Displaying 1 - 100 of 279
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Abbot-Smith, K., & Kidd, E. (2012). Exemplar learning and schematization in language development. In N. M. Seel (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning (2nd. ed., pp. 1200-1202). Berlin: Springer. -
Ameka, F. K. (2010). Information packaging constructions in Kwa: Micro-variation and typology. In E. O. Aboh, & J. Essegbey (
Eds. ), Topics in Kwa syntax (pp. 141-176). Dordrecht: Springer.Abstract
Kwa languages such as Akye, Akan, Ewe, Ga, Likpe, Yoruba etc. are not prototypically “topic-prominent” like Chinese nor “focus-prominent” like Somali, yet they have dedicated structural positions in the clause, as well as morphological markers for signalling the information status of the component parts of information units. They could thus be seen as “discourse configurational languages” (Kiss 1995). In this chapter, I first argue for distinct positions in the left periphery of the clause in these languages for scene-setting topics, contrastive topics and focus. I then describe the morpho-syntactic properties of various information packaging constructions and the variations that we find across the languages in this domain. -
Ameka, F. K. (2007). Grammatical borrowing in Likpe (Sɛkpɛlé). In Y. Matras, & J. Sakel (
Eds. ), Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 107-122). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Andics, A. (2012). The semantic role of agentive control in Hungarian placement events. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 183-200). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper explores the role of various types of location control in descriptions of placement events in Hungarian. It will be shown that general verb choices cannot be explained in terms of spatial relations (such as containment and support) or spatial relational changes (such as joining and separation). On the contrary, all main verb distinctions within the placement domain can be described in terms of agentive control settings between the Figure and agentive entities (e.g., the Agent, other persons). In Hungarian, only events with continuous agentive control along the motion trajectory are described as either ‘putting’ or ‘taking’, and only events where the Figure is furthermore controlled by a non-agentive entity at the Goal are described as ‘putting’. -
Baayen, R. H. (2007). Storage and computation in the mental lexicon. In G. Jarema, & G. Libben (
Eds. ), The mental lexicon: Core perspectives (pp. 81-104). Amsterdam: Elsevier. -
Baggio, G., Van Lambalgen, M., & Hagoort, P. (2012). Language, linguistics and cognition. In R. Kempson, T. Fernando, & N. Asher (
Eds. ), Philosophy of linguistics (pp. 325-356). Amsterdam: North Holland.Abstract
This chapter provides a partial overview of some currently debated issues in the cognitive science of language. We distinguish two families of problems, which we refer to as ‘language and cognition’ and ‘linguistics and cognition’. Under the first heading we present and discuss the hypothesis that language, in particular the semantics of tense and aspect, is grounded in the planning system. We emphasize the role of non-monotonic inference during language comprehension. We look at the converse issue of the role of linguistic interpretation in reasoning tasks. Under the second heading we investigate the two foremost assumptions of current linguistic methodology, namely intuitions as the only adequate empirical basis of theories of meaning and grammar and the competence-performance distinction, arguing that these are among the heaviest burdens for a truly comprehensive approach to language. Marr’s three-level scheme is proposed as an alternative methodological framework, which we apply in a review of two ERP studies on semantic processing, to the ‘binding problem’ for language, and in a conclusive set of remarks on relating theories in the cognitive science of language. -
Baggio, G., Van Lambalgen, M., & Hagoort, P. (2012). The processing consequences of compositionality. In M. Werning, W. Hinzen, & E. Machery (
Eds. ), The Oxford handbook of compositionality (pp. 655-672). New York: Oxford University Press. -
Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Mazaheri, A., & Jensen, O. (2012). Beyond ERPs: Oscillatory neuronal dynamics. In S. J. Luck, & E. S. Kappenman (
Eds. ), The Oxford handbook of event-related potential components (pp. 31-50). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2012). Chronologie et rythme du changement linguistique: Syntaxe vs. morphologie. In O. Spevak, & A. Christol (
Eds. ), Les évolutions du latin (pp. 45-65). Paris: L’Harmattan. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2010). Fore-runners of Romance -mente adverbs in Latin prose and poetry. In E. Dickey, & A. Chahoud (
Eds. ), Colloquial and literary Latin (pp. 339-353). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Files private
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Bauer, B. L. M. (2007). The definite article in Indo-European: Emergence of a new grammatical category? In E. Stark, E. Leiss, & W. Abraham (
Eds. ), Nominal determination: Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence (pp. 103-139). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Berthele, R. (2012). On the use of PUT Verbs by multilingual speakers of Romansh. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 145-166). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
In this chapter, the multilingual systems of bilingual speakers of Sursilvan Romansh and German are analyzed. The Romansh and the German systems show important differences in the domain of placement. Romansh has a fairly general verb metter ‘to put’ whereas German uses different verbs (e.g., setzen ‘to set’, legen ‘to lay’, stellen ‘to stand’). Whereas there are almost no traces of German in the Romansh data elicited from the German-Romansh bilinguals, it appears that their production of German yields uses of the verbs which differ from the typical German system. Although the forms of the German verbs have been acquired by the bilingual speakers, their distribution in the data arguably reflects traces of the Romansh category of metter ‘to put’. -
Bickel, B. (1991). Der Hang zur Exzentrik - Annäherungen an das kognitive Modell der Relativkonstruktion. In W. Bisang, & P. Rinderknecht (
Eds. ), Von Europa bis Ozeanien - von der Antinomie zum Relativsatz (pp. 15-37). Zurich, Switzerland: Seminar für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft der Universität. -
Blomert, L., & Hagoort, P. (1987). Neurobiologische en neuropsychologische aspecten van dyslexie. In J. Hamers, & A. Van der Leij (
Eds. ), Dyslexie 87 (pp. 35-44). Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger. -
Blythe, J. (2010). From ethical datives to number markers in Murriny Patha. In R. Hendery, & J. Hendriks (
Eds. ), Grammatical change: Theory and description (pp. 157-187). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. -
Blythe, J. (2010). Self-association in Murriny Patha talk-in-interaction. In I. Mushin, & R. Gardner (
Eds. ), Studies in Australian Indigenous Conversation [Special issue] (pp. 447-469). Australian Journal of Linguistics. doi:10.1080/07268602.2010.518555.Abstract
When referring to persons in talk-in-interaction, interlocutors recruit the particular referential expressions that best satisfy both cultural and interactional contingencies, as well as the speaker’s own personal objectives. Regular referring practices reveal cultural preferences for choosing particular classes of reference forms for engaging in particular types of activities. When speakers of the northern Australian language Murriny Patha refer to each other, they display a clear preference for associating the referent to the current conversation’s participants. This preference for Association is normally achieved through the use of triangular reference forms such as kinterms. Triangulations are reference forms that link the person being spoken about to another specified person (e.g. Bill’s doctor). Triangulations are frequently used to associate the referent to the current speaker (e.g.my father), to an addressed recipient (your uncle) or co-present other (this bloke’s cousin). Murriny Patha speakers regularly associate key persons to themselves when making authoritative claims about items of business and important events. They frequently draw on kinship links when attempting to bolster their epistemic position. When speakers demonstrate their relatedness to the event’s protagonists, they ground their contribution to the discussion as being informed by appropriate genealogical connections (effectively, ‘I happen to know something about that. He was after all my own uncle’). -
Bohnemeyer, J. (1998). Temporale Relatoren im Hispano-Yukatekischen Sprachkontakt. In A. Koechert, & T. Stolz (
