Publications

Displaying 1 - 100 of 212
  • Ameka, F. K. (2009). Access rituals in West Africa: An ethnopragmatic perspective. In G. Senft, & E. B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 127-151). Oxford: Berg.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2009). Likpe. In G. J. Dimmendaal (Ed.), Coding participant marking: Construction types in twelve African languages (pp. 239-280). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1999). Interjections. In K. Brown, & J. Miller (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of grammatical categories (pp. 213-216). Oxford: Elsevier.
  • Ameka, F. K., De Witte, C., & Wilkins, D. (1999). Picture series for positional verbs: Eliciting the verbal component in locative descriptions. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 48-54). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.2573831.

    Abstract

    How do different languages encode location and position meanings? In conjunction with the BowPed picture series and Caused Positions task, this elicitation tool is designed to help researchers (i) identify a language’s resources for encoding topological relations; (ii) delimit the pragmatics of use of such resources; and (iii) determine the semantics of select spatial terms. The task focuses on the exploration of the predicative component of topological expressions (e.g., ‘the cassavas are lying in the basket’), especially the contrastive elicitation of positional verbs. The materials consist of a set of photographs of objects (e.g., bottles, cloths, sticks) in specific configurations with various ground items (e.g., basket, table, tree).

    Additional information

    1999_Positional_verbs_stimuli.zip
  • Basso, E. B., & Senft, G. (2009). Introduction. In G. Senft, & E. B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 1-19). Oxford: Berg.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1999). Impersonal HABET constructions: At the cross-roads of Indo-European innovation. In E. Polomé, & C. Justus (Eds.), Language change and typological variation. Vol II. Grammatical universals and typology (pp. 590-612). Washington: Institute for the study of man.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1992). Evolution in language: Evidence from the Romance auxiliary. In B. Chiarelli, J. Wind, A. Nocentini, & B. Bichakjian (Eds.), Language origin: A multidisciplinary approach (pp. 517-528). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2009). Residues as an aid in internal reconstruction. In J. E. Rasmussen, & T. Olander (Eds.), Internal reconstruction in Indo-European: Methods, results, and problems (pp. 17-31). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2009). Strategies of definiteness in Latin: Implications for early Indo-European. In V. Bubenik, J. Hewson, & S. Rose (Eds.), Grammatical change in Indo-European languages: Papers presented at the workshop on Indo-European Linguistics at the XVIIIth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Montreal, 2007 (pp. 71-87). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2009). Word order. In P. Baldi, & P. Cuzzolin (Eds.), New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax: Vol 1: Syntax of the Sentence (pp. 241-316). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1999). A questionnaire on event integration. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 87-95). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3002691.

    Abstract

    How do we decide where events begin and end? Like the ECOM clips, this questionnaire is designed to investigate how a language divides and/or integrates complex scenarios into sub-events and macro-events. The questionnaire focuses on events of motion, caused state change (e.g., breaking), and transfer (e.g., giving). It provides a checklist of scenarios that give insight into where a language “draws the line” in event integration, based on known cross-linguistic differences.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1999). Event representation and event complexity: General introduction. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 69-73). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3002741.

    Abstract

    How do we decide where events begin and end? In some languages it makes sense to say something like Dan broke the plate, but in other languages it is necessary to treat this action as a complex scenario composed of separate stages (Dan dropped the plate and then the plate broke). This document introduces issues concerning the linguistic and cognitive representations of event complexity and integration, and provides an overview of tasks that are relevant to this topic, including the ECOM clips, the Questionnaire on Event integration, and the Questionnaire on motion lexicalisation and motion description.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1998). Temporale Relatoren im Hispano-Yukatekischen Sprachkontakt. In A. Koechert, & T. Stolz (Eds.), Convergencia e Individualidad - Las lenguas Mayas entre hispanización e indigenismo (pp. 195-241). Hannover, Germany: Verlag für Ethnologie.
  • Bohnemeyer, J., & Caelen, M. (1999). The ECOM clips: A stimulus for the linguistic coding of event complexity. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 74-86). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874627.

    Abstract

    How do we decide where events begin and end? In some languages it makes sense to say something like Dan broke the plate, but in other languages it is necessary to treat this action as a complex scenario composed of separate stages (Dan dropped the plate and then the plate broke). The “Event Complexity” (ECOM) clips are designed to explore how languages differ in dividing and/or integrating complex scenarios into sub-events and macro-events. The stimuli consist of animated clips of geometric shapes that participate in different scenarios (e.g., a circle “hits” a triangle and “breaks” it). Consultants are asked to describe the scenes, and then to comment on possible alternative descriptions.

