Publications

Displaying 1 - 100 of 272
  • Abdel Rahman, R., Van Turennout, M., & Levelt, W. J. M. (2003). Phonological encoding is not contingent on semantic feature retrieval: An electrophysiological study on object naming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29(5), 850-860. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.29.5.850.

    Abstract

    In the present study, the authors examined with event-related brain potentials whether phonological encoding in picture naming is mediated by basic semantic feature retrieval or proceeds independently. In a manual 2-choice go/no-go task the choice response depended on a semantic classification (animal vs. object) and the execution decision was contingent on a classification of name phonology (vowel vs. consonant). The introduction of a semantic task mixing procedure allowed for selectively manipulating the speed of semantic feature retrieval. Serial and parallel models were tested on the basis of their differential predictions for the effect of this manipulation on the lateralized readiness potential and N200 component. The findings indicate that phonological code retrieval is not strictly contingent on prior basic semantic feature processing.
  • Abdel Rahman, R., & Sommer, W. (2003). Does phonological encoding in speech production always follow the retrieval of semantic knowledge?: Electrophysiological evidence for parallel processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 16(3), 372-382. doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00305-1.

    Abstract

    In this article a new approach to the distinction between serial/contingent and parallel/independent processing in the human cognitive system is applied to semantic knowledge retrieval and phonological encoding of the word form in picture naming. In two-choice go/nogo tasks pictures of objects were manually classified on the basis of semantic and phonological information. An additional manipulation of the duration of the faster and presumably mediating process (semantic retrieval) allowed to derive differential predictions from the two alternative models. These predictions were tested with two event-related brain potentials (ERPs), the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) and the N200. The findings indicate that phonological encoding can proceed in parallel to the retrieval of semantic features. A suggestion is made how to accommodate these findings with models of speech production.
  • Akker, E., & Cutler, A. (2003). Prosodic cues to semantic structure in native and nonnative listening. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 6(2), 81-96. doi:10.1017/S1366728903001056.

    Abstract

    Listeners efficiently exploit sentence prosody to direct attention to words bearing sentence accent. This effect has been explained as a search for focus, furthering rapid apprehension of semantic structure. A first experiment supported this explanation: English listeners detected phoneme targets in sentences more rapidly when the target-bearing words were in accented position or in focussed position, but the two effects interacted, consistent with the claim that the effects serve a common cause. In a second experiment a similar asymmetry was observed with Dutch listeners and Dutch sentences. In a third and a fourth experiment, proficient Dutch users of English heard English sentences; here, however, the two effects did not interact. The results suggest that less efficient mapping of prosody to semantics may be one way in which nonnative listening fails to equal native listening.
  • Alario, F.-X., Schiller, N. O., Domoto-Reilly, K., & Caramazza, A. (2003). The role of phonological and orthographic information in lexical selection. Brain and Language, 84(3), 372-398. doi:10.1016/S0093-934X(02)00556-4.

    Abstract

    We report the performance of two patients with lexico-semantic deficits following left MCA CVA. Both patients produce similar numbers of semantic paraphasias in naming tasks, but presented one crucial difference: grapheme-to-phoneme and phoneme-to-grapheme conversion procedures were available only to one of them. We investigated the impact of this availability on the process of lexical selection during word production. The patient for whom conversion procedures were not operational produced semantic errors in transcoding tasks such as reading and writing to dictation; furthermore, when asked to name a given picture in multiple output modalities—e.g., to say the name of a picture and immediately after to write it down—he produced lexically inconsistent responses. By contrast, the patient for whom conversion procedures were available did not produce semantic errors in transcoding tasks and did not produce lexically inconsistent responses in multiple picture-naming tasks. These observations are interpreted in the context of the summation hypothesis (Hillis & Caramazza, 1991), according to which the activation of lexical entries for production would be made on the basis of semantic information and, when available, on the basis of form-specific information. The implementation of this hypothesis in models of lexical access is discussed in detail.
  • Allen, S. E. M. (1998). Categories within the verb category: Learning the causative in Inuktitut. Linguistics, 36(4), 633-677.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1987). A comparative analysis of linguistic routines in two languages: English and Ewe. Journal of Pragmatics, 11(3), 299-326. doi:10.1016/0378-2166(87)90135-4.

    Abstract

    It is very widely acknowledged that linguistic routines are not only embodiments of the sociocultural values of speech communities that use them, but their knowledge and appropriate use also form an essential part of a speaker's communicative/pragmatic competence. Despite this, many studies concentrate more on describing the use of routines rather than explaining the socio-cultural aspects of their meaning and the way they affect their use. It is the contention of this paper that there is the need to go beyond descriptions to explanations and explications of the use and meaning of routines that are culturally and socially revealing. This view is illustrated by a comparative analysis of functionally equivalent formulaic expressions in English and Ewe. The similarities are noted and the differences explained in terms of the socio-cultural traditions associated with the respective languages. It is argued that insights gained from such studies are valuable for crosscultural understanding and communication as well as for second language pedagogy.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1998). Particules énonciatives en Ewe. Faits de langues, 6(11/12), 179-204.

    Abstract

    Particles are little words that speakers use to signal the illocutionary force of utterances and/or express their attitude towards elements of the communicative situation, e.g. the addresses. This paper presents an overview of the classification, meaning and use of utterance particles in Ewe. It argues that they constitute a grammatical word class on functional and distributional grounds. The paper calls for a cross-cultural investigation of particles, especially in Africa, where they have been neglected for far too long.
  • Baayen, H., & Lieber, R. (1991). Productivity and English derivation: A corpus-based study. Linguistics, 29(5), 801-843. doi:10.1515/ling.1991.29.5.801.

    Abstract

    The notion of productivity is one which is central to the study of morphology.
    It is a notion about which linguists frequently have intuitions. But it is a notion which still
    remains somewhat problematic in the
    literature on generative morphology some
    15 years after Aronoff raised the issue in his (1976) monograph. In this paper we will review some of the definitions and measures of productivity discussed in the generative and pregenerative literature.
    We will adopt the definition of productivity suggested by Schultink (1961) and propose
    a number of statistical measures of productivity whose results, when
    applied to a fixed corpus, accord nicely with our intuitive estimates of productivity, and which shed light on the quantitative weight of linguistic restrictions on word formation rules. Part of our
    purpose here is also a very
    simple one: to make
    available a substantial
    set of empirical data concerning
    the productivity of
    some of the major derivational
    affixes of English.

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  • Bailey, A., Hervas, A., Matthews, N., Palferman, S., Wallace, S., Aubin, A., Michelotti, J., Wainhouse, C., Papanikolaou, K., Rutter, M., Maestrini, E., Marlow, A., Weeks, D. E., Lamb, J., Francks, C., Kearsley, G., Scudder, P., Monaco, A. P., Baird, G., Cox, A. and 46 moreBailey, A., Hervas, A., Matthews, N., Palferman, S., Wallace, S., Aubin, A., Michelotti, J., Wainhouse, C., Papanikolaou, K., Rutter, M., Maestrini, E., Marlow, A., Weeks, D. E., Lamb, J., Francks, C., Kearsley, G., Scudder, P., Monaco, A. P., Baird, G., Cox, A., Cockerill, H., Nuffield, F., Le Couteur, A., Berney, T., Cooper, H., Kelly, T., Green, J., Whittaker, J., Gilchrist, A., Bolton, P., Schönewald, A., Daker, M., Ogilvie, C., Docherty, Z., Deans, Z., Bolton, B., Packer, R., Poustka, F., Rühl, D., Schmötzer, G., Bölte, S., Klauck, S. M., Spieler, A., Poustka., A., Van Engeland, H., Kemner, C., De Jonge, M., Den Hartog, I., Lord, C., Cook, E., Leventhal, B., Volkmar, F., Pauls, D., Klin, A., Smalley, S., Fombonne, E., Rogé, B., Tauber, M., Arti-Vartayan, E., Fremolle-Kruck., J., Pederson, L., Haracopos, D., Brondum-Nielsen, K., & Cotterill, R. (1998). A full genome screen for autism with evidence for linkage to a region on chromosome 7q. International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium. Human Molecular Genetics, 7(3), 571-578. doi:10.1093/hmg/7.3.571.

