Publications

Displaying 201 - 271 of 271
  • Rapold, C. J. (2010). Defining converbs ten years on - A hitchhikers'guide. In S. Völlmin, A. Amha, C. J. Rapold, & S. Zaugg-Coretti (Eds.), Converbs, medial verbs, clause chaining and related issues (pp. 7-30). Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.
  • Rapold, C. J. (2012). The encoding of placement and removal events in ǂAkhoe Haiǁom. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (Eds.), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 79-98). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper explores the semantics of placement and removal verbs in Ākhoe Hai om based on event descriptions elicited with a set of video stimuli. After a brief sketch of the morphosyntax of placement/removal constructions in Ākhoe Haiom, four situation types are identified semantically that cover both placement and removal events. The language exhibits a clear tendency to make more fine-grained semantic distinctions in placement verbs, as opposed to semantically more general removal verbs.
  • Reesink, G. (2010). The difference a word makes. In K. A. McElhannon, & G. Reesink (Eds.), A mosaic of languages and cultures: Studies celebrating the career of Karl J. Franklin (pp. 434-446). Dallas, TX: SIL International.

    Abstract

    This paper offers some thoughts on the question what effect language has on the understanding and hence behavior of a human being. It reviews some issues of linguistic relativity, known as the “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,” suggesting that the culture we grow up in is reflected in the language and that our cognition (and our worldview) is shaped or colored by the conventions developed by our ancestors and peers. This raises questions for the degree of translatability, illustrated by the comparison of two poems by a Dutch poet who spent most of his life in the USA. Mutual understanding, I claim, is possible because we have the cognitive apparatus that allows us to enter different emic systems.
  • Reesink, G. (2010). Prefixation of arguments in West Papuan languages. In M. Ewing, & M. Klamer (Eds.), East Nusantara, typological and areal analyses (pp. 71-95). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Reinisch, E. (2010). Processing the fine temporal structure of spoken words. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Reis, A., Petersson, K. M., & Faísca, L. (2010). Neuroplasticidade: Os efeitos de aprendizagens específicas no cérebro humano. In C. Nunes, & S. N. Jesus (Eds.), Temas actuais em Psicologia (pp. 11-26). Faro: Universidade do Algarve.
  • Roberts, L. (2010). Parsing the L2 input, an overview: Investigating L2 learners’ processing of syntactic ambiguities and dependencies in real-time comprehension. In G. D. Véronique (Ed.), Language, Interaction and Acquisition [Special issue] (pp. 189-205). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    The acquisition of second language (L2) syntax has been central to the study of L2 acquisition, but recently there has been an interest in how learners apply their L2 syntactic knowledge to the input in real-time comprehension. Investigating L2 learners’ moment-by-moment syntactic analysis during listening or reading of sentence as it unfolds — their parsing of the input — is important, because language learning involves both the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to use it in real time. Using methods employed in monolingual processing research, investigations often focus on the processing of temporary syntactic ambiguities and structural dependencies. Investigating ambiguities involves examining parsing decisions at points in a sentence where there is a syntactic choice and this can offer insights into the nature of the parsing mechanism, and in particular, its processing preferences. Studying the establishment of syntactic dependencies at the critical point in the input allows for an investigation of how and when different kinds of information (e.g., syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) are put to use in real-time interpretation. Within an L2 context, further questions are of interest and familiar from traditional L2 acquisition research. Specifically, how native-like are the parsing procedures that L2 learners apply when processing the L2 input? What is the role of the learner’s first language (L1)? And, what are the effects of individual factors such as age, proficiency/dominance and working memory on L2 parsing? In the current paper I will provide an overview of the findings of some experimental research designed to investigate these questions.
  • Roberts, L. (2012). Sentence and discourse processing in second language comprehension. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Chicester: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781405198431.wbeal1063.

    Abstract

    n applied linguistics (AL), researchers have always been concerned with second language (L2) learners' knowledge of the target language (TL), investigating the development of TL grammar, vocabulary, and phonology, for instance.
  • Rossano, F. (2012). Gaze behavior in face-to-face interaction. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.

