Publications

Displaying 1 - 100 of 129
  • Ameka, F. K., & Levinson, S. C. (Eds.). (2007). The typology and semantics of locative predication: Posturals, positionals and other beasts [Special Issue]. Linguistics, 45(5).

    Abstract

    This special issue is devoted to a relatively neglected topic in linguistics, namely the verbal component of locative statements. English tends, of course, to use a simple copula in utterances like “The cup is on the table”, but many languages, perhaps as many as half of the world's languages, have a set of alternate verbs, or alternate verbal affixes, which contrast in this slot. Often these are classificatory verbs of ‘sitting’, ‘standing’ and ‘lying’. For this reason, perhaps, Aristotle listed position among his basic (“noncomposite”) categories.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2007). Grammatical borrowing in Likpe (Sɛkpɛlé). In Y. Matras, & J. Sakel (Eds.), Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 107-122). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Baayen, R. H. (2007). Storage and computation in the mental lexicon. In G. Jarema, & G. Libben (Eds.), The mental lexicon: Core perspectives (pp. 81-104). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2000). From Latin to French: The linear development of word order. In B. Bichakjian, T. Chernigovskaya, A. Kendon, & A. Müller (Eds.), Becoming Loquens: More studies in language origins (pp. 239-257). Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2007). The definite article in Indo-European: Emergence of a new grammatical category? In E. Stark, E. Leiss, & W. Abraham (Eds.), Nominal determination: Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence (pp. 103-139). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2000). Where do pragmatic meanings come from? In W. Spooren, T. Sanders, & C. van Wijk (Eds.), Samenhang in Diversiteit; Opstellen voor Leo Noorman, aangeboden bij gelegenheid van zijn zestigste verjaardag (pp. 137-153).
  • Boroditsky, L., Gaby, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Time in space. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 10 (pp. 59-80). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468721.

    Abstract

    This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2008 version: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.492932

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  • Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2007). Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition [Reprint]. In V. Evans, B. K. Bergen, & J. Zinken (Eds.), The cognitive linguistic reader (pp. 849-879). London: Equinox Publishing.

    Abstract

    Reprinted from Bowerman, M. & Choi, S. (2003). Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition. In D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in Mind (pp. 387-427). Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (2007). Containment, support, and beyond: Constructing topological spatial categories in first language acquisition. In M. Aurnague, M. Hickmann, & L. Vieu (Eds.), The categorization of spatial entities in language and cognition (pp. 177-203). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Among children’s earliest spatial words are topological forms like ‘in’ and ‘on’. Although these forms name spatial relationships, they also presuppose a classification of ground objects into entities such as “containers” and “surfaces”; hence their relevance for a volume on “spatial entities”. Traditionally, researchers have assumed that semantic categories of space are universal, reflecting a human way of nonlinguistically perceiving and cognizing space. But, as this chapter discusses, spatial categories in fact differ strikingly across languages, and children begin to home in on language-specific classifications extremely early, before age two. Learners do not, it seems, draw only on purely nonlinguistic spatial concepts; they can also actively construct spatial categories on the basis of the linguistic input. Evidence is drawn primarily from research on children learning Korean vs. English.
  • Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2007). Kształtowanie znaczeń dla języka: Zjawiska uniwersalne i charakterystyczne dla danego języka w przyswajaniu kategorii semantycznych odnoszących się do przestrzeni [Reprint]. In B. Bokus, & G. W. Shugar (Eds.), Psychologia języka dziecka (pp. 386-424). Gdansk: Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne.

    Abstract

    Reprinted from: Bowerman, M. & Choi, S. (2001). Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language specific in the acquisition of spatial semantic categories. In M. Bowerman & S.L. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 475-511). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (1986). First steps in acquiring conditionals. In E. C. Traugott, A. G. t. Meulen, J. S. Reilly, & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), On conditionals (pp. 285-308). Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter is about the initial flowering of conditionals, if-(then) constructions, in children's spontaneous speech. It is motivated by two major theoretical interests. The first and most immediate is to understand the acquisition process itself. Conditionals are conceptually, and in many languages morphosyntactically, complex. What aspects of cognitive and grammatical development are implicated in their acquisition? Does learning take place in the context of particular interactions with other speakers? Where do conditionals fit in with the acquisition of other complex sentences? What are the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic properties of the first conditionals? Underlying this first interest is a second, more strictly linguistic one. Research of recent years has found increasing evidence that natural languages are constrained in certain ways. The source of these constraints is not yet clearly understood, but it is widely assumed that some of them derive ultimately from properties of children's capacity for language acquisition.

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  • Bowerman, M. (1988). Inducing the latent structure of language. In F. Kessel (Ed.), The development of language and language researchers: Essays presented to Roger Brown (pp. 23-49). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Bowerman, M. (1988). The 'no negative evidence' problem: How do children avoid constructing an overly general grammar? In J. Hawkins (Ed.), Explaining language universals (pp. 73-101). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
  • Bowerman, M. (1988). The child's expression of meaning: Expanding relationships among lexicon, syntax, and morphology [Reprint]. In M. B. Franklin, & S. S. Barten (Eds.), Child language: A reader (pp. 106-117). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    Reprinted from: Bowerman, M. (1981). The child's expression of meaning: Expanding relationships among lexicon, syntax, and morphology. In H. Winitz (Ed.), Native language and foreign language acquisition (pp. 172 189). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
  • Bowerman, M. (2000). Where do children's word meanings come from? Rethinking the role of cognition in early semantic development. In L. Nucci, G. Saxe, & E. Turiel (Eds.), Culture, thought and development (pp. 199-230). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Bresnan, J., Cueni, A., Nikitina, T., & Baayen, R. H. (2007). Predicting the dative alternation. In G. Bouma, I. Kraemer, & J. Zwarts (Eds.), Cognitive foundations of interpretation (pp. 69-94). Amsterdam: KNAW.