    Additional information

    1999_The_ECOM_clips.zip
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1998). Sententiale Topics im Yukatekischen. In Z. Dietmar (Ed.), Deskriptive Grammatik und allgemeiner Sprachvergleich (pp. 55-85). Tübingen, Germany: Max-Niemeyer-Verlag.
  • De Bot, K., Broersma, M., & Isurin, L. (2009). Sources of triggering in code-switching. In L. Isurin, D. Winford, & K. De Bot (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to code switching (pp. 103-128). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Botelho da Silva, T., & Cutler, A. (1993). Ill-formedness and transformability in Portuguese idioms. In C. Cacciari, & P. Tabossi (Eds.), Idioms: Processing, structure and interpretation (pp. 129-143). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Bowerman, M., & Pederson, E. (1992). Topological relations picture series. In S. C. Levinson (Ed.), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 51). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.883589.

    Abstract

    This task is designed to elicit expressions of spatial relations. It was originally designed by Melissa Bowerman for use with young children, but was then developed further by Bowerman in collaboration with Pederson for crosslinguistic comparison. It has been used in fieldsites all over the world and is commonly known as “BowPed” or “TPRS”. Older incarnations did not always come with instructions. This entry includes a one-page instruction sheet and high quality versions of the original pictures.
  • Bowerman, M. (1992). Topological Relations Pictures: Topological Paths. In S. C. Levinson (Ed.), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 18-24). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3512508.

    Abstract

    This entry suggests ways to elicit descriptions of caused motion involving topological relations (the domain of English put IN/ON/TOGETHER, take OUT/OFF/APART, etc.). There is a large amount of cross-linguistic variation in this domain. The tasks outlined here address matters such as the division of labor between the various elements of spatial semantics in the sentence. For example, is most of the work of expressing PATH done in a locative marker, or in the verb, or both?
  • Bowerman, M. (1992). Topological Relations Pictures: Static Relations. In S. C. Levinson (Ed.), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 25-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3512672.

    Abstract

    The precursor to the Bowped stimuli, this entry suggests various spatial configurations to explore using real objects, rather than the line drawings used in Bowped.
  • Bowerman, M. (1975). Cross linguistic similarities at two stages of syntactic development. In E. Lenneberg, & E. Lenneberg (Eds.), Foundations of language development: A multidisciplinary approach (pp. 267-282). New York: Academic Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (2009). Introduction (Part IV: Language and cognition: Universals and typological comparisons). In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 443-449).
  • Broersma, M., Isurin, L., Bultena, S., & De Bot, K. (2009). Triggered code-switching: Evidence from Dutch-English and Russian-English bilinguals. In L. Isurin, D. Winford, & K. De Bot (Eds.), Multidisciplinary approaches to code switching (pp. 85-102). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Brown, P. (1998). Early Tzeltal verbs: Argument structure and argument representation. In E. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 129-140). Stanford: CSLI Publications.

    Abstract

    The surge of research activity focussing on children's acquisition of verbs (e.g., Tomasello and Merriman 1996) addresses some fundamental questions: Just how variable across languages, and across individual children, is the process of verb learning? How specific are arguments to particular verbs in early child language? How does the grammatical category 'Verb' develop? The position of Universal Grammar, that a verb category is early, contrasts with that of Tomasello (1992), Pine and Lieven and their colleagues (1996, in press), and many others, that children develop a verb category slowly, gradually building up subcategorizations of verbs around pragmatic, syntactic, and semantic properties of the language they are exposed to. On this latter view, one would expect the language which the child is learning, the cultural milieu and the nature of the interactions in which the child is engaged, to influence the process of acquiring verb argument structures. This paper explores these issues by examining the development of argument representation in the Mayan language Tzeltal, in both its lexical and verbal cross-referencing forms, and analyzing the semantic and pragmatic factors influencing the form argument representation takes. Certain facts about Tzeltal (the ergative/ absolutive marking, the semantic specificity of transitive and positional verbs) are proposed to affect the representation of arguments. The first 500 multimorpheme combinations of 3 children (aged between 1;8 and 2;4) are examined. It is argued that there is no evidence of semantically light 'pathbreaking' verbs (Ninio 1996) leading the way into word combinations. There is early productivity of cross-referencing affixes marking A, S, and O arguments (although there are systematic omissions). The paper assesses the respective contributions of three kinds of factors to these results - structural (regular morphology), semantic (verb specificity) and pragmatic (the nature of Tzeltal conversational interaction).
  • Brown, P. (1993). Gender, politeness and confrontation in Tenejapa [reprint]. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Gender and conversational interaction (pp. 144-164). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This is a reprint of Brown 1990.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Language as mind tools: Learning how to think through speaking. In J. Guo, E. V. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the traditions of Dan Slobin (pp. 451-464). New York: Psychology Press.

