Publications

Displaying 101 - 200 of 275
  • Hagoort, P. (2014). Introduction to section on language and abstract thought. In M. S. Gazzaniga, & G. R. Mangun (Eds.), The cognitive neurosciences (5th ed., pp. 615-618). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  • Hagoort, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2014). Neuropragmatics. In M. S. Gazzaniga, & G. R. Mangun (Eds.), The cognitive neurosciences (5th ed., pp. 667-674). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  • Hagoort, P. (2009). Reflections on the neurobiology of syntax. In D. Bickerton, & E. Szathmáry (Eds.), Biological foundations and origin of syntax (pp. 279-296). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

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

    Abstract

    Language and communication are about the exchange of meaning. A key feature of understanding and producing language is the construction of complex meaning from more elementary semantic building blocks. The functional characteristics of this semantic unification process are revealed by studies using event related brain potentials. These studies have found that word meaning is assembled into compound meaning in not more than 500 ms. World knowledge, information about the speaker, co-occurring visual input and discourse all have an immediate impact on semantic unification, and trigger similar electrophysiological responses as sentence-internal semantic information. Neuroimaging studies show that a network of brain areas, including the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left superior/middle temporal cortex, the left inferior parietal cortex and, to a lesser extent their right hemisphere homologues are recruited to perform semantic unification.
  • Hagoort, P. (2009). Taalontwikkeling: Meer dan woorden alleen. In M. Evenblij (Ed.), Brein in beeld: Beeldvorming bij heersenonderzoek (pp. 53-57). Den Haag: Stichting Bio-Wetenschappen en Maatschappij.
  • Hagoort, P. (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.
  • Hammarström, H. (2014). Basic vocabulary comparison in South American languages. In P. Muysken, & L. O'Connor (Eds.), Language contact in South America (pp. 56-72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hammarström, H. (2014). Papuan languages. In M. Aronoff (Ed.), Oxford bibliographies in linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780199772810-0165.
  • Hammond, J. (2014). Switch-reference antecedence and subordination in Whitesands (Oceanic). In R. van Gijn, J. Hammond, D. Matić, S. van Putten, & A. V. Galucio (Eds.), Information structure and reference tracking in complex sentences. (pp. 263-290). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Whitesands is an Oceanic language of the southern Vanuatu subgroup. Like the related languages of southern Vanuatu, Whitesands has developed a clause-linkage system which monitors referent continuity on new clauses – typically contrasting with the previous clause. In this chapter I address how the construction interacts with topic continuity in discourse. I outline the morphosyntactic form of this anaphoric co-reference device. From a functionalist perspective, I show how the system is used in natural discourse and discuss its restrictions with respect to relative and complement clauses. I conclude with a discussion on its interactions with theoretical notions of information structure – in particular the nature of presupposed versus asserted clauses, information back- and foregrounding and how these affect the use of the switch-reference system
  • Hanulikova, A. (2009). The role of syllabification in the lexical segmentation of German and Slovak. In S. Fuchs, H. Loevenbruck, D. Pape, & P. Perrier (Eds.), Some aspects of speech and the brain (pp. 331-361). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

    Abstract

    Two experiments were carried out to examine the syllable affiliation of intervocalic consonant clusters and their effects on speech segmentation in two different languages. In a syllable reversal task, Slovak and German speakers divided bisyllabic non-words that were presented aurally into two parts, starting with the second syllable. Following the maximal onset principle, intervocalic consonants should be maximally assigned to the onset of the following syllable in conformity with language-specific restrictions, e.g., /du.gru/, /zu.kro:/ (dot indicates a syllable boundary). According to German phonology, syllables require branching rhymes (hence, /zuk.ro:/). In Slovak, both /du.gru/ and /dug.ru/ are possible syllabifications. Experiment 1 showed that German speakers more often closed the first syllable (/zuk.ro:/), following the requirement for a branching rhyme. In Experiment 2, Slovak speakers showed no clear preference; the first syllable was either closed (/dug.ru/) or open (/du.gru/). Correlation analyses on previously conducted word-spotting studies (Hanulíková, in press, 2008) suggest that speech segmentation is unaffected by these syllabification preferences.
  • Holler, J. (2014). Experimental methods in co-speech gesture research. In C. Mueller, A. Cienki, D. McNeill, & E. Fricke (Eds.), Body -language – communication: An international handbook on multimodality in human interaction. Volume 1 (pp. 837-856). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Huettig, F. (2014). Role of prediction in language learning. In P. J. Brooks, & V. Kempe (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language development (pp. 479-481). London: Sage Publications.
  • Hurford, J. R., & Dediu, D. (2009). Diversity in language, genes and the language faculty. In R. Botha, & C. Knight (Eds.), The cradle of language (pp. 167-188). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Indefrey, P., & Davidson, D. J. (2009). Second language acquisition. In L. R. Squire (Ed.), Encyclopedia of neuroscience (pp. 517-523). London: Academic Press.

