Publications

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

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.

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

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).

Abstract

What is the relationship between the language we speak and the way we think? Researchers working at the interface of language and cognition hope to understand the complex interplay between linguistic structures and the way the mind works. This is thorny territory in anthropology and its closely allied disciplines, such as linguistics and psychology.

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.

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.

Abstract

Egophoric verbal marking is a typological feature common to Barbacoan languages, but otherwise unknown in the Andean sphere. The verbal systems of three out of the four living Barbacoan languages, Cha’palaa, Tsafiki and Awa Pit, have previously been shown to express egophoric contrasts. The status of Guambiano has, however, remained uncertain. In this chapter, I show that there are in fact two layers of egophoric or egophoric-like marking visible in Guambiano’s grammar. Guambiano patterns with certain other (non-Barbacoan) languages in having ego-categories which function within a broader evidential system. It is additionally possible to detect what is possibly a more archaic layer of egophoric marking in Guambiano’s verbal system. This marking may be inherited from a common Barbacoan system, thus pointing to a potential genealogical basis for the egophoric patterning common to these languages. The multiple formal expressions of egophoricity apparent both within and across the four languages reveal how egophoric contrasts are susceptible to structural renewal, suggesting a pan-Barbacoan preoccupation with the linguistic encoding of self-knowledge.

Abstract

Our ability to use language is multimodal and requires tight coordination between what is expressed in speech and in gesture, such as pointing or iconic gestures that convey semantic, syntactic and pragmatic information related to speakers’ messages. Interestingly, what is expressed in gesture and how it is coordinated with speech differs in speakers of different languages. This paper discusses recent findings on the development of children’s multimodal expressions taking cross-linguistic variation into account. Although some aspects of speech-gesture development show language-specificity from an early age, it might still take children until nine years of age to exhibit fully adult patterns of cross-linguistic variation. These findings reveal insights about how children coordinate different levels of representations given that their development is constrained by patterns that are specific to their languages.

Abstract

Use of language in face-to-face context is multimodal. Production and perception of speech take place in the context of visual articulators such as lips, face, or hand gestures which convey relevant information to what is expressed in speech at different levels of language. While lips convey information at the phonological level, gestures contribute to semantic, pragmatic, and syntactic information, as well as to discourse cohesion. This chapter overviews recent findings showing that speech and gesture (e.g. a drinking gesture as someone says, “Would you like a drink?”) interact during production and comprehension of language at the behavioral, cognitive, and neural levels. Implications of these findings for current psycholinguistic theories and how they can be expanded to consider the multimodal context of language processing are discussed.

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.

Abstract

Gender-(mis)matching pronouns have been studied extensively in experiments. However, a phenomenon common to various languages has thus far been overlooked: the systemic use of non-feminine pronouns when referring to female individuals. The present study is the first to provide experimental insights into the interpretation of such a pronoun: Limburgian zien ‘his/its’ and Dutch zijn ‘his/its’ are grammatically ambiguous between masculine and neuter, but while Limburgian zien can refer to women, the Dutch equivalent zijn cannot. Employing an acceptability judgment task, we presented speakers of Limburgian (N = 51) with recordings of sentences in Limburgian featuring zien, and speakers of Dutch (N = 52) with Dutch translations of these sentences featuring zijn. All sentences featured a potential male or female antecedent embedded in a stereotypically male or female context. We found that ratings were higher for sentences in which the pronoun could refer back to the antecedent. For Limburgians, this extended to sentences mentioning female individuals. Context further modulated sentence appreciation. Possible mechanisms regarding the interpretation of zien as coreferential with a female individual will be discussed.

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.

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.

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.).

Abstract

In the language Duna (Trans New Guinea), egophoric distributional patterns are a pervasive characteristic of verbal morphology, but do not comprise a single coherent system. Many morphemes, including evidential markers and future time inflections, show strong tendencies to co-occur with ‘informant’ subjects (the speaker in a declarative, the addressee in an interrogative), or alternatively with non-informant subjects. The person sensitivity of the Duna forms is observable in frequency, speaker judgments of sayability, and subject implicatures. Egophoric and non-egophoric distributional patterns are motivated by the individual semantics of the morphemes, their perspective-taking properties, and logical and/or conventionalised expectations of how people experience and talk about events. Distributional tendencies can also be flouted, providing a resource for speakers to convey attitudes towards their own knowledge and experiences, or the knowledge and experiences of others.