    Abstract

    Speakers of the Mayan language Tzeltal use two frames of reference for spatial reckoning: an absolute system (based on the south/north axis abstracted from the overall slope of the land) and an intrinsic system utilizing spatial axes of the reference object to establish body parts. This paper examines the use of absolute, intrinsic, and landmark cues in descriptions of spatial relations by 22 pairs of Tzeltal children aged between 5 and 17. The data are drawn from interactive space games, where a Director describes a spatial layout in a photo and the Matcher reproduces it with toys. The paper distinguishes use of ad hoc landmarks ('Red Cliffs', 'the electricity post') from genuine absolute reference points ('uphill'/'downhill'/’across’), and shows that adults in this task use absolute ('cow uphill of horse'), intrinsic ('at the tree's side') and landmark ('cow facing Red Cliffs') descriptions to communicate the spatial relations depicted. The youngest children, however, do not use landmark cues at all but rely instead on deictics and on the absolute 'uphill/downhill' terms; landmark terms are still rare at age 8-10. Despite arguments that landmarks are a simpler, more natural, basis for spatial reckoning than absolute terms, there is no evidence for a developmental progression from landmark-based to absolute-based strategies. We relate these observations to Slobin’s ‘thinking for speaking’ argument.
  • Brown, P. (1998). How and why are women more polite: Some evidence from a Mayan community. In J. Coates (Ed.), Language and gender (pp. 81-99). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (1999). The cognitive neuroscience of language: Challenges and future directions. In C. M. Brown, & P. Hagoort (Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp. 3-14). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1998). Politeness, introduction to the reissue: A review of recent work. In A. Kasher (Ed.), Pragmatics: Vol. 6 Grammar, psychology and sociology (pp. 488-554). London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    This article is a reprint of chapter 1, the introduction to Brown and Levinson, 1987, Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Cambridge University Press).
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Politeness: Some universals in language usage [chapter 1, reprint]. In N. Coupland, & A. Jaworski (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: critical concepts [volume III: Interactional sociolinguistics] (pp. 311-323). London: Routledge.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1999). Politeness: Some universals in language usage [Reprint]. In A. Jaworski, & N. Coupland (Eds.), The discourse reader (pp. 321-335). London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    This article is a reprint of chapter 1, the introduction to Brown and Levinson, 1987, Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Cambridge University Press).
  • Brown, P. (1993). The role of shape in the acquisition of Tzeltal (Mayan) locatives. In E. V. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 25th Annual Child Language Research Forum (pp. 211-220). Stanford, CA: CSLI/University of Chicago Press.

    Abstract

    In a critique of the current state of theories of language acquisition, Bowerman (1985) has argued forcibly for the need to take crosslinguistic variation in semantic structure seriously, in order to understand children's acquisition of semantic categories in the process of learning their language. The semantics of locative expressions in the Mayan language Tzeltal exemplifies this point, for no existing theory of spatial expressions provides an adequate basis for capturing the semantic structure of spatial description in this Mayan language. In this paper I describe some of the characteristics of Tzeltal locative descriptions, as a contribution to the growing body of data on crosslinguistic variation in this domain and as a prod to ideas about acquisition processes, confining myself to the topological notions of 'on' and 'in', and asking whether, and how, these notions are involved in the semantic distinctions underlying Tzeltal locatives.
  • Burenhult, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Semplates: A guide to identification and elicitation. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. 44-50). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.883556.

