Publications

Displaying 101 - 200 of 609
  • Cho, T. (2003). Lexical stress, phrasal accent and prosodic boundaries in the realization of domain-initial stops in Dutch. In Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhs 2003) (pp. 2657-2660). Adelaide: Causal Productions.

    Abstract

    This study examines the effects of prosodic boundaries, lexical stress, and phrasal accent on the acoustic realization of stops (/t, d/) in Dutch, with special attention paid to language-specificity in the phonetics-prosody interface. The results obtained from various acoustic measures show systematic phonetic variations in the production of /t d/ as a function of prosodic position, which may be interpreted as being due to prosodicallyconditioned articulatory strengthening. Shorter VOTs were found for the voiceless stop /t/ in prosodically stronger locations (as opposed to longer VOTs in this position in English). The results suggest that prosodically-driven phonetic realization is bounded by a language-specific phonological feature system.
  • Clahsen, H., Prüfert, P., Eisenbeiss, S., & Cholin, J. (2002). Strong stems in the German mental lexicon: Evidence from child language acquisition and adult processing. In I. Kaufmann, & B. Stiebels (Eds.), More than words. Festschrift for Dieter Wunderlich (pp. 91-112). Berlin: Akadamie Verlag.
  • Clark, N., & Perlman, M. (2014). Breath, vocal, and supralaryngeal flexibility in a human-reared gorilla. In B. De Boer, & T. Verhoef (Eds.), Proceedings of Evolang X, Workshop on Signals, Speech, and Signs (pp. 11-15).

    Abstract

    “Gesture-first” theories dismiss ancestral great apes’ vocalization as a substrate for language evolution based on the claim that extant apes exhibit minimal learning and volitional control of vocalization. Contrary to this claim, we present data of novel learned and voluntarily controlled vocal behaviors produced by a human-fostered gorilla (G. gorilla gorilla). These behaviors demonstrate varying degrees of flexibility in the vocal apparatus (including diaphragm, lungs, larynx, and supralaryngeal articulators), and are predominantly performed in coordination with manual behaviors and gestures. Instead of a gesture-first theory, we suggest that these findings support multimodal theories of language evolution in which vocal and gestural forms are coordinated and supplement one another
  • Crago, M. B., & Allen, S. E. M. (1998). Acquiring Inuktitut. In O. L. Taylor, & L. Leonard (Eds.), Language Acquisition Across North America: Cross-Cultural And Cross-Linguistic Perspectives (pp. 245-279). San Diego, CA, USA: Singular Publishing Group, Inc.
  • Crago, M. B., Allen, S. E. M., & Pesco, D. (1998). Issues of Complexity in Inuktitut and English Child Directed Speech. In Proceedings of the twenty-ninth Annual Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 37-46).
  • Crasborn, O., Sloetjes, H., Auer, E., & Wittenburg, P. (2006). Combining video and numeric data in the analysis of sign languages with the ELAN annotation software. In C. Vetoori (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign languages: Lexicographic matters and didactic scenarios (pp. 82-87). Paris: ELRA.

    Abstract

    This paper describes hardware and software that can be used for the phonetic study of sign languages. The field of sign language phonetics is characterised, and the hardware that is currently in use is described. The paper focuses on the software that was developed to enable the recording of finger and hand movement data, and the additions to the ELAN annotation software that facilitate the further visualisation and analysis of the data.
  • Crasborn, O., & Sloetjes, H. (2014). Improving the exploitation of linguistic annotations in ELAN. In N. Calzolari, K. Choukri, T. Declerck, H. Loftsson, B. Maegaard, J. Mariani, A. Moreno, J. Odijk, & S. Piperidis (Eds.), Proceedings of LREC 2014: 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (pp. 3604-3608).

    Abstract

    This paper discusses some improvements in recent and planned versions of the multimodal annotation tool ELAN, which are targeted at improving the usability of annotated files. Increased support for multilingual documents is provided, by allowing for multilingual vocabularies and by specifying a language per document, annotation layer (tier) or annotation. In addition, improvements in the search possibilities and the display of the results have been implemented, which are especially relevant in the interpretation of the results of complex multi-tier searches.
  • Crasborn, O., Hulsbosch, M., Lampen, L., & Sloetjes, H. (2014). New multilayer concordance functions in ELAN and TROVA. In Proceedings of the Tilburg Gesture Research Meeting [TiGeR 2013].

    Abstract

    Collocations generated by concordancers are a standard instrument in the exploitation of text corpora for the analysis of language use. Multimodal corpora show similar types of patterns, activities that frequently occur together, but there is no tool that offers facilities for visualising such patterns. Examples include timing of eye contact with respect to speech, and the alignment of activities of the two hands in signed languages. This paper describes recent enhancements to the standard CLARIN tools ELAN and TROVA for multimodal annotation to address these needs: first of all the query and concordancing functions were improved, and secondly the tools now generate visualisations of multilayer collocations that allow for intuitive explorations and analyses of multimodal data. This will provide a boost to the linguistic fields of gesture and sign language studies, as it will improve the exploitation of multimodal corpora.
  • Cutler, A., & Broersma, M. (2005). Phonetic precision in listening. In W. J. Hardcastle, & J. M. Beck (Eds.), A figure of speech: A Festschrift for John Laver (pp. 63-91). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A. (2002). Phonological processing: Comments on Pierrehumbert, Moates et al., Kubozono, Peperkamp & Dupoux, and Bradlow. In C. Gussenhoven, & N. Warner (Eds.), Papers in Laboratory Phonology VII (pp. 275-296). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A., & Butterfield, S. (2003). Rhythmic cues to speech segmentation: Evidence from juncture misperception. In J. Field (Ed.), Psycholinguistics: A resource book for students. (pp. 185-189). London: Routledge.
  • Cutler, A., Murty, L., & Otake, T. (2003). Rhythmic similarity effects in non-native listening? In Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (PCPhS 2003) (pp. 329-332). Adelaide: Causal Productions.