Eds. ), Convergencia e Individualidad - Las lenguas Mayas entre hispanización e indigenismo (pp. 195-241). Hannover, Germany: Verlag für Ethnologie. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (1998). Sententiale Topics im Yukatekischen. In Z. Dietmar (
Ed. ), Deskriptive Grammatik und allgemeiner Sprachvergleich (pp. 55-85). Tübingen, Germany: Max-Niemeyer-Verlag.Files private
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Boroditsky, L., Gaby, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Time in space. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field manual volume 10 (pp. 59-80). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468721.Abstract
This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2008 version: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.492932Files private
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Bosker, H. R., Briaire, J., Heeren, W., van Heuven, V. J., & Jongman, S. R. (2010). Whispered speech as input for cochlear implants. In J. Van Kampen, & R. Nouwen (
Eds. ), Linguistics in the Netherlands 2010 (pp. 1-14). -
Bottini, R., & Casasanto, D. (2010). Implicit spatial length modulates time estimates, but not vice versa. In C. Hölscher, T. F. Shipley, M. Olivetti Belardinelli, J. A. Bateman, & N. Newcombe (
Eds. ), Spatial Cognition VII. International Conference, Spatial Cognition 2010, Mt. Hood/Portland, OR, USA, August 15-19, 2010. Proceedings (pp. 152-162). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.Abstract
How are space and time represented in the human mind? Here we evaluate two theoretical proposals, one suggesting a symmetric relationship between space and time (ATOM theory) and the other an asymmetric relationship (metaphor theory). In Experiment 1, Dutch-speakers saw 7-letter nouns that named concrete objects of various spatial lengths (tr. pencil, bench, footpath) and estimated how much time they remained on the screen. In Experiment 2, participants saw nouns naming temporal events of various durations (tr. blink, party, season) and estimated the words’ spatial length. Nouns that named short objects were judged to remain on the screen for a shorter time, and nouns that named longer objects to remain for a longer time. By contrast, variations in the duration of the event nouns’ referents had no effect on judgments of the words’ spatial length. This asymmetric pattern of cross-dimensional interference supports metaphor theory and challenges ATOM. -
Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2007). Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition [Reprint]. In V. Evans, B. K. Bergen, & J. Zinken (
Eds. ), The cognitive linguistic reader (pp. 849-879). London: Equinox Publishing.Abstract
Reprinted from Bowerman, M. & Choi, S. (2003). Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition. In D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in Mind (pp. 387-427). Cambridge: MIT Press. -
Bowerman, M. (1987). Commentary: Mechanisms of language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (
Ed. ), Mechanisms of language acquisition (pp. 443-466). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum. -
Bowerman, M. (2007). Containment, support, and beyond: Constructing topological spatial categories in first language acquisition. In M. Aurnague, M. Hickmann, & L. Vieu (
Eds. ), The categorization of spatial entities in language and cognition (pp. 177-203). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
Among children’s earliest spatial words are topological forms like ‘in’ and ‘on’. Although these forms name spatial relationships, they also presuppose a classification of ground objects into entities such as “containers” and “surfaces”; hence their relevance for a volume on “spatial entities”. Traditionally, researchers have assumed that semantic categories of space are universal, reflecting a human way of nonlinguistically perceiving and cognizing space. But, as this chapter discusses, spatial categories in fact differ strikingly across languages, and children begin to home in on language-specific classifications extremely early, before age two. Learners do not, it seems, draw only on purely nonlinguistic spatial concepts; they can also actively construct spatial categories on the basis of the linguistic input. Evidence is drawn primarily from research on children learning Korean vs. English. -
Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2007). Kształtowanie znaczeń dla języka: Zjawiska uniwersalne i charakterystyczne dla danego języka w przyswajaniu kategorii semantycznych odnoszących się do przestrzeni [Reprint]. In B. Bokus, & G. W. Shugar (
Eds. ), Psychologia języka dziecka (pp. 386-424). Gdansk: Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne.Abstract
Reprinted from: Bowerman, M. & Choi, S. (2001). Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language specific in the acquisition of spatial semantic categories. In M. Bowerman & S.L. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 475-511). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Bowerman, M. (1989). Learning a semantic system: What role do cognitive predispositions play? In M. L. Rice, & R. L. Schiefelbusch (
Eds. ), The teachability of language (pp. 133-169). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. -
Bramão, I., Faísca, L., Petersson, K. M., & Reis, A. (2012). The contribution of color to object recognition. In I. Kypraios (
Ed. ), Advances in object recognition systems (pp. 73-88). Rijeka, Croatia: InTech. Retrieved from http://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-object-recognition-systems/the-contribution-of-color-in-object-recognition.Abstract
The cognitive processes involved in object recognition remain a mystery to the cognitive
sciences. We know that the visual system recognizes objects via multiple features, including
shape, color, texture, and motion characteristics. However, the way these features are
combined to recognize objects is still an open question. The purpose of this contribution is to
review the research about the specific role of color information in object recognition. Given
that the human brain incorporates specialized mechanisms to handle color perception in the
visual environment, it is a fair question to ask what functional role color might play in
everyday vision. -
Braun, B., & Chen, A. (2012). Now for something completely different: Anticipatory effects of intonation. In O. Niebuhr (
Ed. ), Understanding prosody: The role of context, function and communication (pp. 289-311). Berlin: de Gruyter.Abstract
INTRODUCTION It is nowadays well established that spoken sentence processing is achieved in an incremental manner. As a sentence unfolds over time, listeners rapidly process incoming information to eliminate local ambiguity and make predictions on the most plausible interpretation of the sentence. Previous research has shown that these predictions are based on all kinds of linguistic information, explicitly or implicitly in combination with world knowledge.1 A substantial amount of evidence comes from studies on online referential processing conducted in the visual-world paradigm (Cooper 1974; Eberhard, Spivey-Knowlton, Sedivy, and Tanenhaus 1995; Tanenhaus, Sedivy- Knowlton, Eberhard, and Sedivy 1995; Sedivy, Tanenhaus, Chambers, Carlson 1999). -
Braun, B., & Tagliapietra, L. (2010). The role of contrastive intonation contours in the retrieval of contextual alternatives. In D. G. Watson, M. Wagner, & E. Gibson (
Eds. ), Experimental and theoretical advances in prosody (pp. 1024-1043). Hove: Psychology Press.Abstract
Sentences with a contrastive intonation contour are usually produced when the speaker entertains alternatives to the accented words. However, such contrastive sentences are frequently produced without making the alternatives explicit for the listener. In two cross-modal associative priming experiments we tested in Dutch whether such contextual alternatives become available to listeners upon hearing a sentence with a contrastive intonation contour compared with a sentence with a non-contrastive one. The first experiment tested the recognition of contrastive associates (contextual alternatives to the sentence-final primes), the second one the recognition of non-contrastive associates (generic associates which are not alternatives). Results showed that contrastive associates were facilitated when the primes occurred in sentences with a contrastive intonation contour but not in sentences with a non-contrastive intonation. Non-contrastive associates were weakly facilitated independent of intonation. Possibly, contrastive contours trigger an accommodation mechanism by which listeners retrieve the contrast available for the speaker. -
Bresnan, J., Cueni, A., Nikitina, T., & Baayen, R. H. (2007). Predicting the dative alternation. In G. Bouma, I. Kraemer, & J. Zwarts (
Eds. ), Cognitive foundations of interpretation (pp. 69-94). Amsterdam: KNAW.Abstract
