Publications

Displaying 1 - 100 of 367
  • Alibali, M. W., Kita, S., & Young, A. J. (2000). Gesture and the process of speech production: We think, therefore we gesture. Language and Cognitive Processes, 15(6), 593-613. doi:10.1080/016909600750040571.

    Abstract

    At what point in the process of speech production is gesture involved? According to the Lexical Retrieval Hypothesis, gesture is involved in generating the surface forms of utterances. Specifically, gesture facilitates access to items in the mental lexicon. According to the Information Packaging Hypothesis, gesture is involved in the conceptual planning of messages. Specifically, gesture helps speakers to ''package'' spatial information into verbalisable units. We tested these hypotheses in 5-year-old children, using two tasks that required comparable lexical access, but different information packaging. In the explanation task, children explained why two items did or did not have the same quantity (Piagetian conservation). In the description task, children described how two items looked different. Children provided comparable verbal responses across tasks; thus, lexical access was comparable. However, the demands for information packaging differed. Participants' gestures also differed across the tasks. In the explanation task, children produced more gestures that conveyed perceptual dimensions of the objects, and more gestures that conveyed information that differed from the accompanying speech. The results suggest that gesture is involved in the conceptual planning of speech.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1999). [Review of M. E. Kropp Dakubu: Korle meets the sea: a sociolinguistic history of Accra]. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 62, 198-199. doi:10.1017/S0041977X0001836X.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1999). Interjections. In K. Brown, & J. Miller (Eds.), Concise encyclopedia of grammatical categories (pp. 213-216). Oxford: Elsevier.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1999). Partir c'est mourir un peu: Universal and culture specific features of leave taking. RASK International Journal of Language and Communication, 9/10, 257-283.
  • Ameka, F. K. (1999). Spatial information packaging in Ewe and Likpe: A comparative perspective. Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blätter, 11, 7-34.
  • Ameka, F. K., De Witte, C., & Wilkins, D. (1999). Picture series for positional verbs: Eliciting the verbal component in locative descriptions. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 48-54). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.2573831.

    Abstract

    How do different languages encode location and position meanings? In conjunction with the BowPed picture series and Caused Positions task, this elicitation tool is designed to help researchers (i) identify a language’s resources for encoding topological relations; (ii) delimit the pragmatics of use of such resources; and (iii) determine the semantics of select spatial terms. The task focuses on the exploration of the predicative component of topological expressions (e.g., ‘the cassavas are lying in the basket’), especially the contrastive elicitation of positional verbs. The materials consist of a set of photographs of objects (e.g., bottles, cloths, sticks) in specific configurations with various ground items (e.g., basket, table, tree).

    Additional information

    1999_Positional_verbs_stimuli.zip
  • Ameka, F. K. (1999). The typology and semantics of complex nominal duplication in Ewe. Anthropological Linguistics, 41, 75-106.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., & Knösche, T. R. (2000). MEG tangential derivative mapping applied to Event-Related Desynchronization (ERD) research. Clinical Neurophysiology, 111, 1300-1305.

    Abstract

    Objectives: A problem with the topographic mapping of MEG data recorded with axial gradiometers is that field extrema are measured at sensors located at either side of a neuronal generator instead of at sensors directly above the source. This is problematic for the computation of event-related desynchronization (ERD) on MEG data, since ERD relies on a correspondence between the signal maximum and the location of the neuronal generator. Methods: We present a new method based on computing spatial derivatives of the MEG data. The limitations of this method were investigated by means of forward simulations, and the method was applied to a 150-channel MEG dataset. Results: The simulations showed that the method has some limitations. (1) Fewer channels reduce accuracy and amplitude. (2) It is less suitable for deep or very extended sources. (3) Multiple sources can only be distinguished if they are not too close to each other. Applying the method in the calculation of ERD on experimental data led to a considerable improvement of the ERD maps. Conclusions: The proposed method offers a significant advantage over raw MEG signals, both for the topographic mapping of MEG and for the analysis of rhythmic MEG activity by means of ERD.
  • Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Böcker, K. B. E., Cluitmans, P. J. M., & Brunia, C. H. M. (1999). Event-related desynchronization related to the anticipation of a stimulus providing knowledge of results. Clinical Neurophysiology, 110, 250-260.

    Abstract

    In the present paper, event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the alpha and beta frequency bands is quantified in order to investigate the processes related to the anticipation of a knowledge of results (KR) stimulus. In a time estimation task, 10 subjects were instructed to press a button 4 s after the presentation of an auditory stimulus. Two seconds after the response they received auditory or visual feedback on the timing of their response. Preceding the button press, a centrally maximal ERD is found. Preceding the visual KR stimulus, an ERD is present that has an occipital maximum. Contrary to expectation, preceding the auditory KR stimulus there are no signs of a modalityspecific ERD. Results are related to a thalamo-cortical gating model which predicts a correspondence between negative slow potentials and ERD during motor preparation and stimulus anticipation.
  • 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. (1999). Aspects of impersonal constructions in Late Latin. In H. Petersmann, & R. Kettelmann (Eds.), Latin vulgaire – latin tardif V (pp. 209-211). Heidelberg: Winter.
  • 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. (1999). Impersonal HABET constructions: At the cross-roads of Indo-European innovation. In E. Polomé, & C. Justus (Eds.), Language change and typological variation. Vol II. Grammatical universals and typology (pp. 590-612). Washington: Institute for the study of man.
  • Bavin, E. L., & Kidd, E. (2000). Learning new verbs: Beyond the input. In C. Davis, T. J. Van Gelder, & R. Wales (Eds.), Cognitive Science in Australia, 2000: Proceedings of the Fifth Biennial Conference of the Australasian Cognitive Science Society.
  • Bayer, J., & Marslen-Wilson, W. (1986). Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual Report Nr.7 1986. Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
  • Beattie, G. W., Cutler, A., & Pearson, M. (1982). Why is Mrs Thatcher interrupted so often? [Letters to Nature]. Nature, 300, 744-747. doi:10.1038/300744a0.

