinctions. In Catalan, as in some other Romance languages, a rising-falling nuclear pitch contour - i.e. a rising pitch accent associated with the utterance-final stressed syllable followed by a Low boundary tone - can be used to convey three different pragmatic meanings depending on…
Prosody and gesture constrain the interpretation of double negation
Prosodic mitigation characterizes Catalan formal speech: The Frequency Code reassessed
Prosody and gesture constrain the interpretation of double negation
Communicating Epistemic Stance: How Speech and Gesture Patterns Reflect Epistemicity and Evidentiality
This study investigates how epistemic stance is encoded and perceived in face-to-face communication when language is regarded as comprised by speech and gesture. Two studies were conducted with this goal in mind. The first study consisted of a production task in which participants performed opinion reports. Results showed that speakers communicate epistemic stance both verbally and non-verbally, and that specific prosodic and gestural patterns ar…
Question intonation contours as dynamic epistemic operators
Epistemic and evidential marking in discourse: Effects of register and debatability
The use of evidential and epistemic marking as a rhetorical strategy has received little attention in the literature. Speakers often make judgments on the basis of perceptual, reported, or inferred evidence, thus the relationship between epistemicity and evidentiality is often close and difficult to demarcate. However, whereas epistemicity involves the speaker's or writer's evaluation, judgment and degree of commitment attached to the truth-value…
The role of pitch range in establishing intonational contrasts
One of the unresolved issues in the field of intonational phonology is whether pitch accent range differences are used by languages to express discrete linguistic distinctions. In Catalan, as in some other Romance languages, a rising-falling nuclear pitch contour - i.e. a rising pitch accent associated with the utterance-final stressed syllable followed by a Low boundary tone - can be used to convey three different pragmatic meanings depending on…
Exploring the contribution of prosody and gesture to the perception of focus using an animated agent☆
Epistemic intonation and epistemic gesture are mutually co-expressive: Empirical results from two intonation-gesture matching tasks
Vocative Intonation Preferences are Sensitive to Politeness Factors
Although intonation has been traditionally associated with the expression of attitudes and intentions on the part of the speaker, little is known about whether sociopragmatic factors, such as power or social distance, or situational ones, like physical distance or insistence, can constrain the use and felicity of pitch contours. This article investigates the felicity conditions underlying the choice of three vocative pitch contours in Central Cat…
Greek non-negative min, epistemic modality, and positive bias
Modern Greek displays two variants of the word min ; one corresponds to a negative marker, and the other corresponds to an epistemic modal. We focus on the latter and provide, for the first time to our knowledge, experimental evidence on its exact interpretation, showing that (i) non-negative min is incompatible with the overt realization of polar propositional alternatives { p ,¬ p }, (ii) it conveys medium speaker certainty with respect to the …
Single negation interpretations in sentences with multiple negative expressions in Mandarin Chinese. An experimental investigation
Polarity Items in Basque: Experimental evidence for their existential reading
This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation that looks into the acceptability and interpretation judgements that Basque native speakers give to sentences with multiple i -/ bat ere indefinites in declarative sentences. It is argued that Basque i -/ bat ere indefinites are Polarity Items (PIs) rather than Negative Concord Items (NCIs), as they are consistently associated with an existential reading in unacceptable declarative …
The interpretation of plural mass nouns in Greek
Mismatches in the interpretation of fragment negative expressions in Mandarin Chinese
Prosody and gesture constrain the interpretation of double negation
The role of pitch range in establishing intonational contrasts
One of the unresolved issues in the field of intonational phonology is whether pitch accent range differences are used by languages to express discrete linguistic distinctions. In Catalan, as in some other Romance languages, a rising-falling nuclear pitch contour - i.e. a rising pitch accent associated with the utterance-final stressed syllable followed by a Low boundary tone - can be used to convey three different pragmatic meanings depending on…
Vocative Intonation Preferences are Sensitive to Politeness Factors
