Publications

Displaying 1 - 100 of 212
  • Alday, P. M. (2015). Quantity and Quality:Not a Zero-Sum Game: A computational and neurocognitive examination of human language processing. PhD Thesis, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg.
  • Alferink, I. (2015). Dimensions of convergence in bilingual speech and gesture. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2013). Possessive constructions in Likpe (Sɛkpɛlé). In A. Aikhenvald, & R. Dixon (Eds.), Possession and ownership: A crosslinguistic typology (pp. 224-242). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Andics, A. (2013). Who is talking? Behavioural and neural evidence for norm-based coding in voice identity learning. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • 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.
  • Atlas, J. D., & Levinson, S. C. (1981). It-clefts, informativeness and logical form: Radical pragmatics (revised standard version). In P. Cole (Ed.), Radical pragmatics (pp. 1-62). New York: Academic Press.
  • Bank, R. (2015). The ubiquity of mouthings in NGT: A corpus study. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Barendse, M. T. (2015). Dimensionality assessment with factor analysis methods. PhD Thesis, University of Groningen, Groningen.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2013). Impersonal verbs. In G. K. Giannakis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics Online (pp. 197-198). Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/2214-448X_eagll_SIM_00000481.

    Abstract

    Impersonal verbs in Greek ‒ as in the other Indo-European languages ‒ exclusively feature 3rd person singular finite forms and convey one of three types of meaning: (a) meteorological conditions; (b) emotional and physical state/experience; (c) modality. In Greek, impersonal verbs predominantly convey meteorological conditions and modality.

    Impersonal verbs in Greek, as in the other Indo-European languages, exclusively feature 3rd person singular finite forms and convey one of three types of me…

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  • Behnke, K. (1998). The acquisition of phonetic categories in young infants: A self-organising artificial neural network approach. PhD Thesis, University of Twente, Enschede. doi:10.17617/2.2057688.
  • 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. (1998). Sententiale Topics im Yukatekischen. In Z. Dietmar (Ed.), Deskriptive Grammatik und allgemeiner Sprachvergleich (pp. 55-85). Tübingen, Germany: Max-Niemeyer-Verlag.
  • Bosker, H. R. (2013). Juncture (prosodic). In G. Khan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (pp. 432-434). Leiden: Brill.

    Abstract

    Prosodic juncture concerns the compartmentalization and partitioning of syntactic entities in spoken discourse by means of prosody. It has been argued that the Intonation Unit, defined by internal criteria and prosodic boundary phenomena (e.g., final lengthening, pitch reset, pauses), encapsulates the basic structural unit of spoken Modern Hebrew.
  • Bosker, H. R. (2013). Sibilant consonants. In G. Khan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (pp. 557-561). Leiden: Brill.

    Abstract

    Fricative consonants in Hebrew can be divided into bgdkpt and sibilants (ז, ס, צ, שׁ, שׂ). Hebrew sibilants have been argued to stem from Proto-Semitic affricates, laterals, interdentals and /s/. In standard Israeli Hebrew the sibilants are pronounced as [s] (ס and שׂ), [ʃ] (שׁ), [z] (ז), [ʦ] (צ).
  • Bowerman, M. (1981). Language development. In H. Triandis, & A. Heron (Eds.), Handbook of cross cultural psychology, Vol. 4: Developmental Psychology (pp. 93-185). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
  • Bowerman, M. (1981). The child's expression of meaning: Expanding relationships among lexicon, syntax, and morphology. In H. Winitz (Ed.), Native language and foreign language acquisition (pp. 172-189). New York: New York Academy of Sciences.
  • Brown, P., Macintyre, M., Morpeth, R., & Prendergast, S. (1981). A daughter: A thing to be given away. In Cambridge Women's Studies Group (Ed.), Women in society: Interdisciplinary essays (pp. 127-145). London: Virago.
  • 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. (2013). La estructura conversacional y la adquisición del lenguaje: El papel de la repetición en el habla de los adultos y niños tzeltales. In L. de León Pasquel (Ed.), Nuevos senderos en el studio de la adquisición de lenguas mesoamericanas: Estructura, narrativa y socialización (pp. 35-82). Mexico: CIESAS-UNAM.

    Abstract

    This is a translation of the Brown 1998 article in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 'Conversational structure and language acquisition: The role of repetition in Tzeltal adult and child speech'.

