Grammatical mood and ambiguity aversion
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2019/10/0008/000370Keywords:
decision theory, language, ambiguity, risk, mood, subjunctiveAbstract
This paper explores the impact of language on behaviour studying the impact of mood in a probabilistic choice context. Building on the idea of “aversion to ambiguity” according to which subjects prefer situations in which probabilities are known over those in which they are not known, we have systematically tested the association of sentence mood with choice situations. We found that with indicative the aversion to ambiguity is confirmed, whereas with the subjunctive, it is not. This indicates that grammatical features can influence the way in which subjects apprehend choices in probabilistic contexts.
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