    Abstract

    Listeners rely on native-language rhythm in segmenting speech; in different languages, stress-, syllable- or mora-based rhythm is exploited. This language-specificity affects listening to non- native speech, if native procedures are applied even though inefficient for the non-native language. However, speakers of two languages with similar rhythmic interpretation should segment their own and the other language similarly. This was observed to date only for related languages (English-Dutch; French-Spanish). We now report experiments in which Japanese listeners heard Telugu, a Dravidian language unrelated to Japanese, and Telugu listeners heard Japanese. In both cases detection of target sequences in speech was harder when target boundaries mismatched mora boundaries, exactly the pattern that Japanese listeners earlier exhibited with Japanese and other languages. These results suggest that Telugu and Japanese listeners use similar procedures in segmenting speech, and support the idea that languages fall into rhythmic classes, with aspects of phonological structure affecting listeners' speech segmentation.
  • Cutler, A. (2006). Rudolf Meringer. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (vol. 8) (pp. 12-13). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Abstract

    Rudolf Meringer (1859–1931), Indo-European philologist, published two collections of slips of the tongue, annotated and interpreted. From 1909, he was the founding editor of the cultural morphology movement's journal Wörter und Sachen. Meringer was the first to note the linguistic significance of speech errors, and his interpretations have stood the test of time. This work, rather than his mainstream philological research, has proven his most lasting linguistic contribution
  • Cutler, A., Kim, J., & Otake, T. (2006). On the limits of L1 influence on non-L1 listening: Evidence from Japanese perception of Korean. In P. Warren, & C. I. Watson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th Australian International Conference on Speech Science & Technology (pp. 106-111).

    Abstract

    Language-specific procedures which are efficient for listening to the L1 may be applied to non-native spoken input, often to the detriment of successful listening. However, such misapplications of L1-based listening do not always happen. We propose, based on the results from two experiments in which Japanese listeners detected target sequences in spoken Korean, that an L1 procedure is only triggered if requisite L1 features are present in the input.
  • Cutler, A. (2003). The perception of speech: Psycholinguistic aspects. In W. Frawley (Ed.), International encyclopaedia of linguistics (pp. 154-157). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Cutler, A., Klein, W., & Levinson, S. C. (2005). The cornerstones of twenty-first century psycholinguistics. In A. Cutler (Ed.), Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones (pp. 1-20). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A., & Norris, D. (2002). The role of strong syllables in segmentation for lexical access. In G. T. Altmann (Ed.), Psycholinguistics: Critical concepts in psychology (pp. 157-177). London: Routledge.
  • Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D., & Segui, J. (2002). The syllable's differing role in the segmentation of French and English. In G. T. Altmann (Ed.), Psycholinguistics: Critical concepts in psychology (pp. 115-135). London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    Speech segmentation procedures may differ in speakers of different languages. Earlier work based on French speakers listening to French words suggested that the syllable functions as a segmentation unit in speech processing. However, while French has relatively regular and clearly bounded syllables, other languages, such as English, do not. No trace of syllabifying segmentation was found in English listeners listening to English words, French words, or nonsense words. French listeners, however, showed evidence of syllabification even when they were listening to English words. We conclude that alternative segmentation routines are available to the human language processor. In some cases speech segmentation may involve the operation of more than one procedure.
  • Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., Jansonius, M., & Bayerl, S. (2002). The lexical statistics of competitor activation in spoken-word recognition. In C. Bow (Ed.), Proceedings of the 9th Australian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (pp. 40-45). Canberra: Australian Speech Science and Technology Association (ASSTA).

    Abstract

    The Possible Word Constraint is a proposed mechanism whereby listeners avoid recognising words spuriously embedded in other words. It applies to words leaving a vowelless residue between their edge and the nearest known word or syllable boundary. The present study tests the usefulness of this constraint via lexical statistics of both English and Dutch. The analyses demonstrate that the constraint removes a clear majority of embedded words in speech, and thus can contribute significantly to the efficiency of human speech recognition
  • Cutler, A. (2005). The lexical statistics of word recognition problems caused by L2 phonetic confusion. In Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology (pp. 413-416).
  • Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., & Norris, D. (2005). The lexical utility of phoneme-category plasticity. In Proceedings of the ISCA Workshop on Plasticity in Speech Perception (PSP2005) (pp. 103-107).
  • Cutler, A. (2006). Van spraak naar woorden in een tweede taal. In J. Morais, & G. d'Ydewalle (Eds.), Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition (pp. 39-54). Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten.
  • Cutler, A., & Otake, T. (1998). Assimilation of place in Japanese and Dutch. In R. Mannell, & J. Robert-Ribes (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing: vol. 5 (pp. 1751-1754). Sydney: ICLSP.

    Abstract

    Assimilation of place of articulation across a nasal and a following stop consonant is obligatory in Japanese, but not in Dutch. In four experiments the processing of assimilated forms by speakers of Japanese and Dutch was compared, using a task in which listeners blended pseudo-word pairs such as ranga-serupa. An assimilated blend of this pair would be rampa, an unassimilated blend rangpa. Japanese listeners produced significantly more assimilated than unassimilated forms, both with pseudo-Japanese and pseudo-Dutch materials, while Dutch listeners produced significantly more unassimilated than assimilated forms in each materials set. This suggests that Japanese listeners, whose native-language phonology involves obligatory assimilation constraints, represent the assimilated nasals in nasal-stop sequences as unmarked for place of articulation, while Dutch listeners, who are accustomed to hearing unassimilated forms, represent the same nasal segments as marked for place of articulation.
  • Cutler, A., & Pasveer, D. (2006). Explaining cross-linguistic differences in effects of lexical stress on spoken-word recognition. In R. Hoffmann, & H. Mixdorff (Eds.), Speech Prosody 2006. Dresden: TUD press.