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  • Brown, P. (2015). Language, culture, and spatial cognition. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), Routledge Handbook on Language and Culture (pp. 294-309). London: Routledge.
  • 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, P., & Jordanova, L. (1981). Oppressive dichotomies: The nature/culture debate. In Cambridge Women's Studies Group (Ed.), Women in society: Interdisciplinary essays (pp. 224-241). London: Virago.
  • Brown, P., Pfeiler, B., de León, L., & Pye, C. (2013). The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages. In E. Bavin, & S. Stoll (Eds.), The acquisition of ergativity (pp. 271-306). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper presents results of a comparative project documenting the development of verbal agreement inflections in children learning four different Mayan languages: K’iche’, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yukatek. These languages have similar inflectional paradigms: they have a generally agglutinative morphology, with transitive verbs obligatorily marked with separate cross-referencing inflections for the two core arguments (‘ergative’ and ‘absolutive’). Verbs are also inflected for aspect and mood, and they carry a ‘status suffix’ which generally marks verb transitivity and mood. At a more detailed level, the four languages differ strikingly in the realization of cross-reference marking. For each language, we examined longitudinal language production data from two children at around 2;0, 2;6, 3;0, and 3;6 years of age. We relate differences in the acquisition patterns of verbal morphology in the languages to 1) the placement of affixes, 2) phonological and prosodic prominence, 3) language-specific constraints on the various forms of the affixes, and 4) consistent vs. split ergativity, and conclude that prosodic salience accounts provide th ebest explanation for the acquisition patterns in these four languages.

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  • Brown, P. (2015). Space: Linguistic expression of. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) Vol. 23 (pp. 89-93). Amsterdam: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.57017-2.
  • Brown, P. (2015). Politeness and language. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences (IESBS), (2nd ed.) (pp. 326-330). Amsterdam: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.53072-4.
  • 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. (1981). Universals and particulars in the position of women. In Cambridge Women's Studies Group (Ed.), Women in society: Interdisciplinary essays (pp. 242-256). London: Virago.
  • Byun, K.-S., & Byun, E.-J. (2015). Becoming Friends with International Sign. Seoul: Sign Language Dandelion.
  • Cambridge Women's Studies Group, & Brown, P. (Eds.). (1981). Women in society: Interdisciplinary essays. London: Virago.
  • Chen, A. (2015). Children’s use of intonation in reference and the role of input. In L. Serratrice, & S. E. M. Allen (Eds.), The acquisition of reference (pp. 83-104). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Studies on children’s use of intonation in reference are few in number but are diverse in terms of theoretical frameworks and intonational parameters. In the current review, I present a re-analysis of the referents in each study, using a three-dimension approach (i.e. referential givenness-newness, relational givenness-newness, contrast), discuss the use of intonation at two levels (phonetic, phonological), and compare findings from different studies within a single framework. The patterns stemming from these studies may be limited in generalisability but can serve as initial hypotheses for future work. Furthermore, I examine the role of input as available in infant direct speech in the acquisition of intonational encoding of referents. In addition, I discuss how future research can advance our knowledge.

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  • Clifton, C. J., Meyer, A. S., Wurm, L. H., & Treiman, R. (2013). Language comprehension and production. In A. F. Healy, & R. W. Proctor (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology, Volume 4, Experimental Psychology. 2nd Edition (pp. 523-547). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

    Abstract

    In this chapter, we survey the processes of recognizing and producing words and of understanding and creating sentences. Theory and research on these topics have been shaped by debates about how various sources of information are integrated in these processes, and about the role of language structure, as analyzed in the discipline of linguistics. In this chapter, we describe current views of fluent language users' comprehension of spoken and written language and their production of spoken language. We review what we consider to be the most important findings and theories in psycholinguistics, returning again and again to the questions of modularity and the importance of linguistic knowledge. Although we acknowledge the importance of social factors in language use, our focus is on core processes such as parsing and word retrieval that are not necessarily affected by such factors. We do not have space to say much about the important fields of developmental psycholinguistics, which deals with the acquisition of language by children, or applied psycholinguistics, which encompasses such topics as language disorders and language teaching. Although we recognize that there is burgeoning interest in the measurement of brain activity during language processing and how language is represented in the brain, space permits only occasional pointers to work in neuropsychology and the cognitive neuroscience of language. For treatment of these topics, and others, the interested reader could begin with two recent handbooks of psycholinguistics (Gaskell, 2007; Traxler & Gemsbacher, 2006) and a handbook of cognitive neuroscience (Gazzaniga, 2004).
  • Collins, J. (2015). ‘Give’ and semantic maps. In B. Nolan, G. Rawoens, & E. Diedrichsen (Eds.), Causation, permission, and transfer: Argument realisation in GET, TAKE, PUT, GIVE and LET verbs (pp. 129-146). Amsterdam: John 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. (2015). Lexical stress in English pronunciation. In M. Reed, & J. M. Levis (Eds.), The Handbook of English Pronunciation (pp. 106-124). Chichester: Wiley.
  • 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. (1981). The cognitive reality of suprasegmental phonology. In T. Myers, J. Laver, & J. Anderson (Eds.), The cognitive representation of speech (pp. 399-400). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
  • Dediu, D., Cysouw, M., Levinson, S. C., Baronchelli, A., Christiansen, M. H., Croft, W., Evans, N., Garrod, S., Gray, R., Kandler, A., & Lieven, E. (2013). Cultural evolution of language. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (Eds.), Cultural evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 12 (pp. 303-332). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter argues that an evolutionary cultural approach to language not only has already proven fruitful, but it probably holds the key to understand many puzzling aspects of language, its change and origins. The chapter begins by highlighting several still common misconceptions about language that might seem to call into question a cultural evolutionary approach. It explores the antiquity of language and sketches a general evolutionary approach discussing the aspects of function, fi tness, replication, and selection, as well the relevant units of linguistic evolution. In this context, the chapter looks at some fundamental aspects of linguistic diversity such as the nature of the design space, the mechanisms generating it, and the shape and fabric of language. Given that biology is another evolutionary system, its complex coevolution with language needs to be understood in order to have a proper theory of language. Throughout the chapter, various challenges are identifi ed and discussed, sketching promising directions for future research. The chapter ends by listing the necessary data, methods, and theoretical developments required for a grounded evolutionary approach to language.
  • Dediu, D. (2015). An introduction to genetics for language scientists: Current concepts, methods, and findings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Dediu, D. (2013). Genes: Interactions with language on three levels — Inter-individual variation, historical correlations and genetic biasing. In P.-M. Binder, & K. Smith (Eds.), The language phenomenon: Human communication from milliseconds to millennia (pp. 139-161). Berlin: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-36086-2_7.

