Publications

Abstract

Gestures are meaningful movements of the body, the hands, and the face during communication,
which accompany the production of both spoken and signed utterances. Recent
research has shown that gestures are an integral part of language and that they contribute
semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic information to the linguistic utterance. Furthermore,
they reveal internal representations of the language user during communication in ways
that might not be encoded in the verbal part of the utterance. Firstly, this chapter summarizes
research on the role of gesture in spoken languages. Subsequently, it gives an overview
of how gestural components might manifest themselves in sign languages, that is,
in a situation in which both gesture and sign are expressed by the same articulators.
Current studies are discussed that address the question of whether gestural components are the same or different in the two language modalities from a semiotic as well as from a cognitive and processing viewpoint. Understanding the role of gesture in both sign and
spoken language contributes to our knowledge of the human language faculty as a multimodal communication system.

Abstract

Wanneer iemand goed is in het spreken van meerdere talen, wordt wel gezegd dat zo iemand een talenknobbel heeft. Iedereen weet dat dat niet letterlijk bedoeld is: iemand met een talenknobbel herkennen we niet aan een grote bult op zijn hoofd. Toch dacht men vroeger wel degelijk dat mensen een letterlijke talenknobbel konden ontwikkelen. Een goed ontwikkeld taalvermogen zou gepaard gaan met het groeien van het hersengebied dat hiervoor verantwoordelijk was. Dit deel van het brein zou zelfs zo groot kunnen worden dat het van binnenuit tegen de schedel drukte, met name rond de ogen. Nu weten we wel beter. Maar waar in het brein bevindt de taal zich dan wel precies?

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the semantic and pragmatic uses of space. The questions addressed concern how sign space (i.e. the area of space in front of the signer’s body) is used for meaning construction, how locations in sign space are associated with discourse referents, and how signers choose to structure sign space for their communicative intents. The chapter gives an overview of linguistic analyses of the use of space, starting with the distinction between syntactic and topographic uses of space and the different types of signs that function to establish referent-location associations, and moving to analyses based on mental spaces and conceptual blending theories. Semantic-pragmatic conventions for organizing sign space are discussed, as well as spatial devices notable in the visual-spatial modality (particularly, classifier predicates and signing perspective), which influence and determine the way meaning is created in sign space. Finally, the special role of simultaneity in sign languages is discussed, focusing on the semantic and discourse-pragmatic functions of simultaneous constructions.

Abstract

In Kalasha, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Northwest Pakistan, the linguistic encoding of ‘put’ and ‘take’ events reveals a symmetry between lexical ‘put’ and ‘take’ verbs that implies ‘placement on’ and ‘removal from’ a supporting surface. As regards ‘placement in’ and ‘removal from’ an enclosure, the data reveal a lexical asymmetry as ‘take’ verbs display a larger degree of linguistic elaboration of the Figure-Ground relation and the type of caused motion than ‘put’ verbs. When considering syntactic patterns, more instances of asymmetry between these two event types show up. The analysis presented here supports the proposal that an asymmetry exists in the encoding of goals versus sources as suggested in Nam (2004) and Ikegami (1987), but it calls into question the statement put forward by Regier and Zheng (2007) that endpoints (goals) are more finely differentiated semantically than starting points (sources).

Abstract

Two eye-tracking experiments tested whether native listeners can adapt
to reductions in casual Dutch speech. Listeners were exposed to segmental
([b] > [m]), syllabic (full-vowel-deletion), or no reductions. In a subsequent
test phase, all three listener groups were tested on how efficiently they could
recognize both types of reduced words. In the first Experiment’s exposure
phase, the (un)reduced target words were predictable. The segmental reductions
were completely consistent (i.e., involved the same input sequences).
Learning about them was found to be pattern-specific and generalized in the
test phase to new reduced /b/-words. The syllabic reductions were not consistent
(i.e., involved variable input sequences). Learning about them was
weak and not pattern-specific. Experiment 2 examined effects of word repetition
and predictability. The (un-)reduced test words appeared in the exposure
phase and were not predictable. There was no evidence of learning for
the segmental reductions, probably because they were not predictable during
exposure. But there was word-specific learning for the vowel-deleted words.
The results suggest that learning about reductions is pattern-specific and
generalizes to new words if the input is consistent and predictable. With
variable input, there is more likely to be adaptation to a general speaking
style and word-specific learning.

Abstract

For the beginning language learner, communicative input is not based on linguistic codes alone. This study investigated two extralinguistic factors which are important for infants’ language development: the type of ongoing shared activity and non-verbal, deictic gestures. The natural interactions of 39 caregivers and their 12-month-old infants were recorded in two semi-natural contexts: a free play situation based on action and manipulation of objects, and a situation based on regard of objects, broadly analogous to an exhibit. Results show that the type of shared activity structures both caregivers’ language usage and caregivers’ and infants’ gesture usage. Further, there is a specific pattern with regard to how caregivers integrate speech with particular deictic gesture types. The findings demonstrate a pervasive influence of shared activities on human communication, even before language has emerged. The type of shared activity and caregivers’ systematic integration of specific forms of deictic gestures with language provide infants with a multimodal scaffold for a usage-based acquisition of language.

