@misc{SekerinaSauermann2015, author = {Sekerina, Irina A. and Sauermann, Antje}, title = {Visual attention and quantifier-spreading in heritage Russian bilinguals}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {404}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-404870}, pages = {30}, year = {2015}, abstract = {It is well established in language acquisition research that monolingual children and adult second language learners misinterpret sentences with the universal quantifier every and make quantifier-spreading errors that are attributed to a preference for a match in number between two sets of objects. The present Visual World eye-tracking study tested bilingual heritage Russian-English adults and investigated how they interpret of sentences like Every alligator lies in a bathtub in both languages. Participants performed a sentence-picture verification task while their eye movements were recorded. Pictures showed three pairs of alligators in bathtubs and two extra objects: elephants (Control condition), bathtubs (Overexhaustive condition), or alligators (Underexhaustive condition). Monolingual adults performed at ceiling in all conditions. Heritage language (HL) adults made 20\% q-spreading errors, but only in the Overexhaustive condition, and when they made an error they spent more time looking at the two extra bathtubs during the Verb region. We attribute q-spreading in HL speakers to cognitive overload caused by the necessity to integrate conflicting sources of information, i.e. the spoken sentences in their weaker, heritage, language and attention-demanding visual context, that differed with respect to referential salience.}, language = {en} } @article{SekerinaSauermann2015, author = {Sekerina, Irina A. and Sauermann, Antje}, title = {Visual attention and quantifier-spreading in heritage Russian bilinguals}, series = {Second language research}, volume = {31}, journal = {Second language research}, number = {1}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {London}, issn = {0267-6583}, doi = {10.1177/0267658314537292}, pages = {75 -- 104}, year = {2015}, abstract = {It is well established in language acquisition research that monolingual children and adult second language learners misinterpret sentences with the universal quantifier every and make quantifier-spreading errors that are attributed to a preference for a match in number between two sets of objects. The present Visual World eye-tracking study tested bilingual heritage Russian-English adults and investigated how they interpret of sentences like Every alligator lies in a bathtub in both languages. Participants performed a sentence-picture verification task while their eye movements were recorded. Pictures showed three pairs of alligators in bathtubs and two extra objects: elephants (Control condition), bathtubs (Overexhaustive condition), or alligators (Underexhaustive condition). Monolingual adults performed at ceiling in all conditions. Heritage language (HL) adults made 20\% q-spreading errors, but only in the Overexhaustive condition, and when they made an error they spent more time looking at the two extra bathtubs during the Verb region. We attribute q-spreading in HL speakers to cognitive overload caused by the necessity to integrate conflicting sources of information, i.e. the spoken sentences in their weaker, heritage, language and attention-demanding visual context, that differed with respect to referential salience.}, language = {en} } @article{Miklashevsky2017, author = {Miklashevsky, Alex A.}, title = {Perceptual experience norms for 506 Russian nouns}, series = {Journal of Psycholinguistic Research}, volume = {47}, journal = {Journal of Psycholinguistic Research}, number = {3}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {0090-6905}, doi = {10.1007/s10936-017-9548-1}, pages = {641 -- 661}, year = {2017}, abstract = {A number of new psycholinguistic variables has been proposed during the last years within embodied cognition framework: modality experience rating (i.e., relationship between words and images of a particular perceptive modality-visual, auditory, haptic etc.), manipulability (the necessity for an object to interact with human hands in order to perform its function), vertical spatial localization. However, it is not clear how these new variables are related to each other and to such traditional variables as imageability, AoA and word frequency. In this article, normative data on the modality (visual, auditory, haptic, olfactory, and gustatory) ratings, vertical spatial localization of the object, manipulability, imageability, age of acquisition, and subjective frequency for 506 Russian nouns are presented. Strongest correlations were observed between olfactory and gustatory modalities (.81), visual modality and imageability (.78), haptic modality and manipulability (.7). Other modalities also significantly correlate with imageability: olfactory (.35), gustatory (.24), and haptic (.67). Factor analysis divided variables into four groups where visual and haptic modality ratings were combined with imageability, manipulability and AoA (the first factor); word length, frequency and AoA formed the second factor; olfactory modality was united with gustatory (the third factor); spatial localization only is included in the fourth factor. Present norms of imageability and AoA are consistent with previous as correlation analysis has revealed. The complete database can be downloaded from supplementary material.