    Abstract

    The complex inter-relationships between genetics and linguistics encompass all four scales highlighted by the contributions to this book and, together with cultural transmission, the genetics of language holds the promise to offer a unitary understanding of this fascinating phenomenon. There are inter-individual differences in genetic makeup which contribute to the obvious fact that we are not identical in the way we understand and use language and, by studying them, we will be able to both better treat and enhance ourselves. There are correlations between the genetic configuration of human groups and their languages, reflecting the historical processes shaping them, and there also seem to exist genes which can influence some characteristics of language, biasing it towards or against certain states by altering the way language is transmitted across generations. Besides the joys of pure knowledge, the understanding of these three aspects of genetics relevant to language will potentially trigger advances in medicine, linguistics, psychology or the understanding of our own past and, last but not least, a profound change in the way we regard one of the emblems of being human: our capacity for language.
  • Dingemanse, M. (2013). Wie wir mit Sprache malen - How to paint with language. Forschungsbericht 2013 - Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik. In Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Jahrbuch 2013. München: Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved from http://www.mpg.de/6683977/Psycholinguistik_JB_2013.

    Abstract

    Words evolve not as blobs of ink on paper but in face to face interaction. The nature of language as fundamentally interactive and multimodal is shown by the study of ideophones, vivid sensory words that thrive in conversations around the world. The ways in which these Lautbilder enable precise communication about sensory knowledge has for the first time been studied in detail. It turns out that we can paint with language, and that the onomatopoeia we sometimes classify as childish might be a subset of a much richer toolkit for depiction in speech, available to us all.
  • Dingemanse, M. (2015). Folk definitions in linguistic fieldwork. In J. Essegbey, B. Henderson, & F. Mc Laughlin (Eds.), Language documentation and endangerment in Africa (pp. 215-238). Amsterdam: Benjamins. doi:10.1075/clu.17.09din.

    Abstract

    Informal paraphrases by native speaker consultants are crucial tools in linguistic fieldwork. When recorded, archived, and analysed, they offer rich data that can be mined for many purposes, from lexicography to semantic typology and from ethnography to the investigation of gesture and speech. This paper describes a procedure for the collection and analysis of folk definitions that are native (in the language under study rather than the language of analysis), informal (spoken rather than written), and multi-modal (preserving the integrity of gesture-speech composite utterances). The value of folk definitions is demonstrated using the case of ideophones, words that are notoriously hard to study using traditional elicitation methods. Three explanatory strategies used in a set of folk definitions of ideophones are examined: the offering of everyday contexts of use, the use of depictive gestures, and the use of sense relations as semantic anchoring points. Folk definitions help elucidate word meanings that are hard to capture, bring to light cultural background knowledge that often remains implicit, and take seriously the crucial involvement of native speaker consultants in linguistic fieldwork. They provide useful data for language documentation and are an essential element of any toolkit for linguistic and ethnographic field research.
  • Dolscheid, S. (2013). High pitches and thick voices: The role of language in space-pitch associations. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • 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.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). Doing fieldwork on the body, language, and communication. In C. Müller, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, A. Cienki, D. McNeill, & S. Teßendorf (Eds.), Handbook Body – Language – Communication. Volume 1 (pp. 974-981). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). A ‘Composite Utterances’ approach to meaning. In C. Müller, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, A. Cienki, D. McNeill, & S. Teßendorf (Eds.), Handbook Body – Language – Communication. Volume 1 (pp. 689-706). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Enfield, N. J., Dingemanse, M., Baranova, J., Blythe, J., Brown, P., Dirksmeyer, T., Drew, P., Floyd, S., Gipper, S., Gisladottir, R. S., Hoymann, G., Kendrick, K. H., Levinson, S. C., Magyari, L., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., San Roque, L., & Torreira, F. (2013). Huh? What? – A first survey in 21 languages. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 343-380). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    Introduction