    Abstract

    This article reviews neurocognitive evidence on second language (L2) processing at speech sound, word, and sentence levels. Hemodynamic (functional magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography) data suggest that L2s are implemented in the same brain structures as the native language but with quantitative differences in the strength of activation that are modulated by age of L2 acquisition and L2 proficiency. Electrophysiological data show a more complex pattern of first and L2 similarities and differences, providing some, although not conclusive, evidence for qualitative differences between L1 and L2 syntactic processing.
  • Jolink, A. (2009). Finiteness in children with SLI: A functional approach. In C. Dimroth, & P. Jordens (Eds.), Functional categories in learner language (pp. 235-260). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Jordens, P. (1998). Defaultformen des Präteritums. Zum Erwerb der Vergangenheitsmorphologie im Niederlänidischen. In H. Wegener (Ed.), Eine zweite Sprache lernen (pp. 61-88). Tübingen, Germany: Verlag Gunter Narr.
  • Jordens, P., & Dimroth, C. (2006). Finiteness in children and adults learning Dutch. In N. Gagarina, & I. Gülzow (Eds.), The acquisition of verbs and their grammar: The effect of particular languages (pp. 173-200). Dordrecht: Springer.
  • Jordens, P. (2006). Inversion as an artifact: The acquisition of topicalization in child L1- and adult L2-Dutch. In S. H. Foster-Cohen, M. Medved Krajnovic, & J. Mihaljevic Djigunovic (Eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 6 (pp. 101-120).
  • Jordens, P. (2009). The acquisition of functional categories in child L1 and adult L2 acquisition. In C. Dimroth, & P. Jordens (Eds.), Functional categories in learner language (pp. 45-96). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Kashima, Y., Kashima, E. S., & Kidd, E. (2014). Language and culture. In T. M. Holtgraves (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Language and Social Psychology (pp. 46-61). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Kempen, G., Anbeek, G., Desain, P., Konst, L., & De Semdt, K. (1987). Author environments: Fifth generation text processors. In Commission of the European Communities. Directorate-General for Telecommunications, Information Industries, and Innovation (Ed.), Esprit'86: Results and achievements (pp. 365-372). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.
  • Kempen, G., Anbeek, G., Desain, P., Konst, L., & De Smedt, K. (1987). Author environments: Fifth generation text processors. In Commission of the European Communities. Directorate-General for Telecommunications, Information Industries, and Innovation (Ed.), Esprit'86: Results and achievements (pp. 365-372). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.
  • Kempen, G. (1998). Sentence parsing. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 213-228). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kendrick, K. H., & Drew, P. (2014). The putative preference for offers over requests. In P. Drew, & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Requesting in Social Interaction (pp. 87-113). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

    Abstract

    Requesting and offering are closely related, insofar as they are activities associated with someone’s need for assistance. It has been supposed (e.g., Schegloff 2007) that requests and offers are not equivalent actions – specifically that offers are preferred actions and requests are dispreferred. We review the evidence for this claim across a corpus of requests and offers and demonstrate that the empirical evidence does not support the claim for a putative preference for offers over requests. Further consideration of the often symbiotic relationships between requesting and offering, particularly in face-to-face interactions, reveals a more complex picture of the ways in which people recruit others to help, or in which others are mobilized to help.
  • Kidd, E. (2006). The acquisition of complement clause constructions. In E. V. Clark, & B. F. Kelly (Eds.), Constructions in acquisition (pp. 311-332). Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
  • Klaas, G. (2009). Hints and recommendations concerning field equipment. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. VI-VII). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Klein, W. (2006). On finiteness. In V. Van Geenhoven (Ed.), Semantics in acquisition (pp. 245-272). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Abstract