    Abstract

    Autism is characterized by impairments in reciprocal social interaction and communication, and restricted and sterotyped patterns of interests and activities. Developmental difficulties are apparent before 3 years of age and there is evidence for strong genetic influences most likely involving more than one susceptibility gene. A two-stage genome search for susceptibility loci in autism was performed on 87 affected sib pairs plus 12 non-sib affected relative-pairs, from a total of 99 families identified by an international consortium. Regions on six chromosomes (4, 7, 10, 16, 19 and 22) were identified which generated a multipoint maximum lod score (MLS) > 1. A region on chromosome 7q was the most significant with an MLS of 3.55 near markers D7S530 and D7S684 in the subset of 56 UK affected sib-pair families, and an MLS of 2.53 in all 87 affected sib-pair families. An area on chromosome 16p near the telomere was the next most significant, with an MLS of 1.97 in the UK families, and 1.51 in all families. These results are an important step towards identifying genes predisposing to autism; establishing their general applicability requires further study.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., & Hagoort, P. (2003). Event-induced theta responses as a window on the dynamics of memory. Cortex, 39(4-5), 967-972. doi:10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70873-6.

    Abstract

    An important, but often ignored distinction in the analysis of EEG signals is that between evoked activity and induced activity. Whereas evoked activity reflects the summation of transient post-synaptic potentials triggered by an event, induced activity, which is mainly oscillatory in nature, is thought to reflect changes in parameters controlling dynamic interactions within and between brain structures. We hypothesize that induced activity may yield information about the dynamics of cell assembly formation, activation and subsequent uncoupling, which may play a prominent role in different types of memory operations. We then describe a number of analysis tools that can be used to study the reactivity of induced rhythmic activity, both in terms of amplitude changes and of phase variability.

    We briefly discuss how alpha, gamma and theta rhythms are thought to be generated, paying special attention to the hypothesis that the theta rhythm reflects dynamic interactions between the hippocampal system and the neocortex. This hypothesis would imply that studying the reactivity of scalp-recorded theta may provide a window on the contribution of the hippocampus to memory functions.

    We review studies investigating the reactivity of scalp-recorded theta in paradigms engaging episodic memory, spatial memory and working memory. In addition, we review studies that relate theta reactivity to processes at the interface of memory and language. Despite many unknowns, the experimental evidence largely supports the hypothesis that theta activity plays a functional role in cell assembly formation, a process which may constitute the neural basis of memory formation and retrieval. The available data provide only highly indirect support for the hypothesis that scalp-recorded theta yields information about hippocampal functioning. It is concluded that studying induced rhythmic activity holds promise as an additional important way to study brain function.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1994). [Review of the book Du latin aux langues romanes ed. by Maria Iliescu and Dan Slusanski]. Studies in Language, 18(2), 502-509. doi:10.1075/sl.18.2.08bau.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1998). Impersonal verbs in Italic. Their development from an Indo-European perspective. Journal of Indo-European Studies, 26, 91-120.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1987). L’évolution des structures morphologiques et syntaxiques du latin au français. Travaux de linguistique, 14-15, 95-107.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1998). Language loss in Gaul: Socio-historical and linguistic factors in language conflict. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 15, 23-44.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1994). The development of Latin absolute constructions: From stative to transitive structures. General Linguistics, 18, 64-83.
  • Bickel, B. (1994). In the vestibule of meaning: Transivity inversion as a morphological phenomenon. Studies in Language, 19(1), 73-127.
  • De Bleser, R., Willmes, K., Graetz, P., & Hagoort, P. (1991). De Akense Afasie Test. Logopedie en Foniatrie, 63, 207-217.
  • Bock, K., Irwin, D. E., Davidson, D. J., & Levelt, W. J. M. (2003). Minding the clock. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 653-685. doi:10.1016/S0749-596X(03)00007-X.

    Abstract

    Telling time is an exercise in coordinating language production with visual perception. By coupling different ways of saying times with different ways of seeing them, the performance of time-telling can be used to track cognitive transformations from visual to verbal information in connected speech. To accomplish this, we used eyetracking measures along with measures of speech timing during the production of time expressions. Our findings suggest that an effective interface between what has been seen and what is to be said can be constructed within 300 ms. This interface underpins a preverbal plan or message that appears to guide a comparatively slow, strongly incremental formulation of phrases. The results begin to trace the divide between seeing and saying -or thinking and speaking- that must be bridged during the creation of even the most prosaic utterances of a language.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2003). Invisible time lines in the fabric of events: Temporal coherence in Yukatek narratives. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 13(2), 139-162. doi:10.1525/jlin.2003.13.2.139.

    Abstract

    This article examines how narratives are structured in a language in which event order is largely not coded. Yucatec Maya lacks both tense inflections and temporal connectives corresponding to English after and before. It is shown that the coding of events in Yucatec narratives is subject to a strict iconicity constraint within paragraph boundaries. Aspectual viewpoint shifting is used to reconcile iconicity preservation with the requirements of a more flexible narrative structure.
  • Böttner, M. (1998). A collective extension of relational grammar. Logic Journal of the IGPL, 6(2), 175-793. doi:10.1093/jigpal/6.2.175.

    Abstract

    Relational grammar was proposed in Suppes (1976) as a semantical grammar for natural language. Fragments considered so far are restricted to distributive notions. In this article, relational grammar is extended to collective notions.
  • Bowerman, M. (1994). From universal to language-specific in early grammatical development. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 346, 34-45. doi:10.1098/rstb.1994.0126.

    Abstract

    Attempts to explain children's grammatical development often assume a close initial match between units of meaning and units of form; for example, agents are said to map to sentence-subjects and actions to verbs. The meanings themselves, according to this view, are not influenced by language, but reflect children's universal non-linguistic way of understanding the world. This paper argues that, contrary to this position, meaning as it is expressed in children's early sentences is, from the beginning, organized on the basis of experience with the grammar and lexicon of a particular language. As a case in point, children learning English and Korean are shown to express meanings having to do with direct motion according to language-specific principles of semantic and grammatical structuring from the earliest stages of word combination
  • Bowerman, M. (1983). How do children avoid constructing an overly general grammar in the absence of feedback about what is not a sentence? Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 22, 23-35.

    Abstract

    The theory that language acquisition is guided and constrained by inborn linguistic knowledge is assessed. Specifically, the "no negative evidence" view, the belief that linguistic theory should be restricted in such a way that the grammars it allows can be learned by children on the basis of positive evidence only, is explored. Child language data are cited in order to investigate influential innatist approaches to language acquisition. Baker's view that children are innately constrained in significant ways with respect to language acquisition is evaluated. Evidence indicates that children persistently make overgeneralizations of the sort that violate the constrained view of language acquisition. Since children eventually do develop correct adult grammar, they must have other mechanisms for cutting back on these overgeneralizations. Thus, any hypothesized constraints cannot be justified on grounds that without them the child would end up with overly general grammar. It is necessary to explicate the mechanisms by which children eliminate their tendency toward overgeneralization.
  • Li, P., & Bowerman, M. (1998). The acquisition of lexical and grammatical aspect in Chinese. First Language, 18, 311-350. doi:10.1177/014272379801805404.

    Abstract

    This study reports three experiments on how children learning Mandarin Chinese comprehend and use aspect markers. These experiments examine the role of lexical aspect in children's acquisition of grammatical aspect. Results provide converging evidence for children's early sensitivity to (1) the association between atelic verbs and the imperfective aspect markers zai, -zhe, and -ne, and (2) the association between telic verbs and the perfective aspect marker -le. Children did not show a sensitivity in their use or understanding of aspect markers to the difference between stative and activity verbs or between semelfactive and activity verbs. These results are consistent with Slobin's (1985) basic child grammar hypothesis that the contrast between process and result is important in children's early acquisition of temporal morphology. In contrast, they are inconsistent with Bickerton's (1981, 1984) language bioprogram hypothesis that the distinctions between state and process and between punctual and nonpunctual are preprogrammed into language learners. We suggest new ways of looking at the results in the light of recent probabilistic hypotheses that emphasize the role of input, prototypes and connectionist representations.
  • Brown, P. (1998). Children's first verbs in Tzeltal: Evidence for an early verb category. Linguistics, 36(4), 713-753.

    Abstract

    A major finding in studies of early vocabulary acquisition has been that children tend to learn a lot of nouns early but make do with relatively few verbs, among which semantically general-purpose verbs like do, make, get, have, give, come, go, and be play a prominent role. The preponderance of nouns is explained in terms of nouns labelling concrete objects beings “easier” to learn than verbs, which label relational categories. Nouns label “natural categories” observable in the world, verbs label more linguistically and culturally specific categories of events linking objects belonging to such natural categories (Gentner 1978, 1982; Clark 1993). This view has been challenged recently by data from children learning certain non-Indo-European languges like Korean, where children have an early verb explosion and verbs dominate in early child utterances. Children learning the Mayan language Tzeltal also acquire verbs early, prior to any noun explosion as measured by production. Verb types are roughly equivalent to noun types in children’s beginning production vocabulary and soon outnumber them. At the one-word stage children’s verbs mostly have the form of a root stripped of affixes, correctly segmented despite structural difficulties. Quite early (before the MLU 2.0 point) there is evidence of productivity of some grammatical markers (although they are not always present): the person-marking affixes cross-referencing core arguments, and the completive/incompletive aspectual distinctions. The Tzeltal facts argue against a natural-categories explanation for childre’s early vocabulary, in favor of a view emphasizing the early effects of language-specific properties of the input. They suggest that when and how a child acquires a “verb” category is centrally influenced by the structural properties of the input, and that the semantic structure of the language - where the referential load is concentrated - plays a fundamental role in addition to distributional facts.
  • Brown, P. (1998). Conversational structure and language acquisition: The role of repetition in Tzeltal adult and child speech. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 8(2), 197-221. doi:10.1525/jlin.1998.8.2.197.

