Publications

Abstract

This volume is dedicated to exploring the crossroads where complex sentences and information management – more specifically information structure and reference tracking – come together. Complex sentences are a highly relevant but understudied domain for studying notions of IS and RT. On the one hand, a complex sentence can be studied as a mini-unit of discourse consisting of two or more elements describing events, situations, or processes, with its own internal information-structural and referential organization. On the other hand, complex sentences can be studied as parts of larger discourse structures, such as narratives or conversations, in terms of how their information-structural characteristics relate to this wider context. The book offers new perspectives for the study of the interaction between complex sentences and information management, and moreover adds typological breadth by focusing on lesser studied languages from several parts of the world.

Abstract

Marieke van der Linden investigated the neural mechanisms underlying category formation in the human brain. The research in her thesis provides novel insights in how the brain learns, stores, and uses category knowledge, enabling humans to become skilled in categorization. The studies reveal the neural mechanisms through which perceptual as well as conceptual category knowledge is created and shaped by experience. The results clearly show that neuronal sensitivity to object features is affected by categorization training. These findings fill in a missing link between electrophysiological recordings from monkey cortex demonstrating learning-induced sharpening of neuronal selectivity and brain imaging data showing category-specific representations in the human brain. Moreover, she showed that it is specifically the features of an object that are relevant for its categorization that induce selectivity in neuronal populations. Category-learning requires collaboration between many different brain areas. Together these can be seen as the neural correlates of the key points of categorization: discrimination and generalization. The occipitotemporal cortex represents those characteristic features of objects that define its category. The narrowly shape-tuned properties of this area enable fine-grained discrimination of perceptually similar objects. In addition, the superior temporal sulcus forms associations between members or properties (i.e. sound and shape) of a category. This allows the generalization of perceptually different but conceptually similar objects. Last but not least is the prefrontal cortex which is involved in coding behaviourally-relevant category information and thus enables the explicit retrieval of category membership.

Abstract

In terms of its linguistic and cultural make-up, the continent of South America provides linguists and anthropologists with a complex puzzle of language diversity. The continent teems with small language families and isolates, and even languages spoken in adjacent areas can be typologically vastly different from each other. This volume intends to provide a taste of the linguistic diversity found in South America within the area of clause subordination. The potential variety in the strategies that languages can use to encode subordinate events is enormous, yet there are clearly dominant patterns to be discerned: switch reference marking, clause chaining, nominalization, and verb serialization. The book also contributes to the continuing debate on the nature of syntactic complexity, as evidenced in subordination.

Abstract

Onderzoek naar taal en communicatie heeft zich in het verleden veel te veel gericht op taal als systeem om berichten te coderen, een soort TCP/IP (netwerkprotocol voor communicatie tussen computers). Dat moet maar eens veranderen, stelt prof. dr. Jos van Berkum, hoogleraar Discourse, Cognitie en Communicatie, in zijn oratie die hij op 30 september zal houden aan de Universiteit Utrecht. Hij pleit voor meer onderzoek naar de sterke verwevenheid van taal en gevoel.

Abstract

This thesis investigates the processing of words written in Japanese kanji and Chinese hànzì, i.e. logographic scripts. Special attention is given to the fact that the majority of Japanese kanji have multiple pronunciations (generally depending on the combination a kanji forms with other characters). First, using masked priming, it is established that upon presentation of a Japanese kanji multiple pronunciations are activated. In subsequent experiments using word naming with context pictures it is concluded that both Chinese hànzì and Japanese kanji are read out loud via a direct route from orthography to phonology. However, only Japanese kanji become susceptible to semantic or phonological context effects as a result of a cost due to the processing of multiple pronunciations. Finally, zooming in on the size of the articulatory planning unit in Japanese it is concluded that the mora as a phonological unit best complies with the observed data pattern and not the phoneme or the syllable