    Abstract

    Semplates are a new descriptive and theoretical concept in lexical semantics, borne out of recent L&C work in several domains. A semplate can be defined as a configuration consisting of distinct layers of lexemes, each layer drawn from a different form class, mapped onto the same abstract semantic template. Within such a lexical layer, the sense relations between the lexical items are inherited from the underlying template. Thus, the whole set of lexical layers and the underlying template form a cross-categorial configuration in the lexicon. The goal of this task is to find new kinds of macrostructure in the lexicon, with a view to cross-linguistic comparison.
  • Casasanto, D. (2009). Space for thinking. In V. Evans, & P. Chilton (Eds.), Language, cognition and space: State of the art and new directions (pp. 453-478). London: Equinox Publishing.
  • Casasanto, D. (2009). When is a linguistic metaphor a conceptual metaphor? In V. Evans, & S. Pourcel (Eds.), New directions in cognitive linguistics (pp. 127-145). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Chen, A. (2009). The phonetics of sentence-initial topic and focus in adult and child Dutch. In M. Vigário, S. Frota, & M. Freitas (Eds.), Phonetics and Phonology: Interactions and interrelations (pp. 91-106). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Coenen, J., & Klein, W. (1992). The acquisition of Dutch. In W. Klein, & C. Perdue (Eds.), Utterance structure: Developing grammars again (pp. 189-224). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • 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.
  • Cutler, A., & Clifton, Jr., C. (1999). Comprehending spoken language: A blueprint of the listener. In C. M. Brown, & P. Hagoort (Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp. 123-166). Oxford University Press.
  • Cutler, A. (1999). Foreword. In Slips of the Ear: Errors in the perception of Casual Conversation (pp. xiii-xv). New York City, NY, USA: Academic Press.
  • Cutler, A. (1993). Language-specific processing: Does the evidence converge? In G. T. Altmann, & R. C. Shillcock (Eds.), Cognitive models of speech processing: The Sperlonga Meeting II (pp. 115-123). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A. (1992). Processing constraints of the native phonological repertoire on the native language. In Y. Tohkura, E. Vatikiotis-Bateson, & Y. Sagisaka (Eds.), Speech perception, production and linguistic structure (pp. 275-278). Tokyo: Ohmsha.
  • 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. (1999). Prosodische Struktur und Worterkennung bei gesprochener Sprache. In A. D. Friedrici (Ed.), Enzyklopädie der Psychologie: Sprachrezeption (pp. 49-83). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
  • Cutler, A. (1999). Prosody and intonation, processing issues. In R. A. Wilson, & F. C. Keil (Eds.), MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences (pp. 682-683). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Cutler, A. (2009). Psycholinguistics in our time. In P. Rabbitt (Ed.), Inside psychology: A science over 50 years (pp. 91-101). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Cutler, A. (1992). Psychology and the segment. In G. Docherty, & D. Ladd (Eds.), Papers in laboratory phonology II: Gesture, segment, prosody (pp. 290-295). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Cutler, A. (1999). Spoken-word recognition. In R. A. Wilson, & F. C. Keil (Eds.), MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences (pp. 796-798). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Cutler, A. (1992). The perception of speech: Psycholinguistic aspects. In W. Bright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of language: Vol. 3 (pp. 181-183). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Cutler, A. (1992). The production and perception of word boundaries. In Y. Tohkura, E. Vatikiotis-Bateson, & Y. Sagisaka (Eds.), Speech perception, production and linguistic structure (pp. 419-425). Tokyo: Ohsma.
  • Cutler, A. (1992). Why not abolish psycholinguistics? In W. Dressler, H. Luschützky, O. Pfeiffer, & J. Rennison (Eds.), Phonologica 1988 (pp. 77-87). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Danziger, E., & Gaskins, S. (1993). Exploring the Intrinsic Frame of Reference. In S. C. Levinson (Ed.), Cognition and space kit 1.0 (pp. 53-64). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3513136.

