@misc{AbboubBollAvetisyanBhataraetal.2016, author = {Abboub, Nawal and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Bhatara, Anjali and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Nazzi, Thierry}, title = {An exploration of rhythmic grouping of speech sequences by french- and german-learning infants}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {427}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407201}, pages = {12}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Rhythm in music and speech can be characterized by a constellation of several acoustic cues. Individually, these cues have different effects on rhythmic perception: sequences of sounds alternating in duration are perceived as short-long pairs (weak-strong/iambicpattern), whereas sequences of sounds alternating in intensity or pitch are perceived as loud-soft, or high-low pairs (strong-weak/trochaic pattern). This perceptual bias-called the lambic-Trochaic Law (ITL) has been claimed to be an universal property of the auditory system applying in both the music and the language domains. Recent studies have shown that language experience can modulate the effects of the ITL on rhythmic perception of both speech and non-speech sequences in adults, and of non-speech sequences in 7.5-month-old infants. The goal of the present study was to explore whether language experience also modulates infants' grouping of speech. To do so, we presented sequences of syllables to monolingual French- and German-learning 7.5-month-olds. Using the Headturn Preference Procedure (HPP), we examined whether they were able to perceive a rhythmic structure in sequences of syllables that alternated in duration, pitch, or intensity. Our findings show that both French- and German-learning infants perceived a rhythmic structure when it was cued by duration or pitch but not intensity. Our findings also show differences in how these infants use duration and pitch cues to group syllable sequences, suggesting that pitch cues were the easier ones to use. Moreover, performance did not differ across languages, failing to reveal early language effects on rhythmic perception. These results contribute to our understanding of the origin of rhythmic perception and perceptual mechanisms shared across music and speech, which may bootstrap language acquisition.}, language = {en} } @misc{Adak2016, author = {Adak, H{\"u}lya}, title = {Teaching the Armenian Genocide in Turkey: Curriculum, Methods, and Sources}, series = {PMLA : Publications of the Modern Language Association}, volume = {131}, journal = {PMLA : Publications of the Modern Language Association}, publisher = {Modern Language Association of America}, address = {New York}, issn = {0030-8129}, pages = {1515 -- 1518}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @misc{AdeltHanneStadie2016, author = {Adelt, Anne and Hanne, Sandra and Stadie, Nicole}, title = {Treatment of sentence comprehension and production in aphasia}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-96365}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Exploring generalisation following treatment of language deficits in aphasia can provide insights into the functional relation of the cognitive processing systems involved. In the present study, we first review treatment outcomes of interventions targeting sentence processing deficits and, second report a treatment study examining the occurrence of practice effects and generalisation in sentence comprehension and production. In order to explore the potential linkage between processing systems involved in comprehending and producing sentences, we investigated whether improvements generalise within (i.e., uni-modal generalisation in comprehension or in production) and/or across modalities (i.e., cross-modal generalisation from comprehension to production or vice versa). Two individuals with aphasia displaying co-occurring deficits in sentence comprehension and production were trained on complex, non-canonical sentences in both modalities. Two evidence-based treatment protocols were applied in a crossover intervention study with sequence of treatment phases being randomly allocated. Both participants benefited significantly from treatment, leading to uni-modal generalisation in both comprehension and production. However, cross-modal generalisation did not occur. The magnitude of uni-modal generalisation in sentence production was related to participants' sentence comprehension performance prior to treatment. These findings support the assumption of modality-specific sub-systems for sentence comprehension and production, being linked uni-directionally from comprehension to production.}, language = {en} } @article{ArsenijevicMitic2016, author = {Arsenijevic, Boban and Mitic, Ivana}, title = {On the Number-Gender (In)dependence in Agreement with Coordinated Subjects}, series = {Journal of Slavic linguistics : journal of the Slavic Linguistics Society}, volume = {24}, journal = {Journal of Slavic linguistics : journal of the Slavic Linguistics Society}, publisher = {Slavica Publishers}, address = {Bloomington}, issn = {1068-2090}, doi = {10.1353/jsl.2016.0006}, pages = {41 -- 69}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This paper examines the availability of single-conjunct agreement in number and gender in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. Reported are the results of an experiment in which coordinated singulars are included, as well as disjunction and negative-concord conjunction, next to the typically examined conjoined plurals. The research shows that, contra the general assumptions in the literature (Marusic, Nevins, and Saksida 2007, Marusic, Nevins, and Badecker 2015, Boskovic 2009) but in line with earlier research (Moskovljevic 1983, Bojovic 2003), single-conjunct agreement does occur with coordinated singulars, especially in gender, even if less frequently. This paper shows that (i) first-conjunct agreement in gender preverbally and even last-conjunct agreement postverbally are produced above error level, and that the availability of collective interpretations for the coordinated subject influences the acceptability of the different agreement patterns available, and (ii) number and gender agreement do not have to target the same constituent. The findings shed light on the relation between the features of number and gender with regard to the issues of their bundling and simultaneous agreement, where the experimental results suggest that, while number tends to agree in a pattern that fits either semantic agreement or agreement with the entire conjunction, gender prefers to target single members of coordination, the first or the last. We speculate that a degree of "attraction" obtains, whereby number may attract gender to agree with the entire conjunction or gender may attract number to agree with a single conjunct. The results are used to compare two analyses offered in the literature-Marusic, Nevins, and Saksida 2007/Marusic, Nevins, and Badecker 2015 and Boskovic 2009-showing that our empirical findings are problematic for both, but give a certain advantage to Marusic and his co-authors.}, language = {en} } @article{ArslanBamyaciBastiaanse2016, author = {Arslan, Se{\c{c}}kin and Bamyaci, Elif and Bastiaanse, Roelien}, title = {A characterization of verb use in Turkish agrammatic narrative speech}, series = {Philosophische Rundschau}, volume = {30}, journal = {Philosophische Rundschau}, publisher = {J. C. B. Mohr}, address = {Philadelphia}, issn = {0269-9206}, doi = {10.3109/02699206.2016.1144224}, pages = {449 -- 469}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This study investigates the characteristics of narrative-speech production and the use of verbs in Turkish agrammatic speakers (n = 10) compared to non-brain-damaged controls (n = 10). To elicit narrative-speech samples, personal interviews and storytelling tasks were conducted. Turkish has a large and regular verb inflection paradigm where verbs are inflected for evidentiality (i.e. direct versus indirect evidence available to the speaker). Particularly, we explored the general characteristics of the speech samples (e.g. utterance length) and the uses of lexical, finite and non-finite verbs and direct and indirect evidentials. The results show that speech rate is slow, verbs per utterance are lower than normal and the verb diversity is reduced in the agrammatic speakers. Verb inflection is relatively intact; however, a trade-off pattern between inflection for direct evidentials and verb diversity is found. The implications of the data are discussed in connection with narrative-speech production studies on other languages.}, language = {en} } @misc{BacskaiAtkari2016, author = {Bacskai-Atkari, Julia}, title = {Descriptive typology and linguistic theory: A study in the morphosyntax of relative clauses}, series = {Acta linguistica Hungarica : an international journal of linguistics}, volume = {63}, journal = {Acta linguistica Hungarica : an international journal of linguistics}, publisher = {Akad{\~A}©miai Kiad{\~A}³}, address = {Budapest}, issn = {1216-8076}, pages = {97 -- 112}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @book{BarthWeingarten2016, author = {Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar}, title = {Intonation Units Revisited}, series = {Studies in Language and Social Interaction ; 29}, journal = {Studies in Language and Social Interaction ; 29}, publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Company}, address = {Amsterdam}, isbn = {978-90-272-6690-3}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {318}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Intonation units have been notoriously difficult to identify in natural talk. Problems include fuzzy boundaries, lack of exhaustivity, and the potential circularity involved when studying their interface with other language-organizational dimensions. This volume advocates a way to resolve such problems: the cesura approach. Cesuras, or breaks in the flow of talk, are created by discontinuities in the prosodic-phonetic parameters of speech that cluster to various extents at certain points in time. Using conversation-analytic and interactional-linguistic methodology, the volume identifies the parameters creating cesuras in talk-in-interaction and proposes ways to notate them depending on the researcher s goal. It also offers a way to study the role of cesuras at the prosody-syntax interface non-circularly, which leads to new insights concerning language variation and change. The volume will thus be of major import to anyone working with natural spoken language, its chunks, its various dimensions, and its variation and change."