Publications

Abstract

An evaluation of vowel normalization procedures for the purpose of studying language variation is presented. The procedures were compared on how effectively they (a) preserve phonemic information, (b) preserve information about the talker's regional background (or sociolinguistic information), and (c) minimize anatomical/physiological variation in acoustic representations of vowels. Recordings were made for 80 female talkers and 80 male talkers of Dutch. These talkers were stratified according to their gender and regional background. The normalization procedures were applied to measurements of the fundamental frequency and the first three formant frequencies for a large set of vowel tokens. The normalization procedures were evaluated through statistical pattern analysis. The results show that normalization procedures that use information across multiple vowels ("vowel-extrinsic" information) to normalize a single vowel token performed better than those that include only information contained in the vowel token itself ("vowel-intrinsic" information). Furthermore, the results show that normalization procedures that operate on individual formants performed better than those that use information across multiple formants (e.g., "formant-extrinsic" F2-F1).

Abstract

Rhythm and language-related traits are phenotypically correlated, but their genetic overlap is largely unknown. Here, we leveraged two large-scale genome-wide association studies performed to shed light on the shared genetics of rhythm (N=606,825) and dyslexia (N=1,138,870). Our results reveal an intricate shared genetic and neurobiological architecture, and lay groundwork for resolving longstanding debates about the potential co-evolution of human language and musical traits.

Abstract

Introduction

Children's early language and communication skills are efficiently measured using parent report, for example, communicative development inventories (CDIs). These have scalable potential to determine risk of later language delay, and associations between delay and risk factors such as prematurity and poverty. However, there may be measurement difficulties in parent reports, including anomalous directions of association between child age/socioeconomic status and reported language. Findings vary on whether parents may report older infants as having smaller vocabularies than younger infants, for example.

Methods

We analysed data from the UK Communicative Development Inventory (Words and Gestures); UK-CDI (W&G) to determine whether anomalous associations would be replicated in this population, and/or with gesture. In total 1204 families of children aged 8–18 months (598 girls, matched to UK population for income, parental education and ethnicity as far as possible) completed Vocabulary and Gesture scales of the UK-CDI (W&G).

Results

Overall scores on the Gesture scale showed more significant relationships with biological risk factors including prematurity than did Vocabulary scores. Gesture also showed more straightforward relationships with social risk factors including income. Relationships between vocabulary and social risk factors were less straightforward; some at-risk groups reported higher vocabulary scores than other groups.

Discussion

We conclude that vocabulary report may be less accurate than gesture for this age. Parents have greater knowledge of language than gesture milestones, hence may report expectations for vocabulary, not observed vocabulary. We also conclude that gesture should be included in early language scales partly because of its greater, more straightforward association with many risk factors for language delay.

Abstract

In a triangle completion task designed to assess path integration skill, younger and older adults performed
similarly after being led, while blindfolded, along the route segments on foot, which provided both kinesthetic and vestibular information about the outbound path. In contrast, older adults’ performance was impaired, relative to that of younger adults, after they were conveyed, while blindfolded,
along the route segments in a wheelchair, which limited them principally to vestibular information.
Correlational evidence suggested that cognitive resources were significant factors in accounting for age-related decline in path integration performance.

Abstract

Ways of interacting and not interacting in human societies have social, cognitive and cultural dimensions. These various aspects may be reflected in particular in relation to “taboos”. They reflect the ways of thinking and the values of a society. They are recognized as part of the communicative competence of the speakers and are learned in socialization. Some salient taboos are likely to be named in the language of the relevant society, others may not have a name. Interactional taboos can be specific to a cultural linguistic group or they may be shared across different communities that belong to a ‘speech area’ (Hymes 1972). In this article we describe a number of unnamed norms of communicative conduct which are widespread in West Africa such as the taboos on the use of the left hand in social interaction and on the use of personal names in adult address, and the widespread preference for the use of intermediaries for serious communication. We also examine a named avoidance (yaage) behavior specific to the Fulbe, a nomadic cattle-herding group spread from West Africa across the Sahel as far as Sudan. We show how tacit knowledge about these taboos and other interactive norms can be captured using the cultural scripts methodology.

Abstract

Objectives: Our neurophysiological model of anticipatory behaviour (e.g. Acta Psychol 101 (1999) 213; Bastiaansen et al., 1999a) predicts an activation of (primary) sensory cortex during anticipatory attention for an upcoming stimulus. In this paper we attempt to demonstrate this by means of event-related desynchronization (ERD). Methods: Five subjects performed a time estimation task, and were informed about the quality of their time estimation by either visual or auditory stimuli providing Knowledge of Results (KR). EEG and MEG were recorded in separate sessions, and ERD was computed in the 8± 10 and 10±12 Hz frequency bands for both datasets. Results: Both in the EEG and the MEG we found an occipitally maximal ERD preceding the visual KR for all subjects. Preceding the auditory KR, no ERD was present in the EEG, whereas in the MEG we found an ERD over the temporal cortex in two of the 5 subjects. These subjects were also found to have higher levels of absolute power over temporal recording sites in the MEG than the other subjects, which we consider to be an indication of the presence of a `tau' rhythm (e.g. Neurosci Lett 222 (1997) 111). Conclusions: It is concluded that the results are in line with the predictions of our neurophysiological model.

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of whether anticipatory attention - i.e. attention directed towards an upcoming stimulus in order to facilitate its processing - is realized at the neurophysiological level by a pre-stimulus desynchronization of the sensory cortex corresponding to the modality of the anticipated stimulus, reflecting then opening of a thalamocortical gate in the relevant sensory modality. It is argued that a technique called Event-Related Desynchronization (ERD) of rhythmic 10-Hz activity is well suited to study the thalamocortical processes that are thought to mediate anticipatory attention. In a series of experiments, ERD was computed on EEG and MEG data, recorded while subjects performed a time estimation task and were informed about the quality of their time estimation by stimuli providing Knowledge of Results (KR). The modality of the KR stimuli (auditory, visual, or somatosensory) was manipulated both within and between experiments. The results indicate to varying degrees that preceding the presentation of the KR stimuli, ERD is present over the sensory cortex, which corresponds to the modality of the KR stimulus. The general pattern of results supports the notion that a thalamocortical gating mechanism forms the neurophysiological basis of anticipatory attention. Furthermore, the results support the notion that Event-Related Potential(ERP) and ERD measures reflect fundamentally different neurophysiological processes.

