Publications

Displaying 101 - 200 of 255
  • Hagoort, P. (2011). The binding problem for language, and its consequences for the neurocognition of comprehension. In E. A. Gibson, & N. J. Pearlmutter (Eds.), The processing and acquisition of reference (pp. 403-436). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Hagoort, P. (2011). The neuronal infrastructure for unification at multiple levels. In G. Gaskell, & P. Zwitserlood (Eds.), Lexical representation: A multidisciplinary approach (pp. 231-242). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
  • Hagoort, P. (2015). Het talige brein. In A. Aleman, & H. E. Hulshoff Pol (Eds.), Beeldvorming van het brein: Imaging voor psychiaters en psychologen (pp. 169-176). Utrecht: De Tijdstroom.
  • Hagoort, P. (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. (2015). Spiegelneuronen. In J. Brockmann (Ed.), Wetenschappelijk onkruid: 179 hardnekkige ideeën die vooruitgang blokkeren (pp. 455-457). Amsterdam: Maven Publishing.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). The shadows of lexical meaning in patients with semantic impairments. In B. Stemmer, & H. Whitaker (Eds.), Handbook of neurolinguistics (pp. 235-248). New York: Academic Press.
  • Hall-Lew, L., Fairs, A., & Lew, A. D. (2015). Tourists' Attitudes towards Linguistic Variation in Scotland. In E. Togersen, S. Hårstad, B. Maehlum, & U. Røyneland (Eds.), Language Variation - European Perspectives V (pp. 99-110). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper joins studies of linguistic variation (e.g. Labov 1972; Dubois & Horvath 2000) and discourse (e.g. Jaworski & Lawson 2005; Jaworski & Pritchard 2005; Thurlow & Jaworski 2010) that consider the intersection between language and tourism. By examining the language attitudes that tourists hold toward linguistic variability in their host community, we find that attitudes differ by context and with respect to tourists’ travel motivations. We suggest that these results are particularly likely in a context like Edinburgh, Scotland, where linguistic variation has an iconic link to place authenticity. We propose that the joint commodification of ‘intelligibility’ and ‘authenticity’ explains this variability. The results raise questions about how the commodity value of travel motivation and the associated context of language use influence language attitudes.
  • Hammarström, H. (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
  • Hanique, I., Aalders, E., & Ernestus, M. (2015). How robust are exemplar effects in word comprehension? In G. Jarema, & G. Libben (Eds.), Phonological and phonetic considerations of lexical processing (pp. 15-39). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper studies the robustness of exemplar effects in word comprehension by means of four long-term priming experiments with lexical decision tasks in Dutch. A prime and target represented the same word type and were presented with the same or different degree of reduction. In Experiment 1, participants heard only a small number of trials, a large proportion of repeated words, and stimuli produced by only one speaker. They recognized targets more quickly if these represented the same degree of reduction as their primes, which forms additional evidence for the exemplar effects reported in the literature. Similar effects were found for two speakers who differ in their pronunciations. In Experiment 2, with a smaller proportion of repeated words and more trials between prime and target, participants recognized targets preceded by primes with the same or a different degree of reduction equally quickly. Also, in Experiments 3 and 4, in which listeners were not exposed to one but two types of pronunciation variation (reduction degree and speaker voice), no exemplar effects arose. We conclude that the role of exemplars in speech comprehension during natural conversations, which typically involve several speakers and few repeated content words, may be smaller than previously assumed.
  • Harbusch, K., & Kempen, G. (2011). Automatic online writing support for L2 learners of German through output monitoring by a natural-language paraphrase generator. In M. Levy, F. Blin, C. Bradin Siskin, & O. Takeuchi (Eds.), WorldCALL: International perspectives on computer-assisted language learning (pp. 128-143). New York: Routledge.

    Abstract

    Students who are learning to write in a foreign language, often want feedback on the grammatical quality of the sentences they produce. The usual NLP approach to this problem is based on parsing student-generated text. Here, we propose a generation-based ap- proach aiming at preventing errors ("scaffolding"). In our ICALL system, the student constructs sentences by composing syntactic trees out of lexically anchored "treelets" via a graphical drag & drop user interface. A natural-language generator computes all possible grammatically well-formed sentences entailed by the student-composed tree. It provides positive feedback if the student-composed tree belongs to the well-formed set, and negative feedback otherwise. If so requested by the student, it can substantiate the positive or negative feedback based on a comparison between the student-composed tree and its own trees (informative feedback on demand). In case of negative feedback, the system refuses to build the structure attempted by the student. Frequently occurring errors are handled in terms of "malrules." The system we describe is a prototype (implemented in JAVA and C++) which can be parameterized with respect to L1 and L2, the size of the lexicon, and the level of detail of the visually presented grammatical structures.
  • Haun, D. B. M. (2011). How odd I am! In M. Brockman (Ed.), Future science: Essays from the cutting edge (pp. 228-235). New York: Random House.