Abstract

This paper explores the semantics of placement and removal verbs in Ākhoe Hai om based on event descriptions elicited with a set of video stimuli. After a brief sketch of the morphosyntax of placement/removal constructions in Ākhoe Haiom, four situation types are identified semantically that cover both placement and removal events. The language exhibits a clear tendency to make more fine-grained semantic distinctions in placement verbs, as opposed to semantically more general removal verbs.

Abstract

Cognitive research is often focused on experimental condition-driven reactions. Ethological studies frequently
rely on the observation of naturally occurring specific behaviors. In both cases, subjects are filmed during the
study, so that afterwards behaviors can be coded on video. Coding should typically be blind to experimental
conditions, but often requires more information than that present on video. We introduce a method for blindcoding
of behavioral videos that takes care of both issues via three main innovations. First, of particular
significance for playback studies, it allows creation of a “soundtrack” of the study, that is, a track composed of
synthesized sounds representing different aspects of the experimental conditions, or other events, over time.
Second, it facilitates coding behavior using this audio track, together with the possibly muted original video.
This enables coding blindly to conditions as required, but not ignoring other relevant events. Third, our method
makes use of freely available, multi-platform software, including scripts we developed.

Abstract

n applied linguistics (AL), researchers have always been concerned with second language (L2) learners' knowledge of the target language (TL), investigating the development of TL grammar, vocabulary, and phonology, for instance.

Abstract

Wat doen onze ogen als we met andere mensen praten? In zijn proefschrift beschrijft Federico Rossano hoe mensen hun ogen gebruiken tijdens face-to-face interacties. Onze oogbewegingen blijken opvallend geordend en voorspelbaar: zo is het bijvoorbeeld mogelijk om met uitsluitend de ogen een reactie uit te lokken als de gesprekspartner niet direct reageert. Ook wanneer bijvoorbeeld een vraag-antwoordreeks ten einde loopt, coördineren gespreksdeelnemers hun oogbewegingen op een specifieke manier. Daarnaast heeft luisteren naar een verhaal of luisteren naar een vraag verschillende implicaties voor oogbewegingen. Dit proefschrift bevat daarom belangrijke informatie voor experts op het gebied van kunstmatige intelligentie en computerwetenschappers: de voorspelbaarheid en reproduceerbaarheid van natuurlijke oogbewegingen kan onder andere gebruikt worden bij de ontwikkeling van robots of avatars.

Abstract

Human communication is often thought about in terms of transmitted messages in a conventional code like a language. But communication requires a specialized interactive intelligence. Senders have to be able to perform recipient design, while receivers need to be able to do intention recognition, knowing that recipient design has taken place. To study this interactive intelligence in the lab, we developed a new task that taps directly into the underlying abilities to communicate in the absence of a conventional code. We show that subjects are remarkably successful communicators under these conditions, especially when senders get feedback from receivers. Signaling is accomplished by the manner in which an instrumental action is performed, such that instrumentally dysfunctional components of an action are used to convey communicative intentions. The findings have important implications for the nature of the human communicative infrastructure, and the task opens up a line of experimentation on human communication.

Abstract

In foreign-accented speech, pronunciation typically deviates from the canonical form to some degree. For native listeners, it has been shown that word recognition is more difficult for strongly-accented words than for less strongly-accented words. Furthermore recognition of strongly-accented words becomes easier with additional exposure to the foreign accent. In this paper, listeners’ behaviour was simulated with Fine-tracker, a computational model of word recognition that uses real speech as input. The simulations showed that, in line with human listeners, 1) Fine-Tracker’s recognition outcome is modulated by the degree of accentedness and 2) it improves slightly after brief exposure with the accent. On the level of individual words, however, Fine-tracker failed to correctly simulate listeners’ behaviour, possibly due to differences in overall familiarity with the chosen accent (German-accented Dutch) between human listeners and Fine-Tracker.

Abstract

Aging often affects sensitivity to the higher frequencies, which results in the loss of sensitivity to phonetic detail in speech. Hearing loss may therefore interfere with the categorisation of two consonants that have most information to differentiate between them in those higher frequencies and less in the lower frequencies, e.g., /f/ and /s/. We investigate two acoustic cues, i.e., formant transitions and fricative intensity, that older listeners might use to differentiate between /f/ and /s/. The results of two phonetic categorisation tasks on 38 older listeners (aged 60+) with varying degrees of hearing loss indicate that older listeners seem to use formant transitions as a cue to distinguish /s/ from /f/. Moreover, this ability is not impacted by hearing loss. On the other hand, listeners with increased hearing loss seem to rely more on intensity for fricative identification. Thus, progressive hearing loss may lead to gradual changes in perceptual cue weighting.

