Publications

Displaying 101 - 200 of 269
  • Hagoort, P. (2012). From ants to music and language [Preface]. In A. D. Patel, Music, language, and the brain [Chinese translation] (pp. 9-10). Shanghai: East China Normal University Press Ltd.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). The shadows of lexical meaning in patients with semantic impairments. In B. Stemmer, & H. Whitaker (Eds.), Handbook of neurolinguistics (pp. 235-248). New York: Academic Press.
  • Hagoort, P. (2008). Über Broca, Gehirn und Bindung. In Jahrbuch 2008: Tätigkeitsberichte der Institute. München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Retrieved from http://www.mpg.de/306524/forschungsSchwerpunkt1?c=166434.

    Abstract

    Beim Sprechen und beim Sprachverstehen findet man die Wortbedeutung im Gedächtnis auf und kombiniert sie zu größeren Einheiten (Unifikation). Solche Unifikations-Operationen laufen auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen der Sprachverarbeitung ab. In diesem Beitrag wird ein Rahmen vorgeschlagen, in dem psycholinguistische Modelle mit neurobiologischer Sprachbetrachtung in Verbindung gebracht werden. Diesem Vorschlag zufolge spielt der linke inferiore frontale Gyrus (LIFG) eine bedeutende Rolle bei der Unifi kation
  • Hallé, P., & Cristia, A. (2012). Global and detailed speech representations in early language acquisition. In S. Fuchs, M. Weirich, D. Pape, & P. Perrier (Eds.), Speech planning and dynamics (pp. 11-38). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

    Abstract

    We review data and hypotheses dealing with the mental representations for perceived and produced speech that infants build and use over the course of learning a language. In the early stages of speech perception and vocal production, before the emergence of a receptive or a productive lexicon, the dominant picture emerging from the literature suggests rather non-analytic representations based on units of the size of the syllable: Young children seem to parse speech into syllable-sized units in spite of their ability to detect sound equivalence based on shared phonetic features. Once a productive lexicon has emerged, word form representations are initially rather underspecified phonetically but gradually become more specified with lexical growth, up to the phoneme level. The situation is different for the receptive lexicon, in which phonetic specification for consonants and vowels seem to follow different developmental paths. Consonants in stressed syllables are somewhat well specified already at the first signs of a receptive lexicon, and become even better specified with lexical growth. Vowels seem to follow a different developmental path, with increasing flexibility throughout lexical development. Thus, children come to exhibit a consonant vowel asymmetry in lexical representations, which is clear in adult representations.
  • Hammarström, H. (2012). A full-scale test of the language farming dispersal hypothesis. In S. Wichmann, & A. P. Grant (Eds.), Quantitative approaches to linguistic diversity: Commemorating the centenary of the birth of Morris Swadesh (pp. 7-22). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Originally published in Diachronica 27:2 (2010) One attempt at explaining why some language families are large (while others are small) is the hypothesis that the families that are now large became large because their ancestral speakers had a technological advantage, most often agriculture. Variants of this idea are referred to as the Language Farming Dispersal Hypothesis. Previously, detailed language family studies have uncovered various supporting examples and counterexamples to this idea. In the present paper I weigh the evidence from ALL attested language families. For each family, I use the number of member languages as a measure of cardinal size, member language coordinates to measure geospatial size and ethnographic evidence to assess subsistence status. This data shows that, although agricultural families tend to be larger in cardinal size, their size is hardly due to the simple presence of farming. If farming were responsible for language family expansions, we would expect a greater east-west geospatial spread of large families than is actually observed. The data, however, is compatible with weaker versions of the farming dispersal hypothesis as well with models where large families acquire farming because of their size, rather than the other way around.
  • Hammarström, H., & Nordhoff, S. (2012). The languages of Melanesia: Quantifying the level of coverage. In N. Evans, & M. Klamer (Eds.), Melanesian languages on the edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century (pp. 13-33). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10125/4559.
  • Hanulikova, A., & Dietrich, R. (2008). Die variable Coda in der slowakisch-deutschen Interimsprache. In M. Tarvas (Ed.), Tradition und Geschichte im literarischen und sprachwissenschaftlichen Kontext (pp. 119-130). Bern: Peter Lang.
  • Hunley, K., Dunn, M., Lindström, E., Reesink, G., Terrill, A., Norton, H., Scheinfeldt, L., Friedlaender, F. R., Merriwether, D. A., Koki, G., & Friedlaender, J. S. (2007). Inferring prehistory from genetic, linguistic, and geographic variation. In J. S. Friedlaender (Ed.), Genes, language, & culture history in the Southwest Pacific (pp. 141-154). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter investigates the fit of genetic, phenotypic, and linguistic data to two well-known models of population history. The first of these models, termed the population fissions model, emphasizes population splitting, isolation, and independent evolution. It predicts that genetic and linguistic data will be perfectly tree-like. The second model, termed isolation by distance, emphasizes genetic exchange among geographically proximate populations. It predicts a monotonic decline in genetic similarity with increasing geographic distance. While these models are overly simplistic, deviations from them were expected to provide important insights into the population history of northern Island Melanesia. The chapter finds scant support for either model because the prehistory of the region has been so complex. Nonetheless, the genetic and linguistic data are consistent with an early radiation of proto-Papuan speakers into the region followed by a much later migration of Austronesian speaking peoples. While these groups subsequently experienced substantial genetic and cultural exchange, this exchange has been insufficient to erase this history of separate migrations.
  • Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (2012). Placement and removal events in Basque and Spanish. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 123-144). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper examines how placement and removal events are lexicalised and conceptualised in Basque and Peninsular Spanish. After a brief description of the main linguistic devices employed for the coding of these types of events, the paper discusses how speakers of the two languages choose to talk about these events. Finally, the paper focuses on two aspects that seem to be crucial in the description of these events (1) the role of force dynamics: both languages distinguish between different degrees of force, causality, and intentionality, and (2) the influence of the verb-framed lexicalisation pattern. Data come from six Basque and ten Peninsular Spanish native speakers.
  • Indefrey, P. (2007). Brain imaging studies of language production. In G. Gaskell (Ed.), Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 547-564). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    Neurocognitive studies of language production have provided sufficient evidence on both the spatial and the temporal patterns of brain activation to allow tentative and in some cases not so tentative conclusions about function-structure relationships. This chapter reports meta-analysis results that identify reliable activation areas for a range of word, sentence, and narrative production tasks both in the native language and a second language. Based on a theoretically motivated analysis of language production tasks it is possible to specify relationships between brain areas and functional processing components of language production that could not have been derived from the data provided by any single task.
  • Indefrey, P. (2012). Hemodynamic studies of syntactic processing. In M. Faust (Ed.), Handbook of the neuropsychology of language. Volume 1: Language processing in the brain: Basic science (pp. 209-228). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
  • Irizarri van Suchtelen, P. (2012). Dative constructions in the Spanish of heritage speakers in the Netherlands. In Z. Wąsik, & P. P. Chruszczewski (Eds.), Languages in contact 2011 (pp. 103-118). Wrocław: Philological School of Higher Education in Wrocław Publishing.