    Abstract

    Cross-culturally, the human mind varies more than we generally assume
  • Haun, D. B. M., Jordan, F., Vallortigara, G., & Clayton, N. S. (2011). Origins of spatial, temporal and numerical cognition: Insights from comparative psychology [Reprint]. In S. Dehaene, & E. Brannon (Eds.), Space, time and number in the brain. Searching for the foundations of mathematical thought (pp. 191-206). London: Academic Press.

    Abstract

    Contemporary comparative cognition has a large repertoire of animal models and methods, with concurrent theoretical advances that are providing initial answers to crucial questions about human cognition. What cognitive traits are uniquely human? What are the species-typical inherited predispositions of the human mind? What is the human mind capable of without certain types of specific experiences with the surrounding environment? Here, we review recent findings from the domains of space, time and number cognition. These findings are produced using different comparative methodologies relying on different animal species, namely birds and non-human great apes. The study of these species not only reveals the range of cognitive abilities across vertebrates, but also increases our understanding of human cognition in crucial ways.
  • Hayano, K. (2011). Claiming epistemic primacy: Yo-marked assessments in Japanese. In T. Stivers, L. Mondada, & J. Steensig (Eds.), The morality of knowledge in conversation (pp. 58-81). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hill, C. (2011). Collaborative narration and cross-speaker repetition in Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u. In B. Baker, R. Gardner, M. Harvey, & I. Mushin (Eds.), Indigenous language and social identity: Papers in honour of Michael Walsh (pp. 237-260). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Hintz, F., & Huettig, F. (2015). The complexity of the visual environment modulates language-mediated eye gaze. In R. Mishra, N. Srinivasan, & F. Huettig (Eds.), Attention and Vision in Language Processing (pp. 39-55). Berlin: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-81-322-2443-3_3.

    Abstract

    Three eye-tracking experiments investigated the impact of the complexity of the visual environment on the likelihood of word-object mapping taking place at phonological, semantic and visual levels of representation during language-mediated visual search. Dutch participants heard spoken target words while looking at four objects embedded in displays of different complexity and indicated the presence or absence of the target object. During filler trials the target objects were present, but during experimental trials they were absent and the display contained various competitor objects. For example, given the target word “beaker”, the display contained a phonological (a beaver, bever), a shape (a bobbin, klos), a semantic (a fork, vork) competitor, and an unrelated distractor (an umbrella, paraplu). When objects were presented in simple four-object displays (Experiment 2), there were clear attentional biases to all three types of competitors replicating earlier research (Huettig and McQueen, 2007). When the objects were embedded in complex scenes including four human-like characters or four meaningless visual shapes (Experiments 1, 3), there were biases in looks to visual and semantic but not to phonological competitors. In both experiments, however, we observed evidence for inhibition in looks to phonological competitors, which suggests that the phonological forms of the objects nevertheless had been retrieved. These findings suggest that phonological word-object mapping is contingent upon the nature of the visual environment and add to a growing body of evidence that the nature of our visual surroundings induces particular modes of processing during language-mediated visual search.
  • 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.
  • Huettig, F. (2011). The role of color during language-vision interactions. In R. K. Mishra, & N. Srinivasan (Eds.), Language-Cognition interface: State of the art (pp. 93-113). München: Lincom.
  • Huettig, F., Srinivasan, N., & Mishra, R. (2015). Introduction to 'Attention and vision in language processing'. In R. Mishra, N. Srinivasan, & F. Huettig (Eds.), Attention and vision in language processing. (pp. V-IX). Berlin: Springer.
  • Huettig, F. (2015). Literacy influences cognitive abilities far beyond the mastery of written language. In I. van de Craats, J. Kurvers, & R. van Hout (Eds.), Adult literacy, second language, and cognition. LESLLA Proceedings 2014. Nijmegen: Centre for Language Studies.