    A comparison of conversation in twenty-one languages from around the world reveals commonalities and differences in the way that people do open-class other-initiation of repair (Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks, 1977; Drew, 1997). We find that speakers of all of the spoken languages in the sample make use of a primary interjection strategy (in English it is Huh?), where the phonetic form of the interjection is strikingly similar across the languages: a monosyllable featuring an open non-back vowel [a, æ, ə, ʌ], often nasalized, usually with rising intonation and sometimes an [h-] onset. We also find that most of the languages have another strategy for open-class other-initiation of repair, namely the use of a question word (usually “what”). Here we find significantly more variation across the languages. The phonetic form of the question word involved is completely different from language to language: e.g., English [wɑt] versus Cha'palaa [ti] versus Duna [aki]. Furthermore, the grammatical structure in which the repair-initiating question word can or must be expressed varies within and across languages. In this chapter we present data on these two strategies – primary interjections like Huh? and question words like What? – with discussion of possible reasons for the similarities and differences across the languages. We explore some implications for the notion of repair as a system, in the context of research on the typology of language use.

    The general outline of this chapter is as follows. We first discuss repair as a system across languages and then introduce the focus of the chapter: open-class other-initiation of repair. A discussion of the main findings follows, where we identify two alternative strategies in the data: an interjection strategy (Huh?) and a question word strategy (What?). Formal features and possible motivations are discussed for the interjection strategy and the question word strategy in order. A final section discusses bodily behavior including posture, eyebrow movements and eye gaze, both in spoken languages and in a sign language.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). Hippie, interrupted. In J. Barker, & J. Lindquist (Eds.), Figures of Southeast Asian modernity (pp. 101-103). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). Reference in conversation. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 433-454). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118325001.ch21.

    Abstract

    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Lexical Selection in Reference: Introductory Examples of Reference to Times Multiple “Preferences” Future Directions Conclusion
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). Relationship thinking: Agency, enchrony, and human sociality. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2015). The utility of meaning: What words mean and why. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This book argues that the complex, anthropocentric, and often culture-specific meanings of words have been shaped directly by their history of 'utility' for communication in social life. N. J. Enfield draws on semantic and pragmatic case studies from his extensive fieldwork in Laos to investigate a range of semantic fields including emotion terms, culinary terms, landscape terminology, and honorific pronouns, among many others. These studies form the building blocks of a conceptual framework for understanding meaning in language. The book argues that the goals and relevancies of human communication are what bridge the gap between the private representation of language in the mind and its public processes of usage, acquisition, and conventionalization in society. Professor Enfield argues that in order to understand this process, we first need to understand the ways in which linguistic meaning is layered, multiple, anthropocentric, cultural, distributed, and above all, useful. This wide-ranging account brings together several key strands of research across disciplines including semantics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and sociology of language, and provides a rich account of what linguistic meaning is like and why.
  • Ernestus, M., & Giezenaar, G. (2015). Een goed verstaander heeft maar een half woord nodig. In B. Bossers (Ed.), Klassiek vakwerk II: Achtergronden van het NT2-onderwijs (pp. 143-155). Amsterdam: Boom.
  • Ernestus, M. (2013). Halve woorden [Inaugural lecture]. Nijmegen: Radboud University.

    Abstract

    Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van hoogleraar Psycholinguïstiek aan de Faculteit der Letteren van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op vrijdag 18 januari 2013
  • Fawcett, C., & Liszkowski, U. (2015). Social referencing during infancy and early childhood across cultures. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (2nd ed., pp. 556-562). doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.23169-3.
  • Filippi, P. (2015). Before Babel: The Evolutionary Roots of Human Language. In E. Velmezova, K. Kull, & S. J. Cowley (Eds.), Biosemiotic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics (pp. 191-204). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-20663-9_10.

    Abstract

    The aim of the present work is to identify the evolutionary origins of the ability to speak and understand a natural language. I will adopt Botha’s “Windows Approach” (Language and Communication, 2006, 26, pp. 129–143) in order to justify the following two assumptions, which concern the evolutionary continuity between human language and animals’ communication systems: (a) despite the uniqueness of human language in sharing and conveying utterances with an open-ended structure, some isolated components of our linguistic competence are shared with non- human primates, grounding a line of evolutionary continuity; (b) the very first “linguistic” utterances were holistic, that is, whole bunches of sounds able to convey information despite their lack of modern syntax. I will address such suppositions through the comparative analysis of three constitutive features of human language: syntax, the semantic value of utterances, and the ability to attribute mental states to conspecifics, i.e. the theory of mind.
  • Fisher, S. E. (2013). Building bridges between genes, brains and language. In J. J. Bolhuis, & M. Everaert (Eds.), Birdsong, speech and language: Exploring the evolution of mind and brain (pp. 425-454). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  • Fisher, S. E. (2015). Translating the genome in human neuroscience. In G. Marcus, & J. Freeman (Eds.), The future of the brain: Essays by the world's leading neuroscientists (pp. 149-159). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Floyd, S. (2013). Semantic transparency and cultural calquing in the Northwest Amazon. In P. Epps, & K. Stenzel (Eds.), Upper Rio Negro: Cultural and linguistic interaction in northwestern Amazonia (pp. 271-308). Rio de Janiero: Museu do Indio. Retrieved from http://www.museunacional.ufrj.br/ppgas/livros_ele.html.