Theoretical linguists have traditionally relied on linguistic intuitions such as grammaticality judgments for their data. But the massive growth of computer-readable texts and recordings, the availability of cheaper, more powerful computers and software, and the development of new probabilistic models for language have now made the spontaneous use of language in natural settings a rich and easily accessible alternative source of data. Surprisingly, many linguists believe that such ‘usage data’ are irrelevant to the theory of grammar. Four problems are repeatedly brought up in the critiques of usage data— 1. correlated factors seeming to support reductive theories, 2. pooled data invalidating grammatical inference, 3. syntactic choices reducing to lexical biases, and 4. cross-corpus differences undermining corpus studies. Presenting a case study of work on the English dative alternation, we show first,that linguistic intuitions of grammaticality are deeply flawed and seriously underestimate the space of grammatical possibility, and second, that the four problems in the critique of usage data are empirical issues that can be resolved by using modern statistical theory and modelling strategies widely used in other fields. The new models allow linguistic theory to solve more difficult problems than it has in the past, and to build convergent projects with psychology, computer science, and allied fields of cognitive science. -
Brown, P. (2007). Principles of person reference in Tzeltal conversation. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (
Eds. ), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 172-202). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
This paper focuses on ‘minimality’ in initial references to persons in the Mayan language Tzeltal, spoken in southern Mexico. Inspection of initial person-referring expressions in 25 Tzeltal videotaped conversations reveals that, in this language, if speaker and/or recipient are related through ‘kinship’ to the referent, a kin term (or other relational term like ‘namesake’) is the default option for initial reference to persons. Additionally, further specification via names and/or geographical location (of home base) is also often used to home in on the referent (e.g. ‘your-cousin Alonzo’, ‘our mother’s brother behind the mountain’). And often (~ 70 cases in the data examined) initial references to persons combine more than one referring expression, for example: ‘this old man my brother-in-law old man Antonio here in the pines’, or ‘the father of that brother-in-law of yours the father-in-law of your elder-sister Xmaruch’. Seen in the light of Schegloff’s (1979, 1996) two basic preferences for referring to persons in conversation: (i.) for a recognitional form and (ii.) for a minimal form, these Tzeltal person-referring expressions seem to be relatively elaborated. This paper examines the sequential contexts where such combinations appear, and proposes a third preference operative in Tzeltal (and possibly in other kinship-term-based systems) for associating the referent as closely as possible to the participants. -
Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (1989). De LAT-relatie tussen lichaam en geest: Over de implicaties van neurowetenschap voor onze kennis van cognitie. In C. Brown, P. Hagoort, & T. Meijering (
Eds. ), Vensters op de geest: Cognitie op het snijvlak van filosofie en psychologie (pp. 50-81). Utrecht: Grafiet. -
Brown, P. (1998). Early Tzeltal verbs: Argument structure and argument representation. In E. Clark (
Ed. ), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 129-140). Stanford: CSLI Publications.Abstract
The surge of research activity focussing on children's acquisition of verbs (e.g., Tomasello and Merriman 1996) addresses some fundamental questions: Just how variable across languages, and across individual children, is the process of verb learning? How specific are arguments to particular verbs in early child language? How does the grammatical category 'Verb' develop? The position of Universal Grammar, that a verb category is early, contrasts with that of Tomasello (1992), Pine and Lieven and their colleagues (1996, in press), and many others, that children develop a verb category slowly, gradually building up subcategorizations of verbs around pragmatic, syntactic, and semantic properties of the language they are exposed to. On this latter view, one would expect the language which the child is learning, the cultural milieu and the nature of the interactions in which the child is engaged, to influence the process of acquiring verb argument structures. This paper explores these issues by examining the development of argument representation in the Mayan language Tzeltal, in both its lexical and verbal cross-referencing forms, and analyzing the semantic and pragmatic factors influencing the form argument representation takes. Certain facts about Tzeltal (the ergative/ absolutive marking, the semantic specificity of transitive and positional verbs) are proposed to affect the representation of arguments. The first 500 multimorpheme combinations of 3 children (aged between 1;8 and 2;4) are examined. It is argued that there is no evidence of semantically light 'pathbreaking' verbs (Ninio 1996) leading the way into word combinations. There is early productivity of cross-referencing affixes marking A, S, and O arguments (although there are systematic omissions). The paper assesses the respective contributions of three kinds of factors to these results - structural (regular morphology), semantic (verb specificity) and pragmatic (the nature of Tzeltal conversational interaction). -
Brown, P. (2010). Cognitive anthropology. In L. Cummings (
Ed. ), The pragmatics encyclopedia (pp. 43-46). London: Routledge.Abstract
This is an encyclopedia entry surveying anthropological approaches to cognition and culture. -
Brown, P. (2007). Culture-specific influences on semantic development Acquiring the Tzeltal 'benefactive' construction. In B. Pfeiler (
Ed. ), Learning indigenous languages: Child language acquisition in Mesoamerica (pp. 119-154). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin.Abstract
Three-place predicates are an important locus for examining how children acquire argument structure and how this process is influenced by the typology of the language they are learning as well as by culturally-specific semantic categories. From a typological perspective, there is reason to expect children to have some trouble expressing three-participant events, given the considerable variation across languages in how these are linguistically coded. Verbs of transfer (‘give’, ‘receive’, etc.) are often considered to be the verbs which canonically appear with three arguments (e.g., Slobin 1985, Gleitman 1990). Yet in the Mayan language Tzeltal, verbs other than transfer verbs appear routinely in the ditransitive construction. Although the three participants are rarely all overtly expressed as NPs, this construction ensures that the ‘recipient’ or or ‘affectee’ participant is overtly marked on the verb. Tzeltal children’s early acquisition of this construction (well before the age of 3;0) shows that they are sensitive to its abstract constructional meaning of ‘affected’ third participant: they do not go initially for ‘transfer’ meanings but are attuned to benefactive or malefactive uses despite the predominance of the verb ‘give’ in the input with this construction. This poses a challenge to acquisition theories (Goldberg 2001, Ninio 1999) that see construction meaning arising from the meaning of the verb most frequently used in a construction. -
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Gesichtsbedrohende Akte [reprint: Face-threatening acts, 1987]. In S. K. Herrmann, S. Kraemer, & H. Kuch (
Eds. ), Verletzende Worte: Die Grammatik sprachlicher Missachtung (pp. 59-88). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.Abstract
This article is a reprint of parts of chapters 2 and 3 from Brown and Levinson (1987) discussing the concept of 'Face Threatening Acts'. -
Brown, P. (1998). How and why are women more polite: Some evidence from a Mayan community. In J. Coates (
Ed. ), Language and gender (pp. 81-99). Oxford: Blackwell. -
Brown, P. (1991). Sind Frauen höflicher? Befunde aus einer Maya-Gemeinde. In S. Günther, & H. Kotthoff (
Eds. ), Von fremden Stimmen: Weibliches und männliches Sprechen im Kulturvergleich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Abstract
This is a German translation of Brown 1980, How and why are women more polite: Some evidence from a Mayan community. -
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1998). Politeness, introduction to the reissue: A review of recent work. In A. Kasher (
Ed. ), Pragmatics: Vol. 6 Grammar, psychology and sociology (pp. 488-554). London: Routledge.Abstract
This article is a reprint of chapter 1, the introduction to Brown and Levinson, 1987, Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Cambridge University Press). -
