Displaying 1 - 100 of 319
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Ameka, F. K. (2008). Aspect and modality in Ewe: A survey. In F. K. Ameka, & M. E. Kropp Dakubu (
Eds. ), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages (pp. 135-194). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K. (2008). He died old dying to be dead right: Transitivity and semantic shifts of 'die' in Ewe in crosslinguistic perspective. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 231-254). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Abstract
This paper examines some of the claims of the Unaccusativity hypothesis.It shows that the supposedly unaccusative ‘die’ verb in Ewe (Kwa), kú can appear as both a one-place and a two-place predicate and has three senses which do not correlate with the number of surface arguments of the verb. For instance, the same sense is involved in both a one-place construction (e.g. she died) and a two-place cognate object construction (she died a wicked death). By contrast, different senses are expressed by formally identical two-place constructions, e.g. ‘the garment die dirt’ (= the garment is dead dirty; intensity) vs., ‘he died ear (to the matter)’ (=he does not want to hear; negative desiderative). The paper explores the learnability problems posed by the non-predictability of the different senses of Ewe ‘die’ from its syntactic frame and suggests that since the meanings are indirectly related to the properties of the event participants, such as animacy, a learner must pay close attention to the properties of the verb’s participants. The paper concludes by demonstrating that the meaning shifts observed in Ewe are also attested in other typologically and genetically unrelated languages such as Japanese, Arrernte (Australian), Oluta (Mixean), Dutch and English. -
Ameka, F. K. (2001). Ideophones and the nature of the adjective word class in Ewe. In F. K. E. Voeltz, & C. Kilian-Hatz (
Eds. ), Ideophones (pp. 25-48). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K., & Kropp Dakubu, M. E. (2008). Imperfective constructions: Progressive and prospective in Ewe and Dangme. In F. K. Ameka, & M. E. Kropp Dakubu (
Eds. ), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages (pp. 215-289). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K., & Kropp Dakubu, M. E. (2008). Introduction. In F. K. Ameka, & M. E. Kropp Dakubu (
Eds. ), Aspect and modality in Kwa languages (pp. 1-7). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Ameka, F. K. (2001). Ewe. In J. Garry, & C. Rubino (
Eds. ), Facts about the world’s languages: An encyclopedia of the world's major languages past and present (pp. 207-213). New York: H.W. Wilson Press. -
Aslin, R., Clayards, M., & Bardhan, N. P. (2008). Mechanisms of auditory reorganization during development: From sounds to words. In C. Nelson, & M. Luciana (
Eds. ), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (2nd, pp. 97-116). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2000). From Latin to French: The linear development of word order. In B. Bichakjian, T. Chernigovskaya, A. Kendon, & A. Müller (
Eds. ), Becoming Loquens: More studies in language origins (pp. 239-257). Frankfurt am Main: Lang. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (1992). Evolution in language: Evidence from the Romance auxiliary. In B. Chiarelli, J. Wind, A. Nocentini, & B. Bichakjian (
Eds. ), Language origin: A multidisciplinary approach (pp. 517-528). Dordrecht: Kluwer. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2016). The development of the comparative in Latin texts. In J. N. Adams, & N. Vincent (
Eds. ), Early and late Latin. Continuity or change? (pp. 313-339). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Files private
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Behne, T., Carpenter, M., Gräfenhain, M., Liebal, K., Liszkowski, U., Moll, H., Rakoczy, H., Tomasello, M., Warneken, F., & Wyman, E. (2008). Cultural learning and cultural creation. In U. Müller, J. Carpendale, N. Budwig, & B. Sokol (
Eds. ), Social life and social knowledge: Toward a process account of development (pp. 65-102). Hove: Psychology Press. -
Bercelli, F., Rossano, F., & Viaro, M. (2008). Clients' responses to therapists' reinterpretations. In A. Peräkylä, C. Antaki, S. Vehviläinen, & I. Leudar (
Eds. ), Conversation analysis and psychotherapy (pp. 43-61). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Blythe, J. (2018). Genesis of the trinity: The convergent evolution of trirelational kinterms. In P. McConvell, & P. Kelly (
Eds. ), Skin, kin and clan: The dynamics of social categories in Indigenous Australia (pp. 431-471). Canberra: ANU EPress. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Motionland films version 2: Referential communication task with motionland stimulus. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 97-99). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874623.Abstract
How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package different components of moving, such as manner and path? This task supports detailed investigation of motion descriptions. The specific study goals are: (a) the coding of “via” grounds (i.e., ground objects which the figure moves along, over, around, through, past, etc.); (b) the coding of direction changes; (c) the spontaneous segmentation of complex motion scenarios; and (d) the gestural representation of motion paths. The stimulus set is 5 simple 3D animations (7-17 seconds long) that show a ball rolling through a landscape. The task is a director-matcher task for two participants. The director describes the path of the ball in each clip to the matcher, who is asked to trace the path with a pen in a 2D picture.Additional information
2001_Motionland_films_v2.zip -
Bohnemeyer, J., Eisenbeiss, S., & Narasimhan, B. (2001). Event triads. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 100-114). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874630.Abstract
Judgments we make about how similar or different events are to each other can reveal the features we find useful in classifying the world. This task is designed to investigate how speakers of different languages classify events, and to examine how linguistic and gestural encoding relates to non-linguistic classification. Specifically, the task investigates whether speakers judge two events to be similar on the basis of (a) the path versus manner of motion, (b) sub-events versus larger complex events, (c) participant identity versus event identity, and (d) different participant roles. In the task, participants are asked to make similarity judgments concerning sets of 2D animation clips. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). A questionnaire on event integration. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 177-184). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. -
