Publications

Abstract

(From the chapter) the first section considers very briefly the kinds of processes that can be inferred to underlie errors that do not set in until after a period of correct usage acquisition often seems to be a more extended process than we have envisioned summarize a currently influential model of how linguistic forms, meaning, and communication are interrelated in the acquisition of language, point out some challenging problems for this model, and suggest that the notion of "meaning" in language must be reconceptualized before we can hope to solve these problems evidence from several types of late errors is marshalled in support of these arguments (From the preface) provides many examples of new errors that children introduce at relatively advanced stages of mastery of semantics and syntax Bowerman views these seemingly backwards steps as indications of definite steps forward by the child achieving reflective, flexible and integrated systems of semantics and syntax (

Abstract

This chapter is about the initial flowering of conditionals, if-(then) constructions, in children's spontaneous speech. It is motivated by two major theoretical interests. The first and most immediate is to understand the acquisition process itself. Conditionals are conceptually, and in many languages morphosyntactically, complex. What aspects of cognitive and grammatical development are implicated in their acquisition? Does learning take place in the context of particular interactions with other speakers? Where do conditionals fit in with the acquisition of other complex sentences? What are the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic properties of the first conditionals? Underlying this first interest is a second, more strictly linguistic one. Research of recent years has found increasing evidence that natural languages are constrained in certain ways. The source of these constraints is not yet clearly understood, but it is widely assumed that some of them derive ultimately from properties of children's capacity for language acquisition.

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).

Abstract

How are events framed in narrative? Speakers of English (a 'satellite-framed' language), when 'reading' Mercer Mayer's wordless picture book 'Frog, Where Are You?', find the story self-evident: a boy has a dog and a pet frog; the frog escapes and runs away; the boy and dog look for it across hill and dale, through woods and over a cliff, until they find it and return home with a baby frog child of the original pet frog. In Tzeltal, as spoken in a Mayan community in southern Mexico, the story is somewhat different, because the language structures event descriptions differently. Tzeltal is in part a 'verb-framed' language with a set of Path-encoding motion verbs, so that the bare bones of the Frog story can consist of verbs translating as 'go'/'pass by'/'ascend'/ 'descend'/ 'arrive'/'return'. But Tzeltal also has satellite-framing adverbials, grammaticized from the same set of motion verbs, which encode the direction of motion or the orientation of static arrays. Furthermore, vivid pictorial detail is provided by positional verbs which can describe the position of the Figure as an outcome of a motion event; motion and stasis are thereby combined in a single event description. (For example:  jipot jawal "he has been thrown (by the deer) lying­_face_upwards_spread-eagled". This paper compares the use of these three linguistic resources in Frog Story narratives from  Tzeltal adults and children, looks at their development in the narratives of children, and considers the results in relation to those from Berman and Slobin's (1996) comparative study of adult and child Frog stories.

Abstract

This is an encyclopedia entry surveying research and theoretical approaches to politeness phenomena in language usage.

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).

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.

Abstract

Under what circumstances do languages die? Why has their “mortality rate” increased dramatically in the recent past? What “causes of death” can be identified for historical cases, to what extent are these generalizable, and how can they be captured in an explanatory theory? In pursuing these questions, it becomes apparent that in typical cases of language death various causes tend to interact in multiple ways. Speakers’ attitudes towards their language play a critical role in all of this. Existing categorial taxonomies do not succeed in modeling the complex relationships between these factors. Therefore, an alternative, dimensional approach is called for to more adequately address (and counter) the causes of language death in a given scenario.

Abstract

This chapter reviews the findings of 58 word production experiments using different tasks and neuroimaging techniques. The reported cerebral activation sites are coded in a common anatomic reference system. Based on a functional model of language production, the different word production tasks are analyzed in terms of their processing components. This approach allows a distinction between the core process of word production and preceding task-specific processes (lead-in processes) such as visual or auditory stimulus recognition. The core process of word production is subserved by a left-lateralized perisylvian/thalamic language production network. Within this network there seems to be functional specialization for the processing stages of word production. In addition, this chapter includes a discussion of the available evidence on syntactic production, self-monitoring, and the time course of word production.

Abstract

The configuration of a spatial layout has a substantial effect on the acquisition and the representation of the environment. In four experiments, we investigated navigation difficulties arising at oblique angled intersections. In the first three studies we investigated specific arrow-fork configurations. In dependence on the branch subjects use to enter the intersection different decision latencies and numbers of errors arise. If subjects see the intersection as a fork, it is more difficult to find the correct way as if it is seen as an arrow. In a fourth study we investigated different heuristics people use while making a detour around a barrier. Detour behaviour varies with the perspective. If subjects learn and navigate through the maze in a field perspective they use a heuristic of preferring right angled paths. If they have a view from above and acquire their knowledge in an observer perspective they use oblique angled paths more often.