Abstract

We compare the use of additive particles such as aussi ('also'), encore ('again, still'), and their 'translation équivalents', in a narrative task based on a séries of piclures performed by groups of children aged 4 years, 7 years and 10 years using their first language (L1 French, German, Polish), and by adult Polish and German learners of French as a second language (L2). From the cross-sectional analysis we propose developmental patterns which show remarkable similarities for ail types of learner, but which stem from différent determining factors. For the children, the patterns can best be explained by the development of their capacity to use available items in appropriate discourse contexts; for the adults, the limitations of their linguistic répertoire at différent levels of achievement détermines the possibility of incorporating thèse items into their utterance structure. Fïnally, we discuss to what extent thèse gênerai tendencies are influenced by the specificities of the différent languages used.

Abstract

The main aim of our paper is to contribute to the outline of a general inventory of activities in psychotherapy, as a step towards a description of overall conversational organizations of diff erent therapeutic approaches. From the perspective of Conversation Analysis, we describe some activities commonly occurrring in a corpus of sessions conducted by cognitive and relational-systemic therapists. Two activities appear to be basic: (a) inquiry: therapists elicit information from patients on their problems and circumstances; (b) reworking: therapists say something designed as an elaboration of what patients have previously said, or as something that can be grounded on it; and patients are induced to confi rm/disprove and contribute to the elaboration. Furthermore, we describe other activities, which turn out to be auxiliary to the basic ones: storytelling, procedural arrangement, recalling, noticing, teaching. We fi nally show some ways in which these activities can be integrated through conversational interaction.

Abstract

Humans engage with music for various reasons that range from emotional regulation and relaxation to social bonding. While there are large inter-individual differences in how much humans enjoy music, little is known about the origins of those differences. Here, we disentangle the genetic factors underlying such variation. We collect data on several facets of music reward sensitivity, as measured by the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire, plus music perceptual abilities and general reward sensitivity from a large sample of Swedish twins (N = 9169; 2305 complete pairs). We estimate that genetic effects contribute up to 54% of the variability in music reward sensitivity, with 70% of these effects being independent of music perceptual abilities and general reward sensitivity. Furthermore, multivariate analyses show that genetic and environmental influences on the different facets of music reward sensitivity are partly distinct, uncovering distinct pathways to music enjoyment and different patterns of genetic associations with objectively assessed music perceptual abilities. These results paint a complex picture in which partially distinct sources of variation contribute to different aspects of musical enjoyment.

Abstract

In English, words like scissors are grammatically plural but conceptually singular, while words like suds are both grammatically and conceptually plural. Words like army can be construed plurally, despite being grammatically singular. To explore whether and how congruence between grammatical and conceptual number affected the production of subject-verb number agreement in English, we elicited sentence completions for complex subject noun phrases like The advertisement for the scissors. In these phrases, singular subject nouns were followed by distractor words whose grammatical and conceptual numbers varied. The incidence of plural attraction (the use of plural verbs after plural distractors) increased only when distractors were grammatically plural, and revealed no influence from the distractors' number meanings. Companion experiments in Dutch offered converging support for this account and suggested that similar agreement processes operate in that language. The findings argue for a component of agreement that is sensitive primarily to the grammatical reflections of number. Together with other results, the evidence indicates that the implementation of agreement in languages like English and Dutch involves separable processes of number marking and number morphing, in which number meaning plays different parts.

Abstract

How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package different components of moving, such as manner and path? This task supports detailed investigation of motion descriptions. The specific study goals are: (a) the coding of “via” grounds (i.e., ground objects which the figure moves along, over, around, through, past, etc.); (b) the coding of direction changes; (c) the spontaneous segmentation of complex motion scenarios; and (d) the gestural representation of motion paths. The stimulus set is 5 simple 3D animations (7-17 seconds long) that show a ball rolling through a landscape. The task is a director-matcher task for two participants. The director describes the path of the ball in each clip to the matcher, who is asked to trace the path with a pen in a 2D picture.

Abstract

Judgments we make about how similar or different events are to each other can reveal the features we find useful in classifying the world. This task is designed to investigate how speakers of different languages classify events, and to examine how linguistic and gestural encoding relates to non-linguistic classification. Specifically, the task investigates whether speakers judge two events to be similar on the basis of (a) the path versus manner of motion, (b) sub-events versus larger complex events, (c) participant identity versus event identity, and (d) different participant roles. In the task, participants are asked to make similarity judgments concerning sets of 2D animation clips.

Abstract

How do different languages treat a particular semantic domain? It has already been established that languages have widely varied words for talking about “cutting” and “breaking” things: for example, English has a very general verb break, but K’iche’ Maya has many different ‘break’ verbs that are used for different kinds of objects (e.g., brittle, flexible, long). The aim of this task is to map out cross-linguistic lexicalisation patterns in the cutting/breaking domain. The stimuli comprise 61 short video clips that show one or two actors breaking various objects (sticks, carrots, pieces of cloth or string, etc.) using various instruments (a knife, a hammer, an axe, their hands, etc.), or situations in which various kinds of objects break spontaneously. The clips are used to elicit descriptions of actors’ actions and the state changes that the objects undergo.