Bohnemeyer, J., Bowerman, M., & Brown, P. (2001). Cut and break clips. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 90-96). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874626.Abstract
How do different languages treat a particular semantic domain? It has already been established that languages have widely varied words for talking about “cutting” and “breaking” things: for example, English has a very general verb break, but K’iche’ Maya has many different ‘break’ verbs that are used for different kinds of objects (e.g., brittle, flexible, long). The aim of this task is to map out cross-linguistic lexicalisation patterns in the cutting/breaking domain. The stimuli comprise 61 short video clips that show one or two actors breaking various objects (sticks, carrots, pieces of cloth or string, etc.) using various instruments (a knife, a hammer, an axe, their hands, etc.), or situations in which various kinds of objects break spontaneously. The clips are used to elicit descriptions of actors’ actions and the state changes that the objects undergo.Additional information
2001_Cut_and_break_clips.zip -
Bohnemeyer, J. (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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Bohnemeyer, J. (2008). The pitfalls of getting from here to there. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure: Implications for Learnability (pp. 49-68). New York City, NY, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2000). Where do pragmatic meanings come from? In W. Spooren, T. Sanders, & C. van Wijk (
Eds. ), Samenhang in Diversiteit; Opstellen voor Leo Noorman, aangeboden bij gelegenheid van zijn zestigste verjaardag (pp. 137-153). -
Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Toponym questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 55-61). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874620.Abstract
Place-names (toponyms) are at the intersection of spatial language, culture, and cognition. This questionnaire prepares the researcher to answer three overarching questions: how to formally identify place-names in the research language (i.e. according to morphological and syntactic criteria); what places place-names are employed to refer to (e.g. human settlements, landscape sites); and how places are semantically construed for this purpose. The questionnaire can in principle be answered using an existing database. However, additional elicitation with language consultants is recommended. -
Boroditsky, L., Gaby, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Time in space. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 11 (pp. 52-76). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492932.Abstract
How do different languages and cultures conceptualise time? This question is part of a broader set of questions about how humans come to represent and reason about abstract entities – things we cannot see or touch. For example, how do we come to represent and reason about abstract domains like justice, ideas, kinship, morality, or politics? There are two aspects of this project: (1) Time arrangement tasks to assess the way people arrange time either as temporal progressions expressed in picture cards or done using small tokens or points in space. (2) A time & space language inventory to discover and document the linguistic coding of time and its relation to space, as well as the cultural knowledge structures related to time.Additional information
2008_Time_in_space_stimuli.zip -
Botelho da Silva, T., & Cutler, A. (1993). Ill-formedness and transformability in Portuguese idioms. In C. Cacciari, & P. Tabossi (
Eds. ), Idioms: Processing, structure and interpretation (pp. 129-143). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Bowerman, M., & Croft, W. (2008). The acquisition of the English causative alternation. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 279-306). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Bowerman, M., & Pederson, E. (1992). Topological relations picture series. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 51). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.883589.Abstract
This task is designed to elicit expressions of spatial relations. It was originally designed by Melissa Bowerman for use with young children, but was then developed further by Bowerman in collaboration with Pederson for crosslinguistic comparison. It has been used in fieldsites all over the world and is commonly known as “BowPed” or “TPRS”. Older incarnations did not always come with instructions. This entry includes a one-page instruction sheet and high quality versions of the original pictures.Additional information
1992_Topological_relations_picture_series.zip -
Bowerman, M. (1992). Topological Relations Pictures: Topological Paths. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 18-24). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3512508.Abstract
This entry suggests ways to elicit descriptions of caused motion involving topological relations (the domain of English put IN/ON/TOGETHER, take OUT/OFF/APART, etc.). There is a large amount of cross-linguistic variation in this domain. The tasks outlined here address matters such as the division of labor between the various elements of spatial semantics in the sentence. For example, is most of the work of expressing PATH done in a locative marker, or in the verb, or both? -
Bowerman, M. (1992). Topological Relations Pictures: Static Relations. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 25-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3512672.Abstract
The precursor to the Bowped stimuli, this entry suggests various spatial configurations to explore using real objects, rather than the line drawings used in Bowped. -
Bowerman, M., & Brown, P. (2008). Introduction. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 1-26). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Abstract
This chapter outlines two influential "bootstrapping" proposals that draw on presumed universals of argument structure to account for young children's acquisition of grammar (semantic bootstrapping) and verb meaning (syntactic bootstrapping), discusses controversial issues raised by these proposals, and summarizes the new insights contributed to the debate by each of the chapters in this volume. -
Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2001). Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language-specific in the acquisition of semantic categories. In M. Bowerman, & S. C. Levinson (
Eds. ), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 475-511). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Bowerman, M. (2000). Where do children's word meanings come from? Rethinking the role of cognition in early semantic development. In L. Nucci, G. Saxe, & E. Turiel (
Eds. ), Culture, thought and development (pp. 199-230). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. -
Brehm, L., & Goldrick, M. (2018). Connectionist principles in theories of speech production. In S.-A. Rueschemeyer, & M. G. Gaskell (
Eds. ), The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics (2nd ed., pp. 372-397). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Abstract
This chapter focuses on connectionist modeling in language production, highlighting how
core principles of connectionism provide coverage for empirical observations about
representation and selection at the phonological, lexical, and sentence levels. The first
section focuses on the connectionist principles of localist representations and spreading
activation. It discusses how these two principles have motivated classic models of speech
production and shows how they cover results of the picture-word interference paradigm,
the mixed error effect, and aphasic naming errors. The second section focuses on how
newer connectionist models incorporate the principles of learning and distributed
representations through discussion of syntactic priming, cumulative semantic
interference, sequencing errors, phonological blends, and code-switching -
Brouwer, S., Cornips, L., & Hulk, A. (2008). Misrepresentation of Dutch neuter gender in older bilingual children? In B. Hazdenar, & E. Gavruseva (
Eds. ), Current trends in child second language acquisition: A generative perspective (pp. 83-96). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Brown, P. (2008). Verb specificity and argument realization in Tzeltal child language. In M. Bowerman, & P. Brown (
Eds. ), Crosslinguistic perspectives on argument structure: Implications for learnability (pp. 167-189). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Abstract
How do children learn a language whose arguments are freely ellipsed? The Mayan language Tzeltal, spoken in southern Mexico, is such a language. The acquisition pattern for Tzeltal is distinctive, in at least two ways: verbs predominate even in children’s very early production vocabulary, and these verbs are often very specific in meaning. This runs counter to the patterns found in most Indo-European languages, where nouns tend to predominate in early vocabulary and children’s first verbs tend to be ‘light’ or semantically general. Here I explore the idea that noun ellipsis and ‘heavy’ verbs are related: the ‘heavy’ verbs restrict the nominal reference and so allow recovery of the ‘missing’ nouns. Using data drawn from videotaped interaction of four Tzeltal children and their caregivers, I examined transitive clauses in an adult input sample and in child speech, and tested the hypothesis that direct object arguments are less likely to be realized overtly with semantically specific verbs than with general verbs. This hypothesis was confirmed, both for the adult input and for the speech of the children (aged 3;4-3;9). It is therefore possible that argument ellipsis could provide a clue to verb semantics (specific vs. general) for the Tzeltal child. -
Brown, P. (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. (2000). ’He descended legs-upwards‘: Position and motion in Tzeltal frog stories. In E. V. Clark (
Ed. ), Proceedings of the 30th Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 67-75). Stanford: CSLI.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. -
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2000). Frames of spatial reference and their acquisition in Tenejapan Tzeltal. In L. Nucci, G. Saxe, & E. Turiel (
Eds. ), Culture, thought, and development (pp. 167-197). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Brown, P. (1993). Gender, politeness and confrontation in Tenejapa [reprint]. In D. Tannen (
Ed. ), Gender and conversational interaction (pp. 144-164). New York: Oxford University Press.Abstract
This is a reprint of Brown 1990. -
Brown, P. (2001). Learning to talk about motion UP and DOWN in Tzeltal: Is there a language-specific bias for verb learning? In M. Bowerman, & S. C. Levinson (
Eds. ), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 512-543). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
The spatial vocabulary of the Mayan language Tzeltal is dominated by an Absolute system of spatial reckoning, whereby an "uphill/downhill" coordinate abstracted from the lay of the land is used to reckon spatial relationships on the horizontal in both small-scale and long distance space. This system is used in lieu of a Front/Back/Left/Right system which does not exist in this language. The spatial vocabulary dedicated to this system (which I refer to in general as the UP/DOWN vocabulary) includes intransitive motion verbs (roughly translatable as "ascend"/"descend"), their transitivized counterparts ("make it ascend/descend"), directional adverbs ("uphillwards"/"downhillwards"), and possessed relational nouns ("uphill/downhill in relation to it"). This same vocabulary applies to spatial relations on the vertical axis. Two seemingly contradictory observations about children's early meanings for the spatial verbs dedicated to this system motivate the proposal put forward in this paper. On the one hand, Tzeltal children's UP/DOWN vocabulary shows very early sensitivity to the semantic structure of the language they are learning: the meanings for these verbs are from the first usages attached to the slope of the land, and to particular places; there is no evidence of an initial preference for the vertical meaning. On the other hand, children's meanings remain for a long time too specific, and errors of interpretation/production (using the verbs to mean 'local slope of land' rather than 'overall N/S slope of land direction) are evident in verbal productions of some children as late as age 7 or 8. The proposal is made that the highly specific nature of Tzeltal verbs at the basic level influences the children's hypotheses about what kinds of meanings verbs can have. -