    Abstract

    The ethnographic literature has sometimes described parts of the northwest Amazon as areas of shared culture across linguistic groups. This paper illustrates how a principle of semantic transparency across languages is a key means of establishing elements of a common regional culture through practices like the calquing of ethnonyms and toponyms so that they are semantically, but not phonologically, equivalent across languages. It places the upper Rio Negro area of the northwest Amazon in a general discussion of cross-linguistic naming practices in South America and considers the extent to which a preference for semantic transparency can be linked to cases of widespread cultural ‘calquing’, in which culturally-important meanings are kept similar across different linguistic systems. It also addresses the principle of semantic transparency beyond specific referential phrases and into larger discourse structures. It concludes that an attention to semiotic practices in multilingual settings can provide new and more complex ways of thinking about the idea of shared culture.
  • 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.
  • Grabe, E. (1998). Comparative intonational phonology: English and German. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.2057683.
  • Guarin, A., Haun, D. B. M., & Messner, D. (2013). Behavioral dimensions of international cooperation. Duisburg: Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2361423.
  • Gullberg, M. (1998). Gesture as a communication strategy in second language discourse: A study of learners of French and Swedish. Lund: Lund University Press.

    Abstract

    Gestures are often regarded as the most typical compensatory device used by language learners in communicative trouble. Yet gestural solutions to communicative problems have rarely been studied within any theory of second language use. The work pre­sented in this volume aims to account for second language learners’ strategic use of speech-associated gestures by combining a process-oriented framework for communi­cation strategies with a cognitive theory of gesture. Two empirical studies are presented. The production study investigates Swedish lear­ners of French and French learners of Swedish and their use of strategic gestures. The results, which are based on analyses of both individual and group behaviour, contradict popular opinion as well as theoretical assumptions from both fields. Gestures are not primarily used to replace speech, nor are they chiefly mimetic. Instead, learners use gestures with speech, and although they do exploit mimetic gestures to solve lexical problems, they also use more abstract gestures to handle discourse-related difficulties and metalinguistic commentary. The influence of factors such as proficiency, task, culture, and strategic competence on gesture use is discussed, and the oral and gestural strategic modes are compared. In the evaluation study, native speakers’ assessments of learners’ gestures, and the potential effect of gestures on evaluations of proficiency are analysed and discussed in terms of individual communicative style. Compensatory gestures function at multiple communicative levels. This has implica­tions for theories of communication strategies, and an expansion of the existing frameworks is discussed taking both cognitive and interactive aspects into account.
  • Hagoort, P. (2015). Het talige brein. In A. Aleman, & H. E. Hulshoff Pol (Eds.), Beeldvorming van het brein: Imaging voor psychiaters en psychologen (pp. 169-176). Utrecht: De Tijdstroom.
  • Hagoort, P. (2015). Spiegelneuronen. In J. Brockmann (Ed.), Wetenschappelijk onkruid: 179 hardnekkige ideeën die vooruitgang blokkeren (pp. 455-457). Amsterdam: Maven Publishing.
  • 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., & Poeppel, D. (2013). The infrastructure of the language-ready brain. In M. A. Arbib (Ed.), Language, music, and the brain: A mysterious relationship (pp. 233-255). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter sketches in very general terms the cognitive architecture of both language comprehension and production, as well as the neurobiological infrastructure that makes the human brain ready for language. Focus is on spoken language, since that compares most directly to processing music. It is worth bearing in mind that humans can also interface with language as a cognitive system using sign and text (visual) as well as Braille (tactile); that is to say, the system can connect with input/output processes in any sensory modality. Language processing consists of a complex and nested set of subroutines to get from sound to meaning (in comprehension) or meaning to sound (in production), with remarkable speed and accuracy. The fi rst section outlines a selection of the major constituent operations, from fractionating the input into manageable units to combining and unifying information in the construction of meaning. The next section addresses the neurobiological infrastructure hypothesized to form the basis for language processing. Principal insights are summarized by building on the notion of “brain networks” for speech–sound processing, syntactic processing, and the construction of meaning, bearing in mind that such a neat three-way subdivision overlooks important overlap and shared mechanisms in the neural architecture subserving language processing. Finally, in keeping with the spirit of the volume, some possible relations are highlighted between language and music that arise from the infrastructure developed here. Our characterization of language and its neurobiological foundations is necessarily selective and brief. Our aim is to identify for the reader critical questions that require an answer to have a plausible cognitive neuroscience of language processing.