Brown, P. (2012). To ‘put’ or to ‘take’? Verb semantics in Tzeltal placement and removal expressions. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 55-78). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper examines the verbs and other spatial vocabulary used for describing events of ‘putting’ and ‘taking’ in Tzeltal (Mayan). I discuss the semantics of different ‘put’ and ‘take’ verbs, the constructions they occur in, and the extensional patterns of verbs used in ‘put’ (Goal-oriented) vs. ‘take’ (Source-oriented) descriptions. A relatively limited role for semantically general verbs was found. Instead, Tzeltal is a ‘multiverb language’ with many different verbs usable to predicate ‘put’ and ‘take’ events, with verb choice largely determined by the shape, orientation, and resulting disposition of the Figure and Ground objects. The asymmetry that has been observed in other languages, with Goal-oriented ‘put’ verbs more finely distinguished lexically than Source-oriented ‘take’ verbs, is also apparent in Tzeltal. -
Brown, P. (2010). Todo el mundo tiene que mentir en Tzeltal: Amenazas y mentiras en la socialización de los niños tzeltales de Tenejapa, Chiapas. In L. de León Pasquel (
Ed. ), Socialización, lenguajes y culturas infantiles: Estudios interdisciplinarios (pp. 231-271). Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS).Abstract
This is a Spanish translation of Brown 2002, 'Everyone has to lie in Tzeltal'. Translated by B. E. Alvaraz Klein -
Burenhult, N., & Levinson, S. C. (2010). Semplates: A guide to identification and elicitation. In E. Norcliffe, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Field manual volume 13 (pp. 17-23). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. -
Burenhult, N. (2012). The linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Jahai. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 21-36). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper explores the linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Jahai (Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula) on the basis of descriptions from a video elicitation task. It outlines the structural characteristics of the descriptions and isolates semantically a set of situation types that find expression in lexical opposites: (1) putting/taking, (2) inserting/extracting, (3) dressing/undressing, and (4) placing/removing one’s body parts. All involve deliberate and controlled placing/removing of a solid Figure object in relation to a Ground which is not a human recipient. However, they differ as to the identity of and physical relationship between Figure and Ground. The data also provide evidence of variation in how semantic roles are mapped onto syntactic constituents: in most situation types, Agent, Figure and Ground associate with particular constituent NPs, but some placement events are described with semantically specialised verbs encoding the Figure and even the Ground. -
Carota, F. (2007). Collaborative use of contrastive markers Contextual and co-textual implications. In A. Fetzer (
Ed. ), Context and Appropriateness: Micro meets macro (pp. 235-260). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
The study presented in this paper examines the context-dependence and
dialogue functions of the contrastive markers of Italian ma (but),
invece (instead), mentre (while) and per (nevertheless) within
task-oriented dialogues.
Corpus data evidence their sensitivity to a acognitive interpersonal
context, conceived as a common ground. Such a cognitive state - shared
by co-participants through the coordinative process of grounding -
interacts with the global dialogue structure, which is cognitively
shaped by ``meta-negotiating{''} and grounding the dialogue topic.
Locally, the relation between the current dialogue structural units and
the global dialogue topic is said to be specified by information
structure, in particular intra-utterance themes.
It is argued that contrastive markers re-orient the co-participants'
cognitive states towards grounding ungrounded topical aspects to be
meta-negotiated. They offer a collaborative context-updating strategy,
tracking the status of common ground during dialogue topic management. -
Carota, F., Desmurget, M., & Sirigu, A. (2010). Forward Modeling Mediates Motor Awareness. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong, & L. Nadel (
Eds. ), Conscious Will and Responsibility - A Tribute to Benjamin Libet (pp. 97-108). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Abstract
This chapter focuses on the issue of motor awareness. It addresses three main questions: What exactly are we aware of when making a movement? What is the contribution of afferent and efferent signals to motor awareness? What are the neural bases of motor awareness? It reviews evidence that the motor system is mainly aware of its intention. As long as the goal is achieved, nothing reaches awareness about the kinematic details of the ongoing movements, even when substantial corrections have to be implemented to attain the intended state. The chapter also shows that motor awareness relies mainly on the central predictive computations carried out within the posterior parietal cortex. The outcome of these computations is contrasted with the peripheral reafferent input to build a veridical motor awareness. Some evidence exists that this process involves the premotor areas. -
Carroll, M., & Flecken, M. (2012). Language production under time pressure: insights into grammaticalisation of aspect (Dutch, Italian) and language processing in bilinguals (Dutch, German). In B. Ahrenholz (
Ed. ), Einblicke in die Zweitspracherwerbsforschung und Ihre methodischen Verfahren (pp. 49-76). Berlin: De Gruyter. -
Casasanto, D., & Bottini, R. (2010). Can mirror-reading reverse the flow of time? In C. Hölscher, T. F. Shipley, M. Olivetti Belardinelli, J. A. Bateman, & N. S. Newcombe (
Eds. ), Spatial Cognition VII. International Conference, Spatial Cognition 2010, Mt. Hood/Portland, OR, USA, August 15-19, 2010. Proceedings (pp. 335-345). Berlin Heidelberg: Springer.Abstract
Across cultures, people conceptualize time as if it flows along a horizontal timeline, but the direction of this implicit timeline is culture-specific: in cultures with left-to-right orthography (e.g., English-speaking cultures) time appears to flow rightward, but in cultures with right-to-left orthography (e.g., Arabic-speaking cultures) time flows leftward. Can orthography influence implicit time representations independent of other cultural and linguistic factors? Native Dutch speakers performed a space-time congruity task with the instructions and stimuli written in either standard Dutch or mirror-reversed Dutch. Participants in the Standard Dutch condition were fastest to judge past-oriented phrases by pressing the left button and future-oriented phrases by pressing the right button. Participants in the Mirror-Reversed Dutch condition showed the opposite pattern of reaction times, consistent with results found previously in native Arabic and Hebrew speakers. These results demonstrate a causal role for writing direction in shaping implicit mental representations of time. -
Casasanto, D. (2010). En qué casos una metáfora lingüística constituye una metáfora conceptual? In D. Pérez, S. Español, L. Skidelsky, & R. Minervino (
Eds. ), Conceptos: Debates contemporáneos en filosofía y psicología. Buenos Airos: Catálogos. -
Casasanto, D. (2012). Whorfian hypothesis. In J. L. Jackson, Jr. (
Ed. ), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780199766567-0058.Abstract
Introduction
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (a.k.a. the Whorfian hypothesis) concerns the relationship between language and thought. Neither the anthropological linguist Edward Sapir (b. 1884–d. 1939) nor his student Benjamin Whorf (b. 1897–d. 1941) ever formally stated any single hypothesis about the influence of language on nonlinguistic cognition and perception. On the basis of their writings, however, two proposals emerged, generating decades of controversy among anthropologists, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists. According to the more radical proposal, linguistic determinism, the languages that people speak rigidly determine the way they perceive and understand the world. On the more moderate proposal, linguistic relativity, habits of using language influence habits of thinking. As a result, people who speak different languages think differently in predictable ways. During the latter half of the 20th century, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was widely regarded as false. Around the turn of the 21st century, however, experimental evidence reopened debate about the extent to which language shapes nonlinguistic cognition and perception. Scientific tests of linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity help to clarify what is universal in the human mind and what depends on the particulars of people’s physical and social experience.