Brown, P. (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, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (2000). On the electrophysiology of language comprehension: Implications for the human language system. In M. W. Crocker, M. Pickering, & C. Clifton jr. (
Eds. ), Architectures and mechanisms for language processing (pp. 213-237). Cambridge University Press. -
Brown, P. (2001). Repetition. In K. Duranti (
Ed. ), Key terms in language and culture (pp. 219-222). Oxford: Blackwell.Abstract
This is a reprint of the Brown 1999 article. -
Brown, P. (2001). Politeness and language. In N. Smelser, & P. Baltes (
Eds. ), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 11620-11624). Oxford: Elsevier Sciences.Abstract
This is an encyclopedia entry surveying research and theoretical approaches to politeness phenomena in language usage. -
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, C. M., Hagoort, P., & Kutas, M. (2000). Postlexical integration processes during language comprehension: Evidence from brain-imaging research. In M. S. Gazzaniga (
Ed. ), The new cognitive neurosciences (2nd., pp. 881-895). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Brown, P. (1993). The role of shape in the acquisition of Tzeltal (Mayan) locatives. In E. V. Clark (
Ed. ), Proceedings of the 25th Annual Child Language Research Forum (pp. 211-220). Stanford, CA: CSLI/University of Chicago Press.Abstract
In a critique of the current state of theories of language acquisition, Bowerman (1985) has argued forcibly for the need to take crosslinguistic variation in semantic structure seriously, in order to understand children's acquisition of semantic categories in the process of learning their language. The semantics of locative expressions in the Mayan language Tzeltal exemplifies this point, for no existing theory of spatial expressions provides an adequate basis for capturing the semantic structure of spatial description in this Mayan language. In this paper I describe some of the characteristics of Tzeltal locative descriptions, as a contribution to the growing body of data on crosslinguistic variation in this domain and as a prod to ideas about acquisition processes, confining myself to the topological notions of 'on' and 'in', and asking whether, and how, these notions are involved in the semantic distinctions underlying Tzeltal locatives. -
Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2018). Tzeltal: The demonstrative system. In S. C. Levinson, S. Cutfield, M. Dunn, N. J. Enfield, & S. Meira (
Eds. ), Demonstratives in cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 150-177). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Burenhult, N., & Kruspe, N. (2016). The language of eating and drinking: A window on Orang Asli meaning-making. In K. Endicott (
Ed. ), Malaysia’s original people: Past, present and future of the Orang Asli (pp. 175-199). Singapore: National University of Singapore Press. -
Burkhardt, P. (2008). Dependency precedes independence: Online evidence from discourse processing. In A. Benz, & P. Kühnlein (
Eds. ), Constraints in discourse (pp. 141-158). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper investigates the integration of definite determiner phrases (DPs) as a function of their contextual salience, which is reflected in the degree of dependency on prior information. DPs depend on previously established discourse referents or introduce a new, independent discourse referent. This paper presents a formal model that explains how discourse referents are represented in the language system and what kind of mechanisms are implemented during DP interpretation. Experimental data from an event-related potential study are discussed that demonstrate how definite DPs are integrated in real-time processing. The data provide evidence for two distinct mechanisms – Specify R and Establish Independent File Card – and substantiate a model that includes various processes and constraints at the level of discourse representation. -
Casasanto, D. (2008). Who's afraid of the big bad Whorf? Crosslinguistic differences in temporal language and thought. In P. Indefrey, & M. Gullberg (
Eds. ), Time to speak: Cognitive and neural prerequisites for time in language (pp. 63-79). Oxford: Wiley.Abstract
The idea that language shapes the way we think, often associated with Benjamin Whorf, has long been decried as not only wrong but also fundamentally wrong-headed. Yet, experimental evidence has reopened debate about the extent to which language influences nonlinguistic cognition, particularly in the domain of time. In this article, I will first analyze an influential argument against the Whorfian hypothesis and show that its anti-Whorfian conclusion is in part an artifact of conflating two distinct questions: Do we think in language? and Does language shape thought? Next, I will discuss crosslinguistic differences in spatial metaphors for time and describe experiments that demonstrate corresponding differences in nonlinguistic mental representations. Finally, I will sketch a simple learning mechanism by which some linguistic relativity effects appear to arise. Although people may not think in language, speakers of different languages develop distinctive conceptual repertoires as a consequence of ordinary and presumably universal neural and cognitive processes. -
Clark, E. V., & Casillas, M. (2016). First language acquisition. In K. Allen (
Ed. ), The Routledge Handbook of Linguistics (pp. 311-328). New York: Routledge. -
Coenen, J., & Klein, W. (1992). The acquisition of Dutch. In W. Klein, & C. Perdue (
Eds. ), Utterance structure: Developing grammars again (pp. 189-224). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
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. -
Cutler, A. (2001). Entries on: Acquisition of language by non-human primates; bilingualism; compound (linguistic); development of language-specific phonology; gender (linguistic); grammar; infant speech perception; language; lexicon; morphology; motor theory of speech perception; perception of second languages; phoneme; phonological store; phonology; prosody; sign language; slips of the tongue; speech perception; speech production; stress (linguistic); syntax; word recognition; words. In P. Winn (
Ed. ), Dictionary of biological psychology. London: Routledge. -
Cutler, A. (2000). How the ear comes to hear. In New Trends in Modern Linguistics [Part of Annual catalogue series] (pp. 6-10). Tokyo, Japan: Maruzen Publishers.