    The distinction between finite and non-finite verb forms is well-established but not particularly well-defined. It cannot just be a matter of verb morphology, because it is also made when there is hardly any morphological difference: by far most English verb forms can be finite as well as non-finite. More importantly, many structural phenomena are clearly associated with the presence or absence of finiteness, a fact which is clearly reflected in the early stages of first and second language acquisition. In syntax, these include basic word order rules, gapping, the licensing of a grammatical subject and the licensing of expletives. In semantics, the specific interpretation of indefinite noun phrases is crucially linked to the presence of a finite element. These phenomena are surveyed, and it is argued that finiteness (a) links the descriptive content of the sentence (the 'sentence basis') to its topic component (in particular, to its topic time), and (b) it confines the illocutionary force to that topic component. In a declarative main clause, for example, the assertion is confined to a particular time, the topic time. It is shown that most of the syntactic and semantic effects connected to finiteness naturally follow from this assumption.
  • Klein, W. (1984). Bühler Ellipse. In C. F. Graumann, & T. Herrmann (Eds.), Karl Bühlers Axiomatik: Fünfzig Jahre Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaften (pp. 117-141). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
  • Klein, W. (2009). Concepts of time. In W. Klein, & P. Li (Eds.), The expression of time (pp. 5-38). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Klein, W. (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. (1998). Assertion and finiteness. In N. Dittmar, & Z. Penner (Eds.), Issues in the theory of language acquisition: Essays in honor of Jürgen Weissenborn (pp. 225-245). Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Klein, W. (2009). Finiteness, universal grammar, and the language faculty. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 333-344). New York: Psychology Press.
  • Klein, W. (2009). How time is encoded. In W. Klein, & P. Li (Eds.), The expression of time (pp. 39-82). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Klein, W. (1987). L'espressione della temporalita in una varieta elementare di L2. In A. Ramat (Ed.), L'apprendimento spontaneo di una seconda lingua (pp. 131-146). Bologna: Molino.
  • Klein, W., & Li, P. (2009). Introduction. In W. Klein, & P. Li (Eds.), The expression of time (pp. 1-4). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Klein, W., & Vater, H. (1998). The perfect in English and German. In L. Kulikov, & H. Vater (Eds.), Typology of verbal categories: Papers presented to Vladimir Nedjalkov on the occasion of his 70th birthday (pp. 215-235). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Klein, W., & Musan, R. (2009). Werden. In W. Eins, & F. Schmoë (Eds.), Wie wir sprechen und schreiben: Festschrift für Helmut Glück zum 60. Geburtstag (pp. 45-61). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
  • Klein, W., & Dimroth, C. (2009). Untutored second language acquisition. In W. C. Ritchie, & T. K. Bhatia (Eds.), The new handbook of second language acquisition (2nd rev. ed., pp. 503-522). Bingley: Emerald.
  • Kockelman, P., Enfield, N. J., & Sidnell, J. (2014). Process and formation. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 183-186). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Konopka, A. E., & Brown-Schmidt, S. (2014). Message encoding. In V. Ferreira, M. Goldrick, & M. Miozzo (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language production (pp. 3-20). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Kopecka, A. (2006). The semantic structure of motion verbs in French: Typological perspectives. In M. Hickmann, & Roberts S. (Eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories (pp. 83-102). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Kopecka, A. (2009). Continuity and change in the representation of motion events in French. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Özçaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 415-426). New York: Psychology Press.
  • Kuijpers, C. T., Coolen, R., Houston, D., & Cutler, A. (1998). Using the head-turning technique to explore cross-linguistic performance differences. In C. Rovee-Collier, L. Lipsitt, & H. Hayne (Eds.), Advances in infancy research: Vol. 12 (pp. 205-220). Stamford: Ablex.
  • Lai, V. T., & Frajzyngier, Z. (2009). Change of functions of the first person pronouns in Chinese. In M. Dufresne, M. Dupuis, & E. Vocaj (Eds.), Historical Linguistics 2007: Selected papers from the 18th International Conference on Historical Linguistics Montreal, 6-11 August 2007 (pp. 223-232). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Selected papers from the 18th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Montreal, 6-11 August 2007
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2014). From Rousseau to Suppes: On diaries and probabilistic grammars. In C. E. Crangle, A. García de la Sienra, & H. E. Longino (Eds.), Foundations and methods from mathematics to neuroscience: Essays inspired by Patrick Suppes (pp. 149-156). Stanford, CA: CSLI publications.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1984). Geesteswetenschappelijke theorie als kompas voor de gangbare mening. In S. Dresden, & D. Van de Kaa (Eds.), Wetenschap ten goede en ten kwade (pp. 42-52). Amsterdam: North Holland.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1962). Motion breaking and the perception of causality. In A. Michotte (Ed.), Causalité, permanence et réalité phénoménales: Etudes de psychologie expérimentale (pp. 244-258). Louvain: Publications Universitaires.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1987). Hochleistung in Millisekunden - Sprechen und Sprache verstehen. In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (pp. 61-77). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  • Levelt, W. J. M., & d'Arcais, F. (1987). Snelheid en uniciteit bij lexicale toegang. In H. Crombag, L. Van der Kamp, & C. Vlek (Eds.), De psychologie voorbij: Ontwikkelingen rond model, metriek en methode in de gedragswetenschappen (pp. 55-68). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1984). Some perceptual limitations on talking about space. In A. J. Van Doorn, W. A. Van de Grind, & J. J. Koenderink (Eds.), Limits in perception (pp. 323-358). Utrecht: VNU Science Press.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2014). Über Sprachtätigkeit - Untersuchungen zum Sprechvorgang. In Orden pour le mérite für Wissenschaft und Künste (Ed.), Reden und Gedenkworte. Band 2012-2013 (pp. 37-62). Berlin: Wallstein Verlag.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Wilkins, D. P. (2006). Patterns in the data: Towards a semantic typology of spatial description. In S. C. Levinson, & D. P. Wilkins (Eds.), Grammars of space: Explorations in cognitive diversity (pp. 512-552). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Wilkins, D. P. (2006). The background to the study of the language of space. In S. C. Levinson, & D. P. Wilkins (Eds.), Grammars of space: Explorations in cognitive diversity (pp. 1-23). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2006). The language of space in Yélî Dnye. In S. C. Levinson, & D. P. Wilkins (Eds.), Grammars of space: Explorations in cognitive diversity (pp. 157-203). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1998). Deixis. In J. L. Mey (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics (pp. 200-204). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2009). Cognitive anthropology. In G. Senft, J. O. Östman, & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Culture and language use (pp. 50-57). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2006). Introduction: The evolution of culture in a microcosm. In S. C. Levinson, & P. Jaisson (Eds.), Evolution and culture: A Fyssen Foundation Symposium (pp. 1-41). Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2009). Foreword. In J. Liep (Ed.), A Papuan plutocracy: Ranked exchange on Rossel Island (pp. ix-xxiii). Copenhagen: Aarhus University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1998). Minimization and conversational inference. In A. Kasher (Ed.), Pragmatics: Vol. 4 Presupposition, implicature and indirect speech acts (pp. 545-612). London: Routledge.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2009). Language and mind: Let's get the issues straight! In S. D. Blum (Ed.), Making sense of language: Readings in culture and communication (pp. 95-104). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2014). Language evolution. In N. J. Enfield, P. Kockelman, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of linguistic anthropology (pp. 309-324). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2014). Pragmatics as the origin of recursion. In F. Lowenthal, & L. Lefebvre (Eds.), Language and recursion (pp. 3-13). Berlin: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-9414-0_1.

