Displaying 1 - 100 of 334
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Abbot-Smith, K., & Kidd, E. (2012). Exemplar learning and schematization in language development. In N. M. Seel (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning (2nd. ed., pp. 1200-1202). Berlin: Springer. -
Ameka, F. K. (1995). Body parts in Ewe grammar. In H. Chapell, & W. McGregor (
Eds. ), The grammar of inalienability: A typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation (pp. 783-840). Berlin: De Gruyter. -
Ameka, F. K. (2005). "The woman is seeable" and "The woman perceives seeing": Undergoer voice constructions in Ewe and Likpe. In M. Dakubu, & E. Osam (
Eds. ), Studies in languages of the Volta Basin (pp. 43-62). Legon: University of Ghana. Department of Linguistics. -
Ameka, F. K. (2005). Forms of secondary predication in serializing languages: On depictives in Ewe. In N. P. Himmelmann, & E. Schultze-Berndt (
Eds. ), Secondary predication and adverbial modification: The typology of depictives (pp. 335-378). Oxford: Oxford University Press. -
Ameka, F. K. (2005). Multiverb constructions on the West African littoral: Microvariation and areal typology. In M. Vulchanova, & T. A. Afarli (
Eds. ), Grammar and beyond: Essays in honour of Lars Hellan (pp. 15-42). Oslo: Novus. -
Ameka, F. K. (2012). Ewe: Its grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices. München: LINCOM EUROPA.
Abstract
his work offers a modern description of Ewe(GBE), a Kwa (Niger-Congo) language of West Africa. It assumes that the “essence of linguistics is the quest for meaning” (Whorf) and investigates the meanings of grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices representing them in Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) style explications. The explications account for the range of use of the constructions suggested by data from diversified mediated discourse: television and radio interviews and drama, written plays and fiction as well as insider knowledge of and observed behaviour both as participant and observer in Ewe communities of practice. The author draws ecumenically on insights from functional and formal linguistic approaches. The work opens with an overview of Ewe structural grammar. The rest of the work is divided into three parts. Part II concentrates on property denoting expressions, imperfective aspect constructions and possession. Part III examines the grammatical resources available to the Ewe speaker for packaging information in a clause: scene-setting constructions, a “capability passive” construction and experiential constructions. In Part IV illocutionary devices such as formulaic and routine expressions, address terms and interjections are described paying attention to their socio-cultural dimensions of use. This work is of interest to Africanists and linguists interested in grammatical description, typology, semantics and pragmatics as well as anthropologists interested in ethnography of communication and the relation between language and culture. -
Andics, A. (2012). The semantic role of agentive control in Hungarian placement events. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 183-200). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper explores the role of various types of location control in descriptions of placement events in Hungarian. It will be shown that general verb choices cannot be explained in terms of spatial relations (such as containment and support) or spatial relational changes (such as joining and separation). On the contrary, all main verb distinctions within the placement domain can be described in terms of agentive control settings between the Figure and agentive entities (e.g., the Agent, other persons). In Hungarian, only events with continuous agentive control along the motion trajectory are described as either ‘putting’ or ‘taking’, and only events where the Figure is furthermore controlled by a non-agentive entity at the Goal are described as ‘putting’. -
Baayen, R. H. (2005). Data mining at the intersection of psychology and linguistics. In A. Cutler (
Ed. ), Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones (pp. 69-83). Mahwah: Erlbaum. -
Baggio, G., Van Lambalgen, M., & Hagoort, P. (2012). Language, linguistics and cognition. In R. Kempson, T. Fernando, & N. Asher (
Eds. ), Philosophy of linguistics (pp. 325-356). Amsterdam: North Holland.Abstract
This chapter provides a partial overview of some currently debated issues in the cognitive science of language. We distinguish two families of problems, which we refer to as ‘language and cognition’ and ‘linguistics and cognition’. Under the first heading we present and discuss the hypothesis that language, in particular the semantics of tense and aspect, is grounded in the planning system. We emphasize the role of non-monotonic inference during language comprehension. We look at the converse issue of the role of linguistic interpretation in reasoning tasks. Under the second heading we investigate the two foremost assumptions of current linguistic methodology, namely intuitions as the only adequate empirical basis of theories of meaning and grammar and the competence-performance distinction, arguing that these are among the heaviest burdens for a truly comprehensive approach to language. Marr’s three-level scheme is proposed as an alternative methodological framework, which we apply in a review of two ERP studies on semantic processing, to the ‘binding problem’ for language, and in a conclusive set of remarks on relating theories in the cognitive science of language. -
Baggio, G., Van Lambalgen, M., & Hagoort, P. (2012). The processing consequences of compositionality. In M. Werning, W. Hinzen, & E. Machery (
Eds. ), The Oxford handbook of compositionality (pp. 655-672). New York: Oxford University Press. -
Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Mazaheri, A., & Jensen, O. (2012). Beyond ERPs: Oscillatory neuronal dynamics. In S. J. Luck, & E. S. Kappenman (