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Cutler, A. (1993). Language-specific processing: Does the evidence converge? In G. T. Altmann, & R. C. Shillcock (
Eds. ), Cognitive models of speech processing: The Sperlonga Meeting II (pp. 115-123). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Cutler, A. (2000). Hoe het woord het oor verovert. In Voordrachten uitgesproken tijdens de uitreiking van de SPINOZA-premies op 15 februari 2000 (pp. 29-41). The Hague, The Netherlands: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO).
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Cutler, A., & Farrell, J. (2018). Listening in first and second language. In J. I. Liontas (
Ed. ), The TESOL encyclopedia of language teaching. New York: Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118784235.eelt0583.Abstract
Listeners' recognition of spoken language involves complex decoding processes: The continuous speech stream must be segmented into its component words, and words must be recognized despite great variability in their pronunciation (due to talker differences, or to influence of phonetic context, or to speech register) and despite competition from many spuriously present forms supported by the speech signal. L1 listeners deal more readily with all levels of this complexity than L2 listeners. Fortunately, the decoding processes necessary for competent L2 listening can be taught in the classroom. Evidence-based methodologies targeted at the development of efficient speech decoding include teaching of minimal pairs, of phonotactic constraints, and of reduction processes, as well as the use of dictation and L2 video captions. -
Cutler, A. (1992). Processing constraints of the native phonological repertoire on the native language. In Y. Tohkura, E. Vatikiotis-Bateson, & Y. Sagisaka (
Eds. ), Speech perception, production and linguistic structure (pp. 275-278). Tokyo: Ohmsha. -
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. (1992). Psychology and the segment. In G. Docherty, & D. Ladd (
Eds. ), Papers in laboratory phonology II: Gesture, segment, prosody (pp. 290-295). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Cutler, A. (2000). Real words, phantom words and impossible words. In D. Burnham, S. Luksaneeyanawin, C. Davis, & M. Lafourcade (
Eds. ), Interdisciplinary approaches to language processing: The international conference on human and machine processing of language and speech (pp. 32-42). Bangkok: NECTEC. -
Cutler, A. (1992). The perception of speech: Psycholinguistic aspects. In W. Bright (
Ed. ), International encyclopedia of language: Vol. 3 (pp. 181-183). New York: Oxford University Press. -
Cutler, A. (1992). The production and perception of word boundaries. In Y. Tohkura, E. Vatikiotis-Bateson, & Y. Sagisaka (
Eds. ), Speech perception, production and linguistic structure (pp. 419-425). Tokyo: Ohsma. -
Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., Norris, D., & Somejuan, A. (2001). The roll of the silly ball. In E. Dupoux (
Ed. ), Language, brain and cognitive development: Essays in honor of Jacques Mehler (pp. 181-194). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Cutler, A. (1992). Why not abolish psycholinguistics? In W. Dressler, H. Luschützky, O. Pfeiffer, & J. Rennison (
Eds. ), Phonologica 1988 (pp. 77-87). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Danziger, E., & Gaskins, S. (1993). Exploring the Intrinsic Frame of Reference. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Cognition and space kit 1.0 (pp. 53-64). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3513136.Abstract
We can describe the position of one item with respect to another using a number of different ‘frames of reference’. For example, I can use a ‘deictic’ frame that involves the speaker’s viewpoint (The chair is on the far side of the room), or an ‘intrinsic’ frame that involves a feature of one of the items (The chair is at the back of the room). Where more than one frame of reference is available in a language, what motivates the speaker’s choice? This elicitation task is designed to explore when and why people select intrinsic frames of reference, and how these choices interact with non-linguistic problem-solving strategies. -
Dietrich, R., Klein, W., & Noyau, C. (1993). The acquisition of temporality. In C. Perdue (
Ed. ), Adult language acquisition: Cross-linguistic perspectives: Vol. 2 The results (pp. 73-118). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Dimroth, C. (2008). Perspectives on second language acquisition at different ages. In J. Philp, R. Oliver, & A. Mackey (
Eds. ), Second language acquisition and the younger learner: Child's play? (pp. 53-79). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
Empirical studies addressing the age factor in second language acquisition have mainly been concerned with a comparison of end state data (from learners before and after the closure of a putative Critical Period for language acquisition) to the native speaker norm. Based on longitudinal corpus data, this paper investigates the affect of age on end state, rate and the process of acquisition and addresses the question of whether different grammatical domains are equally affected. To this end, the paper presents summarized findings from the acquisition of word order and inflectional morphology in L2 German by Russian learners of different ages and discusses theoretical implications that can be drawn from this evidence. -
Dimroth, C., & Haberzettl, S. (2008). Je älter desto besser: Der Erwerb der Verbflexion in Kindesalter. In B. Ahrenholz, U. Bredel, W. Klein, M. Rost-Roth, & R. Skiba (