    Abstract

    Theoretical linguists have traditionally relied on linguistic intuitions such as grammaticality judgments for their data. But the massive growth of computer-readable texts and recordings, the availability of cheaper, more powerful computers and software, and the development of new probabilistic models for language have now made the spontaneous use of language in natural settings a rich and easily accessible alternative source of data. Surprisingly, many linguists believe that such ‘usage data’ are irrelevant to the theory of grammar. Four problems are repeatedly brought up in the critiques of usage data— 1. correlated factors seeming to support reductive theories, 2. pooled data invalidating grammatical inference, 3. syntactic choices reducing to lexical biases, and 4. cross-corpus differences undermining corpus studies. Presenting a case study of work on the English dative alternation, we show first,that linguistic intuitions of grammaticality are deeply flawed and seriously underestimate the space of grammatical possibility, and second, that the four problems in the critique of usage data are empirical issues that can be resolved by using modern statistical theory and modelling strategies widely used in other fields. The new models allow linguistic theory to solve more difficult problems than it has in the past, and to build convergent projects with psychology, computer science, and allied fields of cognitive science.
  • Brown, P. (2007). Principles of person reference in Tzeltal conversation. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (Eds.), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 172-202). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    This paper focuses on ‘minimality’ in initial references to persons in the Mayan language Tzeltal, spoken in southern Mexico. Inspection of initial person-referring expressions in 25 Tzeltal videotaped conversations reveals that, in this language, if speaker and/or recipient are related through ‘kinship’ to the referent, a kin term (or other relational term like ‘namesake’) is the default option for initial reference to persons. Additionally, further specification via names and/or geographical location (of home base) is also often used to home in on the referent (e.g. ‘your-cousin Alonzo’, ‘our mother’s brother behind the mountain’). And often (~ 70 cases in the data examined) initial references to persons combine more than one referring expression, for example: ‘this old man my brother-in-law old man Antonio here in the pines’, or ‘the father of that brother-in-law of yours the father-in-law of your elder-sister Xmaruch’. Seen in the light of Schegloff’s (1979, 1996) two basic preferences for referring to persons in conversation: (i.) for a recognitional form and (ii.) for a minimal form, these Tzeltal person-referring expressions seem to be relatively elaborated. This paper examines the sequential contexts where such combinations appear, and proposes a third preference operative in Tzeltal (and possibly in other kinship-term-based systems) for associating the referent as closely as possible to the participants.
  • Brown, P. (2000). ’He descended legs-upwards‘: Position and motion in Tzeltal frog stories. In E. V. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 30th Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 67-75). Stanford: CSLI.

    Abstract

    How are events framed in narrative? Speakers of English (a 'satellite-framed' language), when 'reading' Mercer Mayer's wordless picture book 'Frog, Where Are You?', find the story self-evident: a boy has a dog and a pet frog; the frog escapes and runs away; the boy and dog look for it across hill and dale, through woods and over a cliff, until they find it and return home with a baby frog child of the original pet frog. In Tzeltal, as spoken in a Mayan community in southern Mexico, the story is somewhat different, because the language structures event descriptions differently. Tzeltal is in part a 'verb-framed' language with a set of Path-encoding motion verbs, so that the bare bones of the Frog story can consist of verbs translating as 'go'/'pass by'/'ascend'/ 'descend'/ 'arrive'/'return'. But Tzeltal also has satellite-framing adverbials, grammaticized from the same set of motion verbs, which encode the direction of motion or the orientation of static arrays. Furthermore, vivid pictorial detail is provided by positional verbs which can describe the position of the Figure as an outcome of a motion event; motion and stasis are thereby combined in a single event description. (For example:  jipot jawal "he has been thrown (by the deer) lying­_face_upwards_spread-eagled". This paper compares the use of these three linguistic resources in Frog Story narratives from  Tzeltal adults and children, looks at their development in the narratives of children, and considers the results in relation to those from Berman and Slobin's (1996) comparative study of adult and child Frog stories.
  • Brown, P. (2007). Culture-specific influences on semantic development Acquiring the Tzeltal 'benefactive' construction. In B. Pfeiler (Ed.), Learning indigenous languages: Child language acquisition in Mesoamerica (pp. 119-154). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin.

