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Akita, K., & Dingemanse, M. (2019). Ideophones (Mimetics, Expressives). In Oxford Research Encyclopedia for Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.477.
Abstract
Ideophones, also termed “mimetics” or “expressives,” are marked words that depict sensory imagery. They are found in many of the world’s languages, and sizable lexical classes of ideophones are particularly well-documented in languages of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Ideophones are not limited to onomatopoeia like meow and smack, but cover a wide range of sensory domains, such as manner of motion (e.g., plisti plasta ‘splish-splash’ in Basque), texture (e.g., tsaklii ‘rough’ in Ewe), and psychological states (e.g., wakuwaku ‘excited’ in Japanese). Across languages, ideophones stand out as marked words due to special phonotactics, expressive morphology including certain types of reduplication, and relative syntactic independence, in addition to production features like prosodic foregrounding and common co-occurrence with iconic gestures.
Three intertwined issues have been repeatedly debated in the century-long literature on ideophones. (a) Definition: Isolated descriptive traditions and cross-linguistic variation have sometimes obscured a typologically unified view of ideophones, but recent advances show the promise of a prototype definition of ideophones as conventionalised depictions in speech, with room for language-specific nuances. (b) Integration: The variable integration of ideophones across linguistic levels reveals an interaction between expressiveness and grammatical integration, and has important implications for how to conceive of dependencies between linguistic systems. (c) Iconicity: Ideophones form a natural laboratory for the study of iconic form-meaning associations in natural languages, and converging evidence from corpus and experimental studies suggests important developmental, evolutionary, and communicative advantages of ideophones. -
Allen, G. L., & Haun, D. B. M. (2004). Proximity and precision in spatial memory. In G. Allen (
Ed. ), Human spatial memory: Remembering where (pp. 41-63). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. -
Ambridge, B., Rowland, C. F., Theakston, A. L., & Twomey, K. E. (2020). Introduction. In C. F. Rowland, A. L. Theakston, B. Ambridge, & K. E. Twomey (
Eds. ), Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition: How children use their environment to learn (pp. 1-7). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/tilar.27.int. -
Ameka, F. K. (2008). Aspect and modality in Ewe: A survey. In F. K. Ameka, & M. E. Kropp Dakubu (
Eds. ), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages (pp. 135-194). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K. (2008). He died old dying to be dead right: Transitivity and semantic shifts of 'die' in Ewe in crosslinguistic perspective. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 231-254). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Abstract
This paper examines some of the claims of the Unaccusativity hypothesis.It shows that the supposedly unaccusative ‘die’ verb in Ewe (Kwa), kú can appear as both a one-place and a two-place predicate and has three senses which do not correlate with the number of surface arguments of the verb. For instance, the same sense is involved in both a one-place construction (e.g. she died) and a two-place cognate object construction (she died a wicked death). By contrast, different senses are expressed by formally identical two-place constructions, e.g. ‘the garment die dirt’ (= the garment is dead dirty; intensity) vs., ‘he died ear (to the matter)’ (=he does not want to hear; negative desiderative). The paper explores the learnability problems posed by the non-predictability of the different senses of Ewe ‘die’ from its syntactic frame and suggests that since the meanings are indirectly related to the properties of the event participants, such as animacy, a learner must pay close attention to the properties of the verb’s participants. The paper concludes by demonstrating that the meaning shifts observed in Ewe are also attested in other typologically and genetically unrelated languages such as Japanese, Arrernte (Australian), Oluta (Mixean), Dutch and English. -
Ameka, F. K. (2001). Ideophones and the nature of the adjective word class in Ewe. In F. K. E. Voeltz, & C. Kilian-Hatz (
Eds. ), Ideophones (pp. 25-48). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K., & Kropp Dakubu, M. E. (2008). Imperfective constructions: Progressive and prospective in Ewe and Dangme. In F. K. Ameka, & M. E. Kropp Dakubu (
Eds. ), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages (pp. 215-289). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K., & Kropp Dakubu, M. E. (2008). Introduction. In F. K. Ameka, & M. E. Kropp Dakubu (
Eds. ), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages (pp. 1-7). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K. (2001). Ewe. In J. Garry, & C. Rubino (
Eds. ), Facts about the world’s languages: An encyclopedia of the world's major languages past and present (pp. 207-213). New York: H.W. Wilson Press. -
Ameka, F. K. (2013). Possessive constructions in Likpe (Sɛkpɛlé). In A. Aikhenvald, & R. Dixon (
Eds. ), Possession and ownership: A crosslinguistic typology (pp. 224-242). Oxford: Oxford University Press. -
Amora, K. K., Garcia, R., & Gagarina, N. (2020). Tagalog adaptation of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives: History, process and preliminary results. In N. Gagarina, & J. Lindgren (
Eds. ), New language versions of MAIN: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives – Revised (pp. 221-233).Abstract
This paper briefly presents the current situation of bilingualism in the Philippines,
specifically that of Tagalog-English bilingualism. More importantly, it describes the process of adapting the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN) to Tagalog, the basis of Filipino, which is the country’s national language.
Finally, the results of a pilot study conducted on Tagalog-English bilingual children and
adults (N=27) are presented. The results showed that Story Structure is similar across the
two languages and that it develops significantly with age. -
Aslin, R., Clayards, M., & Bardhan, N. P. (2008). Mechanisms of auditory reorganization during development: From sounds to words. In C. Nelson, & M. Luciana (
Eds. ), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (2nd, pp. 97-116). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2020). Appositive compounds in dialectal and sociolinguistic varieties of French. In M. Maiden, & S. Wolfe (
Eds. ), Variation and change in Gallo-Romance (pp. 326-346). Oxford: Oxford University Press. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2013). Impersonal verbs. In G. K. Giannakis (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics Online (pp. 197-198). Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/2214-448X_eagll_SIM_00000481.Abstract
Impersonal verbs in Greek ‒ as in the other Indo-European languages ‒ exclusively feature 3rd person singular finite forms and convey one of three types of meaning: (a) meteorological conditions; (b) emotional and physical state/experience; (c) modality. In Greek, impersonal verbs predominantly convey meteorological conditions and modality.