}, language = {en} } @article{BhataraBollAvetisyanAgusetal.2016, author = {Bhatara, Anjali and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Agus, Trevor and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Nazzi, Thierry}, title = {Language Experience Affects Grouping of Musical Instrument Sounds}, series = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, volume = {40}, journal = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0364-0213}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.12300}, pages = {1816 -- 1830}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @misc{BollAvetisyanBhataraUngeretal.2016, author = {Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Bhatara, Anjali and Unger, Annika and Nazzi, Thierry and H{\"o}hle, Barbara}, title = {Effects of experience with L2 and music on rhythmic grouping by French listeners}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {450}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413786}, pages = {16}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Rhythm perception is assumed to be guided by a domain-general auditory principle, the Iambic/Trochaic Law, stating that sounds varying in intensity are grouped as strong-weak, and sounds varying in duration are grouped as weak-strong. Recently, Bhatara et al. (2013) showed that rhythmic grouping is influenced by native language experience, French listeners having weaker grouping preferences than German listeners. This study explores whether L2 knowledge and musical experience also affect rhythmic grouping. In a grouping task, French late learners of German listened to sequences of coarticulated syllables varying in either intensity or duration. Data on their language and musical experience were obtained by a questionnaire. Mixed-effect model comparisons showed influences of musical experience as well as L2 input quality and quantity on grouping preferences. These results imply that adult French listeners' sensitivity to rhythm can be enhanced through L2 and musical experience.}, language = {en} } @article{BollAvetisyanBhataraUngeretal.2016, author = {Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Bhatara, Anjali and Unger, Annika and Nazzi, Thierry and H{\"o}hle, Barbara}, title = {Effects of experience with L2 and music on rhythmic grouping by French listeners}, series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, volume = {19}, journal = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {1366-7289}, doi = {10.1017/S1366728915000425}, pages = {971 -- 986}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @article{BoschClahsen2016, author = {Bosch, Sina and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Accessing morphosyntax in L1 and L2 word recognition A priming study of inflected German adjectives}, series = {The mental lexicon}, volume = {11}, journal = {The mental lexicon}, publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Co.}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1871-1340}, doi = {10.1075/ml.11.1.02bos}, pages = {26 -- 54}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In fusional languages, inflectional affixes may encode multiple morphosyntactic features such as case, number, and gender. To determine how these features are accessed during both native (L1) and non-native (L2) word recognition, the present study compares the results from a masked visual priming experiment testing inflected adjectives of German to those of a previous overt (cross-modal) priming experiment on the same phenomenon. While for the L1 group both experiments produced converging results, a group of highly-proficient Russian L2 learners of German showed native-like modulations of repetition priming effects under overt, but not under masked priming conditions. These results indicate that not only affixes but also their morphosyntactic features are accessible during initial form-based lexical access, albeit only for L1 and not for L2 processing. We argue that this contrast is in line with other findings suggesting that non-native language processing is less influenced by structural information than the L1.}, language = {en} } @article{Bowler2016, author = {Bowler, Margit}, title = {The status of degrees in Warlpiri}, series = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, journal = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, editor = {Grubic, Mira and Mucha, Anne}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-92295}, pages = {1 -- 17}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Recent work in semantics has shown that languages can vary in whether or not they include degrees (that is, elements of type < d >) in their semantic ontology. Several authors have argued that their languages of study lack degrees, including Bochnak (2013) for Washo (isolate, USA), Pearson (2009) for Fijian (Austronesian, Fiji), and Beck, et al. (2009) for Motu (Austronesian, Papua New Guinea). In this paper, I follow the tests proposed in Beck, et al. (2009) to assess the status of degrees in Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan, Australia). I use Warlpiri data collected following the Beck, et al. survey to argue that Warlpiri gradable predicates do not combine with a degree argument. (Like many other Australian languages, adjectival concepts like big and small are expressed using nouns in Warlpiri (Dixon 1982, Bittner \& Hale 1995, among others). I refer to these lexical items as "gradable predicates" in this paper.) This paper represents a first pass at assessing the status of degrees in an Australian language, which have otherwise been unexamined from the point of view of degree semantics.}, language = {en} } @book{BowlerHsiehShenetal.2016, author = {Bowler, Margit and Hsieh, I-Ta Chris and Shen, Zheng and Korat, Omer and Tran, Thuan}, title = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, editor = {Grubic, Mira and Mucha, Anne}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-91742}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {64}, year = {2016}, abstract = {TripleA is a workshop series founded by linguists from the University of T{\"u}bingen and the University of Potsdam. Its aim is to provide a forum for semanticists doing fieldwork on understudied languages, and its focus is on languages from Africa, Asia, Australia and Oceania. The second TripleA workshop was held at the University of Potsdam, June 3-5, 2015.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{BreakellFernandez2016, author = {Breakell Fernandez, Leigh}, title = {Investigating word order processing using pupillometry and event-related potentials}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-91438}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {x, 122}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In this thesis sentence processing was investigated using a psychophysiological measure known as pupillometry as well as Event-Related Potentials (ERP). The scope of the the- sis was broad, investigating the processing of several different movement constructions with native speakers of English and second language learners of English, as well as word order and case marking in German speaking adults and children. Pupillometry and ERP allowed us to test competing linguistic theories and use novel methodologies to investigate the processing of word order. In doing so we also aimed to establish pupillometry as an effective way to investigate the processing of word order thus broadening the methodological spectrum.}, language = {en} } @article{Clahsen2016, author = {Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Contributions of linguistic typology to psycholinguistics}, series = {Linguistic typology}, volume = {20}, journal = {Linguistic typology}, publisher = {De Gruyter}, address = {Berlin}, issn = {1430-0532}, doi = {10.1515/lingty-2016-0031}, pages = {599 -- 614}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This article first outlines different ways of how psycholinguists have dealt with linguistic diversity and illustrates these approaches with three familiar cases from research on language processing, language acquisition, and language disorders. The second part focuses on the role of morphology and morphological variability across languages for psycholinguistic research. The specific phenomena to be examined are to do with stem-formation morphology and inflectional classes; they illustrate how experimental research that is informed by linguistic typology can lead to new insights.}, language = {en} } @article{ClahsenVerissimo2016, author = {Clahsen, Harald and Verissimo, Joao Marques}, title = {Investigating grammatical processing in bilinguals The case of morphological priming}, series = {Linguistic approaches to bilingualism}, volume = {6}, journal = {Linguistic approaches to bilingualism}, publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Co.}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1879-9264}, doi = {10.1075/lab.15039.cla}, pages = {685 -- 698}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In this article we discuss methods for investigating grammatical processing in bilinguals. We will present a methodological approach that relies on: (i) linguistic theory (in our case, morphology) for the construction of experimental materials; (ii) a design that allows for direct (within-experiment, within-participant, and within-item) comparisons of the critical conditions; and (iii) data analysis techniques that make both linear and non-linear gradient effects visible. We review recent studies of masked morphological priming in bilinguals in which the application of these methodological principles revealed highly selective interactions of age of acquisition (and the native/non-native contrast) with the linguistic distinction between inflection and derivation. We believe that such considerations are not only relevant for grammatical processing experiments, but also for studying bilingualism, and its potential cognitive advantages, more generally.