    Abstract

    If a conversation is to proceed smoothly, the participants have to take turns to speak. Studies of conversation have shown that there are signals which speakers give to inform listeners that they are willing to hand over the conversational turn1−4. Some of these signals are part of the text (for example, completion of syntactic segments), some are non-verbal (such as completion of a gesture), but most are carried by the pitch, timing and intensity pattern of the speech; for example, both pitch and loudness tend to drop particularly low at the end of a speaker's turn. When one speaker interrupts another, the two can be said to be disputing who has the turn. Interruptions can occur because one participant tries to dominate or disrupt the conversation. But it could also be the case that mistakes occur in the way these subtle turn-yielding signals are transmitted and received. We demonstrate here that many interruptions in an interview with Mrs Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister, occur at points where independent judges agree that her turn appears to have finished. It is suggested that she is unconsciously displaying turn-yielding cues at certain inappropriate points. The turn-yielding cues responsible are identified.
  • Böcker, K. B. E., Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Vroomen, J., Brunia, C. H. M., & de Gelder, B. (1999). An ERP correlate of metrical stress in spoken word recognition. Psychophysiology, 36, 706-720. doi:10.1111/1469-8986.3660706.

    Abstract

    Rhythmic properties of spoken language such as metrical stress, that is, the alternation of strong and weak syllables, are important in speech recognition of stress-timed languages such as Dutch and English. Nineteen subjects listened passively to or discriminated actively between sequences of bisyllabic Dutch words, which started with either a weak or a strong syllable. Weak-initial words, which constitute 12% of the Dutch lexicon, evoked more negativity than strong-initial words in the interval between P2 and N400 components of the auditory event-related potential. This negativity was denoted as N325. The N325 was larger during stress discrimination than during passive listening. N325 was also larger when a weak-initial word followed sequence of strong-initial words than when it followed words with the same stress pattern. The latter difference was larger for listeners who performed well on stress discrimination. It was concluded that the N325 is probably a manifestation of the extraction of metrical stress from the acoustic signal and its transformation into task requirements.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1999). A questionnaire on event integration. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 87-95). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3002691.

    Abstract

    How do we decide where events begin and end? Like the ECOM clips, this questionnaire is designed to investigate how a language divides and/or integrates complex scenarios into sub-events and macro-events. The questionnaire focuses on events of motion, caused state change (e.g., breaking), and transfer (e.g., giving). It provides a checklist of scenarios that give insight into where a language “draws the line” in event integration, based on known cross-linguistic differences.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2000). Event order in language and cognition. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 17(1), 1-16. doi:10.1075/avt.17.04boh.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1999). Event representation and event complexity: General introduction. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 69-73). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3002741.

    Abstract

    How do we decide where events begin and end? In some languages it makes sense to say something like Dan broke the plate, but in other languages it is necessary to treat this action as a complex scenario composed of separate stages (Dan dropped the plate and then the plate broke). This document introduces issues concerning the linguistic and cognitive representations of event complexity and integration, and provides an overview of tasks that are relevant to this topic, including the ECOM clips, the Questionnaire on Event integration, and the Questionnaire on motion lexicalisation and motion description.
  • Bohnemeyer, J., & Caelen, M. (1999). The ECOM clips: A stimulus for the linguistic coding of event complexity. In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 74-86). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874627.

    Abstract

    How do we decide where events begin and end? In some languages it makes sense to say something like Dan broke the plate, but in other languages it is necessary to treat this action as a complex scenario composed of separate stages (Dan dropped the plate and then the plate broke). The “Event Complexity” (ECOM) clips are designed to explore how languages differ in dividing and/or integrating complex scenarios into sub-events and macro-events. The stimuli consist of animated clips of geometric shapes that participate in different scenarios (e.g., a circle “hits” a triangle and “breaks” it). Consultants are asked to describe the scenes, and then to comment on possible alternative descriptions.

    Additional information

    1999_The_ECOM_clips.zip
  • 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).
  • Bowerman, M. (1985). Beyond communicative adequacy: From piecemeal knowledge to an integrated system in the child's acquisition of language. In K. Nelson (Ed.), Children's language (pp. 369-398). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Abstract

    (From the chapter) the first section considers very briefly the kinds of processes that can be inferred to underlie errors that do not set in until after a period of correct usage acquisition often seems to be a more extended process than we have envisioned summarize a currently influential model of how linguistic forms, meaning, and communication are interrelated in the acquisition of language, point out some challenging problems for this model, and suggest that the notion of "meaning" in language must be reconceptualized before we can hope to solve these problems evidence from several types of late errors is marshalled in support of these arguments (From the preface) provides many examples of new errors that children introduce at relatively advanced stages of mastery of semantics and syntax Bowerman views these seemingly backwards steps as indications of definite steps forward by the child achieving reflective, flexible and integrated systems of semantics and syntax (
  • Bowerman, M. (1976). Commentary on M.D.S. Braine, “Children's first word combinations”. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 41(1), 98-104. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1165959.
  • Bowerman, M. (1986). First steps in acquiring conditionals. In E. C. Traugott, A. G. t. Meulen, J. S. Reilly, & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), On conditionals (pp. 285-308). Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

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

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  • Bowerman, M. (1976). Le relazioni strutturali nel linguaggio infantile: sintattiche o semantiche? [Reprint]. In F. Antinucci, & C. Castelfranchi (Eds.), Psicolinguistica: Percezione, memoria e apprendimento del linguaggio (pp. 303-321). Bologna: Il Mulino.