    Abstract

    Wat doen onze ogen als we met andere mensen praten? In zijn proefschrift beschrijft Federico Rossano hoe mensen hun ogen gebruiken tijdens face-to-face interacties. Onze oogbewegingen blijken opvallend geordend en voorspelbaar: zo is het bijvoorbeeld mogelijk om met uitsluitend de ogen een reactie uit te lokken als de gesprekspartner niet direct reageert. Ook wanneer bijvoorbeeld een vraag-antwoordreeks ten einde loopt, coördineren gespreksdeelnemers hun oogbewegingen op een specifieke manier. Daarnaast heeft luisteren naar een verhaal of luisteren naar een vraag verschillende implicaties voor oogbewegingen. Dit proefschrift bevat daarom belangrijke informatie voor experts op het gebied van kunstmatige intelligentie en computerwetenschappers: de voorspelbaarheid en reproduceerbaarheid van natuurlijke oogbewegingen kan onder andere gebruikt worden bij de ontwikkeling van robots of avatars.

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  • De Ruiter, L. E. (2010). Studies on intonation and information structure in child and adult German. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • De Ruiter, J. P. (1998). Gesture and speech production. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.2057686.
  • De Ruiter, J. P., Noordzij, M. L., Newman-Norlund, S., Newman-Norlund, R., Hagoort, P., Levinson, S. C., & Toni, I. (2012). Exploring the cognitive infrastructure of communication. In B. Galantucci, & S. Garrod (Eds.), Experimental Semiotics: Studies on the emergence and evolution of human communication (pp. 51-78). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Human communication is often thought about in terms of transmitted messages in a conventional code like a language. But communication requires a specialized interactive intelligence. Senders have to be able to perform recipient design, while receivers need to be able to do intention recognition, knowing that recipient design has taken place. To study this interactive intelligence in the lab, we developed a new task that taps directly into the underlying abilities to communicate in the absence of a conventional code. We show that subjects are remarkably successful communicators under these conditions, especially when senders get feedback from receivers. Signaling is accomplished by the manner in which an instrumental action is performed, such that instrumentally dysfunctional components of an action are used to convey communicative intentions. The findings have important implications for the nature of the human communicative infrastructure, and the task opens up a line of experimentation on human communication.

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  • San Roque, L., & Norcliffe, E. (2010). Knowledge asymmetries in grammar and interaction. In E. Norcliffe, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Field manual volume 13 (pp. 37-44). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.529153.
  • Schäfer, M., & Haun, D. B. M. (2010). Sharing among children across cultures. In E. Norcliffe, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Field manual volume 13 (pp. 45-49). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.529154.
  • Schimke, S., Verhagen, J., & Turco, G. (2012). The different role of additive and negative particles in the development of finiteness in early adult L2 German and L2 Dutch. In M. Watorek, S. Benazzo, & M. Hickmann (Eds.), Comparative perspectives on language acquisition: A tribute to Clive Perdue (pp. 73-91). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
  • Segaert, K. (2012). Structuring language: Contributions to the neurocognition of syntax. PhD Thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

    Abstract

    Sprekers hebben een sterke neiging om syntactische structuren te hergebruiken in nieuwe zinnen. Wanneer we een situatie beschrijven met een passieve zin bijvoorbeeld: 'De vrouw wordt begroet door de man', zullen we voor de beschrijving van een nieuwe situatie gemakkelijker opnieuw een passieve zin gebruiken. Vooral bij moeilijke syntactische structuren is de neiging om ze te hergebruiken erg sterk. Voor gemakkelijke zinsconstructies geldt dat minder. Maar als deze toch hergebruikt worden dan gaat dit samen met een sneller initiëren van de beschrijving. Ook in het brein zien we dat het herhalen van syntactische structuren de verwerking ervan vergemakkelijkt. Bepaalde hersengebieden die zorgen voor de verwerking van syntactische structuren zijn zeer actief de eerste keer dat een syntactische structuur wordt verwerkt, en minder actief de tweede keer. Het gaat hier om een gebiedje in de frontaalkwab en een gebiedje in de temporaalkwab. Opvallend is ook dat deze gebieden de verwerking van syntactische structuren ondersteunen zowel tijdens het spreken als tijdens het luisteren.