Eds. ), Empirische Forschung und Theoriebildung: Beiträge aus Soziolinguistik, Gesprochene-Sprache- und Zweitspracherwerbsforschung: Festschrift für Norbert Dittmar (pp. 227-238). Frankfurt am Main: Lang. -
Dimroth, C. (2008). Kleine Unterschiede in den Lernvoraussetzungen beim ungesteuerten Zweitspracherwerb: Welche Bereiche der Zielsprache Deutsch sind besonders betroffen? In B. Ahrenholz (
Ed. ), Kinder und Migrationshintergrund: Spracherwerb und Fördermöglichkeiten (pp. 117-133). Freiburg: Fillibach. -
Dingemanse, M., Hill, C., Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Ethnography of the senses. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field manual volume 11 (pp. 18-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492935.Abstract
This entry provides some orientation and task suggestions on how to explore the perceptual world of your field site and the interaction between the cultural world and the sensory lexicon in your community. The material consists of procedural texts; soundscapes; other documentary and observational tasks. The goal of this task is to explore the perceptual world of your field site and the interaction between the cultural world and the sensory lexicon in your community. -
Dingemanse, M., Blythe, J., & Dirksmeyer, T. (2018). Formats for other-initiation of repair across languages: An exercise in pragmatic typology. In I. Nikolaeva (
Ed. ), Linguistic Typology: Critical Concepts in Linguistics. Vol. 4 (pp. 322-357). London: Routledge.Abstract
In conversation, people regularly deal with problems of speaking, hearing, and understanding. We report on a cross-linguistic investigation of the conversational structure of other-initiated repair (also known as collaborative repair, feedback, requests for clarification, or grounding sequences). We take stock of formats for initiating repair across languages (comparable to English huh?, who?, y’mean X?, etc.) and find that different languages make available a wide but remarkably similar range of linguistic resources for this function. We exploit the patterned variation as evidence for several underlying concerns addressed by repair initiation: characterising trouble, managing responsibility, and handling knowledge. The concerns do not always point in the same direction and thus provide participants in interaction with alternative principles for selecting one format over possible others. By comparing conversational structures across languages, this paper contributes to pragmatic typology: the typology of systems of language use and the principles that shape them. -
Drude, S. (2008). Die Personenpräfixe des Guaraní und ihre lexikographische Behandlung. In W. Dietrich, & H. Symeonidis (
Eds. ), Geschichte und Aktualität der deutschsprachigen Guaraní-Philologie: Akten der Guaraní-Tagung in Kiel und Berlin 25.-27. Mai 2000 (pp. 198-234). Berlin: Lit Verlag.Abstract
Der vorliegende Beitrag zum Kieler Symposium1 stellt die Resultate eines Teilbereichs meiner Arbeit zum Guarani vor, nämlich einen Vorschlag zur Analyse der Personenpräfixe dieser Sprache und der mit ihnen verbundenen grammatischen Kategorien. Die im Titel angedeutete lexikographische Fragestellung bedarf einer näheren Erläuterung, die ich im Zusammenhang mit einer kurzen Darstellung der Motivation für meine Untersuchungen geben will -
Drude, S. (2008). Inflectional units and their effects: The case of verbal prefixes in Guaraní. In R. Sackmann (
Ed. ), Explorations in integrational linguistics: Four essays on German, French, and Guaraní (pp. 153-189). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
With the present essay I pursue a threefold aim as will be explained in the following paragraphs. Since I cannot expect my readers to be familiar with the language studied, Guaran´ı, more information about this language will be given in the next subsection. -
Drude, S. (2008). Tense, aspect and mood in Awetí verb paradigms: Analytic and synthetic forms. In K. D. Harrison, D. S. Rood, & A. Dwyer (
Eds. ), Lessons from documented endangered languages (pp. 67-110). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper describes the verbal Tense-Aspect-Mood system of Awetí (Tupian, Central Brazil) in a Word-and-Paradigm approach. One classification of Awetí verb forms contains clear aspect categories. A second set of independent classifications renders at least four moods and contains a third major TAM classification, factuality, that has one mainly temporal category Future, while others are partially or wholly modal. Structural categories reflect the formal composition of the forms. Some forms are synthetic, ‘marked’ only by means of affixes, but many are analytic, containing auxiliary particles. With selected sample forms we demonstrate in detail the interplay of structural and functional categories in Awetí verb paradigms. -
Edwards, J., & Levelt, W. J. M. (1993). The control group study. In C. Perdue (
Ed. ), Adult language acquisition: Cross-linguistic perspectives. Vol. I Field methods (pp. 173-185). Cambridge University Press. -
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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Eisenbeiss, S. (2000). The acquisition of Determiner Phrase in German child language. In M.-A. Friedemann, & L. Rizzi (
Eds. ), The Acquisition of Syntax (pp. 26-62). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Ltd.Files private
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Eisner, F., & Scott, S. K. (2008). Speech and auditory processing in the cortex: Evidence from functional neuroimaging. In A. Cacace, & D. McFarland (