    Abstract

    Reprinted from Bowerman, M. (1973). Structural relationships in children's utterances: Semantic or syntactic? In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language (pp. 197 213). New York: Academic Press
  • Bowerman, M. (1982). Evaluating competing linguistic models with language acquisition data: Implications of developmental errors with causative verbs. Quaderni di semantica, 3, 5-66.
  • 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. (1976). Semantic factors in the acquisition of rules for word use and sentence construction. In D. Morehead, & A. Morehead (Eds.), Directions in normal and deficient language development (pp. 99-179). Baltimore: University Park Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (1985). What shapes children's grammars? In D. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (pp. 1257-1319). Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • 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.
  • Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P., & Ter Keurs, M. (1999). Electrophysiological signatures of visual lexical processing: open en closed-class words. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 11(3), 261-281.

    Abstract

    In this paper presents evidence of the disputed existence of an electrophysiological marker for the lexical-categorical distinction between open- and closed-class words. Event-related brain potentials were recorded from the scalp while subjects read a story. Separate waveforms were computed for open- and closed-class words. Two aspects of the waveforms could be reliably related to vocabulary class. The first was an early negativity in the 230- to 350-msec epoch, with a bilateral anterior predominance. This negativity was elicited by open- and closed-class words alike, was not affected by word frequency or word length, and had an earlier peak latency for closed-class words. The second was a frontal slow negative shift in the 350- to 500-msec epoch, largest over the left side of the scalp. This late negativity was only elicited by closed-class words. Although the early negativity cannot serve as a qualitative marker of the open- and closed-class distinction, it does reflect the earliest electrophysiological manifestation of the availability of categorical information from the mental lexicon. These results suggest that the brain honors the distinction between open- and closed-class words, in relation to the different roles that they play in on-line sentence processing.
  • Brown, C. M., Van Berkum, J. J. A., & Hagoort, P. (2000). Discourse before gender: An event-related brain potential study on the interplay of semantic and syntactic information during spoken language understanding. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 29(1), 53-68. doi:10.1023/A:1005172406969.

    Abstract

    A study is presented on the effects of discourse–semantic and lexical–syntactic information during spoken sentence processing. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were registered while subjects listened to discourses that ended in a sentence with a temporary syntactic ambiguity. The prior discourse–semantic information biased toward one analysis of the temporary ambiguity, whereas the lexical-syntactic information allowed only for the alternative analysis. The ERP results show that discourse–semantic information can momentarily take precedence over syntactic information, even if this violates grammatical gender agreement rules.
  • Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P., & Chwilla, D. J. (2000). An event-related brain potential analysis of visual word priming effects. Brain and Language, 72, 158-190. doi:10.1006/brln.1999.2284.

    Abstract

    Two experiments are reported that provide evidence on task-induced effects during
    visual lexical processing in a primetarget semantic priming paradigm. The research focuses on target expectancy effects by manipulating the proportion of semantically related and unrelated word pairs. In Experiment 1, a lexical decision task was used and reaction times (RTs) and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were obtained. In Experiment 2, subjects silently read the stimuli, without any additional task demands, and ERPs were recorded. The RT and ERP results of Experiment 1 demonstrate that an expectancy mechanism contributed to the priming effect when a high proportion of related word pairs was presented. The ERP results of Experiment 2 show that in the absence of extraneous task requirements, an expectancy mechanism is not active. However, a standard ERP semantic priming effect was obtained in Experiment 2. The combined results show that priming effects due to relatedness proportion are induced by task demands and are not a standard aspect of online lexical processing.
  • Brown, P. (1999). Anthropologie cognitive. Anthropologie et Sociétés, 23(3), 91-119.

    Abstract

    In reaction to the dominance of universalism in the 1970s and '80s, there have recently been a number of reappraisals of the relation between language and cognition, and the field of cognitive anthropology is flourishing in several new directions in both America and Europe. This is partly due to a renewal and re-evaluation of approaches to the question of linguistic relativity associated with Whorf, and partly to the inspiration of modern developments in cognitive science. This review briefly sketches the history of cognitive anthropology and surveys current research on both sides of the Atlantic. The focus is on assessing current directions, considering in particular, by way of illustration, recent work in cultural models and on spatial language and cognition. The review concludes with an assessment of how cognitive anthropology could contribute directly both to the broader project of cognitive science and to the anthropological study of how cultural ideas and practices relate to structures and processes of human cognition.
  • 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, 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. (1999). Repetition [Encyclopedia entry for 'Lexicon for the New Millenium', ed. Alessandro Duranti]. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 9(2), 223-226. doi:10.1525/jlin.1999.9.1-2.223.