}, language = {en} } @article{DrummervanderMeerSchaadt2016, author = {Drummer, Janna-Deborah and van der Meer, Elke and Schaadt, Gesa}, title = {Event-related potentials in response to violations of content and temporal event knowledge}, series = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, volume = {80}, journal = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0028-3932}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.11.007}, pages = {47 -- 55}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Scripts that store knowledge of everyday events are fundamentally important for managing daily routines. Content event knowledge (i.e., knowledge about which events belong to a script) and temporal event knowledge (i.e., knowledge about the chronological order of events in a script) constitute qualitatively different forms of knowledge. However, there is limited information about each distinct process and the time course involved in accessing content and temporal event knowledge. Therefore, we analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to either correctly presented event sequences or event sequences that contained a content or temporal error. We found an N400, which was followed by a posteriorly distributed P600 in response to content errors in event sequences. By contrast, we did not find an N400 but an anteriorly distributed P600 in response to temporal errors in event sequences. Thus, the N400 seems to be elicited as a response to a general mismatch between an event and the established event model. We assume that the expectancy violation of content event knowledge, as indicated by the N400, induces the collapse of the established event model, a process indicated by the posterior P600. The expectancy violation of temporal event knowledge is assumed to induce an attempt to reorganize the event model in working memory, a process indicated by the frontal P600. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Engelmann2016, author = {Engelmann, Felix}, title = {Toward an integrated model of sentence processing in reading}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-100864}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiii, 143}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In experiments investigating sentence processing, eye movement measures such as fixation durations and regression proportions while reading are commonly used to draw conclusions about processing difficulties. However, these measures are the result of an interaction of multiple cognitive levels and processing strategies and thus are only indirect indicators of processing difficulty. In order to properly interpret an eye movement response, one has to understand the underlying principles of adaptive processing such as trade-off mechanisms between reading speed and depth of comprehension that interact with task demands and individual differences. Therefore, it is necessary to establish explicit models of the respective mechanisms as well as their causal relationship with observable behavior. There are models of lexical processing and eye movement control on the one side and models on sentence parsing and memory processes on the other. However, no model so far combines both sides with explicitly defined linking assumptions. In this thesis, a model is developed that integrates oculomotor control with a parsing mechanism and a theory of cue-based memory retrieval. On the basis of previous empirical findings and independently motivated principles, adaptive, resource-preserving mechanisms of underspecification are proposed both on the level of memory access and on the level of syntactic parsing. The thesis first investigates the model of cue-based retrieval in sentence comprehension of Lewis \& Vasishth (2005) with a comprehensive literature review and computational modeling of retrieval interference in dependency processing. The results reveal a great variability in the data that is not explained by the theory. Therefore, two principles, 'distractor prominence' and 'cue confusion', are proposed as an extension to the theory, thus providing a more adequate description of systematic variance in empirical results as a consequence of experimental design, linguistic environment, and individual differences. In the remainder of the thesis, four interfaces between parsing and eye movement control are defined: Time Out, Reanalysis, Underspecification, and Subvocalization. By comparing computationally derived predictions with experimental results from the literature, it is investigated to what extent these four interfaces constitute an appropriate elementary set of assumptions for explaining specific eye movement patterns during sentence processing. Through simulations, it is shown how this system of in itself simple assumptions results in predictions of complex, adaptive behavior. In conclusion, it is argued that, on all levels, the sentence comprehension mechanism seeks a balance between necessary processing effort and reading speed on the basis of experience, task demands, and resource limitations. Theories of linguistic processing therefore need to be explicitly defined and implemented, in particular with respect to linking assumptions between observable behavior and underlying cognitive processes. The comprehensive model developed here integrates multiple levels of sentence processing that hitherto have only been studied in isolation. The model is made publicly available as an expandable framework for future studies of the interactions between parsing, memory access, and eye movement control.}, language = {en} } @article{Fanselow2016, author = {Fanselow, Gisbert}, title = {Syntactic and Prosodic Reflexes of Information Structure}, series = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, journal = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {978-0-19-964267-0}, pages = {621 -- 641}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @article{GaroufiStaudteKolleretal.2016, author = {Garoufi, Konstantina and Staudte, Maria and Koller, Alexander and Crocker, Matthew W.}, title = {Exploiting Listener Gaze to Improve Situated Communication in Dynamic Virtual Environments}, series = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, volume = {40}, journal = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0364-0213}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.12298}, pages = {1671 -- 1703}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Beyond the observation that both speakers and listeners rapidly inspect the visual targets of referring expressions, it has been argued that such gaze may constitute part of the communicative signal. In this study, we investigate whether a speaker may, in principle, exploit listener gaze to improve communicative success. In the context of a virtual environment where listeners follow computer-generated instructions, we provide two kinds of support for this claim. First, we show that listener gaze provides a reliable real-time index of understanding even in dynamic and complex environments, and on a per-utterance basis. Second, we show that a language generation system that uses listener gaze to provide rapid feedback improves overall task performance in comparison with two systems that do not use gaze. Aside from demonstrating the utility of listener gaze insituated communication, our findings open the door to new methods for developing and evaluating multi-modal models of situated interaction.}, language = {en} } @article{GroschwitzSzabo2016, author = {Groschwitz, Jonas and Szabo, Tibor}, title = {Sharp Thresholds for Half-Random Games I}, series = {European polymer journal}, volume = {49}, journal = {European polymer journal}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {1042-9832}, doi = {10.1002/rsa.20681}, pages = {766 -- 794}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We study biased Maker-Breaker positional games between two players, one of whom is playing randomly against an opponent with an optimal strategy. In this paper we consider the scenario when Maker plays randomly and Breaker is "clever", and determine the sharp threshold bias of classical graph games, such as connectivity, Hamiltonicity, and minimum degree-k. We treat the other case, that is when Breaker plays randomly, in a separate paper. The traditional, deterministic version of these games, with two optimal players playing, are known to obey the so-called probabilistic intuition. That is, the threshold bias of these games is asymptotically equal to the threshold bias of their random counterpart, where players just take edges uniformly at random. We find, that despite this remarkably precise agreement of the results of the deterministic and the random games, playing randomly against an optimal opponent is not a good idea: the threshold bias tilts significantly more towards the random player. An important qualitative aspect of the probabilistic intuition carries through nevertheless: the bottleneck for Maker to occupy a connected graph is still the ability to avoid isolated vertices in her graph. (C) 2016Wiley Periodicals, Inc.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Haendler2016, author = {Haendler, Yair}, title = {Effects of embedded pronouns on relative clause processing}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-396883}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xvi, 186}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Difficulties with object relative clauses (ORC), as compared to subject relative clauses (SR), are widely attested across different languages, both in adults and in children. This SR-ORC asymmetry is reduced, or even eliminated, when the embedded constituent in the ORC is a pronoun, rather than a lexical noun phrase. The studies included in this thesis were designed to explore under what circumstances the pronoun facilitation occurs; whether all pronouns have the same effect; whether SRs are also affected by embedded pronouns; whether children perform like adults on such structures; and whether performance is related to cognitive abilities such as memory or grammatical knowledge. Several theoretical approaches that explain the pronoun facilitation in relative clauses are evaluated. The experimental data have been collected in three languages-German, Italian and Hebrew-stemming from both children and adults. In the German study (Chapter 2), ORCs with embedded 1st- or 3rd-person pronouns are compared to ORCs with an embedded lexical noun phrase. Eye-movement data from 5-year-old children show that the 1st-person pronoun facilitates processing, but not the 3rd-person pronoun. Moreover, children's performance is modulated by additive effects of their memory and grammatical skills. In the Italian study (Chapter 3), the 1st-person pronoun advantage over the 3rd-person pronoun is tested in ORCs and SRs that display a similar word order. Eye-movement data from 5-year-olds and adult controls and reading times data from adults are pitted against the outcome of a corpus analysis, showing that the 1st-/3rd-person pronoun asymmetry emerges in the two relative clause types