General Overviews and Foundational Texts
Writing on the relationship between language and thought predates Sapir and Whorf, and extends beyond the academy. The 19th-century German philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt argued that language constrains people’s worldview, foreshadowing the idea of linguistic determinism later articulated in Sapir 1929 and Whorf 1956 (Humboldt 1988). The intuition that language radically determines thought has been explored in works of fiction such as Orwell’s dystopian fantasy 1984 (Orwell 1949). Although there is little empirical support for radical linguistic determinism, more moderate forms of linguistic relativity continue to generate influential research, reviewed from an anthropologist’s perspective in Lucy 1997, from a psychologist’s perspective in Hunt and Agnoli 1991, and discussed from multidisciplinary perspectives in Gumperz and Levinson 1996 and Gentner and Goldin-Meadow 2003. -
Casasanto, D. (2010). Wie der Körper Sprache und Vorstellungsvermögen im Gehirn formt. In Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 2010. München: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Retrieved from http://www.mpg.de/jahrbuch/forschungsbericht?obj=454607.
Abstract
Wenn unsere geistigen Fähigkeiten zum Teil von der Struktur unserer Körper abhängen, dann sollten Menschen mit unterschiedlichen Körpertypen unterschiedlich denken. Um dies zu überprüfen, haben Wissenschaftler des MPI für Psycholinguistik neurale Korrelate von Sprachverstehen und motorischen Vorstellungen untersucht, die durch Aktionsverben hervorgerufen werden. Diese Verben bezeichnen Handlungen, die Menschen zumeist mit ihrer dominanten Hand ausführen (z. B. schreiben, werfen). Das Verstehen dieser Verben sowie die Vorstellung entsprechender motorischer Handlungen wurde in Gehirnen von Rechts- und Linkshändern unterschiedlich lateralisiert. Bilden Menschen mit unterschiedlichen Körpertypen verschiedene Konzepte und Wortbedeutungen? Gemäß der Körperspezifitätshypothese sollten sie das tun [1]. Weil geistige Fähigkeiten vom Körper abhängen, sollten Menschen mit unterschiedlichen Körpertypen auch unterschiedlich denken. Diese Annahme stellt die klassische Auffassung in Frage, dass Konzepte universal und Wortbedeutungen identisch sind für alle Sprecher einer Sprache. Untersuchungen im Projekt „Sprache in Aktion“ am MPI für Psycholinguistik zeigen, dass die Art und Weise, wie Sprecher ihre Körper nutzen, die Art und Weise beeinflusst, wie sie sich im Gehirn Handlungen vorstellen und wie sie Sprache, die solche Handlungen thematisiert, im Gehirn verarbeiten. -
Chen, A. (2010). Ab wann nutzen Kinder die Intonation zum Ausdruck neuer Information? In Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Jahrbuch 2010. München: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Retrieved from http://www.mpg.de/jahrbuch/forschungsbericht?obj=447900.
Abstract
In einer Studie am Max-Planck-Institut in Nijmegen wurde untersucht, wie und wann Kinder die Regeln der Intonation in der niederländischen Sprache beherrschen. Die Ergebnisse zeigten, dass sie mehrere Entwicklungsstufen durchlaufen, bevor sie im Alter von sieben oder acht Jahren so intonieren wie die Erwachsenen, die einen Fokus (sprich: neue Information) mit einem fallenden Akzent markieren. -
Chen, J. (2012). “She from bookshelf take-descend-come the box”: Encoding and categorizing placement events in Mandarin. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 37-54). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper investigates the lexical semantics of placement verbs in Mandarin. The majority of Mandarin placement verbs are directional verb compounds (e.g., na2-xia4-lai2 ‘take-descend-come’). They are composed of two or three verbs in a fixed order, each encoding certain semantic components of placement events. The first verb usually conveys object manipulation and the second and the third verbs indicate the Path of motion, including Deixis. The first verb, typically encoding object manipulation, can be semantically general or specific: two general verbs, fang4 ‘put’ and na2 ‘take’, have large but constrained extensional categories, and a number of specific verbs are used based on the Manner of manipulation of the Figure object, the relationship between and the physical properties of Figure and Ground, intentionality of the Agent, and the type of instrument. -
Chen, A. (2007). Language-specificity in the perception of continuation intonation. In C. Gussenhoven, & T. Riad (
Eds. ), Tones and tunes II: Phonetic and behavioural studies in word and sentence prosody (pp. 107-142). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Abstract
This paper addressed the question of how British English, German and Dutch listeners differ in their perception of continuation intonation both at the phonological level (Experiment 1) and at the level of phonetic implementation (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, preference scores of pitch contours to signal continuation at the clause-boundary were obtained from these listener groups. It was found that among contours with H%, British English listeners had a strong preference for H*L H%, as predicted. Unexpectedly, British English listeners rated H* H% noticeably more favourably than L*H H%; Dutch listeners largely rated H* H% more favourably than H*L H% and L*H H%; German listeners rated these contours similarly and seemed to have a slight preference for H*L H%. In Experiment 2, the degree to which a final rise was perceived to express continuation was established for each listener group in a made-up language. It was found that although all listener groups associated a higher end pitch with a higher degree of continuation likelihood, the perceived meaning difference for a given interval of end pitch heights varied with the contour shape of the utterance final syllable. When it was comparable to H* H%, British English and Dutch listeners perceived a larger meaning difference than German listeners; when it was comparable to H*L H%, British English listeners perceived a larger difference than German and Dutch listeners. This shows that language-specificity in continuation intonation at the phonological level affects the perception of continuation intonation at the phonetic level. -
Chen, A. (2012). Shaping the intonation of Wh-questions: Information structure and beyond. In J. P. de Ruiter (
Ed. ), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives (pp. 146-164). New York: Cambridge University Press.Files private
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Chen, A. (2012). The prosodic investigation of information structure. In M. Krifka, & R. Musan (
Eds. ), The expression of information structure (pp. 249-286). Berlin: de Gruyter. -