Although intonation has been traditionally associated with the expression of attitudes and intentions on the part of the speaker, little is known about whether sociopragmatic factors, such as power or social distance, or situational ones, like physical distance or insistence, can constrain the use and felicity of pitch contours. This article investigates the felicity conditions underlying the choice of three vocative pitch contours in Central Cat…
Exploring the contribution of prosody and gesture to the perception of focus using an animated agent☆
Communicating Epistemic Stance: How Speech and Gesture Patterns Reflect Epistemicity and Evidentiality
This study investigates how epistemic stance is encoded and perceived in face-to-face communication when language is regarded as comprised by speech and gesture. Two studies were conducted with this goal in mind. The first study consisted of a production task in which participants performed opinion reports. Results showed that speakers communicate epistemic stance both verbally and non-verbally, and that specific prosodic and gestural patterns ar…
Prosodic mitigation characterizes Catalan formal speech: The Frequency Code reassessed
Epistemic and evidential marking in discourse: Effects of register and debatability
The use of evidential and epistemic marking as a rhetorical strategy has received little attention in the literature. Speakers often make judgments on the basis of perceptual, reported, or inferred evidence, thus the relationship between epistemicity and evidentiality is often close and difficult to demarcate. However, whereas epistemicity involves the speaker's or writer's evaluation, judgment and degree of commitment attached to the truth-value…
Question intonation contours as dynamic epistemic operators
Single negation interpretations in sentences with multiple negative expressions in Mandarin Chinese. An experimental investigation
Mismatches in the interpretation of fragment negative expressions in Mandarin Chinese
Epistemic intonation and epistemic gesture are mutually co-expressive: Empirical results from two intonation-gesture matching tasks
Greek polydefinites revisited: Polydefiniteness as resumed relative clause modification
This article focuses on the interpretation of the adjectives that appear in Greek polydefinite DP s. It provides empirical support to the established position that restrictive modifiers are preferred in polydefinite environments (Kolliakou 1995). At the same time, it shows that non-restrictively modified polydefinites are not excluded by grammar (Manolessou 2000). To reconcile the facts, a novel syntactic analysis of polydefiniteness as involving…
The interpretation of plural mass nouns in Greek
Multimodal mitigation: How facial and body cues index politeness in Catalan requests
Recent cross-linguistic research has demonstrated that speakers use a prosodic mitigation strategy when addressing higher status interlocutors by talking more slowly, reducing the intensity and lowering the overall fundamental frequency (F0). Much less is known, however, about how politeness-related meaning is expressed multimodally (i.e., combining verbal and multimodal channels). The present study investigates how Catalan native speakers encode…
On the interpretation of response particles méi(yǒu) and bù to negative polar questions in Mandarin Chinese
Polarity Items in Basque: Experimental evidence for their existential reading
This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation that looks into the acceptability and interpretation judgements that Basque native speakers give to sentences with multiple i -/ bat ere indefinites in declarative sentences. It is argued that Basque i -/ bat ere indefinites are Polarity Items (PIs) rather than Negative Concord Items (NCIs), as they are consistently associated with an existential reading in unacceptable declarative …
Greek non-negative min, epistemic modality, and positive bias
Modern Greek displays two variants of the word min ; one corresponds to a negative marker, and the other corresponds to an epistemic modal. We focus on the latter and provide, for the first time to our knowledge, experimental evidence on its exact interpretation, showing that (i) non-negative min is incompatible with the overt realization of polar propositional alternatives { p ,¬ p }, (ii) it conveys medium speaker certainty with respect to the …
Bridging Inferences and Reference Management: Evidence from an Experimental Investigation in Catalan and Russian
This article focuses on the choice of nominal forms in a language with articles (Catalan) in comparison to a language without articles (Russian). An experimental study (consisting of various naturalness judgment tasks) was run with speakers of these two languages which allowed to show that in bridging contexts native speakers’ preferences vary when reference is made to one single individual or to two disjoint referents. In the former case, Catala…
Linguistics (16 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (11 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (9 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Mathematics (6 works)