    Abstract

    Spanish can use dative as well as non-dative strategies to encode Possessors, Human Sources, Interestees (datives of interest) and Experiencers. In Dutch this optionality is virtually absent, restricting dative encoding mainly to the Recipient of a ditransitive. The present study examines whether this may lead to instability of the non-prototypical dative constructions in the Spanish of Dutch-Spanish bilinguals. Elicited data of 12 Chilean heritage informants from the Netherlands were analyzed. Whereas the evidence on the stability of dative Experiencers was not conclusive, the results indicate that the use of prototypical datives, dative External Possessors, dative Human Sources and datives of interest is fairly stable in bilinguals, except for those with limited childhood exposure to Spanish. It is argued that the consistent preference for non-dative strategies of this group was primarily attributable to instability of the dative clitic, which affected all constructions, even the encoding of prototypical indirect objects
  • Ishibashi, M. (2012). The expression of ‘putting’ and ‘taking’ events in Japanese: The asymmetry of Source and Goal revisited. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 253-272). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This study explores the expression of Source and Goal in describing placement and removal events in adult Japanese. Although placement and removal events a priori represent symmetry regarding the orientation of motion, their (c)overt expressions actually exhibit multiple asymmetries at various structural levels. The results show that the expression of the Source is less frequent than the expression of the Goal, but, if expressed, morphosyntactically more complex, suggesting that ‘taking’ events are more complex than ‘putting’ events in their construal. It is stressed that finer linguistic analysis is necessary before explaining linguistic asymmetries in terms of non-linguistic foundations of spatial language.
  • Jongen-Janner, E., Pijls, F., & Kempen, G. (1990). Intelligente programma's voor grammatica- en spellingonderwijs. In Q. De Kort, & G. Leerdam (Eds.), Computertoepassingen in de Neerlandistiek. Almere: Landelijke Vereniging van Neerlandici.
  • 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., Matsuo, A., & Perdue, C. (2008). Comparing the acquisition of finiteness: A cross-linguistic approach. In B. Ahrenholz, U. Bredel, W. Klein, M. Rost-Roth, & R. Skiba (Eds.), Empirische Forschung und Theoriebildung: Beiträge aus Soziolinguistik, Gesprochene-Sprache- und Zweitspracherwerbsforschung: Festschrift für Norbert Dittmar (pp. 261-276). Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
  • Kempen, G. (1985). Artificiële intelligentie: Bouw, benutting, beheersing. In W. Veldkamp (Ed.), Innovatie in perspectief (pp. 42-47). Vianen: Nixdorf Computer B.V.
  • Kempen, G. (2007). De kunst van het weglaten: Elliptische nevenschikking in een model van de spreker. In F. Moerdijk, A. van Santen, & R. Tempelaars (Eds.), Leven met woorden: Afscheidsbundel voor Piet van Sterkenburg (pp. 397-407). Leiden: Brill.