    Abstract

    Recent experimental evidence from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience shows that reading acquisition has non-trivial consequences for cognitive processes other than reading per se. In the present chapter I present evidence from three areas of cognition: phonological processing, prediction in language processing, and visual search. These findings suggest that literacy on cognition influences are far-reaching. This implies that a good understanding of the dramatic impact of literacy acquisition on the human mind is an important prerequisite for successful education policy development and guidance of educational support.
  • Hutton, J., & Kidd, E. (2011). Structural priming in comprehension of relative clause sentences: In search of a frequency x regularity interaction. In E. Kidd (Ed.), The acquisition of relative clauses: Processing, typology and function (pp. 227-242). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    The current chapter discusses a structural priming experiment that investigated the on-line processing of English subject- and object- relative clauses. Sixty-one monolingual English-speaking adults participated in a self-paced reading experiment where they read prime-target pairs that fully crossed the relativised element within the relative clause (subject- versus object) across prime and target sentences. Following probabilistic theories of sentence processing, which predict that low frequency structures like object relatives are subject to greater priming effects due to their marked status, it was hypothesised that the normally-observed subject RC processing advantage would be eliminated following priming. The hypothesis was supported, identifying an important role for structural frequency in the processing of relative clause structures.
  • Indefrey, P. (2011). Neurobiology of syntax. In P. C. Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences (pp. 835-838). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Jayez, J., Mongelli, V., Reboul, A., & Van der Henst, J.-B. (2015). Weak and strong triggers. In F. Schwarz (Ed.), Experimental Perspectives on Presuppositions (pp. 173-194). Berlin: Springer.

    Abstract

    The idea that presupposition triggers have different intrinsic properties has gradually made its way into the literature on presuppositions and become a current assumption in most approaches. The distinctions mentioned in the different works have been based on introspective data, which seem, indeed, very suggestive. In this paper, we take a different look at some of these distinctions by using a simple experimental approach based on judgment of naturalness about sentences in various contexts. We show that the alleged difference between weak (or soft) and strong (or hard) triggers is not as clear as one may wish and that the claim that they belong to different lexical classes of triggers is probably much too strong.
  • 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.
  • 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. (1998). Sentence parsing. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 213-228). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kendoli, K. Y. (2011). Yuna pikono [translated by Lila San Roque]. In A. Rumsey, & D. Niles (Eds.), Sung tales from the Papua New Guinea Highlands: Studies in form, meaning and sociocultural context (pp. 39-47). Canberra: ANU E Press.
  • 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. (2011). Introduction. The acquisition of relative clauses: Processing, typology, and function. In E. Kidd (Ed.), The acquisition of relative clauses: Processing, typology and function (pp. 1-12). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • 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. (2015). Das Wörterbuch der Zukunft ist kein Wörterbuch. In L. Eichinger (Ed.), Sprachwissenschaft im Fokus (pp. 277-295). Berlin: De Gruyter.

    Abstract

    Unter allen Disziplinen, die sich mit der Erforschung der Sprache befassen, ist die Lexikografie die älteste und die für die Allgemeinheit wichtigste. Die ältesten, noch sehr einfachen Wörterbücher finden sich auf 4000 Jahre alten Tontafeln, und wenn sich heute in einem Haushalt überhaupt ein Buch findet, dann ist es wahrscheinlich ein Wörterbuch. In den letzten zwanzig Jahren ist die kommerzielle wie die von öffentlich finanzierten Forschungsstätten betriebene Lexikografie jedoch in einer ernsthafte Krise geraten. Die großen Wörterbuchverlage haben die Arbeit an umfassenden Wörterbüchern weitestgehend eingestellt, weil sie kaum noch gekauft werden; die Akademien geraten mit ihren Langzeitvorhaben in massive Zeit- und Finanzprobleme. Wenn wir nicht auf die umfassende Beschreibung des deutschen Wortschatzes in all einer Vielfalt und seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung verzichten wollen, müssen ganz neue Wege gegangen werden: Wörterbücher im traditionellen Sinne müssen durch digitale lexikalische Systeme ersetzt werden, die das vorhandene lexikalische Wissen integrieren, es schrittweise systematisch ausbauen, eigene Recherchen in verlässlichen Corpora ermöglichen und von jedermann frei über das Internet nutzbar sind.
  • Klein, W. (1998). Ein Blick zurück auf die Varietätengrammatik. In U. Ammon, K. Mattheier, & P. Nelde (Eds.), Sociolinguistica: Internationales Jahrbuch für europäische Soziolinguistik (pp. 22-38). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Klein, W. (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. (2015). Lexicology and lexicography. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) Vol. 13 (pp. 938-942). Amsterdam: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.53059-1.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Kruspe, N., Burenhult, N., & Wnuk, E. (2015). Northern Aslian. In P. Sidwell, & M. Jenny (Eds.), Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages (pp. 419-474). Leiden: Brill.
  • 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., & Narasimhan, B. (2015). Verb representation and thinking-for-speaking effects in Spanish-English bilinguals. In R. G. De Almeida, & C. Manouilidou (Eds.), Cognitive science perspectives on verb representation and processing (pp. 235-256). Cham: Springer.