Eds. ), Controversies in central auditory processing disorder. San Diego, Ca: Plural Publishing. -
Eisner, F., & McQueen, J. M. (2018). Speech perception. In S. Thompson-Schill (
Ed. ), Stevens’ handbook of experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience (4th ed.). Volume 3: Language & thought (pp. 1-46). Hoboken: Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781119170174.epcn301.Abstract
This chapter reviews the computational processes that are responsible for recognizing word forms in the speech stream. We outline the different stages in a processing hierarchy from the extraction of general acoustic features, through speech‐specific prelexical processes, to the retrieval and selection of lexical representations. We argue that two recurring properties of the system as a whole are abstraction and adaptability. We also present evidence for parallel processing of information on different timescales, more specifically that segmental material in the speech stream (its consonants and vowels) is processed in parallel with suprasegmental material (the prosodic structures of spoken words). We consider evidence from both psycholinguistics and neurobiology wherever possible, and discuss how the two fields are beginning to address common computational problems. The challenge for future research in speech perception will be to build an account that links these computational problems, through functional mechanisms that address them, to neurobiological implementation. -
Enfield, N. J. (2008). Verbs and multi-verb construction in Lao. In A. V. Diller, J. A. Edmondson, & Y. Luo (
Eds. ), The Tai-Kadai languages (pp. 83-183). London: Routledge. -
Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., & Meira, S. (2001). Recognitional deixis. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 78-81). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874641.Abstract
“Recognitional” words and constructions enshrine our systematic reliance on shared knowledge in dedicated morphological forms and usage patterns. For example, English has a large range of terms for use when a speaker cannot locate the word or name for something or someone (e.g., whatsit, what’s-his-name), but thinks that the interlocutor knows, or can easily work out, what the speaker is talking about. This task aims to identify and investigate these kinds of expressions in the research language, including their grammaticalised status, meaning, distribution, and productivity. The task consists of a questionnaire with examples of relevant hypothetical scenarios that can be used in eliciting the relevant terms. The researcher is then encouraged to pursue further questions in regard to these items. -
Enfield, N. J. (2001). Body. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 62-77). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874633.Abstract
This task investigates the extensional meaning of body part terms, in particular the terms for the upper and lower limbs. Two questions are addressed, namely (i) are the boundaries of these body parts universal, guided by proposed universals of object recognition? (ii) How can we compare the extensional meanings of body part terms within and across different systems of nomenclature? Consultants receive booklets with line drawings of a body and are asked to colour in specific parts of the body.Additional information
http://fieldmanuals.mpi.nl/volumes/2001/body/ -
Enfield, N. J., & Majid, A. (2008). Constructions in 'language and perception'. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field Manual Volume 11 (pp. 11-17). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492949.Abstract
This field guide is for eliciting information about grammatical resources used in describing perceptual events and perception-based properties and states. A list of leading questions outlines an underlying semantic space for events/states of perception, against which language-specific constructions may be defined. It should be used as an entry point into a flexible exploration of the structures and constraints which are specific to the language you are working on. The goal is to provide a cross-linguistically comparable description of the constructions of a language used in describing perceptual events and states. The core focus is to discover any sensory asymmetries, i.e., ways in which different sensory modalities are treated differently with respect to these constructions. -
Enfield, N. J. (2008). Common ground as a resource for social affiliation. In I. Kecskes, & J. L. Mey (
Eds. ), Intention, common ground and the egocentric speaker-hearer (pp. 223-254). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Enfield, N. J. (2008). Lao linguistics in the 20th century and since. In Y. Goudineau, & M. Lorrillard (
Eds. ), Recherches nouvelles sur le Laos (pp. 435-452). Paris: EFEO. -
Enfield, N. J., & Levinson, S. C. (2008). Metalanguage for speech acts. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field manual volume 11 (pp. 77-79). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492937.Abstract
People of all cultures have some degree of concern with categorizing types of communicative social action. All languages have words with meanings like speak, say, talk, complain, curse, promise, accuse, nod, wink, point and chant. But the exact distinctions they make will differ in both quantity and quality. How is communicative social action categorised across languages and cultures? The goal of this task is to establish a basis for cross-linguistic comparison of native metalanguages for social action.Additional information