    Abstract

    Three-place predicates are an important locus for examining how children acquire argument structure and how this process is influenced by the typology of the language they are learning as well as by culturally-specific semantic categories. From a typological perspective, there is reason to expect children to have some trouble expressing three-participant events, given the considerable variation across languages in how these are linguistically coded. Verbs of transfer (‘give’, ‘receive’, etc.) are often considered to be the verbs which canonically appear with three arguments (e.g., Slobin 1985, Gleitman 1990). Yet in the Mayan language Tzeltal, verbs other than transfer verbs appear routinely in the ditransitive construction. Although the three participants are rarely all overtly expressed as NPs, this construction ensures that the ‘recipient’ or or ‘affectee’ participant is overtly marked on the verb. Tzeltal children’s early acquisition of this construction (well before the age of 3;0) shows that they are sensitive to its abstract constructional meaning of ‘affected’ third participant: they do not go initially for ‘transfer’ meanings but are attuned to benefactive or malefactive uses despite the predominance of the verb ‘give’ in the input with this construction. This poses a challenge to acquisition theories (Goldberg 2001, Ninio 1999) that see construction meaning arising from the meaning of the verb most frequently used in a construction.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Gesichtsbedrohende Akte [reprint: Face-threatening acts, 1987]. In S. K. Herrmann, S. Kraemer, & H. Kuch (Eds.), Verletzende Worte: Die Grammatik sprachlicher Missachtung (pp. 59-88). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

    Abstract

    This article is a reprint of parts of chapters 2 and 3 from Brown and Levinson (1987) discussing the concept of 'Face Threatening Acts'.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2000). Frames of spatial reference and their acquisition in Tenejapan Tzeltal. In L. Nucci, G. Saxe, & E. Turiel (Eds.), Culture, thought, and development (pp. 167-197). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (2000). On the electrophysiology of language comprehension: Implications for the human language system. In M. W. Crocker, M. Pickering, & C. Clifton jr. (Eds.), Architectures and mechanisms for language processing (pp. 213-237). Cambridge University Press.
  • Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P., & Kutas, M. (2000). Postlexical integration processes during language comprehension: Evidence from brain-imaging research. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The new cognitive neurosciences (2nd., pp. 881-895). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Carota, F. (2007). Collaborative use of contrastive markers Contextual and co-textual implications. In A. Fetzer (Ed.), Context and Appropriateness: Micro meets macro (pp. 235-260). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    The study presented in this paper examines the context-dependence and
    dialogue functions of the contrastive markers of Italian ma (but),
    invece (instead), mentre (while) and per (nevertheless) within
    task-oriented dialogues.
    Corpus data evidence their sensitivity to a acognitive interpersonal
    context, conceived as a common ground. Such a cognitive state - shared
    by co-participants through the coordinative process of grounding -
    interacts with the global dialogue structure, which is cognitively
    shaped by ``meta-negotiating{''} and grounding the dialogue topic.
    Locally, the relation between the current dialogue structural units and
    the global dialogue topic is said to be specified by information
    structure, in particular intra-utterance themes.
    It is argued that contrastive markers re-orient the co-participants'
    cognitive states towards grounding ungrounded topical aspects to be
    meta-negotiated. They offer a collaborative context-updating strategy,
    tracking the status of common ground during dialogue topic management.
  • Chen, A. (2007). Language-specificity in the perception of continuation intonation. In C. Gussenhoven, & T. Riad (Eds.), Tones and tunes II: Phonetic and behavioural studies in word and sentence prosody (pp. 107-142). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Abstract

    This paper addressed the question of how British English, German and Dutch listeners differ in their perception of continuation intonation both at the phonological level (Experiment 1) and at the level of phonetic implementation (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, preference scores of pitch contours to signal continuation at the clause-boundary were obtained from these listener groups. It was found that among contours with H%, British English listeners had a strong preference for H*L H%, as predicted. Unexpectedly, British English listeners rated H* H% noticeably more favourably than L*H H%; Dutch listeners largely rated H* H% more favourably than H*L H% and L*H H%; German listeners rated these contours similarly and seemed to have a slight preference for H*L H%. In Experiment 2, the degree to which a final rise was perceived to express continuation was established for each listener group in a made-up language. It was found that although all listener groups associated a higher end pitch with a higher degree of continuation likelihood, the perceived meaning difference for a given interval of end pitch heights varied with the contour shape of the utterance final syllable. When it was comparable to H* H%, British English and Dutch listeners perceived a larger meaning difference than German listeners; when it was comparable to H*L H%, British English listeners perceived a larger difference than German and Dutch listeners. This shows that language-specificity in continuation intonation at the phonological level affects the perception of continuation intonation at the phonetic level.
  • Clark, E. V., & Bowerman, M. (1986). On the acquisition of final voiced stops. In J. A. Fishman (Ed.), The Fergusonian impact: in honor of Charles A. Ferguson on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Volume 1: From phonology to society (pp. 51-68). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A. (2000). How the ear comes to hear. In New Trends in Modern Linguistics [Part of Annual catalogue series] (pp. 6-10). Tokyo, Japan: Maruzen Publishers.
  • Cutler, A. (2000). Hoe het woord het oor verovert. In Voordrachten uitgesproken tijdens de uitreiking van de SPINOZA-premies op 15 februari 2000 (pp. 29-41). The Hague, The Netherlands: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).
  • Cutler, A. (2000). Real words, phantom words and impossible words. In D. Burnham, S. Luksaneeyanawin, C. Davis, & M. Lafourcade (Eds.), Interdisciplinary approaches to language processing: The international conference on human and machine processing of language and speech (pp. 32-42). Bangkok: NECTEC.
  • Cutler, A. (1988). The perfect speech error. In L. Hyman, & C. Li (Eds.), Language, speech and mind: Studies in honor of Victoria A. Fromkin (pp. 209-223). London: Croom Helm.
  • Dimroth, C. (2007). Zweitspracherwerb bei Kindern und Jugendlichen: Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede. In T. Anstatt (Ed.), Mehrsprachigkeit bei Kindern und Erwachsenen: Erwerb, Formen, Förderung (pp. 115-137). Tübingen: Attempto.