Abstract

Languages with egophoric systems require their users to pay special attention to who knows what in the speech situation, providing formal marking of whether the speaker or addressee has personal knowledge of the event being discussed. Such systems have only recently come to be studied in cross-linguistic perspective. This chapter has two aims in regard to contributing to our understanding of egophoric marking. Firstly, it presents relevant data from a relatively under-described and endangered language, Kaluli (aka Bosavi), spoken in Papua New Guinea. Unusually, Kaluli tense inflections appear to show a mix of both egophoric and first vs non-first person-marking features, as well as other contrasts that are broadly relevant to a typology of egophoricity, such as special constructions for the expression of involuntary experience. Secondly, the chapter makes a preliminary foray into issues concerning egophoric marking and child language, drawing on a naturalistic corpus of child-caregiver interactions. Questions for future investigation raised by the Kaluli data concern, for example, the potentially challenging nature of mastering inflections that are sensitive to both person and speech act type, the possible role of question-answer pairs in children’s acquisition of egophoric morphology, and whether there are special features of epistemic access and authority that relate particularly to child-adult interactions.

Abstract

This chapter describes neurolinguistic aspects of morphology, morphological theory, and especially morphological processing. It briefly mentions the main processing models in the literature and how they deal with morphological issues, i.e. full-listing models (all morphologically related words are listed separately in the lexicon and are processed individually), full-parsing or decompositional models (morphologically related words are not listed in the lexicon but are decomposed into their constituent morphemes, each of which is listed in the lexicon), and hybrid, so-called dual route, models (regular morphologically related words are decomposed, irregular words are listed). The chapter also summarizes some important findings from the literature that bear on neurolinguistic aspects of morphological processing, from both language comprehension and language production, taking into consideration neuropsychological patient studies as well as studies employing neuroimaging methods.

Abstract

This research investigated developmental changes in children’s representations of large-scale environments as reflected in spontaneous gestures and speech produced during route descriptions Four-, five-, and six-year-olds (N = 122) described the route from their nursery school to their own homes. Analysis of the children’s gestures showed that some 5- and 6-year-olds produced gestures that represented survey mapping, and they were categorized as a survey group. Children who did not produce such gestures were categorized as a route group. A comparison of the two groups revealed no significant differences in speech indices, with the exception that the survey group showed significantly fewer right/left terms. As for gesture, the survey group produced more gestures than the route group. These results imply that an initial form of survey-map representation is acquired beginning at late preschool age.

Abstract

The Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea differentiate and label in their language Kilivila genres and varieties or registers which are constituted by these genres. The documentation and analysis of these varieties and genres reveals how important it is to understand these metalinguistic differentiations. The cultural and verbal competence which is necessary to adequately interact with the Trobriander Islanders is based on the understanding of the indigenous text typology and the Trobriand Islanders' culture specific ways of speaking.

Abstract

Bronislaw Malinowski – based on his experience during his field research on the Trobriand Islands – pointed out that language is first and foremost a tool for creating social bonds. It is a mode of behavior and the meaning of an utterance is constituted by its pragmatic function. Malinowski’s ideas finally led to the formation of the subdiscipline “anthropological linguistics”. This paper presents three observations of the Trobrianders’ attitude to their language Kilivila and their language use in social interactions. They illustrate that whoever wants to successfully research the role of language, culture and cognition in social interaction must be on ‘common ground’ with the researched community.

Abstract

As I have already pointed out elsewhere (Senft 2008; 2010; 2014), the Gricean conversational maxims of Quality – “Try to make your contribution one that is true” – and Manner “Be perspicuous”, specifically “Avoid obscurity of expression” and “Avoid ambiguity” (Grice 1967; 1975; 1978) – are not observed by the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea, neither in forms of their ritualized communication nor in forms and ways of everyday conversation and other ordinary verbal interactions. The speakers of the Austronesian language Kilivila metalinguistically differentiate eight specific non-diatopical registers which I have called “situational-intentional” varieties. One of these varieties is called “biga sopa”. This label can be glossed as “joking or lying speech, indirect speech, speech which is not vouched for”. The biga sopa constitutes the default register of Trobriand discourse and conversation. This contribution to the workshop on philosophy and pragmatics presents the Trobriand Islanders’ indigenous typology of non-diatopical registers, especially elaborating on the concept of sopa, describing its features, discussing its functions and illustrating its use within Trobriand society. It will be shown that the Gricean maxims of quality and manner are irrelevant for and thus not observed by the speakers of Kilivila. On the basis of the presented findings the Gricean maxims and especially Grice’s claim that his theory of conversational implicature is “universal in application” is critically discussed from a general anthropological-linguistic point of view.

Abstract

Kilivila is one of the languages of the world that lacks dedicated reciprocal forms. After a short introduction the paper briefly shows how reciprocity is either not expressed at all, is only implicated in an utterance, or expressed periphrastically.