}, language = {en} } @article{LaurinavichyuteJagerAkininaetal.2017, author = {Laurinavichyute, Anna and Jager, Lena Ann and Akinina, Yulia and Roß, Jennifer and Dragoy, Olga V.}, title = {Retrieval and Encoding Interference: Cross-Linguistic Evidence from Anaphor Processing}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {8}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00965}, pages = {18}, year = {2017}, language = {en} } @article{LagoHuvelleFelser2018, author = {Lago Huvelle, Maria Sol and Felser, Claudia}, title = {Agreement attraction in native and nonnative speakers of German}, series = {Applied psycholinguistics : psychological and linguistic studies across languages and learners}, volume = {39}, journal = {Applied psycholinguistics : psychological and linguistic studies across languages and learners}, number = {3}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {0142-7164}, doi = {10.1017/S0142716417000601}, pages = {619 -- 647}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Second language speakers often struggle to apply grammatical constraints such as subject-verb agreement. One hypothesis for this difficulty is that it results from problems suppressing syntactically unlicensed constituents in working memory. We investigated which properties of these constituents make them more likely to elicit errors: their grammatical distance to the subject head or their linear distance to the verb. We used double modifier constructions (e.g., the smell of the stables of the farmers), where the errors of native speakers are modulated by the linguistic relationships between the nouns in the subject phrase: second plural nouns, which are syntactically and semantically closer to the subject head, elicit more errors than third plural nouns, which are linearly closer to the verb (2nd-3rd-noun asymmetry). In order to dissociate between grammatical and linear distance, we compared embedded and coordinated modifiers, which were linearly identical but differed in grammatical distance. Using an attraction paradigm, we showed that German native speakers and proficient Russian speakers of German exhibited similar attraction rates and that their errors displayed a 2nd-3rd-noun asymmetry, which was more pronounced in embedded than in coordinated constructions. We suggest that both native and second language learners prioritize linguistic structure over linear distance in their agreement computations.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Elin2018, author = {Elin, Kirill}, title = {Morphological processing in older adults}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-418605}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {217}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Over the last decades mechanisms of recognition of morphologically complex words have been extensively examined in order to determine whether all word forms are stored and retrieved from the mental lexicon as wholes or whether they are decomposed into their morphological constituents such as stems and affixes. Most of the research in this domain focusses on English. Several factors have been argued to affect morphological processing including, for instance, morphological structure of a word (e.g., existence of allomorphic stem alternations) and its linguistic nature (e.g., whether it is a derived word or an inflected word form). It is not clear, however, whether processing accounts based on experimental evidence from English would hold for other languages. Furthermore, there is evidence that processing mechanisms may differ across various populations including children, adult native speakers and language learners. Recent studies claim that processing mechanisms could also differ between older and younger adults (Clahsen \& Reifegerste, 2017; Reifegerste, Meyer, \& Zwitserlood, 2017). The present thesis examined how properties of the morphological structure, types of linguistic operations involved (i.e., the linguistic contrast between inflection and derivation) and characteristics of the particular population such as older adults (e.g., potential effects of ageing as a result of the cognitive decline or greater experience and exposure of older adults) affect initial, supposedly automatic stages of morphological processing in Russian and German. To this end, a series of masked priming experiments was conducted. In experiments on Russian, the processing of derived -ost' nouns (e.g., glupost' 'stupidity') and of inflected forms with and without allomorphic stem alternations in 1P.Sg.Pr. (e.g., igraju - igrat' 'to play' vs. košu - kosit' 'to mow') was examined. The first experiment on German examined and directly