    Abstract

    Experiments have revealed differences across languages in listeners’ use of stress information in recognising spoken words. Previous comparisons of the vocabulary of Spanish and English had suggested that the explanation of this asymmetry might lie in the extent to which considering stress in spokenword recognition allows rejection of unwanted competition from words embedded in other words. This hypothesis was tested on the vocabularies of Dutch and German, for which word recognition results resemble those from Spanish more than those from English. The vocabulary statistics likewise revealed that in each language, the reduction of embeddings resulting from taking stress into account is more similar to the reduction achieved in Spanish than in English.
  • Cutler, A., Eisner, F., McQueen, J. M., & Norris, D. (2006). Coping with speaker-related variation via abstract phonemic categories. In Variation, detail and representation: 10th Conference on Laboratory Phonology (pp. 31-32).
  • Cutler, A. (2002). Lexical access. In L. Nadel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of cognitive science (pp. 858-864). London: Nature Publishing Group.
  • Cutler, A. (2005). Lexical stress. In D. B. Pisoni, & R. E. Remez (Eds.), The handbook of speech perception (pp. 264-289). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., Norris, D., & Somejuan, A. (2002). Le rôle de la syllable. In E. Dupoux (Ed.), Les langages du cerveau: Textes en l’honneur de Jacques Mehler (pp. 185-197). Paris: Odile Jacob.
  • Cutler, A. (1998). How listeners find the right words. In Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Congress on Acoustics: Vol. 2 (pp. 1377-1380). Melville, NY: Acoustical Society of America.

    Abstract

    Languages contain tens of thousands of words, but these are constructed from a tiny handful of phonetic elements. Consequently, words resemble one another, or can be embedded within one another, a coup stick snot with standing. me process of spoken-word recognition by human listeners involves activation of multiple word candidates consistent with the input, and direct competition between activated candidate words. Further, human listeners are sensitive, at an early, prelexical, stage of speeeh processing, to constraints on what could potentially be a word of the language.
  • Cutler, A., & McQueen, J. M. (2014). How prosody is both mandatory and optional. In J. Caspers, Y. Chen, W. Heeren, J. Pacilly, N. O. Schiller, & E. Van Zanten (Eds.), Above and Beyond the Segments: Experimental linguistics and phonetics (pp. 71-82). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Speech signals originate as a sequence of linguistic units selected by speakers, but these units are necessarily realised in the suprasegmental dimensions of time, frequency and amplitude. For this reason prosodic structure has been viewed as a mandatory target of language processing by both speakers and listeners. In apparent contradiction, however, prosody has also been argued to be ancillary rather than core linguistic structure, making processing of prosodic structure essentially optional. In the present tribute to one of the luminaries of prosodic research for the past quarter century, we review evidence from studies of the processing of lexical stress and focal accent which reconciles these views and shows that both claims are, each in their own way, fully true.
  • Cutler, A., Treiman, R., & Van Ooijen, B. (1998). Orthografik inkoncistensy ephekts in foneme detektion? In R. Mannell, & J. Robert-Ribes (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing: Vol. 6 (pp. 2783-2786). Sydney: ICSLP.

    Abstract

    The phoneme detection task is widely used in spoken word recognition research. Alphabetically literate participants, however, are more used to explicit representations of letters than of phonemes. The present study explored whether phoneme detection is sensitive to how target phonemes are, or may be, orthographically realised. Listeners detected the target sounds [b,m,t,f,s,k] in word-initial position in sequences of isolated English words. Response times were faster to the targets [b,m,t], which have consistent word-initial spelling, than to the targets [f,s,k], which are inconsistently spelled, but only when listeners’ attention was drawn to spelling by the presence in the experiment of many irregularly spelled fillers. Within the inconsistent targets [f,s,k], there was no significant difference between responses to targets in words with majority and minority spellings. We conclude that performance in the phoneme detection task is not necessarily sensitive to orthographic effects, but that salient orthographic manipulation can induce such sensitivity.
  • Cutler, A. (1998). Prosodic structure and word recognition. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 41-70). Heidelberg: Springer.
  • Cutler, A. (1984). Stress and accent in language production and understanding. In D. Gibbon, & H. Richter (Eds.), Intonation, accent and rhythm: Studies in discourse phonology (pp. 77-90). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A. (1998). The recognition of spoken words with variable representations. In D. Duez (Ed.), Proceedings of the ESCA Workshop on Sound Patterns of Spontaneous Speech (pp. 83-92). Aix-en-Provence: Université de Aix-en-Provence.
  • Cutler, A., & Clifton Jr., C. (1984). The use of prosodic information in word recognition. In H. Bouma, & D. Bouwhuis (Eds.), Attention and Performance X: Control of Language Processes (pp. 183-196). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A., & Clifton, Jr., C. (1984). The use of prosodic information in word recognition. In H. Bouma, & D. G. Bouwhuis (Eds.), Attention and performance X: Control of language processes (pp. 183-196). London: Erlbaum.