    Abstract

    When Tzeltal children in the Mayan community of Tenejapa, in southern Mexico, begin speaking, their production vocabulary consists predominantly of verb roots, in contrast to the dominance of nouns in the initial vocabulary of first‐language learners of Indo‐European languages. This article proposes that a particular Tzeltal conversational feature—known in the Mayanist literature as "dialogic repetition"—provides a context that facilitates the early analysis and use of verbs. Although Tzeltal babies are not treated by adults as genuine interlocutors worthy of sustained interaction, dialogic repetition in the speech the children are exposed to may have an important role in revealing to them the structural properties of the language, as well as in socializing the collaborative style of verbal interaction adults favor in this community.
  • Brown, P. (1983). [Review of the book Conversational routine: Explorations in standardized communication situations and prepatterned speech ed. by Florian Coulmas]. Language, 59, 215-219.
  • Brown, P. (1983). [Review of the books Mayan Texts I, II, and III ed. by Louanna Furbee-Losee]. International Journal of American Linguistics, 49, 337-341.
  • Brown, P. (1998). [Review of the book by A.J. Wootton, Interaction and the development of mind]. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 4(4), 816-817.
  • Brown, P. (1998). La identificación de las raíces verbales en Tzeltal (Maya): Cómo lo hacen los niños? Función, 17-18, 121-146.

    Abstract

    This is a Spanish translation of Brown 1997.
  • Brown, P. (1994). The INs and ONs of Tzeltal locative expressions: The semantics of static descriptions of location. Linguistics, 32, 743-790.

    Abstract

    This paper explores how static topological spatial relations such as contiguity, contact, containment, and support are expressed in the Mayan language Tzeltal. Three distinct Tzeltal systems for describing spatial relationships - geographically anchored (place names, geographical coordinates), viewer-centered (deictic), and object-centered (body parts, relational nouns, and dispositional adjectives) - are presented, but the focus here is on the object-centered system of dispositional adjectives in static locative expressions. Tzeltal encodes shape/position/configuration gestalts in verb roots; predicates formed from these are an essential element in locative descriptions. Specificity of shape in the predicate allows spatial reltaions between figure and ground objects to be understood by implication. Tzeltal illustrates an alternative stragegy to that of prepositional languages like English: rather than elaborating shape distinctions in the nouns and minimizing them in the locatives, Tzeltal encodes shape and configuration very precisely in verb roots, leaving many object nouns unspecified for shape. The Tzeltal case thus presents a direct challenge to cognitive science claims that, in both languge and cognition, WHAT is kept distinct from WHERE.
  • Burenhult, N. (2003). Attention, accessibility, and the addressee: The case of the Jahai demonstrative ton. Pragmatics, 13(3), 363-379.
  • Castro-Caldas, A., Petersson, K. M., Reis, A., Stone-Elander, S., & Ingvar, M. (1998). The illiterate brain: Learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the adult brain. Brain, 121, 1053-1063. doi:10.1093/brain/121.6.1053.

    Abstract

    Learning a specific skill during childhood may partly determine the functional organization of the adult brain. This hypothesis led us to study oral language processing in illiterate subjects who, for social reasons, had never entered school and had no knowledge of reading or writing. In a brain activation study using PET and statistical parametric mapping, we compared word and pseudoword repetition in literate and illiterate subjects. Our study confirms behavioural evidence of different phonological processing in illiterate subjects. During repetition of real words, the two groups performed similarly and activated similar areas of the brain. In contrast, illiterate subjects had more difficulty repeating pseudowords correctly and did not activate the same neural structures as literates. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that learning the written form of language (orthography) interacts with the function of oral language. Our results indicate that learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the adult human brain.
  • Choi, S., & Bowerman, M. (1991). Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: The influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns. Cognition, 41, 83-121. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(91)90033-Z.

    Abstract

    English and Korean differ in how they lexicalize the components of motionevents. English characteristically conflates Motion with Manner, Cause, or Deixis, and expresses Path separately. Korean, in contrast, conflates Motion with Path and elements of Figure and Ground in transitive clauses for caused Motion, but conflates motion with Deixis and spells out Path and Manner separately in intransitive clauses for spontaneous motion. Children learningEnglish and Korean show sensitivity to language-specific patterns in the way they talk about motion from as early as 17–20 months. For example, learners of English quickly generalize their earliest spatial words — Path particles like up, down, and in — to both spontaneous and caused changes of location and, for up and down, to posture changes, while learners of Korean keep words for spontaneous and caused motion strictly separate and use different words for vertical changes of location and posture changes. These findings challenge the widespread view that children initially map spatial words directly to nonlinguistic spatial concepts, and suggest that they are influenced by the semantic organization of their language virtually from the beginning. We discuss how input and cognition may interact in the early phases of learning to talk about space.
  • Chwilla, D., Hagoort, P., & Brown, C. M. (1998). The mechanism underlying backward priming in a lexical decision task: Spreading activation versus semantic matching. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 51A(3), 531-560. doi:10.1080/713755773.

    Abstract

    Koriat (1981) demonstrated that an association from the target to a preceding prime, in the absence of an association from the prime to the target, facilitates lexical decision and referred to this effect as "backward priming". Backward priming is of relevance, because it can provide information about the mechanism underlying semantic priming effects. Following Neely (1991), we distinguish three mechanisms of priming: spreading activation, expectancy, and semantic matching/integration. The goal was to determine which of these mechanisms causes backward priming, by assessing effects of backward priming on a language-relevant ERP component, the N400, and reaction time (RT). Based on previous work, we propose that the N400 priming effect reflects expectancy and semantic matching/integration, but in contrast with RT does not reflect spreading activation. Experiment 1 shows a backward priming effect that is qualitatively similar for the N400 and RT in a lexical decision task. This effect was not modulated by an ISI manipulation. Experiment 2 clarifies that the N400 backward priming effect reflects genuine changes in N400 amplitude and cannot be ascribed to other factors. We will argue that these backward priming effects cannot be due to expectancy but are best accounted for in terms of semantic matching/integration.
  • Connine, C. M., Clifton, Jr., C., & Cutler, A. (1987). Effects of lexical stress on phonetic categorization. Phonetica, 44, 133-146.
  • Costa, A., Cutler, A., & Sebastian-Galles, N. (1998). Effects of phoneme repertoire on phoneme decision. Perception and Psychophysics, 60, 1022-1031.

    Abstract

    In three experiments, listeners detected vowel or consonant targets in lists of CV syllables constructed from five vowels and five consonants. Responses were faster in a predictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables all beginning with the same consonant) than in an unpredictable context (e.g., listening for a vowel target in a list of syllables beginning with different consonants). In Experiment 1, the listeners’ native language was Dutch, in which vowel and consonant repertoires are similar in size. The difference between predictable and unpredictable contexts was comparable for vowel and consonant targets. In Experiments 2 and 3, the listeners’ native language was Spanish, which has four times as many consonants as vowels; here effects of an unpredictable consonant context on vowel detection were significantly greater than effects of an unpredictable vowel context on consonant detection. This finding suggests that listeners’ processing of phonemes takes into account the constitution of their language’s phonemic repertoire and the implications that this has for contextual variability.
  • Cozijn, R., Vonk, W., & Noordman, L. G. M. (2003). Afleidingen uit oogbewegingen: De invloed van het connectief 'omdat' op het maken van causale inferenties. Gramma/TTT, 9, 141-156.
  • Crago, M. B., Chen, C., Genesee, F., & Allen, S. E. M. (1998). Power and deference. Journal for a Just and Caring Education, 4(1), 78-95.
  • Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D., & Segui, J. (1983). A language-specific comprehension strategy [Letters to Nature]. Nature, 304, 159-160. doi:10.1038/304159a0.