    Abstract

    This is an encyclopedia entry describing conversational and interactional uses of linguistic repetition.
  • Brown, C. M., & Hagoort, P. (1999). The cognitive neuroscience of language: Challenges and future directions. In C. M. Brown, & P. Hagoort (Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp. 3-14). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1999). Politeness: Some universals in language usage [Reprint]. In A. Jaworski, & N. Coupland (Eds.), The discourse reader (pp. 321-335). 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. (1976). Women and politeness: A new perspective on language and society. Reviews in Anthropology, 3, 240-249.
  • Carlsson, K., Petrovic, P., Skare, S., Petersson, K. M., & Ingvar, M. (2000). Tickling expectations: Neural processing in anticipation of a sensory stimulus. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12(4), 691-703. doi:10.1162/089892900562318.
  • Choi, S., McDonough, L., Bowerman, M., & Mandler, J. M. (1999). Early sensitivity to language-specific spatial categories in English and Korean. Cognitive Development, 14, 241-268. doi:10.1016/S0885-2014(99)00004-0.

    Abstract

    This study investigates young children’s comprehension of spatial terms in two languages that categorize space strikingly differently. English makes a distinction between actions resulting in containment (put in) versus support or surface attachment (put on), while Korean makes a cross-cutting distinction between tight-fit relations (kkita) versus loose-fit or other contact relations (various verbs). In particular, the Korean verb kkita refers to actions resulting in a tight-fit relation regardless of containment or support. In a preferential looking study we assessed the comprehension of in by 20 English learners and kkita by 10 Korean learners, all between 18 and 23 months. The children viewed pairs of scenes while listening to sentences with and without the target word. The target word led children to gaze at different and language-appropriate aspects of the scenes. We conclude that children are sensitive to language-specific spatial categories by 18–23 months.
  • Clark, E. V., & Bowerman, M. (1986). On the acquisition of final voiced stops. In J. A. Fishman (Ed.), The Fergusonian impact: in honor of Charles A. Ferguson on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Volume 1: From phonology to society (pp. 51-68). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Clifton, Jr., C., Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., & Van Ooijen, B. (1999). The processing of inflected forms. [Commentary on H. Clahsen: Lexical entries and rules of language.]. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 1018-1019.

    Abstract

    Clashen proposes two distinct processing routes, for regularly and irregularly inflected forms, respectively, and thus is apparently making a psychological claim. We argue his position, which embodies a strictly linguistic perspective, does not constitute a psychological processing model.
  • Cutler, A., & Clifton, Jr., C. (1999). Comprehending spoken language: A blueprint of the listener. In C. M. Brown, & P. Hagoort (Eds.), The neurocognition of language (pp. 123-166). Oxford University Press.
  • Cutler, A., Sebastian-Galles, N., Soler-Vilageliu, O., & Van Ooijen, B. (2000). Constraints of vowels and consonants on lexical selection: Cross-linguistic comparisons. Memory & Cognition, 28, 746-755.

    Abstract

    Languages differ in the constitution of their phonemic repertoire and in the relative distinctiveness of phonemes within the repertoire. In the present study, we asked whether such differences constrain spoken-word recognition, via two word reconstruction experiments, in which listeners turned non-words into real words by changing single sounds. The experiments were carried out in Dutch (which has a relatively balanced vowel-consonant ratio and many similar vowels) and in Spanish (which has many more consonants than vowels and high distinctiveness among the vowels). Both Dutch and Spanish listeners responded significantly faster and more accurately when required to change vowels as opposed to consonants; when allowed to change any phoneme, they more often altered vowels than consonants. Vowel information thus appears to constrain lexical selection less tightly (allow more potential candidates) than does consonant information, independent of language-specific phoneme repertoire and of relative distinctiveness of vowels.
  • Cutler, A. (1985). Cross-language psycholinguistics. Linguistics, 23, 659-667.
  • Cutler, A., & Van de Weijer, J. (2000). De ontdekking van de eerste woorden. Stem-, Spraak- en Taalpathologie, 9, 245-259.

    Abstract

    Spraak is continu, er zijn geen betrouwbare signalen waardoor de luisteraar weet waar het ene woord eindigt en het volgende begint. Voor volwassen luisteraars is het segmenteren van gesproken taal in afzonderlijke woorden dus niet onproblematisch, maar voor een kind dat nog geen woordenschat bezit, vormt de continuïteit van spraak een nog grotere uitdaging. Desalniettemin produceren de meeste kinderen hun eerste herkenbare woorden rond het begin van het tweede levensjaar. Aan deze vroege spraakproducties gaat een formidabele perceptuele prestatie vooraf. Tijdens het eerste levensjaar - met name gedurende de tweede helft - ontwikkelt de spraakperceptie zich van een algemeen fonetisch discriminatievermogen tot een selectieve gevoeligheid voor de fonologische contrasten die in de moedertaal voorkomen. Recent onderzoek heeft verder aangetoond dat kinderen, lang voordat ze ook maar een enkel woord kunnen zeggen, in staat zijn woorden die kenmerkend zijn voor hun moedertaal te onderscheiden van woorden die dat niet zijn. Bovendien kunnen ze woorden die eerst in isolatie werden aangeboden herkennen in een continue spraakcontext. Het dagelijkse taalaanbod aan een kind van deze leeftijd maakt het in zekere zin niet gemakkelijk, bijvoorbeeld doordat de meeste woorden niet in isolatie voorkomen. Toch wordt het kind ook wel houvast geboden, onder andere doordat het woordgebruik beperkt is.
  • Cutler, A. (1986). Forbear is a homophone: Lexical prosody does not constrain lexical access. Language and Speech, 29, 201-220.