compared processing of derived -ung nouns (e.g., Gr{\"u}ndung 'foundation') and inflected -t past participles (e.g., gegr{\"u}ndet 'founded'), whereas the second one investigated the processing of regular and irregular plural forms (-s forms such as Autos 'cars' and -er forms such as Kinder 'children', respectively). The experiments on both languages have shown robust and comparable facilitation effects for derived words and regularly inflected forms without stem changes (-t participles in German, forms of -aj verbs in Russian). Observed morphological priming effects could be clearly distinguished from purely semantic or orthographic relatedness between words. At the same time, we found a contrast between forms with and without allomorphic stem alternations in Russian and regular and irregular forms in German, with significantly more priming for unmarked stems (relative to alternated ones) and significantly more priming for regular (compared) word forms. These findings indicate the relevance of morphological properties of a word for initial stages of processing, contrary to claims made in the literature holding that priming effects are determined by surface form and meaning overlap only. Instead, our findings are more consistent with approaches positing a contrast between combinatorial, rule-based and lexically-stored forms (Clahsen, Sonnenstuhl, \& Blevins, 2003). The doctoral dissertation also addressed the role of ageing and age-related cognitive changes on morphological processing. The results obtained on this research issue are twofold. On the one hand, the data demonstrate effects of ageing on general measures of language performance, i.e., overall longer reaction times and/or higher accuracy rates in older than younger individuals. These findings replicate results from previous studies, which have been linked to the general slowing of processing speed at older age and to the larger vocabularies of older adults. One the other hand, we found that more specific aspects of language processing appear to be largely intact in older adults as revealed by largely similar morphological priming effects for older and younger adults. These latter results indicate that initial stages of morphological processing investigated here by means of the masked priming paradigm persist in older age. One caveat should, however, be noted. Achieving the same performance as a younger individual in a behavioral task may not necessarily mean that the same neural processes are involved. Older people may have to recruit a wider brain network than younger individuals, for example. To address this and related possibilities, future studies should examine older people's neural representations and mechanisms involved in morphological processing.}, language = {en} } @article{LaurinavichyuteSekerinaAlexeevaetal.2019, author = {Laurinavichyute, Anna and Sekerina, Irina A. and Alexeeva, Svetlana and Bagdasaryan, Kristine and Kliegl, Reinhold}, title = {Russian Sentence Corpus: Benchmark measures of eye movements in reading in Russian}, series = {Behavior research methods : a journal of the Psychonomic Society}, volume = {51}, journal = {Behavior research methods : a journal of the Psychonomic Society}, number = {3}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {1554-351X}, doi = {10.3758/s13428-018-1051-6}, pages = {1161 -- 1178}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This article introduces a new corpus of eye movements in silent readingthe Russian Sentence Corpus (RSC). Russian uses the Cyrillic script, which has not yet been investigated in cross-linguistic eye movement research. As in every language studied so far, we confirmed the expected effects of low-level parameters, such as word length, frequency, and predictability, on the eye movements of skilled Russian readers. These findings allow us to add Slavic languages using Cyrillic script (exemplified by Russian) to the growing number of languages with different orthographies, ranging from the Roman-based European languages to logographic Asian ones, whose basic eye movement benchmarks conform to the universal comparative science of reading (Share, 2008). We additionally report basic descriptive corpus statistics and three exploratory investigations of the effects of Russian morphology on the basic eye movement measures, which illustrate the kinds of questions that researchers can answer using the RSC. The annotated corpus is freely available from its project page at the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/x5q2r/.}, language = {en} } @article{ParshinaLaurinavichyuteSekerina2021, author = {Parshina, Olga and Laurinavichyute, Anna and Sekerina, Irina A.