Eds. ), The Oxford handbook of event-related potential components (pp. 31-50). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2012). Chronologie et rythme du changement linguistique: Syntaxe vs. morphologie. In O. Spevak, & A. Christol (
Eds. ), Les évolutions du latin (pp. 45-65). Paris: L’Harmattan. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2000). Archaic syntax in Indo-European: The spread of transitivity in Latin and French. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Abstract
Several grammatical features in early Indo-European traditionally have not been understood. Although Latin, for example, was a nominative language, a number of its inherited characteristics do not fit that typology and are difficult to account for, such as stative mihi est constructions to express possession, impersonal verbs, or absolute constructions. With time these archaic features have been replaced by transitive structures (e.g. possessive ‘have’). This book presents an extensive comparative and historical analysis of archaic features in early Indo-European languages and their gradual replacement in the history of Latin and early Romance, showing that the new structures feature transitive syntax and fit the patterns of a nominative language. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (2022). Counting systems. In A. Ledgeway, & M. Maiden (
Eds. ), The Cambridge Handbook of Romance Linguistics (pp. 459-488). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
The Romance counting system is numerical – with residues of earlier systems whereby each commodity had its own unit of quantification – and decimal. Numeral formations beyond ‘10’ are compounds, combining two or more numerals that are in an arithmetical relation, typically that of addition and multiplication. Formal variation across the (standard) Romance languages and dialects and across historical stages involves the relative sequence of the composing elements, absence or presence of connectors, their synthetic vs. analytic nature, and the degree of grammatical marking. A number of ‘deviant’ numeral formations raise the question of borrowing vs independent development, such as vigesimals (featuring a base ‘20’ instead ‘10’) in certain Romance varieties and the teen and decad formations in Romanian. The other types of numeral in Romance, which derive from the unmarked and consistent cardinals, feature a significantly higher degree of formal complexity and variation involving Latin formants and tend toward analyticity. While Latin features prominently in the Romance counting system as a source of numeral formations and suffixes, it is only in Romance that the inherited decimal system reached its full potential, illustrating its increasing prominence, reflected not only in numerals, but also in language acquisition, sign language, and post-Revolution measuring systems. -
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. (2005). Innovation in Old French syntax and its Latin origins. In S. Kiss, L. Mondin, & G. Salvi (
Eds. ), Latin et langues romanes: Etudes de linguistique offertes à Jozsef Herman à l’occasion de son 80ème anniversaire (pp. 507-521). Tübingen: Niemeyer.Files private
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Bauer, B. L. M. (2005). Living in two worlds. In W. R. Louis (
Ed. ), Burnt orange Britannia (pp. 732-744). Austin: Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. -
Bauer, B. L. M. (1995). The emergence and development of SVO patterning in Latin and French. Diachronic and psycholinguistic perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Abstract
This book examines Latin word order, its historical origins in Proto-Indo-European and the shift in ordering patterns that took place in syntax and morphology in the history of Latin and (early) French (OV or left branching giving way to VO or right branching). Subsequently, analysis of the acquisition of ordering patterns shows that the archaic structuration—when complex—is acquired with difficulty. Diachronic and psycholinguistic analysis therefore demonstrates that the order of grammatical structures in Modern French, for example, is the result of a long-lasting development that psycholinguistic data can account for. -
Benazzo, S., Flecken, M., & Soroli, E. (
Eds. ). (2012). Typological perspectives on language and thought: Thinking for speaking in L2. [Special Issue]. Language, Interaction and Acquisition, 3(2). -
Berthele, R. (2012). On the use of PUT Verbs by multilingual speakers of Romansh. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 145-166). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
In this chapter, the multilingual systems of bilingual speakers of Sursilvan Romansh and German are analyzed. The Romansh and the German systems show important differences in the domain of placement. Romansh has a fairly general verb metter ‘to put’ whereas German uses different verbs (e.g., setzen ‘to set’, legen ‘to lay’, stellen ‘to stand’). Whereas there are almost no traces of German in the Romansh data elicited from the German-Romansh bilinguals, it appears that their production of German yields uses of the verbs which differ from the typical German system. Although the forms of the German verbs have been acquired by the bilingual speakers, their distribution in the data arguably reflects traces of the Romansh category of metter ‘to put’. -
Bickel, B. (1991). Der Hang zur Exzentrik - Annäherungen an das kognitive Modell der Relativkonstruktion. In W. Bisang, & P. Rinderknecht (
Eds. ), Von Europa bis Ozeanien - von der Antinomie zum Relativsatz (pp. 15-37). Zurich, Switzerland: Seminar für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft der Universität. -
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. (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). -
Bordulk, D., Dalak, N., Tukumba, M., Bennett, L., Bordro Tingey, R., Katherine, M., Cutfield, S., Pamkal, M., & Wightman, G. (2012). Dalabon plants and animals: Aboriginal biocultural knowledge from southern Arnhem Land, north Australia. Palmerston, NT, Australia: Department of Land and Resource Management, Northern Territory Government.
