Publications

Abstract

Observational and checklist measures of vocabulary composition have both recently been used to look at the absolute proportion of nouns in children's early vocabularies. However, they have tended to generate rather different results. The present study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between such measures in a sample of 26 children between 1;1 and 2;1 at approximately 50 and 100 words. The results show that although observational and checklist measures are significantly correlated, there are also systematic quantitative differences between them which seem to reflect a combination of checklist, maternal-report and observational sampling biases. This suggests that, although both kinds of measure may represent good indices of differences in vocabulary size and composition across children and hence be useful as dependent variables in correlational research, neither may be ideal for estimating the absolute proportion of nouns in children's vocabularies. The implication is that questions which rely on information about the absolute proportion of particular kinds of words in children's vocabularies can only be properly addressed by detailed longitudinal studies in which an attempt is made to collect more comprehensive vocabulary records for individual children.

Abstract

Investigations of the effects of advance information on movement preparation in Parkinson's disease using reaction time (RT) measures have yielded contradictory results. In order to obtain direct information regarding the time course of movement preparation, we combined RT measurements in a movement precueing task with multi-channel recordings of movement-related potentials in the present study. Movements of the index and middle fingers of the left and right hand were either precued or not by advance information regarding the side (left or right hand) of the required response. Reaction times were slower for patients than for control subjects. Both groups benefited equally from informative precues, indicating that patients utilized the advance information as effectively as control subjects. Lateralization of the movement-preceding cerebral activity [i.e. the lateralized readiness potential (LRP)] confirmed that patients used the available partial information to prepare their responses and started this process no later than controls. In conjunction with EMG onset times, the LRP onset measures allowed for a fractionation of the RTs, which provided clues to the stages where the slowness of Parkinson's disease patients might arise. No definite abnormalities of temporal parameters were found, but differences in the distribution of the lateralized movement-preceding activity between patients and controls suggested differences in the cortical organization of movement preparation. Differences in amplitude of the contingent negative variation (CNV) and differences in the way in which the CNV was modulated by the information given by the precue pointed in the same direction. A difference in amplitude of the P300 between patients and controls suggested that preprogramming a response required more effort from. patients than from control subjects.

Abstract

In languages in which nouns have a grammatical gender, word recognition can be estimated by gender decision response times. Although gender decision has yet to be used extensively, it has proved sensitive to several factors that have been shown to affect lexical access. The task is not restricted to spoken language but can be used with linguistic information from other sensory modalities.

Abstract

P. A. Starreveld and W. La Heij (1995) tested the seriality view of lexical access in speech production, according to which lexical selection and the encoding of a word's form proceed in serial order without feedback. In 2 experiments, they looked at the combined effect of semantic and orthographic relatedness of written distracter words in tasks that required conceptually driven naming. They found an interaction between semantic relatedness and orthographic relatedness and argued that the observed interaction refutes the seriality view of lexical access. In this comment, the authors argue that Starreveld and La Heij's rejection of serial access was based on an oversimplified conception of the seriality view and that interaction, rather than additivity, is predicted by existing conceptions of serial access.

Abstract

The CELEX lexical database includes a list of Dutch syllables and their frequencies, based on syllabification of isolated word forms. In connected speech, however, sentence-level phonological rules can modify the syllables and their token frequencies. In order to estimate the changes syllables may undergo in connected speech, an empirical investigation was carried out. A large Dutch text corpus (TROUW) was transcribed, processed by word level rules, and syllabified. The resulting lexeme syllables were evaluated by comparing them to the CELEX lexical database for Dutch. Then additional phonological sentence-level rules were applied to the TROUW corpus, and the frequencies of the resulting connected speech syllables were compared with those of the lexeme syllables from TROUW. The overall correlation between lexeme and speech syllables was very high. However, speech syllables generally had more complex CV structures than lexeme syllables. Implications of the results for research involving syllables are discussed. With respect to the notion of a mental syllabary (a store for precompiled articulatory programs for syllables, see Levelt & Wheeldon, 1994) this study revealed an interesting statistical result. The calculation of the cumulative syllable frequencies showed that 85% of the syllable tokens in Dutch can be covered by the 500 most frequent syllable types, which makes the idea of a syllabary very attractive.

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to show that given the available observations on the behaviour of negation and presuppositions there is no simpler explanation than to assume that natural language has two distinct negation operators, the minimal negation which preserves presuppositions and the radical negation which does not. The three-valued logic emerging from this distinction, and especially its model-theory, are discussed in detail. It is, however, stressed that the logic itself is only epiphenomenal on the structures and processes involved in the interpretation of sentences. Horn (1985) brings new observations to bear, related with metalinguistic uses of negation, and proposes a “pragmatic” ambiguity in negation to the effect that in descriptive (or “straight”) use negation is the classical bivalent operator, whereas in metalinguistic use it is non-truthfunctional but only pragmatic. Van der Sandt (to appear) accepts Horn's observations but proposes a different solution: he proposes an ambiguity in the argument clause of the negation operator (which, for him, too, is classical and bivalent), according to whether the negation takes only the strictly asserted proposition or covers also the presuppositions, the (scalar) implicatures and other implications (in particular of style and register) of the sentence expressing that proposition. These theories are discussed at some length. The three-valued analysis is defended on the basis of partly new observations, which do not seem to fit either Horn's or Van der Sandt's solution. It is then placed in the context of incremental discourse semantics, where both negations are seen to do the job of keeping increments out of the discourse domain, though each does so in its own specific way. The metalinguistic character of the radical negation is accounted for in terms of the incremental apparatus. The metalinguistic use of negation in denials of implicatures or implications of style and register is regarded as a particular form of minimal negation, where the negation denies not the proposition itself but the appropriateness of the use of an expression in it. This appropriateness negation is truth-functional and not pragmatic, but it applies to a particular, independently motivated, analysis of the argument clause. The ambiguity of negation in natural language is different from the ordinary type of ambiguity found in the lexicon. Normally, lexical ambiguities are idiosyncratic, highly contingent, and unpredictable from language to language. In the case of negation, however, the two meanings are closely related, both truth-conditionally and incrementally. Moreover, the mechanism of discourse incrementation automatically selects the right meaning. These properties are taken to provide a sufficient basis for discarding the, otherwise valid, objection that negation is unlikely to be ambiguous because no known language makes a lexical distinction between the two readings.