    Abstract

    Because stress can occur in any position within an Eglish word, lexical prosody could serve as a minimal distinguishing feature between pairs of words. However, most pairs of English words with stress pattern opposition also differ vocalically: OBject an obJECT, CONtent and content have different vowels in their first syllables an well as different stress patters. To test whether prosodic information is made use in auditory word recognition independently of segmental phonetic information, it is necessary to examine pairs like FORbear – forBEAR of TRUSty – trusTEE, semantically unrelated words which echbit stress pattern opposition but no segmental difference. In a cross-modal priming task, such words produce the priming effects characteristic of homophones, indicating that lexical prosody is not used in the same was as segmental structure to constrain lexical access.
  • Cutler, A. (1999). Foreword. In Slips of the Ear: Errors in the perception of Casual Conversation (pp. xiii-xv). New York City, NY, USA: Academic Press.
  • 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.
  • Cutler, A. (1982). Idioms: the older the colder. Linguistic Inquiry, 13(2), 317-320. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178278?origin=JSTOR-pdf.
  • Cutler, A. (1976). High-stress words are easier to perceive than low-stress words, even when they are equally stressed. Texas Linguistic Forum, 2, 53-57.
  • 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).
  • Cutler, A., & Pearson, M. (1985). On the analysis of prosodic turn-taking cues. In C. Johns-Lewis (Ed.), Intonation in discourse (pp. 139-155). London: Croom Helm.
  • Cutler, A., & Fay, D. A. (1982). One mental lexicon, phonologically arranged: Comments on Hurford’s comments. Linguistic Inquiry, 13, 107-113. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4178262.
  • Cutler, A. (1985). Performance measures of lexical complexity. In G. Hoppenbrouwers, P. A. Seuren, & A. Weijters (Eds.), Meaning and the lexicon (pp. 75). Dordrecht: Foris.
  • Cutler, A. (1976). Phoneme-monitoring reaction time as a function of preceding intonation contour. Perception and Psychophysics, 20, 55-60. Retrieved from http://www.psychonomic.org/search/view.cgi?id=18194.

    Abstract

    An acoustically invariant one-word segment occurred in two versions of one syntactic context. In one version, the preceding intonation contour indicated that a stress would fall at the point where this word occurred. In the other version, the preceding contour predicted reduced stress at that point. Reaction time to the initial phoneme of the word was faster in the former case, despite the fact that no acoustic correlates of stress were present. It is concluded that a part of the sentence comprehension process is the prediction of upcoming sentence accents.
  • Cutler, A. (1986). Phonological structure in speech recognition. Phonology Yearbook, 3, 161-178. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4615397.

    Abstract

    Two bodies of recent research from experimental psycholinguistics are summarised, each of which is centred upon a concept from phonology: LEXICAL STRESS and the SYLLABLE. The evidence indicates that neither construct plays a role in prelexical representations during speech recog- nition. Both constructs, however, are well supported by other performance evidence. Testing phonological claims against performance evidence from psycholinguistics can be difficult, since the results of studies designed to test processing models are often of limited relevance to phonological theory.
  • Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., & Zondervan, R. (2000). Proceedings of SWAP (Workshop on Spoken Word Access Processes). Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
  • Cutler, A. (1999). Prosodische Struktur und Worterkennung bei gesprochener Sprache. In A. D. Friedrici (Ed.), Enzyklopädie der Psychologie: Sprachrezeption (pp. 49-83). Göttingen: Hogrefe.
  • Cutler, A. (1999). Prosody and intonation, processing issues. In R. A. Wilson, & F. C. Keil (Eds.), MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences (pp. 682-683). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • 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., & Swinney, D. A. (1986). Prosody and the development of comprehension. Journal of Child Language, 14, 145-167.

    Abstract

    Four studies are reported in which young children’s response time to detect word targets was measured. Children under about six years of age did not show response time advantage for accented target words which adult listeners show. When semantic focus of the target word was manipulated independently of accent, children of about five years of age showed an adult-like response time advantage for focussed targets, but children younger than five did not. Id is argued that the processing advantage for accented words reflect the semantic role of accent as an expression of sentence focus. Processing advantages for accented words depend on the prior development of representations of sentence semantic structure, including the concept of focus. The previous literature on the development of prosodic competence shows an apparent anomaly in that young children’s productive skills appear to outstrip their receptive skills; however, this anomaly disappears if very young children’s prosody is assumed to be produced without an underlying representation of the relationship between prosody and semantics.
  • 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., & Norris, D. (1999). Sharpening Ockham’s razor (Commentary on W.J.M. Levelt, A. Roelofs & A.S. Meyer: A theory of lexical access in speech production). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 40-41.

    Abstract

    Language production and comprehension are intimately interrelated; and models of production and comprehension should, we argue, be constrained by common architectural guidelines. Levelt et al.'s target article adopts as guiding principle Ockham's razor: the best model of production is the simplest one. We recommend adoption of the same principle in comprehension, with consequent simplification of some well-known types of models.
  • 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.
  • Cutler, A. (1999). Spoken-word recognition. In R. A. Wilson, & F. C. Keil (Eds.), MIT encyclopedia of the cognitive sciences (pp. 796-798). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Cutler, A., & Koster, M. (2000). Stress and lexical activation in Dutch. In B. Yuan, T. Huang, & X. Tang (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Spoken Language Processing: Vol. 1 (pp. 593-596). Beijing: China Military Friendship Publish.