    Abstract

    We can describe the position of one item with respect to another using a number of different ‘frames of reference’. For example, I can use a ‘deictic’ frame that involves the speaker’s viewpoint (The chair is on the far side of the room), or an ‘intrinsic’ frame that involves a feature of one of the items (The chair is at the back of the room). Where more than one frame of reference is available in a language, what motivates the speaker’s choice? This elicitation task is designed to explore when and why people select intrinsic frames of reference, and how these choices interact with non-linguistic problem-solving strategies.
  • Dietrich, R., Klein, W., & Noyau, C. (1993). The acquisition of temporality. In C. Perdue (Ed.), Adult language acquisition: Cross-linguistic perspectives: Vol. 2 The results (pp. 73-118). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Dimroth, C. (2009). Stepping stones and stumbling blocks: Why negation accelerates and additive particles delay the acquisition of finiteness in German. In C. Dimroth, & P. Jordens (Eds.), Functional Categories in Learner Language (pp. 137-170). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Dittmar, N., & Klein, W. (1975). Untersuchungen zum Pidgin-Deutsch spanischer und italienischer Arbeiter in der Bundesrepublik: Ein Arbeitsbericht. In A. Wierlacher (Ed.), Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache (pp. 170-194). Heidelberg: Groos.
  • Edwards, J., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1993). The control group study. In C. Perdue (Ed.), Adult language acquisition: Cross-linguistic perspectives. Vol. I Field methods (pp. 173-185). Cambridge University Press.
  • 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.
  • Eisenbeiss, S., McGregor, B., & Schmidt, C. M. (1999). Story book stimulus for the elicitation of external possessor constructions and dative constructions ('the circle of dirt'). In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 140-144). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3002750.

    Abstract

    How involved in an event is a person that possesses one of the event participants? Some languages can treat such “external possessors” as very closely involved, even marking them on the verb along with core roles such as subject and object. Other languages only allow possessors to be expressed as non-core participants. This task explores possibilities for the encoding of possessors and other related roles such as beneficiaries. The materials consist of a sequence of thirty drawings designed to elicit target construction types.

    Additional information

    1999_Story_book_booklet.pdf
  • Enfield, N. J. (2009). 'Case relations' in Lao, a radically isolating language. In A. L. Malčukov, & A. Spencer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of case (pp. 808-819). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Metalanguage for speech acts. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. 51-53). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.883559.

    Abstract

    People of all cultures have some degree of concern with categorizing types of communicative social action. All languages have words with meanings like speak, say, talk, complain, curse, promise, accuse, nod, wink, point and chant. But the exact distinctions they make will differ in both quantity and quality. How is communicative social action categorised across languages and cultures? The goal of this task is to establish a basis for cross-linguistic comparison of native metalanguages for social action.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2009). Language and culture. In L. Wei, & V. Cook (Eds.), Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 2 (pp. 83-97). London: Continuum.
  • Enfield, N. J. (1999). Lao as a national language. In G. Evans (Ed.), Laos: Culture and society (pp. 258-290). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2009). Everyday ritual in the residential world. In G. Senft, & E. B. Basso (Eds.), Ritual communication (pp. 51-80). Oxford: Berg.
  • Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., & Stivers, T. (2009). Social action formulation: A "10-minutes" task. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. 54-55). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.883564.

    Abstract

    Human actions in the social world – like greeting, requesting, complaining, accusing, asking, confirming, etc. – are recognised through the interpretation of signs. Language is where much of the action is, but gesture, facial expression and other bodily actions matter as well. The goal of this task is to establish a maximally rich description of a representative, good quality piece of conversational interaction, which will serve as a reference point for comparative exploration of the status of social actions and their formulation across language
  • Fedor, A., Pléh, C., Brauer, J., Caplan, D., Friederici, A. D., Gulyás, B., Hagoort, P., Nazir, T., & Singer, W. (2009). What are the brain mechanisms underlying syntactic operations? In D. Bickerton, & E. Szathmáry (Eds.), Biological foundations and origin of syntax (pp. 299-324). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter summarizes the extensive discussions that took place during the Forum as well as the subsequent months thereafter. It assesses current understanding of the neuronal mechanisms that underlie syntactic structure and processing.... It is posited that to understand the neurobiology of syntax, it might be worthwhile to shift the balance from comprehension to syntactic encoding in language production
  • Francks, C. (2009). 13 - LRRTM1: A maternally suppressed genetic effect on handedness and schizophrenia. In I. E. C. Sommer, & R. S. Kahn (Eds.), Cerebral lateralization and psychosis (pp. 181-196). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    The molecular, developmental, and evolutionary bases of human brain asymmetry are almost completely unknown. Genetic linkage and association mapping have pin-pointed a gene called LRRTM1 (leucine-rich repeat transmembrane neuronal 1) that may contribute to variability in human handedness. Here I describe how LRRTM1's involvement in handedness was discovered, and also the latest knowledge of its functions in brain development and disease. The association of LRRTM1 with handedness was derived entirely from the paternally inherited gene, and follow-up analysis of gene expression confirmed that LRRTM1 is one of a small number of genes that are imprinted in the human genome, for which the maternally inherited copy is suppressed. The same variation at LRRTM1 that was associated paternally with mixed-/left-handedness was also over-transmitted paternally to schizophrenic patients in a large family study.
    LRRTM1 is expressed in specific regions of the developing and adult forebrain by post-mitotic neurons, and the protein may be involved in axonal trafficking. Thus LRRTM1 has a probable role in neurodevelopment, and its association with handedness suggests that one of its functions may be in establishing or consolidating human brain asymmetry.
    LRRTM1 is the first gene for which allelic variation has been associated with human handedness. The genetic data also suggest indirectly that the epigenetic regulation of this gene may yet prove more important than DNA sequence variation for influencing brain development and disease.
    Intriguingly, the parent-of-origin activity of LRRTM1 suggests that men and women have had conflicting interests in relation to the outcome of lateralized brain development in their offspring.
  • Gentner, D., & Bowerman, M. (2009). Why some spatial semantic categories are harder to learn than others: The typological prevalence hypothesis. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 465-480). New York: Psychology Press.
  • Goldin-Meadow, S., Ozyurek, A., Sancar, B., & Mylander, C. (2009). Making language around the globe: A cross-linguistic study of homesign in the United States, China, and Turkey. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 27-39). New York: Psychology Press.
  • Le Guen, O. (2009). The ethnography of emotions: A field worker's guide. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. 31-34). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.446076.