    Abstract

    This paper discusses the influence of age-related factors like stage of cognitive development, prior linguistic knowledge, and motivation and addresses the specific effects of these ‘age factors’ on second language acquisition as opposed to other learning tasks. Based on longitudinal corpus data from child and adolescent learners of L2 German (L1 = Russian), the paper studies the acquisition of word order (verb raising over negation, verb second) and inflectional morphology (subject-verb-agreement, tense, noun plural, and adjective-noun agreement). Whereas the child learner shows target-like production in all of these areas within the observation period (1½ years), the adolescent learner masters only some of them. The discussion addresses the question of what it is about clusters of grammatical features that make them particularly affected by age.
  • Dunn, M. (2007). Vernacular literacy in the Touo language of the Solomon Islands. In A. J. Liddicoat (Ed.), Language planning and policy: Issues in language planning and literacy (pp. 209-220). Clevedon: Multilingual matters.

    Abstract

    The Touo language is a non-Austronesian language spoken on Rendova Island (Western Province, Solomon Islands). First language speakers of Touo are typically multilingual, and are likely to speak other (Austronesian) vernaculars, as well as Solomon Island Pijin and English. There is no institutional support of literacy in Touo: schools function in English, and church-based support for vernacular literacy focuses on the major Austronesian languages of the local area. Touo vernacular literacy exists in a restricted niche of the linguistic ecology, where it is utilised for symbolic rather than communicative goals. Competing vernacular orthographic traditions complicate the situation further.
  • Eisenbeiss, S. (2000). The acquisition of Determiner Phrase in German child language. In M.-A. Friedemann, & L. Rizzi (Eds.), The Acquisition of Syntax (pp. 26-62). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Ltd.
  • Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., De Ruiter, J. P., & Stivers, T. (2007). Building a corpus of multimodal interaction in your field site. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 96-99). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468728.

    Abstract

    Research on video- and audio-recordings of spontaneous naturally-occurring conversation in English has shown that conversation is a rule-guided, practice-oriented domain that can be investigated for its underlying mechanics or structure. Systematic study could yield something like a grammar for conversation. The goal of this task is to acquire a corpus of video-data, for investigating the underlying structure(s) of interaction cross-linguistically and cross-culturally.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2007). Meanings of the unmarked: How 'default' person reference does more than just refer. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (Eds.), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 97-120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2000). On linguocentrism. In M. Pütz, & M. H. Verspoor (Eds.), Explorations in linguistic relativity (pp. 125-157). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2007). Repair sequences in interaction. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 100-103). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468724.