Chu, M., & Kita, S. (2012). The role of spontaneous gestures in spatial problem solving. In E. Efthimiou, G. Kouroupetroglou, & S.-E. Fotinea (
Eds. ), Gesture and sign language in human-computer interaction and embodied communication: 9th International Gesture Workshop, GW 2011, Athens, Greece, May 25-27, 2011, revised selected papers (pp. 57-68). Heidelberg: Springer.Abstract
When solving spatial problems, people often spontaneously produce hand gestures. Recent research has shown that our knowledge is shaped by the interaction between our body and the environment. In this article, we review and discuss evidence on: 1) how spontaneous gesture can reveal the development of problem solving strategies when people solve spatial problems; 2) whether producing gestures can enhance spatial problem solving performance. We argue that when solving novel spatial problems, adults go through deagentivization and internalization processes, which are analogous to young children’s cognitive development processes. Furthermore, gesture enhances spatial problem solving performance. The beneficial effect of gesturing can be extended to non-gesturing trials and can be generalized to a different spatial task that shares similar spatial transformation processes. -
Crago, M. B., & Allen, S. E. M. (1998). Acquiring Inuktitut. In O. L. Taylor, & L. Leonard (
Eds. ), Language Acquisition Across North America: Cross-Cultural And Cross-Linguistic Perspectives (pp. 245-279). San Diego, CA, USA: Singular Publishing Group, Inc. -
Crasborn, O., & Windhouwer, M. (2012). ISOcat data categories for signed language resources. In E. Efthimiou, G. Kouroupetroglou, & S.-E. Fotinea (
Eds. ), Gesture and sign language in human-computer interaction and embodied communication: 9th International Gesture Workshop, GW 2011, Athens, Greece, May 25-27, 2011, revised selected papers (pp. 118-128). Heidelberg: Springer.Abstract
As the creation of signed language resources is gaining speed world-wide, the need for standards in this field becomes more acute. This paper discusses the state of the field of signed language resources, their metadata descriptions, and annotations that are typically made. It then describes the role that ISOcat may play in this process and how it can stimulate standardisation without imposing standards. Finally, it makes some initial proposals for the thematic domain ‘sign language’ that was introduced in 2011. -
Cronin, K. A. (2012). Cognitive aspects of prosocial behavior in nonhuman primates. In N. M. Seel (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning. Part 3 (2nd ed., pp. 581-583). Berlin: Springer.Abstract
Definition Prosocial behavior is any behavior performed by one individual that results in a benefit for another individual. Prosocial motivations, prosocial preferences, or other-regarding preferences refer to the psychological predisposition to behave in the best interest of another individual. A behavior need not be costly to the actor to be considered prosocial, thus the concept is distinct from altruistic behavior which requires that the actor incurs some cost when providing a benefit to another. -
Cutfield, S. (2012). Principles of Dalabon plant and animal names and classification. In D. Bordulk, N. Dalak, M. Tukumba, L. Bennett, R. Bordro Tingey, M. Katherine, S. Cutfield, M. Pamkal, & G. Wightman (
Eds. ), Dalabon plants and animals: Aboriginal biocultural knowledge from Southern Arnhem Land, North Australia (pp. 11-12). Palmerston, NT, Australia: Department of Land and Resource Management, Northern Territory. -
Cutler, A. (1989). Auditory lexical access: Where do we start? In W. Marslen-Wilson (
Ed. ), Lexical representation and process (pp. 342-356). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Abstract
The lexicon, considered as a component of the process of recognizing speech, is a device that accepts a sound image as input and outputs meaning. Lexical access is the process of formulating an appropriate input and mapping it onto an entry in the lexicon's store of sound images matched with their meanings. This chapter addresses the problems of auditory lexical access from continuous speech. The central argument to be proposed is that utterance prosody plays a crucial role in the access process. Continuous listening faces problems that are not present in visual recognition (reading) or in noncontinuous recognition (understanding isolated words). Aspects of utterance prosody offer a solution to these particular problems. -
Cutler, A., Eisner, F., McQueen, J. M., & Norris, D. (2010). How abstract phonemic categories are necessary for coping with speaker-related variation. In C. Fougeron, B. Kühnert, M. D'Imperio, & N. Vallée (
Eds. ), Laboratory phonology 10 (pp. 91-111). Berlin: de Gruyter. -
Cutler, A. (1991). Linguistic rhythm and speech segmentation. In J. Sundberg, L. Nord, & R. Carlson (
Eds. ), Music, language, speech and brain (pp. 157-166). London: Macmillan. -
Cutler, A. (1998). Prosodic structure and word recognition. In A. D. Friederici (
Ed. ), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 41-70). Heidelberg: Springer. -
Cutler, A. (1987). Speaking for listening. In A. Allport, D. MacKay, W. Prinz, & E. Scheerer (
Eds. ), Language perception and production: Relationships between listening, speaking, reading and writing (pp. 23-40). London: Academic Press.Abstract
Speech production is constrained at all levels by the demands of speech perception. The speaker's primary aim is successful communication, and to this end semantic, syntactic and lexical choices are directed by the needs of the listener. Even at the articulatory level, some aspects of production appear to be perceptually constrained, for example the blocking of phonological distortions under certain conditions. An apparent exception to this pattern is word boundary information, which ought to be extremely useful to listeners, but which is not reliably coded in speech. It is argued that the solution to this apparent problem lies in rethinking the concept of the boundary of the lexical access unit. Speech rhythm provides clear information about the location of stressed syllables, and listeners do make use of this information. If stressed syllables can serve as the determinants of word lexical access codes, then once again speakers are providing precisely the necessary form of speech information to facilitate perception. -
Dediu, D. (2010). Linguistic and genetic diversity - how and why are they related? In M. Brüne, F. Salter, & W. McGrew (
Eds. ), Building bridges between anthropology, medicine and human ethology: Tributes to Wulf Schiefenhövel (pp. 169-178). Bochum: Europäischer Universitätsverlag.Abstract