    Abstract

    The goal of this task is to investigate cross-cultural emotion categories in language and thought. This entry is designed to provide researchers with some guidelines to describe the emotional repertoire of a community from an emic perspective. The first objective is to offer ethnographic tools and a questionnaire in order to understand the semantics of emotional terms and the local conception of emotions. The second objective is to identify the local display rules of emotions in communicative interactions.
  • Gullberg, M., Indefrey, P., & Muysken, P. (2009). Research techniques for the study of code-switching. In B. E. Bullock, & J. A. Toribio (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook on linguistic code-switching (pp. 21-39). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    The aim of this chapter is to provide researchers with a tool kit of semi-experimental and experimental techniques for studying code-switching. It presents an overview of the current off-line and on-line research techniques, ranging from analyses of published bilingual texts of spontaneous conversations, to tightly controlled experiments. A multi-task approach used for studying code-switched sentence production in Papiamento-Dutch bilinguals is also exemplified.
  • Gullberg, M. (2009). Why gestures are relevant to the bilingual mental lexicon. In A. Pavlenko (Ed.), The bilingual mental lexicon: Interdisciplinary approaches (pp. 161-184). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

    Abstract

    Gestures, the symbolic movements speakers perform while they speak, are systematically related to speech and language in non-trivial ways. This chapter presents an overview of what gestures can and cannot tell us about the monolingual and the bilingual mental lexicon. Gesture analysis opens for a broader view of the mental lexicon, targeting the interface between conceptual, semantic and syntactic aspects of event construal, and offers new possibilities for examining how languages co-exist and interact in bilinguals beyond the level of surface forms. The first section of this chapter gives a brief introduction to gesture studies and outlines the current views on the relationship between gesture, speech, and language. The second section targets the key questions for the study of the monolingual and bilingual lexicon, and illustrates the methods employed for addressing these questions. It further exemplifies systematic cross-linguistic patterns in gestural behaviour in monolingual and bilingual contexts. The final section discusses some implications of an expanded view of the multilingual lexicon that includes gesture, and outlines directions for future inquiry.