http://fieldmanuals.mpi.nl/volumes/2008/metalanguage-for-speech-acts-2/ -
Enfield, N. J., & Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Hidden colour-chips task: Demonstratives, attention, and interaction. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 21-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874636.Abstract
Demonstratives are typically described as encoding degrees of physical distance between the object referred to, and the speaker or addressee. For example, this in English is used to talk about things that are physically near the speaker, and that for things that are not. But is this how speakers really choose between these words in actual talk? This task aims to generate spontaneous language data concerning deixis, gesture, and demonstratives, and to investigate the significance of different factors (e.g., physical distance, attention) in demonstrative selection. In the presence of one consultant (the “memoriser”), sixteen colour chips are hidden under objects in a specified array. Another consultant enters the area and asks the memoriser to recount the locations of the chips. The task is designed to create a situation where the speaker genuinely attempts to manipulate the addressee’s attention on objects in the immediate physical space. -
Enfield, N. J. (2001). Linguistic evidence for a Lao perspective on facial expression of emotion. In J. Harkins, & A. Wierzbicka (
Eds. ), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 149-166). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Enfield, N. J. (2001). On genetic and areal linguistics in Mainland South-East Asia: Parallel polyfunctionality of ‘acquire’. In A. Y. Aikhenvald, & R. M. Dixon (
Eds. ), Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance: Problems in comparative linguistics (pp. 255-290). Oxford University Press. -
Enfield, N. J. (2000). On linguocentrism. In M. Pütz, & M. H. Verspoor (
Eds. ), Explorations in linguistic relativity (pp. 125-157). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., & Stivers, T. (2008). Social action formulation: A "10-minutes" task. In A. Majid (
Ed. ), Field manual volume 11 (pp. 80-81). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.492939.Abstract
This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2009 version: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.883564Files private
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Enfield, N. J., & Dunn, M. (2001). Supplements to the Wilkins 1999 demonstrative questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (
Eds. ), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 82-84). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874638. -
Ernestus, M. (2016). L'utilisation des corpus oraux pour la recherche en (psycho)linguistique. In M. Kilani-Schoch, C. Surcouf, & A. Xanthos (
Eds. ), Nouvelles technologies et standards méthodologiques en linguistique (pp. 65-93). Lausanne: Université de Lausanne. -
Ernestus, M., & Smith, R. (2018). Qualitative and quantitative aspects of phonetic variation in Dutch eigenlijk. In F. Cangemi, M. Clayards, O. Niebuhr, B. Schuppler, & M. Zellers (
Eds. ), Rethinking reduction: Interdisciplinary perspectives on conditions, mechanisms, and domains for phonetic variation (pp. 129-163). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. -
Fernald, A., McRoberts, G. W., & Swingley, D. (2001). Infants' developing competence in recognizing and understanding words in fluent speech. In J. Weissenborn, & B. Höhle (
Eds. ), Approaches to Bootstrapping: Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition. Volume 1 (pp. 97-123). Amsterdam: Benjamins. -
Fisher, S. E. (2016). A molecular genetic perspective on speech and language. In G. Hickok, & S. Small (
Eds. ), Neurobiology of Language (pp. 13-24). Amsterdam: Elsevier. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-407794-2.00002-X.Abstract
The rise of genomic technologies has yielded exciting new routes for studying the biological foundations of language. Researchers have begun to identify genes implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders that disrupt speech and language skills. This chapter illustrates how such work can provide powerful entry points into the critical neural pathways using FOXP2 as an example. Rare mutations of this gene cause problems with learning to sequence mouth movements during speech, accompanied by wide-ranging impairments in language production and comprehension. FOXP2 encodes a regulatory protein, a hub in a network of other genes, several of which have also been associated with language-related impairments. Versions of FOXP2 are found in similar form in many vertebrate species; indeed, studies of animals and birds suggest conserved roles in the development and plasticity of certain sets of neural circuits. Thus, the contributions of this gene to human speech and language involve modifications of evolutionarily ancient functions. -
Fisher, S. E., & Smith, S. (2001). Progress towards the identification of genes influencing developmental dyslexia. In A. Fawcett (
Ed. ), Dyslexia: Theory and good practice (pp. 39-64). London: Whurr. -
Flecken, M., & Von Stutterheim, C. (2018). Sprache und Kognition: Sprachvergleichende und lernersprachliche Untersuchungen zur Ereigniskonzeptualisierung. In S. Schimke, & H. Hopp (
Eds. ), Sprachverarbeitung im Zweitspracherwerb (pp. 325-356). Berlin: De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110456356-014.
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