Abstract

Young listeners can quickly modify their interpretation of a speech sound when a talker produces the sound ambiguously. Young Dutch listeners rely mainly on the higher frequencies to distinguish between /f/ and /s/, but these higher frequencies are particularly vulnerable to age-related hearing loss. We therefore tested whether older Dutch listeners can show perceptual retuning given an ambiguous pronunciation in between /f/ and /s/. Results of a lexically-guided perceptual learning experiment showed that older Dutch listeners are still able to learn non-standard pronunciations of /f/ and /s/. Possibly, the older listeners have learned to rely on other acoustic cues, such as formant transitions, to distinguish between /f/ and /s/. However, the size and duration of the perceptual effect is influenced by hearing loss, with listeners with poorer hearing showing a smaller and a shorter-lived learning effect.

Abstract

Sprekers hebben een sterke neiging om syntactische structuren te hergebruiken in nieuwe zinnen. Wanneer we een situatie beschrijven met een passieve zin bijvoorbeeld: 'De vrouw wordt begroet door de man', zullen we voor de beschrijving van een nieuwe situatie gemakkelijker opnieuw een passieve zin gebruiken. Vooral bij moeilijke syntactische structuren is de neiging om ze te hergebruiken erg sterk. Voor gemakkelijke zinsconstructies geldt dat minder. Maar als deze toch hergebruikt worden dan gaat dit samen met een sneller initiëren van de beschrijving. Ook in het brein zien we dat het herhalen van syntactische structuren de verwerking ervan vergemakkelijkt. Bepaalde hersengebieden die zorgen voor de verwerking van syntactische structuren zijn zeer actief de eerste keer dat een syntactische structuur wordt verwerkt, en minder actief de tweede keer. Het gaat hier om een gebiedje in de frontaalkwab en een gebiedje in de temporaalkwab. Opvallend is ook dat deze gebieden de verwerking van syntactische structuren ondersteunen zowel tijdens het spreken als tijdens het luisteren.

Abstract

This chapter first compares data collected on Kilivila colour terms in 1983 with data collected in 2008. The Kilivila lexicon has changed from a typical stage IIIb into a stage VII colour term lexicon (Berlin and Kay 1969). The chapter then compares data on the Kilivila taste vocabulary collected in 1982/83 with data collected in 2008. No substantial change was found. Finally the chapter compares the 2008 results on taste terms with a paper on the taste vocabulary of the Torres Strait Islanders published in 1904 by Charles S. Myers. Kilivila provides evidence that traditional terms used for talking about colour and terms used to refer to tastes have remained relatively stable over time.

Abstract

It has been known at least since Abelard (12th century) that the classic Square of Opposition suffers from so-called undue existential import (UEI) in that this system of predicate logic collapses when the class denoted by the restrictor predicate is empty. It is usually thought that this mistake was made by Aristotle himself, but it has now become clear that this is not so: Aristotle did not have the Conversions but only one-way entailments, which ‘saves’ the Square. The error of UEI was introduced by his later commentators, especially Apuleius and Boethius. Abelard restored Aristotle’s original logic. After Abelard, some 14th- and 15th-century philosophers (mainly Buridan and Ockham) meant to save the Square by declaring the O-corner true when the restrictor class is empty. This ‘leaking O-corner analysis’, or LOCA, was taken up again around 1950 by some American philosopher-logicians, who now have a fairly large following. LOCA does indeed save the Square from logical disaster, but modern analysis shows that this makes it impossible to give a uniform semantic definition of the quantifiers, which thus become ambiguous—an intolerable state of affairs in logic. Klima (Ars Artium, Essays in Philosophical Semantics, Medieval and Modern, Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1988) and Parsons (in Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.standford.edu/entries/square/, 2006; Logica Univers. 2:3–11, 2008) have tried to circumvent this problem by introducing a ‘zero’ element into the ontology, standing for non-existing entities and yielding falsity when used for variable substitution. LOCA, both without and with the zero element, is critically discussed and rejected on internal logical and external ontological grounds.

Abstract

A corpus of digitized speech errors is used to compare the prosody of correction patterns for word-level vs. sound-level errors. Results for both peak F0 and perceived prosodic markedness confirm that speakers are more likely to mark corrections of word-level errors than corrections of sound-level errors, and that errors ambiguous between word-level and soundlevel (such as boat for moat) show correction patterns like those for sound level errors. This finding increases the plausibility of the claim that word-sound-ambiguous errors arise at the same level of processing as sound errors that do not form words.