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Bowerman, M. (2005). Why can't you "open" a nut or "break" a cooked noodle? Learning covert object categories in action word meanings. In L. Gershkoff-Stowe, & D. H. Rakison (
Eds. ), Building object categories in developmental time (pp. 209-243). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Bowerman, M. (1975). Cross linguistic similarities at two stages of syntactic development. In E. Lenneberg, & E. Lenneberg (
Eds. ), Foundations of language development: A multidisciplinary approach (pp. 267-282). New York: Academic Press. -
Bowerman, M. (2005). Linguistics. In B. Hopkins (
Ed. ), The Cambridge encyclopedia of child development (pp. 497-501). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Bowerman, M., & Meyer, A. (1991). Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual Report Nr.12 1991. Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
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Bowerman, M. (1982). Reorganizational processes in lexical and syntactic development. In E. Wanner, & L. Gleitman (
Eds. ), Language acquisition: The state of the art (pp. 319-346). New York: Academic Press. -
Bowerman, M. (1982). Starting to talk worse: Clues to language acquisition from children's late speech errors. In S. Strauss (
Ed. ), U shaped behavioral growth (pp. 101-145). New York: Academic 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. -
Bramão, I., Faísca, L., Petersson, K. M., & Reis, A. (2012). The contribution of color to object recognition. In I. Kypraios (
Ed. ), Advances in object recognition systems (pp. 73-88). Rijeka, Croatia: InTech. Retrieved from http://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-object-recognition-systems/the-contribution-of-color-in-object-recognition.Abstract
The cognitive processes involved in object recognition remain a mystery to the cognitive
sciences. We know that the visual system recognizes objects via multiple features, including
shape, color, texture, and motion characteristics. However, the way these features are
combined to recognize objects is still an open question. The purpose of this contribution is to
review the research about the specific role of color information in object recognition. Given
that the human brain incorporates specialized mechanisms to handle color perception in the
visual environment, it is a fair question to ask what functional role color might play in
everyday vision. -
Braun, B. (2005). Production and perception of thematic contrast in German. Oxford: Lang.