    Abstract

    Infants acquire whatever language is spoken in the environment into which they are born. The mental capability of the newborn child is not biased in any way towards the acquisition of one human language rather than another. Because psychologists who attempt to model the process of language comprehension are interested in the structure of the human mind, rather than in the properties of individual languages, strategies which they incorporate in their models are presumed to be universal, not language-specific. In other words, strategies of comprehension are presumed to be characteristic of the human language processing system, rather than, say, the French, English, or Igbo language processing systems. We report here, however, on a comprehension strategy which appears to be used by native speakers of French but not by native speakers of English.
  • Cutler, A., Norris, D., & Williams, J. (1987). A note on the role of phonological expectations in speech segmentation. Journal of Memory and Language, 26, 480-487. doi:10.1016/0749-596X(87)90103-3.

    Abstract

    Word-initial CVC syllables are detected faster in words beginning consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel (CVCV-) than in words beginning consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC-). This effect was reported independently by M. Taft and G. Hambly (1985, Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 320–335) and by A. Cutler, J. Mehler, D. Norris, and J. Segui (1986, Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 385–400). Taft and Hambly explained the effect in terms of lexical factors. This explanation cannot account for Cutler et al.'s results, in which the effect also appeared with nonwords and foreign words. Cutler et al. suggested that CVCV-sequences might simply be easier to perceive than CVCC-sequences. The present study confirms this suggestion, and explains it as a reflection of listener expectations constructed on the basis of distributional characteristics of the language.
  • Cutler, A., Norris, D., & McQueen, J. M. (1994). Modelling lexical access from continuous speech input. Dokkyo International Review, 7, 193-215.

    Abstract

    The recognition of speech involves the segmentation of continuous utterances into their component words. Cross-linguistic evidence is briefly reviewed which suggests that although there are language-specific solutions to this segmentation problem, they have one thing in common: they are all based on language rhythm. In English, segmentation is stress-based: strong syllables are postulated to be the onsets of words. Segmentation, however, can also be achieved by a process of competition between activated lexical hypotheses, as in the Shortlist model. A series of experiments is summarised showing that segmentation of continuous speech depends on both lexical competition and a metrically-guided procedure. In the final section, the implementation of metrical segmentation in the Shortlist model is described: the activation of lexical hypotheses matching strong syllables in the input is boosted and that of hypotheses mismatching strong syllables in the input is penalised.
  • Cutler, A., & Otake, T. (1994). Mora or phoneme? Further evidence for language-specific listening. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 824-844. doi:10.1006/jmla.1994.1039.

    Abstract

    Japanese listeners detect speech sound targets which correspond precisely to a mora (a phonological unit which is the unit of rhythm in Japanese) more easily than targets which do not. English listeners detect medial vowel targets more slowly than consonants. Six phoneme detection experiments investigated these effects in both subject populations, presented with native- and foreign-language input. Japanese listeners produced faster and more accurate responses to moraic than to nonmoraic targets both in Japanese and, where possible, in English; English listeners responded differently. The detection disadvantage for medial vowels appeared with English listeners both in English and in Japanese; again, Japanese listeners responded differently. Some processing operations which listeners apply to speech input are language-specific; these language-specific procedures, appropriate for listening to input in the native language, may be applied to foreign-language input irrespective of whether they remain appropriate.
  • Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D., & Segui, J. (1987). Phoneme identification and the lexicon. Cognitive Psychology, 19, 141-177. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(87)90010-7.
  • Cutler, A. (1991). Proceed with caution. New Scientist, (1799), 53-54.
  • Cutler, A. (1994). The perception of rhythm in language. Cognition, 50, 79-81. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(94)90021-3.
  • Cutler, A., Butterfield, S., & Williams, J. (1987). The perceptual integrity of syllabic onsets. Journal of Memory and Language, 26, 406-418. doi:10.1016/0749-596X(87)90099-4.
  • Cutler, A., & Carter, D. (1987). The predominance of strong initial syllables in the English vocabulary. Computer Speech and Language, 2, 133-142. doi:10.1016/0885-2308(87)90004-0.

    Abstract

    Studies of human speech processing have provided evidence for a segmentation strategy in the perception of continuous speech, whereby a word boundary is postulated, and a lexical access procedure initiated, at each metrically strong syllable. The likely success of this strategy was here estimated against the characteristics of the English vocabulary. Two computerized dictionaries were found to list approximately three times as many words beginning with strong syllables (i.e. syllables containing a full vowel) as beginning with weak syllables (i.e. syllables containing a reduced vowel). Consideration of frequency of lexical word occurrence reveals that words beginning with strong syllables occur on average more often than words beginning with weak syllables. Together, these findings motivate an estimate for everyday speech recognition that approximately 85% of lexical words (i.e. excluding function words) will begin with strong syllables. This estimate was tested against a corpus of 190 000 words of spontaneous British English conversion. In this corpus, 90% of lexical words were found to begin with strong syllables. This suggests that a strategy of postulating word boundaries at the onset of strong syllables would have a high success rate in that few actual lexical word onsets would be missed.
  • Cutler, A. (1987). The task of the speaker and the task of the hearer [Commentary/Sperber & Wilson: Relevance]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 10, 715-716.
  • Cutler, A., & Butterfield, S. (1991). Word boundary cues in clear speech: A supplementary report. Speech Communication, 10, 335-353. doi:10.1016/0167-6393(91)90002-B.

    Abstract

    One of a listener's major tasks in understanding continuous speech is segmenting the speech signal into separate words. When listening conditions are difficult, speakers can help listeners by deliberately speaking more clearly. In four experiments, we examined how word boundaries are produced in deliberately clear speech. In an earlier report we showed that speakers do indeed mark word boundaries in clear speech, by pausing at the boundary and lengthening pre-boundary syllables; moreover, these effects are applied particularly to boundaries preceding weak syllables. In English, listeners use segmentation procedures which make word boundaries before strong syllables easier to perceive; thus marking word boundaries before weak syllables in clear speech will make clear precisely those boundaries which are otherwise hard to perceive. The present report presents supplementary data, namely prosodic analyses of the syllable following a critical word boundary. More lengthening and greater increases in intensity were applied in clear speech to weak syllables than to strong. Mean F0 was also increased to a greater extent on weak syllables than on strong. Pitch movement, however, increased to a greater extent on strong syllables than on weak. The effects were, however, very small in comparison to the durational effects we observed earlier for syllables preceding the boundary and for pauses at the boundary.
  • Damian, M. F., & Abdel Rahman, R. (2003). Semantic priming in the naming of objects and famous faces. British Journal of Psychology, 94(4), 517-527.

    Abstract

    Researchers interested in face processing have recently debated whether access to the name of a known person occurs in parallel with retrieval of semantic-biographical codes, rather than in a sequential fashion. Recently, Schweinberger, Burton, and Kelly (2001) took a failure to obtain a semantic context effect in a manual syllable judgment task on names of famous faces as support for this position. In two experiments, we compared the effects of visually presented categorically related prime words with either objects (e.g. prime: animal; target: dog) or faces of celebrities (e.g. prime: actor; target: Bruce Willis) as targets. Targets were either manually categorized with regard to the number of syllables (as in Schweinberger et al.), or they were overtly named. For neither objects nor faces was semantic priming obtained in syllable decisions; crucially, however, priming was obtained when objects and faces were overtly named. These results suggest that both face and object naming are susceptible to semantic context effects
  • Dimroth, C. (1998). Indiquer la portée en allemand L2: Une étude longitudinale de l'acquisition des particules de portée. AILE (Acquisition et Interaction en Langue étrangère), 11, 11-34.
  • Doherty, M., & Klein, W. (Eds.). (1991). Übersetzung [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (84).
  • Dunn, M. (2003). Pioneers of Island Melanesia project. Oceania Newsletter, 30/31, 1-3.
  • Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., Senft, B., & Senft, G. (1987). Trobriander (Ost-Neuguinea, Trobriand Inseln, Kaile'una) Fadenspiele 'ninikula'. Publikation zu Wissenschaftlichen Filmen, Sektion Ethnologie, 25, 1-15.
  • Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., & Senft, G. (1991). Trobriander (Papua-Neu-guinea, Trobriand -Inseln, Kaile'una) Tänze zur Einleitung des Erntefeier-Rituals. Film E 3129. Trobriander (Papua-Neuguinea, Trobriand-Inseln, Kiriwina); Ausschnitte aus einem Erntefesttanz. Film E3130. Publikationen zu wissenschaftlichen Filmen. Sektion Ethnologie, 17, 1-17.
  • Eisenbeiß, S., Bartke, S., Weyerts, H., & Clahsen, H. (1994). Elizitationsverfahren in der Spracherwerbsforschung: Nominalphrasen, Kasus, Plural, Partizipien. Theorie des Lexikons, 57.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2003). Producing and editing diagrams using co-speech gesture: Spatializing non-spatial relations in explanations of kinship in Laos. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 13(1), 7-50. doi:10.1525/jlin.2003.13.1.7.