Impersonal verbs in Greek, as in the other Indo-European languages, exclusively feature 3rd person singular finite forms and convey one of three types of me…Files private
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Behne, T., Carpenter, M., Gräfenhain, M., Liebal, K., Liszkowski, U., Moll, H., Rakoczy, H., Tomasello, M., Warneken, F., & Wyman, E. (2008). Cultural learning and cultural creation. In U. Müller, J. Carpendale, N. Budwig, & B. Sokol (
Eds. ), Social life and social knowledge: Toward a process account of development (pp. 65-102). Hove: Psychology Press. -
Bercelli, F., Rossano, F., & Viaro, M. (2008). Clients' responses to therapists' reinterpretations. In A. Peräkylä, C. Antaki, S. Vehviläinen, & I. Leudar (
Eds. ), Conversation analysis and psychotherapy (pp. 43-61). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Motionland films version 2: Referential communication task with motionland stimulus. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 97-99). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874623.Abstract
How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package different components of moving, such as manner and path? This task supports detailed investigation of motion descriptions. The specific study goals are: (a) the coding of “via” grounds (i.e., ground objects which the figure moves along, over, around, through, past, etc.); (b) the coding of direction changes; (c) the spontaneous segmentation of complex motion scenarios; and (d) the gestural representation of motion paths. The stimulus set is 5 simple 3D animations (7-17 seconds long) that show a ball rolling through a landscape. The task is a director-matcher task for two participants. The director describes the path of the ball in each clip to the matcher, who is asked to trace the path with a pen in a 2D picture.Additional information
2001_Motionland_films_v2.zip -
Bohnemeyer, J., Eisenbeiss, S., & Narasimhan, B. (2001). Event triads. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 100-114). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874630.Abstract
Judgments we make about how similar or different events are to each other can reveal the features we find useful in classifying the world. This task is designed to investigate how speakers of different languages classify events, and to examine how linguistic and gestural encoding relates to non-linguistic classification. Specifically, the task investigates whether speakers judge two events to be similar on the basis of (a) the path versus manner of motion, (b) sub-events versus larger complex events, (c) participant identity versus event identity, and (d) different participant roles. In the task, participants are asked to make similarity judgments concerning sets of 2D animation clips. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). A questionnaire on event integration. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 177-184). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. -
Bohnemeyer, J., Bowerman, M., & Brown, P. (2001). Cut and break clips. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 90-96). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874626.Abstract
How do different languages treat a particular semantic domain? It has already been established that languages have widely varied words for talking about “cutting” and “breaking” things: for example, English has a very general verb break, but K’iche’ Maya has many different ‘break’ verbs that are used for different kinds of objects (e.g., brittle, flexible, long). The aim of this task is to map out cross-linguistic lexicalisation patterns in the cutting/breaking domain. The stimuli comprise 61 short video clips that show one or two actors breaking various objects (sticks, carrots, pieces of cloth or string, etc.) using various instruments (a knife, a hammer, an axe, their hands, etc.), or situations in which various kinds of objects break spontaneously. The clips are used to elicit descriptions of actors’ actions and the state changes that the objects undergo.Additional information
2001_Cut_and_break_clips.zip -
Bohnemeyer, J., Burenhult, N., Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (2004). Landscape terms and place names elicitation guide. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 75-79). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492904.Abstract
Landscape terms reflect the relationship between geographic reality and human cognition. Are ‘mountains’, ‘rivers, ‘lakes’ and the like universally recognised in languages as naturally salient objects to be named? The landscape subproject is concerned with the interrelation between language, cognition and geography. Specifically, it investigates issues relating to how landforms are categorised cross-linguistically as well as the characteristics of place naming. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2008). The pitfalls of getting from here to there. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure: Implications for Learnability (pp. 49-68). New York City, NY, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Toponym questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 55-61). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874620.Abstract
Place-names (toponyms) are at the intersection of spatial language, culture, and cognition. This questionnaire prepares the researcher to answer three overarching questions: how to formally identify place-names in the research language (i.e. according to morphological and syntactic criteria); what places place-names are employed to refer to (e.g. human settlements, landscape sites); and how places are semantically construed for this purpose. The questionnaire can in principle be answered using an existing database. However, additional elicitation with language consultants is recommended. -
Boroditsky, L., Gaby, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Time in space. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 11 (pp. 52-76). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492932.Abstract
How do different languages and cultures conceptualise time? This question is part of a broader set of questions about how humans come to represent and reason about abstract entities – things we cannot see or touch. For example, how do we come to represent and reason about abstract domains like justice, ideas, kinship, morality, or politics? There are two aspects of this project: (1) Time arrangement tasks to assess the way people arrange time either as temporal progressions expressed in picture cards or done using small tokens or points in space. (2) A time & space language inventory to discover and document the linguistic coding of time and its relation to space, as well as the cultural knowledge structures related to time.Additional information
2008_Time_in_space_stimuli.zip -
Bosker, H. R. (2013). Juncture (prosodic). In G. Khan (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (pp. 432-434). Leiden: Brill.Abstract
Prosodic juncture concerns the compartmentalization and partitioning of syntactic entities in spoken discourse by means of prosody. It has been argued that the Intonation Unit, defined by internal criteria and prosodic boundary phenomena (e.g., final lengthening, pitch reset, pauses), encapsulates the basic structural unit of spoken Modern Hebrew. -
Bosker, H. R. (2013). Sibilant consonants. In G. Khan (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (pp. 557-561). Leiden: Brill.Abstract
Fricative consonants in Hebrew can be divided into bgdkpt and sibilants (ז, ס, צ, שׁ, שׂ). Hebrew sibilants have been argued to stem from Proto-Semitic affricates, laterals, interdentals and /s/. In standard Israeli Hebrew the sibilants are pronounced as [s] (ס and שׂ), [ʃ] (שׁ), [z] (ז), [ʦ] (צ). -
Bowerman, M., & Croft, W. (2008). The acquisition of the English causative alternation. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 279-306). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Bowerman, M. (1985). Beyond communicative adequacy: From piecemeal knowledge to an integrated system in the child's acquisition of language. In K. Nelson (
Ed. ), Children's language (pp. 369-398). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.Abstract
(From the chapter) the first section considers very briefly the kinds of processes that can be inferred to underlie errors that do not set in until after a period of correct usage acquisition often seems to be a more extended process than we have envisioned summarize a currently influential model of how linguistic forms, meaning, and communication are interrelated in the acquisition of language, point out some challenging problems for this model, and suggest that the notion of "meaning" in language must be reconceptualized before we can hope to solve these problems evidence from several types of late errors is marshalled in support of these arguments (From the preface) provides many examples of new errors that children introduce at relatively advanced stages of mastery of semantics and syntax Bowerman views these seemingly backwards steps as indications of definite steps forward by the child achieving reflective, flexible and integrated systems of semantics and syntax ( -