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  • Senft, G. (2010). Culture change - language change: Missionaries and moribund varieties of Kilivila. In G. Senft (Ed.), Endangered Austronesian and Australian Aboriginal languages: Essays on language documentation, archiving, and revitalization (pp. 69-95). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Senft, G. (2012). Das Erlernen von Fremdsprachen als Voraussetzung für erfolgreiche Feldforschung. In J. Kruse, S. Bethmann, D. Niermann, & C. Schmieder (Eds.), Qualitative Interviewforschung in und mit fremden Sprachen: Eine Einführung in Theorie und Praxis (pp. 121-135). Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.
  • Senft, G. (2001). Das Präsentieren des Forschers im Felde: Eine Einführung auf den Trobriand Inseln. In C. Sütterlin, & F. S. Salter (Eds.), Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt: Zu Person und Werk, Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag (pp. 188-197). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
  • Senft, G. (1998). 'Noble Savages' and the 'Islands of Love': Trobriand Islanders in 'Popular Publications'. In J. Wassmann (Ed.), Pacific answers to Western hegemony: Cultural practices of identity construction (pp. 119-140). Oxford: Berg Publishers.
  • Senft, G. (2012). 67 Wörter + 1 Foto für Roland Posner. In E. Fricke, & M. Voss (Eds.), 68 Zeichen für Roland Posner - Ein semiotisches Mosaik / 68 signs for Roland Posner - A semiotic mosaic (pp. 473-474). Tübingen: Stauffenberg Verlag.
  • Senft, G. (2001). Kevalikuliku: Earthquake magic from the Tobriand Islands (for Unshakebles). In A. Pawley, M. Ross, & D. Tryon (Eds.), The boy from Bundaberg: Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton (pp. 323-331). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Senft, G. (2010). Introduction. In G. Senft (Ed.), Endangered Austronesian and Australian Aboriginal languages: Essays on language documentation, archiving, and revitalization (pp. 1-13). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Senft, G. (2012). Ethnolinguistik. In B. Beer, & H. Fischer (Eds.), Ethnologie - Einführung und Überblick. 7. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage (pp. 271-286). Berlin: Reimer.
  • Senft, G. (2012). Referring to colour and taste in Kilivila: Stability and change in two lexical domains of sensual perception. In A. C. Schalley (Ed.), Practical theories and empirical practice (pp. 71-98). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This chapter first compares data collected on Kilivila colour terms in 1983 with data collected in 2008. The Kilivila lexicon has changed from a typical stage IIIb into a stage VII colour term lexicon (Berlin and Kay 1969). The chapter then compares data on the Kilivila taste vocabulary collected in 1982/83 with data collected in 2008. No substantial change was found. Finally the chapter compares the 2008 results on taste terms with a paper on the taste vocabulary of the Torres Strait Islanders published in 1904 by Charles S. Myers. Kilivila provides evidence that traditional terms used for talking about colour and terms used to refer to tastes have remained relatively stable over time.
  • Senft, G. (2001). Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raumes in verschiedenen Kulturen: Affiziert sprachliche Relativität die Philosophie? In L. Salwiczek, & W. Wickler (Eds.), Wie wir die Welt erkennen: Erkenntnisweisen im interdisziplinären Diskurs (pp. 203-242). Freiburg: Karl Alber.
  • Senft, G. (1998). Zeichenkonzeptionen in Ozeanien. In R. Posner, T. Robering, & T.. Sebeok (Eds.), Semiotics: A handbook on the sign-theoretic foundations of nature and culture (Vol. 2) (pp. 1971-1976). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2012). Does a leaking O-corner save the square? In J.-Y. Béziau, & D. Jacquette (Eds.), Around and beyond the square of opposition (pp. 129-138). Basel: Springer.