Abstract

In Yukatek Maya, event types are lexicalized in verb roots and stems that fall into a number of different form classes on the basis of (a) patterns of aspect-mood marking and (b) priviledges of undergoing valence-changing operations. Of particular interest are the intransitive classes in the light of Perlmutter’s (1978) Unaccusativity hypothesis. In the spirit of Levin & Rappaport Hovav (1995) [L&RH], Van Valin (1990), Zaenen (1993), and others, this paper investigates whether (and to what extent) the association between formal predicate classes and event types is determined by argument structure features such as ‘agentivity’ and ‘control’ or features of lexical aspect such as ‘telicity’ and ‘durativity’. It is shown that mismatches between agentivity/control and telicity/durativity are even more extensive in Yukatek than they are in English (Abusch 1985; L&RH, Van Valin & LaPolla 1997), providing new evidence against Dowty’s (1979) reconstruction of Vendler’s (1967) ‘time schemata of verbs’ in terms of argument structure configurations. Moreover, contrary to what has been claimed in earlier studies of Yukatek (Krämer & Wunderlich 1999, Lucy 1994), neither agentivity/control nor telicity/durativity turn out to be good predictors of verb class membership. Instead, the patterns of aspect-mood marking prove to be sensitive only to the presence or absense of state change, in a way that supports the unified analysis of all verbs of gradual change proposed by Kennedy & Levin (2001). The presence or absence of ‘internal causation’ (L&RH) may motivate the semantic interpretation of transitivization operations. An explicit semantics for the valence-changing operations is proposed, based on Parsons’s (1990) Neo-Davidsonian approach.

Abstract

Landscape terms reflect the relationship between geographic reality and human cognition. Are ‘mountains’, ‘rivers, ‘lakes’ and the like universally recognised in languages as naturally salient objects to be named? The landscape subproject is concerned with the interrelation between language, cognition and geography. Specifically, it investigates issues relating to how landforms are categorised cross-linguistically as well as the characteristics of place naming.

Abstract

Place-names (toponyms) are at the intersection of spatial language, culture, and cognition. This questionnaire prepares the researcher to answer three overarching questions: how to formally identify place-names in the research language (i.e. according to morphological and syntactic criteria); what places place-names are employed to refer to (e.g. human settlements, landscape sites); and how places are semantically construed for this purpose. The questionnaire can in principle be answered using an existing database. However, additional elicitation with language consultants is recommended.

Abstract

Alphabetic orthographies show more or less ambiguous relations between spelling and sound patterns. In transparent orthographies, like Italian, the pronunciation can be predicted from the spelling and vice versa. Opaque orthographies, like English, often display unpredictable spelling–sound correspondences. In this paper we present a computational analysis of word-initial bi-directional spelling–sound correspondences for Dutch, English, French, German, and Hungarian, stated in entropy values for various grain sizes. This allows us to position the five languages on the continuum from opaque to transparent orthographies, both in spelling-to-sound and sound-to-spelling directions. The analysis is based on metrics derived from information theory, and therefore independent of any specific theory of visual word recognition as well as of any specific theoretical approach of orthography.

Abstract

Attempts to explain children's grammatical development often assume a close initial match between units of meaning and units of form; for example, agents are said to map to sentence-subjects and actions to verbs. The meanings themselves, according to this view, are not influenced by language, but reflect children's universal non-linguistic way of understanding the world. This paper argues that, contrary to this position, meaning as it is expressed in children's early sentences is, from the beginning, organized on the basis of experience with the grammar and lexicon of a particular language. As a case in point, children learning English and Korean are shown to express meanings having to do with directed motion according to language-specific principles of semantic and grammatical structuring from the earliest stages of word combination.

Abstract

Recent years have seen a revolution in our knowledge of how children learn to think and speak. In this volume, leading scholars from these rapidly evolving fields of research examine the relationship between child language acquisition and cognitive development. At first sight, advances in the two areas seem to have moved in opposing directions: the study of language acquisition has been especially concerned with diversity, explaining how children learn languages of widely different types, while the study of cognitive development has focused on uniformity, clarifying how children build on fundamental, presumably universal concepts. This book brings these two vital strands of investigation into close dialogue, suggesting a synthesis in which the process of language acquisition may interact with early cognitive development. It provides empirical contributions based on a variety of languages, populations and ages, and theoretical discussions that cut across the disciplines of psychology, linguistics and anthropology.

Abstract

How similar are the event concepts encoded by different languages? So far, few event domains have been investigated in any detail. The PUT project extends the systematic cross-linguistic exploration of event categorisation to a new domain, that of placement events (putting things in places and removing them from places). The goal of this task is to explore cross-linguistic universality and variability in the semantic categorisation of placement events (e.g., ‘putting a cup on the table’).

Abstract

When faced with an ambiguous novel word such as ‘ranana’, how do listeners decide whether they heard a mispronunciation of a familiar target (‘banana’) or a label for an unfamiliar novel item? We examined this question by combining visual-world eye-tracking with an offline forced-choice judgment paradigm. In two studies, we show evidence that participants entertain repair and novel label interpretations of novel words that were created by editing a familiar target word in multiple phonetic features (Experiment 1) or a single phonetic feature (Experiment 2). Repair (‘ranana’ = a banana) and learning (‘ranana’ = a novel referent) were both common interpretation strategies, and learning was strongly associated with visual attention to the novel image after it was referred to in a sentence. This indicates that repair and learning are both valid strategies for understanding novel words that depend upon a set of similar mechanisms, and suggests that attention during listening is causally related to whether one learns or repairs.

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, motion is not generally encoded barebones, but 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 narratives from 14 Tzeltal adults and 21 children, looks at their development in the narratives of children between the ages of 4-12, and considers the results in relation to those from Berman and Slobin's (1996) comparative study of adult and child Frog stories.

Abstract

This is a reprint of the Brown and Levinson 2000 article.

Abstract

This task has two parts: (i) video-taped elicitation of the range of possibilities for referring to persons and places, and (ii) observations of (first) references to persons and places in video-taped natural interaction. The goal of this task is to establish the repertoires of referential terms (and other practices) used for referring to persons and to places in particular languages and cultures, and provide examples of situated use of these kinds of referential practices in natural conversation. This data will form the basis for cross-language comparison, and for formulating hypotheses about general principles underlying the deployment of such referential terms in natural language usage.