Abstract

When perceiving vowels, listeners adjust to speaker-specific vocal-tract characteristics (such as F1) through "extrinsic vowel normalization". This effect is observed as a shift in the location of categorization boundaries of vowel continua. Similar effects have been found with non-speech. Non-speech materials, however, have consistently led to smaller effect-sizes, perhaps because of a lack of attention to non-speech. The present study investigated this possibility. Non-speech materials that had previously been shown to elicit reduced normalization effects were tested again, with the addition of an attention manipulation. The results show that increased attention does not lead to increased normalization effects, suggesting that vowel normalization is mainly determined by bottom-up signal characteristics.

Abstract

ELAN is a versatile multimedia annotation tool that is being developed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. About a decade ago it emerged out of a number of corpus tools and utilities and it has been extended ever since. This paper focuses on the efforts made to ensure that the application keeps up with the growing needs of that era in linguistics and multimodality research; growing needs in terms of length and resolution of recordings, the number of recordings made and transcribed and the number of levels of annotation per transcription.

Abstract

Within scientific institutes there exist many language resources. These resources are often quite specialized and relatively unknown. The current infrastructural initiatives try to tackle this issue by collecting metadata about the resources and establishing centers with stable repositories to ensure the availability of the resources. It would be beneficial if the researcher could, by means of a simple query, determine which resources and which centers contain information useful to his or her research, or even work on a set of distributed resources as a virtual corpus. In this article we propose an architecture for a distributed search environment allowing researchers to perform searches in a set of distributed language resources.

Abstract

Research on child language socialization has its roots in understanding the ways that adults and other caregivers interact with children in mundane social life and how these practices might enculturate the child into local communicative norms and ways of thinking ( Brown 1998 ; Clancy 1999 ; Danziger 1971 ; de León 1998 ; Garrett and Baquedano-López 2002 ; Heath 1983 ; Ochs and Schieffelin 1983, 1984 ). A second primary area of interest has been the effect of different socialization practices on more formal educational settings ( Heath 1983 ; Howard 2004 ; Michaels 1981 ; Moore 2006 , this volume; Philips 1983 ; Rogoff et al. 2003 ). However, as discussed in other contributions to this volume, language socialization extends into many other facets of life. Just as being a member of a cultural group or being a student requires socialization into the associated rights and obligations, so too does the role of medical patient or client. For instance, patients must understand how to explain their problems ( Halkowski 2006 ; Heritage and Robinson 2006 ); what information they should know about their bodies, their treatment, their life, and their medical history; and where to look during examinations ( Heath 1986 ), to name but a few of the norm-governed aspects of medical interaction. Physicians play an important role in a child's socialization into the patient role by providing

Abstract

Classical phonetic studies have shown that acoustic-articulatory cues can be interchanged without affecting the resulting phoneme percept (‘cue trading’). Cue trading has so far mainly been investigated in the context of phoneme identification. In this study, we investigate cue trading in word recognition, because words are the units of speech through which we communicate. This paper aims to provide a method to quantify cue trading effects by using a computational model of human word recognition. This model takes the acoustic signal as input and represents speech using articulatory feature streams. Importantly, it allows cue trading and underspecification. Its set-up is inspired by the functionality of Fine-Tracker, a recent computational model of human word recognition. This approach makes it possible, for the first time, to quantify cue trading in terms of a trade-off between features and to investigate cue trading in the context of a word recognition task.

Abstract

This paper represents a pilot investigation of primed accentuation patterns produced by advanced Dutch speakers of Italian as a second language (L2). Contrastive accent patterns within prepositional phrases were elicited in a semispontaneous dialogue entertained with a confederate native speaker of Italian. The aim of the analysis was to compare learner’s contrastive accentual configurations induced by the confederate speaker’s prime against those produced by Italian and Dutch natives in the same testing conditions. F0 and speech rate data were analysed by applying powerful datadriven techniques available in the Functional Data Analysis statistical framework. Results reveal different accentual configurations in L1 and L2 Italian in response to the confederate’s prime. We conclude that learner’s accentual patterns mirror those ones produced by their L1 control group (prosodic-transfer hypothesis) although the hypothesis of a transient priming effect on learners’ choice of contrastive patterns cannot be completely ruled out.

Abstract

In this thesis I approach language as a neurobiological system. I defend a sequence processing perspective on language and on the function of Broca's region in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG). This perspective provides a way to express common structural aspects of language, music and action, which all engage the LIFG. It also facilitates the comparison of human language and structured sequence processing in animals. Research on infants, song-birds and non-human primates suggests an interesting role for non-adjacent dependencies in language acquisition and the evolution of language. In a series of experimental studies using a sequence processing paradigm called artificial grammar learning (AGL), we have investigated sequences with adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies. Our behavioral and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies show that healthy subjects successfully discriminate between grammatical and non-grammatical sequences after having acquired aspects of a grammar with nested or crossed non-adjacent dependencies implicitly. There were no indications of separate acquisition/processing mechanisms for sequence processing of adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies, although acquisition of non-adjacent dependencies takes more time. In addition, we studied the causal role of Broca‟s region in processing artificial syntax. Although syntactic processing has already been robustly correlated with activity in Broca's region, the causal role of Broca's region in syntactic processing, in particular syntactic comprehension has been unclear. Previous lesion studies have shown that a lesion in Broca's region is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to induce e.g. syntactic deficits. Subsequent to transcranial magnetic stimulation of Broca‟s region, discrimination of grammatical sequences with non-adjacent dependencies from non-grammatical sequences was impaired, compared to when a language irrelevant control region (vertex) was stimulated. Two additional experiments show perturbation of discrimination performance for grammars with adjacent dependencies after stimulation of Broca's region. Together, these results support the view that Broca‟s region plays a causal role in implicit structured sequence processing.