    Abstract

    This article presents a description of two sequences of talk by urban speakers of Lao (a southwestern Tai language spoken in Laos) in which co-speech gesture plays a central role in explanations of kinship relations and terminology. The speakers spontaneously use hand gestures and gaze to spatially diagram relationships that have no inherent spatial structure. The descriptive sections of the article are prefaced by a discussion of the semiotic complexity of illustrative gestures and gesture diagrams. Gestured signals feature iconic, indexical, and symbolic components, usually in combination, as well as using motion and three-dimensional space to convey meaning. Such diagrams show temporal persistence and structural integrity despite having been projected in midair by evanescent signals (i.e., handmovements anddirected gaze). Speakers sometimes need or want to revise these spatial representations without destroying their structural integrity. The need to "edit" gesture diagrams involves such techniques as hold-and-drag, hold-and-work-with-free-hand, reassignment-of-old-chunk-tonew-chunk, and move-body-into-new-space.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2003). The definition of WHAT-d'you-call-it: Semantics and pragmatics of 'recognitional deixis'. Journal of Pragmatics, 35(1), 101-117. doi:10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00066-8.

    Abstract

    Words such as what -d'you-call-it raise issues at the heart of the semantics/pragmatics interface. Expressions of this kind are conventionalised and have meanings which, while very general, are explicitly oriented to the interactional nature of the speech context, drawing attention to a speaker's assumption that the listener can figure out what the speaker is referring to. The details of such meanings can account for functional contrast among similar expressions, in a single language as well as cross-linguistically. The English expressions what -d'you-call-it and you-know-what are compared, along with a comparable Lao expression meaning, roughly, ‘that thing’. Proposed definitions of the meanings of these expressions account for their different patterns of use. These definitions include reference to the speech act participants, a point which supports the view that what -d'you-call-it words can be considered deictic. Issues arising from the descriptive section of this paper include the question of how such terms are derived, as well as their degree of conventionality.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2003). Demonstratives in space and interaction: Data from Lao speakers and implications for semantic analysis. Language, 79(1), 82-117.

    Abstract

    The semantics of simple (i.e. two-term) systems of demonstratives have in general hitherto been treated as inherently spatial and as marking a symmetrical opposition of distance (‘proximal’ versus ‘distal’), assuming the speaker as a point of origin. More complex systems are known to add further distinctions, such as visibility or elevation, but are assumed to build on basic distinctions of distance. Despite their inherently context-dependent nature, little previous work has based the analysis of demonstratives on evidence of their use in real interactional situations. In this article, video recordings of spontaneous interaction among speakers of Lao (Southwestern Tai, Laos) are examined in an analysis of the two Lao demonstrative determiners nii4 and nan4. A hypothesis of minimal encoded semantics is tested against rich contextual information, and the hypothesis is shown to be consistent with the data. Encoded conventional meanings must be kept distinct from contingent contextual information and context-dependent pragmatic implicatures. Based on examples of the two Lao demonstrative determiners in exophoric uses, the following claims are made. The term nii4 is a semantically general demonstrative, lacking specification of ANY spatial property (such as location or distance). The term nan4 specifies that the referent is ‘not here’ (encoding ‘location’ but NOT ‘distance’). Anchoring the semantic specification in a deictic primitive ‘here’ allows a strictly discrete intensional distinction to be mapped onto an extensional range of endless elasticity. A common ‘proximal’ spatial interpretation for the semantically more general term nii4 arises from the paradigmatic opposition of the two demonstrative determiners. This kind of analysis suggests a reappraisal of our general understanding of the semantics of demonstrative systems universally. To investigate the question in sufficient detail, however, rich contextual data (preferably collected on video) is necessary
  • Ernestus, M., & Baayen, R. H. (2003). Predicting the unpredictable: The phonological interpretation of neutralized segments in Dutch. Language, 79(1), 5-38.

    Abstract

    Among the most fascinating data for phonology are those showing how speakers incorporate new words and foreign words into their language system, since these data provide cues to the actual principles underlying language. In this article, we address how speakers deal with neutralized obstruents in new words. We formulate four hypotheses and test them on the basis of Dutch word-final obstruents, which are neutral for [voice]. Our experiments show that speakers predict the characteristics ofneutralized segments on the basis ofphonologically similar morphemes stored in the mental lexicon. This effect of the similar morphemes can be modeled in several ways. We compare five models, among them STOCHASTIC OPTIMALITY THEORY and ANALOGICAL MODELING OF LANGUAGE; all perform approximately equally well, but they differ in their complexity, with analogical modeling oflanguage providing the most economical explanation.
  • Felser, C., Roberts, L., Marinis, T., & Gross, R. (2003). The processing of ambiguous sentences by first and second language learners of English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24(3), 453-489.

    Abstract

    This study investigates the way adult second language (L2) learners of English resolve relative clause attachment ambiguities in sentences such as The dean liked the secretary of the professor who was reading a letter. Two groups of advanced L2 learners of English with Greek or German as their first language participated in a set of off-line and on-line tasks. The results indicate that the L2 learners do not process ambiguous sentences of this type in the same way as adult native speakers of English do. Although the learners’ disambiguation preferences were influenced by lexical–semantic properties of the preposition linking the two potential antecedent noun phrases (of vs. with), there was no evidence that they applied any phrase structure–based ambiguity resolution strategies of the kind that have been claimed to influence sentence processing in monolingual adults. The L2 learners’ performance also differs markedly from the results obtained from 6- to 7-year-old monolingual English children in a parallel auditory study, in that the children’s attachment preferences were not affected by the type of preposition at all. We argue that children, monolingual adults, and adult L2 learners differ in the extent to which they are guided by phrase structure and lexical–semantic information during sentence processing.
  • Fisher, S. E., Lai, C. S., & Monaco, a. A. P. (2003). Deciphering the genetic basis of speech and language disorders. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 26, 57-80. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.26.041002.131144.

    Abstract

    A significant number of individuals have unexplained difficulties with acquiring normal speech and language, despite adequate intelligence and environmental stimulation. Although developmental disorders of speech and language are heritable, the genetic basis is likely to involve several, possibly many, different risk factors. Investigations of a unique three-generation family showing monogenic inheritance of speech and language deficits led to the isolation of the first such gene on chromosome 7, which encodes a transcription factor known as FOXP2. Disruption of this gene causes a rare severe speech and language disorder but does not appear to be involved in more common forms of language impairment. Recent genome-wide scans have identified at least four chromosomal regions that may harbor genes influencing the latter, on chromosomes 2, 13, 16, and 19. The molecular genetic approach has potential for dissecting neurological pathways underlying speech and language disorders, but such investigations are only just beginning.
  • Fisher, S. E., Vargha-Khadem, F., Watkins, K. E., Monaco, A. P., & Pembrey, M. E. (1998). Localisation of a gene implicated in a severe speech and language disorder. Nature Genetics, 18, 168 -170. doi:10.1038/ng0298-168.

    Abstract

    Between 2 and 5% of children who are otherwise unimpaired have significant difficulties in acquiring expressive and/or receptive language, despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. While twin studies indicate a significant role for genetic factors in developmental disorders of speech and language, the majority of families segregating such disorders show complex patterns of inheritance, and are thus not amenable for conventional linkage analysis. A rare exception is the KE family, a large three-generation pedigree in which approximately half of the members are affected with a severe speech and language disorder which appears to be transmitted as an autosomal dominant monogenic trait. This family has been widely publicised as suffering primarily from a defect in the use of grammatical suffixation rules, thus supposedly supporting the existence of genes specific to grammar. The phenotype, however, is broader in nature, with virtually every aspect of grammar and of language affected. In addition, affected members have a severe orofacial dyspraxia, and their speech is largely incomprehensible to the naive listener. We initiated a genome-wide search for linkage in the KE family and have identified a region on chromosome 7 which co-segregates with the speech and language disorder (maximum lod score = 6.62 at theta = 0.0), confirming autosomal dominant inheritance with full penetrance. Further analysis of microsatellites from within the region enabled us to fine map the locus responsible (designated SPCH1) to a 5.6-cM interval in 7q31, thus providing an important step towards its identification. Isolation of SPCH1 may offer the first insight into the molecular genetics of the developmental process that culminates in speech and language.
  • Fisher, S. E., Black, G. C. M., Lloyd, S. E., Wrong, O. M., Thakker, R. V., & Craig, I. W. (1994). Isolation and partial characterization of a chloride channel gene which is expressed in kidney and is a candidate for Dent's disease (an X-linked hereditary nephrolithiasis). Human Molecular Genetics, 3, 2053-2059.