    Abstract

    This paper is an abridged version (in Dutch) of an in-press article by the same author (Kempen, G. (2008/9). Clausal coordination and coordinate ellipsis in a model of the speaker. To be published in: Linguistics). The two papers present a psycholinguistically inspired approach to the syntax of clause-level coordination and coordinate ellipsis. It departs from the assumption that coordinations are structurally similar to so-called appropriateness repairs Ñ an important type of self-repairs in spontaneous speech. Coordinate structures and appropriateness repairs can both be viewed as ÒupdateÓ con-structions. Updating is defined as a special sentence production mode that efficiently revises or augments existing sentential structure in response to modifications in the speakerÕs communicative intention. This perspective is shown to offer an empirically satisfactory and theoretically parsimonious account of two prominent types of coordinate ellipsis, in particular Forward Conjunction Reduction (FCR) and Gapping (including Long-Distance Gapping and Subgapping). They are analyzed as different manifestations of Òincremental updatingÓ Ñ efficient updating of only part of the existing sentential structure. Based on empirical data from Dutch and German, novel treatments are proposed for both types of clausal coordinate ellipsis. Two other forms of coordinate ellipsis Ñ SGF (ÒSubject Gap in Finite clauses with fronted verbÓ), and Backward Conjunction Reduction (BCR; also known as Right Node Raising or RNR) Ñ are shown to be incompatible with the notion of incremental updating. Alternative theoretical interpretations of these phenomena are proposed. The four types of clausal coordinate ellipsis Ñ SGF, Gapping, FCR and BCR Ñ are argued to originate in four different stages of sentence production: Intending (i.e. preparing the communicative intention), Conceptualization, Grammatical Encoding, and Phonological Encoding, respectively.
  • Kempen, G., & Harbusch, K. (2008). Comparing linguistic judgments and corpus frequencies as windows on grammatical competence: A study of argument linearization in German clauses. In A. Steube (Ed.), The discourse potential of underspecified structures (pp. 179-192). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

    Abstract

    We present an overview of several corpus studies we carried out into the frequencies of argument NP orderings in the midfield of subordinate and main clauses of German. Comparing the corpus frequencies with grammaticality ratings published by Keller’s (2000), we observe a “grammaticality–frequency gap”: Quite a few argument orderings with zero corpus frequency are nevertheless assigned medium–range grammaticality ratings. We propose an explanation in terms of a two-factor theory. First, we hypothesize that the grammatical induction component needs a sufficient number of exposures to a syntactic pattern to incorporate it into its repertoire of more or less stable rules of grammar. Moderately to highly frequent argument NP orderings are likely have attained this status, but not their zero-frequency counterparts. This is why the latter argument sequences cannot be produced by the grammatical encoder and are absent from the corpora. Secondly, we assumed that an extraneous (nonlinguistic) judgment process biases the ratings of moderately grammatical linear order patterns: Confronted with such structures, the informants produce their own “ideal delivery” variant of the to-be-rated target sentence and evaluate the similarity between the two versions. A high similarity score yielded by this judgment then exerts a positive bias on the grammaticality rating—a score that should not be mistaken for an authentic grammaticality rating. We conclude that, at least in the linearization domain studied here, the goal of gaining a clear view of the internal grammar of language users is best served by a combined strategy in which grammar rules are founded on structures that elicit moderate to high grammaticality ratings and attain at least moderate usage frequencies.
  • Kempen, G. (1998). Sentence parsing. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 213-228). Berlin: Springer.
  • Kempen, G., Schotel, H., & Pijls, J. (1985). Taaltechnologie en taalonderwijs. In J. Heene (Ed.), Onderwijs en informatietechnologie. Den Haag: Stichting voor Onderzoek van het Onderwijs (SVO).
  • Kirschenbaum, A., Wittenburg, P., & Heyer, G. (2012). Unsupervised morphological analysis of small corpora: First experiments with Kilivila. In F. Seifart, G. Haig, N. P. Himmelmann, D. Jung, A. Margetts, & P. Trilsbeek (Eds.), Potentials of language documentation: Methods, analyses, and utilization (pp. 32-38). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.