    Abstract

    There has been a recent spate of work on recursion as a central design feature of language and specifically of syntax. This short report points out that there is little evidence that unlimited recursion, understood as centre embedding, is typical of natural language syntax. Nevertheless, embedded pragmatic construals seem available in every language. Further, much deeper centre embedding can be found in dialogue or conversation structure than can be found in syntax. Existing accounts for the ‘performance’ limitations on centre embedding are thus thrown in doubt. Dialogue materials suggest that centre embedding is perhaps a core part of the human interaction system and is for some reason much more highly restricted in syntax than in other aspects of cognition
  • Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2009). Preface and priorities. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. III). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2009). The role of language in mind. In S. Nolen-Hoeksema, B. Fredrickson, G. Loftus, & W. Wagenaar (Eds.), Atkinson and Hilgard's introduction to psychology (15th ed., pp. 352). London: Cengage learning.
  • Liszkowski, U. (2006). Infant pointing at twelve months: Communicative goals, motives, and social-cognitive abilities. In N. J. Enfield, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of human sociality: culture, cognition and interaction (pp. 153-178). New York: Berg.
  • Liszkowski, U. (2014). Pointing. In P. Brooks, & V. Kempe (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language development (Vol. 15) (pp. 471-473). London: Sage.
  • Majid, A., van Leeuwen, T., & Dingemanse, M. (2009). Synaesthesia: A cross-cultural pilot. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. 8-13). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.883570.

    Abstract

    Synaesthesia is a condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality (e.g. hearing) causes additional experiences in a second, unstimulated modality (e.g. seeing colours). The goal of this task is to explore the types (and incidence) of synaesthesia in different cultures. Two simple tests can ascertain the existence of synaesthesia in your community.

    Additional information

    2009_Synaesthesia_audio_files.zip
  • Martins, M., Raju, A., & Ravignani, A. (2014). Evaluating the role of quantitative modeling in language evolution. In L. McCrohon, B. Thompson, T. Verhoef, & H. Yamauchi (Eds.), The Past, Present and Future of Language Evolution Research: Student volume of the 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (pp. 84-93). Tokyo: EvoLang9 Organising Committee.