    Abstract

    Dutch listeners were slower to make judgements about the semantic relatedness between a spoken target word (e.g. atLEET, 'athlete') and a previously presented visual prime word (e.g. SPORT 'sport') when the spoken word was mis-stressed. The adverse effect of mis-stressing confirms the role of stress information in lexical recognition in Dutch. However, although the erroneous stress pattern was always initially compatible with a competing word (e.g. ATlas, 'atlas'), mis-stressed words did not produced high false alarm rates in unrelated pairs (e.g. SPORT - atLAS). This suggests that stress information did not completely rule out segmentally matching but suprasegmentally mismatching words, a finding consistent with spoken-word recognition models involving multiple activation and inter-word competition.
  • Cutler, A., & Otake, T. (1999). Pitch accent in spoken-word recognition in Japanese. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 105, 1877-1888.

    Abstract

    Three experiments addressed the question of whether pitch-accent information may be exploited in the process of recognizing spoken words in Tokyo Japanese. In a two-choice classification task, listeners judged from which of two words, differing in accentual structure, isolated syllables had been extracted ~e.g., ka from baka HL or gaka LH!; most judgments were correct, and listeners’ decisions were correlated with the fundamental frequency characteristics of the syllables. In a gating experiment, listeners heard initial fragments of words and guessed what the words were; their guesses overwhelmingly had the same initial accent structure as the gated word even when only the beginning CV of the stimulus ~e.g., na- from nagasa HLL or nagashi LHH! was presented. In addition, listeners were more confident in guesses with the same initial accent structure as the stimulus than in guesses with different accent. In a lexical decision experiment, responses to spoken words ~e.g., ame HL! were speeded by previous presentation of the same word ~e.g., ame HL! but not by previous presentation of a word differing only in accent ~e.g., ame LH!. Together these findings provide strong evidence that accentual information constrains the activation and selection of candidates for spoken-word recognition.
  • Cutler, A., & Butterfield, S. (1986). The perceptual integrity of initial consonant clusters. In R. Lawrence (Ed.), Speech and Hearing: Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics (pp. 31-36). Edinburgh: Institute of Acoustics.
  • Cutler, A., Hawkins, J. A., & Gilligan, G. (1985). The suffixing preference: A processing explanation. Linguistics, 23, 723-758.
  • Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D., & Segui, J. (1986). The syllable’s differing role in the segmentation of French and English. Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 385-400. doi:10.1016/0749-596X(86)90033-1.

    Abstract

    Speech segmentation procedures may differ in speakers of different languages. Earlier work based on French speakers listening to French words suggested that the syllable functions as a segmentation unit in speech processing. However, while French has relatively regular and clearly bounded syllables, other languages, such as English, do not. No trace of syllabifying segmentation was found in English listeners listening to English words, French words, or nonsense words. French listeners, however, showed evidence of syllabification even when they were listening to English words. We conclude that alternative segmentation routines are available to the human language processor. In some cases speech segmentation may involve the operation of more than one procedure
  • Cutler, A., Van Ooijen, B., & Norris, D. (1999). Vowels, consonants, and lexical activation. In J. Ohala, Y. Hasegawa, M. Ohala, D. Granville, & A. Bailey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences: Vol. 3 (pp. 2053-2056). Berkeley: University of California.

    Abstract

    Two lexical decision studies examined the effects of single-phoneme mismatches on lexical activation in spoken-word recognition. One study was carried out in English, and involved spoken primes and visually presented lexical decision targets. The other study was carried out in Dutch, and primes and targets were both presented auditorily. Facilitation was found only for spoken targets preceded immediately by spoken primes; no facilitation occurred when targets were presented visually, or when intervening input occurred between prime and target. The effects of vowel mismatches and consonant mismatches were equivalent.
  • Cutler, A. (1986). Why readers of this newsletter should run cross-linguistic experiments. European Psycholinguistics Association Newsletter, 13, 4-8.
  • Cutler, A., Norris, D., & McQueen, J. M. (2000). Tracking TRACE’s troubles. In A. Cutler, J. M. McQueen, & R. Zondervan (Eds.), Proceedings of SWAP (Workshop on Spoken Word Access Processes) (pp. 63-66). Nijmegen: Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics.

    Abstract

    Simulations explored the inability of the TRACE model of spoken-word recognition to model the effects on human listening of acoustic-phonetic mismatches in word forms. The source of TRACE's failure lay not in its interactive connectivity, not in the presence of interword competition, and not in the use of phonemic representations, but in the need for continuously optimised interpretation of the input. When an analogue of TRACE was allowed to cycle to asymptote on every slice of input, an acceptable simulation of the subcategorical mismatch data was achieved. Even then, however, the simulation was not as close as that produced by the Merge model.
  • Dell, G. S., Reed, K. D., Adams, D. R., & Meyer, A. S. (2000). Speech errors, phonotactic constraints, and implicit learning: A study of the role of experience in language production. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 1355-1367. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.26.6.1355.