    Abstract

    Speakers of English habitually encode motion events using manner-of-motion verbs (e.g., spin, roll, slide) whereas Spanish speakers rely on path-of-motion verbs (e.g., enter, exit, approach). Here, we ask whether the language-specific verb representations used in encoding motion events induce different modes of “thinking-for-speaking” in Spanish–English bilinguals. That is, assuming that the verb encodes the most salient information in the clause, do bilinguals find the path of motion to be more salient than manner of motion if they had previously described the motion event using Spanish versus English? In our study, Spanish–English bilinguals described a set of target motion events in either English or Spanish and then participated in a nonlinguistic similarity judgment task in which they viewed the target motion events individually (e.g., a ball rolling into a cave) followed by two variants a “same-path” variant such as a ball sliding into a cave or a “same-manner” variant such as a ball rolling away from a cave). Participants had to select one of the two variants that they judged to be more similar to the target event: The event that shared the same path of motion as the target versus the one that shared the same manner of motion. Our findings show that bilingual speakers were more likely to classify two motion events as being similar if they shared the same path of motion and if they had previously described the target motion events in Spanish versus in English. Our study provides further evidence for the “thinking-for-speaking” hypothesis by demonstrating that bilingual speakers can flexibly shift between language-specific construals of the same event “on-the-fly.”
  • Lehecka, T. (2015). Collocation and colligation. In J.-O. Östman, & J. Verschueren (Eds.), Handbook of Pragmatics Online. Amsterdam: Benjamins. doi:10.1075/hop.19.col2.
  • Lev-Ari, S. (2015). Adjusting the manner of language processing to the social context: Attention allocation during interactions with non-native speakers. In R. K. Mishra, N. Srinivasan, & F. Huettig (Eds.), Attention and Vision in Language Processing (pp. 185-195). New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-81-322-2443-3_11.
  • 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. (2015). Levensbericht George Armitage Miller 1920 - 2012. In KNAW levensberichten en herdenkingen 2014 (pp. 38-42). Amsterdam: KNAW.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2015). Sleeping Beauties. In I. Toivonen, P. Csúrii, & E. Van der Zee (Eds.), Structures in the Mind: Essays on Language, Music, and Cognition in Honor of Ray Jackendoff (pp. 235-255). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • 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. (1998). Deixis. In J. L. Mey (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics (pp. 200-204). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2011). Deixis [Reprint]. In D. Archer, & P. Grundy (Eds.), The pragmatics reader (pp. 163-185). London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    Reproduced with permission of Blackwell Publishing from: Levinson, S. C. (2004) 'Deixis'. In: Horn, L.R. and Ward, G. (Eds.) The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 100-121
  • Levinson, S. C. (2011). Foreword. In D. M. Mark, A. G. Turk, N. Burenhult, & D. Stea (Eds.), Landscape in language: Transdisciplinary perspectives (pp. ix-x). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • 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. (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. (2011). Presumptive meanings [Reprint]. In D. Archer, & P. Grundy (Eds.), The pragmatics reader (pp. 86-98). London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    Reprinted with permission of The MIT Press from Levinson (2000) Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature, pp. 112-118, 116-167, 170-173, 177-180. MIT Press
  • Levinson, S. C. (2011). Reciprocals in Yélî Dnye, the Papuan language of Rossel Island. In N. Evans, A. Gaby, S. C. Levinson, & A. Majid (Eds.), Reciprocals and semantic typology (pp. 177-194). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Yélî Dnye has two discernable dedicated constructions for reciprocal marking. The first and main construction uses a dedicated reciprocal pronoun numo, somewhat like English each other. We can recognise two subconstructions. First, the ‘numo-construction’, where the reciprocal pronoun is a patient of the verb, and where the invariant pronoun numo is obligatorily incorporated, triggering intransitivisation (e.g. A-NPs become absolutive). This subconstruction has complexities, for example in the punctual aspect only, the verb is inflected like a transitive, but with enclitics mismatching actual person/number. In the second variant or subconstruction, the ‘noko-construction’, the same reciprocal pronoun (sometimes case-marked as noko) occurs but now in oblique positions with either transitive or intransitive verbs. The reciprocal element here has some peculiar binding properties. Finally, the second independent construction is a dedicated periphrastic (or woni…woni) construction, glossing ‘the one did X to the other, and the other did X to the one’. It is one of the rare cross-serial dependencies that show that natural languages cannot be modelled by context-free phrase-structure grammars. Finally, the usage of these two distinct constructions is discussed.
  • 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. (2011). Three levels of meaning: Essays in honor of Sir John Lyons [Reprint]. In A. Kasher (Ed.), Pragmatics II. London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    Reprint from Stephen C. Levinson, ‘Three Levels of Meaning’, in Frank Palmer (ed.), Grammar and Meaning: Essays in Honor of Sir John Lyons (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 90–115
  • Levinson, S. C. (2011). Universals in pragmatics. In P. C. Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences (pp. 654-657). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    Changing Prospects for Universals in Pragmatics
    The term PRAGMATICS has come to denote the study of general principles of language use. It is usually understood to contrast with SEMANTICS, the study of encoded meaning, and also, by some authors, to contrast with SOCIOLINGUISTICS
    and the ethnography of speaking, which are more concerned with local sociocultural practices. Given that pragmaticists come from disciplines as varied as philosophy, sociology,
    linguistics, communication studies, psychology, and anthropology, it is not surprising that definitions of pragmatics vary. Nevertheless, most authors agree on a list of topics
    that come under the rubric, including DEIXIS, PRESUPPOSITION,
    implicature (see CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE), SPEECH-ACTS, and conversational organization (see CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS). Here, we can use this extensional definition as a starting point (Levinson 1988; Huang 2007).
  • Liszkowski, U. (2014). Pointing. In P. Brooks, & V. Kempe (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language development (Vol. 15) (pp. 471-473). London: Sage.
  • Majid, A. (2015). Comparing lexicons cross-linguistically. In J. R. Taylor (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Word (pp. 364-379). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199641604.013.020.