    Abstract

    Language documentation involves linguistic analysis of the collected material, which is typically done manually. Automatic methods for language processing usually require large corpora. The method presented in this paper uses techniques from bioinformatics and contextual information to morphologically analyze raw text corpora. This paper presents initial results of the method when applied on a small Kilivila corpus.
  • Kita, S., & Ozyurek, A. (2007). How does spoken language shape iconic gestures? In S. Duncan, J. Cassel, & E. Levy (Eds.), Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language (pp. 67-74). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Klaas, G. (2007). Hints and recommendations concerning field equipment. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 10 (pp. 5-6). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Klaas, G. (2008). Hints and recommendations concerning field equipment. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 11 (pp. vi-vii). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Klein, W. (2008). Sprache innerhalb und ausserhalb der Schule. In Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (Ed.), Jahrbuch 2007 (pp. 140-150). Darmstadt: Wallstein Verlag.
  • Klein, W. (2008). The topic situation. In B. Ahrenholz, U. Bredel, W. Klein, M. Rost-Roth, & R. Skiba (Eds.), Empirische Forschung und Theoriebildung: Beiträge aus Soziolinguistik, Gesprochene-Sprache- und Zweitspracherwerbsforschung: Festschrift für Norbert Dittmar (pp. 287-305). Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
  • Klein, W. (2008). Time in language, language in time. In P. Indefrey, & M. Gullberg (Eds.), Time to speak: Cognitive and neural prerequisites for time in language (pp. 1-12). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Klein, W. (2012). Auf dem Markt der Wissenschaften oder: Weniger wäre mehr. In K. Sonntag (Ed.), Heidelberger Profile. Herausragende Persönlichkeiten berichten über ihre Begegnung mit Heidelberg. (pp. 61-84). Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter.
  • Klein, W. (2012). A way to look at second language acquisition. In M. Watorek, S. Benazzo, & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Comparative perspectives on language acquisition: A tribute to Clive Perdue (pp. 23-36). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
  • Klein, W. (2012). Alle zwei Wochen verschwindet eine Sprache. In G. Stock (Ed.), Die Akademie am Gendarmenmarkt 2012/13, Jahresmagazin 2012/13 (pp. 8-13). Berlin: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften.
  • 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. (1985). Ellipse, Fokusgliederung und thematischer Stand. In R. Meyer-Hermann, & H. Rieser (Eds.), Ellipsen und fragmentarische Ausdrücke (pp. 1-24). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Klein, W. (2012). Die Sprache der Denker. In J. Voss, & M. Stolleis (Eds.), Fachsprachen und Normalsprache (pp. 49-60). Göttingen: Wallstein.
  • Klein, W. (1985). Argumentationsanalyse: Ein Begriffsrahmen und ein Beispiel. In W. Kopperschmidt, & H. Schanze (Eds.), Argumente - Argumentationen (pp. 208-260). München: Fink.
  • 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. (2008). Mündliche Textproduktion: Informationsorganisation in Texten. In N. Janich (Ed.), Textlinguistik: 15 Einführungen (pp. 217-235). Tübingen: Narr Verlag.
  • Klein, W. (1990). Language acquisition. In M. Piattelli Palmarini (Ed.), Cognitive science in Europe: Issues and trends: Golem monograph series, 1 (pp. 65-77). Ivrea: Golem.
  • Klein, W. (2012). Grußworte. In C. Markschies, & E. Osterkamp (Eds.), Vademekum der Inspirationsmittel (pp. 63-65). Göttingen: Wallstein.
  • Klein, W. (1990). Sprachverfall. In Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg (Ed.), Sprache: Vorträge im Sommersemester (pp. 101-114). Heidelberg: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität.
  • Klein, W. (1985). Sechs Grundgrößen des Spracherwerbs. In R. Eppeneder (Ed.), Lernersprache: Thesen zum Erwerb einer Fremdsprache (pp. 67-106). München: Goethe Institut.
  • 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. (2012). The information structure of French. In M. Krifka, & R. Musan (Eds.), The expression of information structure (pp. 95-126). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Kooijman, V., Johnson, E. K., & Cutler, A. (2008). Reflections on reflections of infant word recognition. In A. D. Friederici, & G. Thierry (Eds.), Early language development: Bridging brain and behaviour (pp. 91-114). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Kopecka, A. (2012). Semantic granularity of placement and removal expressions in Polish. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 327-348). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This chapter explores the expression of placement (or Goal-oriented) and removal (or Source-oriented) events by speakers of Polish (a West Slavic language). Its aim is to investigate the hypothesis known as ‘Source/Goal asymmetry’ according to which languages tend to favor the expression of Goals (e.g., into, onto) and to encode them more systematically and in a more fine-grained way than Sources (e.g., from, out of). The study provides both evidence and counter-evidence for Source/Goal asymmetry. On the one hand, it shows that Polish speakers use a greater variety of verbs to convey Manner and/or mode of manipulation in the expression of placement, encoding such events in a more fine-grained manner than removal events. The expression of placement is also characterized by a greater variety of verb prefixes conveying Path and prepositional phrases (including prepositions and case markers) conveying Ground. On the other hand, the study reveals that Polish speakers attend to Sources as often as to Goals, revealing no evidence for an attentional bias toward the endpoints of events.
  • Kouwenhoven, H., & Van Mulken, M. (2012). The perception of self in L1 and L2 for Dutch-English compound bilinguals. In N. De Jong, K. Juffermans, M. Keijzer, & L. Rasier (Eds.), Papers of the Anéla 2012 Applied Linguistics Conference (pp. 326-335). Delft: Eburon.
  • 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.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1990). De connectionistische mode. In P. Van Hoogstraten (Ed.), Belofte en werkelijkheid: Sociale wetenschappen en informatisering (pp. 39-68). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
  • 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. (2007). Levensbericht Detlev W. Ploog. In Levensberichten en herdenkingen 2007 (pp. 60-63). Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1990). Some studies of lexical access at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. In F. Aarts, & T. Van Els (Eds.), Contemporary Dutch linguistics (pp. 131-139). Washington: Georgetown University Press.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (2008). What has become of formal grammars in linguistics and psycholinguistics? [Postscript]. In Formal Grammars in linguistics and psycholinguistics (pp. 1-17). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2007). Optimizing person reference - perspectives from usage on Rossel Island. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (Eds.), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 29-72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter explicates the requirement in person–reference for balancing demands for recognition, minimalization, explicitness and indirection. This is illustrated with reference to data from repair of failures of person–reference within a particular linguistic/cultural context, namely casual interaction among Rossel Islanders. Rossel Island (PNG) offers a ‘natural experiment’ for studying aspects of person reference, because of a number of special properties: 1. It is a closed universe of 4000 souls, sharing one kinship network, so in principle anyone could be recognizable from a reference. As a result no (complex) descriptions (cf. ‘ the author of Waverly’) are employed. 2. Names, however, are never uniquely referring, since they are drawn from a fixed pool. They are only used for about 25% of initial references, another 25% of initial references being done by kinship triangulation (‘that man’s father–in–law’). Nearly 50% of initial references are semantically underspecified or vague (e.g. ‘that girl’). 3. There are systematic motivations for oblique reference, e.g. kinship–based taboos and other constraints, which partly account for the underspecified references. The ‘natural experiment’ thus reveals some gneral lessons about how person–reference requires optimizing multiple conflicting constraints. Comparison with Sacks and Schegloff’s (1979) treatment of English person reference suggests a way to tease apart the universal and the culturally–particular.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1998). Deixis. In J. L. Mey (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of pragmatics (pp. 200-204). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Levinson, S. C., Senft, G., & Majid, A. (2007). Emotion categories in language and thought. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 46-52). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492892.
  • 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., Majid, A., & Enfield, N. J. (2007). Language of perception: The view from language and culture. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 10-21). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468738.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2012). Interrogative intimations: On a possible social economics of interrogatives. In J. P. De Ruiter (Ed.), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives (pp. 11-32). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Brown, P. (2012). Put and Take in Yélî Dnye, the Papuan language of Rossel Island. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 273-296). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper describes the linguistic treatment of placement events in the Rossel Island (Papua New Guinea) language Yélî Dnye. Yélî Dnye is unusual in treating PUT and TAKE events symmetrically with a remarkable consistency. In what follows, we first provide a brief background for the language, then describe the six core PUT/TAKE verbs that were drawn upon by Yélî Dnye speakers to describe the great majority of the PUT/TAKE stimuli clips, along with some of their grammatical properties. In Section 5 we describe alternative verbs usable in particular circumstances and give an indication of the basis for variability in responses across speakers. Section 6 presents some reasons why the Yélî verb pattern for expressing PUT and TAKE events is of broad interest.
  • Levinson, S. C. (2012). Preface. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. xi-xv). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2008). Preface and priorities. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 11 (pp. iii-iv). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2007). The language of sound. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 29-31). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468735.
  • Levinson, S. C., & Majid, A. (2007). The language of vision II: Shape. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 26-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468732.
  • Levinson, S. C., Bohnemeyer, J., & Enfield, N. J. (2008). Time and space questionnaire. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 11 (pp. 42-49). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492955.