There are some 6000 languages spoken today, classfied in approximately 90 linguistic families and many isolates, and also differing across structural, typological, dimensions. Genetically, the human species is remarkably homogeneous, with the existant genetic diversity mostly explain by intra-population differences between individuals, but the remaining inter-population differences have a non-trivial structure. Populations splits and contacts influence both languages and genes, in principle allowing them to evolve in parallel ways. The farming/language co-dispersal hypothesis is a well-known such theory, whereby farmers spreading agriculture from its places of origin also spread their genes and languages. A different type of relationship was recently proposed, involving a genetic bias which influences the structural properties of language as it is transmitted across generations. Such a bias was proposed to explain the correlations between the distribution of tone languages and two brain development-related human genes and, if confirmed by experimental studies, it could represent a new factor explaining the distrbution of diversity. The present chapter overviews these related topics in the hope that a truly interdisciplinary approach could allow a better understanding of our complex (recent as well as evolutionary) history. -
Dimroth, C. (2007). Zweitspracherwerb bei Kindern und Jugendlichen: Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede. In T. Anstatt (
Ed. ), Mehrsprachigkeit bei Kindern und Erwachsenen: Erwerb, Formen, Förderung (pp. 115-137). Tübingen: Attempto.Abstract
This paper discusses the influence of age-related factors like stage of cognitive development, prior linguistic knowledge, and motivation and addresses the specific effects of these ‘age factors’ on second language acquisition as opposed to other learning tasks. Based on longitudinal corpus data from child and adolescent learners of L2 German (L1 = Russian), the paper studies the acquisition of word order (verb raising over negation, verb second) and inflectional morphology (subject-verb-agreement, tense, noun plural, and adjective-noun agreement). Whereas the child learner shows target-like production in all of these areas within the observation period (1½ years), the adolescent learner masters only some of them. The discussion addresses the question of what it is about clusters of grammatical features that make them particularly affected by age. -
Dimroth, C., & Narasimhan, B. (2012). The acquisition of information structure. In M. Krifka, & R. Musan (
Eds. ), The expression of information structure (pp. 319-362). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. -
Dimroth, C. (2010). The acquisition of negation. In L. R. Horn (
Ed. ), The expression of negation (pp. 39-73). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Files private
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Dimroth, C., & Haberzettl, S. (2012). The older the better, or more is more: Language acquisition in childhood. In M. Watorek, S. Benazzo, & M. Hickmann (
Eds. ), Comparative perspectives on language acquisition: A tribute to Clive Perdue (pp. 324-349). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. -
Dingemanse, M. (2010). Folk definitions of ideophones. In E. Norcliffe, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Field manual volume 13 (pp. 24-29). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.529151.Abstract
Ideophones are marked words that depict sensory events, for example English hippety-hoppety ‘in a limping and hobbling manner’ or Siwu mukumuku ‘mouth movements of a toothless person eating’. They typically have special sound patterns and distinct grammatical properties. Ideophones are found in many languages of the world, suggesting a common fascination with detailed sensory depiction, but reliable data on their meaning and use is still very scarce. This task involves video-recording spontaneous, informal explanations (“folk definitions”) of individual ideophones by native speakers, in their own language. The approach facilitates collection of rich primary data in a planned context while ensuring a large amount of spontaneity and freedom. -
Dingemanse, M. (2012). Kleurt taal je wereldbeeld? Over de relatie tussen taal en denken. In M. Boogaard, & M. Jansen (
Eds. ), Alles wat je altijd al had willen weten over taal: De taalcanon (pp. 209-211). Amsterdam: Meulenhoff.Abstract
Mensen groeien op in verschillende omgevingen, met verschillende ervaringen en verschillende talen. Betekent dat ook dat ze verschillend denken? En als er invloed is van taal op denken, hoe ver reikt die dan? Wordt ons denken begrensd door woorden, of is de invloed meer gematigd en kunnen we er soms zelfs aan ontkomen? -
Drude, S. (2012). Prospects for e-grammars and endangered languages corpora. In F. Seifart, G. Haig, N. P. Himmelmann, D. Jung, A. Margetts, & P. Trilsbeek (
Eds. ), Potentials of language documentation: Methods, analyses, and utilization (pp. 7-16). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Abstract
This contribution explores the potentials of combining corpora of language use data with language description in e-grammars (or digital grammars). We present three directions of ongoing research and discuss the advantages of combining these and similar approaches, arguing that the technological possibilities have barely begun to be explored. -
Dugoujon, J.-M., Larrouy, G., Mazières, S., Brucato, N., Sevin, A., Cassar, O., & Gessain, A. (2010). Histoire et dynamique du peuplement humain en Amazonie: L’exemple de la Guyane. In A. Pavé, & G. Fornet (
Eds. ), Amazonie: Une aventure scientifique et humaine du CNRS (pp. 128-132). Paris: Galaade Éditions. -
Dunn, M. (2007). Vernacular literacy in the Touo language of the Solomon Islands. In A. J. Liddicoat (
Ed. ), Language planning and policy: Issues in language planning and literacy (pp. 209-220). Clevedon: Multilingual matters.Abstract
The Touo language is a non-Austronesian language spoken on Rendova Island (Western Province, Solomon Islands). First language speakers of Touo are typically multilingual, and are likely to speak other (Austronesian) vernaculars, as well as Solomon Island Pijin and English. There is no institutional support of literacy in Touo: schools function in English, and church-based support for vernacular literacy focuses on the major Austronesian languages of the local area. Touo vernacular literacy exists in a restricted niche of the linguistic ecology, where it is utilised for symbolic rather than communicative goals. Competing vernacular orthographic traditions complicate the situation further. -
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., Senft, B., & Senft, G. (1998). Trobriander (Ost-Neuguinea, Trobriand Inseln, Kaile'una) Fadenspiele 'ninikula'. In Ethnologie - Humanethologische Begleitpublikationen von I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt und Mitarbeitern. Sammelband I, 1985-1987. Göttingen: Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film.