Abstract

Interaction, for all that it has an ethological base, is culturally constituted, and how new social members are enculturated into the interactional practices of the society is of critical interest to our understanding of interaction – how much is learned, how variable is it across cultures – as well as to our understanding of the role of culture in children’s social-cognitive development. The goal of this task is to document the nature of caregiver infant interaction in different cultures, especially during the critical age of 9-15 months when children come to have an understanding of others’ intentions. This is of interest to all students of interaction; it does not require specialist knowledge of children.

Abstract

The spatial vocabulary of the Mayan language Tzeltal is dominated by an Absolute system of spatial reckoning, whereby an "uphill/downhill" coordinate abstracted from the lay of the land is used to reckon spatial relationships on the horizontal in both small-scale and long distance space. This system is used in lieu of a Front/Back/Left/Right system which does not exist in this language. The spatial vocabulary dedicated to this system (which I refer to in general as the UP/DOWN vocabulary) includes intransitive motion verbs (roughly translatable as "ascend"/"descend"), their transitivized counterparts ("make it ascend/descend"), directional adverbs ("uphillwards"/"downhillwards"), and possessed relational nouns ("uphill/downhill in relation to it"). This same vocabulary applies to spatial relations on the vertical axis. Two seemingly contradictory observations about children's early meanings for the spatial verbs dedicated to this system motivate the proposal put forward in this paper. On the one hand, Tzeltal children's UP/DOWN vocabulary shows very early sensitivity to the semantic structure of the language they are learning: the meanings for these verbs are from the first usages attached to the slope of the land, and to particular places; there is no evidence of an initial preference for the vertical meaning. On the other hand, children's meanings remain for a long time too specific, and errors of interpretation/production (using the verbs to mean 'local slope of land' rather than 'overall N/S slope of land direction) are evident in verbal productions of some children as late as age 7 or 8. The proposal is made that the highly specific nature of Tzeltal verbs at the basic level influences the children's hypotheses about what kinds of meanings verbs can have.

Abstract

This is a reprint of the Brown 1999 article.

Abstract

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

Abstract

Language processing is rapidly incremental, but evidence bearing upon this assumption comes from very few languages. In this paper we report on a study of incremental processing in Murrinhpatha, a polysynthetic Australian language, which expresses complex sentence-level meanings in a single verb, the full meaning of which is not clear until the final morph. Forty native Murrinhpatha speakers participated in a visual world eyetracking experiment in which they viewed two complex scenes as they heard a verb describing one of the scenes. The scenes were selected so that the verb describing the target scene had either no overlap with a possible description of the competitor image, or overlapped from the start (onset overlap) or at the end of the verb (rhyme overlap). The results showed that, despite meaning only being clear at the end of the verb, Murrinhpatha speakers made incremental predictions that differed across conditions. The findings demonstrate that processing in polysynthetic languages is rapid and incremental, yet unlike in commonly studied languages like English, speakers make parsing predictions based on information associated with bound morphs rather than discrete words.

Abstract

Human communication is inherently multimodal. Auditory speech, but also visual cues can be used to understand another talker. Most studies of audiovisual speech perception have focused on the perception of speech segments (i.e., speech sounds). However, less is known about the influence of visual information on the perception of suprasegmental aspects of speech like lexical stress. In two experiments, we investigated the influence of different visual cues (e.g., facial articulatory cues and beat gestures) on the audiovisual perception of lexical stress. We presented auditory lexical stress continua of disyllabic Dutch stress pairs together with videos of a speaker producing stress on the first or second syllable (e.g., articulating VOORnaam or voorNAAM). Moreover, we combined and fully crossed the face of the speaker producing lexical stress on either syllable with a gesturing body producing a beat gesture on either the first or second syllable. Results showed that people successfully used visual articulatory cues to stress in muted videos. However, in audiovisual conditions, we were not able to find an effect of visual articulatory cues. In contrast, we found that the temporal alignment of beat gestures with speech robustly influenced participants' perception of lexical stress. These results highlight the importance of considering suprasegmental aspects of language in multimodal contexts.

Abstract

Rapid response to danger holds an evolutionary advantage. In this positron emission tomography study, phobics were exposed to masked visual stimuli with timings that either allowed awareness or not of either phobic, fear-relevant (e.g., spiders to snake phobics), or neutral images. When the timing did not permit awareness, the amygdala responded to both phobic and fear-relevant stimuli. With time for more elaborate processing, phobic stimuli resulted in an addition of an affective processing network to the amygdala activity, whereas no activity was found in response to fear-relevant stimuli. Also, right prefrontal areas appeared deactivated, comparing aware phobic and fear-relevant conditions. Thus, a shift from top-down control to an affectively driven system optimized for speed was observed in phobic relative to fear-relevant aware processing.

Abstract

Expressions of politeness such as 'please' are prominent elements of interactional conduct that are explicitly targeted in early socialization and are subject to cultural expectations around socially desirable behavior. Yet their specific interactional functions remain poorly understood. Using conversation analysis supplemented with systematic coding, this study investigates when and where interactants use 'please' in everyday requests. We find that 'please' is rare, occurring in only 7 percent of request attempts. Interactants use 'please' to manage face-threats when a request is ill fitted to its immediate interactional context. Within this, we identify two environments in which 'please' prototypically occurs. First, 'please' is used when the requestee has demonstrated unwillingness to comply. Second, 'please' is used when the request is intrusive due to its incompatibility with the requestee’s engagement in a competing action trajectory. Our findings advance research on politeness and extend Goffman’s theory of face-work, with particular salience for scholarship on request behavior.