    Abstract

    Models are a flourishing and indispensable area of research in language evolution. Here we
    highlight critical issues in using and interpreting models, and suggest viable approaches. First,
    contrasting models can explain the same data and similar modelling techniques can lead to
    diverging conclusions. This should act as a reminder to use the extreme malleability of
    modelling parsimoniously when interpreting results. Second, quantitative techniques similar to
    those used in modelling language evolution have proven themselves inadequate in other
    disciplines. Cross-disciplinary fertilization is crucial to avoid mistakes which have previously
    occurred in other areas. Finally, experimental validation is necessary both to sharpen models'
    hypotheses, and to support their conclusions. Our belief is that models should be interpreted as
    quantitative demonstrations of logical possibilities, rather than as direct sources of evidence.
    Only an integration of theoretical principles, quantitative proofs and empirical validation can
    allow research in the evolution of language to progress.
  • Matic, D. (2014). Clues to information structure in field data. In D. El Zarka, & S. Heidinger (Eds.), Methodological Issues in the Study of Information Structure (pp. 25-42). Graz: Graz University Press.
  • Matić, D., Van Gijn, R., & Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2014). Information structure and reference tracking in complex sentences: An overview. In R. van Gijn, J. Hammond, D. Matić, S. van Putten, & A. Galucio (Eds.), Information structure and reference tracking in complex sentences. (pp. 1-42). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This volume is dedicated to exploring the crossroads where complex sentences and information management – more specifically information structure (IS) and reference tracking (RT) – come together. Complex sentences are a highly relevant but understudied domain for studying notions of IS and RT. On the one hand, a complex sentence can be studied as a mini-unit of discourse consisting of two or more elements describing events, situations, or processes, with its own internal information-structural and referential organisation. On the other hand, complex sentences can be studied as parts of larger discourse structures, such as narratives or conversations, in terms of how their information-structural characteristics relate to this wider context.We first focus on the interrelatedness of IS and RT (Section 1) and then define and discuss the notion of complex sentences and their subtypes in Section 2. Section 3 surveys issues of IS in complex sentences, while Section 4 focuses on RT in complex sentences. Sections 5 and 6 briefly consider IS and RT in a wider discourse context. Section 5 discusses the interaction between IS, RT, and other discourse factors, and Section 6 focuses on ways in which a specific RT system, switch reference, can function as an RT device beyond the sentence.
  • Matić, D. (2014). Questions and syntactic islands in Tundra Yukaghir. In R. van Gijn, J. Hammond, D. Matić, S. van Putten, & A. Galucio (Eds.), Information structure and reference tracking in complex sentences (pp. 127-162). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    No island effects are observable in Tundra Yukaghir questions, which are possible in virtually all syntactic environments. It is argued that this feature of Tundra Yukaghir relates to its capability of explicitly marking focus domains. If a question word occurs in a syntactic island, the whole island is morphologically treated as a focus domain. In order to take scope and function as question markers, question words must remain within the focus domain, i.e. in the island clause. This syntactic configuration is reflected in the semantics of question islands, which are used to inquire about the identity of the whole island, not merely the denotation of the question word.
  • McDonough, L., Choi, S., Bowerman, M., & Mandler, J. M. (1998). The use of preferential looking as a measure of semantic development. In C. Rovee-Collier, L. P. Lipsitt, & H. Hayne (Eds.), Advances in Infancy Research. Volume 12. (pp. 336-354). Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing.
  • McQueen, J. M., & Cutler, A. (1998). Morphology in word recognition. In A. M. Zwicky, & A. Spencer (Eds.), The handbook of morphology (pp. 406-427). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Mickan, A., Schiefke, M., & Anatol, S. (2014). Key is a llave is a Schlüssel: A failure to replicate an experiment from Boroditsky et al. 2003. In M. Hilpert, & S. Flach (Eds.), Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association (pp. 39-50). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. doi:doi.org/10.1515/gcla-2014-0004.

    Abstract

    In this paper, we present two attempts to replicate a widely-cited but never fully published experiment in which German and Spanish speakers were asked to associate adjectives with nouns of masculine and feminine grammati-cal gender (Boroditsky et al. 2003). The researchers claim that speakers associ-ated more stereotypically female adjectives with grammatically feminine nouns and more stereotypically male adjectives with grammatically masculine nouns. We were not able to replicate the results either in a word association task or in an analogous primed lexical decision task. This suggests that the results of the original experiment were either an artifact of some non-documented aspect of the experimental procedure or a statistical fluke. The question whether speakers assign sex-based interpretations to grammatical gender categories at all cannot be answered definitively, as the results in the published literature vary consider-ably. However, our experiments show that if such an effect exists, it is not strong enough to be measured indirectly via the priming of adjectives by nouns.
  • Mitterer, H., & Cutler, A. (2006). Speech perception. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (vol. 11) (pp. 770-782). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Abstract

    The goal of speech perception is understanding a speaker's message. To achieve this, listeners must recognize the words that comprise a spoken utterance. This in turn implies distinguishing these words from other minimally different words (e.g., word from bird, etc.), and this involves making phonemic distinctions. The article summarizes research on the perception of phonemic distinctions, on how listeners cope with the continuity and variability of speech signals, and on how phonemic information is mapped onto the representations of words. Particular attention is paid to theories of speech perception and word recognition.
  • Moulin, C. A., Souchay, C., Bradley, R., Buchanan, S., Karadöller, D. Z., & Akan, M. (2014). Déjà vu in older adults. In B. L. Schwartz, & A. S. Brown (Eds.), Tip-of-the-tongue states and related phenomena (pp. 281-304). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Muysken, P., Hammarström, H., Birchall, J., Danielsen, S., Eriksen, L., Galucio, A. V., Van Gijn, R., Van de Kerke, S., Kolipakam, V., Krasnoukhova, O., Müller, N., & O'Connor, L. (2014). The languages of South America: Deep families, areal relationships, and language contact. In P. Muysken, & L. O'Connor (Eds.), Language contact in South America (pp. 299-323). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Narasimhan, B., & Brown, P. (2009). Getting the inside story: Learning to talk about containment in Tzeltal and Hindi. In V. C. Mueller-Gathercole (Ed.), Routes to language: Studies in honor of Melissa Bowerman (pp. 97-132). New York: Psychology Press.