to an equal extent. In the Hebrew study (Chapter 4), the goal is to test the effect of a special kind of pronoun-a non-referential arbitrary subject pronoun-on ORC comprehension, in the light of potential confounds in previous studies that used this pronoun. Data from a referent-identification task with 4- to 5-year-olds indicate that, when the experimental material is controlled, the non-referential pronoun does not necessarily facilitate ORC comprehension. Importantly, however, children have even more difficulties when the embedded constituent is a referential pronoun. The non-referentiality / referentiality asymmetry is emphasized by the relation between children's performance on the experimental task and their memory skills. Together, the data presented in this thesis indicate that sentence processing is not only driven by structural (or syntactic) factors, but also by discourse-related ones, like pronouns' referential properties or their discourse accessibility mechanism, which is defined as the level of ease or difficulty with which referents of pronouns are identified and retrieved from the discourse model. Although independent in essence, these structural and discourse factors can in some cases interact in a way that affects sentence processing. Moreover, both types of factors appear to be strongly related to memory. The data also support the idea that, from early on, children are sensitive to the same factors that affect adults' sentence processing, and that the processing strategies of both populations are qualitatively similar. In sum, this thesis suggests that a comprehensive theory of human sentence processing needs to account for effects that are due to both structural and discourse-related factors, which operate as a function of memory capacity.}, language = {en} } @article{HsiehShen2016, author = {Hsieh, I-Ta Chris and Shen, Zheng}, title = {The 'Associative Reading' of DPs and the quantity vs. quality distinction}, series = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, journal = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, editor = {Grubic, Mira and Mucha, Anne}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-92304}, pages = {18 -- 35}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This paper investigates an unnoticed difference in Mandarin between the Q-adjectives and the gradable adjectives of quality and shows that this observation follows straightforwardly from a theory that differentiates gradable predication of quantity and that of quality (e.g., Rett 2008; Lin 2014; Solt 2015; a.o.).}, language = {en} } @article{HoehleBergerSauermann2016, author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Berger, Frauke and Sauermann, Antje}, title = {Information structure in first language acquisition}, series = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, journal = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {978-0-19-964267-0}, pages = {562 -- 580}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @article{JacobKirkici2016, author = {Jacob, Gunnar and Kirkici, Bilal}, title = {The processing of morphologically complex words in a specific speaker group A masked-priming study with Turkish heritage speakers}, series = {The mental lexicon}, volume = {11}, journal = {The mental lexicon}, publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Co.}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1871-1340}, doi = {10.1075/ml.11.2.06jac}, pages = {308 -- 328}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The present study investigates to what extent morphological priming varies across different groups of native speakers of a language. In two masked-priming experiments, we investigate the processing of morphologically complex Turkish words in Turkish heritage speakers raised and living in Germany. Materials and experimental design were based on K\&\#305;rk\&\#305;c\&\#305; and Clahsen's (2013) study on morphological processing in Turkish native speakers and L2 learners, allowing for direct comparisons between the three groups. Experiment 1 investigated priming effects for morphologically related prime-target pairs. Heritage speakers showed a similar pattern of results as the L1 comparison group, with significant priming effects for prime-target pairs with inflected primes (e.g. 'sorar-sor' asks-ask) as well as for prime-target pairs with derived primes (e.g. 'sa\&\#287;l\&\#305;k-sa\&\#287;' health-healthy). In Experiment 2, we measured priming effects for prime-target pairs which were semantically and morphologically unrelated, but only related with regard to orthographic overlap (e.g. 'devre-dev' period-giant). Unlike both L1 speakers raised in Turkey and highly proficient L2 learners, heritage speakers also showed significant priming effects in this condition. Our results suggest that heritage speakers differ from both native speakers and L2 learners in that they rely more on (orthographic) surface form properties of the stimulus during early stages of word recognition, at the expense of morphological decomposition.}, language = {en} } @article{KibrikKhudyakovaDobrovetal.2016, author = {Kibrik, Andrej A. and Khudyakova, Mariya V. and Dobrov, Grigory B. and Linnik, Anastasia and Zalmanov, Dmitrij A.}, title = {Referential Choice}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {7}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01429}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We report a study of referential choice in discourse production, understood as the choice between various types of referential devices, such as pronouns and full noun phrases. Our goal is to predict referential choice, and to explore to what extent such prediction is possible. Our approach to referential choice includes a cognitively informed theoretical component, corpus analysis, machine learning methods and experimentation with human participants. Machine learning algorithms make use of 25 factors, including referent's properties (such as animacy and protagonism), the distance between a referential expression and its antecedent, the antecedent's syntactic role, and so on. Having found the predictions of our algorithm to coincide with the original almost 90\% of the time, we hypothesized that fully accurate prediction is not possible because, in many situations, more than one referential option is available. This hypothesis was supported by an experimental study, in which participants answered questions about either the original text in the corpus, or about a text modified in accordance with the algorithm's prediction. Proportions of correct answers to these questions, as well as participants' rating of the questions' difficulty, suggested that divergences between the algorithm's prediction and the original referential device in the corpus occur overwhelmingly in situations where the referential choice is not categorical.}, language = {en} } @misc{KibrikKhudyakovaDobrovetal.2016, author = {Kibrik, Andrej A. and Khudyakova, Mariya V. and Dobrov, Grigory B. and Linnik, Anastasia and Zalmanov, Dmitrij A.}, title = {Referential Choice}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-100313}, pages = {21}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We report a study of referential choice in discourse production, understood as the choice between various types of referential devices, such as pronouns and full noun phrases. Our goal is to predict referential choice, and to explore to what extent such prediction is possible. Our approach to referential choice includes a cognitively informed theoretical component, corpus analysis, machine learning methods and experimentation with human participants. Machine learning algorithms make use of 25 factors, including referent's properties (such as animacy and protagonism), the distance between a referential expression and its antecedent, the antecedent's syntactic role, and so on. Having found the predictions of our algorithm to coincide with the original almost 90\% of the time, we hypothesized that fully accurate prediction is not possible because, in many situations, more than one referential option is available. This hypothesis was supported by an experimental study, in which participants answered questions about either the original text in the corpus, or about a text modified in accordance with the algorithm's prediction. Proportions of correct answers to these questions, as well as participants' rating of the questions' difficulty, suggested that divergences between the algorithm's prediction and the original referential device in the corpus occur overwhelmingly in situations where the referential choice is not categorical.}, language = {en} } @article{Korat2016, author = {Korat, Omer}, title = {Singular quantified terms}, series = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, journal = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, editor = {Grubic, Mira and Mucha, Anne}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-92313}, pages = {36 -- 51}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In this paper, I discuss the behavior of singular partitives, focusing on Hebrew. I show that group noun-headed singular quantified terms behave essentially different from other singular quantified terms. Specifically, the domain of quantification in the former is a discrete set (the members of the group), while in the latter the domain of quantification is a set of mass entities. I propose a preliminary analysis of singular quantified terms in Hebrew, respecting the properties peculiar to this language as well as the observations about group vs. non-group singular quantified terms. This analysis is based on a novel class of quantifiers I name 'Measure Quantifiers', which instantiate relations between algebraic sums. Using shifts between algebraic sums, we can represent the different readings of singular and plural individual or group terms.