  • Hall-Lew, L., Fairs, A., & Lew, A. D. (2015). Tourists' Attitudes towards Linguistic Variation in Scotland. In E. Togersen, S. Hårstad, B. Maehlum, & U. Røyneland (Eds.), Language Variation - European Perspectives V (pp. 99-110). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper joins studies of linguistic variation (e.g. Labov 1972; Dubois & Horvath 2000) and discourse (e.g. Jaworski & Lawson 2005; Jaworski & Pritchard 2005; Thurlow & Jaworski 2010) that consider the intersection between language and tourism. By examining the language attitudes that tourists hold toward linguistic variability in their host community, we find that attitudes differ by context and with respect to tourists’ travel motivations. We suggest that these results are particularly likely in a context like Edinburgh, Scotland, where linguistic variation has an iconic link to place authenticity. We propose that the joint commodification of ‘intelligibility’ and ‘authenticity’ explains this variability. The results raise questions about how the commodity value of travel motivation and the associated context of language use influence language attitudes.
  • Hammarström, H., & O'Connor, L. (2013). Dependency sensitive typological distance. In L. Borin, & A. Saxena (Eds.), Approaches to measuring linguistic differences (pp. 337-360). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Hammarström, H. (2013). Noun class parallels in Kordofanian and Niger-Congo: Evidence of genealogical inheritance? In T. C. Schadeberg, & R. M. Blench (Eds.), Nuba Mountain Language Studies (pp. 549-570). Köln: Köppe.
  • Hammond, J. (2015). Switch reference in Whitesands. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Hanique, I., Aalders, E., & Ernestus, M. (2015). How robust are exemplar effects in word comprehension? In G. Jarema, & G. Libben (Eds.), Phonological and phonetic considerations of lexical processing (pp. 15-39). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper studies the robustness of exemplar effects in word comprehension by means of four long-term priming experiments with lexical decision tasks in Dutch. A prime and target represented the same word type and were presented with the same or different degree of reduction. In Experiment 1, participants heard only a small number of trials, a large proportion of repeated words, and stimuli produced by only one speaker. They recognized targets more quickly if these represented the same degree of reduction as their primes, which forms additional evidence for the exemplar effects reported in the literature. Similar effects were found for two speakers who differ in their pronunciations. In Experiment 2, with a smaller proportion of repeated words and more trials between prime and target, participants recognized targets preceded by primes with the same or a different degree of reduction equally quickly. Also, in Experiments 3 and 4, in which listeners were not exposed to one but two types of pronunciation variation (reduction degree and speaker voice), no exemplar effects arose. We conclude that the role of exemplars in speech comprehension during natural conversations, which typically involve several speakers and few repeated content words, may be smaller than previously assumed.
  • Hanique, I. (2013). Mental representation and processing of reduced words in casual speech. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Haun, D. B. M., & Wertenbruch, M. (2013). Forschungen und Entwicklungen zum Konzept der Ehre als Potential für Konflikte zwischen Kulturen bzw. als Hindernis für Integration. Wien: Österreichischen Integrationsfonds.
  • Haun, D. B. M., & Over, H. (2013). Like me: A homophily-based account of human culture. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (Eds.), Cultural Evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion (pp. 75-85). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Hayano, K. (2013). Territories of knowledge in Japanese conversation. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.

    Abstract

    This thesis focuses on one aspect of interactional competence: competence to manage knowledge distribution in conversation. In order to be considered competent in everyday interaction, participants need not only to index one another's knowledge states but also to engage in dynamic negotiation of knowledge distribution. Adopting the methodology of conversation analysis, the thesis investigates how participants' orientations to knowledge distribution, 'epistemicity', are manifested. The thesis examines three interactional environments: assessment sequences, informing sequences and polar question-answer sequences. A systematic analysis reveals that interactants orient to different aspects of knowledge in different environments, employing different grammatical resources. When they assess an object, they are concerned about who possesses 'epistemic primacy'. Japanese final particles and the practices of intensification serve together to claim epistemic primacy and provide support for the claim. It is also reported that interactants are oriented to achieve 'epistemic congruence' − consensus regarding how knowledge is distributed among them. When one provides the other with new information, the exchange commonly develops into a four-turn sequence, instead of a minimal adjacency pair. It is shown that this sequence organization allows interactants to achieve a balance between territories of experience, affiliation and empathy. In polar question-answer sequences, how (un)expected or novel a given piece of information is becomes an issue. Answers are found to be formulated such that they adopt epistemic stances that are assertive enough to match the level of (un)certainty expressed by questioners. The thesis contributes to our understanding of how social interaction is organized. It becomes clear from the findings that a wide range of aspects of language use and interactional organization are dominated by interactants' orientations to epistemicity. Participants manage knowledge distribution in everyday interaction, which may be the most fundamental means of managing their social statuses and relations.