    Abstract

    The present study examines young children's uses of semantically specific and general relational containment terms (e.g. in, enter) in Hindi and Tzeltal, and the extent to which their usage patterns are influenced by input frequency. We hypothesize that if children have a preference for relational terms that are semantically specific, this will be reflected in early acquisition of more semantically specific expressions and underextension of semantically general ones, regardless of the distributional patterns of use of these terms in the input. Our findings however show a strong role for input frequency in guiding children's patterns of use of containment terms in the two languages. Yet language-specific lexicalization patterns play a role as well, since object-specific containment verbs are used as early as the semantically general 'enter' verb by children acquiring Tzeltal.
  • Nas, G., Kempen, G., & Hudson, P. (1984). De rol van spelling en klank bij woordherkenning tijdens het lezen. In A. Thomassen, L. Noordman, & P. Elling (Eds.), Het leesproces. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
  • Noordman, L. G., & Vonk, W. (1998). Discourse comprehension. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: a biological perspective (pp. 229-262). Berlin: Springer.

    Abstract

    The human language processor is conceived as a system that consists of several interrelated subsystems. Each subsystem performs a specific task in the complex process of language comprehension and production. A subsystem receives a particular input, performs certain specific operations on this input and yields a particular output. The subsystems can be characterized in terms of the transformations that relate the input representations to the output representations. An important issue in describing the language processing system is to identify the subsystems and to specify the relations between the subsystems. These relations can be conceived in two different ways. In one conception the subsystems are autonomous. They are related to each other only by the input-output channels. The operations in one subsystem are not affected by another system. The subsystems are modular, that is they are independent. In the other conception, the different subsystems influence each other. A subsystem affects the processes in another subsystem. In this conception there is an interaction between the subsystems.
  • Nordhoff, S., & Hammarström, H. (2014). Archiving grammatical descriptions. In P. K. Austin (Ed.), Language Documentation and Description. Vol. 12 (pp. 164-186). London: SOAS.
  • O'Connor, L. (2006). Sobre los predicados complejos en el Chontal de la baja. In A. Oseguera (Ed.), Historia y etnografía entre los Chontales de Oaxaca (pp. 119-161). Oaxaca: Instituto Nacional de Antroplogía e Historia.
  • O'Connor, L., & Kolipakam, V. (2014). Human migrations, dispersals, and contacts in South America. In L. O'Connor, & P. Muysken (Eds.), The native languages of South America: Origins, development, typology (pp. 29-55). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Petersson, K. M., & Reis, A. (2006). Characteristics of illiterate and literate cognitive processing: Implications of brain- behavior co-constructivism. In P. B. Baltes, P. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler (Eds.), Lifespan development and the brain: The perspective of biocultural co-constructivism (pp. 279-305). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    Literacy and education represent essential aspects of contemporary society and subserve important aspects of socialization and cultural transmission. The study of illiterate subjects represents one approach to investigate the interactions between neurobiological and cultural factors in cognitive development, individual learning, and their influence on the functional organization of the brain. In this chapter we review some recent cognitive, neuroanatomic, and functional neuroimaging results indicating that formal education influences important aspects of the human brain. Taken together this provides strong support for the idea that the brain is modulated by literacy and formal education, which in turn change the brains capacity to interact with its environment, including the individual's contemporary culture. In other words, the individual is able to participate in, interact with, and actively contribute to the process of cultural transmission in new ways through acquired cognitive skills.
  • Petersson, K. M., Ingvar, M., & Reis, A. (2009). Language and literacy from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. In D. Olsen, & N. Torrance (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 152-181). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Poletiek, F. H. (2006). Natural sampling of stimuli in (artificial) grammar learning. In K. Fiedler, & P. Juslin (Eds.), Information sampling and adaptive cognition (pp. 440-455). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Ramus, F., & Fisher, S. E. (2009). Genetics of language. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences, 4th ed. (pp. 855-871). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    It has long been hypothesised that the human faculty to acquire a language is in some way encoded in our genetic program. However, only recently has genetic evidence been available to begin to substantiate the presumed genetic basis of language. Here we review the first data from molecular genetic studies showing association between gene variants and language disorders (specific language impairment, speech sound disorder, developmental dyslexia), we discuss the biological function of these genes, and we further speculate on the more general question of how the human genome builds a brain that can learn a language.
  • Rapold, C. J., & Zaugg-Coretti, S. (2009). Exploring the periphery of the central Ethiopian Linguistic area: Data from Yemsa and Benchnon. In J. Crass, & R. Meyer (Eds.), Language contact and language change in Ethiopia (pp. 59-81). Köln: Köppe.
  • Reesink, G. (2009). A connection between Bird's Head and (Proto) Oceanic. In B. Evans (Ed.), Discovering history through language, papers in honor of Malcolm Ross (pp. 181-192). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Reesink, G. (2014). Topic management and clause combination in the Papuan language Usan. In R. Van Gijn, J. Hammond, D. Matic, S. van Putten, & A.-V. Galucio (Eds.), Information Structure and Reference Tracking in Complex Sentences. (pp. 231-262). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This chapter describes topic management in the Papuan language Usan. The notion of ‘topic’ is defined by its pre-theoretical meaning ‘what someone’s speech is about’. This notion cannot be restricted to simple clausal or sentential constructions, but requires the wider context of long stretches of natural text. The tracking of a topic is examined in its relationship to clause combining mechanisms. Coordinating clause chaining with its switch reference mechanism is contrasted with subordinating strategies called ‘domain-creating’ constructions. These different strategies are identified by language-specific signals, such as intonation and morphosyntactic cues like nominalizations and scope of negation and other modalities.
  • Rietveld, T., & Chen, A. (2006). How to obtain and process perceptual judgements of intonational meaning. In S. Sudhoff, D. Lenertová, R. Meyer, S. Pappert, P. Augurzky, I. Mleinek, N. Richter, & J. Schliesser (Eds.), Methods in empirical prosody research (pp. 283-319). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Roberts, S. G. (2014). Monolingual Biases in Simulations of Cultural Transmission. In V. Dignum, & F. Dignum (Eds.), Perspectives on Culture and Agent-based Simulations (pp. 111-125). Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-01952-9_7.