    Abstract

    Dent's disease, an X-linked renal tubular disorder, is a form of Fanconi syndrome which is characterized by proteinuria, hypercalciuria, nephrocalcinosis, kidney stones and renal failure. Previous studies localised the gene responsible to Xp11.22, within a microdeletion involving the hypervariable locus DXS255. Further analysis using new probes which flank this locus indicate that the deletion is less than 515 kb. A 185 kb YAC containing DXS255 was used to screen a cDNA library from adult kidney in order to isolate coding sequences falling within the deleted region which may be implicated in the disease aetiology. We identified two clones which are evolutionarily conserved, and detect a 9.5 kb transcript which is expressed predominantly in the kidney. Sequence analysis of 780 bp of ORF from the clones suggests that the identified gene, termed hCIC-K2, encodes a new member of the CIC family of voltage-gated chloride channels. Genomic fragments detected by the cDNA clones are completely absent in patients who have an associated microdeletion. On the basis of the expression pattern, proposed function and deletion mapping, hCIC-K2 is a strong candidate for Dent's disease.
  • Francks, C., DeLisi, L. E., Fisher, S. E., Laval, S. H., Rue, J. E., Stein, J. F., & Monaco, A. P. (2003). Confirmatory evidence for linkage of relative hand skill to 2p12-q11 [Letter to the editor]. American Journal of Human Genetics, 72(2), 499-502. doi:10.1086/367548.
  • Francks, C., Fisher, S. E., Marlow, A. J., MacPhie, I. L., Taylor, K. E., Richardson, A. J., Stein, J. F., & Monaco, A. P. (2003). Familial and genetic effects on motor coordination, laterality, and reading-related cognition. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(11), 1970-1977. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.160.11.1970.

    Abstract

    OBJECTIVE: Recent research has provided evidence for a genetically mediated association between language or reading-related cognitive deficits and impaired motor coordination. Other studies have identified relationships between lateralization of hand skill and cognitive abilities. With a large sample, the authors aimed to investigate genetic relationships between measures of reading-related cognition, hand motor skill, and hand skill lateralization.

    METHOD: The authors applied univariate and bivariate correlation and familiality analyses to a range of measures. They also performed genomewide linkage analysis of hand motor skill in a subgroup of 195 sibling pairs.

    RESULTS: Hand motor skill was significantly familial (maximum heritability=41%), as were reading-related measures. Hand motor skill was weakly but significantly correlated with reading-related measures, such as nonword reading and irregular word reading. However, these correlations were not significantly familial in nature, and the authors did not observe linkage of hand motor skill to any chromosomal regions implicated in susceptibility to dyslexia. Lateralization of hand skill was not correlated with reading or cognitive ability.

    CONCLUSIONS: The authors confirmed a relationship between lower motor ability and poor reading performance. However, the genetic effects on motor skill and reading ability appeared to be largely or wholly distinct, suggesting that the correlation between these traits may have arisen from environmental influences. Finally, the authors found no evidence that reading disability and/or low general cognitive ability were associated with ambidexterity.
  • Francks, C., DeLisi, L. E., Shaw, S. H., Fisher, S. E., Richardson, A. J., Stein, J. F., & Monaco, A. P. (2003). Parent-of-origin effects on handedness and schizophrenia susceptibility on chromosome 2p12-q11. Human Molecular Genetics, 12(24), 3225-3230. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddg362.

    Abstract

    Schizophrenia and non-right-handedness are moderately associated, and both traits are often accompanied by abnormalities of asymmetrical brain morphology or function. We have found linkage previously of chromosome 2p12-q11 to a quantitative measure of handedness, and we have also found linkage of schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder to this same chromosomal region in a separate study. Now, we have found that in one of our samples (191 reading-disabled sibling pairs), the relative hand skill of siblings was correlated more strongly with paternal than maternal relative hand skill. This led us to re-analyse 2p12-q11 under parent-of-origin linkage models. We found linkage of relative hand skill in the RD siblings to 2p12-q11 with P=0.0000037 for paternal identity-by-descent sharing, whereas the maternally inherited locus was not linked to the trait (P>0.2). Similarly, in affected-sib-pair analysis of our schizophrenia dataset (241 sibling pairs), we found linkage to schizophrenia for paternal sharing with LOD=4.72, P=0.0000016, within 3 cM of the peak linkage to relative hand skill. Maternal linkage across the region was weak or non-significant. These similar paternal-specific linkages suggest that the causative genetic effects on 2p12-q11 are related. The linkages may be due to a single maternally imprinted influence on lateralized brain development that contains common functional polymorphisms.
  • Frank, S. L., Koppen, M., Noordman, L. G. M., & Vonk, W. (2003). Modeling knowledge-based inferences in story comprehension. Cognitive Science, 27(6), 875-910. doi:10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.07.002.

    Abstract

    A computational model of inference during story comprehension is presented, in which story situations are represented distributively as points in a high-dimensional “situation-state space.” This state space organizes itself on the basis of a constructed microworld description. From the same description, causal/temporal world knowledge is extracted. The distributed representation of story situations is more flexible than Golden and Rumelhart’s [Discourse Proc 16 (1993) 203] localist representation. A story taking place in the microworld corresponds to a trajectory through situation-state space. During the inference process, world knowledge is applied to the story trajectory. This results in an adjusted trajectory, reflecting the inference of propositions that are likely to be the case. Although inferences do not result from a search for coherence, they do cause story coherence to increase. The results of simulations correspond to empirical data concerning inference, reading time, and depth of processing. An extension of the model for simulating story retention shows how coherence is preserved during retention without controlling the retention process. Simulation results correspond to empirical data concerning story recall and intrusion.
  • Friederici, A., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1987). Resolving perceptual conflicts: The cognitive mechanism of spatial orientation. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, 58(9), A164-A169.
  • Ghatan, P. H., Hsieh, J. C., Petersson, K. M., Stone-Elander, S., & Ingvar, M. (1998). Coexistence of attention-based facilitation and inhibition in the human cortex. NeuroImage, 7, 23-29.

    Abstract

    A key function of attention is to select an appropriate subset of available information by facilitation of attended processes and/or inhibition of irrelevant processing. Functional imaging studies, using positron emission tomography, have during different experimental tasks revealed decreased neuronal activity in areas that process input from unattended sensory modalities. It has been hypothesized that these decreases reflect a selective inhibitory modulation of nonrelevant cortical processing. In this study we addressed this question using a continuous arithmetical task with and without concomitant disturbing auditory input (task-irrelevant speech). During the arithmetical task, irrelevant speech did not affect task-performance but yielded decreased activity in the auditory and midcingulate cortices and increased activity in the left posterior parietal cortex. This pattern of modulation is consistent with a top down inhibitory modulation of a nonattended input to the auditory cortex and a coexisting, attention-based facilitation of taskrelevant processing in higher order cortices. These findings suggest that task-related decreases in cortical activity may be of functional importance in the understanding of both attentional mechanisms and taskrelated information processing.
  • Gisselgard, J., Petersson, K. M., Baddeley, A., & Ingvar, M. (2003). The irrelevant speech effect: A PET study. Neuropsychologia, 41, 1899-1911. doi:10.1016/S0028-3932(03)00122-2.

    Abstract

    Positron emission tomography (PET) was performed in normal volunteers during a serial recall task under the influence of irrelevant speech comprising both single item repetition and multi-item sequences. An interaction approach was used to identify brain areas specifically related to the irrelevant speech effect. We interpreted activations as compensatory recruitment of complementary working memory processing, and decreased activity in terms of suppression of task relevant areas invoked by the irrelevant speech. The interaction between the distractors and working memory revealed a significant effect in the left, and to a lesser extent in the right, superior temporal region, indicating that initial phonological processing was relatively suppressed. Additional areas of decreased activity were observed in an a priori defined cortical network related to verbalworking memory, incorporating the bilateral superior temporal and inferior/middle frontal corticesn extending into Broca’s area on the left. We also observed a weak activation in the left inferior parietal cortex, a region suggested to reflect the phonological store, the subcomponent where the interference is assumed to take place. The results suggest that the irrelevant speech effect is correlated with and thus tentatively may be explained in terms of a suppression of components of the verbal working memory network as outlined. The results can be interpreted in terms of inhibitory top–down attentional mechanisms attenuating the influence of the irrelevant speech, although additional studies are clearly necessary to more fully characterize the nature of this phenomenon and its theoretical implications for existing short-term memory models
  • Le Guen, O. (2003). Quand les morts reviennent, réflexion sur l'ancestralité chez les Mayas des Basses Terres. Journal de la Société des Américanistes, 89(2), 171-205.