Abstract

This study examines the perception of paralinguistic intonational meanings deriving from Ohala’s Frequency Code (Experiment 1) and Gussenhoven’s Effort Code (Experiment 2) in British English and Dutch. Native speakers of British English and Dutch listened to a number of stimuli in their native language and judged each stimulus on four semantic scales deriving from these two codes: SELF-CONFIDENT versus NOT SELF-CONFIDENT, FRIENDLY versus NOT FRIENDLY (Frequency Code); SURPRISED versus NOT SURPRISED, and EMPHATIC versus NOT EMPHATIC (Effort Code). The stimuli, which were lexically equivalent across the two languages, differed in pitch contour, pitch register and pitch span in Experiment 1, and in pitch register, peak height, peak alignment and end pitch in Experiment 2. Contrary to the traditional view that the paralinguistic usage of intonation is similar across languages, it was found that British English and Dutch listeners differed considerably in the perception of “confident,” “friendly,” “emphatic,” and “surprised.” The present findings support a theory of paralinguistic meaning based on the universality of biological codes, which however acknowledges a languagespecific component in the implementation of these codes.

Abstract

Two groups of listeners, with Dutch and British English as their native language judged stimuli in Dutch and British English, respectively, on the scales CONFIDENT vs. NOT CONFIDENT and FRIENDLY vs. NOT FRIENDLY, two meanings derived from Ohala's universal Frequency Code. The stimuli, which were lexically equivalent, were varied in pitch contour and pitch range. In both languages, the perceived degree of confidence decreases and that of friendliness increases when the pitch range is raised, as predicted by the Frequency Code. However, at identical pitch ranges, British English is perceived as more confident and more friendly than Dutch. We argue that this difference in degree of the use of the Frequency Code is due to the difference in the standard pitch ranges of Dutch and British English.

Abstract

We investigated how listeners of two unrelated languages, Dutch and Korean, process phonotactically legitimate and illegitimate sounds spoken in Dutch and American English. To Dutch listeners, unreleased word-final stops are phonotactically illegal because word-final stops in Dutch are generally released in isolation, but to Korean listeners, released final stops are illegal because word-final stops are never released in Korean. Two phoneme monitoring experiments showed a phonotactic effect: Dutch listeners detected released stops more rapidly than unreleased stops whereas the reverse was true for Korean listeners. Korean listeners with English stimuli detected released stops more accurately than unreleased stops, however, suggesting that acoustic-phonetic cues associated with released stops improve detection accuracy. We propose that in non-native speech perception, phonotactic legitimacy in the native language speeds up phoneme recognition, the richness of acousticphonetic cues improves listening accuracy, and familiarity with the non-native language modulates the relative influence of these two factors.

Abstract

The goal of this study is to examine how the degree of vowel-to-vowel coarticulation varies as a function of prosodic factors such as nuclear-pitch accent (accented vs. unaccented), level of prosodic boundary (Prosodic Word vs. Intermediate Phrase vs. Intonational Phrase), and position-in-prosodic-domain (initial vs. final). It is hypothesized that vowels in prosodically stronger locations (e.g., in accented syllables and at a higher prosodic boundary) are not only coarticulated less with their neighboring vowels, but they also exert a stronger influence on their neighbors. Measurements of tongue position for English /a i/ over time were obtained with Carsten’s electromagnetic articulography. Results showed that vowels in prosodically stronger locations are coarticulated less with neighboring vowels, but do not exert a stronger influence on the articulation of neighboring vowels. An examination of the relationship between coarticulation and duration revealed that (a) accent-induced coarticulatory variation cannot be attributed to a duration factor and (b) some of the data with respect to boundary effects may be accounted for by the duration factor. This suggests that to the extent that prosodically conditioned coarticulatory variation is duration-independent, there is no absolute causal relationship from duration to coarticulation. It is proposed that prosodically conditioned V-to-V coarticulatory reduction is another type of strengthening that occurs in prosodically strong locations. The prosodically driven coarticulatory patterning is taken to be part of the phonetic signatures of the hierarchically nested structure of prosody.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine if Dutch speakers reliably signal phrase-internal lexical boundaries, and if so, how. Six speakers recorded 4 pairs of phonemically identical strong-weak-strong (SWS) strings with matching syllable boundaries but mismatching intended word boundaries (e.g. reis # pastei versus reispas # tij, or more broadly C1V2(C)#C2V2(C)C3V3(C) vs. C1V2(C)C2V2(C)#C3V3(C)). An Analysis of Variance revealed 3 acoustic parameters that were significantly greater in S#WS items (C2 DURATION, RIME1 DURATION, C3 BURST AMPLITUDE) and 5 parameters that were significantly greater in the SW#S items (C2 VOT, C3 DURATION, RIME2 DURATION, RIME3 DURATION, and V2 AMPLITUDE). Additionally, center of gravity measurements suggested that the [s] to [t] coarticulation was greater in reis # pa[st]ei versus reispa[s] # [t]ij. Finally, a Logistic Regression Analysis revealed that the 3 parameters (RIME1 DURATION, RIME2 DURATION, and C3 DURATION) contributed most reliably to a S#WS versus SW#S classification.

Abstract

The fluent production of speech is a very complex human skill. It requires the coordination of several articulatory subsystems. The instructions that lead articulatory movements to execution are the result of the interplay of speech production levels that operate above the articulatory network. During the process of word-form encoding, the groundwork for the articulatory programs is prepared which then serve the articulators as basic units. This thesis investigated whether or not syllables form the basis for the articulatory programs and in particular whether or not these syllable programs are stored, separate from the store of the lexical word-forms. It is assumed that syllable units are stored in a so-called 'mental syllabary'. The main goal of this thesis was to find evidence of the syllable playing a functionally important role in speech production and for the assumption that syllables are stored units. In a variant of the implicit priming paradigm, it was investigated whether information about the syllabic structure of a target word facilitates the preparation (advanced planning) of a to-be-produced utterance. These experiments yielded evidence for the functionally important role of syllables in speech production. In a subsequent row of experiments, it could be demonstrated that the production of syllables is sensitive to frequency. Syllable frequency effects provide strong evidence for the notion of a mental syllabary because only stored units are likely to exhibit frequency effects. In a last study, effects of syllable preparation and syllable frequency were investigated in a combined study to disentangle the two effects. The results of this last experiment converged with those reported for the other experiments and added further support to the claim that syllables play a core functional role in speech production and are stored in a mental syllabary.