    Abstract

    This entry contains: 1. An invitation to think about to what extent the grammar of space and time share lexical and morphosyntactic resources − the suggestions here are only prompts, since it would take a long questionnaire to fully explore this; 2. A suggestion about how to collect gestural data that might show us to what extent the spatial and temporal domains, have a psychological continuity. This is really the goal − but you need to do the linguistic work first or in addition. The goal of this task is to explore the extent to which time is conceptualised on a spatial basis.
  • Lindström, E., Terrill, A., Reesink, G., & Dunn, M. (2007). The languages of Island Melanesia. In J. S. Friedlaender (Ed.), Genes, language, and culture history in the Southwest Pacific (pp. 118-140). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter provides an overview of the Papuan and the Oceanic languages (a branch of Austronesian) in Northern Island Melanesia, as well as phenomena arising through contact between these groups. It shows how linguistics can contribute to the understanding of the history of languages and speakers, and what the findings of those methods have been. The location of the homeland of speakers of Proto-Oceanic is indicated (in northeast New Britain); many facets of the lives of those speakers are shown; and the patterns of their subsequent spread across Island Melanesia and beyond into Remote Oceania are indicated, followed by a second wave overlaying the first into New Guinea and as far as halfway through the Solomon Islands. Regarding the Papuan languages of this region, at least some are older than the 6,000-10,000 ceiling of the Comparative Method, and their relations are explored with the aid of a database of 125 non-lexical structural features. The results reflect archipelago-based clustering with the Central Solomons Papuan languages forming a clade either with the Bismarcks or with Bougainville languages. Papuan languages in Bougainville are less influenced by Oceanic languages than those in the Bismarcks and the Solomons. The chapter considers a variety of scenarios to account for their findings, concluding that the results are compatible with multiple pre-Oceanic waves of arrivals into the area after initial settlement.
  • Liszkowski, U. (2007). Human twelve-month-olds point cooperatively to share interest with and helpfully provide information for a communicative partner. In K. Liebal, C. Müller, & S. Pika (Eds.), Gestural communication in nonhuman and human primates (pp. 124-140). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper investigates infant pointing at 12 months. Three recent experimental studies from our lab are reported and contrasted with existing accounts on infant communicative and social-cognitive abilities. The new results show that infant pointing at 12 months already is a communicative act which involves the intentional transmission of information to share interest with, or provide information for other persons. It is argued that infant pointing is an inherently social and cooperative act which is used to share psychological relations between interlocutors and environment, repairs misunderstandings in proto-conversational turn-taking, and helps others by providing information. Infant pointing builds on an understanding of others as persons with attentional states and attitudes. Findings do not support lean accounts on early infant pointing which posit that it is initially non-communicative, does not serve the function of indicating, or is purely self-centered. It is suggested to investigate the emergence of reference and the motivation to jointly engage with others also before pointing has emerged.
  • Liszkowski, U., & Brown, P. (2007). Infant pointing (9-15 months) in different cultures. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 82-88). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492895.