    Abstract

    The lexicon is central to the concerns of disparate disciplines and has correspondingly elicited conflicting proposals about some of its foundational properties. Some suppose that word meanings and their associated concepts are largely universal, while others note that local cultural interests infiltrate every category in the lexicon. This chapter reviews research in two semantic domains—perception and the body—in order to illustrate crosslinguistic similarities and differences in semantic fields. Data is considered from a wide array of languages, especially those from small-scale indigenous communities which are often overlooked. In every lexical field we find considerable variation across cultures, raising the question of where this variation comes from. Is it the result of different ecological or environmental niches, cultural practices, or accidents of historical pasts? Current evidence suggests that diverse pressures differentially shape lexical fields.
  • Majid, A., Evans, N., Gaby, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2011). The semantics of reciprocal constructions across languages: An extensional approach. In N. Evans, A. Gaby, S. C. Levinson, & A. Majid (Eds.), Reciprocals and semantic typology (pp. 29-60). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    How similar are reciprocal constructions in the semantic parameters they encode? We investigate this question by using an extensional approach, which examines similarity of meaning by examining how constructions are applied over a set of 64 videoclips depicting reciprocal events (Evans et al. 2004). We apply statistical modelling to descriptions from speakers of 20 languages elicited using the videoclips. We show that there are substantial differences in meaning between constructions of different languages.