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Eisner, F. (2012). Perceptual learning in speech. In N. M. Seel (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning. Part 16 (2nd. ed., pp. 2583-2584). Berlin: Springer.Abstract
Definition Perceptual learning in speech describes a change in the mapping from acoustic cues in the speech signal to abstract linguistic representations. Learning leads to a lasting benefit to the listener by improving speech comprehension. The change can occur as a response to a specific feature (such as a talker- or accent idiosyncrasy) or to a global degradation of the signal (such as in synthesized or compressed speech). In perceptual learning, a top-down process is involved in causing the change, whereas purely bottom-up, signal-driven phenomena are considered to be adaptation. -
Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., De Ruiter, J. P., & Stivers, T. (2007). Building a corpus of multimodal interaction in your field site. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 96-99). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468728.Abstract
Research on video- and audio-recordings of spontaneous naturally-occurring conversation in English has shown that conversation is a rule-guided, practice-oriented domain that can be investigated for its underlying mechanics or structure. Systematic study could yield something like a grammar for conversation. The goal of this task is to acquire a corpus of video-data, for investigating the underlying structure(s) of interaction cross-linguistically and cross-culturally. -
Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., De Ruiter, J. P., & Stivers, T. (2010). Building a corpus of multimodal interaction in your field site. In E. Norcliffe, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Field manual volume 13 (pp. 30-33). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. -
Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., & De Ruiter, J. (2012). Epistemic dimensions of polar questions: Sentence-final particles in comparative perspective. In J. P. De Ruiter (
Ed. ), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives (pp. 193-221). New York: Cambridge University Press. -
Enfield, N. J. (2007). Meanings of the unmarked: How 'default' person reference does more than just refer. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (
Eds. ), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 97-120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (2010). Metalanguage for speech acts. In Field manual volume 13 (pp. 34-36). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
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. -
Enfield, N. J. (2007). Repair sequences in interaction. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 100-103). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468724.Abstract
This sub-project is concerned with analysis and cross-linguistic comparison of the mechanisms of signaling and redressing ‘trouble’ during conversation. Speakers and listeners constantly face difficulties with many different aspects of speech production and comprehension during conversation. A speaker may mispronounce a word, or may be unable to find a word, or be unable to formulate in words an idea he or she has in mind. A listener may have troubling hearing (part of) what was said, may not know who a speaker is referring to, may not be sure of the current relevance of what is being said. There may be problems in the organisation of turns at talk, for instance, two speakers’ speech may be in overlap. The goal of this task is to investigate the range of practices that a language uses to address problems of speaking, hearing and understanding in conversation. -
Ernestus, M., & Baayen, R. H. (2007). Intraparadigmatic effects on the perception of voice. In J. van de Weijer, & E. J. van der Torre (
Eds. ), Voicing in Dutch: (De)voicing-phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics (pp. 153-173). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
In Dutch, all morpheme-final obstruents are voiceless in word-final position. As a consequence, the distinction between obstruents that are voiced before vowel-initial suffixes and those that are always voiceless is neutralized. This study adds to the existing evidence that the neutralization is incomplete: neutralized, alternating plosives tend to have shorter bursts than non-alternating plosives. Furthermore, in a rating study, listeners scored the alternating plosives as more voiced than the nonalternating plosives, showing sensitivity to the subtle subphonemic cues in the acoustic signal. Importantly, the participants who were presented with the complete words, instead of just the final rhymes, scored the alternating plosives as even more voiced. This shows that listeners’ perception of voice is affected by their knowledge of the obstruent’s realization in the word’s morphological paradigm. Apparently, subphonemic paradigmatic levelling is a characteristic of both production and perception. We explain the effects within an analogy-based approach. -
Ernestus, M. (2012). Segmental within-speaker variation. In A. C. Cohn, C. Fougeron, & M. K. Huffman (
Eds. ), The Oxford handbook of laboratory phonology (pp. 93-102). New York: Oxford University Press. -
Folia, V., Uddén, J., De Vries, M., Forkstam, C., & Petersson, K. M. (2010). Artificial language learning in adults and children. In M. Gullberg, & P. Indefrey (
Eds. ), The earliest stages of language learning (pp. 188-220). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. -
Frank, S. L., Koppen, M., Noordman, L. G. M., & Vonk, W. (2007). Modeling multiple levels of text presentation. In F. Schmalhofer, & C. A. Perfetti (
Eds. ), Higher level language processes in the brain: Inference and comprehension processes (pp. 133-157). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Friederici, A., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1987). Sprache. In K. Immelmann, K. Scherer, & C. Vogel (
Eds. ), Funkkolleg Psychobiologie (pp. 58-87). Weinheim: Beltz. -
Furuyama, N., & Sekine, K. (2007). Forgetful or strategic? The mystery of the systematic avoidance of reference in the cartoon story nsarrative. In S. D. Duncan, J. Cassel, & E. T. Levy (
Eds. ), Gesture and the Dynamic Dimension of Language: Essays in honor of David McNeill (pp. 75-81). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. -
Gaby, A. (2012). The Thaayorre lexicon of putting and taking. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 233-252). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper investigates the lexical semantics and relative distributions of verbs describing putting and taking events in Kuuk Thaayorre, a Pama-Nyungan language of Cape York (Australia). Thaayorre put/take verbs can be subcategorised according to whether they may combine with an NP encoding a goal, an NP encoding a source, or both. Goal NPs are far more frequent in natural discourse: initial analysis shows 85% of goal-oriented verb tokens to be accompanied by a goal NP, while only 31% of source-oriented verb tokens were accompanied by a source. This finding adds weight to Ikegami’s (1987) assertion of the conceptual primacy of goals over sources, reflected in a cross-linguistic dissymmetry whereby goal-marking is less marked and more widely used than source-marking. -
Gullberg, M., Roberts, L., Dimroth, C., Veroude, K., & Indefrey, P. (2010). Adult language learning after minimal exposure to an unknown natural language. In M. Gullberg, & P. Indefrey (
Eds. ), The earliest stages of language learning (pp. 5-24). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. -
Gullberg, M., De Bot, K., & Volterra, V. (2010). Gestures and some key issues in the study of language development. In M. Gullberg, & K. De Bot (
Eds. ), Gestures in language development (pp. 3-33). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Gullberg, M., & Burenhult, N. (2012). Probing the linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Swedish. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 167-182). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper explores the linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Swedish. Drawing on elicited spoken data, it provides a unified approach to caused motion descriptions. The results show uniform syntactic behaviour of placement and removal descriptions and a consistent asymmetry between placement and removal in the semantic specificity of verbs. The results also reveal three further semantic patterns, pertaining to the nature of the relationship between Figure and Ground, that appear to account for how these event types are characterised, viz. whether the Ground is represented by a body part of the Agent; whether the Figure is contained within the Ground; or whether it is supported by the Ground. -
Hagoort, P. (2007). The memory, unification, and control (MUC) model of language. In T. Sakamoto (
Ed. ), Communicating skills of intention (pp. 259-291). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo. -
Hagoort, P. (2007). The memory, unification, and control (MUC) model of language. In A. S. Meyer, L. Wheeldon, & A. Krott (
Eds. ), Automaticity and control in language processing (pp. 243-270). Hove: Psychology Press. -
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.
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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. -
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. -
Hamans, C., & Seuren, P. A. M. (2010). Chomsky in search of a pedigree. In D. A. Kibbee (
Ed. ), Chomskyan (R)evolutions (pp. 377-394). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper follows the changing fortunes of Chomsky’s search for a pedigree in the history of Western thought during the late 1960s. Having achieved a unique position of supremacy in the theory of syntax and having exploited that position far beyond the narrow circles of professional syntacticians, he felt the need to shore up his theory with the authority of history. It is shown that this attempt, resulting mainly in his Cartesian Linguistics of 1966, was widely, and rightly, judged to be a radical failure, even though it led to a sudden revival of interest in the history of linguistics. Ironically, the very upswing in historical studies caused by Cartesian Linguistics ended up showing that the real pedigree belongs to Generative Semantics, developed by the same ‘angry young men’ Chomsky was so bent on destroying. -
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.
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