    Abstract

    There are two tasks for conducting systematic observation of child-caregiver joint attention interactions. Task 1 – a “decorated room” designed to elicit infant and caregiver pointing. Task 2 – videotaped interviews about infant pointing behaviour. The goal of this task is to document the ontogenetic emergence of referential communication in caregiver infant interaction in different cultures, during the critical age of 8-15 months when children come to understand and share others’ intentions. This is of interest to all students of interaction and human communication; it does not require specialist knowledge of children.
  • Magyari, L. (2008). A mentális lexikon modelljei és a magyar nyelv (Models of mental lexicon and the Hungarian language). In J. Gervain, & C. Pléh (Eds.), A láthatatlan nyelv (Invisible Language). Budapest: Gondolat Kiadó.
  • Majid, A., van Leeuwen, T., & Dingemanse, M. (2008). Synaesthesia: A cross-cultural pilot. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 11 (pp. 37-41). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492960.

    Abstract

    This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2009 version:
    https://doi.org/10.17617/2.883570

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  • Majid, A. (2012). A guide to stimulus-based elicitation for semantic categories. In N. Thieberger (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic fieldwork (pp. 54-71). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Majid, A. (2008). Focal colours. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 11 (pp. 8-10). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492958.

    Abstract

    In this task we aim to find what the best exemplars or “focal colours” of each basic colour term is in our field languages. This is an important part of the evidence we need in order to understand the colour data collected using 'The Language of Vision I: Colour'. This task consists of an experiment where participants pick out the best exemplar for the colour terms in their language. The goal is to establish language specific focal colours.
  • Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Language of perception: Overview of field tasks. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 8-9). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492898.
  • Majid, A. (2007). Preface and priorities. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 10 (pp. 3). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Majid, A., Senft, G., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). The language of olfaction. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 36-41). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492910.
  • Majid, A., Senft, G., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). The language of touch. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 32-35). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492907.
  • Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). The language of vision I: colour. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 22-25). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492901.
  • Marti, M., Alhama, R. G., & Recasens, M. (2012). Los avances tecnológicos y la ciencia del lenguaje. In T. Jiménez Juliá, B. López Meirama, V. Vázquez Rozas, & A. Veiga (Eds.), Cum corde et in nova grammatica. Estudios ofrecidos a Guillermo Rojo (pp. 543-553). Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.