}, language = {en} } @article{LassottaOmakiFranck2016, author = {Lassotta, Romy and Omaki, Akira and Franck, Julie}, title = {Developmental changes in misinterpretation of garden-path wh-questions in French}, series = {The quarterly journal of experimental psychology}, volume = {69}, journal = {The quarterly journal of experimental psychology}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1747-0218}, doi = {10.1080/17470218.2015.1054845}, pages = {829 -- 854}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This study explores (mis)interpretation of biclausal wh-questions by French-speaking adults and children, aiming to investigate cross-linguistic differences in sentence revision mechanisms. Following previous work in Japanese the ambiguity of wh-questions was manipulated: In ambiguous questions, the fronted wh-phrase could be associated with the first, main-clause verb or the second, embedded-clause verb, while in garden-path questions, an inserted filled-gap prepositional phrase (PP) blocked main-clause attachment. Importantly, French differs from Japanese in that the filled gap arises after the first verb-that is, after the wh-phrase has been interpreted within the main clause. Two story-based comprehension experiments were conducted to probe the effect of word order on revision performance. Adults and children frequently provided main-clause interpretations of ambiguous questions. In filled-gap questions, children displayed relatively acute sensitivity to the filled-gap in wh-argument questions (Experiment 2), but not in wh-adjunct questions (Experiment 1); adults showed surprisingly low sensitivity to it, frequently misinterpreting adjunct and argument questions. Acceptability ratings (Experiment 3) showed that adults systematically prefer in situ questions over wh-fronting questions. We conclude that timing of the error signal influences revision, and that whereas French-speaking children prioritize syntactic cues, adults prioritize distributional information about the optionality of wh-fronting in French.}, language = {en} } @misc{LeminenLehtonenBozicetal.2016, author = {Leminen, Alina and Lehtonen, Minna and Bozic, Mirjana and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Editorial}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {441}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407243}, pages = {3}, year = {2016}, abstract = {kein abstract vorhanden}, language = {en} } @misc{LeminenLehtonenBozicetal.2016, author = {Leminen, Alina and Lehtonen, Minna and Bozic, Mirjana and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Editorial: Morphologically Complex Words in the Mind/Brain}, series = {Frontiers in human neuroscienc}, volume = {10}, journal = {Frontiers in human neuroscienc}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1662-5161}, doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2016.00047}, pages = {150 -- 160}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Linnik2016, author = {Linnik, Anastasia}, title = {Coherence and structure in aphasic and non-aphasic spoken discourse}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-42320}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-423202}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xii, 106}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Discourse production is crucial for communicative success and is in the core of aphasia assessment and treatment. Coherence differentiates discourse from a series of utterances/sentences; it is internal unity and connectedness, and, as such, perhaps the most inherent property of discourse. It is unclear whether people with aphasia, who experience various language production difficulties, preserve the ability to produce coherent discourse. A more general question of how coherence is established and represented linguistically has been addressed in the literature, yet remains unanswered. This dissertation presents an investigation of discourse production in aphasia and the linguistic mechanisms of establishing coherence.}, language = {en} } @article{LogacevVasishth2016, author = {Logacev, Pavel and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {A Multiple-Channel Model of Task-Dependent Ambiguity Resolution in Sentence Comprehension}, series = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, volume = {40}, journal = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0364-0213}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.12228}, pages = {266 -- 298}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Traxler, Pickering, and Clifton (1998) found that ambiguous sentences are read faster than their unambiguous counterparts. This so-called ambiguity advantage has presented a major challenge to classical theories of human sentence comprehension (parsing) because its most prominent explanation, in the form of the unrestricted race model (URM), assumes that parsing is non-deterministic. Recently, Swets, Desmet, Clifton, and Ferreira (2008) have challenged the URM. They argue that readers strategically underspecify the representation of ambiguous sentences to save time, unless disambiguation is required by task demands. When disambiguation is required, however, readers assign sentences full structure—and Swets et al. provide experimental evidence to this end. On the basis of their findings, they argue against the URM and in favor of a model of task-dependent sentence comprehension. We show through simulations that the Swets et al. data do not constitute evidence for task-dependent parsing because they can be explained by the URM. However, we provide decisive evidence from a German self-paced reading study consistent with Swets et al.'s general claim about task-dependent parsing. Specifically, we show that under certain conditions, ambiguous sentences can be read more slowly than their unambiguous counterparts, suggesting that the parser may create several parses, when required. Finally, we present the first quantitative model of task-driven disambiguation that subsumes the URM, and we show that it can explain both Swets et al.'s results and our findings.}, language = {en} } @misc{LogačevVasishth2016, author = {Logačev, Pavel and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {Understanding underspecification}, doi = {10.1080/17470218.2015.1134602}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-93441}, pages = {996 -- 1012}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Swets et al. (2008. Underspecification of syntactic ambiguities: Evidence from self-paced reading. Memory and Cognition, 36(1), 201-216) presented evidence that the so-called ambiguity advantage [Traxler et al. (1998). Adjunct attachment is not a form of lexical ambiguity resolution. Journal of Memory and Language, 39(4), 558-592], which has been explained in terms of the Unrestricted Race Model, can equally well be explained by assuming underspecification in ambiguous conditions driven by task-demands. Specifically, if comprehension questions require that ambiguities be resolved, the parser tends to make an attachment: when questions are about superficial aspects of the target sentence, readers tend to pursue an underspecification strategy. It is reasonable to assume that individual differences in strategy will play a significant role in the application of such strategies, so that studying average behaviour may not be informative. In order to study the predictions of the good-enough processing theory, we implemented two versions of underspecification: the partial specification model (PSM), which is an implementation of the Swets et al. proposal, and a more parsimonious version, the non-specification model (NSM). We evaluate the relative fit of these two kinds of underspecification to Swets et al.'s data; as a baseline, we also fitted three models that assume no underspecification. We find that a model without underspecification provides a somewhat better fit than both underspecification models, while the NSM model provides a better fit than the PSM. We interpret the results as lack of unambiguous evidence in favour of underspecification; however, given that there is considerable existing evidence for good-enough processing in the literature, it is reasonable to assume that some underspecification might occur. Under this assumption, the results can be interpreted as tentative evidence for NSM over PSM. More generally, our work provides a method for choosing between models of real-time processes in sentence comprehension that make qualitative predictions about the relationship between several dependent variables. We believe that sentence processing research will greatly benefit from a wider use of such methods.}, language = {en} } @article{LuedelingRitzStedeetal.2016, author = {L{\"u}deling, Anke and Ritz, Julia and Stede, Manfred and Zeldes, Amir}, title = {Corpus Linguistics and Information Structure Research}, series = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, journal = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {978-0-19-964267-0}, pages = {599 -- 617}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @article{MoscaClahsen2016, author = {Mosca, Michela and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Examining language switching in bilinguals: The role of preparation time}, series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, volume = {19}, journal = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {1366-7289}, doi = {10.1017/S1366728915000693}, pages = {415 -- 424}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Much research on language control in bilinguals has relied on the interpretation of the costs of switching between two languages. Of the two types of costs that are linked to language control, switching costs are assumed to be transient in nature and modulated by trial-specific manipulations (e.g., by preparation time), while mixing costs are supposed to be more stable and less affected by trial-specific manipulations. The present study investigated the effect of preparation time on switching and mixing costs, revealing that both types of costs can be influenced by trial-specific manipulations.}, language = {en} } @misc{MoscaClahsen2016, author = {Mosca, Michela and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Examining language switching in bilinguals}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {451}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-413752}, pages = {10}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Much research on language control in bilinguals has relied on the interpretation of the costs of switching between two languages. Of the two types of costs that are linked to language control, switching costs are assumed to be transient in nature and modulated by trial-specific manipulations (e.g., by preparation time), while mixing costs are supposed to be more stable and less affected by trial-specific manipulations. The present study investigated the effect of preparation time on switching and mixing costs, revealing that both types of costs can be influenced by trial-specific manipulations.