Publications

Abstract

Humans acquire word knowledge through producing and comprehending spoken and written language. Word learning continues into adulthood and knowledge accumulates across the lifespan. Therefore, receptive vocabulary size is often conceived of as a proxy for linguistic experience and plays a central role in assessing individuals’ language proficiency. There is currently no valid open access test available for assessing receptive vocabulary size in German-speaking adults. We addressed this gap and developed the German Auditory and Image Vocabulary Test (GAudI). In the GAudI, participants are presented with spoken test words and have to indicate their meanings by selecting the corresponding picture from a set of four alternatives. Here we describe the development of the test and provide evidence for its validity. Specifically, we report a study in which 168 German-speaking participants completed the GAudI and five other tests tapping into linguistic experience: one test measuring print exposure, two tests measuring productive vocabulary, one test assessing knowledge of book language grammar, and a test of receptive vocabulary that was normed in adolescents. The psychometric properties of the GAudI and its relationships to the other tests demonstrate that it is a suitable tool for measuring receptive vocabulary size. We offer an open-access digital test environment that can be used for research purposes, accessible via https://ems13.mpi.nl/bq4_customizable_de/researchers_welcome.php.

Abstract

The Ghana-Togo Mountain languages are a typologically distinct group of languages within the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo language family. Until recently, they have received very little documentary attention, and are still greatly under-described. Where there is information regarding the tense, aspect, and mood system, Ghana-Togo Mountain languages are described as tense and aspect prominent. In contrast, Kwa languages are typically aspect and mood prominent, with little to no grammatical tense marking. Is the apparent greater emphasis on tense one of the typological features that separates the Ghana- Togo Mountain languages from the other Kwa languages? Or has tense been overrepresented due to the lack of description? In the case of Avatime, it is the latter. Previous accounts have described Avatime with a strong focus on tense. However, when the semantics are considered in more detail, we see that none of the forms contains an inherent specification for tense. While there is often a default interpretation in the past, present or future, this default can easily be overridden. Thus, Avatime has a typical Kwa system with a focus on aspect and mood and no grammatical tense.

Abstract

Psycholinguistic investigations provide invaluable empirical utility in theorizing and typologizing phonological phenomena. Instrumental approaches to the sound structure of Turkish have proven to be no exception here, contributing independent and multi-faceted evidence towards theory building and testing. Two areas of Turkish phonology in relation to suprasegmental structure and prominence patterns, namely word-level prosody (Section 2) and prominence and rhythmic phenomena at the level of the sentence and beyond (Section 3) have particularly fueled psycholinguistically motivated empirical studies. This chapter will approach representational and processing-related issues in each of these and provide a review of pertinent perception and production studies, touching upon phonetic and developmental investigations insofar as they have implications for mental representations or processing.

Abstract

We examined the morphosyntactic prediction ability of child heritage speakers and the role of reading skills and language experience in predictive processing. Using visual world eye-tracking, we focused on predictive use of case-marking cues in Turkish with monolingual (N=49, Mage=83 months) and heritage children, who were early bilinguals of Turkish and Dutch (N=30, Mage=90 months). We found quantitative differences in magnitude of the prediction ability of monolingual and heritage children; however, their overall prediction ability was on par. The heritage speakers’ prediction ability was facilitated by their reading skills in Dutch, but not in Turkish as well as by their heritage language exposure, but not by engagement in literacy activities. These findings emphasize the facilitatory role of reading skills and spoken language experience in predictive processing. This study is the first to show that in a developing bilingual mind, effects of reading-on-prediction can take place across modalities and across languages.

Abstract

This study describes the sensory lexicon on the domains of colour, taste, shape, smell and touch of a rural sign language called Kata Kolok (KK). Taste was highly codable for Kata Kolok signers, who used a dedicated set of signs and facial expressions to indicate each of the taste stimuli. The second most codable perceptual domain was shape, for which signers often used classifiers and tracing gestures that reflected the shape of the object directly. Smell had a comparatively intermediate level of codability, but this was due, for the most part, to the use of evaluative terms. Although Kata Kolok has a dedicated set of colour signs, these leave large parts of the colour spectrum unnamed, resulting in low degrees of codability in this sensory domain. Unnamed colours were frequently described by iconic-indexical forms such as object labelling and pointing strategies. Touch was the least codable domain for Kata Kolok, which resulted in a wide range of iconically motivated constructions including a restricted set of domain-specific lexical signs, classifiers, tracing gestures, object labelling, and general evaluative terms.