}, title = {Eye-movement benchmarks in heritage language reading}, series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition}, volume = {24}, journal = {Bilingualism : language and cognition}, number = {1}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {1366-7289}, doi = {10.1017/S136672892000019X}, pages = {69 -- 82}, year = {2021}, abstract = {This eye-tracking study establishes basic benchmarks of eye movements during reading in heritage language (HL) by Russian-speaking adults and adolescents of high (n = 21) and low proficiency (n = 27). Heritage speakers (HSs) read sentences in Cyrillic, and their eye movements were compared to those of Russian monolingual skilled adult readers, 8-year-old children and L2 learners. Reading patterns of HSs revealed longer mean fixation durations, lower skipping probabilities, and higher regressive saccade rates than in monolingual adults. High-proficient HSs were more similar to monolingual children, while low-proficient HSs performed on par with L2 learners. Low-proficient HSs differed from high-proficient HSs in exhibiting lower skipping probabilities, higher fixation counts, and larger frequency effects. Taken together, our findings are consistent with the weaker links account of bilingual language processing as well as the divergent attainment theory of HL.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Shipova2024, author = {Shipova, Evgeniya}, title = {Formal analysis of {\`e}to-clefts in Russian: syntax and semantics}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-63014}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-630149}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {219}, year = {2024}, abstract = {{\`E}to-clefts are Russian focus constructions with the demonstrative pronoun {\`e}to 'this' at the beginning: "{\`E}to Mark vyigral gonku" ("It was Mark who won the race"). They are often being compared with English it-clefts, German es-clefts, as well as the corresponding focus-background structures in other languages. In terms of semantics, {\`e}to-clefts have two important properties which are cross-linguistically typical for clefts: existence presupposition ("Someone won the race") and exhaustivity ("Nobody except Mark won the race"). However, the exhaustivity effects are not as strong as exhaustivity effects in structures with the exclusive only and require more research. At the same time, the question if the syntactic structure of {\`e}to-clefts matches the biclausal structure of English and German clefts, remains open. There are arguments in favor of biclausality, as well as monoclausality. Besides, there is no consistency regarding the status of {\`e}to itself. Finally, the information structure of {\`e}to-clefts has remained underexplored in the existing literature. This research investigates the information-structural, syntactic, and semantic properties of Russian clefts, both theoretically (supported by examples from Russian text corpora and judgments from native speakers) and experimentally. It is determined which desired changes in the information structure motivate native speakers to choose an {\`e}to-cleft and not the canonical structure or other focus realization tools. Novel syntactic tests are conducted to find evidence for bi-/monoclausality of {\`e}to-clefts, as well as for base-generation or movement of the cleft pivot. It is hypothesized that {\`e}to has a certain important function in clefts, and its status is investigated. Finally, new experiments on the nature of exhaustivity in {\`e}to-clefts are conducted. They allow for direct cross-linguistic comparison, using an incremental-information paradigm with truth-value judgments. In terms of information structure, this research makes a new proposal that presents {\`e}to-clefts as structures with an inherent focus-background bipartitioning. Even though {\`e}to-clefts are used in typical focus contexts, evidence was found that {\`e}to-clefts (as well as Russian thetic clefts) allow for both new information focus and contrastive focus. {\`E}to-clefts are pragmatically acceptable when a singleton answer to the implied question is expected (e.g. "It was Mark who won the race" but not "It was Mark who came to the party"). Importantly, {\`e}to in Russian clefts is neither dummy, nor redundant, but is a topic expression; conveys familiarity which triggers existence presupposition; refers to an instantiated event, or a known/perceivable situation; finally, {\`e}to plays an important role in the spoken language as a tool for speech coherency and a focus marker. In terms of syntax, this research makes a new monoclausal proposal and shows evidence that the cleft pivot undergoes movement to the left peripheral position. {\`E}to is proposed to be TopP. Finally, in terms of semantics, a novel cross-linguistic evaluation of Russian clefts is made. Experiments show that the exhaustivity inference in {\`e}to-clefts is not robust. Participants used different strategies in resolving exhaustivity, falling into 2 groups: one group considered {\`e}to-clefts exhaustive, while another group considered them non-exhaustive. Hence, there is evidence for the pragmatic nature of exhaustivity in {\`e}to-clefts. The experimental results for {\`e}to-clefts are similar to the experimental results for clefts in German, French and Akan. It is concluded that speakers use different tools available in their languages to produce structures with similar interpretive properties.}, language = {en} }