    Files private

    Request files
  • Hagoort, P. (2009). The fractionation of spoken language understanding by measuring electrical and magnetic brain signals. In B. C. J. Moore, L. K. Tyler, & W. Marslen-Wilson (Eds.), The perception of speech: From sound to meaning (pp. 223-248). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Hagoort, P. (2009). Reflections on the neurobiology of syntax. In D. Bickerton, & E. Szathmáry (Eds.), Biological foundations and origin of syntax (pp. 279-296). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This contribution focuses on the neural infrastructure for parsing and syntactic encoding. From an anatomical point of view, it is argued that Broca's area is an ill-conceived notion. Functionally, Broca's area and adjacent cortex (together Broca's complex) are relevant for language, but not exclusively for this domain of cognition. Its role can be characterized as providing the necessary infrastructure for unification (syntactic and semantic). A general proposal, but with required level of computational detail, is discussed to account for the distribution of labor between different components of the language network in the brain.Arguments are provided for the immediacy principle, which denies a privileged status for syntax in sentence processing. The temporal profile of event-related brain potential (ERP) is suggested to require predictive processing. Finally, since, next to speed, diversity is a hallmark of human languages, the language readiness of the brain might not depend on a universal, dedicated neural machinery for syntax, but rather on a shaping of the neural infrastructure of more general cognitive systems (e.g., memory, unification) in a direction that made it optimally suited for the purpose of communication through language.
  • Hagoort, P., Baggio, G., & Willems, R. M. (2009). Semantic unification. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences, 4th ed. (pp. 819-836). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    Language and communication are about the exchange of meaning. A key feature of understanding and producing language is the construction of complex meaning from more elementary semantic building blocks. The functional characteristics of this semantic unification process are revealed by studies using event related brain potentials. These studies have found that word meaning is assembled into compound meaning in not more than 500 ms. World knowledge, information about the speaker, co-occurring visual input and discourse all have an immediate impact on semantic unification, and trigger similar electrophysiological responses as sentence-internal semantic information. Neuroimaging studies show that a network of brain areas, including the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left superior/middle temporal cortex, the left inferior parietal cortex and, to a lesser extent their right hemisphere homologues are recruited to perform semantic unification.
  • Hagoort, P. (2009). Taalontwikkeling: Meer dan woorden alleen. In M. Evenblij (Ed.), Brein in beeld: Beeldvorming bij heersenonderzoek (pp. 53-57). Den Haag: Stichting Bio-Wetenschappen en Maatschappij.
  • Hagoort, P., Brown, C. M., & Osterhout, L. (1999). The neurocognition of syntactic processing. In C. M. Brown, & P. Hagoort (Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp. 273-317). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). The shadows of lexical meaning in patients with semantic impairments. In B. Stemmer, & H. Whitaker (Eds.), Handbook of neurolinguistics (pp. 235-248). New York: Academic Press.
  • Hagoort, P. (1999). The uniquely human capacity for language communication: from 'pope' to [po:p] in half a second. In J. Russell, M. Murphy, T. Meyering, & M. Arbib (Eds.), Neuroscience and the person: Scientific perspectives on divine action (pp. 45-56). California: Berkeley.
  • Hanulikova, A. (2009). The role of syllabification in the lexical segmentation of German and Slovak. In S. Fuchs, H. Loevenbruck, D. Pape, & P. Perrier (Eds.), Some aspects of speech and the brain (pp. 331-361). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

    Abstract

    Two experiments were carried out to examine the syllable affiliation of intervocalic consonant clusters and their effects on speech segmentation in two different languages. In a syllable reversal task, Slovak and German speakers divided bisyllabic non-words that were presented aurally into two parts, starting with the second syllable. Following the maximal onset principle, intervocalic consonants should be maximally assigned to the onset of the following syllable in conformity with language-specific restrictions, e.g., /du.gru/, /zu.kro:/ (dot indicates a syllable boundary). According to German phonology, syllables require branching rhymes (hence, /zuk.ro:/). In Slovak, both /du.gru/ and /dug.ru/ are possible syllabifications. Experiment 1 showed that German speakers more often closed the first syllable (/zuk.ro:/), following the requirement for a branching rhyme. In Experiment 2, Slovak speakers showed no clear preference; the first syllable was either closed (/dug.ru/) or open (/du.gru/). Correlation analyses on previously conducted word-spotting studies (Hanulíková, in press, 2008) suggest that speech segmentation is unaffected by these syllabification preferences.
  • Hurford, J. R., & Dediu, D. (2009). Diversity in language, genes and the language faculty. In R. Botha, & C. Knight (Eds.), The cradle of language (pp. 167-188). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Indefrey, P., & Davidson, D. J. (2009). Second language acquisition. In L. R. Squire (Ed.), Encyclopedia of neuroscience (pp. 517-523). London: Academic Press.