Bowerman, M., & Brown, P. (2008). Introduction. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 1-26). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Abstract
This chapter outlines two influential "bootstrapping" proposals that draw on presumed universals of argument structure to account for young children's acquisition of grammar (semantic bootstrapping) and verb meaning (syntactic bootstrapping), discusses controversial issues raised by these proposals, and summarizes the new insights contributed to the debate by each of the chapters in this volume. -
Bowerman, M. (2004). From universal to language-specific in early grammatical development [Reprint]. In K. Trott, S. Dobbinson, & P. Griffiths (
Eds. ), The child language reader (pp. 131-146). London: Routledge.Abstract
Attempts to explain children's grammatical development often assume a close initial match between units of meaning and units of form; for example, agents are said to map to sentence-subjects and actions to verbs. The meanings themselves, according to this view, are not influenced by language, but reflect children's universal non-linguistic way of understanding the world. This paper argues that, contrary to this position, meaning as it is expressed in children's early sentences is, from the beginning, organized on the basis of experience with the grammar and lexicon of a particular language. As a case in point, children learning English and Korean are shown to express meanings having to do with directed motion according to language-specific principles of semantic and grammatical structuring from the earliest stages of word combination. -
Bowerman, M., Gullberg, M., Majid, A., & Narasimhan, B. (2004). Put project: The cross-linguistic encoding of placement events. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 10-24). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492916.Abstract
How similar are the event concepts encoded by different languages? So far, few event domains have been investigated in any detail. The PUT project extends the systematic cross-linguistic exploration of event categorisation to a new domain, that of placement events (putting things in places and removing them from places). The goal of this task is to explore cross-linguistic universality and variability in the semantic categorisation of placement events (e.g., ‘putting a cup on the table’).Additional information
2004_Put_project_video_stimuli.zip -
Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2001). Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language-specific in the acquisition of semantic categories. In M. Bowerman, & S. C. Levinson (
Eds. ), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 475-511). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Bowerman, M. (1985). What shapes children's grammars? In D. Slobin (
Ed. ), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (pp. 1257-1319). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. -
Brouwer, S., Cornips, L., & Hulk, A. (2008). Misrepresentation of Dutch neuter gender in older bilingual children? In B. Hazdenar, & E. Gavruseva (
Eds. ), Current trends in child second language acquisition: A generative perspective (pp. 83-96). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Brown, P. (2004). Position and motion in Tzeltal frog stories: The acquisition of narrative style. In S. Strömqvist, & L. Verhoeven (
Eds. ), Relating events in narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 37-57). Mahwah: Erlbaum.Abstract
How are events framed in narrative? Speakers of English (a 'satellite-framed' language), when 'reading' Mercer Mayer's wordless picture book 'Frog, Where Are You?', find the story self-evident: a boy has a dog and a pet frog; the frog escapes and runs away; the boy and dog look for it across hill and dale, through woods and over a cliff, until they find it and return home with a baby frog child of the original pet frog. In Tzeltal, as spoken in a Mayan community in southern Mexico, the story is somewhat different, because the language structures event descriptions differently. Tzeltal is in part a 'verb-framed' language with a set of Path-encoding motion verbs, so that the bare bones of the Frog story can consist of verbs translating as 'go'/'pass by'/'ascend'/ 'descend'/ 'arrive'/'return'. But Tzeltal also has satellite-framing adverbials, grammaticized from the same set of motion verbs, which encode the direction of motion or the orientation of static arrays. Furthermore, motion is not generally encoded barebones, but vivid pictorial detail is provided by positional verbs which can describe the position of the Figure as an outcome of a motion event; motion and stasis are thereby combined in a single event description. (For example: jipot jawal "he has been thrown (by the deer) lying¬_face_upwards_spread-eagled". This paper compares the use of these three linguistic resources in frog narratives from 14 Tzeltal adults and 21 children, looks at their development in the narratives of children between the ages of 4-12, and considers the results in relation to those from Berman and Slobin's (1996) comparative study of adult and child Frog stories. -
Brown, P. (2008). Verb specificity and argument realization in Tzeltal child language. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 167-189). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Abstract
How do children learn a language whose arguments are freely ellipsed? The Mayan language Tzeltal, spoken in southern Mexico, is such a language. The acquisition pattern for Tzeltal is distinctive, in at least two ways: verbs predominate even in children’s very early production vocabulary, and these verbs are often very specific in meaning. This runs counter to the patterns found in most Indo-European languages, where nouns tend to predominate in early vocabulary and children’s first verbs tend to be ‘light’ or semantically general. Here I explore the idea that noun ellipsis and ‘heavy’ verbs are related: the ‘heavy’ verbs restrict the nominal reference and so allow recovery of the ‘missing’ nouns. Using data drawn from videotaped interaction of four Tzeltal children and their caregivers, I examined transitive clauses in an adult input sample and in child speech, and tested the hypothesis that direct object arguments are less likely to be realized overtly with semantically specific verbs than with general verbs. This hypothesis was confirmed, both for the adult input and for the speech of the children (aged 3;4-3;9). It is therefore possible that argument ellipsis could provide a clue to verb semantics (specific vs. general) for the Tzeltal child. -
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2004). Frames of spatial reference and their acquisition in Tenejapan Tzeltal. In A. Assmann, U. Gaier, & G. Trommsdorff (
Eds. ), Zwischen Literatur und Anthropologie: Diskurse, Medien, Performanzen (pp. 285-314). Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Abstract
This is a reprint of the Brown and Levinson 2000 article. -
Brown, P., Levinson, S. C., & Senft, G. (2004). Initial references to persons and places. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 37-44). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492929.Abstract
This task has two parts: (i) video-taped elicitation of the range of possibilities for referring to persons and places, and (ii) observations of (first) references to persons and places in video-taped natural interaction. The goal of this task is to establish the repertoires of referential terms (and other practices) used for referring to persons and to places in particular languages and cultures, and provide examples of situated use of these kinds of referential practices in natural conversation. This data will form the basis for cross-language comparison, and for formulating hypotheses about general principles underlying the deployment of such referential terms in natural language usage. -
Brown, P., Gaskins, S., Lieven, E., Striano, T., & Liszkowski, U. (2004). Multimodal multiperson interaction with infants aged 9 to 15 months. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 56-63). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492925.Abstract
Interaction, for all that it has an ethological base, is culturally constituted, and how new social members are enculturated into the interactional practices of the society is of critical interest to our understanding of interaction – how much is learned, how variable is it across cultures – as well as to our understanding of the role of culture in children’s social-cognitive development. The goal of this task is to document the nature of caregiver infant interaction in different cultures, especially during the critical age of 9-15 months when children come to have an understanding of others’ intentions. This is of interest to all students of interaction; it does not require specialist knowledge of children. -