Abstract

Reproduced with permission of Blackwell Publishing from: Seuren, P. A. M. (1998) Western linguistics, 25: pp. 426-428, 430-441. Oxford Blackwell Publishers

Abstract

The concept of 'event' has been posited as an ontological primitive in natural language semantics, yet relatively little research has explored patterns of event encoding. Our study explored how adults and children describe placement events (e.g., putting a book on a table) in a range of different languages (Finnish, English, German, Russian, Hindi, Tzeltal Maya, Spanish, and Turkish). Results show that the eight languages grammatically encode placement events in two main ways (Talmy, 1985, 1991), but further investigation reveals fine-grained crosslinguistic variation within each of the two groups. Children are sensitive to these finer-grained characteristics of the input language at an early age, but only when such features are perceptually salient. Our study demonstrates that a unitary notion of 'event' does not suffice to characterize complex but systematic patterns of event encoding crosslinguistically, and that children are sensitive to multiple influences, including the distributional properties of the target language in constructing these patterns in their own speech.

Abstract

Traditional psycholinguistic studies take place in controlled experimental labs and typically involve testing undergraduate psychology or linguistics students. Investigating psycholinguistics in this manner calls into question the external validity of findings, that is, the extent to which research findings generalize across languages and cultures, as well as ecologically valid settings. Here we consider three ways in which psycholinguistics can be taken out of the lab. First, researchers can conduct cross-cultural fieldwork in diverse languages and cultures. Second, they can conduct online experiments or experiments in institutionalized public spaces (e.g., museums) to obtain large, diverse participant samples. And, third, researchers can perform studies in more ecologically valid settings, to increase the real-world generalizability of findings. By moving away from the traditional lab setting, psycholinguists can enrich their understanding of language use in all its rich and diverse contexts.

Abstract

What grammatical elements of a substrate language find their way into a creole? Grammatical features of the Oceanic substrate languages have been shown to be crucial in the development of Solomon Islands Pijin and of Melanesian Pidgin as a whole (Keesing 1988), so one might expect constructions which are very stable in the Oceanic family of languages to show up as substrate influence in the creole. This paper investigates three constructions in Oceanic languages which have been stable over thousands of years and persist throughout a majority of the Oceanic languages spoken in the Solomon Islands. The paper asks whether these are the sorts of constructions which could be expected to be reflected in Solomon Islands Pijin and shows that none of these persistent constructions appears in Solomon Islands Pijin at all. The absence of these constructions in Solomon Islands Pijin could be due to simplification: Creole genesis involves simplification of the substrate grammars. However, while simplification could be the explanation, it is not necessarily the case that all complex structures become simplified. For instance Solomon Islands Pijin pronoun paradigms are more complex than those in English, but the complexity is similar to that of the substrate languages. Thus it is not the case that all areas of a creole language are necessarily simplified. One must therefore look further than just simplification for an explanation of the presence or absence of stable grammatical features deriving from the substrate in creole languages. An account based on constraints in specific domains (Siegel 1999) is a better predictor of the behaviour of substrate constructions in Solomon Islands Pijin.

Abstract

Every language manifests casual speech processes, and hence every second language too. This study examined how listeners deal with second-language casual speech processes, as a function of the processes in their native language. We compared a match case, where a second-language process t/-reduction) is also operative in native speech, with a mismatch case, where a second-language process (/r/-insertion) is absent from native speech. In each case native and non-native listeners judged stimuli in which a given phoneme (in sentence context) varied along a continuum from absent to present. Second-language listeners in general mimicked native performance in the match case, but deviated significantly from native performance in the mismatch case. Together these results make it clear that the mapping from first to second language is as important in the interpretation of casual speech processes as in other dimensions of speech perception. Unfamiliar casual speech processes are difficult to adapt to in a second language. Casual speech processes that are already familiar from native speech, however, are easy to adapt to; indeed, our results even suggest that it is possible for subtle difference in their occurrence patterns across the two languages to be detected,and to be accommodated to in second-language listening

Abstract

The artificial grammar learning (AGL) paradigm enables systematic investigation of the acquisition of linguistically relevant structures. It is a paradigm of interest for language processing research, interfacing with theoretical linguistics, and for comparative research on language acquisition and evolution. This chapter presents a key for understanding major variants of the paradigm. An unbiased summary of neuroimaging findings of AGL is presented, using meta-analytic methods, pointing to the crucial involvement of the bilateral frontal operculum and regions in the right lateral hemisphere. Against a background of robust posterior temporal cortex involvement in processing complex syntax, the evidence for involvement of the posterior temporal cortex in AGL is reviewed. Infant AGL studies testing for neural substrates are reviewed, covering the acquisition of adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies as well as algebraic rules. The language acquisition data suggest that comparisons of learnability of complex grammars performed with adults may now also be possible with children.