    Abstract

    Recent research suggests that the evolution of language is affected by the inductive biases of its learners. I suggest that there is an implicit assumption that one of these biases is to expect a single linguistic system in the input. Given the prevalence of bilingual cultures, this may not be a valid abstraction. This is illustrated by demonstrating that the ‘minimal naming game’ model, in which a shared lexicon evolves in a population of agents, includes an implicit mutual exclusivity bias. Since recent research suggests that children raised in bilingual cultures do not exhibit mutual exclusivity, the individual learning algorithm of the agents is not as abstract as it appears to be. A modification of this model demonstrates that communicative success can be achieved without mutual exclusivity. It is concluded that complex cultural phenomena, such as bilingualism, do not necessarily result from complex individual learning mechanisms. Rather, the cultural process itself can bring about this complexity.
  • Roberts, S. G., & Quillinan, J. (2014). The Chimp Challenge: Working memory in chimps and humans. In L. McCrohon, B. Thompson, T. Verhoef, & H. Yamauchi (Eds.), The Past, Present and Future of Language Evolution Research: Student volume of the 9th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (pp. 31-39). Tokyo: EvoLang9 Organising Committee.

    Abstract

    Matsuzawa (2012) presented work at Evolang demonstrating the working memory abilities of chimpanzees. (Inoue & Matsuzawa, 2007) found that chimpanzees can correctly remember the location of 9 randomly arranged numerals displayed for 210ms - shorter than an average human eye saccade. Humans, however, perform poorly at this task. Matsuzawa suggests a semantic link hypothesis: while chimps have good visual, eidetic memory, humans are good at symbolic associations. The extra information in the semantic, linguistic links that humans possess increase the load on working memory and make this task difficult for them. We were interested to see if a wider search could find humans that matched the performance of the chimpanzees. We created an online version of the experiment and challenged people to play. We also attempted to run a non-semantic version of the task to see if this made the task easier. We found that, while humans can perform better than Inoue and Matsuzawa (2007) suggest, chimpanzees can perform better still. We also found no evidence to support the semantic link hypothesis.
  • Rossano, F., Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Gaze, questioning and culture. In J. Sidnell (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Comparative perspectives (pp. 187-249). Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    Relatively little work has examined the function of gaze in interaction. Previous research has mainly addressed issues such as next speaker selection (e.g. Lerner 2003) or engagement and disengagement in the conversation (Goodwin 1981). It has looked for gaze behavior in relation to the roles participants are enacting locally, (e.g., speaker or hearer) and in relation to the unit “turn” in the turn taking system (Goodwin 1980, 1981; Kendon 1967). In his seminal work Kendon (1967) claimed that “there is a very clear and quite consistent pattern, namely, that [the speaker] tends to look away as he begins a long utterance, and in many cases somewhat in advance of it; and that he looks up at his interlocutor as the end of the long utterance approaches, usually during the last phase, and he continues to look thereafter.” Goodwin (Goodwin 1980) introducing the listener into the picture proposed the following two rules: Rule1: A speaker should obtain the gaze of his recipient during the course of a turn of talk. Rule2: a recipient should be gazing at the speaker when the speaker is gazing at the hearer. Rossano’s work (2005) has suggested the possibility of a different level of order for gaze in interaction: the sequential level. In particular he found that gaze withdrawal after sustained mutual gaze tends to occur at sequence possible completion and if both participants withdraw the sequence is complete. By sequence here we refer to a unit that is structured around the notion of adjacency pair. The latter refers to two turns uttered by different speakers orderly organized (first part and second part) and pair type related (greeting-greeting, question-answer). These two turns are related by conditional relevance (Schegloff 1968) that is to say that the first part requires the production of the second and the absence of the latter is noticeable and accountable. Question-anwers are very typical examples of adjacency pairs. In this paper we compare the use of gaze in question-answer sequences in three different populations: Italians, speakers of Mayan Tzeltal (Mexico) and speakers of Yeli Ndye (Russel Island, Papua New Guinea). Relying mainly on dyadic interactions and ordinary conversation we will provide a comparison of the occurrence of gaze in each turn (to compare with the claims of Goodwin and Kendon) and we will describe whether gaze has any effect on the other participant response and whether it persists also during the answer. The three languages and cultures that will be compared here belong to three different continents and have been previously described as potentially following opposite rules: for speakers of Italian and Yeli Ndye unproblematic and preferred engagement of mutual gaze while for speakers of Tzeltal strong mutual gaze avoidance. This paper tries to provide an accurate description of their gaze behavior in this specific type of sequential conversation.
  • Rossi, G. (2014). When do people not use language to make requests? In P. Drew, & E. Couper-Kuhlen (Eds.), Requesting in social interaction (pp. 301-332). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Abstract