Brown, P. (2013). La estructura conversacional y la adquisición del lenguaje: El papel de la repetición en el habla de los adultos y niños tzeltales. In L. de León Pasquel (
Ed. ), Nuevos senderos en el studio de la adquisición de lenguas mesoamericanas: Estructura, narrativa y socialización (pp. 35-82). Mexico: CIESAS-UNAM.Abstract
This is a translation of the Brown 1998 article in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 'Conversational structure and language acquisition: The role of repetition in Tzeltal adult and child speech'.Files private
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Brown, P. (2001). Learning to talk about motion UP and DOWN in Tzeltal: Is there a language-specific bias for verb learning? In M. Bowerman, & S. C. Levinson (
Eds. ), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 512-543). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
The spatial vocabulary of the Mayan language Tzeltal is dominated by an Absolute system of spatial reckoning, whereby an "uphill/downhill" coordinate abstracted from the lay of the land is used to reckon spatial relationships on the horizontal in both small-scale and long distance space. This system is used in lieu of a Front/Back/Left/Right system which does not exist in this language. The spatial vocabulary dedicated to this system (which I refer to in general as the UP/DOWN vocabulary) includes intransitive motion verbs (roughly translatable as "ascend"/"descend"), their transitivized counterparts ("make it ascend/descend"), directional adverbs ("uphillwards"/"downhillwards"), and possessed relational nouns ("uphill/downhill in relation to it"). This same vocabulary applies to spatial relations on the vertical axis. Two seemingly contradictory observations about children's early meanings for the spatial verbs dedicated to this system motivate the proposal put forward in this paper. On the one hand, Tzeltal children's UP/DOWN vocabulary shows very early sensitivity to the semantic structure of the language they are learning: the meanings for these verbs are from the first usages attached to the slope of the land, and to particular places; there is no evidence of an initial preference for the vertical meaning. On the other hand, children's meanings remain for a long time too specific, and errors of interpretation/production (using the verbs to mean 'local slope of land' rather than 'overall N/S slope of land direction) are evident in verbal productions of some children as late as age 7 or 8. The proposal is made that the highly specific nature of Tzeltal verbs at the basic level influences the children's hypotheses about what kinds of meanings verbs can have. -
Brown, P. (2001). Repetition. In K. Duranti (
Ed. ), Key terms in language and culture (pp. 219-222). Oxford: Blackwell.Abstract
This is a reprint of the Brown 1999 article. -
Brown, P., Pfeiler, B., de León, L., & Pye, C. (2013). The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages. In E. Bavin, & S. Stoll (
Eds. ), The acquisition of ergativity (pp. 271-306). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper presents results of a comparative project documenting the development of verbal agreement inflections in children learning four different Mayan languages: K’iche’, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yukatek. These languages have similar inflectional paradigms: they have a generally agglutinative morphology, with transitive verbs obligatorily marked with separate cross-referencing inflections for the two core arguments (‘ergative’ and ‘absolutive’). Verbs are also inflected for aspect and mood, and they carry a ‘status suffix’ which generally marks verb transitivity and mood. At a more detailed level, the four languages differ strikingly in the realization of cross-reference marking. For each language, we examined longitudinal language production data from two children at around 2;0, 2;6, 3;0, and 3;6 years of age. We relate differences in the acquisition patterns of verbal morphology in the languages to 1) the placement of affixes, 2) phonological and prosodic prominence, 3) language-specific constraints on the various forms of the affixes, and 4) consistent vs. split ergativity, and conclude that prosodic salience accounts provide th ebest explanation for the acquisition patterns in these four languages.Files private
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Brown, P. (2001). Politeness and language. In N. Smelser, & P. Baltes (
Eds. ), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 11620-11624). Oxford: Elsevier Sciences.Abstract
This is an encyclopedia entry surveying research and theoretical approaches to politeness phenomena in language usage. -
Wu, D. H., & Bulut, T. (2020). The contribution of statistical learning to language and literacy acquisition. In K. D. Federmeier, & H. W. Huang (
Eds. ), Psychology of Learning and Motivation (pp. 283-318). doi:10.1016/bs.plm.2020.02.001.Abstract
Acquisition and processing of written and spoken language is an impressive cognitive accomplishment considering the complexity of the tasks. While only humans seem to have evolved to the fullest extent the capacity that underpins these remarkable feats of development and civilization, the exact nature of such capacity has been subject to ongoing research. In this chapter, we focus on language competence and what makes it unique among the communication systems of different species. We then elaborate on the classical debate between nativist and environmentalist accounts of language acquisition, with reference to evidence for and against the critical period hypothesis. After introducing the regularity embedded in different languages and particularly in drastically different orthographies, we present behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the sensitivity to systematic mapping between orthography and phonology. Because learning to read is to master such mapping, we assume that the ability to use statistical learning to appreciate the dependency among items would contribute to literacy acquisition. Empirical results from behavioral and neuroimaging experiments conducted in our and other laboratories provide support for the close link between statistical learning and literacy acquisition in native and foreign language. Such findings highlight the significance of domain-general statistical learning to domain-specific language acquisition, and point to an important direction for theories and practices of language education.Files private
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Burenhult, N. (2020). Foraging and the history of languages in the Malay Peninsula. In T. Güldemann, P. McConvell, & R. Rhodes (
Eds. ), The language of Hunter-Gatherers (pp. 164-197). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Burenkova, O. V., & Fisher, S. E. (2019). Genetic insights into the neurobiology of speech and language. In E. Grigorenko, Y. Shtyrov, & P. McCardle (
Eds. ), All About Language: Science, Theory, and Practice. Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes Publishing, Inc. -
Burkhardt, P. (2008). Dependency precedes independence: Online evidence from discourse processing. In A. Benz, & P. Kühnlein (
Eds. ), Constraints in discourse (pp. 141-158). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper investigates the integration of definite determiner phrases (DPs) as a function of their contextual salience, which is reflected in the degree of dependency on prior information. DPs depend on previously established discourse referents or introduce a new, independent discourse referent. This paper presents a formal model that explains how discourse referents are represented in the language system and what kind of mechanisms are implemented during DP interpretation. Experimental data from an event-related potential study are discussed that demonstrate how definite DPs are integrated in real-time processing. The data provide evidence for two distinct mechanisms – Specify R and Establish Independent File Card – and substantiate a model that includes various processes and constraints at the level of discourse representation. -
Casasanto, D. (2008). Who's afraid of the big bad Whorf? Crosslinguistic differences in temporal language and thought. In P. Indefrey, & M. Gullberg (
Eds. ), Time to speak: Cognitive and neural prerequisites for time in language (pp. 63-79). Oxford: Wiley.Abstract
The idea that language shapes the way we think, often associated with Benjamin Whorf, has long been decried as not only wrong but also fundamentally wrong-headed. Yet, experimental evidence has reopened debate about the extent to which language influences nonlinguistic cognition, particularly in the domain of time. In this article, I will first analyze an influential argument against the Whorfian hypothesis and show that its anti-Whorfian conclusion is in part an artifact of conflating two distinct questions: Do we think in language? and Does language shape thought? Next, I will discuss crosslinguistic differences in spatial metaphors for time and describe experiments that demonstrate corresponding differences in nonlinguistic mental representations. Finally, I will sketch a simple learning mechanism by which some linguistic relativity effects appear to arise. Although people may not think in language, speakers of different languages develop distinctive conceptual repertoires as a consequence of ordinary and presumably universal neural and cognitive processes. -