    Abstract

    It has been known at least since Abelard (12th century) that the classic Square of Opposition suffers from so-called undue existential import (UEI) in that this system of predicate logic collapses when the class denoted by the restrictor predicate is empty. It is usually thought that this mistake was made by Aristotle himself, but it has now become clear that this is not so: Aristotle did not have the Conversions but only one-way entailments, which ‘saves’ the Square. The error of UEI was introduced by his later commentators, especially Apuleius and Boethius. Abelard restored Aristotle’s original logic. After Abelard, some 14th- and 15th-century philosophers (mainly Buridan and Ockham) meant to save the Square by declaring the O-corner true when the restrictor class is empty. This ‘leaking O-corner analysis’, or LOCA, was taken up again around 1950 by some American philosopher-logicians, who now have a fairly large following. LOCA does indeed save the Square from logical disaster, but modern analysis shows that this makes it impossible to give a uniform semantic definition of the quantifiers, which thus become ambiguous—an intolerable state of affairs in logic. Klima (Ars Artium, Essays in Philosophical Semantics, Medieval and Modern, Institute of Philosophy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, 1988) and Parsons (in Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.standford.edu/entries/square/, 2006; Logica Univers. 2:3–11, 2008) have tried to circumvent this problem by introducing a ‘zero’ element into the ontology, standing for non-existing entities and yielding falsity when used for variable substitution. LOCA, both without and with the zero element, is critically discussed and rejected on internal logical and external ontological grounds.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2010). Donkey sentences. In A. Barber, & R. J. Stainton (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language and linguistics (pp. 169-171). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2010). Aristotle and linguistics. In A. Barber, & R. J. Stainton (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language and linguistics (pp. 25-27). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Abstract

    Aristotle's importance in the professional study of language consists first of all in the fact that he demythologized language and made it an object of rational investigation. In the context of his theory of truth as correspondence, he also provided the first semantic analysis of propositions in that he distinguished two main constituents, the predicate, which expresses a property, and the remainder of the proposition, referring to a substance to which the property is assigned. That assignment is either true or false. Later, the ‘remainder’ was called subject term, and the Aristotelian predicate was identified with the verb in the sentence. The Aristotelian predicate, however, is more like what is now called the ‘comment,’ whereas his remainder corresponds to the topic. Aristotle, furthermore, defined nouns and verbs as word classes. In addition, he introduced the term ‘case’ for paradigmatic morphological variation.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2010). Meaning: Cognitive dependency of lexical meaning. In A. Barber, & R. J. Stainton (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language and linguistics (pp. 424-426). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2001). Language and philosophy. In N. J. Smelser, & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences. Volume 12 (pp. 8297-8303). Amsterdam, NL: Elsevier.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (2010). Presupposition. In A. Barber, & R. J. Stainton (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language and linguistics (pp. 589-596). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (1998). Towards a discourse-semantic account of donkey anaphora. In S. Botley, & T. McEnery (Eds.), New Approaches to Discourse Anaphora: Proceedings of the Second Colloquium on Discourse Anaphora and Anaphor Resolution (DAARC2) (pp. 212-220). Lancaster: Universiy Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language, Lancaster University.
  • Skiba, R. (2010). Polnisch. In S. Colombo-Scheffold, P. Fenn, S. Jeuk, & J. Schäfer (Eds.), Ausländisch für Deutsche. Sprachen der Kinder - Sprachen im Klassenzimmer (2. korrigierte und erweiterte Auflage, pp. 165-176). Freiburg: Fillibach.
  • Snijders, T. M. (2010). More than words: Neural and genetic dynamics of syntactic unification. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Stivers, T., & Rossano, F. (2012). Mobilizing response in interaction: A compositional view of questions. In J. P. De Ruiter (Ed.), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives (pp. 58-80). New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Stivers, T. (2012). Language socialization in children’s medical encounters. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs, & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), The handbook of language socialization (pp. 247-268). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Abstract