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  • Malt, B. C., Gennari, S., Imai, M., Ameel, E., Saji, N., & Majid, A. (2015). Where are the concepts? What words can and can’t reveal. In E. Margolis, & S. Laurence (Eds.), The conceptual Mind: New directions in the study of concepts (pp. 291-326). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    Concepts are so fundamental to human cognition that Fodor declared the heart of a cognitive science to be its theory of concepts. To study concepts, though, cognitive scientists need to be able to identify some. The prevailing assumption has been that they are revealed by words such as triangle, table, and robin. But languages vary dramatically in how they carve up the world with names. Either ordinary concepts must be heavily language dependent, or names cannot be a direct route to concepts. We asked speakers of English, Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese to name a set of 36 video clips of human locomotion and to judge the similarities among them. We investigated what name inventories, name extensions, scaling solutions on name similarity, and scaling solutions on nonlinguistic similarity from the groups, individually and together, suggest about the underlying concepts. Aggregated naming data and similarity solutions converged on results distinct from individual languages.
  • Marcus, G., & Fisher, S. E. (2011). Genes and language. In P. Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences (pp. 341-344). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Mark, D. M., Turk, A., Burenhult, N., & Stea, D. (2011). Landscape in language: An introduction. In D. M. Mark, A. G. Turk, N. Burenhult, & D. Stea (Eds.), Landscape in language: Transdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 1-24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Martin, R. C., & Tan, Y. (2015). Sentence comprehension deficits: Independence and interaction of syntax, semantics, and working memory. In A. E. Hillis (Ed.), Handbook of adult language disorders (2nd ed., pp. 303-327). Boca Raton: CRC Press.
  • 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. (2015). Information structure in linguistics. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) Vol. 12 (pp. 95-99). Amsterdam: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.53013-X.

    Abstract

    Information structure is a subfield of linguistic research dealing with the ways speakers encode instructions to the hearer on how to process the message relative to their temporary mental states. To this end, sentences are segmented into parts conveying known and yet-unknown information, usually labeled ‘topic’ and ‘focus.’ Many languages have developed specialized grammatical and lexical means of indicating this segmentation.
  • 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.
  • 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., van Gijn, R., Krasnoukhova, O., & Müller, N. (2015). Linguistic Areas, bottom up or top down? The case of the Guaporé-Mamoré region. In B. Comrie, & L. Golluscio (Eds.), Language Contact and Documentation / Contacto lingüístico y documentación (pp. 205-238). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • 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.
  • 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. M., Vonk, W., Cozijn, R., & Frank, S. (2015). Causal inferences and world knowledge. In E. J. O'Brien, A. E. Cook, & R. F. Lorch (Eds.), Inferences during reading (pp. 260-289). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • 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.
  • Noordman, L. G. M., & Vonk, W. (2015). Inferences in Discourse, Psychology of. In J. D. Wright (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.) Vol. 12 (pp. 37-44). Amsterdam: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.57012-3.

    Abstract

    An inference is defined as the information that is not expressed explicitly by the text but is derived on the basis of the understander's knowledge and is encoded in the mental representation of the text. Inferencing is considered as a central component in discourse understanding. Experimental methods to detect inferences, established findings, and some developments are reviewed. Attention is paid to the relation between inference processes and the brain.
  • Norcliffe, E., Enfield, N. J., Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2011). The grammar of perception. In K. Kendrick, & A. Majid (Eds.), Field manual volume 14 (pp. 1-10). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Norcliffe, E., & Konopka, A. E. (2015). Vision and language in cross-linguistic research on sentence production. In R. K. Mishra, N. Srinivasan, & F. Huettig (Eds.), Attention and vision in language processing (pp. 77-96). New York: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-81-322-2443-3_5.

    Abstract

    To what extent are the planning processes involved in producing sentences fine-tuned to grammatical properties of specific languages? In this chapter we survey the small body of cross-linguistic research that bears on this question, focusing in particular on recent evidence from eye-tracking studies. Because eye-tracking methods provide a very fine-grained temporal measure of how conceptual and linguistic planning unfold in real time, they serve as an important complement to standard psycholinguistic methods. Moreover, the advent of portable eye-trackers in recent years has, for the first time, allowed eye-tracking techniques to be used with language populations that are located far away from university laboratories. This has created the exciting opportunity to extend the typological base of vision-based psycholinguistic research and address key questions in language production with new language comparisons.
  • 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., & 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.
  • Ozyurek, A., & Perniss, P. M. (2011). Event representations in signed languages. In J. Bohnemeyer, & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event representations in language and cognition (pp. 84-107). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Petersson, K. M., Forkstam, C., Inácio, F., Bramão, I., Araújo, S., Souza, A. C., Silva, S., & Castro, S. L. (2011). Artificial language learning. In A. Trevisan, & V. Wannmacher Pereira (Eds.), Alfabeltização e cognição (pp. 71-90). Porto Alegre, Brasil: Edipucrs.