}, language = {en} } @article{NakanoIkemotoJacobetal.2016, author = {Nakano, Yoko and Ikemoto, Yu and Jacob, Gunnar and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {How Orthography Modulates Morphological Priming: Subliminal Kanji Activation in Japanese}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {7}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00316}, pages = {10}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The current study investigates to what extent masked morphological priming is modulated by language-particular properties, specifically by its writing system. We present results from two masked priming experiments investigating the processing of complex Japanese words written in less common (moraic) scripts. In Experiment 1, participants performed lexical decisions on target verbs; these were preceded by primes which were either (i) a past-tense form of the same verb, (ii) a stem-related form with the epenthetic vowel-i, (iii) a semantically-related form, and (iv) a phonologically-related form. Significant priming effects were obtained for prime types (i), (ii), and (iii), but not for (iv). This pattern of results differs from previous findings on languages with alphabetic scripts, which found reliable masked priming effects for morphologically related prime/target pairs of type (i), but not for non-affixal and semantically-related primes of types (ii), and (iii). In Experiment 2, we measured priming effects for prime/target pairs which are neither morphologically, semantically, phonologically nor - as presented in their moraic scripts orthographically related, but which in their commonly written form share the same kanji, which are logograms adopted from Chinese. The results showed a significant priming effect, with faster lexical-decision times for kanji-related prime/target pairs relative to unrelated ones. We conclude that affix-stripping is insufficient to account for masked morphological priming effects across languages, but that language-particular properties (in the case of Japanese, the writing system) affect the processing of (morphologically) complex words.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Nicenboim2016, author = {Nicenboim, Bruno}, title = {Dependency resolution as a retrieval process}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiv, 209}, year = {2016}, abstract = {My thesis focused on the predictions of the activation-based model of Lewis and Vasishth (2005) to investigate the evidence for the use of the memory system in the formation of non-local dependencies in sentence comprehension. The activation-based model, which follows the Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational framework (ACT-R; Anderson et al., 2004), has been used to explain locality effects and similarity-based interference by assuming that dependencies are resolved by a cue-based retrieval mechanism, and that the retrieval mechanism is affected by decay and interference. Both locality effects and (inhibitory) similarity-based interference cause increased difficulty (e.g., longer reading times) at the site of the dependency completion where a retrieval is assumed: (I) Locality effects are attributed to the increased difficulty in the retrieval of a dependent when the distance from its retrieval site is increased. (II) Similarity-based interference is attributed to the retrieval being affected by the presence of items which have similar features as the dependent that needs to be retrieved. In this dissertation, I investigated some findings problematic to the activation-based model, namely, facilitation where locality effects are expected (e.g., Levy, 2008), and the lack of similarity-based interference from the number feature in grammatical sentences (e.g., Wagers et al., 2009). In addition, I used individual differences in working memory capacity and reading fluency as a way to validate the theories investigated (Underwood, 1975), and computational modeling to achieve a more precise account of the phenomena. Regarding locality effects, by using self-paced reading and eye-tracking-while reading methods with Spanish and German data, this dissertation yielded two main findings: (I) Locality effects seem to be modulated by working memory capacity, with high-capacity participants showing expectation-driven facilitation. (II) Once expectations and other potential confounds are controlled using baselines, with increased distance, high-capacity readers can show a slow-down (i.e., locality effects) and low-capacity readers can show a speedup. While the locality effects are compatible with the activation-based model, simulations show that the speedup of low-capacity readers can only be accounted for by changing some of the assumptions of the activation-based model. Regarding similarity-based interference, two relatively high-powered self-paced reading experiments in German using grammatical sentences yielded a slowdown at the verb as predicted by the activation-based model. This provides evidence in favor of dependency creation via cue-based retrieval, and in contrast with the view that cue-based retrieval is a reanalysis mechanism (Wagers et al., 2009). Finally, the same experimental results that showed inhibitory interference from the number feature are used for a finer grain evaluation of the retrieval process. Besides Lewis and Vasishth's (2005) activation-based model, also McElree's (2000) direct-access model can account for inhibitory interference. These two models assume a cue-based retrieval mechanism to build dependencies, but they are based on different assumptions. I present a computational evaluation of the predictions of these two theories of retrieval. The models were compared by implementing them in a Bayesian hierarchical framework. The evaluation of the models reveals that some aspects of the data fit better under the direct access model than under the activation-based model. However, a simple extension of the activation-based model provides a comparable fit to the direct access model. This serves as a proof of concept showing potential ways to improve the original activation-based model. In conclusion, this thesis adds to the body of evidence that argues for the use of the general memory system in dependency resolution, and in particular for a cue-based retrieval mechanism. However, it also shows that some of the default assumptions inherited from ACT-R in the activation-based model need to be revised.}, language = {en} } @article{Paape2016, author = {Paape, Dario L. J. F.}, title = {Filling the Silence}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {7}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00027}, pages = {1 -- 18}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In a self-paced reading experiment, we investigated the processing of sluicing constructions ("sluices") whose antecedent contained a known garden-path structure in German. Results showed decreased processing times for sluices with garden-path antecedents as well as a disadvantage for antecedents with non-canonical word order downstream from the ellipsis site. A post-hoc analysis showed the garden-path advantage also to be present in the region right before the ellipsis site. While no existing account of ellipsis processing explicitly predicted the results, we argue that they are best captured by combining a local antecedent mismatch effect with memory trace reactivation through reanalysis.}, language = {en} } @misc{Paape2016, author = {Paape, Dario L. J. F.}, title = {Filling the Silence}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90480}, year = {2016}, abstract = {In a self-paced reading experiment, we investigated the processing of sluicing constructions ("sluices") whose antecedent contained a known garden-path structure in German. Results showed decreased processing times for sluices with garden-path antecedents as well as a disadvantage for antecedents with non-canonical word order downstream from the ellipsis site. A post-hoc analysis showed the garden-path advantage also to be present in the region right before the ellipsis site. While no existing account of ellipsis processing explicitly predicted the results, we argue that they are best captured by combining a local antecedent mismatch effect with memory trace reactivation through reanalysis.}, language = {en} } @article{PatilVasishthLewis2016, author = {Patil, Umesh and Vasishth, Shravan and Lewis, Richard L.}, title = {Retrieval Interference in Syntactic Processing: The Case of Reflexive Binding in English}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {7}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00329}, pages = {18}, year = {2016}, abstract = {It has been proposed that in online sentence comprehension the dependency between a reflexive pronoun such as himself/herself and its antecedent is resolved using exclusively syntactic constraints. Under this strictly syntactic search account, Principle A of the binding theory—which requires that the antecedent c-command the reflexive within the same clause that the reflexive occurs in—constrains the parser's search for an antecedent. The parser thus ignores candidate antecedents that might match agreement features of the reflexive (e.g., gender) but are ineligible as potential antecedents because they are in structurally illicit positions. An alternative possibility accords no special status to structural constraints: in addition to using Principle A, the parser also uses non-structural cues such as gender to access the antecedent. According to cue-based retrieval theories of memory (e.g., Lewis and Vasishth, 2005), the use of non-structural cues should result in increased retrieval times and occasional errors when candidates partially match the cues, even if the candidates are in structurally illicit positions. In this paper, we first show how the retrieval processes that underlie the reflexive binding are naturally realized in the Lewis and Vasishth (2005) model. We present the predictions of the model under the assumption that both structural and non-structural cues are used during retrieval, and provide a critical analysis of previous empirical studies that failed to find evidence for the use of non-structural cues, suggesting that these failures may be Type II errors. We use this analysis and the results of further modeling to motivate a new empirical design that we use in an eye tracking study. The results of this study confirm the key predictions of the model concerning the use of non-structural cues, and are inconsistent with the strictly syntactic search account. These results present a challenge for theories advocating the infallibility of the human parser in the case of reflexive resolution, and provide support for the inclusion of agreement features such as gender in the set of retrieval cues.