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Braun, B., & Chen, A. (2012). Now for something completely different: Anticipatory effects of intonation. In O. Niebuhr (
Ed. ), Understanding prosody: The role of context, function and communication (pp. 289-311). Berlin: de Gruyter.Abstract
INTRODUCTION It is nowadays well established that spoken sentence processing is achieved in an incremental manner. As a sentence unfolds over time, listeners rapidly process incoming information to eliminate local ambiguity and make predictions on the most plausible interpretation of the sentence. Previous research has shown that these predictions are based on all kinds of linguistic information, explicitly or implicitly in combination with world knowledge.1 A substantial amount of evidence comes from studies on online referential processing conducted in the visual-world paradigm (Cooper 1974; Eberhard, Spivey-Knowlton, Sedivy, and Tanenhaus 1995; Tanenhaus, Sedivy- Knowlton, Eberhard, and Sedivy 1995; Sedivy, Tanenhaus, Chambers, Carlson 1999). -
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. (2005). Linguistic politeness. In U. Ammon, N. Dittmar, K. J. Mattheier, & P. Trudgill (
Eds. ), Sociolinguistics: An international handbook of the science of language and society (pp. 1410-1416). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Abstract
This is an encyclopedia entry surveying research and theoretical approaches to politeness phenomena in language usage. -
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. (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. (1991). Sind Frauen höflicher? Befunde aus einer Maya-Gemeinde. In S. Günther, & H. Kotthoff (
Eds. ), Von fremden Stimmen: Weibliches und männliches Sprechen im Kulturvergleich. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.Abstract
This is a German translation of Brown 1980, How and why are women more polite: Some evidence from a Mayan community. -
Brown, P. (1995). Politeness strategies and the attribution of intentions: The case of Tzeltal irony. In E. Goody (
Ed. ), Social intelligence and interaction (pp. 153-174). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Abstract
In this paper I take up the idea that human thinking is systematically biased in the direction of interactive thinking (E. Goody's anticipatory interactive planning), that is, that humans are peculiarly good at, and inordinately prone to, attributing intentions and goals to one other (as well as to non-humans), and that they routinely orient to presumptions about each other's intentions in what they say and do. I explore the implications of that idea for an understanding of politeness in interaction, taking as a starting point the Brown and Levinson (1987) model of politeness, which assumes interactive thinking, a notion implicit in the formulation of politeness as strategic orientation to face. Drawing on an analysis of the phenomenon of conventionalized ‘irony’ in Tzeltal, I emphasize that politeness does not inhere in linguistic form per se but is a matter of conveying a polite intention, and argue that Tzeltal irony provides a prime example of one way in which humans' highly-developed intellectual machinery for inferring alter's intentions is put to the service of social relationships. -
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. (2012). To ‘put’ or to ‘take’? Verb semantics in Tzeltal placement and removal expressions. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 55-78). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper examines the verbs and other spatial vocabulary used for describing events of ‘putting’ and ‘taking’ in Tzeltal (Mayan). I discuss the semantics of different ‘put’ and ‘take’ verbs, the constructions they occur in, and the extensional patterns of verbs used in ‘put’ (Goal-oriented) vs. ‘take’ (Source-oriented) descriptions. A relatively limited role for semantically general verbs was found. Instead, Tzeltal is a ‘multiverb language’ with many different verbs usable to predicate ‘put’ and ‘take’ events, with verb choice largely determined by the shape, orientation, and resulting disposition of the Figure and Ground objects. The asymmetry that has been observed in other languages, with Goal-oriented ‘put’ verbs more finely distinguished lexically than Source-oriented ‘take’ verbs, is also apparent in Tzeltal. -
Burenhult, N. (2005). A grammar of Jahai. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
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Burenhult, N. (2012). The linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Jahai. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 21-36). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper explores the linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Jahai (Austroasiatic, Malay Peninsula) on the basis of descriptions from a video elicitation task. It outlines the structural characteristics of the descriptions and isolates semantically a set of situation types that find expression in lexical opposites: (1) putting/taking, (2) inserting/extracting, (3) dressing/undressing, and (4) placing/removing one’s body parts. All involve deliberate and controlled placing/removing of a solid Figure object in relation to a Ground which is not a human recipient. However, they differ as to the identity of and physical relationship between Figure and Ground. The data also provide evidence of variation in how semantic roles are mapped onto syntactic constituents: in most situation types, Agent, Figure and Ground associate with particular constituent NPs, but some placement events are described with semantically specialised verbs encoding the Figure and even the Ground. -
Carroll, M., & Flecken, M. (2012). Language production under time pressure: insights into grammaticalisation of aspect (Dutch, Italian) and language processing in bilinguals (Dutch, German). In B. Ahrenholz (
Ed. ), Einblicke in die Zweitspracherwerbsforschung und Ihre methodischen Verfahren (pp. 49-76). Berlin: De Gruyter. -
Casasanto, D. (2012). Whorfian hypothesis. In J. L. Jackson, Jr. (
Ed. ), Oxford Bibliographies Online: Anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OBO/9780199766567-0058.Abstract
Introduction
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (a.k.a. the Whorfian hypothesis) concerns the relationship between language and thought. Neither the anthropological linguist Edward Sapir (b. 1884–d. 1939) nor his student Benjamin Whorf (b. 1897–d. 1941) ever formally stated any single hypothesis about the influence of language on nonlinguistic cognition and perception. On the basis of their writings, however, two proposals emerged, generating decades of controversy among anthropologists, linguists, philosophers, and psychologists. According to the more radical proposal, linguistic determinism, the languages that people speak rigidly determine the way they perceive and understand the world. On the more moderate proposal, linguistic relativity, habits of using language influence habits of thinking. As a result, people who speak different languages think differently in predictable ways. During the latter half of the 20th century, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis was widely regarded as false. Around the turn of the 21st century, however, experimental evidence reopened debate about the extent to which language shapes nonlinguistic cognition and perception. Scientific tests of linguistic determinism and linguistic relativity help to clarify what is universal in the human mind and what depends on the particulars of people’s physical and social experience.