    Abstract

    In languages with variable stress placement, lexical stress patterns can convey information about word identity. The experiments reported here address the question of whether lexical stress information can be used in word recognition. The results allow the following conclusions: 1. Prior information as to the number of syllables and lexical stress patterns of words and nonwords does not facilitate lexical decision responses (Experiment 1). 2. The strong correspondences between grammatical category membership and stress pattern in bisyllabic English words (strong-weak stress being associated primarily with nouns, weak-strong with verbs) are not exploited in the recognition of isolated words (Experiment 2). 3. When a change in lexical stress also involves a change in vowel quality, i.e., a segmental as well as a suprasegmental alteration, effects on word recognition are greater when no segmental correlates of suprasegmental changes are involved (Experiments 2 and 3). 4. Despite the above finding, when all other factors are controlled, lexical stress information per se can indeed be shown to play a part in word-recognition process (Experiment 3).
  • Declerck, T., Cunningham, H., Saggion, H., Kuper, J., Reidsma, D., & Wittenburg, P. (2003). MUMIS - Advanced information extraction for multimedia indexing and searching digital media - Processing for multimedia interactive services. 4th European Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services (WIAMIS), 553-556.
  • Dediu, D., & Graham, S. A. (2014). Genetics and Language. In M. Aronoff (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies in Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0184.xml.

    Abstract

    This article surveys what is currently known about the complex interplay between genetics and the language sciences. It focuses not only on the genetic architecture of language and speech, but also on their interactions on the cultural and evolutionary timescales. Given the complexity of these issues and their current state of flux and high dynamism, this article surveys the main findings and topics of interest while also briefly introducing the main relevant methods, thus allowing the interested reader to fully appreciate and understand them in their proper context. Of course, not all the relevant publications and resources are mentioned, but this article aims to select the most relevant, promising, or accessible for nonspecialists.

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  • Dediu, D. (2006). Mostly out of Africa, but what did the others have to say? In A. Cangelosi, A. D. Smith, & K. Smith (Eds.), The evolution of language: proceedings of the 6th International Conference (EVOLANG6) (pp. 59-66). World Scientific.

    Abstract

    The Recent Out-of-Africa human evolutionary model seems to be generally accepted. This impression is very prevalent outside palaeoanthropological circles (including studies of language evolution), but proves to be unwarranted. This paper offers a short review of the main challenges facing ROA and concludes that alternative models based on the concept of metapopulation must be also considered. The implications of such a model for language evolution and diversity are briefly reviewed.
  • Dediu, D. (2014). Language and biology: The multiple interactions between genetics and language. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 686-707). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Dediu, D., & Levinson, S. C. (2014). Language and speech are old: A review of the evidence and consequences for modern linguistic diversity. In E. A. Cartmill, S. G. Roberts, H. Lyn, & H. Cornish (Eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (pp. 421-422). Singapore: World Scientific.
  • Dediu, D., & Levinson, S. C. (2014). The time frame of the emergence of modern language and its implications. In D. Dor, C. Knight, & J. Lewis (Eds.), The social origins of language (pp. 184-195). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Dimitriadis, A., Kemps-Snijders, M., Wittenburg, P., Everaert, M., & Levinson, S. C. (2006). Towards a linguist's workbench supporting eScience methods. In Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing.
  • Dimroth, C., & Watorek, M. (2005). Additive scope particles in advanced learner and native speaker discourse. In Hendriks, & Henriëtte (Eds.), The structure of learner varieties (pp. 461-488). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Dimroth, C., Gretsch, P., Jordens, P., Perdue, C., & Starren, M. (2003). Finiteness in Germanic languages: A stage-model for first and second language development. In C. Dimroth, & M. Starren (Eds.), Information structure and the dynamics of language acquisition (pp. 65-94). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Dimroth, C., & Starren, M. (2003). Introduction. In C. Dimroth, & M. Starren (Eds.), Information structure and the dynamics of language acquisition (pp. 1-14). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Dingemanse, M., & Floyd, S. (2014). Conversation across cultures. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 447-480). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Dingemanse, M., Torreira, F., & Enfield, N. J. (2014). Conversational infrastructure and the convergent evolution of linguistic items. In E. A. Cartmill, S. G. Roberts, H. Lyn, & H. Cornish (Eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (pp. 425-426). Singapore: World Scientific.
  • Dingemanse, M., Verhoef, T., & Roberts, S. G. (2014). The role of iconicity in the cultural evolution of communicative signals. In B. De Boer, & T. Verhoef (Eds.), Proceedings of Evolang X, Workshop on Signals, Speech, and Signs (pp. 11-15).
  • Dirksmeyer, T. (2005). Why do languages die? Approaching taxonomies, (re-)ordering causes. In J. Wohlgemuth, & T. Dirksmeyer (Eds.), Bedrohte Vielfalt. Aspekte des Sprach(en)tods – Aspects of language death (pp. 53-68). Berlin: Weißensee.

    Abstract

    Under what circumstances do languages die? Why has their “mortality rate” increased dramatically in the recent past? What “causes of death” can be identified for historical cases, to what extent are these generalizable, and how can they be captured in an explanatory theory? In pursuing these questions, it becomes apparent that in typical cases of language death various causes tend to interact in multiple ways. Speakers’ attitudes towards their language play a critical role in all of this. Existing categorial taxonomies do not succeed in modeling the complex relationships between these factors. Therefore, an alternative, dimensional approach is called for to more adequately address (and counter) the causes of language death in a given scenario.
  • Dolscheid, S., Willems, R. M., Hagoort, P., & Casasanto, D. (2014). The relation of space and musical pitch in the brain. In P. Bello, M. Guarini, M. McShane, & B. Scassellati (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2014) (pp. 421-426). Austin, Tx: Cognitive Science Society.