    Abstract

    When the dead come home… Remarks on ancestor worship among the Lowland Mayas. In Amerindian ethnographical literature, ancestor worship is often mentioned but evidence of its existence is lacking. This article will try to demonstrate that some Lowland Maya do worship ancestors ; it will use precise criteria taken from ethnological studies of societies where ancestor worship is common, compared to maya beliefs and practices. The All Souls’ Day, or hanal pixan, seems to be the most significant manifestation of this cult. Our approach will be comparative, through time – using colonial and ethnographical data of the twentieth century, and space – contemplating uses and beliefs of two maya groups, the Yucatec and the Lacandon Maya.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1991). Rethinking linguistic relativity. Current Anthropology, 32(5), 613-623. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743696.
  • Hagoort, P., Wassenaar, M., & Brown, C. M. (2003). Syntax-related ERP-effects in Dutch. Cognitive Brain Research, 16(1), 38-50. doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00208-2.

    Abstract

    In two studies subjects were required to read Dutch sentences that in some cases contained a syntactic violation, in other cases a semantic violation. All syntactic violations were word category violations. The design excluded differential contributions of expectancy to influence the syntactic violation effects. The syntactic violations elicited an Anterior Negativity between 300 and 500 ms. This negativity was bilateral and had a frontal distribution. Over posterior sites the same violations elicited a P600/SPS starting at about 600 ms. The semantic violations elicited an N400 effect. The topographic distribution of the AN was more frontal than the distribution of the classical N400 effect, indicating that the underlying generators of the AN and the N400 are, at least to a certain extent, non-overlapping. Experiment 2 partly replicated the design of Experiment 1, but with differences in rate of presentation and in the distribution of items over subjects, and without semantic violations. The word category violations resulted in the same effects as were observed in Experiment 1, showing that they were independent of some of the specific parameters of Experiment 1. The discussion presents a tentative account of the functional differences in the triggering conditions of the AN and the P600/SPS.
  • Hagoort, P., Wassenaar, M., & Brown, C. M. (2003). Real-time semantic compensation in patients with agrammatic comprehension: Electrophysiological evidence for multiple-route plasticity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100(7), 4340-4345. doi:10.1073/pnas.0230613100.

    Abstract

    To understand spoken language requires that the brain provides rapid access to different kinds of knowledge, including the sounds and meanings of words, and syntax. Syntax specifies constraints on combining words in a grammatically well formed manner. Agrammatic patients are deficient in their ability to use these constraints, due to a lesion in the perisylvian area of the languagedominant hemisphere. We report a study on real-time auditory sentence processing in agrammatic comprehenders, examining
    their ability to accommodate damage to the language system. We recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in agrammatic comprehenders, nonagrammatic aphasics, and age-matched controls. When listening to sentences with grammatical violations, the agrammatic aphasics did not show the same syntax-related ERP effect as the two other subject groups. Instead, the waveforms of the agrammatic aphasics were dominated by a meaning-related ERP effect, presumably reflecting their attempts to achieve understanding by the use of semantic constraints. These data demonstrate that although agrammatic aphasics are impaired in their ability to exploit syntactic information in real time, they can reduce the consequences of a syntactic deficit by exploiting a semantic route. They thus provide evidence for the compensation of a syntactic deficit by a stronger reliance on another route in mapping
    sound onto meaning. This is a form of plasticity that we refer to as multiple-route plasticity.
  • Hagoort, P. (1994). Afasie als een tekort aan tijd voor spreken en verstaan. De Psycholoog, 4, 153-154.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). De electrofysiologie van taal: Wat hersenpotentialen vertellen over het menselijk taalvermogen. Neuropraxis, 2, 223-229.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). De spreker als sprinter. Psychologie, 17, 48-49.
  • Hagoort, P. (2003). How the brain solves the binding problem for language: A neurocomputational model of syntactic processing. NeuroImage, 20(suppl. 1), S18-S29. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.09.013.

    Abstract

    Syntax is one of the components in the architecture of language processing that allows the listener/reader to bind single-word information into a unified interpretation of multiword utterances. This paper discusses ERP effects that have been observed in relation to syntactic processing. The fact that these effects differ from the semantic N400 indicates that the brain honors the distinction between semantic and syntactic binding operations. Two models of syntactic processing attempt to account for syntax-related ERP effects. One type of model is serial, with a first phase that is purely syntactic in nature (syntax-first model). The other type of model is parallel and assumes that information immediately guides the interpretation process once it becomes available. This is referred to as the immediacy model. ERP evidence is presented in support of the latter model. Next, an explicit computational model is proposed to explain the ERP data. This Unification Model assumes that syntactic frames are stored in memory and retrieved on the basis of the spoken or written word form input. The syntactic frames associated with the individual lexical items are unified by a dynamic binding process into a structural representation that spans the whole utterance. On the basis of a meta-analysis of imaging studies on syntax, it is argued that the left posterior inferior frontal cortex is involved in binding syntactic frames together, whereas the left superior temporal cortex is involved in retrieval of the syntactic frames stored in memory. Lesion data that support the involvement of this left frontotemporal network in syntactic processing are discussed.
  • Hagoort, P. (2003). Interplay between syntax and semantics during sentence comprehension: ERP effects of combining syntactic and semantic violations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(6), 883-899. doi:10.1162/089892903322370807.

    Abstract

    This study investigated the effects of combined semantic and syntactic violations in relation to the effects of single semantic and single syntactic violations on language-related event-related brain potential (ERP) effects (N400 and P600/ SPS). Syntactic violations consisted of a mismatch in grammatical gender or number features of the definite article and the noun in sentence-internal or sentence-final noun phrases (NPs). Semantic violations consisted of semantically implausible adjective–noun combinations in the same NPs. Combined syntactic and semantic violations were a summation of these two respective violation types. ERPs were recorded while subjects read the sentences with the different types of violations and the correct control sentences. ERP effects were computed relative to ERPs elicited by the sentence-internal or sentence-final nouns. The size of the N400 effect to the semantic violation was increased by an additional syntactic violation (the syntactic boost). In contrast, the size of the P600/ SPS to the syntactic violation was not affected by an additional semantic violation. This suggests that in the absence of syntactic ambiguity, the assignment of syntactic structure is independent of semantic context. However, semantic integration is influenced by syntactic processing. In the sentence-final position, additional global processing consequences were obtained as a result of earlier violations in the sentence. The resulting increase in the N400 amplitude to sentence-final words was independent of the nature of the violation. A speeded anomaly detection task revealed that it takes substantially longer to detect semantic than syntactic anomalies. These results are discussed in relation to the latency and processing characteristics of the N400 and P600/SPS effects. Overall, the results reveal an asymmetry in the interplay between syntax and semantics during on-line sentence comprehension.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). Hersenen en taal in onderzoek en praktijk. Neuropraxis, 6, 204-205.
  • Hagoort, P. (1994). Het brein op een kier: Over hersenen gesproken. Psychologie, 13, 42-46.
  • Haun, D. B. M. (2003). What's so special about spatial cognition. De Psychonoom, 18, 3-4.
  • Hayano, K. (2003). Self-presentation as a face-threatening act: A comparative study of self-oriented topic introduction in English and Japanese. Veritas, 24, 45-58.
  • Holler, J., & Beattie, G. (2003). How iconic gestures and speech interact in the representation of meaning: are both aspects really integral to the process? Semiotica, 146, 81-116.
  • Holler, J., & Beattie, G. (2003). Pragmatic aspects of representational gestures: Do speakers use them to clarify verbal ambiguity for the listener? Gesture, 3, 127-154.
  • Indefrey, P. (1998). De neurale architectuur van taal: Welke hersengebieden zijn betrokken bij het spreken. Neuropraxis, 2(6), 230-237.
  • Indefrey, P., Gruber, O., Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P., Posse, S., & Kleinschmidt, A. (1998). Lexicality and not syllable frequency determine lateralized premotor activation during the pronunciation of word-like stimuli: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 7, S4.
  • Janse, E., Nooteboom, S. G., & Quené, H. (2003). Word-level intelligibility of time-compressed speech: Prosodic and segmental factors. Speech Communication, 41, 287-301. doi:10.1016/S0167-6393(02)00130-9.