Abstract

Models of speech production assume that syllables play a functional role in the process of word-form encoding in speech production. In this study, we investigate this claim and specifically provide evidence about the level at which syllables come into play. We report two studies using an odd-man-out variant of the implicit priming paradigm to examine the role of the syllable during the process of word formation. Our results show that this modified version of the implicit priming paradigm can trace the emergence of syllabic structure during spoken word generation. Comparing these results to prior syllable priming studies, we conclude that syllables emerge at the interface between phonological and phonetic encoding. The results are discussed in terms of the WEAVER++ model of lexical access.

Abstract

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty with neurodevelopmental origins, manifesting as reduced accuracy and speed in reading and spelling. It is substantially heritable and frequently co-occurs with other neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, we investigate the genetic structure underlying dyslexia and a range of psychiatric traits using results from genome-wide association studies of dyslexia, ADHD, autism, anorexia nervosa, anxiety, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder,
schizophrenia, and Tourette syndrome. Genomic Structural Equation Modelling (GenomicSEM) showed heightened support for a model consisting of five correlated latent genomic factors described as: F1) compulsive disorders (including obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, Tourette syndrome), F2) psychotic disorder (including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia), F3) internalising disorders (including anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder), F4) neurodevelopmental traits (including autism, ADHD), and F5) attention and learning difficulties (including ADHD, dyslexia). ADHD loaded more strongly on the attention and learning difficulties latent factor (F5) than on the neurodevelopmental traits latent factor (F4). The attention and learning difficulties latent factor (F5) was positively correlated with internalising disorders (.40), neurodevelopmental traits (.25) and psychotic disorders (.17) latent factors, and negatively correlated with the compulsive disorders (–.16) latent factor. These factor correlations are mirrored in genetic correlations observed between the attention and learning difficulties latent factor and other cognitive, psychological and wellbeing traits. We further investigated genetic variants underlying both dyslexia and ADHD, which implicated 49 loci (40 not previously found in GWAS of the individual traits) mapping to 174 genes (121 not found in GWAS of individual traits) as potential pleiotropic variants. Our study confirms the increased genetic relation between dyslexia and ADHD versus other psychiatric traits and uncovers novel pleiotropic variants affecting both traits. In future, analyses including additional co-occurring traits such as dyscalculia and dyspraxia will allow a clearer definition of the attention and learning difficulties latent factor, yielding further insights into factor structure and pleiotropic effects.

Abstract

The authors investigate how morphological relationships between inflected word forms are represented in the mental lexicon, focusing on paradigmatic relations between regularly inflected word forms and relationships between different stem forms of the same lexeme. We present results from a series of psycholinguistic experiments investigating German adjectives (which are inflected for case, number, and gender) and the so-called strong verbs of German, which have different stem forms when inflected for person, number, tense, or mood. Evidence from three lexical-decision experiments indicates that regular affixes are stripped off from their stems for processing purposes. It will be shown that this holds for both unmarked and marked stem forms. Another set of experiments revealed priming effects between different paradigmatically related affixes and between different stem forms of the same lexeme. We will show that associative models of inflection do not capture these findings, and we explain our results in terms of combinatorial models of inflection in which regular affixes are represented in inflectional paradigms and stem variants are represented in structured lexical entries. We will also argue that the morphosyntactic features of stems and affixes form abstract underspecified entries. The experimental results indicate that the human language processor makes use of these representations.

Abstract

We report an investigation of the perception of American English phonemes by Dutch listeners proficient in English. Listeners identified either the consonant or the vowel in most possible English CV and VC syllables. The syllables were embedded in multispeaker babble at three signal-to-noise ratios (16 dB, 8 dB, and 0 dB). Effects of signal-to-noise ratio on vowel and consonant identification are discussed as a function of syllable position and of relationship to the native phoneme inventory. Comparison of the results with previously reported data from native listeners reveals that noise affected the responding of native and non-native listeners similarly.

Abstract

Studies of perception have long shown that the brain adds information to its sensory analysis of the physical environment. A touchstone example for humans is language use: to comprehend a physical signal like speech, the brain must add linguistic knowledge, including syntax. Yet, syntactic rules and representations are widely assumed to be atemporal (i.e., abstract and not bound by time), so they must be translated into time-varying signals for speech comprehension and production. Here, we test 3 different models of the temporal spell-out of syntactic structure against brain activity of people listening to Dutch stories: an integratory bottom-up parser, a predictive top-down parser, and a mildly predictive left-corner parser. These models build exactly the same structure but differ in when syntactic information is added by the brain—this difference is captured in the (temporal distribution of the) complexity metric “incremental node count.” Using temporal response function models with both acoustic and information-theoretic control predictors, node counts were regressed against source-reconstructed delta-band activity acquired with magnetoencephalography. Neural dynamics in left frontal and temporal regions most strongly reflect node counts derived by the top-down method, which postulates syntax early in time, suggesting that predictive structure building is an important component of Dutch sentence comprehension. The absence of strong effects of the left-corner model further suggests that its mildly predictive strategy does not represent Dutch language comprehension well, in contrast to what has been found for English. Understanding when the brain projects its knowledge of syntax onto speech, and whether this is done in language-specific ways, will inform and constrain the development of mechanistic models of syntactic structure building in the brain.

Abstract

Language-specific differences in the size and distribution of the phonemic repertoire can have implications for the task facing listeners in recognising spoken words. A language with more phonemes will allow shorter words and reduced embedding of short words within longer ones, decreasing the potential for spurious lexical competitors to be activated by speech signals. We demonstrate that this is the case via comparative analyses of the vocabularies of English and Spanish. A language which uses suprasegmental as well as segmental contrasts, however, can substantially reduce the extent of spurious embedding.