    Abstract

    Numerous experiments show that space and musical pitch are
    closely linked in people's minds. However, the exact nature of
    space-pitch associations and their neuronal underpinnings are
    not well understood. In an fMRI experiment we investigated
    different types of spatial representations that may underlie
    musical pitch. Participants judged stimuli that varied in
    spatial height in both the visual and tactile modalities, as well
    as auditory stimuli that varied in pitch height. In order to
    distinguish between unimodal and multimodal spatial bases of
    musical pitch, we examined whether pitch activations were
    present in modality-specific (visual or tactile) versus
    multimodal (visual and tactile) regions active during spatial
    height processing. Judgments of musical pitch were found to
    activate unimodal visual areas, suggesting that space-pitch
    associations may involve modality-specific spatial
    representations, supporting a key assumption of embodied
    theories of metaphorical mental representation.
  • Drozd, K. F. (1998). No as a determiner in child English: A summary of categorical evidence. In A. Sorace, C. Heycock, & R. Shillcock (Eds.), Proceedings of the Gala '97 Conference on Language Acquisition (pp. 34-39). Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press,.

    Abstract

    This paper summarizes the results of a descriptive syntactic category analysis of child English no which reveals that young children use and represent no as a determiner and negatives like no pen as NPs, contra standard analyses.
  • Drozdova, P., Van Hout, R., & Scharenborg, O. (2014). Phoneme category retuning in a non-native language. In Proceedings of Interspeech 2014: 15th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (pp. 553-557).

    Abstract

    Previous studies have demonstrated that native listeners
    modify their interpretation of a speech sound when a talker
    produces an ambiguous sound in order to quickly tune into a
    speaker, but there is hardly any evidence that non-native
    listeners employ a similar mechanism when encountering
    ambiguous pronunciations. So far, one study demonstrated
    this lexically-guided perceptual learning effect for nonnatives,
    using phoneme categories similar in the native
    language of the listeners and the non-native language of the
    stimulus materials. The present study investigates the question
    whether phoneme category retuning is possible in a nonnative
    language for a contrast, /l/-/r/, which is phonetically
    differently embedded in the native (Dutch) and nonnative
    (English) languages involved. Listening experiments indeed
    showed a lexically-guided perceptual learning effect.
    Assuming that Dutch listeners have different phoneme
    categories for the native Dutch and non-native English /r/, as
    marked differences between the languages exist for /r/, these
    results, for the first time, seem to suggest that listeners are not
    only able to retune their native phoneme categories but also
    their non-native phoneme categories to include ambiguous
    pronunciations.
  • Drude, S., Trilsbeek, P., Sloetjes, H., & Broeder, D. (2014). Best practices in the creation, archiving and dissemination of speech corpora at the Language Archive. In S. Ruhi, M. Haugh, T. Schmidt, & K. Wörner (Eds.), Best Practices for Spoken Corpora in Linguistic Research (pp. 183-207). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Drude, S. (2005). A contribuição alemã à Lingüística e Antropologia dos índios do Brasil, especialmente da Amazônia. In J. J. A. Alves (Ed.), Múltiplas Faces da Históriadas Ciência na Amazônia (pp. 175-196). Belém: EDUFPA.
  • Drude, S. (2003). Advanced glossing: A language documentation format and its implementation with Shoebox. In Proceedings of the 2002 International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2002). Paris: ELRA.

    Abstract

    This paper presents Advanced Glossing, a proposal for a general glossing format designed for language documentation, and a specific setup for the Shoebox-program that implements Advanced Glossing to a large extent. Advanced Glossing (AG) goes beyond the traditional Interlinear Morphemic Translation, keeping syntactic and morphological information apart from each other in separate glossing tables. AG provides specific lines for different kinds of annotation – phonetic, phonological, orthographical, prosodic, categorial, structural, relational, and semantic, and it allows for gradual and successive, incomplete, and partial filling in case that some information may be irrelevant, unknown or uncertain. The implementation of AG in Shoebox sets up several databases. Each documented text is represented as a file of syntactic glossings. The morphological glossings are kept in a separate database. As an additional feature interaction with lexical databases is possible. The implementation makes use of the interlinearizing automatism provided by Shoebox, thus obtaining the table format for the alignment of lines in cells, and for semi-automatic filling-in of information in glossing tables which has been extracted from databases
  • Drude, S. (2003). Digitizing and annotating texts and field recordings in the Awetí project. In Proceedings of the EMELD Language Digitization Project Conference 2003. Workshop on Digitizing and Annotating Text and Field Recordings, LSA Institute, Michigan State University, July 11th -13th.

    Abstract

    Digitizing and annotating texts and field recordings Given that several initiatives worldwide currently explore the new field of documentation of endangered languages, the E-MELD project proposes to survey and unite procedures, techniques and results in order to achieve its main goal, ''the formulation and promulgation of best practice in linguistic markup of texts and lexicons''. In this context, this year's workshop deals with the processing of recorded texts. I assume the most valuable contribution I could make to the workshop is to show the procedures and methods used in the Awetí Language Documentation Project. The procedures applied in the Awetí Project are not necessarily representative of all the projects in the DOBES program, and they may very well fall short in several respects of being best practice, but I hope they might provide a good and concrete starting point for comparison, criticism and further discussion. The procedures to be exposed include: * taping with digital devices, * digitizing (preliminarily in the field, later definitely by the TIDEL-team at the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen), * segmenting and transcribing, using the transcriber computer program, * translating (on paper, or while transcribing), * adding more specific annotation, using the Shoebox program, * converting the annotation to the ELAN-format developed by the TIDEL-team, and doing annotation with ELAN. Focus will be on the different types of annotation. Especially, I will present, justify and discuss Advanced Glossing, a text annotation format developed by H.-H. Lieb and myself designed for language documentation. It will be shown how Advanced Glossing can be applied using the Shoebox program. The Shoebox setup used in the Awetí Project will be shown in greater detail, including lexical databases and semi-automatic interaction between different database types (jumping, interlinearization). ( Freie Universität Berlin and Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, with funding from the Volkswagen Foundation.)
  • Drude, S. (2002). Fala masculina e feminina em Awetí. In A. D. Rodrigues, & A. S. A. C. Cabral (Eds.), Línguas indígenas Brasileiras: Fonologia, gramática e história. (Atas do I Encontro Internacional do Grupo de Trabalho sobre Línguas Indígenas da ANPOLL). vol. 1 (pp. 177-190). Belém: EDUFPA.
  • Drude, S. (2006). On the position of the Awetí language in the Tupí family. In W. Dietrich, & H. Symeonidis (Eds.), Guarani y "Maweti-Tupi-Guarani. Estudios historicos y descriptivos sobre una familia lingüistica de America del Sur (pp. 11-45). Berlin: LIT Verlag.