    Abstract

    Speech errors follow the phonotactics of the language being spoken. For example, in English, if [n] is mispronounced as [n] the [n] will always appear in a syllable coda. The authors created an analogue to this phenomenon by having participants recite lists of consonant-vowel-consonant syllables in 4 sessions on different days. In the first 2 experiments, some consonants were always onsets, some were always codas, and some could be both. In a third experiment, the set of possible onsets and codas depended on vowel identity. In all 3 studies, the production errors that occurred respected the "phonotactics" of the experiment. The results illustrate the implicit learning of the sequential constraints present in the stimuli and show that the language production system adapts to recent experience.
  • Deutsch, W., & Frauenfelder, U. (1985). Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual Report Nr.6 1985. Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
  • Dietrich, R., & Klein, W. (1986). Simple language. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 11(2), 110-117.
  • Dimroth, C., & Watorek, M. (2000). The scope of additive particles in basic learner languages. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 22, 307-336. Retrieved from http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=65981.

    Abstract

    Based on their longitudinal analysis of the acquisition of Dutch, English, French, and German, Klein and Perdue (1997) described a “basic learner variety” as valid cross-linguistically and comprising a limited number of shared syntactic patterns interacting with two types of constraints: (a) semantic—the NP whose referent has highest control comes first, and (b) pragmatic—the focus expression is in final position. These authors hypothesized that “the topic-focus structure also plays an important role in some other respects. . . . Thus, negation and (other) scope particles occur at the topic-focus boundary” (p. 318). This poses the problem of the interaction between the core organizational principles of the basic variety and optional items such as negative particles and scope particles, which semantically affect the whole or part of the utterance in which they occur. In this article, we test the validity of these authors' hypothesis for the acquisition of the additive scope particle also (and its translation equivalents). Our analysis is based on the European Science Foundation (ESF) data originally used to define the basic variety, but we also included some more advanced learner data from the same database. In doing so, we refer to the analyses of Dimroth and Klein (1996), which concern the interaction between scope particles and the part of the utterance they affect, and we make a distinction between maximal scope—that which is potentially affected by the particle—and the actual scope of a particle in relation to an utterance in a given discourse context

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  • Drolet, M., & Kempen, G. (1985). IPG: A cognitive approach to sentence generation. CCAI: The Journal for the Integrated Study of Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Applied Epistemology, 2, 37-61.
  • Dunn, M. (2000). Planning for failure: The niche of standard Chukchi. Current Issues in Language Planning, 1, 389-399. doi:10.1080/14664200008668013.

    Abstract

    This paper examines the effects of language standardization and orthography design on the Chukchi linguistic ecology. The process of standardisation has not taken into consideration the gender-based sociolects of colloquial Chukchi and is based on a grammaticaldescriptionwhich does not reflectactual Chukchi use; as a result standard Chukchi has not gained a place in the Chukchi language ecology. The Cyrillic orthography developed for Chukchi is also problematic as it is based on features of Russian phonology, rather than on Chukchi itself: this has meant that a knowledge of written Chukchi is dependent on a knowledge of the principles of Russian orthography. The aspects of language planning have had a large impact on the pre-existing Chukchi language ecology which has contributed to the obsolescence of the colloquial language.
  • Edlinger, G., Bastiaansen, M. C. M., Brunia, C., Neuper, C., & Pfurtscheller, G. (1999). Cortical oscillatory activity assessed by combined EEG and MEG recordings and high resolution ERD methods. Biomedizinische Technik, 44(2), 131-134.
  • Ehrich, V., & Levelt, W. J. M. (Eds.). (1982). Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics: Annual Report Nr.3 1982. Nijmegen: MPI for Psycholinguistics.
  • 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.
  • Eisenbeiss, S., McGregor, B., & Schmidt, C. M. (1999). Story book stimulus for the elicitation of external possessor constructions and dative constructions ('the circle of dirt'). In D. Wilkins (Ed.), Manual for the 1999 Field Season (pp. 140-144). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3002750.

    Abstract

    How involved in an event is a person that possesses one of the event participants? Some languages can treat such “external possessors” as very closely involved, even marking them on the verb along with core roles such as subject and object. Other languages only allow possessors to be expressed as non-core participants. This task explores possibilities for the encoding of possessors and other related roles such as beneficiaries. The materials consist of a sequence of thirty drawings designed to elicit target construction types.

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  • Enfield, N. J. (1999). Lao as a national language. In G. Evans (Ed.), Laos: Culture and society (pp. 258-290). Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
  • 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. (1999). On the indispensability of semantics: Defining the ‘vacuous’. Rask: internationalt tidsskrift for sprog og kommunikation, 9/10, 285-304.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2000). The theory of cultural logic: How individuals combine social intelligence with semiotics to create and maintain cultural meaning. Cultural Dynamics, 12(1), 35-64. doi:10.1177/092137400001200102.