    Additional information

    full text via Radboud Repository
  • Hayano, K. (2013). Question design in conversation. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 395-414). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118325001.ch19.

    Abstract

    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Questions Questioning and the Epistemic Gradient Presuppositions, Agenda Setting and Preferences Social Actions Implemented by Questions Questions as Building Blocks of Institutional Activities Future Directions
  • Hickmann, M., & Weissenborn, J. (Eds.). (1981). Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual Report Nr.2 1981. Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
  • Hintz, F., & Huettig, F. (2015). The complexity of the visual environment modulates language-mediated eye gaze. In R. Mishra, N. Srinivasan, & F. Huettig (Eds.), Attention and Vision in Language Processing (pp. 39-55). Berlin: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-81-322-2443-3_3.

    Abstract

    Three eye-tracking experiments investigated the impact of the complexity of the visual environment on the likelihood of word-object mapping taking place at phonological, semantic and visual levels of representation during language-mediated visual search. Dutch participants heard spoken target words while looking at four objects embedded in displays of different complexity and indicated the presence or absence of the target object. During filler trials the target objects were present, but during experimental trials they were absent and the display contained various competitor objects. For example, given the target word “beaker”, the display contained a phonological (a beaver, bever), a shape (a bobbin, klos), a semantic (a fork, vork) competitor, and an unrelated distractor (an umbrella, paraplu). When objects were presented in simple four-object displays (Experiment 2), there were clear attentional biases to all three types of competitors replicating earlier research (Huettig and McQueen, 2007). When the objects were embedded in complex scenes including four human-like characters or four meaningless visual shapes (Experiments 1, 3), there were biases in looks to visual and semantic but not to phonological competitors. In both experiments, however, we observed evidence for inhibition in looks to phonological competitors, which suggests that the phonological forms of the objects nevertheless had been retrieved. These findings suggest that phonological word-object mapping is contingent upon the nature of the visual environment and add to a growing body of evidence that the nature of our visual surroundings induces particular modes of processing during language-mediated visual search.
  • Hintz, F. (2015). Predicting language in different contexts: The nature and limits of mechanisms in anticipatory language processing. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Hofmeister, P., & Norcliffe, E. (2013). Does resumption facilitate sentence comprehension? In P. Hofmeister, & E. Norcliffe (Eds.), The core and the periphery: Data-driven perspectives on syntax inspired by Ivan A. Sag (pp. 225-246). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
  • Hofmeister, P., & Norcliffe, E. (Eds.). (2013). The core and the periphery: Data-driven perspectives on syntax inspired by Ivan A. Sag. Stanford, CA: CSLI publications.

    Abstract

    This book is a collection of papers inspired by the linguistics career of Ivan Sag, written to celebrate his many contributions to the field. Ivan has been a professor of linguistics at Stanford University since 1979, has been the directory of the Symbolic Systems program (2005-2009), has authored, co-authored, or edited fifteen volumes in linguistics, and has been at the forefront of non-transformational approaches to syntax. Reflecting the breath of Ivan's theoretical interests and approaches to linguistic problems, the papers here tackle a range of grammar-related issues using corpora, intuitions, and laboratory experiments. They are united by their use of and commitment to rich datasets and the shared perspective that the best theories of grammar attempt to account for the full diversity and complexity of language data.
  • Huettig, F. (2013). Young children’s use of color information during language-vision mapping. In B. R. Kar (Ed.), Cognition and brain development: Converging evidence from various methodologies (pp. 368-391). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.
  • Huettig, F., Srinivasan, N., & Mishra, R. (2015). Introduction to 'Attention and vision in language processing'. In R. Mishra, N. Srinivasan, & F. Huettig (Eds.), Attention and vision in language processing. (pp. V-IX). Berlin: Springer.
  • Huettig, F. (2015). Literacy influences cognitive abilities far beyond the mastery of written language. In I. van de Craats, J. Kurvers, & R. van Hout (Eds.), Adult literacy, second language, and cognition. LESLLA Proceedings 2014. Nijmegen: Centre for Language Studies.

    Abstract

    Recent experimental evidence from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience shows that reading acquisition has non-trivial consequences for cognitive processes other than reading per se. In the present chapter I present evidence from three areas of cognition: phonological processing, prediction in language processing, and visual search. These findings suggest that literacy on cognition influences are far-reaching. This implies that a good understanding of the dramatic impact of literacy acquisition on the human mind is an important prerequisite for successful education policy development and guidance of educational support.
  • Jayez, J., Mongelli, V., Reboul, A., & Van der Henst, J.-B. (2015). Weak and strong triggers. In F. Schwarz (Ed.), Experimental Perspectives on Presuppositions (pp. 173-194). Berlin: Springer.