    Abstract

    Conclusion In this study we have examined the evidence for the exact genetic position of the Awetí language in the large Tupí family, especially evidence for an internal classification of the larger branch of Tupí called “Mawetí-Guaraní” which comprises the Tupí-Guaraní family, Awetí and Sateré-Mawé. As it turns out, we did not find any clear example of an uncommon sound change which would have happened after the separation of the antecessor of one branch but before the split between the other two. There is some just probability that Awetí belongs somewhat closer to Tupí-Guaraní within Mawetí-Guaraní (configuration A in Table 1), but we did not find any conclusive evidence. All we have are some weak indications the majority of which, however, point in this direction: • a higher number of cognates found between Awetí and proto-Tupí-Guarani; • lexicostatistic results (number of cognates in a 100-item-word-list proposed by Swadesh); • loss of long vowels in Awetí and Tupí-Guaraní, but not in Sateré-Mawé; • some sound changes suggest that in the development to Awetí and to proto-Tupí-Guaraní velar segments changes to dental segments (cf. the discussion of the correspondence set j : t : w); • possibly some of the correspondence sets given in Table 20. We consider it to be too soon to conclude that there is a branch Awetí + Tupí-Guaraní of Mawetí-Guaraní, opposed to Sateré-Mawé, but if there is any grouping, this hypothesis is most promising. 29
  • Drude, S. (2014). Reduplication as a tool for morphological and phonological analysis in Awetí. In G. G. Gómez, & H. Van der Voort (Eds.), Reduplication in Indigenous languages of South America (pp. 185-216). Leiden: Brill.
  • Duffield, N., & Matsuo, A. (2003). Factoring out the parallelism effect in ellipsis: An interactional approach? In J. Chilar, A. Franklin, D. Keizer, & I. Kimbara (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) (pp. 591-603). Chicago: Chicago Linguistics Society.

    Abstract

    Traditionally, there have been three standard assumptions made about the Parallelism Effect on VP-ellipsis, namely that the effect is categorical, that it applies asymmetrically and that it is uniquely due to syntactic factors. Based on the results of a series of experiments involving online and offline tasks, it will be argued that the Parallelism Effect is instead noncategorical and interactional. The factors investigated include construction type, conceptual and morpho-syntactic recoverability, finiteness and anaphor type (to test VP-anaphora). The results show that parallelism is gradient rather than categorical, effects both VP-ellipsis and anaphora, and is influenced by both structural and non-structural factors.
  • Dunn, M. (2014). Gender determined dialect variation. In G. G. Corbett (Ed.), The expression of gender (pp. 39-68). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Dunn, M. (2014). Language phylogenies. In C. Bowern, & B. Evans (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of historical linguistics (pp. 190-211). London: Routlege.
  • Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., Senft, B., & Senft, G. (1998). Trobriander (Ost-Neuguinea, Trobriand Inseln, Kaile'una) Fadenspiele 'ninikula'. In Ethnologie - Humanethologische Begleitpublikationen von I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt und Mitarbeitern. Sammelband I, 1985-1987. Göttingen: Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film.
  • Emmorey, K., & Ozyurek, A. (2014). Language in our hands: Neural underpinnings of sign language and co-speech gesture. In M. S. Gazzaniga, & G. R. Mangun (Eds.), The cognitive neurosciences (5th ed., pp. 657-666). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). Semantics and combinatorics of 'sit', 'stand', and 'lie' in Lao. In J. Newman (Ed.), The linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying (pp. 25-41). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2006). Social consequences of common ground. In N. J. Enfield, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 399-430). Oxford: Berg.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). Parallel innovation and 'coincidence' in linguistic areas: On a bi-clausal extent/result constructions of mainland Southeast Asia. In P. Chew (Ed.), Proceedings of the 28th meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Special session on Tibeto-Burman and Southeast Asian linguistics (pp. 121-128). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). Body 2002. In S. Kita (Ed.), 2002 Supplement (version 3) for the “Manual” for the field season 2001 (pp. 19-32). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2014). Causal dynamics of language. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 325-342). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). “Fish trap” task. In S. Kita (Ed.), 2002 Supplement (version 3) for the “Manual” for the field season 2001 (pp. 61). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2003). “Fish traps” task. In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Field research manual 2003, part I: Multimodal interaction, space, event representation (pp. 31). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.877616.