Abstract

Translated and expanded version of 'Privileged syntactic arguments, pivots and controllers

Abstract

Introduction: What’s happening in the brains of two people having a conversation? One reasonable guess is that in the fMRI scanner we’d see most of their brains light up. Another is that their EEG will be a total mess, reflecting dozens of interacting neuronal systems. Conversation recruits all of the basic language systems reviewed in this book. It also heavily taxes cognitive systems more likely to be found in handbooks of memory, attention and control, or social cognition (Brownell & Friedman, 2001). With most conversations going beyond the single utterance, for instance, they place a heavy load on episodic memory, as well as on the systems that allow us to reallocate cognitive resources to meet the demands of a dynamically changing situation. Furthermore, conversation is a deeply social and collaborative enterprise (Clark, 1996; this volume), in which interlocutors have to keep track of each others state of mind and coordinate on such things as taking turns, establishing common ground, and the goals of the conversation.

Abstract

Relative clauses present an interesting challenge for theories of the syntaxsemantics interface, because one element functions simultaneously in the matrix and relative clauses. The exact nature of the challenge depends on whether the relative clause is externally-headed or internallyheaded. Standard analyses of relative clauses are grounded in the analysis of Englishtype externally-headed constructions involving a relative pronoun, e.g. The horse which the man bought was a good horse, despite its typological rarity, and such accounts typically involve movement rules, both overt and covert, and phonologically null elements. The analysis of internally-headed relative clauses often involves the positing of an abstract structure including a null external head, with covert movement of the internal head to that position. The purpose of this paper is to show that the essential features of both types of relative clause can be captured in a syntactic theory that eschews movement rules and phonologically null elements, Role and Reference Grammar. It will be argued that a single set of linking principles can handle the syntax-to-semantics linking for both types. Keywords: Externally-headed relative clauses; internally-headed relative clauses; Role and Reference Grammar; linking syntax and semantics

Abstract

In this paper we present the Virtual Language Observatory (VLO), a metadata-based portal for language resources. It is completely based on the Component Metadata (CMDI) and ISOcat standards. This approach allows for the use of heterogeneous metadata schemas while maintaining the semantic compatibility. We describe the metadata harvesting process, based on OAI-PMH, and the conversion from several formats (OLAC, IMDI and the CLARIN LRT inventory) to their CMDI counterpart profiles. Then we focus on some post-processing steps to polish the harvested records. Next, the ingestion of the CMDI files into the VLO facet browser is described. We also include an overview of the changes since the first version of the VLO, based on user feedback from the CLARIN community. Finally there is an overview of additional ideas and improvements for future versions of the VLO.

Abstract

This paper presents a corpus study that investigates the co-occurrence of reduced word forms in natural speech. We extracted Dutch past participles from three different speech registers and investigated the influence of several predictor variables on the presence and duration of schwas in prefixes and /t/s in suffixes. Our results suggest that reduced word forms tend to co-occur even if we partial out the effect of speech rate. The implications of our findings for episodic and abstractionist models of lexical representation are discussed.

