TEXT, TOPOS, AND MENTAL MODELS

We examine how predications in text affect the inferences which are generated and used during reading. Inferences of the so-called ''topos'' type, that is, the more votes X gets, the more likely X will win (Anscombre, 1989; Ducrot, 1988) were explored in the reading of texts describing competitions which involved two main participants. The texts contained ambiguous definite noun phrases, as in ''In the first round, John Smith got almost/only 500 votes. The Irish lawyer was leading/trailing.'' When both sentences in such a sequence were oriented toward a winning or a losing outcome, the ambiguous noun phrases were interpreted as being coreferential with the individual just named, the text was judged as being clearer and more comprehensible, and reading was more rapid. In contrast, when the sentences were oriented in opposite directions, the ambiguous noun phrases were interpreted as referring to the other major participant in a contest, the text was rated as being less clear and less comprehensible, and reading was less rapid. We examine models of reasoning which might be used to resolve such ambiguities in text.