    Abstract

    This task is designed to elicit virtual 3D ‘models’ created in gesture space using iconic and other representational gestures. This task has been piloted with Lao speakers, where two speakers were asked to explain the meaning of terms referring to different kinds of fish trap mechanisms. The task elicited complex performances involving a range of iconic gestures, and with especially interesting use of (a) the ‘model/diagram’ in gesture space as a virtual object, (b) the non-dominant hand as a prosodic/semiotic anchor, (c) a range of different techniques (indexical and iconic) for evoking meaning with the hand, and (d) the use of nearby objects and parts of the body as semiotic ‘props’.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). Cultural logic and syntactic productivity: Associated posture constructions in Lao. In N. Enfield (Ed.), Ethnosyntax: Explorations in culture and grammar (pp. 231-258). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). Ethnosyntax: Introduction. In N. Enfield (Ed.), Ethnosyntax: Explorations in culture and grammar (pp. 1-30). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2005). Depictive and other secondary predication in Lao. In N. P. Himmelmann, & E. Schultze-Berndt (Eds.), Secondary predication and adverbial modification (pp. 379-392). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). Combinatoric properties of natural semantic metalanguage expressions in Lao. In C. Goddard, & A. Wierzbicka (Eds.), Meaning and universal grammar: Theory and empirical findings (pp. 145-256). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2002). Functions of 'give' and 'take' in Lao complex predicates. In R. S. Bauer (Ed.), Collected papers on Southeast Asian and Pacific languages (pp. 13-36). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2006). Heterosemy and the grammar-lexicon trade-off. In F. Ameka, A. Dench, & N. Evans (Eds.), Catching Language (pp. 297-320). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (2006). Introduction: Human sociality as a new interdisciplinary field. In N. J. Enfield, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: Culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 1-35). Oxford: Berg.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2005). Micro and macro dimensions in linguistic systems. In S. Marmaridou, K. Nikiforidou, & E. Antonopoulou (Eds.), Reviewing linguistic thought: Converging trends for the 21st Century (pp. 313-326). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2006). Laos - language situation. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (vol. 6) (pp. 698-700). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Abstract

    Laos features a high level of linguistic diversity, with more than 70 languages from four different major language families (Tai, Mon-Khmer, Hmong-Mien, Tibeto-Burman). Mon-Khmer languages were spoken in Laos earlier than other languages, with incoming migrations by Tai speakers (c. 2000 years ago) and Hmong-Mien speakers (c. 200 years ago). There is widespread language contact and multilingualism in upland minority communities, while lowland-dwelling Lao speakers are largely monolingual. Lao is the official national language. Most minority languages are endangered, with a few exceptions (notably Hmong and Kmhmu). There has been relatively little linguistic research on languages of Laos, due to problems of both infrastructure and administration.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2014). Human agency and the infrastructure for requests. In P. Drew, & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Requesting in social interaction (pp. 35-50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This chapter discusses some of the elements of human sociality that serve as the social and cognitive infrastructure or preconditions for the use of requests and other kinds of recruitments in interaction. The notion of an agent with goals is a canonical starting point, though importantly agency tends not to be wholly located in individuals, but rather is socially distributed. This is well illustrated in the case of requests, in which the person or group that has a certain goal is not necessarily the one who carries out the behavior towards that goal. The chapter focuses on the role of semiotic (mostly linguistic) resources in negotiating the distribution of agency with request-like actions, with examples from video-recorded interaction in Lao, a language spoken in Laos and nearby countries. The examples illustrate five hallmarks of requesting in human interaction, which show some ways in which our ‘manipulation’ of other people is quite unlike our manipulation of tools: (1) that even though B is being manipulated, B wants to help, (2) that while A is manipulating B now, A may be manipulated in return later; (3) that the goal of the behavior may be shared between A and B, (4) that B may not comply, or may comply differently than requested, due to actual or potential contingencies, and (5) that A and B are accountable to one another; reasons may be asked for, and/or given, for the request. These hallmarks of requesting are grounded in a prosocial framework of human agency.
  • Enfield, N. J., De Ruiter, J. P., Levinson, S. C., & Stivers, T. (2003). Multimodal interaction in your field site: A preliminary investigation. In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Field research manual 2003, part I: Multimodal interaction, space, event representation (pp. 10-16). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.877638.

    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., & Sidnell, J. (2014). Language presupposes an enchronic infrastructure for social interaction. In D. Dor, C. Knight, & J. Lewis (Eds.), The social origins of language (pp. 92-104). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J., Kockelman, P., & Sidnell, J. (2014). Interdisciplinary perspectives. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 599-602). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (2003). Interview on kinship. In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Field research manual 2003, part I: Multimodal interaction, space, event representation (pp. 64-65). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.877629.

    Abstract

    We want to know how people think about their field of kin, on the supposition that it is quasi-spatial. To get some insights here, we need to video a discussion about kinship reckoning, the kinship system, marriage rules and so on, with a view to looking at both the linguistic expressions involved, and the gestures people use to indicate kinship groups and relations. Unlike the task in the 2001 manual, this task is a direct interview method.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2003). Introduction. In N. J. Enfield, Linguistic epidemiology: Semantics and grammar of language contact in mainland Southeast Asia (pp. 2-44). London: Routledge Curzon.
  • Enfield, N. J., Kockelman, P., & Sidnell, J. (2014). Introduction: Directions in the anthropology of language. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 1-24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J., & De Ruiter, J. P. (2003). The diff-task: A symmetrical dyadic multimodal interaction task. In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Field research manual 2003, part I: Multimodal interaction, space, event representation (pp. 17-21). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.877635.

    Abstract

    This task is a complement to the questionnaire ‘Multimodal interaction in your field site: a preliminary investigation’. The objective of the task is to obtain high quality video data on structured and symmetrical dyadic multimodal interaction. The features of interaction we are interested in include turn organization in speech and nonverbal behavior, eye-gaze behavior, use of composite signals (i.e. communicative units of speech-combined-with-gesture), and linguistic and other resources for ‘navigating’ interaction (e.g. words like okay, now, well, and um).