    In everyday joint activities (e.g. playing cards, preparing potatoes, collecting empty plates), participants often request others to pass, move or otherwise deploy objects. In order to get these objects to or from the requestee, requesters need to manipulate them, for example by holding them out, reaching for them, or placing them somewhere. As they perform these manual actions, requesters may or may not accompany them with language (e.g. Take this potato and cut it or Pass me your plate). This study shows that adding or omitting language in the design of a request is influenced in the first place by a criterion of recognition. When the requested action is projectable from the advancement of an activity, presenting a relevant object to the requestee is enough for them to understand what to do; when, on the other hand, the requested action is occasioned by a contingent development of the activity, requesters use language to specify what the requestee should do. This criterion operates alongside a perceptual criterion, to do with the affordances of the visual and auditory modality. When the requested action is projectable but the requestee is not visually attending to the requester’s manual behaviour, the requester can use just enough language to attract the requestee’s attention and secure immediate recipiency. This study contributes to a line of research concerned with the organisation of verbal and nonverbal resources for requesting. Focussing on situations in which language is not – or only minimally – used, it demonstrates the role played by visible bodily behaviour and by the structure of everyday activities in the formation and understanding of requests.
  • Rowland, C. F., Noble, C. H., & Chan, A. (2014). Competition all the way down: How children learn word order cues to sentence meaning. In B. MacWhinney, A. Malchukov, & E. Moravcsik (Eds.), Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage (pp. 125-143). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    Most work on competing cues in language acquisition has focussed on what happens when cues compete within a certain construction. There has been far less work on what happens when constructions themselves compete. The aim of the present chapter was to explore how the acquisition mechanism copes when constructions compete in a language. We present three experimental studies, all of which focus on the acquisition of the syntactic function of word order as a marker of the Theme-Recipient relation in ditransitives (form-meaning mapping). In Study 1 we investigated how quickly English children acquire form-meaning mappings when there are two competing structures in the language. We demonstrated that English speaking 4-year- olds, but not 3-year-olds, correctly interpreted both preposition al and double object datives, assigning Theme and Recipient participant roles on the basis of word order cues. There was no advantage for the double object dative despite its greater frequency in child directed speech. In Study 2 we looked at acquisition in a language which has no dative alternation –Welsh–to investigate how quickly children acquire form-meaning mapping when there is no competing structure. We demonstrated that Welsh children (Study 2) acquired the prepositional dative at age 3 years, which was much earlier than English children. Finally, in Study 3 we examined bei2 (give) ditransitives in Cantonese, to investigate what happens when there is no dative alternation (as in Welsh), but when the child hears alternative, and possibly competing, word orders in the input. Like the English 3-year-olds, the Cantonese 3-year-olds had not yet acquired the word order marking constraints of bei2 ditransitives. We conclude that there is not only competition between cues but competition between constructions in language acquisition. We suggest an extension to the competition model (Bates & MacWhinney, 1982) whereby generalisations take place across constructions as easily as they take place within constructions, whenever there are salient similarities to form the basis of the generalisation.
  • Salomo, D., & Liszkowski, U. (2009). Socialisation of prelinguistic communication. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. 56-57). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.844597.

    Abstract

    Little is known about cultural differences in interactional practices with infants. The goal of this task is to document the nature and emergence of caregiver-infant interaction/ communication in different cultures. There are two tasks: Task 1 – a brief documentation about the culture under investigation with respect to infant-caregiver interaction and parental beliefs. Task 2 – the “decorated room”, a task designed to elicit infant and caregiver.
  • Sankoff, G., & Brown, P. (2009). The origins of syntax in discourse: A case study of Tok Pisin relatives [reprint of 1976 article in Language]. In J. Holm, & S. Michaelis (Eds.), Contact languages (vol. II) (pp. 433-476). London: Routledge.
  • Sauter, D. (2009). Emotion concepts. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 12 (pp. 20-30). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.883578.

    Abstract

    The goal of this task is to investigate emotional categories across linguistic and cultural boundaries. There are three core tasks. In order to conduct this task you will need emotional vocalisation stimuli on your computer and you must translate the scenarios at the end of this entry into your local language.
  • Schimke, S. (2009). Does finiteness mark assertion? A picture selection study with Turkish learners and native speakers of German. In C. Dimroth, & P. Jordens (Eds.), Functional categories in learner language (pp. 169-202). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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