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Renans2016, author = {Renans, Agata Maria}, title = {Exhaustivity}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-89501}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {221}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The dissertation proposes an answer to the question of how to model exhaustive inferences and what the meaning of the linguistic material that triggers these inferences is. In particular, it deals with the semantics of exclusive particles, clefts, and progressive aspect in Ga, an under-researched language spoken in Ghana. Based on new data coming from the author's original fieldwork in Accra, the thesis points to a previously unattested variation in the semantics of exclusives in a cross-linguistic perspective, analyzes the connections between exhaustive interpretation triggered by clefts and the aspectual interpretation of the sentence, and identifies a cross-categorial definite determiner. By that it sheds new light on several exhaustivity-related phenomena in both the nominal and the verbal domain and shows that both domains are closely connected.}, language = {en} } @article{RoonGafos2016, author = {Roon, Kevin D. and Gafos, Adamantios I.}, title = {Perceiving while producing: Modeling the dynamics of phonological planning}, series = {Journal of memory and language}, volume = {89}, journal = {Journal of memory and language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2016.01.005}, pages = {222 -- 243}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We offer a dynamical model of phonological planning that provides a formal instantiation of how the speech production and perception systems interact during online processing. The model is developed on the basis of evidence from an experimental task that requires concurrent use of both systems, the so-called response-distractor task in which speakers hear distractor syllables while they are preparing to produce required responses. The model formalizes how ongoing response planning is affected by perception and accounts for a range of results reported across previous studies. It does so by explicitly addressing the setting of parameter values in representations. The key unit of the model is that of the dynamic field, a distribution of activation over the range of values associated with each representational parameter. The setting of parameter values takes place by the attainment of a stable distribution of activation over the entire field, stable in the sense that it persists even after the response cue in the above experiments has been removed. This and other properties of representations that have been taken as axiomatic in previous work are derived by the dynamics of the proposed model. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Raeling2016, author = {R{\"a}ling, Romy}, title = {Age of acquisition and semantic typicality effects}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-95943}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {x, 133}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Age of acquisition (AOA) is a psycholinguistic variable that significantly influences behavioural measures (response times and accuracy rates) in tasks that require lexical and semantic processing. Its origin is - unlike the origin of semantic typicality (TYP), which is assumed at the semantic level - controversially discussed. Different theories propose AOA effects to originate either at the semantic level or at the link between semantics and phonology (lemma-level). The dissertation aims at investigating the influence of AOA and its interdependence with the semantic variable TYP on particularly semantic processing in order to pinpoint the origin of AOA effects. Therefore, three studies have been conducted that considered the variables AOA and TYP in semantic processing tasks (category verifications and animacy decisions) by means of behavioural and partly electrophysiological (ERP) data and in different populations (healthy young and elderly participants and in semantically impaired individuals with aphasia (IWA)). The behavioural and electrophysiological data of the three studies provide evidence for distinct processing levels of the variables AOA and TYP. The data further support previous assumptions on a semantic origin for TYP but question the same for AOA. The findings, however, support an origin of AOA effects at the transition between the word form (phonology) and the semantic level that can be captured at the behavioural but not at the electrophysiological level.}, language = {en} } @misc{RaelingHanneSchroederetal.2016, author = {R{\"a}ling, Romy and Hanne, Sandra and Schr{\"o}der, Astrid and Keßler, Carla and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Judging the animacy of words}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-98402}, pages = {11}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The age at which members of a semantic category are learned (age of acquisition), the typicality they demonstrate within their corresponding category, and the semantic domain to which they belong (living, non-living) are known to influence the speed and accuracy of lexical/semantic processing. So far, only a few studies have looked at the origin of age of acquisition and its interdependence with typicality and semantic domain within the same experimental design. Twenty adult participants performed an animacy decision task in which nouns were classified according to their semantic domain as being living or non-living. Response times were influenced by the independent main effects of each parameter: typicality, age of acquisition, semantic domain, and frequency. However, there were no interactions. The results are discussed with respect to recent models concerning the origin of age of acquisition effects.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Sauermann2016, author = {Sauermann, Antje}, title = {Impact of the type of referring expression on the acquisition of word order variation}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-330-5}, issn = {1869-3822}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-89409}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This dissertation examines the impact of the type of referring expression on the acquisition of word order variation in German-speaking preschoolers. A puzzle in the area of language acquisition concerns the production-comprehension asymmetry for non-canonical sentences like "Den Affen f{\"a}ngt die Kuh." ("The monkey, the cow chases."), that is, preschoolers usually have difficulties in accurately understanding non-canonical sentences approximately until age six (e.g., Dittmar et al., 2008) although they produce non-canonical sentences already around age three (e.g., Poeppel \& Wexler, 1993; Weissenborn, 1990). This dissertation investigated the production and comprehension of non-canonical sentences to address this issue. Three corpus analyses were conducted to investigate the impact of givenness, topic status and the type of referring expression on word order in the spontaneous speech of two- to four-year-olds and the child-directed speech produced by their mothers. The positioning of the direct object in ditransitive sentences was examined; in particular, sentences in which the direct object occurred before or after the indirect object in the sentence-medial positions and sentences in which it occurred in the sentence-initial position. The results reveal similar ordering patterns for children and adults. Word order variation was to a large extent predictable from the type of referring expression, especially with respect to the word order involving the sentence-medial positions. Information structure (e.g., topic status) had an additional impact only on word order variation that involved the sentence-initial position. Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether the type of referring expression and topic status influences the comprehension of non-canonical transitive sentences in four- and five-year-olds. In the first experiment, the topic status of the one of the sentential arguments was established via a preceding context sentence, and in the second experiment, the type of referring expression for the sentential arguments was additionally manipulated by using either a full lexical noun phrase (NP) or a personal pronoun. The results demonstrate that children's comprehension of non-canonical sentences improved when the topic argument was realized as a personal pronoun and this improvement was independent of the grammatical role of the arguments. However, children's comprehension was not improved when the topic argument was realized as a lexical NP. In sum, the results of both production and comprehension studies support the view that referring expressions may be seen as a sentence-level cue to word order and to the information status of the sentential arguments. The results highlight the important role of the type of referring expression on the acquisition of word order variation and indicate that the production-comprehension asymmetry is reduced when the type of referring expression is considered.}, language = {en} } @misc{Schmidt2016, type = {Master Thesis}, author = {Schmidt, Andreas}, title = {Udmurt as an OV language}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-89465}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {iii, 94}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This is the first study to investigate Hubert Haider's (2000, 2010, 2013, 2014) proposed systematic differences between OV and VO language in a family other than Germanic. Its aim is to gather evidence on whether basic word order is predictive of further properties of a language. The languages under investigation are the Finno-Ugric languages Udmurt (as an OV language) and Finnish (as a VO language). Counter to Kayne (1994), Haider proposes that the structure of a sentence with a head-final VP is fundamentally different from that of a sentence with a head-initial VP, e.g., OV languages do not exhibit a VP-shell structure, and they do not employ a TP layer with a structural subject position. Haider's proposed structural differences are said to result in the following empirically testable differences: (a) VP: the availability of VP-internal adverbial intervention and scrambling only in OV-VPs; (b) subjects: the lack of certain subject-object asymmetries in OV languages, i.e., lack of the subject condition and lack of superiority effects; (c) V-complexes: the availability of partial predicate fronting only in OV languages; different orderings between selecting and selected verbs; the intervention of non-verbal material between verbs only in VO languages; (d) V-particles: differences in the distribution of resultative phrases and verb particles. Udmurt and Finnish behave in line with Haider's predictions with regard to the status of the subject, with regard to the order of selecting and selected verbs, and with regard to the availability of partial predicate fronting. Moreover, Udmurt allows for adverbial intervention and scrambling, as predicted, whereas the status of these properties in Finnish could not be reliably determined due to obligatory V-to-T. There is also counterevidence to Haider's predictions: Udmurt allows for non-verbal material between verbs, and the distribution of resultative phrases and verb particles is essentially as free as the distribution of adverbial phrases in both Finno-Ugric languages. As such, Haider's theory is not falsified by the data from Udmurt and Finnish (except for his theory on verb particles), but it is also not fully supported by the data.