Abstract

“Dimensional expressions” single out and describe one symmetric axis of a 1D, 2D, or 3D object (e.g., The road is long). “Bloxes” is an interactive, object-matching task that elicits descriptions of dimensional contrasts between simple geometrical objects (rectangular blocks, rectangular boxes, and cylinders). The aim is to explore the linguistic encoding of dimensions, focusing on features of axis, orientation, flatness/solidity, size and shape. See also 'Suggestions for field research on dimensional expressions' (https://doi.org/10.17617/2.3003382).

Abstract

The aim of this task is to explore the linguistic expression of “dimensions” — e.g., the height, width or depth — of objects in the world around us. In a dimensional expression, one symmetric axis of a 1D, 2D, or 3D object is singled out and described (e.g., That man is tall). Dimensional expressions in different languages show a range of different combinatorial and extensional uses. This document guides the researcher through some spatial situations where contrastive features of dimensional expressions are likely to be observable.

Abstract

Dutch words with certain final consonant clusters are subject to optional schwa epenthesis. The present research aimed at investigating how Dutch listeners deal with this type of phonological variation. By means of syllable monitoring experiments, it was investigated whether Dutch listeners process words with epenthetic schwa (e.g., ’balluk’) as bisyllabic words or rather as monosyllabic words. Real words (e.g., ’balk’, ’balluk’) and pseudowords (e.g., ’golk’, ’golluk’) were compared, to examine effects of lexical representation. No difference was found between monitoring times for BAL targets in ’balluk’ carriers as compared to ’balk’ carriers. This suggests that words with epenthetic schwa are not processed as bisyllabic words. The effects for the pseudo-words paralleled those for the real words, which suggests that they are not due to lexical representation but rather to the application of phonological rules.

Abstract

This chapter explores grammatical gender as a linguistic phenomenon. First, I define gender in terms of agreement, and look at the parts of speech that can take gender agreement. Because it relates to assumptions underlying much psycholinguistic gender research, I also examine the reasons why gender systems are thought to emerge, change, and disappear. Then, I describe the gender system of Dutch. The frequent confusion about the number of genders in Dutch will be resolved by looking at the history of the system, and the role of pronominal reference therein. In addition, I report on three lexical- statistical analyses of the distribution of genders in the language. After having dealt with Dutch, I look at whether the genders of Dutch and other languages are more or less randomly assigned, or whether there is some system to it. In contrast to what many people think, regularities do indeed exist. Native speakers could in principle exploit such regularities to compute rather than memorize gender, at least in part. Although this should be taken into account as a possibility, I will also argue that it is by no means a necessary implication.

Abstract

A combination of Southern blot analysis on a panel of tumor-derived somatic cell hybrids and fluorescence in situ hybridization techniques was used to map YACs, cosmids and DNA markers from the Xp11.2 region relative to the X chromosome breakpoint of the renal cell carcinoma-associated t(X;1)(p11;q21). The position of the breakpoint could be determined as follows: Xcen-OATL2-DXS146-DXS255-SYP-t(X;1)-TFE 3-OATL1-Xpter. Fluorescence in situ hybridization experiments using TFE3-containing YACs and cosmids revealed split signals indicating that the corresponding DNA inserts span the breakpoint region. Subsequent Southern blot analysis showed that a 2.3-kb EcoRI fragment which is present in all TFE3 cosmids identified, hybridizes to aberrant restriction fragments in three independent t(X;1)-positive renal cell carcinoma DNAs. The breakpoints in these tumors are not the same, but map within a region of approximately 6.5 kb. Through preparative gel electrophoresis an (X;1) chimaeric 4.4-kb EcoRI fragment could be isolated which encompasses the breakpoint region present on der(X). Preliminary characterization of this fragment revealed the presence of a 150-bp region with a strong homology to the 5' end of the mouse TFE3 cDNA in the X-chromosome part, and a 48-bp segment in the chromosome 1-derived part identical to the 5' end of a known EST (accession number R93849). These observations suggest that a fusion gene is formed between the two corresponding genes in t(X;1)(p11;q21)-positive papillary renal cell carcinomas.

Abstract

A new psycholinguistically motivated and neural network based model of human word recognition is presented. In contrast to earlier models it uses real speech as input. At the word layer acoustical and temporal information is stored by sequences of connected sensory neurons which pass on sensor potentials to a word neuron. In experiments with a small lexicon which includes groups of very similar word forms, the model meets high standards with respect to word recognition and simulates a number of wellknown psycholinguistical effects.