    Research on child language socialization has its roots in understanding the ways that adults and other caregivers interact with children in mundane social life and how these practices might enculturate the child into local communicative norms and ways of thinking ( Brown 1998 ; Clancy 1999 ; Danziger 1971 ; de León 1998 ; Garrett and Baquedano-López 2002 ; Heath 1983 ; Ochs and Schieffelin 1983, 1984 ). A second primary area of interest has been the effect of different socialization practices on more formal educational settings ( Heath 1983 ; Howard 2004 ; Michaels 1981 ; Moore 2006 , this volume; Philips 1983 ; Rogoff et al. 2003 ). However, as discussed in other contributions to this volume, language socialization extends into many other facets of life. Just as being a member of a cultural group or being a student requires socialization into the associated rights and obligations, so too does the role of medical patient or client. For instance, patients must understand how to explain their problems ( Halkowski 2006 ; Heritage and Robinson 2006 ); what information they should know about their bodies, their treatment, their life, and their medical history; and where to look during examinations ( Heath 1986 ), to name but a few of the norm-governed aspects of medical interaction. Physicians play an important role in a child's socialization into the patient role by providing
  • Stolker, C. J. J. M., & Poletiek, F. H. (1998). Smartengeld - Wat zijn we eigenlijk aan het doen? Naar een juridische en psychologische evaluatie. In F. Stadermann (Ed.), Bewijs en letselschade (pp. 71-86). Lelystad, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Vermande.
  • Suppes, P., Böttner, M., & Liang, L. (1998). Machine Learning of Physics Word Problems: A Preliminary Report. In A. Aliseda, R. van Glabbeek, & D. Westerståhl (Eds.), Computing Natural Language (pp. 141-154). Stanford, CA, USA: CSLI Publications.
  • Tabak, W. (2010). Semantics and (ir)regular inflection in morphological processing. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • Terrill, A. (2010). Complex predicates and complex clauses in Lavukaleve. In J. Bowden, N. P. Himmelman, & M. Ross (Eds.), A journey through Austronesian and Papuan linguistic and cultural space: Papers in honour of Andrew K. Pawley (pp. 499-512). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  • Terrill, A. (2001). Warlpiri. In J. Garry, & C. Rubino (Eds.), Facts about the world’s languages: An encyclopedia of the world's major languages past and present (pp. 801-803). New York: H.W. Wilson Press.
  • Udden, J. (2012). Language as structured sequences: a causal role of Broca's region in sequence processing. PhD Thesis, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm.

    Abstract

    In this thesis I approach language as a neurobiological system. I defend a sequence processing perspective on language and on the function of Broca's region in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG). This perspective provides a way to express common structural aspects of language, music and action, which all engage the LIFG. It also facilitates the comparison of human language and structured sequence processing in animals. Research on infants, song-birds and non-human primates suggests an interesting role for non-adjacent dependencies in language acquisition and the evolution of language. In a series of experimental studies using a sequence processing paradigm called artificial grammar learning (AGL), we have investigated sequences with adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies. Our behavioral and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies show that healthy subjects successfully discriminate between grammatical and non-grammatical sequences after having acquired aspects of a grammar with nested or crossed non-adjacent dependencies implicitly. There were no indications of separate acquisition/processing mechanisms for sequence processing of adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies, although acquisition of non-adjacent dependencies takes more time. In addition, we studied the causal role of Broca‟s region in processing artificial syntax. Although syntactic processing has already been robustly correlated with activity in Broca's region, the causal role of Broca's region in syntactic processing, in particular syntactic comprehension has been unclear. Previous lesion studies have shown that a lesion in Broca's region is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to induce e.g. syntactic deficits. Subsequent to transcranial magnetic stimulation of Broca‟s region, discrimination of grammatical sequences with non-adjacent dependencies from non-grammatical sequences was impaired, compared to when a language irrelevant control region (vertex) was stimulated. Two additional experiments show perturbation of discrimination performance for grammars with adjacent dependencies after stimulation of Broca's region. Together, these results support the view that Broca‟s region plays a causal role in implicit structured sequence processing.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D., & Guerrero, L. (2012). De sujetos, pivotes y controladores: El argumento sintácticamente privilegiado. In R. Marial, L. Guerrero, & C. González Vergara (Eds.), El funcionalismo en la teoría lingüística: La gramática del papel y la referencia (pp. 247-267). Madrid: Akal.