    Abstract

    La ciencia moderna nace de la conjunción entre postulados teóricos y el desarrollo de una infraestructura tecnológica que permite observar los hechos de manera adecuada, realizar experimentos y verificar las hipótesis. Desde Galileo, ciencia y tecnología han avanzado conjuntamente. En el mundo occidental, la ciencia ha evolucionado desde pro-puestas puramente especulativas (basadas en postulados apriorísticos) hasta el uso de métodos experimentales y estadísticos para explicar mejor nuestras observaciones. La tecnología se hermana con la ciencia facilitando al investigador una aproximación adecuada a los hechos que pretende explicar. Así, Galileo, para observar los cuerpos celestes, mejoró el utillaje óptico, lo que le permitió un acercamiento más preciso al objeto de estudio y, en consecuencia, unos fundamentos más sólidos para su propuesta teórica. De modo similar, actualmente el desarrollo tecnológico digital ha posibilitado la extracción masiva de datos y el análisis estadístico de éstos para verificar las hipótesis de partida: la lingüística no ha podido dar el paso desde la pura especulación hacia el análisis estadístico de los hechos hasta la aparición de las tecnologías digitales.
  • Massaro, D. W., & Jesse, A. (2007). Audiovisual speech perception and word recognition. In M. G. Gaskell (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 19-35). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    In most of our everyday conversations, we not only hear but also see each other talk. Our understanding of speech benefits from having the speaker's face present. This finding immediately necessitates the question of how the information from the different perceptual sources is used to reach the best overall decision. This need for processing of multiple sources of information also exists in auditory speech perception, however. Audiovisual speech simply shifts the focus from intramodal to intermodal sources but does not necessitate a qualitatively different form of processing. It is essential that a model of speech perception operationalizes the concept of processing multiple sources of information so that quantitative predictions can be made. This chapter gives an overview of the main research questions and findings unique to audiovisual speech perception and word recognition research as well as what general questions about speech perception and cognition the research in this field can answer. The main theoretical approaches to explain integration and audiovisual speech perception are introduced and critically discussed. The chapter also provides an overview of the role of visual speech as a language learning tool in multimodal training.
  • 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. (2007). Eight questions about spoken-word recognition. In M. G. Gaskell (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 37-53). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter is a review of the literature in experimental psycholinguistics on spoken word recognition. It is organized around eight questions. 1. Why are psycholinguists interested in spoken word recognition? 2. What information in the speech signal is used in word recognition? 3. Where are the words in the continuous speech stream? 4. Which words did the speaker intend? 5. When, as the speech signal unfolds over time, are the phonological forms of words recognized? 6. How are words recognized? 7. Whither spoken word recognition? 8. Who are the researchers in the field?
  • 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.
  • Mehler, J., & Cutler, A. (1990). Psycholinguistic implications of phonological diversity among languages. In M. Piattelli-Palmerini (Ed.), Cognitive science in Europe: Issues and trends (pp. 119-134). Rome: Golem.
  • Merolla, D., & Ameka, F. K. (2012). Reflections on video fieldwork: The making of Verba Africana IV on the Ewe Hogbetsotso Festival. In D. Merolla, J. Jansen, & K. Nait-Zerrad (Eds.), Multimedia research and documentation of oral genres in Africa - The step forward (pp. 123-132). Münster: Lit.
  • Naffah, N., Kempen, G., Rohmer, J., Steels, L., Tsichritzis, D., & White, G. (1985). Intelligent Workstation in the office: State of the art and future perspectives. In J. Roukens, & J. Renuart (Eds.), Esprit '84: Status report of ongoing work (pp. 365-378). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers.
  • Narasimhan, B., Kopecka, A., Bowerman, M., Gullberg, M., & Majid, A. (2012). Putting and taking events: A crosslinguistic perspective. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 1-18). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Narasimhan, B. (2012). Putting and Taking in Tamil and Hindi. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 201-230). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Many languages have general or “light” verbs used by speakers to describe a wide range of situations owing to their relatively schematic meanings, e.g., the English verb do that can be used to describe many different kinds of actions, or the verb put that labels a range of types of placement of objects at locations. Such semantically bleached verbs often become grammaticalized and used to encode an extended (set of) meaning(s), e.g., Tamil veyyii ‘put/place’ is used to encode causative meaning in periphrastic causatives (e.g., okkara veyyii ‘make sit’, nikka veyyii ‘make stand’). But do general verbs in different languages have the same kinds of (schematic) meanings and extensional ranges? Or do they reveal different, perhaps even cross-cutting, ways of structuring the same semantic domain in different languages? These questions require detailed crosslinguistic investigation using comparable methods of eliciting data. The present study is a first step in this direction, and focuses on the use of general verbs to describe events of placement and removal in two South Asian languages, Hindi and Tamil.
  • 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.
  • Nouaouri, N. (2012). The semantics of placement and removal predicates in Moroccan Arabic. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 99-122). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This article explores the expression of placement and removal events in Moroccan Arabic, particularly the semantic features of ‘putting’ and ‘taking’ verbs, classified in accordance with their combination with Goal and/or Source NPs. Moroccan Arabic verbs encode a variety of components of placement and removal events, including containment, attachment, features of the figure, and trajectory. Furthermore, accidental events are distinguished from deliberate events either by the inherent semantics of predicates or denoted syntactically. The postures of the Figures, in spite of some predicates distinguishing them, are typically not specified as they are in other languages, such as Dutch. Although Ground locations are frequently mentioned in both source-oriented and goal-oriented clauses, they are used more often in goal-oriented clauses.
  • O’Connor, L. (2012). Take it up, down, and away: Encoding placement and removal in Lowland Chontal. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 297-326). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper offers a structural and semantic analysis of expressions of caused motion in Lowland Chontal of Oaxaca, an indigenous language of southern Mexico. The data were collected using a video stimulus designed to elicit a wide range of caused motion event descriptions. The most frequent event types in the corpus depict caused motion to and from relations of support and containment, fundamental notions in the de­scription of spatial relations between two entities and critical semantic components of the linguistic encoding of caused motion in this language. Formal features of verbal construction type and argument realization are examined by sorting event descriptions into semantic types of placement and removal, to and from support and to and from containment. Together with typological factors that shape the distribution of spatial semantics and referent expression, separate treatments of support and containment relations serve to clarify notable asymmetries in patterns of predicate type and argument realization.
  • Ozyurek, A. (2007). Processing of multi-modal semantic information: Insights from cross-linguistic comparisons and neurophysiological recordings. In T. Sakamoto (Ed.), Communicating skills of intention (pp. 131-142). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Publishing.
  • Ozyurek, A. (2012). Gesture. In R. Pfau, M. Steinbach, & B. Woll (Eds.), Sign language: An international handbook (pp. 626-646). Berlin: Mouton.