Abstract

In a small village in the north of Bali called Bengkala, relatively many people inherit deafness. The Balinese therefore refer to this village as Desa Kolok, which means 'deaf village'. Connie de Vos studied Kata Kolok, the sign language of this village, and the ways in which the language recruits space to talk about both spatial and non-spatial matters. he small village community Bengkala in the north of Bali has almost 3,000 inhabitants. Of all the inhabitants, 57% use sign language, with varying degrees of fluency. But of this signing community (between 1,200 and 1,800 signers, depending on your definition of 'signer'), only 4% are deaf. So, not only do the deaf people of Bengkala use the sign language Kata Kolok, but also the majority of the hearing population.
"I've worked with deaf people from all over Asia, Europe, and also some signers in America," says Connie de Vos of MPI's Language and Cognition Department, and Centre for Language Studies (RU). "What sets apart this particular deaf village is that deaf individuals are highly integrated within the village clans. There is really a huge proportion of hearing signers." The sign language currently functions in all major aspects of village life and has been acquired from birth by multiple generations of deaf, native signers. According to De Vos, Kata Kolok is a fully-fledged sign language in every sense of the word. As a collaborative project, she has initiated inclusive deaf education within the village and now Kata Kolok is used as the primary language of instruction. De Vos' primary finding is that Kata Kolok discourse uses a different system of referring to space than other sign languages. Spatial relations are represented by a so-called "absolute frame of reference", based on geographic locations and wind directions. "All sign languages, as we know, use relative constructions for spatial relations. They use signs comparable to words like 'left' and 'right' instead of 'east' and 'west'. Kata Kolok does the latter. Kata Kolok signers appear to have an internal compass to continually register their position in space."De Vos is the first sign linguist who has documented Kata Kolok extensively. She spent more than a year in the village and collected over a hundred hours of video material of spontaneous conversations. "One of the things I've noticed is that language doesn't really emerge out of nothing," she says. "Signers adopt a local gesture system and transform it into a new and much more systematic sign language. A lot of the signs refer to concepts they're familiar with. That's why hearing signers have no difficulties in picking up Kata Kolok. Kata Kolok unites the hearing and the deaf.

Abstract

Tzeltal, a Mayan language spoken in southern Mexico, exhibits allo-morphy of an unusual type. The vowel quality of the perfective suffix is determined by the number of syllables in the stem to which it is attaching. This paper presents previously unpublished data of this allomorphy and demonstrates that a syllable-count analysis of the phenomenon is the proper one. This finding is put in a more general context of segment-prosody interaction in allomorphy.

Abstract

Information in speech does not unfold discretely over time; perceptual cues are gradient and overlapped. However, this varies greatly across segments and environments: listeners cannot identify the affricate in /ptS/ until the frication, but information about the vowel in /li/ begins early. Unlike most prior studies, which have concentrated on subsets of language sounds, this study tests perception of every English segment in every phonetic environment, sampling perceptual identification at six points in time (13,470 stimuli/listener; 20 listeners). Results show that information about consonants after another segment is most localized for affricates (almost entirely in the release), and most gradual for voiced stops. In comparison to stressed vowels, unstressed vowels have less information spreading to
neighboring segments and are less well identified. Indeed, many vowels,
especially lax ones, are poorly identified even by the end of the following segment. This may partly reflect listeners’ familiarity with English vowels’ dialectal variability. Diphthongs and diphthongal tense vowels show the most sudden improvement in identification, similar to affricates among the consonants, suggesting that information about segments defined by acoustic change is highly localized. This large dataset provides insights into speech perception and data for probabilistic modeling of spoken word recognition.

Abstract

Recent studies using phoneme detection tasks have shown that spoken-language processing is neither facilitated nor interfered with by optional assimilation, but is inhibited by violation of obligatory assimilation. Interpretation of these results depends on an assessment of their generality, specifically, whether they also obtain when listeners are processing nonnative language. Two separate experiments are presented in which native listeners of German and native listeners of Dutch had to detect a target fricative in legal monosyllabic Dutch nonwords. All of the nonwords were correct realisations in standard Dutch. For German listeners, however, half of the nonwords contained phoneme strings which violate the German fricative assimilation rule. Whereas the Dutch listeners showed no significant effects, German listeners detected the target fricative faster when the German fricative assimilation was violated than when no violation occurred. The results might suggest that violation of assimilation rules does not have to make processing more difficult per se.

Abstract

In order to decode the message of a speaker, listeners have to recognize individual words in the speaker's utterance.

Abstract

Many people speak a second language next to their mother tongue. How do they learn this language and how does the brain process it compared to the native language? A second language can be learned without explicit instruction. Our brains automatically pick up grammatical structures, such as word order, when these structures are repeated frequently during learning. The learning takes place within hours or days and the same brain areas, such as frontal and temporal brain regions, that process our native language are very quickly activated. When people master a second language very well, even the same neuronal populations in these language brain areas are involved. This is especially the case when the grammatical structures are similar. In conclusion, it appears that a second language builds on the existing cognitive and neural mechanisms of the native language as much as possible.

Abstract

How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package features that can be part of motion, such as path and cause? This questionnaire is used to gain a picture of the lexical resources a language draws on for motion expressions. It targets issues of semantic conflation (i.e., what other semantic information besides motion may be encoded in a verb root) and patterns of semantic distribution (i.e., what types of information are encoded in the morphemes that come together to build a description of a motion event). It was originally designed for Australian languages, but has since been used around the world.

Abstract

Contrastive reference, where a speaker presents or identifies one item in explicit contrast to another (I like this book but that one is boring), has special communicative and information structure properties. This can be reflected in rules of demonstrative use. For example, in some languages, terms equivalent to this and that can be used for contrastive reference in almost any spatial context. But other two-term languages stick more closely to “distance rules” for demonstratives, allowing a this-like term in close space only. This task elicits data concerning one context of contrastive reference, focusing on whether (and how) non-proximal demonstratives can be used to distinguish objects within a proximal area. The task runs like a memory game, with the consultant being asked to identify the locations of two or three hidden items arranged within arm’s reach.