    Abstract

    This article reviews neurocognitive evidence on second language (L2) processing at speech sound, word, and sentence levels. Hemodynamic (functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography) data suggest that L2s are implemented in the same brain structures as the native language but with quantitative differences in the strength of activation that are modulated by age of L2 acquisition and L2 proficiency. Electrophysiological data show a more complex pattern of first and L2 similarities and differences, providing some, although not conclusive, evidence for qualitative differences between L1 and L2 syntactic processing.
  • Jolink, A. (2009). Finiteness in children with SLI: A functional approach. In C. Dimroth, & P. Jordens (Eds.), Functional categories in learner language (pp. 235-260). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Jordens, P. (1998). Defaultformen des Präteritums. Zum Erwerb der Vergangenheitsmorphologie im Niederlänidischen. In H. Wegener (Ed.), Eine zweite Sprache lernen (pp. 61-88). Tübingen, Germany: Verlag Gunter Narr.
  • Jordens, P. (2009). The acquisition of functional categories in child L1 and adult L2 acquisition. In C. Dimroth, & P. Jordens (Eds.), Functional categories in learner language (pp. 45-96). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Kempen, G., & Vosse, T. (1992). A language-sensitive text editor for Dutch. In P. O’Brian Holt, & N. Williams (Eds.), Computers and writing: State of the art (pp. 68-77). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Abstract

    Modern word processors begin to offer a range of facilities for spelling, grammar and style checking in English. For the Dutch language hardly anything is available as yet. Many commercial word processing packages do include a hyphenation routine and a lexicon-based spelling checker but the practical usefulness of these tools is limited due to certain properties of Dutch orthography, as we will explain below. In this chapter we describe a text editor which incorporates a great deal of lexical, morphological and syntactic knowledge of Dutch and monitors the orthographical quality of Dutch texts. Section 1 deals with those aspects of Dutch orthography which pose problems to human authors as well as to computational language sensitive text editing tools. In section 2 we describe the design and the implementation of the text editor we have built. Section 3 is mainly devoted to a provisional evaluation of the system.
  • Kempen, G. (1992). Generation. In W. Bright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of linguistics (pp. 59-61). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Kempen, G. (1993). Naar geautomatiseerde Nederlandstalige informatiediensten. In N. Van Willigen (Ed.), RABIN uitGELUID: Tien persoonlijke bijdragen na zes jaar advisering over bibliotheken en informatie (pp. 42-51). Den Haag: RABIN.
  • Kempen, G. (1992). Language technology and language instruction: Computational diagnosis of word level errors. In M. Swartz, & M. Yazdani (Eds.), Intelligent tutoring systems for foreign language learning: The bridge to international communication (pp. 191-198). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kempen, G. (1998). Sentence parsing. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 213-228). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kempen, G. (1992). Second language acquisition as a hybrid learning process. In F. Engel, D. Bouwhuis, T. Bösser, & G. d'Ydewalle (Eds.), Cognitive modelling and interactive environments in language learning (pp. 139-144). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kempen, G. (1999). Visual Grammar: Multimedia for grammar and spelling instruction in primary education. In K. Cameron (Ed.), CALL: Media, design, and applications (pp. 223-238). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
  • Kita, S., & Ozyurek, A. (1999). Semantische Koordination zwischen Sprache und spontanen ikonischen Gesten: Eine sprachvergleichende Untersuchung. In Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Ed.), Jahrbuch 1998 (pp. 388-391). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  • Klaas, G. (2009). Hints and recommendations concerning field equipment. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. VI-VII). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Klein, W. (2009). Concepts of time. In W. Klein, & P. Li (Eds.), The expression of time (pp. 5-38). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Klein, W. (1992). Der Fall Horten gegen Delius, oder: Der Laie, der Fachmann und das Recht. In G. Grewendorf (Ed.), Rechtskultur als Sprachkultur: Zur forensischen Funktion der Sprachanalyse (pp. 284-313). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
  • Klein, W. (1998). Ein Blick zurück auf die Varietätengrammatik. In U. Ammon, K. Mattheier, & P. Nelde (Eds.), Sociolinguistica: Internationales Jahrbuch für europäische Soziolinguistik (pp. 22-38). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Klein, W. (1993). Ellipse. In J. Jacobs, A. von Stechow, W. Sternefeld, & T. Vennemann (Eds.), Syntax: Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung [1. Halbband] (pp. 763-799). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Klein, W. (1999). Die Lehren des Zweitspracherwerbs. In N. Dittmar, & A. Ramat (Eds.), Grammatik und Diskurs: Studien zum Erwerb des Deutschen und des Italienischen (pp. 279-290). Tübingen: Stauffenberg.
  • Klein, W. (1998). Assertion and finiteness. In N. Dittmar, & Z. Penner (Eds.), Issues in the theory of language acquisition: Essays in honor of Jürgen Weissenborn (pp. 225-245). Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Klein, W. (2009). Finiteness, universal grammar, and the language faculty. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 333-344). New York: Psychology Press.

Share this page