Publications

Displaying 1 - 44 of 44
  • Asaridou, S. S. (2015). An ear for pitch: On the effects of experience and aptitude in processing pitch in language and music. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Buckler, H. (2014). The acquisition of morphophonological alternations across languages. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Chen, J. (2008). The acquisition of verb compounding in Mandarin Chinese. PhD Thesis, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam.

    Abstract

    Seeing someone breaking a stick into two, an English speaks typically describes with a verb break, but a Mandarin speaker has to say bai1-duan4 ‘bend-be.broken’, a verb
    compound composed of two free verbs with each verb encoding one aspect of the breaking event. Verb compounding represents a typical and productive way to describe
    events of motion (e.g., zou3-chu1 ‘walk-exit’), and state change (e.g., bai1-duan4 ‘bendbe.broken’), the most common types of events that children of all languages are exposed
    to from an early age. Since languages vary in how events are linguistically encoded and categorized, the development of verb compounding provides a window to investigate the
    acquisition of form and meaning mapping for highly productive but constrained constructions and the interaction between children’s linguistic development and cognitive
    development. The theoretical analysis of verb compounds has been one of the central issues in Chinese linguistics, but the acquisition of this grammatical system has never
    been systematically studied. This dissertation constitutes the first in-depth study of this topic. It analyzes speech data from two longitudinal corpora as well as the data collected from five experiments on production and comprehension of verb compounds from children in P. R. China. It provides a description of the developmental process and unravels the complex learning tasks from the perspective of language production, comprehension, event categorization, and the interface of semantics and syntax. In showing how first-language learners acquire the Mandarin-specific way of representing and encoding causal events and motion events, this study has significance both for studies of language acquisition and for studies of cognition and event construal.
  • Choi, J. (2014). Rediscovering a forgotten language. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Gebre, B. G. (2015). Machine learning for gesture recognition from videos. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Gialluisi, A. (2015). Investigating the genetic basis of reading and language skills. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Gisladottir, R. S. (2015). Conversation electrified: The electrophysiology of spoken speech act recognition. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Hammond, J. (2015). Switch reference in Whitesands. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Hintz, F. (2015). Predicting language in different contexts: The nature and limits of mechanisms in anticipatory language processing. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Huisman, J. L. A. (2021). Variation in form and meaning across the Japonic language family: With a focus on the Ryukyuan languages. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • De Jong, N. H. (2002). Morphological families in the mental lexicon. PhD Thesis, University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.57697.

    Abstract

    Words can occur as constituents of other words. Some words have a high morphological productivity, in that they occur in many complex words, whereas others are morphological islands. Previous studies have found that the size of a word's morphological family can co-determine response latencies in lexical decision tasks. This thesis shows, using lexical decision as well as otherexperimental tasks, that the effect of family size is a semantic effect,reflecting the spreading of activation in the mental lexicon along the lines of morphological and semantic relatedness between words.

    Additional information

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  • Kaufeld, G. (2021). Investigating spoken language comprehension as perceptual inference. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Knudsen, B. (2012). Infants’ appreciation of others’ mental states in prelinguistic communication. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Kuperman, V. (2008). Lexical processing of morphologically complex words: An information-theoretical perspective. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Lopopolo, A. (2021). Properties, structures and operations: Studies on language processing in the brain using computational linguistics and naturalistic stimuli. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Magyari, L. (2015). Timing turns in conversation: A temporal preparation account. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Manhardt, F. (2021). A tale of two modalities. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Mauth, K. (2002). Morphology in speech comprehension. PhD Thesis, University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.60024.
  • Mickan, A. (2021). What was that Spanish word again? Investigations into the cognitive mechanisms underlying foreign language attrition. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Peeters, D. (2015). A social and neurobiological approach to pointing in speech and gesture. PhD Thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen.
  • Postema, M. (2021). Left-right asymmetry of the human brain: Associations with neurodevelopmental disorders and genetic factors. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Redl, T. (2021). Masculine generic pronouns: Investigating the processing of an unintended gender cue. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Reifegerste, J. (2014). Morphological processing in younger and older people: Evidence for flexible dual-route access. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Rossano, F. (2012). Gaze behavior in face-to-face interaction. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.

    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.

    Additional information

    full text via Radboud Repository
  • Rossi, G. (2015). The request system in Italian interaction. PhD Thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen.

    Abstract

    People across the world make requests every day. We constantly rely on others to get by in the small and big practicalities of everyday life, be it getting the salt, moving a sofa, or cooking a meal. It has long been noticed that when we ask others for help we use a wide range of forms drawing on various resources afforded by our language and body. To get another to pass the salt, for example, we may say ‘Pass the salt’, or ask ‘Can you pass me the salt?’, or simply point to the salt. What do different forms of requesting give us? The short answer is that they allow us to manage different social relations. But what kind of relations? While prior research has mostly emphasised the role of long-term asymmetries like people’s social distance and relative power, this thesis puts at centre stage social relations and dimensions emerging in the moment-by-moment flow of everyday interaction. These include how easy or hard the action requested is to anticipate for the requestee, whether the action requested contributes to a joint project or serves an individual one, whether the requestee may be unwilling to do it, and how obvious or equivocal it is that a certain person or another should be involved in the action. The study focuses on requests made in everyday informal interactions among speakers of Italian. It involves over 500 instances of requests sampled from a diverse corpus of video recordings, and draws on methods from conversation analysis, linguistics and multimodal analysis. A qualitative analysis of the data is supported by quantitative measures of the distribution of linguistic and interactional features, and by the use of inferential statistics to test the generalizability of some of the patterns observed. The thesis aims to contribute to our understanding of both language and social interaction by showing that forms of requesting constitute a system, organised by a set of recurrent social-interactional concerns.

    Additional information

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  • Schubotz, L. (2021). Effects of aging and cognitive abilities on multimodal language production and comprehension in context. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Segaert, K. (2012). Structuring language: Contributions to the neurocognition of syntax. PhD Thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

    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.

    Additional information

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  • Smith, A. C. (2015). Modelling multimodal language processing. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Sumer, B. (2015). Acquisition of spatial language by signing and speaking children: A comparison of Turkish Sign Language (TID) and Turkish. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Thorgrimsson, G. (2014). Infants' understanding of communication as participants and observers. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Tsoukala, C. (2021). Bilingual sentence production and code-switching: Neural network simulations. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Tsuji, S. (2014). The road to native listening. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Turco, G. (2014). Contrasting opposite polarity in Germanic and Romance languages: Verum focus and affirmative particles in native speakers and advanced L2 learners. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Van Paridon, J. (2021). Speaking while listening: Language processing in speech shadowing and translation. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Van de Velde, M. (2015). Incrementality and flexibility in sentence production. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Van Putten, S. (2014). Information structure in Avatime. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Van Leeuwen, E. J. C. (2015). Social learning dynamics in chimpanzees: Reflections on animal culture. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Veenstra, A. (2014). Semantic and syntactic constraints on the production of subject-verb agreement. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Verhoef, E. (2021). Why do we change how we speak? Multivariate genetic analyses of language and related traits across development and disorder. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Verkerk, A. (2014). The evolutionary dynamics of motion event encoding. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • De Vos, C. (2012). Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok: How a village sign language in Bali inscribes its signing space. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.

    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.

    Additional information

    full text via Radboud Repository
  • Wagner, A. (2008). Phoneme inventories and patterns of speech sound perception. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Wegener, C. (2008). A grammar of Savosavo: A Papuan language of the Solomon Islands. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Njimegen.
  • Zhou, W. (2015). Assessing birth language memory in young adoptees. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.

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