    Abstract

    Translated and expanded version of 'Privileged syntactic arguments, pivots and controllers
  • Van der Meulen, F. (2001). Moving eyes and naming objects. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.2057610.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2001). Functional linguistics. In M. Aronoff, & J. Rees-Miller (Eds.), The handbook of Linguistics (pp. 319-336). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Van Geenhoven, V. (1998). On the Argument Structure of some Noun Incorporating Verbs in West Greenlandic. In M. Butt, & W. Geuder (Eds.), The Projection of Arguments - Lexical and Compositional Factors (pp. 225-263). Stanford, CA, USA: CSLI Publications.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (1998). The acquisition of WH-questions and the mechanisms of language acquisition. In M. Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure (pp. 221-249). Mahwah, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
  • Van Berkum, J. J. A. (2012). The electrophysiology of discourse and conversation. In M. J. Spivey, K. McRae, & M. F. Joanisse (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 589-614). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    Introduction: What’s happening in the brains of two people having a conversation? One reasonable guess is that in the fMRI scanner we’d see most of their brains light up. Another is that their EEG will be a total mess, reflecting dozens of interacting neuronal systems. Conversation recruits all of the basic language systems reviewed in this book. It also heavily taxes cognitive systems more likely to be found in handbooks of memory, attention and control, or social cognition (Brownell & Friedman, 2001). With most conversations going beyond the single utterance, for instance, they place a heavy load on episodic memory, as well as on the systems that allow us to reallocate cognitive resources to meet the demands of a dynamically changing situation. Furthermore, conversation is a deeply social and collaborative enterprise (Clark, 1996; this volume), in which interlocutors have to keep track of each others state of mind and coordinate on such things as taking turns, establishing common ground, and the goals of the conversation.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2012). Some issues in the linking between syntax and semantics in relative clauses. In B. Comrie, & Z. Estrada-Fernández (Eds.), Relative Clauses in languages of the Americas: A typological overview (pp. 47-64). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Relative clauses present an interesting challenge for theories of the syntaxsemantics interface, because one element functions simultaneously in the matrix and relative clauses. The exact nature of the challenge depends on whether the relative clause is externally-headed or internallyheaded. Standard analyses of relative clauses are grounded in the analysis of Englishtype externally-headed constructions involving a relative pronoun, e.g. The horse which the man bought was a good horse, despite its typological rarity, and such accounts typically involve movement rules, both overt and covert, and phonologically null elements. The analysis of internally-headed relative clauses often involves the positing of an abstract structure including a null external head, with covert movement of the internal head to that position. The purpose of this paper is to show that the essential features of both types of relative clause can be captured in a syntactic theory that eschews movement rules and phonologically null elements, Role and Reference Grammar. It will be argued that a single set of linking principles can handle the syntax-to-semantics linking for both types. Keywords: Externally-headed relative clauses; internally-headed relative clauses; Role and Reference Grammar; linking syntax and semantics
  • Van Staden, M., Senft, G., Enfield, N. J., & Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Staged events. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 115-125). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874668.

    Abstract

    The term “event” is a controversial concept, and the “same” activity or situation can be linguistically encoded in many different ways. The aim of this task is to explore features of event representation in the language of study, in particular, multi-verb constructions, event typicality, and event complexity. The task consists of a description and recollection task using film stimuli, and a subsequent re-enactment of certain scenes by other participants on the basis of these descriptions. The first part of the task collects elaborate and concise descriptions of complex events in order to examine how these are segmented into macro-events, what kind of information is expressed, and how the information is ordered. The re-enactment task is designed to examine what features of the scenes are stereotypically implied.
  • Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2010). Role and reference grammar as a framework for linguistic analysis. In B. Heine, & H. Narrog (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis (pp. 703-738). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Van Dijk, H. (2010). The state of the brain: How alpha oscillations shape behavior and event-related responses. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.
  • De Vos, C. (2012). Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok: How a village sign language in Bali inscribes its signing space. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen.