Casillas, M., & Hilbrink, E. (2020). Communicative act development. In K. P. Schneider, & E. Ifantidou (
Eds. ), Developmental and Clinical Pragmatics (pp. 61-88). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Abstract
How do children learn to map linguistic forms onto their intended meanings? This chapter begins with an introduction to some theoretical and analytical tools used to study communicative acts. It then turns to communicative act development in spoken and signed language acquisition, including both the early scaffolding and production of communicative acts (both non-verbal and verbal) as well as their later links to linguistic development and Theory of Mind. The chapter wraps up by linking research on communicative act development to the acquisition of conversational skills, cross-linguistic and individual differences in communicative experience during development, and human evolution. Along the way, it also poses a few open questions for future research in this domain. -
Clifton, C. J., Meyer, A. S., Wurm, L. H., & Treiman, R. (2013). Language comprehension and production. In A. F. Healy, & R. W. Proctor (
Eds. ), Handbook of Psychology, Volume 4, Experimental Psychology. 2nd Edition (pp. 523-547). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Abstract
In this chapter, we survey the processes of recognizing and producing words and of understanding and creating sentences. Theory and research on these topics have been shaped by debates about how various sources of information are integrated in these processes, and about the role of language structure, as analyzed in the discipline of linguistics. In this chapter, we describe current views of fluent language users' comprehension of spoken and written language and their production of spoken language. We review what we consider to be the most important findings and theories in psycholinguistics, returning again and again to the questions of modularity and the importance of linguistic knowledge. Although we acknowledge the importance of social factors in language use, our focus is on core processes such as parsing and word retrieval that are not necessarily affected by such factors. We do not have space to say much about the important fields of developmental psycholinguistics, which deals with the acquisition of language by children, or applied psycholinguistics, which encompasses such topics as language disorders and language teaching. Although we recognize that there is burgeoning interest in the measurement of brain activity during language processing and how language is represented in the brain, space permits only occasional pointers to work in neuropsychology and the cognitive neuroscience of language. For treatment of these topics, and others, the interested reader could begin with two recent handbooks of psycholinguistics (Gaskell, 2007; Traxler & Gemsbacher, 2006) and a handbook of cognitive neuroscience (Gazzaniga, 2004). -
Cutler, A. (2004). Segmentation of spoken language by normal adult listeners. In R. Kent (
Ed. ), MIT encyclopedia of communication sciences and disorders (pp. 392-395). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Cutler, A., & Henton, C. G. (2004). There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. In H. Quené, & V. Van Heuven (
Eds. ), On speech and Language: Studies for Sieb G. Nooteboom (pp. 37-45). Utrecht: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics.Abstract
The retiring academic may look back upon, inter alia, years of conference attendance. Speech error researchers are uniquely fortunate because they can collect data in any situation involving communication; accordingly, the retiring speech error researcher will have collected data at those conferences. We here address the issue of whether error data collected in situations involving conviviality (such as at conferences) is representative of error data in general. Our approach involved a comparison, across three levels of linguistic processing, between a specially constructed Conviviality Sample and the largest existing source of speech error data, the newly available Fromkin Speech Error Database. The results indicate that there are grounds for regarding the data in the Conviviality Sample as a better than average reflection of the true population of all errors committed. These findings encourage us to recommend further data collection in collaboration with like-minded colleagues. -
Cutler, A. (2004). Twee regels voor academische vorming. In H. Procee (
Ed. ), Bij die wereld wil ik horen! Zesendertig columns en drie essays over de vorming tot academicus. (pp. 42-45). Amsterdam: Boom. -
Cutler, A. (2001). Entries on: Acquisition of language by non-human primates; bilingualism; compound (linguistic); development of language-specific phonology; gender (linguistic); grammar; infant speech perception; language; lexicon; morphology; motor theory of speech perception; perception of second languages; phoneme; phonological store; phonology; prosody; sign language; slips of the tongue; speech perception; speech production; stress (linguistic); syntax; word recognition; words. In P. Winn (
Ed. ), Dictionary of biological psychology. London: Routledge. -
Cutler, A., Mister, E., Norris, D., & Sebastián-Gallés, N. (2004). La perception de la parole en espagnol: Un cas particulier? In L. Ferrand, & J. Grainger (
Eds. ), Psycholinguistique cognitive: Essais en l'honneur de Juan Segui (pp. 57-74). Brussels: De Boeck. -
Cutler, A., & Pearson, M. (1985). On the analysis of prosodic turn-taking cues. In C. Johns-Lewis (
Ed. ), Intonation in discourse (pp. 139-155). London: Croom Helm. -
Cutler, A. (1985). Performance measures of lexical complexity. In G. Hoppenbrouwers, P. A. Seuren, & A. Weijters (
Eds. ), Meaning and the lexicon (pp. 75). Dordrecht: Foris. -
Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., Norris, D., & Somejuan, A. (2001). The roll of the silly ball. In E. Dupoux (
Ed. ), Language, brain and cognitive development: Essays in honor of Jacques Mehler (pp. 181-194). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Dediu, D., Cysouw, M., Levinson, S. C., Baronchelli, A., Christiansen, M. H., Croft, W., Evans, N., Garrod, S., Gray, R., Kandler, A., & Lieven, E. (2013). Cultural evolution of language. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (
Eds. ), Cultural evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 12 (pp. 303-332). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Abstract
This chapter argues that an evolutionary cultural approach to language not only has already proven fruitful, but it probably holds the key to understand many puzzling aspects of language, its change and origins. The chapter begins by highlighting several still common misconceptions about language that might seem to call into question a cultural evolutionary approach. It explores the antiquity of language and sketches a general evolutionary approach discussing the aspects of function, fi tness, replication, and selection, as well the relevant units of linguistic evolution. In this context, the chapter looks at some fundamental aspects of linguistic diversity such as the nature of the design space, the mechanisms generating it, and the shape and fabric of language. Given that biology is another evolutionary system, its complex coevolution with language needs to be understood in order to have a proper theory of language. Throughout the chapter, various challenges are identifi ed and discussed, sketching promising directions for future research. The chapter ends by listing the necessary data, methods, and theoretical developments required for a grounded evolutionary approach to language. -
Dediu, D. (2013). Genes: Interactions with language on three levels — Inter-individual variation, historical correlations and genetic biasing. In P.-M. Binder, & K. Smith (
Eds. ), The language phenomenon: Human communication from milliseconds to millennia (pp. 139-161). Berlin: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-36086-2_7.Abstract