    Abstract

    This sub-project is concerned with analysis and cross-linguistic comparison of the mechanisms of signaling and redressing ‘trouble’ during conversation. Speakers and listeners constantly face difficulties with many different aspects of speech production and comprehension during conversation. A speaker may mispronounce a word, or may be unable to find a word, or be unable to formulate in words an idea he or she has in mind. A listener may have troubling hearing (part of) what was said, may not know who a speaker is referring to, may not be sure of the current relevance of what is being said. There may be problems in the organisation of turns at talk, for instance, two speakers’ speech may be in overlap. The goal of this task is to investigate the range of practices that a language uses to address problems of speaking, hearing and understanding in conversation.
  • Ernestus, M., & Baayen, R. H. (2007). Intraparadigmatic effects on the perception of voice. In J. van de Weijer, & E. J. van der Torre (Eds.), Voicing in Dutch: (De)voicing-phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics (pp. 153-173). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    In Dutch, all morpheme-final obstruents are voiceless in word-final position. As a consequence, the distinction between obstruents that are voiced before vowel-initial suffixes and those that are always voiceless is neutralized. This study adds to the existing evidence that the neutralization is incomplete: neutralized, alternating plosives tend to have shorter bursts than non-alternating plosives. Furthermore, in a rating study, listeners scored the alternating plosives as more voiced than the nonalternating plosives, showing sensitivity to the subtle subphonemic cues in the acoustic signal. Importantly, the participants who were presented with the complete words, instead of just the final rhymes, scored the alternating plosives as even more voiced. This shows that listeners’ perception of voice is affected by their knowledge of the obstruent’s realization in the word’s morphological paradigm. Apparently, subphonemic paradigmatic levelling is a characteristic of both production and perception. We explain the effects within an analogy-based approach.
  • Frank, S. L., Koppen, M., Noordman, L. G. M., & Vonk, W. (2007). Modeling multiple levels of text presentation. In F. Schmalhofer, & C. A. Perfetti (Eds.), Higher level language processes in the brain: Inference and comprehension processes (pp. 133-157). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Friederici, A., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1988). Sprache. In K. Immelmann, K. Scherer, C. Vogel, & P. Schmook (Eds.), Psychobiologie: Grundlagen des Verhaltens (pp. 648-671). Stuttgart: Fischer.
  • Furuyama, N., & Sekine, K. (2007). Forgetful or strategic? The mystery of the systematic avoidance of reference in the cartoon story nsarrative. In S. D. Duncan, J. Cassel, & E. T. Levy (Eds.), Gesture and the Dynamic Dimension of Language: Essays in honor of David McNeill (pp. 75-81). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  • Hagoort, P. (2007). The memory, unification, and control (MUC) model of language. In T. Sakamoto (Ed.), Communicating skills of intention (pp. 259-291). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.
  • Hagoort, P. (2007). The memory, unification, and control (MUC) model of language. In A. S. Meyer, L. Wheeldon, & A. Krott (Eds.), Automaticity and control in language processing (pp. 243-270). Hove: Psychology Press.
  • Hawkins, J. A., & Cutler, A. (1988). Psycholinguistic factors in morphological asymmetry. In J. A. Hawkins (Ed.), Explaining language universals (pp. 280-317). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Heeschen, V., Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., Grammer, K., Schiefenhövel, W., & Senft, G. (1986). Sprachliches Verhalten. In Generalverwaltung der MPG (Ed.), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Jahrbuch 1986 (pp. 394-396). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
  • Hunley, K., Dunn, M., Lindström, E., Reesink, G., Terrill, A., Norton, H., Scheinfeldt, L., Friedlaender, F. R., Merriwether, D. A., Koki, G., & Friedlaender, J. S. (2007). Inferring prehistory from genetic, linguistic, and geographic variation. In J. S. Friedlaender (Ed.), Genes, language, & culture history in the Southwest Pacific (pp. 141-154). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter investigates the fit of genetic, phenotypic, and linguistic data to two well-known models of population history. The first of these models, termed the population fissions model, emphasizes population splitting, isolation, and independent evolution. It predicts that genetic and linguistic data will be perfectly tree-like. The second model, termed isolation by distance, emphasizes genetic exchange among geographically proximate populations. It predicts a monotonic decline in genetic similarity with increasing geographic distance. While these models are overly simplistic, deviations from them were expected to provide important insights into the population history of northern Island Melanesia. The chapter finds scant support for either model because the prehistory of the region has been so complex. Nonetheless, the genetic and linguistic data are consistent with an early radiation of proto-Papuan speakers into the region followed by a much later migration of Austronesian speaking peoples. While these groups subsequently experienced substantial genetic and cultural exchange, this exchange has been insufficient to erase this history of separate migrations.
  • Indefrey, P. (2007). Brain imaging studies of language production. In G. Gaskell (Ed.), Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 547-564). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    Neurocognitive studies of language production have provided sufficient evidence on both the spatial and the temporal patterns of brain activation to allow tentative and in some cases not so tentative conclusions about function-structure relationships. This chapter reports meta-analysis results that identify reliable activation areas for a range of word, sentence, and narrative production tasks both in the native language and a second language. Based on a theoretically motivated analysis of language production tasks it is possible to specify relationships between brain areas and functional processing components of language production that could not have been derived from the data provided by any single task.
  • Indefrey, P., & Levelt, W. J. M. (2000). The neural correlates of language production. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The new cognitive neurosciences; 2nd ed. (pp. 845-865). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter reviews the findings of 58 word production experiments using different tasks and neuroimaging techniques. The reported cerebral activation sites are coded in a common anatomic reference system. Based on a functional model of language production, the different word production tasks are analyzed in terms of their processing components. This approach allows a distinction between the core process of word production and preceding task-specific processes (lead-in processes) such as visual or auditory stimulus recognition. The core process of word production is subserved by a left-lateralized perisylvian/thalamic language production network. Within this network there seems to be functional specialization for the processing stages of word production. In addition, this chapter includes a discussion of the available evidence on syntactic production, self-monitoring, and the time course of word production.
  • Ingvar, M., & Petersson, K. M. (2000). Functional maps and brain networks. In A. W. Toga (Ed.), Brain mapping: The systems (pp. 111-140). San Diego: Academic Press.
  • Janzen, G., Herrmann, T., Katz, S., & Schweizer, K. (2000). Oblique Angled Intersections and Barriers: Navigating through a Virtual Maze. In Spatial Cognition II (pp. 277-294). Berlin: Springer.

    Abstract

    The configuration of a spatial layout has a substantial effect on the acquisition and the representation of the environment. In four experiments, we investigated navigation difficulties arising at oblique angled intersections. In the first three studies we investigated specific arrow-fork configurations. In dependence on the branch subjects use to enter the intersection different decision latencies and numbers of errors arise. If subjects see the intersection as a fork, it is more difficult to find the correct way as if it is seen as an arrow. In a fourth study we investigated different heuristics people use while making a detour around a barrier. Detour behaviour varies with the perspective. If subjects learn and navigate through the maze in a field perspective they use a heuristic of preferring right angled paths. If they have a view from above and acquire their knowledge in an observer perspective they use oblique angled paths more often.

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  • Kelly, S. D., & Ozyurek, A. (Eds.). (2007). Gesture, language, and brain [Special Issue]. Brain and Language, 101(3).
  • Kempen, G. (1986). Beyond word processing. In E. Cluff, & G. Bunting (Eds.), Information management yearbook 1986 (pp. 178-181). London: IDPM Publications.
  • Kempen, G. (2007). De kunst van het weglaten: Elliptische nevenschikking in een model van de spreker. In F. Moerdijk, A. van Santen, & R. Tempelaars (Eds.), Leven met woorden: Afscheidsbundel voor Piet van Sterkenburg (pp. 397-407). Leiden: Brill.