Abstract

Demonstrative terms (e.g., this and that) are key to understanding how a language constructs and interprets spatial relationships. They are tricky to pin down, typically having functions that do not match “idealized” uses, and that can become invisible in narrow elicitation settings. This questionnaire is designed to identify the range(s) of use of certain spatial demonstrative terms, and help assess the roles played by gesture, access, attention, and addressee knowledge in demonstrative use. The stimuli consist of 25 diagrammed “elicitation settings” to be created by the researcher.

Abstract

In the CLARIN infrastructure various national projects have started initiatives to allow users of the infrastructure to create chains or workflows of web services. The Component Metadata (CMD) core model for web services described in this paper tries to align the metadata descriptions of these various initiatives. This should allow chaining/workflow engines to find matching and invoke services. The paper describes the landscape of web services architectures and the state of the national initiatives. Based on this a CMD core model for CLARIN is proposed, which, within some limits, can be adapted to the specific needs of an initiative by the standard facilities of CMD. The paper closes with the current state and usage of the model and a look into the future.

Abstract

ISO Technical Committee 37, Terminology and other language and content resources, established an ISO 12620:2009 based Data Category Registry (DCR), called ISOcat (see http://www.isocat.org), to foster semantic interoperability of linguistic resources. However, this goal can only be met if the data categories are reused by a wide variety of linguistic resource types. A resource indicates its usage of data categories by linking to them. The small DC Reference XML vocabulary is used to embed links to data categories in XML documents. The link is established by an URI, which servers as the Persistent IDentifier (PID) of a data category. This paper discusses the efforts to mimic the same approach for RDF-based resources. It also introduces the RDF quad store based Relation Registry RELcat, which enables ontological relationships between data categories not supported by ISOcat and thus adds an extra level of linguistic knowledge.

Abstract

The ISOcat Data Category Registry contains basically a flat and easily extensible list of data category specifications. To foster reuse and standardization only very shallow relationships among data categories are stored in the registry. However, to assist crosswalks, possibly based on personal views, between various (application) domains and to overcome possible proliferation of data categories more types of ontological relationships need to be specified. RELcat is a first prototype of a Relation Registry, which allows storing arbitrary relationships. These relationships can reflect the personal view of one linguist or a larger community. The basis of the registry is a relation type taxonomy that can easily be extended. This allows on one hand to load existing sets of relations specified in, for example, an OWL (2) ontology or SKOS taxonomy. And on the other hand allows algorithms that query the registry to traverse the stored semantic network to remain ignorant of the original source vocabulary. This paper describes first experiences with RELcat and explains some initial design decisions.

Abstract

Automatic Language Identification of written texts is a well-established area of research in Computational Linguistics. State-of-the-art algorithms often rely on n-gram character models to identify the correct language of texts, with good results seen for European languages. In this paper we propose the use of a character n-gram model and a word n-gram language model for the automatic classification of two written varieties of Portuguese: European and Brazilian. Results reached 0.998 for accuracy using character 4-grams.

Abstract

Arbil is an application designed to create and manage metadata for research data and to arrange this data into a structure appropriate for archiving. The metadata is displayed in tables, which allows an overview of the metadata and the ability to populate and update many metadata sections in bulk. Both IMDI and Clarin metadata formats are supported and Arbil has been designed as a local application so that it can also be used offline, for instance in remote field sites. The metadata can be entered in any order or at any stage that the user is able; once the metadata and its data are ready for archiving and an Internet connection is available it can be exported from Arbil and in the case of IMDI it can then be transferred to the main archive via LAMUS (archive management and upload system).

Abstract

Angelika Wittek untersuchte Zustandsveränderungsverben bei vier- bis sechsjährigen Kindern. Englischsprechende Kinder verstehen bis zum Alter von 8 Jahren diese Verben als Bewegungsverben und ignorieren, daß sie zusätzlich die Information über einen Endzustand im Sinne der Negation des Ausgangszustands beeinhalten. Wittek zeigte, daß entgegen der Erwartung transparente, morphologisch komplexe Formen (wachmachen), in denen die Partikel den Endzustand explizit macht, nicht besser verstanden werden als Simplizia (wecken). Zudem diskutierte sie, inwieweit die Verwendung des Adverbs wieder in restitutiver Lesart Hinweise auf den Erwerb dieser Verben geben kann.

