AND ANSWERS
The core meaning of a sentence as expressed by its linguistic content. This core meaning
captures the real-world event or the situation that would have to occur in order for that
sentence to be judged to be true
the smallest piece of meaning derived solely from the words within a sentence (and their
reference) that can be assigned a truth value (true or false) - ANS Proposition
detailed conceptual representation of real-world situations that are evoked by language -
ANS mental models/situation models
A pronoun's referent or referential match; that is, the expression (usually a proper name or a
descriptive noun or noun phrase) that refers to the same person or entity as the pronoun -
ANS antecedent
The finding that under some circumstances, it takes longer to read a sentence in which a highly
salient referent is referred to by a full noun phrase (NP) rather than by a pronoun. -
ANS repeated-name penalty
syntactic structures that have the effect of putting special emphasis or focus on certain
elements within the sentence - ANS focus constructions
A type of focus construction in which a single clause has been split into two, typically with the
form "It is/was X that/who Y." The element corresponding to X in this frame is focused. For
example, in the sentence It was Sam who left Fred, the focus is on Sam. - ANS it-cleft
sentence
Copyright ©2025 BRIGHTSTARS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1
, A type of focus construction in which one clause has been divided into two, with the first clause
introduced by a wh- element, as in the sentences What Ravi sold was his old car or Where Joan
went was to Finland. In this case, the focused element appears in the second clause (his old car,
to Finland). - ANS wh-cleft sentence
Expectations about the probable cause/effect structure of events denoted by particular verbs. -
ANS implicit causality
An inference that connects some of the content in a sentence with previous material in the
text, or with information encoded in the mental model. - ANS bridging inferences
An implicit assumption that is signaled by specific linguistic expressions, and whose existence or
truth is taken for granted as background information. - ANS presupposition
the process of updating a mental model to include information that is presupposed by a
speaker, as evident by his use of specific presupposition-triggering expressions -
ANS accommodation
refers to inferences that are not required in order to make a discourse coherent but that enrich
the meaning of sentences to include material not explicitly encoded on the linguistic content of
the sentence - ANS Elaborative inferences
The finding that under some circumstances, readers retain more information from a text in
which the coherence relations between sentences is not made explicit and must be inferred by
the reader. - ANS reverse cohesion effect
a type of comparative reasoning in which the similarities between conceptual structures are
aligned and highlighted, while other irrelevant properties or relations are disregarded -
ANS analogical reasoning
the enhancement of learning through social interaction - ANS social gating
Copyright ©2025 BRIGHTSTARS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2