    Abstract

    Neste artigo fazemos uma revisão breve de investigações actuais com técnicas comportamentais e de neuroimagem funcional sobre a aprendizagem de uma linguagem artificial em crianças e adultos. Na secção final, discutimos uma possível associação entre dislexia e aprendizagem implícita. Resultados recentes sugerem que a presença de um défice ao nível da aprendizagem implícita pode contribuir para as dificuldades de leitura e escrita observadas em indivíduos disléxicos.
  • Phillips, W., & Majid, A. (2011). Emotional sound symbolism. In K. Kendrick, & A. Majid (Eds.), Field manual volume 14 (pp. 16-18). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.1005615.
  • Rapold, C. J. (2011). Semantics of Khoekhoe reciprocal constructions. In N. Evans, A. Gaby, S. C. Levinson, & A. Majid (Eds.), Reciprocals and semantic typology (pp. 61-74). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper identifies four reciprocal construction types in Khoekhoe (Central Khoisan). After a brief description of the morphosyntax of each construction, semantic factors governing their choice are explored. Besides lexical semantics, the number of participants, timing of symmetric subevents, and symmetric conceptualisation are shown to account for the distribution of the four partially competing reciprocal constructions.
  • 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.
  • Reis, A., Faísca, L., & Petersson, K. M. (2011). Literacia: Modelo para o estudo dos efeitos de uma aprendizagem específica na cognição e nas suas bases cerebrais. In A. Trevisan, J. J. Mouriño Mosquera, & V. Wannmacher Pereira (Eds.), Alfabeltização e cognição (pp. 23-36). Porto Alegro, Brasil: Edipucrs.

    Abstract

    A aquisição de competências de leitura e de escrita pode ser vista como um processo formal de transmissão cultural, onde interagem factores neurobiológicos e culturais. O treino sistemático exigido pela aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita poderá produzir mudanças quantitativas e qualitativas tanto a nível cognitivo como ao nível da organização do cérebro. Estudar sujeitos iletrados e letrados representa, assim, uma oportunidade para investigar efeitos de uma aprendizagem específica no desenvolvimento cognitivo e suas bases cerebrais. Neste trabalho, revemos um conjunto de investigações comportamentais e com métodos de imagem cerebral que indicam que a literacia tem um impacto nas nossas funções cognitivas e na organização cerebral. Mais especificamente, discutiremos diferenças entre letrados e iletrados para domínios cognitivos verbais e não-verbais, sugestivas de que a arquitectura cognitiva é formatada, em parte, pela aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita. Os dados de neuroimagem funcionais e estruturais são também indicadores que a aquisição de uma ortografia alfabética interfere nos processos de organização e lateralização das funções cognitivas.
  • 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.
  • Robinson, S. (2011). Reciprocals in Rotokas. In N. Evans, A. Gaby, S. C. Levinson, & A. Majid (Eds.), Reciprocals and semantic typology (pp. 195-211). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper describes the syntax and semantics of reciprocity in the Central dialect of Rotokas, a non-Austronesian (Papuan) language spoken in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. In Central Rotokas, there are three main reciprocal construction types, which differ formally according to where the reflexive/reciprocal marker (ora-) occurs in the clause: on the verb, on a pronominal argument or adjunct, or on a body part noun. The choice of construction type is determined by two considerations: the valency of the verb (i.e., whether it has one or two core arguments) and whether the reciprocal action is performed on a body part. The construction types are compatible with a wide range of the logical subtypes of reciprocity (strong, melee, chaining, etc.).
  • 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.
  • Schiller, N. O., & Verdonschot, R. G. (2015). Accessing words from the mental lexicon. In J. Taylor (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the word (pp. 481-492). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter describes how speakers access words from the mental lexicon. Lexical access is a crucial
    component in the process of transforming thoughts into speech. Some theories consider lexical access to be
    strictly serial and discrete, while others view this process as being cascading or even interactive, i.e. the different
    sub-levels influence each other. We discuss some of the evidence in favour and against these viewpoints, and
    also present arguments regarding the ongoing debate on how words are selected for production. Another important
    issue concerns the access to morphologically complex words such as derived and inflected words, as well as
    compounds. Are these accessed as whole entities from the mental lexicon or are the parts assembled online? This
    chapter tries to provide an answer to that question as well.

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