    Abstract

    This paper is an abridged version (in Dutch) of an in-press article by the same author (Kempen, G. (2008/9). Clausal coordination and coordinate ellipsis in a model of the speaker. To be published in: Linguistics). The two papers present a psycholinguistically inspired approach to the syntax of clause-level coordination and coordinate ellipsis. It departs from the assumption that coordinations are structurally similar to so-called appropriateness repairs Ñ an important type of self-repairs in spontaneous speech. Coordinate structures and appropriateness repairs can both be viewed as ÒupdateÓ con-structions. Updating is defined as a special sentence production mode that efficiently revises or augments existing sentential structure in response to modifications in the speakerÕs communicative intention. This perspective is shown to offer an empirically satisfactory and theoretically parsimonious account of two prominent types of coordinate ellipsis, in particular Forward Conjunction Reduction (FCR) and Gapping (including Long-Distance Gapping and Subgapping). They are analyzed as different manifestations of Òincremental updatingÓ Ñ efficient updating of only part of the existing sentential structure. Based on empirical data from Dutch and German, novel treatments are proposed for both types of clausal coordinate ellipsis. Two other forms of coordinate ellipsis Ñ SGF (ÒSubject Gap in Finite clauses with fronted verbÓ), and Backward Conjunction Reduction (BCR; also known as Right Node Raising or RNR) Ñ are shown to be incompatible with the notion of incremental updating. Alternative theoretical interpretations of these phenomena are proposed. The four types of clausal coordinate ellipsis Ñ SGF, Gapping, FCR and BCR Ñ are argued to originate in four different stages of sentence production: Intending (i.e. preparing the communicative intention), Conceptualization, Grammatical Encoding, and Phonological Encoding, respectively.
  • Kempen, G. (1986). Kunstmatige intelligentie en gezond verstand. In P. Hagoort, & R. Maessen (Eds.), Geest, computer, kunst (pp. 118-123). Utrecht: Stichting Grafiet.
  • Kita, S., & Ozyurek, A. (2007). How does spoken language shape iconic gestures? In S. Duncan, J. Cassel, & E. Levy (Eds.), Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language (pp. 67-74). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Klaas, G. (2007). Hints and recommendations concerning field equipment. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 10 (pp. 5-6). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Klein, W., & Von Stutterheim, C. (Eds.). (2007). Sprachliche Perspektivierung [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 145.
  • Klein, W. (2000). Der Mythos vom Sprachverfall. In Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Ed.), Jahrbuch 1999: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (pp. 139-158). Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
  • Klein, W., & Perdue, C. (1986). Comment résourdre une tache verbale complexe avec peu de moyens linguistiques? In A. Giacomi, & D. Véronique (Eds.), Acquisition d'une langue étrangère (pp. 306-330). Aix-en-Provence: Service des Publications de l'Universite de Provence.
  • Klein, W. (1986). Intonation und Satzmodalität in einfachen Fällen: Einige Beobachtungen. In E. Slembek (Ed.), Miteinander sprechen und handeln: Festschrift für Hellmut Geissner (pp. 161-177). Königstein Ts.: Scriptor.
  • Klein, W. (2000). Prozesse des Zweitspracherwerbs. In H. Grimm (Ed.), Enzyklopädie der Psychologie: Vol. 3 (pp. 538-570). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
  • Klein, W. (Ed.). (2000). Sprache des Rechts [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (118).
  • Klein, W. (Ed.). (1988). Sprache Kranker [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (69).
  • Klein, W. (Ed.). (1986). Sprachverfall [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (62).
  • Klein, W. (1988). The unity of a vernacular: Some remarks on "Berliner Stadtsprache". In N. Dittmar, & P. Schlobinski (Eds.), The sociolinguistics of urban vernaculars: Case studies and their evaluation (pp. 147-153). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Klein, W. (1988). Varietätengrammatik. In U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, & K. J. Mattheier (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: An international handbook of the science of language and society: Vol. 2 (pp. 997-1060). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1988). Psycholinguistics: An overview. In W. Bright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of linguistics: Vol. 3 (pp. 290-294). Oxford: Oxford University press.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2007). Levensbericht Detlev W. Ploog. In Levensberichten en herdenkingen 2007 (pp. 60-63). Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1986). Herdenking van Joseph Maria Franciscus Jaspars (16 maart 1934 - 31 juli 1985). In Jaarboek 1986 Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (pp. 187-189). Amsterdam: North Holland.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2000). Introduction Section VII: Language. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The new cognitive neurosciences; 2nd ed. (pp. 843-844). Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2000). Psychology of language. In K. Pawlik, & M. R. Rosenzweig (Eds.), International handbook of psychology (pp. 151-167). London: SAGE publications.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2000). Speech production. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (pp. 432-433). Oxford University Press.