    Abstract

    In a small village in the north of Bali called Bengkala, relatively many people inherit deafness. The Balinese therefore refer to this village as Desa Kolok, which means 'deaf village'. Connie de Vos studied Kata Kolok, the sign language of this village, and the ways in which the language recruits space to talk about both spatial and non-spatial matters. he small village community Bengkala in the north of Bali has almost 3,000 inhabitants. Of all the inhabitants, 57% use sign language, with varying degrees of fluency. But of this signing community (between 1,200 and 1,800 signers, depending on your definition of 'signer'), only 4% are deaf. So, not only do the deaf people of Bengkala use the sign language Kata Kolok, but also the majority of the hearing population.
    "I've worked with deaf people from all over Asia, Europe, and also some signers in America," says Connie de Vos of MPI's Language and Cognition Department, and Centre for Language Studies (RU). "What sets apart this particular deaf village is that deaf individuals are highly integrated within the village clans. There is really a huge proportion of hearing signers." The sign language currently functions in all major aspects of village life and has been acquired from birth by multiple generations of deaf, native signers. According to De Vos, Kata Kolok is a fully-fledged sign language in every sense of the word. As a collaborative project, she has initiated inclusive deaf education within the village and now Kata Kolok is used as the primary language of instruction. De Vos' primary finding is that Kata Kolok discourse uses a different system of referring to space than other sign languages. Spatial relations are represented by a so-called "absolute frame of reference", based on geographic locations and wind directions. "All sign languages, as we know, use relative constructions for spatial relations. They use signs comparable to words like 'left' and 'right' instead of 'east' and 'west'. Kata Kolok does the latter. Kata Kolok signers appear to have an internal compass to continually register their position in space."De Vos is the first sign linguist who has documented Kata Kolok extensively. She spent more than a year in the village and collected over a hundred hours of video material of spontaneous conversations. "One of the things I've noticed is that language doesn't really emerge out of nothing," she says. "Signers adopt a local gesture system and transform it into a new and much more systematic sign language. A lot of the signs refer to concepts they're familiar with. That's why hearing signers have no difficulties in picking up Kata Kolok. Kata Kolok unites the hearing and the deaf.

    Additional information

    full text via Radboud Repository
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    Abstract

    The primary goal of psycholinguistic research is to understand the architectures and mechanisms that underlie human language comprehension and production. This entails an understanding of how linguistic knowledge is represented and organized in the brain and a theory of how that knowledge is accessed when we use language. Research has traditionally emphasized purely linguistic aspects of on-line comprehension, such as the influence of lexical, syntactic, semantic and discourse constraints, and their tim -course. It has become increasingly clear, however, that nonlinguistic information, such as the visual environment, are also actively exploited by situated language comprehenders.
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    Abstract

    In order to decode the message of a speaker, listeners have to recognize individual words in the speaker's utterance.
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    Abstract

    Many people speak a second language next to their mother tongue. How do they learn this language and how does the brain process it compared to the native language? A second language can be learned without explicit instruction. Our brains automatically pick up grammatical structures, such as word order, when these structures are repeated frequently during learning. The learning takes place within hours or days and the same brain areas, such as frontal and temporal brain regions, that process our native language are very quickly activated. When people master a second language very well, even the same neuronal populations in these language brain areas are involved. This is especially the case when the grammatical structures are similar. In conclusion, it appears that a second language builds on the existing cognitive and neural mechanisms of the native language as much as possible.
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    Abstract

    Here we review evidence from cognitive neuroscience for a tight relation between language and action in the brain. We focus on two types of relation between language and action. First, we investigate whether the perception of speech and speech sounds leads to activation of parts of the cortical motor system also involved in speech production. Second, we evaluate whether understanding action-related language involves the activation of parts of the motor system. We conclude that whereas there is considerable evidence that understanding language can involve parts of our motor cortex, this relation is best thought of as inherently flexible. As we explain, the exact nature of the input as well as the intention with which language is perceived influences whether and how motor cortex plays a role in language processing.
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    Abstract