General Overviews and Foundational Texts
Writing on the relationship between language and thought predates Sapir and Whorf, and extends beyond the academy. The 19th-century German philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt argued that language constrains people’s worldview, foreshadowing the idea of linguistic determinism later articulated in Sapir 1929 and Whorf 1956 (Humboldt 1988). The intuition that language radically determines thought has been explored in works of fiction such as Orwell’s dystopian fantasy 1984 (Orwell 1949). Although there is little empirical support for radical linguistic determinism, more moderate forms of linguistic relativity continue to generate influential research, reviewed from an anthropologist’s perspective in Lucy 1997, from a psychologist’s perspective in Hunt and Agnoli 1991, and discussed from multidisciplinary perspectives in Gumperz and Levinson 1996 and Gentner and Goldin-Meadow 2003. -
Chen, A. (2005). Universal and language-specific perception of paralinguistic intonational meaning. Utrecht: LOT.
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Chen, J. (2012). “She from bookshelf take-descend-come the box”: Encoding and categorizing placement events in Mandarin. In A. Kopecka, & B. Narasimhan (
Eds. ), Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 37-54). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Abstract
This paper investigates the lexical semantics of placement verbs in Mandarin. The majority of Mandarin placement verbs are directional verb compounds (e.g., na2-xia4-lai2 ‘take-descend-come’). They are composed of two or three verbs in a fixed order, each encoding certain semantic components of placement events. The first verb usually conveys object manipulation and the second and the third verbs indicate the Path of motion, including Deixis. The first verb, typically encoding object manipulation, can be semantically general or specific: two general verbs, fang4 ‘put’ and na2 ‘take’, have large but constrained extensional categories, and a number of specific verbs are used based on the Manner of manipulation of the Figure object, the relationship between and the physical properties of Figure and Ground, intentionality of the Agent, and the type of instrument. -
Chen, A. (2012). Shaping the intonation of Wh-questions: Information structure and beyond. In J. P. de Ruiter (
Ed. ), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives (pp. 146-164). New York: Cambridge University Press.Files private
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Chen, A. (2012). The prosodic investigation of information structure. In M. Krifka, & R. Musan (
Eds. ), The expression of information structure (pp. 249-286). Berlin: de Gruyter. -
Cho, T. (2022). The Phonetics-Prosody Interface and Prosodic Strengthening in Korean. In S. Cho, & J. Whitman (
Eds. ), Cambridge handbook of Korean linguistics (pp. 248-293). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. -
Chu, M., & Kita, S. (2012). The role of spontaneous gestures in spatial problem solving. In E. Efthimiou, G. Kouroupetroglou, & S.-E. Fotinea (
Eds. ), Gesture and sign language in human-computer interaction and embodied communication: 9th International Gesture Workshop, GW 2011, Athens, Greece, May 25-27, 2011, revised selected papers (pp. 57-68). Heidelberg: Springer.Abstract
When solving spatial problems, people often spontaneously produce hand gestures. Recent research has shown that our knowledge is shaped by the interaction between our body and the environment. In this article, we review and discuss evidence on: 1) how spontaneous gesture can reveal the development of problem solving strategies when people solve spatial problems; 2) whether producing gestures can enhance spatial problem solving performance. We argue that when solving novel spatial problems, adults go through deagentivization and internalization processes, which are analogous to young children’s cognitive development processes. Furthermore, gesture enhances spatial problem solving performance. The beneficial effect of gesturing can be extended to non-gesturing trials and can be generalized to a different spatial task that shares similar spatial transformation processes. -
Crago, M. B., & Allen, S. E. M. (1998). Acquiring Inuktitut. In O. L. Taylor, & L. Leonard (
Eds. ), Language Acquisition Across North America: Cross-Cultural And Cross-Linguistic Perspectives (pp. 245-279). San Diego, CA, USA: Singular Publishing Group, Inc. -
Crasborn, O., & Windhouwer, M. (2012). ISOcat data categories for signed language resources. In E. Efthimiou, G. Kouroupetroglou, & S.-E. Fotinea (
Eds. ), Gesture and sign language in human-computer interaction and embodied communication: 9th International Gesture Workshop, GW 2011, Athens, Greece, May 25-27, 2011, revised selected papers (pp. 118-128). Heidelberg: Springer.Abstract
As the creation of signed language resources is gaining speed world-wide, the need for standards in this field becomes more acute. This paper discusses the state of the field of signed language resources, their metadata descriptions, and annotations that are typically made. It then describes the role that ISOcat may play in this process and how it can stimulate standardisation without imposing standards. Finally, it makes some initial proposals for the thematic domain ‘sign language’ that was introduced in 2011. -