  • Levelt, W. J. M., & Indefrey, P. (2000). The speaking mind/brain: Where do spoken words come from? In A. Marantz, Y. Miyashita, & W. O'Neil (Eds.), Image, language, brain: Papers from the First Mind Articulation Project Symposium (pp. 77-94). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1986). Zur sprachlichen Abbildung des Raumes: Deiktische und intrinsische Perspektive. In H. Bosshardt (Ed.), Perspektiven auf Sprache. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zum Gedenken an Hans Hörmann (pp. 187-211). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2007). Optimizing person reference - perspectives from usage on Rossel Island. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (Eds.), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 29-72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter explicates the requirement in person–reference for balancing demands for recognition, minimalization, explicitness and indirection. This is illustrated with reference to data from repair of failures of person–reference within a particular linguistic/cultural context, namely casual interaction among Rossel Islanders. Rossel Island (PNG) offers a ‘natural experiment’ for studying aspects of person reference, because of a number of special properties: 1. It is a closed universe of 4000 souls, sharing one kinship network, so in principle anyone could be recognizable from a reference. As a result no (complex) descriptions (cf. ‘ the author of Waverly’) are employed. 2. Names, however, are never uniquely referring, since they are drawn from a fixed pool. They are only used for about 25% of initial references, another 25% of initial references being done by kinship triangulation (‘that man’s father–in–law’). Nearly 50% of initial references are semantically underspecified or vague (e.g. ‘that girl’). 3. There are systematic motivations for oblique reference, e.g. kinship–based taboos and other constraints, which partly account for the underspecified references. The ‘natural experiment’ thus reveals some gneral lessons about how person–reference requires optimizing multiple conflicting constraints. Comparison with Sacks and Schegloff’s (1979) treatment of English person reference suggests a way to tease apart the universal and the culturally–particular.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1988). Conceptual problems in the study of regional and cultural style. In N. Dittmar, & P. Schlobinski (Eds.), The sociolinguistics of urban vernaculars: Case studies and their evaluation (pp. 161-190). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Levinson, S. C., Senft, G., & Majid, A. (2007). Emotion categories in language and thought. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 46-52). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492892.
  • Levinson, S. C., Majid, A., & Enfield, N. J. (2007). Language of perception: The view from language and culture. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 10-21). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468738.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1988). Putting linguistics on a proper footing: Explorations in Goffman's participation framework. In P. Drew, & A. Wootton (Eds.), Goffman: Exploring the interaction order (pp. 161-227). Oxford: Polity Press.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2007). The language of sound. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 29-31). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468735.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2007). The language of vision II: Shape. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 26-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468732.
  • Lindström, E., Terrill, A., Reesink, G., & Dunn, M. (2007). The languages of Island Melanesia. In J. S. Friedlaender (Ed.), Genes, language, and culture history in the Southwest Pacific (pp. 118-140). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter provides an overview of the Papuan and the Oceanic languages (a branch of Austronesian) in Northern Island Melanesia, as well as phenomena arising through contact between these groups. It shows how linguistics can contribute to the understanding of the history of languages and speakers, and what the findings of those methods have been. The location of the homeland of speakers of Proto-Oceanic is indicated (in northeast New Britain); many facets of the lives of those speakers are shown; and the patterns of their subsequent spread across Island Melanesia and beyond into Remote Oceania are indicated, followed by a second wave overlaying the first into New Guinea and as far as halfway through the Solomon Islands. Regarding the Papuan languages of this region, at least some are older than the 6,000-10,000 ceiling of the Comparative Method, and their relations are explored with the aid of a database of 125 non-lexical structural features. The results reflect archipelago-based clustering with the Central Solomons Papuan languages forming a clade either with the Bismarcks or with Bougainville languages. Papuan languages in Bougainville are less influenced by Oceanic languages than those in the Bismarcks and the Solomons. The chapter considers a variety of scenarios to account for their findings, concluding that the results are compatible with multiple pre-Oceanic waves of arrivals into the area after initial settlement.
  • Liszkowski, U. (2007). Human twelve-month-olds point cooperatively to share interest with and helpfully provide information for a communicative partner. In K. Liebal, C. Müller, & S. Pika (Eds.), Gestural communication in nonhuman and human primates (pp. 124-140). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper investigates infant pointing at 12 months. Three recent experimental studies from our lab are reported and contrasted with existing accounts on infant communicative and social-cognitive abilities. The new results show that infant pointing at 12 months already is a communicative act which involves the intentional transmission of information to share interest with, or provide information for other persons. It is argued that infant pointing is an inherently social and cooperative act which is used to share psychological relations between interlocutors and environment, repairs misunderstandings in proto-conversational turn-taking, and helps others by providing information. Infant pointing builds on an understanding of others as persons with attentional states and attitudes. Findings do not support lean accounts on early infant pointing which posit that it is initially non-communicative, does not serve the function of indicating, or is purely self-centered. It is suggested to investigate the emergence of reference and the motivation to jointly engage with others also before pointing has emerged.
  • Liszkowski, U., & Brown, P. (2007). Infant pointing (9-15 months) in different cultures. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 82-88). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492895.