    ISO Technical Committee 37, Terminology and other language and content resources, established an ISO 12620:2009 based Data Category Registry (DCR), called ISOcat (see http://www.isocat.org), to foster semantic interoperability of linguistic resources. However, this goal can only be met if the data categories are reused by a wide variety of linguistic resource types. A resource indicates its usage of data categories by linking to them. The small DC Reference XML vocabulary is used to embed links to data categories in XML documents. The link is established by an URI, which servers as the Persistent IDentifier (PID) of a data category. This paper discusses the efforts to mimic the same approach for RDF-based resources. It also introduces the RDF quad store based Relation Registry RELcat, which enables ontological relationships between data categories not supported by ISOcat and thus adds an extra level of linguistic knowledge.
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    Abstract

    5.1 Einführung in den Forschungsbereich Die Psycholinguistik ist der Bereich der Linguistik, der sich mit dem Zusammenhang zwischen menschlicher Sprache und dem Denken und anderen mentalen Prozessen beschäftigt, d.h. sie stellt sich einer Reihe von essentiellen Fragen wie etwa (1) Wie schafft es unser Gehirn, im Wesentlichen akustische und visuelle kommunikative Informationen zu verstehen und in mentale Repräsentationen umzusetzen? (2) Wie kann unser Gehirn einen komplexen Sachverhalt, den wir anderen übermitteln wollen, in eine von anderen verarbeitbare Sequenz von verbalen und nonverbalen Aktionen umsetzen? (3) Wie gelingt es uns, in den verschiedenen Phasen des Lebens Sprachen zu erlernen? (4) Sind die kognitiven Prozesse der Sprachverarbeitung universell, obwohl die Sprachsysteme derart unterschiedlich sind, dass sich in den Strukturen kaum Universalien finden lassen?
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    Abstract

    In recent decades, neuroimaging studies on the neural infrastructure of language are usually (or mostly) conducted with certain on-line language processing tasks. These functional neuroimaging studies helped to localize the language areas in the brain and to investigate the brain activity during explicit language processing. However, little is known about what is going on with the language areas when the brain is ‘at rest’, i.e., when there is no explicit language processing running. Taking advantage of the fcMRI and DTI techniques, this thesis is able to investigate the language function ‘off-line’ at the neuronal network level and the connectivity among language areas in the brain. Based on patient studies, the traditional, classical model on the perisylvian language network specifies a “Broca’ area – Arcuate Fasciculus – Werinicke’s area” loop (Ojemann 1991). With the help of modern neuroimaging techniques, researchers have been able to track language pathways that involve more brain structures than are in the classical model, and relate them to certain language functions. In such a background, a large part of this thesis made a contribution to the study of the topology of the language networks. It revealed that the language networks form a topographical functional connectivity pattern in the left hemisphere for the right-handers. This thesis also revealed the importance of structural hubs, such as Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, which have more connectivity to other brain areas and play a central role in the language networks. Furthermore, this thesis revealed both functionally and structurally lateralized language networks in the brain. The consistency between what is found in this thesis and what has been known from previous functional studies seems to suggest, that the human brain is optimized and ‘ready’ for the language function even when there is currently no explicit language-processing running.
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    Abstract

    Classifiers (currently also called 'depicting handshapes'), are observed in almost all signed languages studied to date and form a well-researched topic in sign language linguistics. Yet, these elements are still subject to much debate with respect to a variety of matters. Several different categories of classifiers have been posited on the basis of their semantics and the linguistic context in which they occur. The function(s) of classifiers are not fully clear yet. Similarly, there are differing opinions regarding their structure and the structure of the signs in which they appear. Partly as a result of comparison to classifiers in spoken languages, the term 'classifier' itself is under debate. In contrast to these disagreements, most studies on the acquisition of classifier constructions seem to consent that these are difficult to master for Deaf children. This article presents and discusses all these issues from the viewpoint that classifiers are linguistic elements.

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