Cronin, K. A. (2012). Cognitive aspects of prosocial behavior in nonhuman primates. In N. M. Seel (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning. Part 3 (2nd ed., pp. 581-583). Berlin: Springer.Abstract
Definition Prosocial behavior is any behavior performed by one individual that results in a benefit for another individual. Prosocial motivations, prosocial preferences, or other-regarding preferences refer to the psychological predisposition to behave in the best interest of another individual. A behavior need not be costly to the actor to be considered prosocial, thus the concept is distinct from altruistic behavior which requires that the actor incurs some cost when providing a benefit to another. -
Cutfield, S. (2012). Principles of Dalabon plant and animal names and classification. In D. Bordulk, N. Dalak, M. Tukumba, L. Bennett, R. Bordro Tingey, M. Katherine, S. Cutfield, M. Pamkal, & G. Wightman (
Eds. ), Dalabon plants and animals: Aboriginal biocultural knowledge from Southern Arnhem Land, North Australia (pp. 11-12). Palmerston, NT, Australia: Department of Land and Resource Management, Northern Territory. -
Cutler, A., & Broersma, M. (2005). Phonetic precision in listening. In W. J. Hardcastle, & J. M. Beck (
Eds. ), A figure of speech: A Festschrift for John Laver (pp. 63-91). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Cutler, A., Klein, W., & Levinson, S. C. (2005). The cornerstones of twenty-first century psycholinguistics. In A. Cutler (
Ed. ), Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones (pp. 1-20). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Cutler, A. (
Ed. ). (2005). Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Cutler, A., Ernestus, M., Warner, N., & Weber, A. (2022). Managing speech perception data sets. In B. McDonnell, E. Koller, & L. B. Collister (
Eds. ), The Open Handbook of Linguistic Data Management (pp. 565-573). Cambrdige, MA, USA: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/12200.003.0055. -
Cutler, A. (2012). Eentaalpsychologie is geen taalpsychologie: Part II. [Valedictory lecture Radboud University]. Nijmegen: Radboud University.
Abstract
Rede uitgesproken bij het afscheid als hoogleraar Vergelijkende taalpsychologie aan de Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op donderdag 20 september 2012 -
Cutler, A. (2005). Lexical stress. In D. B. Pisoni, & R. E. Remez (
Eds. ), The handbook of speech perception (pp. 264-289). Oxford: Blackwell. -
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. (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. (1991). Linguistic rhythm and speech segmentation. In J. Sundberg, L. Nord, & R. Carlson (
Eds. ), Music, language, speech and brain (pp. 157-166). London: Macmillan. -
Cutler, A. (2012). Native listening: Language experience and the recognition of spoken words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Abstract
Understanding speech in our native tongue seems natural and effortless; listening to speech in a nonnative language is a different experience. In this book, Anne Cutler argues that listening to speech is a process of native listening because so much of it is exquisitely tailored to the requirements of the native language. Her cross-linguistic study (drawing on experimental work in languages that range from English and Dutch to Chinese and Japanese) documents what is universal and what is language specific in the way we listen to spoken language. Cutler describes the formidable range of mental tasks we carry out, all at once, with astonishing speed and accuracy, when we listen. These include evaluating probabilities arising from the structure of the native vocabulary, tracking information to locate the boundaries between words, paying attention to the way the words are pronounced, and assessing not only the sounds of speech but prosodic information that spans sequences of sounds. She describes infant speech perception, the consequences of language-specific specialization for listening to other languages, the flexibility and adaptability of listening (to our native languages), and how language-specificity and universality fit together in our language processing system. Drawing on her four decades of work as a psycholinguist, Cutler documents the recent growth in our knowledge about how spoken-word recognition works and the role of language structure in this process. Her book is a significant contribution to a vibrant and rapidly developing field. -
Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., & Zondervan, R. (2000). Proceedings of SWAP (Workshop on Spoken Word Access Processes). Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
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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. (1982). Prosody and sentence perception in English. In J. Mehler, E. C. Walker, & M. Garrett (