    Abstract

    There are two tasks for conducting systematic observation of child-caregiver joint attention interactions. Task 1 – a “decorated room” designed to elicit infant and caregiver pointing. Task 2 – videotaped interviews about infant pointing behaviour. The goal of this task is to document the ontogenetic emergence of referential communication in caregiver infant interaction in different cultures, during the critical age of 8-15 months when children come to understand and share others’ intentions. This is of interest to all students of interaction and human communication; it does not require specialist knowledge of children.
  • Majid, A., & Bowerman, M. (Eds.). (2007). Cutting and breaking events: A crosslinguistic perspective [Special Issue]. Cognitive Linguistics, 18(2).

    Abstract

    This special issue of Cognitive Linguistics explores the linguistic encoding of events of cutting and breaking. In this article we first introduce the project on which it is based by motivating the selection of this conceptual domain, presenting the methods of data collection used by all the investigators, and characterizing the language sample. We then present a new approach to examining crosslinguistic similarities and differences in semantic categorization. Applying statistical modeling to the descriptions of cutting and breaking events elicited from speakers of all the languages, we show that although there is crosslinguistic variation in the number of distinctions made and in the placement of category boundaries, these differences take place within a strongly constrained semantic space: across languages, there is a surprising degree of consensus on the partitioning of events in this domain. In closing, we compare our statistical approach with more conventional semantic analyses, and show how an extensional semantic typological approach like the one illustrated here can help illuminate the intensional distinctions made by languages.
  • Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Language of perception: Overview of field tasks. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 8-9). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492898.
  • Majid, A. (2007). Preface and priorities. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 10 (pp. 3). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Majid, A., Senft, G., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). The language of olfaction. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 36-41). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492910.
  • Majid, A., Senft, G., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). The language of touch. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 32-35). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492907.
  • Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). The language of vision I: colour. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 22-25). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492901.
  • Massaro, D. W., & Jesse, A. (2007). Audiovisual speech perception and word recognition. In M. G. Gaskell (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 19-35). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    In most of our everyday conversations, we not only hear but also see each other talk. Our understanding of speech benefits from having the speaker's face present. This finding immediately necessitates the question of how the information from the different perceptual sources is used to reach the best overall decision. This need for processing of multiple sources of information also exists in auditory speech perception, however. Audiovisual speech simply shifts the focus from intramodal to intermodal sources but does not necessitate a qualitatively different form of processing. It is essential that a model of speech perception operationalizes the concept of processing multiple sources of information so that quantitative predictions can be made. This chapter gives an overview of the main research questions and findings unique to audiovisual speech perception and word recognition research as well as what general questions about speech perception and cognition the research in this field can answer. The main theoretical approaches to explain integration and audiovisual speech perception are introduced and critically discussed. The chapter also provides an overview of the role of visual speech as a language learning tool in multimodal training.
  • McQueen, J. M. (2007). Eight questions about spoken-word recognition. In M. G. Gaskell (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 37-53). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter is a review of the literature in experimental psycholinguistics on spoken word recognition. It is organized around eight questions. 1. Why are psycholinguists interested in spoken word recognition? 2. What information in the speech signal is used in word recognition? 3. Where are the words in the continuous speech stream? 4. Which words did the speaker intend? 5. When, as the speech signal unfolds over time, are the phonological forms of words recognized? 6. How are words recognized? 7. Whither spoken word recognition? 8. Who are the researchers in the field?
  • Narasimhan, B., Eisenbeiss, S., & Brown, P. (Eds.). (2007). The linguistic encoding of multiple-participant events [Special Issue]. Linguistics, 45(3).

    Abstract

    This issue investigates the linguistic encoding of events with three or more participants from the perspectives of language typology and acquisition. Such “multiple-participant events” include (but are not limited to) any scenario involving at least three participants, typically encoded using transactional verbs like 'give' and 'show', placement verbs like 'put', and benefactive and applicative constructions like 'do (something for someone)', among others. There is considerable crosslinguistic and withinlanguage variation in how the participants (the Agent, Causer, Theme, Goal, Recipient, or Experiencer) and the subevents involved in multipleparticipant situations are encoded, both at the lexical and the constructional levels
  • Norman, D. A., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1988). Life at the center. In W. Hirst (Ed.), The making of cognitive science: essays in honor of George A. Miller (pp. 100-109). Cambridge University Press.
  • Ozyurek, A. (2007). Processing of multi-modal semantic information: Insights from cross-linguistic comparisons and neurophysiological recordings. In T. Sakamoto (Ed.), Communicating skills of intention (pp. 131-142). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Publishing.
  • Ozyurek, A. (2000). Differences in spatial conceptualization in Turkish and English discourse: Evidence from both speech and gesture. In A. Goksel, & C. Kerslake (Eds.), Studies on Turkish and Turkic languages (pp. 263-272). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
  • Ozyurek, A., Kita, S., Allen, S., Furman, R., & Brown, A. (2007). How does linguistic framing of events influence co-speech gestures? Insights from crosslinguistic variations and similarities. In K. Liebal, C. Müller, & S. Pika (Eds.), Gestural communication in nonhuman and human primates (pp. 199-218). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    What are the relations between linguistic encoding and gestural representations of events during online speaking? The few studies that have been conducted on this topic have yielded somewhat incompatible results with regard to whether and how gestural representations of events change with differences in the preferred semantic and syntactic encoding possibilities of languages. Here we provide large scale semantic, syntactic and temporal analyses of speech- gesture pairs that depict 10 different motion events from 20 Turkish and 20 English speakers. We find that the gestural representations of the same events differ across languages when they are encoded by different syntactic frames (i.e., verb-framed or satellite-framed). However, where there are similarities across languages, such as omission of a certain element of the event in the linguistic encoding, gestural representations also look similar and omit the same content. The results are discussed in terms of what gestures reveal about the influence of language specific encoding on on-line thinking patterns and the underlying interactions between speech and gesture during the speaking process.
  • Ozyurek, A. (2000). The influence of addressee location on spatial language and representational gestures of direction. In D. McNeill (Ed.), Language and gesture (pp. 64-83). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Perniss, P. M., Pfau, R., & Steinbach, M. (2007). Can't you see the difference? Sources of variation in sign language structure. In P. M. Perniss, R. Pfau, & M. Steinbach (Eds.), Visible variation: Cross-linguistic studies in sign language narratives (pp. 1-34). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Perniss, P. M. (2007). Locative functions of simultaneous perspective constructions in German sign language narrative. In M. Vermeerbergen, L. Leeson, & O. Crasborn (Eds.), Simultaneity in signed language: Form and function (pp. 27-54). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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