    Additional information

    2003_1_The_diff_task_stimuli.zip
  • Enfield, N. J., Sidnell, J., & Kockelman, P. (2014). System and function. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 25-28). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2003). Preface and priorities. In N. J. Enfield (Ed.), Field research manual 2003, part I: Multimodal interaction, space, event representation (pp. 3). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2014). The item/system problem. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 48-77). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2014). Transmission biases in the cultural evolution of language: Towards an explanatory framework. In D. Dor, C. Knight, & J. Lewis (Eds.), The social origins of language (pp. 325-335). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Ernestus, M. (2003). The role of phonology and phonetics in Dutch voice assimilation. In J. v. d. Weijer, V. J. v. Heuven, & H. v. d. Hulst (Eds.), The phonological spectrum Volume 1: Segmental structure (pp. 119-144). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Ernestus, M., & Baayen, R. H. (2006). The functionality of incomplete neutralization in Dutch: The case of past-tense formation. In L. Goldstein, D. Whalen, & C. Best (Eds.), Laboratory Phonology 8 (pp. 27-49). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Ernestus, M., & Giezenaar, G. (2014). Een goed verstaander heeft maar een half woord nodig. In B. Bossers (Ed.), Vakwerk 9: Achtergronden van de NT2-lespraktijk: Lezingen conferentie Hoeven 2014 (pp. 81-92). Amsterdam: BV NT2.
  • Ernestus, M., Kočková-Amortová, L., & Pollak, P. (2014). The Nijmegen corpus of casual Czech. In N. Calzolari, K. Choukri, T. Declerck, H. Loftsson, B. Maegaard, J. Mariani, A. Moreno, J. Odijk, & S. Piperidis (Eds.), Proceedings of LREC 2014: 9th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (pp. 365-370).

    Abstract

    This article introduces a new speech corpus, the Nijmegen Corpus of Casual Czech (NCCCz), which contains more than 30 hours of high-quality recordings of casual conversations in Common Czech, among ten groups of three male and ten groups of three female friends. All speakers were native speakers of Czech, raised in Prague or in the region of Central Bohemia, and were between 19 and 26 years old. Every group of speakers consisted of one confederate, who was instructed to keep the conversations lively, and two speakers naive to the purposes of the recordings. The naive speakers were engaged in conversations for approximately 90 minutes, while the confederate joined them for approximately the last 72 minutes. The corpus was orthographically annotated by experienced transcribers and this orthographic transcription was aligned with the speech signal. In addition, the conversations were videotaped. This corpus can form the basis for all types of research on casual conversations in Czech, including phonetic research and research on how to improve automatic speech recognition. The corpus will be freely available
  • Faller, M. (2002). Remarks on evidential hierarchies. In D. I. Beaver, L. D. C. Martinez, B. Z. Clark., & S. Kaufmann (Eds.), The construction of meaning (pp. 89-111). Stanford: CSLI Publications.
  • Filippi, P. (2014). Linguistic animals: understanding language through a comparative approach. In E. A. Cartmill, S. Roberts, H. Lyn, & H. Crnish (Eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (pp. 74-81). doi:10.1142/9789814603638_0082.

    Abstract

    With the aim to clarify the definition of humans as “linguistic animals”, in the present paper I functionally distinguish three types of language competences: i) language as a general biological tool for communication, ii) “perceptual syntax”, iii) propositional language. Following this terminological distinction, I review pivotal findings on animals' communication systems, which constitute useful evidence for the investigation of the nature of three core components of humans' faculty of language: semantics, syntax, and theory of mind. In fact, despite the capacity to process and share utterances with an open-ended structure is uniquely human, some isolated components of our linguistic competence are in common with nonhuman animals. Therefore, as I argue in the present paper, the investigation of animals' communicative competence provide crucial insights into the range of cognitive constraints underlying humans' ability of language, enabling at the same time the analysis of its phylogenetic path as well as of the selective pressures that have led to its emergence.
  • Filippi, P., Gingras, B., & Fitch, W. T. (2014). The effect of pitch enhancement on spoken language acquisition. In E. A. Cartmill, S. Roberts, H. Lyn, & H. Crnish (Eds.), The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference (pp. 437-438). doi:10.1142/9789814603638_0082.

    Abstract

    The aim of this study is to investigate the word-learning phenomenon utilizing a new model that integrates three processes: a) extracting a word out of a continuous sounds sequence, b) inducing referential meanings, c) mapping a word onto its intended referent, with the possibility to extend the acquired word over a potentially infinite sets of objects of the same semantic category, and over not-previously-heard utterances. Previous work has examined the role of statistical learning and/or of prosody in each of these processes separately. In order to examine the multilayered word-learning task, we integrate these two strands of investigation into a single approach. We have conducted the study on adults and included six different experimental conditions, each including specific perceptual manipulations of the signal. In condition 1, the only cue to word-meaning mapping was the co-occurrence between words and referents (“statistical cue”). This cue was present in all the conditions. In condition 2, we added infant-directed-speech (IDS) typical pitch enhancement as a marker of the target word and of the statistical cue. In condition 3 we placed IDS typical pitch enhancement on random words of the utterances, i.e. inconsistently matching the statistical cue. In conditions 4, 5 and 6 we manipulated respectively duration, a non-prosodic acoustic cue and a visual cue as markers of the target word and of the statistical cue. Systematic comparisons between learning performance in condition 1 with the other conditions revealed that the word-learning process is facilitated only when pitch prominence consistently marks the target word and the statistical cue…

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