    Abstract

    Gestures are meaningful movements of the body, the hands, and the face during communication,
    which accompany the production of both spoken and signed utterances. Recent
    research has shown that gestures are an integral part of language and that they contribute
    semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic information to the linguistic utterance. Furthermore,
    they reveal internal representations of the language user during communication in ways
    that might not be encoded in the verbal part of the utterance. Firstly, this chapter summarizes
    research on the role of gesture in spoken languages. Subsequently, it gives an overview
    of how gestural components might manifest themselves in sign languages, that is,
    in a situation in which both gesture and sign are expressed by the same articulators.
    Current studies are discussed that address the question of whether gestural components are the same or different in the two language modalities from a semiotic as well as from a cognitive and processing viewpoint. Understanding the role of gesture in both sign and
    spoken language contributes to our knowledge of the human language faculty as a multimodal communication system.
  • Ozyurek, A., Kita, S., Allen, S., Furman, R., & Brown, A. (2007). How does linguistic framing of events influence co-speech gestures? Insights from crosslinguistic variations and similarities. In K. Liebal, C. Müller, & S. Pika (Eds.), Gestural communication in nonhuman and human primates (pp. 199-218). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    What are the relations between linguistic encoding and gestural representations of events during online speaking? The few studies that have been conducted on this topic have yielded somewhat incompatible results with regard to whether and how gestural representations of events change with differences in the preferred semantic and syntactic encoding possibilities of languages. Here we provide large scale semantic, syntactic and temporal analyses of speech- gesture pairs that depict 10 different motion events from 20 Turkish and 20 English speakers. We find that the gestural representations of the same events differ across languages when they are encoded by different syntactic frames (i.e., verb-framed or satellite-framed). However, where there are similarities across languages, such as omission of a certain element of the event in the linguistic encoding, gestural representations also look similar and omit the same content. The results are discussed in terms of what gestures reveal about the influence of language specific encoding on on-line thinking patterns and the underlying interactions between speech and gesture during the speaking process.
  • Peeters, D., Vanlangendonck, F., & Willems, R. M. (2012). Bestaat er een talenknobbel? Over taal in ons brein. In M. Boogaard, & M. Jansen (Eds.), Alles wat je altijd al had willen weten over taal: De taalcanon (pp. 41-43). Amsterdam: Meulenhoff.

    Abstract

    Wanneer iemand goed is in het spreken van meerdere talen, wordt wel gezegd dat zo iemand een talenknobbel heeft. Iedereen weet dat dat niet letterlijk bedoeld is: iemand met een talenknobbel herkennen we niet aan een grote bult op zijn hoofd. Toch dacht men vroeger wel degelijk dat mensen een letterlijke talenknobbel konden ontwikkelen. Een goed ontwikkeld taalvermogen zou gepaard gaan met het groeien van het hersengebied dat hiervoor verantwoordelijk was. Dit deel van het brein zou zelfs zo groot kunnen worden dat het van binnenuit tegen de schedel drukte, met name rond de ogen. Nu weten we wel beter. Maar waar in het brein bevindt de taal zich dan wel precies?
  • Perniss, P. M., & Ozyurek, A. (2008). Representations of action, motion and location in sign space: A comparison of German (DGS) and Turkish (TID) sign language narratives. In J. Quer (Ed.), Signs of the time: Selected papers from TISLR 8 (pp. 353-376). Seedorf: Signum Press.
  • Perniss, P. M., Pfau, R., & Steinbach, M. (2007). Can't you see the difference? Sources of variation in sign language structure. In P. M. Perniss, R. Pfau, & M. Steinbach (Eds.), Visible variation: Cross-linguistic studies in sign language narratives (pp. 1-34). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Perniss, P. M. (2007). Locative functions of simultaneous perspective constructions in German sign language narrative. In M. Vermeerbergen, L. Leeson, & O. Crasborn (Eds.), Simultaneity in signed language: Form and function (pp. 27-54). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Perniss, P. M., & Zeshan, U. (2008). Possessive and existential constructions in Kata Kolok (Bali). In Possessive and existential constructions in sign languages. Nijmegen: Ishara Press.
  • Perniss, P. M., & Zeshan, U. (2008). Possessive and existential constructions: Introduction and overview. In Possessive and existential constructions in sign languages (pp. 1-31). Nijmegen: Ishara Press.
  • Perniss, P. M. (2012). Use of sign space. In R. Pfau, M. Steinbach, & B. Woll (Eds.), Sign Language: an International Handbook (pp. 412-431). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Abstract

    This chapter focuses on the semantic and pragmatic uses of space. The questions addressed concern how sign space (i.e. the area of space in front of the signer’s body) is used for meaning construction, how locations in sign space are associated with discourse referents, and how signers choose to structure sign space for their communicative intents. The chapter gives an overview of linguistic analyses of the use of space, starting with the distinction between syntactic and topographic uses of space and the different types of signs that function to establish referent-location associations, and moving to analyses based on mental spaces and conceptual blending theories. Semantic-pragmatic conventions for organizing sign space are discussed, as well as spatial devices notable in the visual-spatial modality (particularly, classifier predicates and signing perspective), which influence and determine the way meaning is created in sign space. Finally, the special role of simultaneity in sign languages is discussed, focusing on the semantic and discourse-pragmatic functions of simultaneous constructions.
  • Petersen, J. H. (2012). How to put and take in Kalasha. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 349-366). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    In Kalasha, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Northwest Pakistan, the linguistic encoding of ‘put’ and ‘take’ events reveals a symmetry between lexical ‘put’ and ‘take’ verbs that implies ‘placement on’ and ‘removal from’ a supporting surface. As regards ‘placement in’ and ‘removal from’ an enclosure, the data reveal a lexical asymmetry as ‘take’ verbs display a larger degree of linguistic elaboration of the Figure-Ground relation and the type of caused motion than ‘put’ verbs. When considering syntactic patterns, more instances of asymmetry between these two event types show up. The analysis presented here supports the proposal that an asymmetry exists in the encoding of goals versus sources as suggested in Nam (2004) and Ikegami (1987), but it calls into question the statement put forward by Regier and Zheng (2007) that endpoints (goals) are more finely differentiated semantically than starting points (sources).

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