Eds. ), Perspectives on mental representation: Experimental and theoretical studies of cognitive processes and capacities (pp. 201-216). Hillsdale, N.J: Erlbaum. -
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. (
Ed. ). (1982). Slips of the tongue and language production. The Hague: Mouton. -
Cutler, A. (1982). Speech errors: A classified bibliography. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
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Cutler, A. (1995). Spoken word recognition and production. In J. L. Miller, & P. D. Eimas (
Eds. ), Speech, language and communication (pp. 97-136). New York: Academic Press.Abstract
This chapter highlights that most language behavior consists of speaking and listening. The chapter also reveals differences and similarities between speaking and listening. The laboratory study of word production raises formidable problems; ensuring that a particular word is produced may subvert the spontaneous production process. Word production is investigated via slips and tip-of-the-tongue (TOT), primarily via instances of processing failure and via the technique of via the picture-naming task. The methodology of word production is explained in the chapter. The chapter also explains the phenomenon of interaction between various stages of word production and the process of speech recognition. In this context, it explores the difference between sound and meaning and examines whether or not the comparisons are appropriate between the processes of recognition and production of spoken words. It also describes the similarities and differences in the structure of the recognition and production systems. Finally, the chapter highlights the common issues in recognition and production research, which include the nuances of frequency of occurrence, morphological structure, and phonological structure. -
Cutler, A. (1995). Spoken-word recognition. In G. Bloothooft, V. Hazan, D. Hubert, & J. Llisterri (
Eds. ), European studies in phonetics and speech communication (pp. 66-71). Utrecht: OTS. -
Cutler, A. (1995). The perception of rhythm in spoken and written language. In J. Mehler, & S. Franck (
Eds. ), Cognition on cognition (pp. 283-288). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. -
Cutler, A., & McQueen, J. M. (1995). The recognition of lexical units in speech. In B. De Gelder, & J. Morais (
Eds. ), Speech and reading: A comparative approach (pp. 33-47). Hove, UK: Erlbaum. -
Cutler, A. (
Ed. ). (2005). Twenty-first century psycholinguistics: Four cornerstones. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. -
Danziger, E. (1995). Intransitive predicate form class survey. In D. Wilkins (
Ed. ), Extensions of space and beyond: manual for field elicitation for the 1995 field season (pp. 46-53). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3004298.Abstract
Different linguistic structures allow us to highlight distinct aspects of a situation. The aim of this survey is to investigate similarities and differences in the expression of situations or events as “stative” (maintaining a state), “inchoative” (adopting a state) and “agentive” (causing something to be in a state). The questionnaire focuses on the encoding of stative, inchoative and agentive possibilities for the translation equivalents of a set of English verbs. -
Danziger, E. (1995). Posture verb survey. In D. Wilkins (
Ed. ), Extensions of space and beyond: manual for field elicitation for the 1995 field season (pp. 33-34). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3004235.Abstract
Expressions of human activities and states are a rich area for cross-linguistic comparison. Some languages of the world treat human posture verbs (e.g., sit, lie, kneel) as a special class of predicates, with distinct formal properties. This survey examines lexical, semantic and grammatical patterns for posture verbs, with special reference to contrasts between “stative” (maintaining a posture), “inchoative” (adopting a posture), and “agentive” (causing something to adopt a posture) constructions. The enquiry is thematically linked to the more general questionnaire 'Intransitive Predicate Form Class Survey'. -
Dietrich, R., Klein, W., & Noyau, C. (1995). The acquisition of temporality in a second language. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
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Dimroth, C., & Watorek, M. (2005). Additive scope particles in advanced learner and native speaker discourse. In Hendriks, & Henriëtte (
Eds. ), The structure of learner varieties (pp. 461-488). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. -
Dimroth, C., & Narasimhan, B. (2012). The acquisition of information structure. In M. Krifka, & R. Musan (
Eds. ), The expression of information structure (pp. 319-362). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin. -
Dimroth, C., & Haberzettl, S. (2012). The older the better, or more is more: Language acquisition in childhood. In M. Watorek, S. Benazzo, & M. Hickmann (
Eds. ), Comparative perspectives on language acquisition: A tribute to Clive Perdue (pp. 324-349). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. -
Dingemanse, M. (2012). Kleurt taal je wereldbeeld? Over de relatie tussen taal en denken. In M. Boogaard, & M. Jansen (