Abstract

Yurakaré (unclassified, central Bolivia) has five subordination strategies (on the basis of a morphosyntactic definition). In this paper I argue that the use of these different strategies is conditioned by the degree of conceptual synthesis of the two events, relating to temporal integration and participant integration. The most integrated events are characterized by shared time reference; morphosyntactically they are serial verb constructions, with syntactically fused predicates. The other constructions are characterized by less grammatical integration, which correlates either with a low degree of temporal integration of the dependent predicate and the main predicate, or with participant discontinuity.

Abstract

Mutations of the human FOXP2 gene have been shown to cause severe difficulties in learning to make coordinated sequences of articulatory gestures that underlie speech (developmental verbal dyspraxia or DVD). Affected individuals are impaired in multiple aspects of expressive and receptive linguistic processing and ­display abnormal grey matter volume and functional activation patterns in cortical and subcortical brain regions. The protein encoded by FOXP2 belongs to a divergent subgroup of forkhead-box transcription factors, with a distinctive DNA-binding domain and motifs that mediate hetero- and homodimerization. This chapter describes the successful use of FOXP2 as a unique molecular window into neurogenetic pathways that are important for speech and language development, adopting several complementary strategies. These include direct functional investigations of FOXP2 splice variants and the effects of etiological mutations. FOXP2’s role as a transcription factor also enabled the development of functional genomic routes for dissecting neurogenetic mechanisms that may be relevant for speech and language. By identifying downstream target genes regulated by FOXP2, it was possible to identify common regulatory themes in modulating synaptic plasticity, neurodevelopment, and axon guidance. These targets represent novel entrypoints into in vivo pathways that may be disturbed in speech and language disorders. The identification of FOXP2 target genes has also led to the discovery of a shared neurogenetic pathway between clinically distinct language disorders; the rare Mendelian form of DVD and a complex and more common form of language ­disorder known as Specific Language Impairment.

Abstract

A central question in the study of the mental lexicon is how morphologically complex words are processed. We consider this question from the viewpoint of statistical models of morphology. As an indicator of the mental processing cost in the brain, we use reaction times to words in a visual lexical decision task on Finnish nouns. Statistical correlation between a model and reaction times is employed as a goodness measure of the model. In particular, we study Morfessor, an unsupervised method for learning concatenative morphology. The results for a set of inflected and monomorphemic Finnish nouns reveal that the probabilities given by Morfessor, especially the Categories-MAP version, show considerably higher correlations to the reaction times than simple word statistics such as frequency, morphological family size, or length. These correlations are also higher than when any individual test subject is viewed as a model.

Abstract

This paper describes how reciprocity is expressed in the Papuan (i.e. non-Austronesian­) language Savosavo, spoken in the Solomon Islands. The main strategy is to use the reciprocal nominal mapamapa, which can occur in different NP positions and always triggers default third person singular masculine agreement, regardless of the number and gender of the referents. After a description of this as well as another strategy that is occasionally used (the ‘joint activity construction’), the paper will provide a detailed analysis of data elicited with set of video stimuli and show that the main strategy is used to describe even clearly asymmetric situations, as long as more than one person acts on more than one person in a joint activity.

Abstract

Common ground is an essential prerequisite for coordination in social interaction, including language use. When referring back to a referent in discourse, this referent is ‘given information’ and therefore in the interactants’ common ground. When a referent is being referred to for the first time, a speaker introduces ‘new information’. The analyses reported here are on gestures that accompany such references when they include definite and indefinite grammatical determiners. The main finding from these analyses is that referents referred to by definite and indefinite articles were equally often accompanied by gesture, but speakers tended to accompany definite references with gestures focusing on action information and indefinite references with gestures focusing on entity information. The findings suggest that speakers use speech and gesture together to design utterances appropriate for speakers with whom they share common ground.

Abstract

Indo-Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) is the sign language used by deaf communities in a large region across India and Pakistan. This visual-gestural language has a dedicated construction for specifically expressing reciprocal relationships, which can be applied to agreement verbs and to auxiliaries. The reciprocal construction relies on a change in the movement pattern of the signs it applies to. In addition, IPSL has a number of other strategies which can have a reciprocal interpretation, and the IPSL lexicon includes a good number of inherently reciprocal signs. All reciprocal expressions can be modified in complex ways that rely on the grammatical use of the sign space. Considering grammaticalisation and lexicalisation processes linking some of these constructions is also important for a better understanding of reciprocity in IPSL.