Abstract

Native American English and non-native(Dutch)listeners identified either the consonant or the vowel in all possible American English CV and VC syllables. The syllables were embedded in multispeaker babble at three signal-to-noise ratios(0, 8, and 16 dB). The phoneme identification
performance of the non-native listeners was less accurate than that of the native listeners. All listeners were adversely affected by noise. With these isolated syllables, initial segments were harder to identify than final segments. Crucially, the effects of language background and noise did not interact; the performance asymmetry between the native and non-native groups was not significantly different across signal-to-noise ratios. It is concluded that the frequently reported disproportionate difficulty of non-native listening under disadvantageous conditions is not due to a disproportionate increase in phoneme misidentifications.

Abstract

The retiring academic may look back upon, inter alia, years of conference attendance. Speech error researchers are uniquely fortunate because they can collect data in any situation involving communication; accordingly, the retiring speech error researcher will have collected data at those conferences. We here address the issue of whether error data collected in situations involving conviviality (such as at conferences) is representative of error data in general. Our approach involved a comparison, across three levels of linguistic processing, between a specially constructed Conviviality Sample and the largest existing source of speech error data, the newly available Fromkin Speech Error Database. The results indicate that there are grounds for regarding the data in the Conviviality Sample as a better than average reflection of the true population of all errors committed. These findings encourage us to recommend further data collection in collaboration with like-minded colleagues.

Abstract

Four experiments examined Dutch listeners’ use of suprasegmental information in spoken-word recognition. Isolated syllables excised from minimal stress pairs such as VOORnaam/voorNAAM could be reliably assigned to their source words. In lexical decision, no priming was observed from one member of minimal stress pairs to the other, suggesting that the pairs’ segmental ambiguity was removed by suprasegmental information.Words embedded in nonsense strings were harder to detect if the nonsense string itself formed the beginning of a competing word, but a suprasegmental mismatch to the competing word significantly reduced this inhibition. The same nonsense strings facilitated recognition of the longer words of which they constituted the beginning, butagain the facilitation was significantly reduced by suprasegmental mismatch. Together these results indicate that Dutch listeners effectively exploit suprasegmental cues in recognizing spoken words. Nonetheless, suprasegmental mismatch appears to be somewhat less effective in constraining activation than segmental mismatch.

Abstract

The authors used 2 “visual-world” eye-tracking experiments to examine lexical access using Dutch constructions in which the verb did or did not place semantic constraints on its subsequent subject noun phrase. In Experiment 1, fixations to the picture of a cohort competitor (overlapping with the onset of the referent’s name, the subject) did not differ from fixations to a distractor in the constraining-verb condition. In Experiment 2, cross-splicing introduced phonetic information that temporarily biased the input toward the cohort competitor. Fixations to the cohort competitor temporarily increased in both the neutral and constraining conditions. These results favor models in which mapping from the input onto meaning is continuous over models in which contextual effects follow access of an initial form-based competitor set.

Abstract

Two experiments investigated whether lexical retrieval for speaking can be characterized as a competitive process by assessing the effects of semantic context on picture and word naming in German. In Experiment 1 we demonstrated that pictures are named slower in the context of same-category items than in the context of items from various semantic categories, replicating findings by Kroll and Stewart (Journal of Memory and Language, 33 (1994) 149). In Experiment 2 we used words instead of pictures. Participants either named the words in the context of same- or different-category items, or produced the words together with their corresponding determiner. While in the former condition words were named faster in the context of samecategory items than of different-category items, the opposite pattern was obtained for the latter condition. These findings confirm the claim that the interfering effect of semantic context reflects competition in the retrieval of lexical entries in speaking.

Abstract

A syntactic and a semantic task were per-formed by German-speaking healthy subjects and apha-sics with lesions in the dominant left hemisphere. In both
tasks, pictures of objects were presented that had to be classified by pressing buttons. The classification was into grammatical gender in the syntactic task (masculine or feminine gender?) and into semantic category in the se-
mantic task (man- or nature made?). Behavioral data revealed a significant Group by Task interaction, with
aphasics showing most pronounced problems with syn-
tax. Brain event-related potentials 300–600 ms following picture onset showed different task-dependent laterality
patterns in the two groups. In controls, the syntax task
induced a left-lateralized negative ERP, whereas the semantic task produced more symmetric responses over the hemispheres. The opposite was the case in the patients, where, paradoxically, stronger laterality of physio-logical brain responses emerged in the semantic task than in the syntactic task. We interpret these data based on neuro-psycholinguistic models of word processing and current theories about the roles of the hemispheres in language recovery.

Abstract

A long-standing question in language development concerns the nature of the relationship between early lexical and grammatical knowledge. The very strong correlation between the two has led some to argue that lexical and grammatical knowledge may be inseparable, consistent with psycholinguistic theories that eschew a distinction between the two systems. However, little research has explicitly examined whether early lexical and grammatical knowledge are statistically separable. Moreover, there are two under-appreciated methodological challenges in such research. First, the relationship between lexical and grammatical knowledge may change during development. Second, non-linear mappings between true and observed scores on scales of lexical and grammatical knowledge could lead to spurious multidimensionality. In the present study, we overcome these challenges by using vocabulary and grammar data from several developmental time points and a statistical method robust to such non-linear mappings. In Study 1, we examined item-level vocabulary and grammar data from two American English samples from a large online repository of data from studies employing a commonly used language development scale. We found clear evidence that vocabulary and grammar were separable by two years of age. In Study 2, we combined data from two longitudinal studies of language acquisition that used the same scale (at 18/19, 21, 24 and 30 months) and found evidence that vocabulary and grammar were, under some conditions, separable by 18 months. Results indicate that, while there is clearly a very strong relationship between vocabulary and grammar knowledge in early language development, the two are separable. Implications for the mechanisms underlying language development are discussed.