The complex inter-relationships between genetics and linguistics encompass all four scales highlighted by the contributions to this book and, together with cultural transmission, the genetics of language holds the promise to offer a unitary understanding of this fascinating phenomenon. There are inter-individual differences in genetic makeup which contribute to the obvious fact that we are not identical in the way we understand and use language and, by studying them, we will be able to both better treat and enhance ourselves. There are correlations between the genetic configuration of human groups and their languages, reflecting the historical processes shaping them, and there also seem to exist genes which can influence some characteristics of language, biasing it towards or against certain states by altering the way language is transmitted across generations. Besides the joys of pure knowledge, the understanding of these three aspects of genetics relevant to language will potentially trigger advances in medicine, linguistics, psychology or the understanding of our own past and, last but not least, a profound change in the way we regard one of the emblems of being human: our capacity for language. -
Den Os, E., & Boves, L. (2004). Natural multimodal interaction for design applications. In P. Cunningham (
Ed. ), Adoption and the knowledge economy (pp. 1403-1410). Amsterdam: IOS Press. -
Devanna, P., Dediu, D., & Vernes, S. C. (2019). The Genetics of Language: From complex genes to complex communication. In S.-A. Rueschemeyer, & M. G. Gaskell (
Eds. ), The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics (2nd ed., pp. 865-898). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Abstract
This chapter discusses the genetic foundations of the human capacity for language. It reviews the molecular structure of the genome and the complex molecular mechanisms that allow genetic information to influence multiple levels of biology. It goes on to describe the active regulation of genes and their formation of complex genetic pathways that in turn control the cellular environment and function. At each of these levels, examples of genes and genetic variants that may influence the human capacity for language are given. Finally, it discusses the value of using animal models to understand the genetic underpinnings of speech and language. From this chapter will emerge the complexity of the genome in action and the multidisciplinary efforts that are currently made to bridge the gap between genetics and language. -
Dimroth, C. (2008). Perspectives on second language acquisition at different ages. In J. Philp, R. Oliver, & A. Mackey (
Eds. ), Second language acquisition and the younger learner: Child's play? (pp. 53-79). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
Empirical studies addressing the age factor in second language acquisition have mainly been concerned with a comparison of end state data (from learners before and after the closure of a putative Critical Period for language acquisition) to the native speaker norm. Based on longitudinal corpus data, this paper investigates the affect of age on end state, rate and the process of acquisition and addresses the question of whether different grammatical domains are equally affected. To this end, the paper presents summarized findings from the acquisition of word order and inflectional morphology in L2 German by Russian learners of different ages and discusses theoretical implications that can be drawn from this evidence. -
Dimroth, C., & Haberzettl, S. (2008). Je älter desto besser: Der Erwerb der Verbflexion in Kindesalter. 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. 227-238). Frankfurt am Main: Lang. -
Dimroth, C. (2008). Kleine Unterschiede in den Lernvoraussetzungen beim ungesteuerten Zweitspracherwerb: Welche Bereiche der Zielsprache Deutsch sind besonders betroffen? In B. Ahrenholz (
Ed. ), Kinder und Migrationshintergrund: Spracherwerb und Fördermöglichkeiten (pp. 117-133). Freiburg: Fillibach. -
Dingemanse, M. (2013). Wie wir mit Sprache malen - How to paint with language. Forschungsbericht 2013 - Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik. In Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Jahrbuch 2013. München: Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved from http://www.mpg.de/6683977/Psycholinguistik_JB_2013.
Abstract
Words evolve not as blobs of ink on paper but in face to face interaction. The nature of language as fundamentally interactive and multimodal is shown by the study of ideophones, vivid sensory words that thrive in conversations around the world. The ways in which these Lautbilder enable precise communication about sensory knowledge has for the first time been studied in detail. It turns out that we can paint with language, and that the onomatopoeia we sometimes classify as childish might be a subset of a much richer toolkit for depiction in speech, available to us all. -
Dingemanse, M. (2019). 'Ideophone' as a comparative concept. In K. Akita, & P. Pardeshi (
Eds. ), Ideophones, Mimetics, and Expressives (pp. 13-33). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/ill.16.02din.Abstract
This chapter makes the case for ‘ideophone’ as a comparative concept: a notion that captures a recurrent typological pattern and provides a template for understanding language-specific phenomena that prove similar. It revises an earlier definition to account for the observation that ideophones typically form an open lexical class, and uses insights from canonical typology to explore the larger typological space. According to the resulting definition, a canonical ideophone is a member of an open lexical class of marked words that depict sensory imagery. The five elements of this definition can be seen as dimensions that together generate a possibility space to characterise cross-linguistic diversity in depictive means of expression. This approach allows for the systematic comparative treatment of ideophones and ideophone-like phenomena. Some phenomena in the larger typological space are discussed to demonstrate the utility of the approach: phonaesthemes in European languages, specialised semantic classes in West-Chadic, diachronic diversions in Aslian, and depicting constructions in signed languages. -
Dingemanse, M., Hill, C., Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Ethnography of the senses. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field manual volume 11 (pp. 18-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492935.Abstract
This entry provides some orientation and task suggestions on how to explore the perceptual world of your field site and the interaction between the cultural world and the sensory lexicon in your community. The material consists of procedural texts; soundscapes; other documentary and observational tasks. The goal of this task is to explore the perceptual world of your field site and the interaction between the cultural world and the sensory lexicon in your community. -
Dingemanse, M. (2020). Recruiting assistance and collaboration: A West-African corpus study. In S. Floyd, G. Rossi, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Getting others to do things: A pragmatic typology of recruitments (pp. 369-241). Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.4018388.Abstract
Doing things for and with others is one of the foundations of human social life. This chapter studies a systematic collection of 207 requests for assistance and collaboration from a video corpus of everyday conversations in Siwu, a Kwa language of Ghana. A range of social action formats and semiotic resources reveals how language is adapted to the interactional challenges posed by recruiting assistance. While many of the formats bear a language-specific signature, their sequential and interactional properties show important commonalities across languages. Two tentative findings are put forward for further cross-linguistic examination: a “rule of three” that may play a role in the organisation of successive response pursuits, and a striking commonality in animal-oriented recruitments across languages that may be explained by convergent cultural evolution. The Siwu recruitment system emerges as one instance of a sophisticated machinery for organising collaborative action that transcends language and culture. -
Drude, S. (2008). Die Personenpräfixe des Guaraní und ihre lexikographische Behandlung. In W. Dietrich, & H. Symeonidis (
Eds. ), Geschichte und Aktualität der deutschsprachigen Guaraní-Philologie: Akten der Guaraní-Tagung in Kiel und Berlin 25.-27. Mai 2000 (pp. 198-234). Berlin: Lit Verlag.Abstract
Der vorliegende Beitrag zum Kieler Symposium1 stellt die Resultate eines Teilbereichs meiner Arbeit zum Guarani vor, nämlich einen Vorschlag zur Analyse der Personenpräfixe dieser Sprache und der mit ihnen verbundenen grammatischen Kategorien. Die im Titel angedeutete lexikographische Fragestellung bedarf einer näheren Erläuterung, die ich im Zusammenhang mit einer kurzen Darstellung der Motivation für meine Untersuchungen geben will -
Drude, S. (2008). Inflectional units and their effects: The case of verbal prefixes in Guaraní. In R. Sackmann (
Ed. ), Explorations in integrational linguistics: Four essays on German, French, and Guaraní (pp. 153-189). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
With the present essay I pursue a threefold aim as will be explained in the following paragraphs. Since I cannot expect my readers to be familiar with the language studied, Guaran´ı, more information about this language will be given in the next subsection. -