    Abstract

    The idea that presupposition triggers have different intrinsic properties has gradually made its way into the literature on presuppositions and become a current assumption in most approaches. The distinctions mentioned in the different works have been based on introspective data, which seem, indeed, very suggestive. In this paper, we take a different look at some of these distinctions by using a simple experimental approach based on judgment of naturalness about sentences in various contexts. We show that the alleged difference between weak (or soft) and strong (or hard) triggers is not as clear as one may wish and that the claim that they belong to different lexical classes of triggers is probably much too strong.
  • Jordan, F. M., van Schaik, C. P., Francois, P., Gintis, H., Haun, D. B. M., Hruschka, D. H., Janssen, M. A., Kitts, J. A., Lehmann, L., Mathew, S., Richerson, P. J., Turchin, P., & Wiessner, P. (2013). Cultural evolution of the structure of human groups. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (Eds.), Cultural Evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion (pp. 87-116). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Jordan, F. (2013). Comparative phylogenetic methods and the study of pattern and process in kinship. In P. McConvell, I. Keen, & R. Hendery (Eds.), Kinship systems: Change and reconstruction (pp. 43-58). Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press.

    Abstract

    Anthropology began by comparing aspects of kinship across cultures, while linguists interested in semantic domains such as kinship necessarily compare across languages. In this chapter I show how phylogenetic comparative methods from evolutionary biology can be used to study evolutionary processes relating to kinship and kinship terminologies across language and culture.
  • 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. (2013). Dummies and auxiliaries in the acquisition of L1 and L2 Dutch. In E. Blom, I. Van de Craats, & J. Verhagen (Eds.), Dummy Auxiliaries in First and Second Language Acquisition (pp. 341-368). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Kallmeyer, L., Osswald, R., & Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2013). Tree wrapping for Role and Reference Grammar. In G. Morrill, & M.-J. Nederhof (Eds.), Formal grammar: 17th and 18th International Conferences, FG 2012/2013, Opole, Poland, August 2012: revised Selected Papers, Düsseldorf, Germany, August 2013: proceedings (pp. 175-190). Heidelberg: Springer.
  • Kempen, G. (1998). Sentence parsing. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 213-228). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kempen, G. (1981). Taalpsychologie. In H. Duijker, & P. Vroon (Eds.), Codex Psychologicus (pp. 205-221). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Kidd, E., Bavin, S. L., & Brandt, S. (2013). The role of the lexicon in the development of the language processor. In D. Bittner, & N. Ruhlig (Eds.), Lexical bootstrapping: The role of lexis and semantics in child language development (pp. 217-244). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
  • Klein, W., & Rath, R. (1981). Automatische Lemmatisierung deutscher Flexionsformen. In R. Herzog (Ed.), Computer in der Übersetzungswissenschaft (pp. 94-142). Framkfurt am Main, Bern: Verlag Peter Lang.
  • Klein, W. (2013). Basic variety. In P. Robinson (Ed.), The Routledge encyclopedia of second language acquisition (pp. 64-65). New York: Routledge.
  • Klein, W., & Levelt, W. J. M. (Eds.). (1981). Crossing the boundaries in linguistics: Studies presented to Manfred Bierwisch. Dordrecht: Reidel.
  • Klein, W. (2015). Das Wörterbuch der Zukunft ist kein Wörterbuch. In L. Eichinger (Ed.), Sprachwissenschaft im Fokus (pp. 277-295). Berlin: De Gruyter.

    Abstract

    Unter allen Disziplinen, die sich mit der Erforschung der Sprache befassen, ist die Lexikografie die älteste und die für die Allgemeinheit wichtigste. Die ältesten, noch sehr einfachen Wörterbücher finden sich auf 4000 Jahre alten Tontafeln, und wenn sich heute in einem Haushalt überhaupt ein Buch findet, dann ist es wahrscheinlich ein Wörterbuch. In den letzten zwanzig Jahren ist die kommerzielle wie die von öffentlich finanzierten Forschungsstätten betriebene Lexikografie jedoch in einer ernsthafte Krise geraten. Die großen Wörterbuchverlage haben die Arbeit an umfassenden Wörterbüchern weitestgehend eingestellt, weil sie kaum noch gekauft werden; die Akademien geraten mit ihren Langzeitvorhaben in massive Zeit- und Finanzprobleme. Wenn wir nicht auf die umfassende Beschreibung des deutschen Wortschatzes in all einer Vielfalt und seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung verzichten wollen, müssen ganz neue Wege gegangen werden: Wörterbücher im traditionellen Sinne müssen durch digitale lexikalische Systeme ersetzt werden, die das vorhandene lexikalische Wissen integrieren, es schrittweise systematisch ausbauen, eigene Recherchen in verlässlichen Corpora ermöglichen und von jedermann frei über das Internet nutzbar sind.
  • 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. (1981). Eine kommentierte Bibliographie zur Computerlinguistik. In R. Herzog (Ed.), Computer in der Übersetzungswissenschaft (pp. 95-142). Frankfurt am Main: Lang.

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