    Abstract

    In this study we investigate whether speakers, in line with the predictions of the Hyper- and Hypospeech theory, speed up most during the least informative parts and less during the more informative parts, when they are asked to speak faster. We expected listeners to benefit from these changes in timing, and our main goal was to find out whether making the temporal organisation of artificially time-compressed speech more like that of natural fast speech would improve intelligibility over linear time compression. Our production study showed that speakers reduce unstressed syllables more than stressed syllables, thereby making the prosodic pattern more pronounced. We extrapolated fast speech timing to even faster rates because we expected that the more salient prosodic pattern could be exploited in difficult listening situations. However, at very fast speech rates, applying fast speech timing worsens intelligibility. We argue that the non-uniform way of speeding up may not be due to an underlying communicative principle, but may result from speakers’ inability to speed up otherwise. As both prosodic and segmental information contribute to word recognition, we conclude that extrapolating fast speech timing to extremely fast rates distorts this balance between prosodic and segmental information.
  • Jescheniak, J. D., Levelt, W. J. M., & Meyer, A. S. (2003). Specific word frequency is not all that counts in speech production: Comments on Caramazza, Costa, et al. (2001) and new experimental data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 29(3), 432-438. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.29.3.432.

    Abstract

    A. Caramazza, A. Costa, M. Miozzo, and Y. Bi(2001) reported a series of experiments demonstrating that the ease of producing a word depends only on the frequency of that specific word but not on the frequency of a homophone twin. A. Caramazza, A. Costa, et al. concluded that homophones have separate word form representations and that the absence of frequency-inheritance effects for homophones undermines an important argument in support of 2-stage models of lexical access, which assume that syntactic (lemma) representations mediate between conceptual and phonological representations. The authors of this article evaluate the empirical basis of this conclusion, report 2 experiments demonstrating a frequency-inheritance effect, and discuss other recent evidence. It is concluded that homophones share a common word form and that the distinction between lemmas and word forms should be upheld.
  • Jescheniak, J. D., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1994). Word frequency effects in speech production: Retrieval of syntactic information and of phonological form. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20(4), 824-843.

    Abstract

    In 7 experiments the authors investigated the locus of word frequency effects in speech production. Experiment 1 demonstrated a frequency effect in picture naming that was robust over repetitions. Experiments 2, 3, and 7 excluded contributions from object identification and initiation of articulation. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated whether the effect arises in accessing the syntactic word (lemma) by using a grammatical gender decision task. Although a frequency effect was found, it dissipated under repeated access to word's gender. Experiment 6 tested whether the robust frequency effect arises in accessing the phonological form (lexeme) by having Ss translate words that produced homophones. Low-frequent homophones behaved like high-frequent controls, inheriting the accessing speed of their high-frequent homophone twins. Because homophones share the lexeme, not the lemma, this suggests a lexeme-level origin of the robust effect.
  • Johnson, E. K., Jusczyk, P. W., Cutler, A., & Norris, D. (2003). Lexical viability constraints on speech segmentation by infants. Cognitive Psychology, 46(1), 65-97. doi:10.1016/S0010-0285(02)00507-8.

    Abstract

    The Possible Word Constraint limits the number of lexical candidates considered in speech recognition by stipulating that input should be parsed into a string of lexically viable chunks. For instance, an isolated single consonant is not a feasible word candidate. Any segmentation containing such a chunk is disfavored. Five experiments using the head-turn preference procedure investigated whether, like adults, 12-month-olds observe this constraint in word recognition. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants were familiarized with target words (e.g., rush), then tested on lists of nonsense items containing these words in “possible” (e.g., “niprush” [nip + rush]) or “impossible” positions (e.g., “prush” [p + rush]). The infants listened significantly longer to targets in “possible” versus “impossible” contexts when targets occurred at the end of nonsense items (rush in “prush”), but not when they occurred at the beginning (tan in “tance”). In Experiments 3 and 4, 12-month-olds were similarly familiarized with target words, but test items were real words in sentential contexts (win in “wind” versus “window”). The infants listened significantly longer to words in the “possible” condition regardless of target location. Experiment 5 with targets at the beginning of isolated real words (e.g., win in “wind”) replicated Experiment 2 in showing no evidence of viability effects in beginning position. Taken together, the findings suggest that, in situations in which 12-month-olds are required to rely on their word segmentation abilities, they give evidence of observing lexical viability constraints in the way that they parse fluent speech.
  • Kempen, G., Anbeek, G., Desain, P., Konst, L., & De Smedt, K. (1987). Auteursomgevingen: Vijfde-generatie tekstverwerkers. Informatie, 29, 988-993.
  • Kempen, G. (1991). Conjunction reduction and gapping in clause-level coordination: An inheritance-based approach. Computational Intelligence, 7, 357-360. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8640.1991.tb00406.x.
  • Kempen, G. (1994). De mythe van het woordbeeld: Spellingherziening taalpsychologisch doorgelicht. Spektator, tijdschrift voor Neerlandistiek, 23, 292-301.
  • Kempen, G. (1998). Comparing and explaining the trajectories of first and second language acquisition: In search of the right mix of psychological and linguistic factors [Commentory]. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1, 29-30. doi:10.1017/S1366728998000066.

    Abstract

    When you compare the behavior of two different age groups which are trying to master the same sensori-motor or cognitive skill, you are likely to discover varying learning routes: different stages, different intervals between stages, or even different orderings of stages. Such heterogeneous learning trajectories may be caused by at least six different types of factors: (1) Initial state: the kinds and levels of skills the learners have available at the onset of the learning episode. (2) Learning mechanisms: rule-based, inductive, connectionist, parameter setting, and so on. (3) Input and feedback characteristics: learning stimuli, information about success and failure. (4) Information processing mechanisms: capacity limitations, attentional biases, response preferences. (5) Energetic variables: motivation, emotional reactions. (6) Final state: the fine-structure of kinds and levels of subskills at the end of the learning episode. This applies to language acquisition as well. First and second language learners probably differ on all six factors. Nevertheless, the debate between advocates and opponents of the Fundamental Difference Hypothesis concerning L1 and L2 acquisition have looked almost exclusively at the first two factors. Those who believe that L1 learners have access to Universal Grammar whereas L2 learners rely on language processing strategies, postulate different learning mechanisms (UG parameter setting in L1, more general inductive strategies in L2 learning). Pienemann opposes this view and, based on his Processability Theory, argues that L1 and L2 learners start out from different initial states: they come to the grammar learning task with different structural hypotheses (SOV versus SVO as basic word order of German).
  • Kempen, G., & Hoenkamp, E. (1987). An incremental procedural grammar for sentence formulation. Cognitive Science, 11(2), 201-258.

    Abstract

    This paper presents a theory of the syntactic aspects of human sentence production. An important characteristic of unprepared speech is that overt pronunciation of a sentence can be initiated before the speaker has completely worked out the meaning content he or she is going to express in that sentence. Apparently, the speaker is able to build up a syntactically coherent utterance out of a series of syntactic fragments each rendering a new part of the meaning content. This incremental, left-to-right mode of sentence production is the central capability of the proposed Incremental Procedural Grammar (IPG). Certain other properties of spontaneous speech, as derivable from speech errors, hesitations, self-repairs, and language pathology, are accounted for as well. The psychological plausibility thus gained by the grammar appears compatible with a satisfactory level of linguistic plausibility in that sentences receive structural descriptions which are in line with current theories of grammar. More importantly, an explanation for the existence of configurational conditions on transformations and other linguistics rules is proposed. The basic design feature of IPG which gives rise to these psychologically and linguistically desirable properties, is the “Procedures + Stack” concept. Sentences are built not by a central constructing agency which overlooks the whole process but by a team of syntactic procedures (modules) which work-in parallel-on small parts of the sentence, have only a limited overview, and whose sole communication channel is a stock. IPG covers object complement constructions, interrogatives, and word order in main and subordinate clauses. It handles unbounded dependencies, cross-serial dependencies and coordination phenomena such as gapping and conjunction reduction. It is also capable of generating self-repairs and elliptical answers to questions. IPG has been implemented as an incremental Dutch sentence generator written in LISP.
  • Kempen, G., & Harbusch, K. (2003). An artificial opposition between grammaticality and frequency: Comment on Bornkessel, Schlesewsky & Friederici (2002). Cognition, 90(2), 205-210 [Rectification on p. 215]. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(03)00145-8.

    Abstract

    In a recent Cognition paper (Cognition 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim “show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of grammatical principles during parsing” (p. B21). In this commentary we demonstrate that the posited contrast between grammatical principles and construction (in)frequency as sources of parsing problems is artificial because it is based on factually incorrect assumptions about the grammar of German and on inaccurate corpus frequency data concerning the German constructions involved.
  • Kempen, G. (1994). In de grammaticadiscussie is de empirie aan zet. Levende Talen, 486, 27-28.
  • Kempen, G. (1994). Klare taal: Zicht op zinsbouw. Natuur en Techniek, 62, 380-391.

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