Drude, S. (2008). Tense, aspect and mood in Awetí verb paradigms: Analytic and synthetic forms. In K. D. Harrison, D. S. Rood, & A. Dwyer (
Eds. ), Lessons from documented endangered languages (pp. 67-110). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper describes the verbal Tense-Aspect-Mood system of Awetí (Tupian, Central Brazil) in a Word-and-Paradigm approach. One classification of Awetí verb forms contains clear aspect categories. A second set of independent classifications renders at least four moods and contains a third major TAM classification, factuality, that has one mainly temporal category Future, while others are partially or wholly modal. Structural categories reflect the formal composition of the forms. Some forms are synthetic, ‘marked’ only by means of affixes, but many are analytic, containing auxiliary particles. With selected sample forms we demonstrate in detail the interplay of structural and functional categories in Awetí verb paradigms. -
Dunn, M., & Terrill, A. (2004). Lexical comparison between Papuan languages: Inland bird and tree species. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 65-69). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492942.Abstract
The Pioneers project seeks to uncover relationships between the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia. One basic way to uncover linguistic relationships, either contact or genetic, is through lexical comparison. We have seen very few shared words between our Papuan languages and any other languages, either Oceanic or Papuan, but most of the words which are shared are shared because they are commonly borrowed from Oceanic languages. This task is aimed at enabling fieldworkers to collect terms for inland bird and tree species. In the past it is has proved very difficult for non-experts to identify plant and bird species, so the task consists of a booklet of colour pictures of some of the more common species, with information on the range and habits of each species, as well as some information on their cultural uses, which should enable better identification. It is intended that fieldworkers will show this book to consultants and use it as an elicitation aid. -
Eisner, F., & Scott, S. K. (2008). Speech and auditory processing in the cortex: Evidence from functional neuroimaging. In A. Cacace, & D. McFarland (
Eds. ), Controversies in central auditory processing disorder. San Diego, Ca: Plural Publishing. -
Enfield, N. J. (2008). Verbs and multi-verb construction in Lao. In A. V. Diller, J. A. Edmondson, & Y. Luo (
Eds. ), The Tai-Kadai languages (pp. 83-183). London: Routledge. -
Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., & Meira, S. (2001). Recognitional deixis. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 78-81). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874641.Abstract
“Recognitional” words and constructions enshrine our systematic reliance on shared knowledge in dedicated morphological forms and usage patterns. For example, English has a large range of terms for use when a speaker cannot locate the word or name for something or someone (e.g., whatsit, what’s-his-name), but thinks that the interlocutor knows, or can easily work out, what the speaker is talking about. This task aims to identify and investigate these kinds of expressions in the research language, including their grammaticalised status, meaning, distribution, and productivity. The task consists of a questionnaire with examples of relevant hypothetical scenarios that can be used in eliciting the relevant terms. The researcher is then encouraged to pursue further questions in regard to these items. -
Enfield, N. J. (2001). Body. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 62-77). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874633.Abstract
This task investigates the extensional meaning of body part terms, in particular the terms for the upper and lower limbs. Two questions are addressed, namely (i) are the boundaries of these body parts universal, guided by proposed universals of object recognition? (ii) How can we compare the extensional meanings of body part terms within and across different systems of nomenclature? Consultants receive booklets with line drawings of a body and are asked to colour in specific parts of the body.Additional information
http://fieldmanuals.mpi.nl/volumes/2001/body/ -
Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., De Ruiter, J. P., & Stivers, T. (2004). Building a corpus of multimodal interaction in your field site. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 32-36). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.506951.Abstract
This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2007 version:
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Enfield, N. J., & Majid, A. (2008). Constructions in 'language and perception'. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 11 (pp. 11-17). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492949.Abstract
This field guide is for eliciting information about grammatical resources used in describing perceptual events and perception-based properties and states. A list of leading questions outlines an underlying semantic space for events/states of perception, against which language-specific constructions may be defined. It should be used as an entry point into a flexible exploration of the structures and constraints which are specific to the language you are working on. The goal is to provide a cross-linguistically comparable description of the constructions of a language used in describing perceptual events and states. The core focus is to discover any sensory asymmetries, i.e., ways in which different sensory modalities are treated differently with respect to these constructions. -
Enfield, N. J. (2013). Doing fieldwork on the body, language, and communication. In C. Müller, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, A. Cienki, D. McNeill, & S. Teßendorf (
Eds. ), Handbook Body – Language – Communication. Volume 1 (pp. 974-981). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Enfield, N. J. (2013). A ‘Composite Utterances’ approach to meaning. In C. Müller, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, A. Cienki, D. McNeill, & S. Teßendorf (
Eds. ), Handbook Body – Language – Communication. Volume 1 (pp. 689-706). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Enfield, N. J. (2008). Common ground as a resource for social affiliation. In I. Kecskes, & J. L. Mey (
Eds. ), Intention, common ground and the egocentric speaker-hearer (pp. 223-254). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Enfield, N. J. (2004). Adjectives in Lao. In R. M. W. Dixon, & A. Y. Aikhenvald (
Eds. ), Adjective classes: A cross-linguistic typology (pp. 323-347). Oxford: Oxford University Press. -
Enfield, N. J. (2008). Lao linguistics in the 20th century and since. In Y. Goudineau, & M. Lorrillard (
Eds. ), Recherches nouvelles sur le Laos (pp. 435-452). Paris: EFEO. -
Enfield, N. J., Dingemanse, M., Baranova, J., Blythe, J., Brown, P., Dirksmeyer, T., Drew, P., Floyd, S., Gipper, S., Gisladottir, R. S., Hoymann, G., Kendrick, K. H., Levinson, S. C., Magyari, L., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., San Roque, L., & Torreira, F. (2013). Huh? What? – A first survey in 21 languages. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (
Eds. ), Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 343-380). New York: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
Introduction
A comparison of conversation in twenty-one languages from around the world reveals commonalities and differences in the way that people do open-class other-initiation of repair (Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks, 1977; Drew, 1997). We find that speakers of all of the spoken languages in the sample make use of a primary interjection strategy (in English it is Huh?), where the phonetic form of the interjection is strikingly similar across the languages: a monosyllable featuring an open non-back vowel [a, æ, ə, ʌ], often nasalized, usually with rising intonation and sometimes an [h-] onset. We also find that most of the languages have another strategy for open-class other-initiation of repair, namely the use of a question word (usually “what”). Here we find significantly more variation across the languages. The phonetic form of the question word involved is completely different from language to language: e.g., English [wɑt] versus Cha'palaa [ti] versus Duna [aki]. Furthermore, the grammatical structure in which the repair-initiating question word can or must be expressed varies within and across languages. In this chapter we present data on these two strategies – primary interjections like Huh? and question words like What? – with discussion of possible reasons for the similarities and differences across the languages. We explore some implications for the notion of repair as a system, in the context of research on the typology of language use.