    Abstract

    The social world is an ecological complex in which cultural meanings and knowledges (linguistic and non-linguistic) personally embodied by individuals are intercalibrated via common attention to commonly accessible semiotic structures. This interpersonal ecology bridges realms which are the subject matter of both anthropology and linguistics, allowing the public maintenance of a system of assumptions and counter-assumptions among individuals as to what is mutually known (about), in general and/or in any particular context. The mutual assumption of particular cultural ideas provides human groups with common premises for predictably convergent inferential processes. This process of people collectively using effectively identical assumptions in interpreting each other's actions—i.e. hypothesizing as to each other's motivations and intentions—may be termed cultural logic. This logic relies on the establishment of stereotypes and other kinds of precedents, catalogued in individuals’ personal libraries, as models and scenarios which may serve as reference in inferring and attributing motivations behind people's actions, and behind other mysterious phenomena. This process of establishing conceptual convention depends directly on semiotics, since groups of individuals rely on external signs as material for common focus and, thereby, agreement. Social intelligence binds signs in the world (e.g. speech sounds impressing upon eardrums), with individually embodied representations (e.g. word meanings and contextual schemas). The innate tendency for people to model the intentions of others provides an ultimately biological account for the logic behind culture. Ethnographic examples are drawn from Laos and Australia.
  • Enfield, N. J., & Evans, G. (2000). Transcription as standardisation: The problem of Tai languages. In S. Burusphat (Ed.), Proceedings: the International Conference on Tai Studies, July 29-31, 1998, (pp. 201-212). Bangkok, Thailand: Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University.
  • Essegbey, J. (1999). Inherent complement verbs revisited: Towards an understanding of argument structure in Ewe. PhD Thesis, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen. doi:10.17617/2.2057668.
  • Fisher, S. E., Stein, J. F., & Monaco, A. P. (1999). A genome-wide search strategy for identifying quantitative trait loci involved in reading and spelling disability (developmental dyslexia). European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 8(suppl. 3), S47-S51. doi:10.1007/PL00010694.

    Abstract

    Family and twin studies of developmental dyslexia have consistently shown that there is a significant heritable component for this disorder. However, any genetic basis for the trait is likely to be complex, involving reduced penetrance, phenocopy, heterogeneity and oligogenic inheritance. This complexity results in reduced power for traditional parametric linkage analysis, where specification of the correct genetic model is important. One strategy is to focus on large multigenerational pedigrees with severe phenotypes and/or apparent simple Mendelian inheritance, as has been successfully demonstrated for speech and language impairment. This approach is limited by the scarcity of such families. An alternative which has recently become feasible due to the development of high-throughput genotyping techniques is the analysis of large numbers of sib-pairs using allele-sharing methodology. This paper outlines our strategy for conducting a systematic genome-wide search for genes involved in dyslexia in a large number of affected sib-pair familites from the UK. We use a series of psychometric tests to obtain different quantitative measures of reading deficit, which should correlate with different components of the dyslexia phenotype, such as phonological awareness and orthographic coding ability. This enable us to use QTL (quantitative trait locus) mapping as a powerful tool for localising genes which may contribute to reading and spelling disability.
  • Fisher, S. E., Marlow, A. J., Lamb, J., Maestrini, E., Williams, D. F., Richardson, A. J., Weeks, D. E., Stein, J. F., & Monaco, A. P. (1999). A quantitative-trait locus on chromosome 6p influences different aspects of developmental dyslexia. American Journal of Human Genetics, 64(1), 146-156. doi:10.1086/302190.

    Abstract

    Recent application of nonparametric-linkage analysis to reading disability has implicated a putative quantitative-trait locus (QTL) on the short arm of chromosome 6. In the present study, we use QTL methods to evaluate linkage to the 6p25-21.3 region in a sample of 181 sib pairs from 82 nuclear families that were selected on the basis of a dyslexic proband. We have assessed linkage directly for several quantitative measures that should correlate with different components of the phenotype, rather than using a single composite measure or employing categorical definitions of subtypes. Our measures include the traditional IQ/reading discrepancy score, as well as tests of word recognition, irregular-word reading, and nonword reading. Pointwise analysis by means of sib-pair trait differences suggests the presence, in 6p21.3, of a QTL influencing multiple components of dyslexia, in particular the reading of irregular words (P=.0016) and nonwords (P=.0024). A complementary statistical approach involving estimation of variance components supports these findings (irregular words, P=.007; nonwords, P=.0004). Multipoint analyses place the QTL within the D6S422-D6S291 interval, with a peak around markers D6S276 and D6S105 consistently identified by approaches based on trait differences (irregular words, P=.00035; nonwords, P=.0035) and variance components (irregular words, P=.007; nonwords, P=.0038). Our findings indicate that the QTL affects both phonological and orthographic skills and is not specific to phoneme awareness, as has been previously suggested. Further studies will be necessary to obtain a more precise localization of this QTL, which may lead to the isolation of one of the genes involved in developmental dyslexia.
  • Francks, C., Fisher, S. E., J.Marlow, A., J.Richardson, A., Stein, J. F., & Monaco, A. (2000). A sibling-pair based approach for mapping genetic loci that influence quantitative measures of reading disability. Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, 63(1-2), 27-31. doi:10.1054/plef.2000.0187.

    Abstract

    Family and twin studies consistently demonstrate a significant role for genetic factors in the aetiology of the reading disorder dyslexia. However, dyslexia is complex at both the genetic and phenotypic levels, and currently the nature of the core deficit or deficits remains uncertain. Traditional approaches for mapping disease genes, originally developed for single-gene disorders, have limited success when there is not a simple relationship between genotype and phenotype. Recent advances in high-throughput genotyping technology and quantitative statistical methods have made a new approach to identifying genes involved in complex disorders possible. The method involves assessing the genetic similarity of many sibling pairs along the lengths of all their chromosomes and attempting to correlate this similarity with that of their phenotypic scores. We are adopting this approach in an ongoing genome-wide search for genes involved in dyslexia susceptibility, and have already successfully applied the method by replicating results from previous studies suggesting that a quantitative trait locus at 6p21.3 influences reading disability.

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