Abstract

The cortical regions of the brain traditionally associated with the comprehension of language are Wernicke's area and Broca's area. However, recent evidence suggests that other brain regions might also be involved in this complex process. This paper describes the opportunity to evaluate a large number of brain-injured patients to determine which lesioned brain areas might affect language comprehension. Sixty-four chronic left hemisphere stroke patients were evaluated on 11 subtests of the Curtiss–Yamada Comprehensive Language Evaluation – Receptive (CYCLE-R; Curtiss, S., & Yamada, J. (1988). Curtiss–Yamada Comprehensive Language Evaluation. Unpublished test, UCLA). Eight right hemisphere stroke patients and 15 neurologically normal older controls also participated. Patients were required to select a single line drawing from an array of three or four choices that best depicted the content of an auditorily-presented sentence. Patients' lesions obtained from structural neuroimaging were reconstructed onto templates and entered into a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM; Bates, E., Wilson, S., Saygin, A. P., Dick, F., Sereno, M., Knight, R. T., & Dronkers, N. F. (2003). Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. Nature Neuroscience, 6(5), 448–450.) analysis along with the behavioral data. VLSM is a brain–behavior mapping technique that evaluates the relationships between areas of injury and behavioral performance in all patients on a voxel-by-voxel basis, similar to the analysis of functional neuroimaging data. Results indicated that lesions to five left hemisphere brain regions affected performance on the CYCLE-R, including the posterior middle temporal gyrus and underlying white matter, the anterior superior temporal gyrus, the superior temporal sulcus and angular gyrus, mid-frontal cortex in Brodmann's area 46, and Brodmann's area 47 of the inferior frontal gyrus. Lesions to Broca's and Wernicke's areas were not found to significantly alter language comprehension on this particular measure. Further analysis suggested that the middle temporal gyrus may be more important for comprehension at the word level, while the other regions may play a greater role at the level of the sentence. These results are consistent with those seen in recent functional neuroimaging studies and offer complementary data in the effort to understand the brain areas underlying language comprehension.

Abstract

Die Awetí sind ein kleiner Indianerstamm in Zentralbrasilien, der bislang nur wenig Kontakt mit Weißen hatte. Im Zuge eines Programms der Volkswagenstiftung zur Dokumentation bedrohter Sprachen wird unser Autor die Awetí erneut besuchen und berichtet als „jüngerer Bruder des Häuptlings“ über seine Bemühungen, die Sprache der Awetí für künftige Generationen festzuhalten.

Abstract

This study provides an answer to the question of how dictionaries should be read. For this purpose, articles taken from an outline for a Guaraní-German dictionary geared to established lexicographic practice are provided with standardized interpretations. Each article is systematically assigned a formal sentence making its meaning explicit both for content words (including polysemes) and functional words or affixes. Integrative Linguistics proves its theoretical and practical value both for the description of Guaraní (indigenous Indian language spoken in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil) and in metalexicographic terms.

Abstract

This chapter introduces the origins and development of our current anatomical terminology. It scrutinizes the historical evolution and etymological significance of the over 1900 official anatomical terms in the current nomenclature, underscoring their impact on the contemporary comprehension of cognitive neuroanatomy. The chapter traces unification efforts from the Basel Nomina Anatomica in 1895 to the 1998 Terminologia Anatomica, noting challenges arising from outdated terminology in light of recent anatomical advancements.

Highlighting the influence of terminologies on interpretations of brain anatomy, the chapter explores several anatomical mapping methods such as surface, sectional, connectional, and functional anatomy. It illuminates discrepancies and controversies, exemplified by divergent interpretations of the number of brain lobes and the definitions of 'Broca' and 'Wernicke' areas.

The chapter explores anatomical terms' historical and cultural underpinnings, encompassing mythonyms, eponyms, and cultural influences on nomenclature. It critically examines the implications of these terminologies on contemporary research and shows that Large Language Models mirror these discrepancies. It underscores the need for more inclusive and culturally sensitive approaches in anatomical education.

Lastly, we advocate for updating anatomical nomenclature, suggesting that a deeper understanding of these terminologies could provide insights and aid in resolving ongoing debates in the field. This examination sheds light on historical knowledge and emphasizes the dynamic interplay between language, culture, and anatomy in shaping our comprehension of the neurobiology of the brain and how we navigate neuroanatomy in the 21st century.

Abstract

The human brain is an intricate network of cortical regions interconnected by white matter pathways, dynamically supporting cognitive functions. While cortical asymmetries have been consistently reported, the asymmetry of white matter connections remains less explored. This chapter provides a brief overview of asymmetries observed at the cortical, subcortical, cytoarchitectural, and receptor levels before exploring the detailed connectional anatomy of the human brain. It thoroughly examines the lateralization and interindividual variability of 56 distinct white matter tracts, offering a comprehensive review of their structural characteristics and interindividual variability. Additionally, we provide an extensive update on the asymmetry of a wide range of white matter tracts using high-resolution data from the Human Connectome Project (7T HCP www.humanconnectome.org). Future research and advanced quantitative analyses are crucial to understanding fully how asymmetry contributes to interindividual variability. This comprehensive exploration enhances our understanding of white matter organization and its potential implications for brain function.

Abstract

The Pioneers project seeks to uncover relationships between the Papuan languages of Island Melanesia. One basic way to uncover linguistic relationships, either contact or genetic, is through lexical comparison. We have seen very few shared words between our Papuan languages and any other languages, either Oceanic or Papuan, but most of the words which are shared are shared because they are commonly borrowed from Oceanic languages. This task is aimed at enabling fieldworkers to collect terms for inland bird and tree species. In the past it is has proved very difficult for non-experts to identify plant and bird species, so the task consists of a booklet of colour pictures of some of the more common species, with information on the range and habits of each species, as well as some information on their cultural uses, which should enable better identification. It is intended that fieldworkers will show this book to consultants and use it as an elicitation aid.