Abstract

Introduction Speech research saw a dramatic change in paradigm in the 90-ies. While earlier the discussion was dominated by a phoneticians’ approach who knew about phenomena in the speech signal, the situation completely changed after stochastic machinery such as Hidden Markov Models [1] and Artificial Neural Networks [2] had been introduced. Speech processing was now dominated by a purely mathematic approach that basically ignored all existing knowledge about the speech production process and the perception mechanisms. The key was now to construct a large enough training set that would allow identifying the many free parameters of such stochastic engines. In case that the training set is representative and the annotations of the training sets are widely ‘correct’ we could assume to get a satisfyingly functioning recognizer. While the success of knowledge-based systems such as Hearsay II [3] was limited, the statistically based approach led to great improvements in recognition rates and to industrial applications.

Abstract

5.1 Einführung in den Forschungsbereich Die Psycholinguistik ist der Bereich der Linguistik, der sich mit dem Zusammenhang zwischen menschlicher Sprache und dem Denken und anderen mentalen Prozessen beschäftigt, d.h. sie stellt sich einer Reihe von essentiellen Fragen wie etwa (1) Wie schafft es unser Gehirn, im Wesentlichen akustische und visuelle kommunikative Informationen zu verstehen und in mentale Repräsentationen umzusetzen? (2) Wie kann unser Gehirn einen komplexen Sachverhalt, den wir anderen übermitteln wollen, in eine von anderen verarbeitbare Sequenz von verbalen und nonverbalen Aktionen umsetzen? (3) Wie gelingt es uns, in den verschiedenen Phasen des Lebens Sprachen zu erlernen? (4) Sind die kognitiven Prozesse der Sprachverarbeitung universell, obwohl die Sprachsysteme derart unterschiedlich sind, dass sich in den Strukturen kaum Universalien finden lassen?

Abstract

According to a widely-held view among various scholars, olfaction is inferior to other human senses. It is also believed by many that languages do not have words for describing smells. Data collected among the Maniq, a small population of nomadic foragers in southern Thailand, challenge the above claims and point to a great linguistic and cultural elaboration of odor. This article presents evidence of the importance of olfaction in indigenous rituals and beliefs, as well as in the lexicon. The results demonstrate the richness and complexity of the domain of smell in Maniq society and thereby challenge the universal paucity of olfactory terms and insignificance of olfaction for humans.

Abstract

In recent decades, neuroimaging studies on the neural infrastructure of language are usually (or mostly) conducted with certain on-line language processing tasks. These functional neuroimaging studies helped to localize the language areas in the brain and to investigate the brain activity during explicit language processing. However, little is known about what is going on with the language areas when the brain is ‘at rest’, i.e., when there is no explicit language processing running. Taking advantage of the fcMRI and DTI techniques, this thesis is able to investigate the language function ‘off-line’ at the neuronal network level and the connectivity among language areas in the brain. Based on patient studies, the traditional, classical model on the perisylvian language network specifies a “Broca’ area – Arcuate Fasciculus – Werinicke’s area” loop (Ojemann 1991). With the help of modern neuroimaging techniques, researchers have been able to track language pathways that involve more brain structures than are in the classical model, and relate them to certain language functions. In such a background, a large part of this thesis made a contribution to the study of the topology of the language networks. It revealed that the language networks form a topographical functional connectivity pattern in the left hemisphere for the right-handers. This thesis also revealed the importance of structural hubs, such as Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, which have more connectivity to other brain areas and play a central role in the language networks. Furthermore, this thesis revealed both functionally and structurally lateralized language networks in the brain. The consistency between what is found in this thesis and what has been known from previous functional studies seems to suggest, that the human brain is optimized and ‘ready’ for the language function even when there is currently no explicit language-processing running.

Abstract

Automatic Language Identification of written texts is a well-established area of research in Computational Linguistics. State-of-the-art algorithms often rely on n-gram character models to identify the correct language of texts, with good results seen for European languages. In this paper we propose the use of a character n-gram model and a word n-gram language model for the automatic classification of two written varieties of Portuguese: European and Brazilian. Results reached 0.998 for accuracy using character 4-grams.

Abstract

This study presents a new language identification model for pluricentric languages that uses n-gram language models at the character and word level. The model is evaluated in two steps. The first step consists of the identification of two varieties of Spanish (Argentina and Spain) and two varieties of French (Quebec and France) evaluated independently in binary classification schemes. The second step integrates these language models in a six-class classification with two Portuguese varieties.

Abstract

Classifiers (currently also called 'depicting handshapes'), are observed in almost all signed languages studied to date and form a well-researched topic in sign language linguistics. Yet, these elements are still subject to much debate with respect to a variety of matters. Several different categories of classifiers have been posited on the basis of their semantics and the linguistic context in which they occur. The function(s) of classifiers are not fully clear yet. Similarly, there are differing opinions regarding their structure and the structure of the signs in which they appear. Partly as a result of comparison to classifiers in spoken languages, the term 'classifier' itself is under debate. In contrast to these disagreements, most studies on the acquisition of classifier constructions seem to consent that these are difficult to master for Deaf children. This article presents and discusses all these issues from the viewpoint that classifiers are linguistic elements.