The general outline of this chapter is as follows. We first discuss repair as a system across languages and then introduce the focus of the chapter: open-class other-initiation of repair. A discussion of the main findings follows, where we identify two alternative strategies in the data: an interjection strategy (Huh?) and a question word strategy (What?). Formal features and possible motivations are discussed for the interjection strategy and the question word strategy in order. A final section discusses bodily behavior including posture, eyebrow movements and eye gaze, both in spoken languages and in a sign language.
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Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Metalanguage for speech acts. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field manual volume 11 (pp. 77-79). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492937.Abstract
People of all cultures have some degree of concern with categorizing types of communicative social action. All languages have words with meanings like speak, say, talk, complain, curse, promise, accuse, nod, wink, point and chant. But the exact distinctions they make will differ in both quantity and quality. How is communicative social action categorised across languages and cultures? The goal of this task is to establish a basis for cross-linguistic comparison of native metalanguages for social action.Additional information
http://fieldmanuals.mpi.nl/volumes/2008/metalanguage-for-speech-acts-2/ -
Enfield, N. J., & Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Hidden colour-chips task: Demonstratives, attention, and interaction. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 21-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874636.Abstract
Demonstratives are typically described as encoding degrees of physical distance between the object referred to, and the speaker or addressee. For example, this in English is used to talk about things that are physically near the speaker, and that for things that are not. But is this how speakers really choose between these words in actual talk? This task aims to generate spontaneous language data concerning deixis, gesture, and demonstratives, and to investigate the significance of different factors (e.g., physical distance, attention) in demonstrative selection. In the presence of one consultant (the “memoriser”), sixteen colour chips are hidden under objects in a specified array. Another consultant enters the area and asks the memoriser to recount the locations of the chips. The task is designed to create a situation where the speaker genuinely attempts to manipulate the addressee’s attention on objects in the immediate physical space. -
Enfield, N. J. (2013). Hippie, interrupted. In J. Barker, & J. Lindquist (
Eds. ), Figures of Southeast Asian modernity (pp. 101-103). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. -
Enfield, N. J. (2001). Linguistic evidence for a Lao perspective on facial expression of emotion. In J. Harkins, & A. Wierzbicka (
Eds. ), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 149-166). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Enfield, N. J. (2001). On genetic and areal linguistics in Mainland South-East Asia: Parallel polyfunctionality of ‘acquire’. In A. Y. Aikhenvald, & R. M. Dixon (
Eds. ), Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance: Problems in comparative linguistics (pp. 255-290). Oxford University Press. -
Enfield, N. J. (2013). Reference in conversation. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (
Eds. ), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 433-454). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118325001.ch21.Abstract
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Lexical Selection in Reference: Introductory Examples of Reference to Times Multiple “Preferences” Future Directions Conclusion -
Enfield, N. J. (2004). Repair sequences in interaction. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 48-52). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492945.Abstract
This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2007 version: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.468724Files private
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Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., & Stivers, T. (2008). Social action formulation: A "10-minutes" task. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field manual volume 11 (pp. 80-81). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492939.Abstract
This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2009 version: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.883564Files private
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Enfield, N. J., & Dunn, M. (2001). Supplements to the Wilkins 1999 demonstrative questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 82-84). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874638. -
Erard, M. (2019). Language aptitude: Insights from hyperpolyglots. In Z. Wen, P. Skehan, A. Biedroń, S. Li, & R. L. Sparks (
Eds. ), Language aptitude: Advancing theory, testing, research and practice (pp. 153-167). Abingdon, UK: Taylor & Francis.Abstract
Over the decades, high-intensity language learners scattered over the globe referred to as “hyperpolyglots” have undertaken a natural experiment into the limits of learning and acquiring proficiencies in multiple languages. This chapter details several ways in which hyperpolyglots are relevant to research on aptitude. First, historical hyperpolyglots Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, Emil Krebs, Elihu Burritt, and Lomb Kató are described in terms of how they viewed their own exceptional outcomes. Next, I draw on results from an online survey with 390 individuals to explore how contemporary hyperpolyglots consider the explanatory value of aptitude. Third, the challenges involved in studying the genetic basis of hyperpolyglottism (and by extension of language aptitude) are discussed. This mosaic of data is meant to inform the direction of future aptitude research that takes hyperpolyglots, one type of exceptional language learner and user, into account. -
Evans, N., Levinson, S. C., Enfield, N. J., Gaby, A., & Majid, A. (2004). Reciprocal constructions and situation type. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 9 (pp. 25-30). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.506955.Additional information
2004_Reciprocal_constructions_video_stimuli.zip -
Fernald, A., McRoberts, G. W., & Swingley, D. (2001). Infants' developing competence in recognizing and understanding words in fluent speech. In J. Weissenborn, & B. Höhle (
Eds. ), Approaches to Bootstrapping: Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition. Volume 1 (pp. 97-123). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Fisher, S. E. (2013). Building bridges between genes, brains and language. In J. J. Bolhuis, & M. Everaert (
Eds. ), Birdsong, speech and language: Exploring the evolution of mind and brain (pp. 425-454). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. -
Fisher, S. E. (2019). Key issues and future directions: Genes and language. In P. Hagoort (
Ed. ), Human language: From genes and brain to behavior (pp. 609-620). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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