Eds. ), Alles wat je altijd al had willen weten over taal: De taalcanon (pp. 209-211). Amsterdam: Meulenhoff.Abstract
Mensen groeien op in verschillende omgevingen, met verschillende ervaringen en verschillende talen. Betekent dat ook dat ze verschillend denken? En als er invloed is van taal op denken, hoe ver reikt die dan? Wordt ons denken begrensd door woorden, of is de invloed meer gematigd en kunnen we er soms zelfs aan ontkomen? -
Dirksmeyer, T. (2005). Why do languages die? Approaching taxonomies, (re-)ordering causes. In J. Wohlgemuth, & T. Dirksmeyer (
Eds. ), Bedrohte Vielfalt. Aspekte des Sprach(en)tods – Aspects of language death (pp. 53-68). Berlin: Weißensee.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. -
Dittmar, N., & Klein, W. (1975). Untersuchungen zum Pidgin-Deutsch spanischer und italienischer Arbeiter in der Bundesrepublik: Ein Arbeitsbericht. In A. Wierlacher (
Ed. ), Jahrbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache (pp. 170-194). Heidelberg: Groos. -
Doherty, M., & Klein, W. (
Eds. ). (1991). Übersetzung [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (84). -
Drude, S. (2005). A contribuição alemã à Lingüística e Antropologia dos índios do Brasil, especialmente da Amazônia. In J. J. A. Alves (
Ed. ), Múltiplas Faces da Históriadas Ciência na Amazônia (pp. 175-196). Belém: EDUFPA. -
Drude, S. (2012). Prospects for e-grammars and endangered languages corpora. In F. Seifart, G. Haig, N. P. Himmelmann, D. Jung, A. Margetts, & P. Trilsbeek (
Eds. ), Potentials of language documentation: Methods, analyses, and utilization (pp. 7-16). Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Abstract
This contribution explores the potentials of combining corpora of language use data with language description in e-grammars (or digital grammars). We present three directions of ongoing research and discuss the advantages of combining these and similar approaches, arguing that the technological possibilities have barely begun to be explored. -
Ehrich, V., & Levelt, W. J. M. (
Eds. ). (1982). Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual Report Nr.3 1982. Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics. -
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. (2012). Perceptual learning in speech. In N. M. Seel (
Ed. ), Encyclopedia of the sciences of learning. Part 16 (2nd. ed., pp. 2583-2584). Berlin: Springer.Abstract
Definition Perceptual learning in speech describes a change in the mapping from acoustic cues in the speech signal to abstract linguistic representations. Learning leads to a lasting benefit to the listener by improving speech comprehension. The change can occur as a response to a specific feature (such as a talker- or accent idiosyncrasy) or to a global degradation of the signal (such as in synthesized or compressed speech). In perceptual learning, a top-down process is involved in causing the change, whereas purely bottom-up, signal-driven phenomena are considered to be adaptation. -
Embick, D., Creemers, A., & Goodwin Davies, A. J. (2022). Morphology and the mental lexicon: Three questions about decomposition. In A. Papafragou, J. C. Trueswell, & L. R. Gleitman (
Eds. ), The Oxford Handbook of the Mental Lexicon (pp. 77-97). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Abstract
The most basic question for the study of morphology and the mental lexicon is whether or not words are _decomposed_: informally, this is the question of whether words are represented (and processed) in terms of some kind of smaller units; that is, broken down into constituent parts. Formally, what it means to represent or process a word as decomposed or not turns out to be quite complex. One of the basic lines of division in the field classifies approaches according to whether they decompose all “complex” words (“Full Decomposition”), or none (“Full Listing”), or some but not all, according to some criterion (typical of “Dual-Route” models). However, if we are correct, there are at least three senses in which an approach might be said to be decompositional or not, with the result that ongoing discussions of what appears to be a single large issue might not always be addressing the same distinction. Put slightly differently, there is no single question of decomposition. Instead, there are independent but related questions that define current research. Our goal here is to identify this finer-grained set of questions, as they are the ones that should assume a central place in the study of morphological and lexical representation. -
Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., & De Ruiter, J. (2012). Epistemic dimensions of polar questions: Sentence-final particles in comparative perspective. In J. P. De Ruiter (
Ed. ), Questions: Formal, functional and interactional perspectives (pp. 193-221). New York: Cambridge University Press. -
Enfield, N. J. (2005). Depictive and other secondary predication in Lao. In N. P. Himmelmann, & E. Schultze-Berndt (
Eds. ), Secondary predication and adverbial modification (pp. 379-392). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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