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Tamasi2016, author = {Tamasi, Katalin}, title = {Measuring children's sensitivity to phonological detail using eye tracking and pupillometry}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-395954}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiv, 165}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Infants' lexical processing is modulated by featural manipulations made to words, suggesting that early lexical representations are sufficiently specified to establish a match with the corresponding label. However, the precise degree of detail in early words requires further investigation due to equivocal findings. We studied this question by assessing children's sensitivity to the degree of featural manipulation (Chapters 2 and 3), and sensitivity to the featural makeup of homorganic and heterorganic consonant clusters (Chapter 4). Gradient sensitivity on the one hand and sensitivity to homorganicity on the other hand would suggest that lexical processing makes use of sub-phonemic information, which in turn would indicate that early words contain sub-phonemic detail. The studies presented in this thesis assess children's sensitivity to sub-phonemic detail using minimally demanding online paradigms suitable for infants: single-picture pupillometry and intermodal preferential looking. Such paradigms have the potential to uncover lexical knowledge that may be masked otherwise due to cognitive limitations. The study reported in Chapter 2 obtained a differential response in pupil dilation to the degree of featural manipulation, a result consistent with gradient sensitivity. The study reported in Chapter 3 obtained a differential response in proportion of looking time and pupil dilation to the degree of featural manipulation, a result again consistent with gradient sensitivity. The study reported in Chapter 4 obtained a differential response to the manipulation of homorganic and heterorganic consonant clusters, a result consistent with sensitivity to homorganicity. These results suggest that infants' lexical representations are not only specific, but also detailed to the extent that they contain sub-phonemic information.}, language = {en} } @article{Thuan2016, author = {Thuan, Tran}, title = {Lone contrastive topic constructions}, series = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, journal = {Proceedings of the Semantics of African, Asian and Austronesian Languages (TripleA) 2}, editor = {Grubic, Mira and Mucha, Anne}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-92323}, pages = {52 -- 64}, year = {2016}, abstract = {It has been long agreed by formal and functional researchers (primarily based on English data) that contrastive topic marking, namely marking a constituent as a contrastive topic via the B-accent/the rising intonation contour) requires the co-occurrence of focus marking via the A-accent/the falling intonation contour (see Sturgeon 2006, and references therein). However, this consensus has recently been disputed by new findings indicating the occurrence of utterances with only B-accent, dubbed as lone contrastive topic (B{\"u}ring 2003, Constant 2014). In this paper, I argue, based on the data in Vietnamese, that the presence of lone contrastive topic is just apparent, and that the focus that co-occurs with the seemingly lone contrastive topic is a verum focus.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Trutkowski2016, author = {Trutkowski, Ewa}, title = {Topic Drop and Null Subjects in German}, series = {Linguistics \& Philosophy ; 6}, journal = {Linguistics \& Philosophy ; 6}, publisher = {de Gruyter}, address = {Berlin}, isbn = {978-3-11-044413-1}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {248}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This study presents new insights into null subjects, topic drop and the interpretation of topic-dropped elements. Besides providing an empirical data survey, it offers explanations to well-known problems, e.g. syncretisms in the context of null-subject licensing or the marginality of dropping an element which carries oblique case. The book constitutes a valuable source for both empirically and theoretically interested (generative) linguists.}, language = {en} } @misc{Verissimo2016, author = {Verissimo, Joao Marques}, title = {Extending a Gradient Symbolic approach to the native versus non-native contrast: The case of plurals in compounds}, series = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, volume = {19}, journal = {Bilingualism : language and cognition.}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {1366-7289}, doi = {10.1017/S1366728916000134}, pages = {900 -- 902}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The Gradient Symbolic Computation (GSC) model presented in the keynote article (Goldrick, Putnam \& Schwarz) constitutes a significant theoretical development, not only as a model of bilingual code-mixing, but also as a general framework that brings together symbolic grammars and graded representations. The authors are to be commended for successfully integrating a theory of grammatical knowledge with the voluminous research on lexical co-activation in bilinguals. It is, however, unfortunate that a certain conception of bilingualism was inherited from this latter research tradition, one in which the contrast between native and non-native language takes a back seat.}, language = {en} } @article{Vicente2016, author = {Vicente, Luis}, title = {Free versus bound variables and the taxonomy of gaps}, series = {Natural language semantics : an international journal of semantics and its interfaces in grammar}, volume = {24}, journal = {Natural language semantics : an international journal of semantics and its interfaces in grammar}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {0925-854X}, doi = {10.1007/s11050-016-9123-6}, pages = {203 -- 245}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Potts (Nat Lang Linguist Theory 20:623-689, 2002a) et seq. presents an analysis of gap-containing supplements (primarily, as-parentheticals) where the gap is modelled as a variable over the semantic type of the constituent that the as-clause adjoins to (the anchor). This much allows the meaning of the gap to be resolved purely compositionally, by defining as as a function that allows the anchor to bind the gap variable. This article presents a class of as-clauses where Potts's analysis seems to break down, in that the gap cannot be modelled as a variable over the semantic type of the anchor. I propose that these cases can be unified with those in Potts's work, as well as a larger class of ellipsis phenomena, by assuming that, under certain conditions, surface gaps are composite entities, containing a bound variable and a free variable that are resolved independently of each other. The bound variable is bound by the anchor (just as in Potts's account), and the free variable is resolved by anaphora to a salient discourse object.}, language = {en} } @article{ZakariasKeresztesMartonetal.2016, author = {Zakari{\´a}s, Lilla and Keresztes, Attila and Marton, Klara and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Positive effects of a computerised working memory and executive function}, series = {Neuropsychological rehabilitation}, volume = {28}, journal = {Neuropsychological rehabilitation}, number = {3}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0960-2011}, doi = {10.1080/09602011.2016.1159579}, pages = {369 -- 386}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Aphasia, the language disorder following brain damage, is frequently accompanied by deficits of working memory (WM) and executive functions (EFs). Recent studies suggest that WM, together with certain EFs, can play a role in sentence comprehension in individuals with aphasia (IWA), and that WM can be enhanced with intensive practice. Our aim was to investigate whether a combined WM and EF training improves the understanding of spoken sentences in IWA. We used a pre-post-test case control design. Three individuals with chronic aphasia practised an adaptive training task (a modified n-back task) three to four times a week for a month. Their performance was assessed before and after the training on outcome measures related to WM and spoken sentence comprehension. One participant showed significant improvement on the training task, another showed a tendency for improvement, and both of them improved significantly in spoken sentence comprehension. The third participant did not improve on the training task, however, she showed improvement on one measure of spoken sentence comprehension. Compared to controls, two individuals improved at least in one condition of the WM outcome measures. Thus, our results suggest that a combined WM and EF training can be beneficial for IWA.}, language = {en} } @article{Zimmermann2016, author = {Zimmermann, Malte}, title = {Predicate focus}, series = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, journal = {The Oxford handbook of information structure}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {978-0-19-964267-0}, pages = {314 -- 335}, year = {2016}, language = {en} } @article{OPUS4-50337, title = {The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure}, editor = {F{\´e}ry, Caroline and Ishihara, Shinichiro}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford}, isbn = {978-0-19-964267-0}, doi = {10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199642670.001.0001}, pages = {xxiv, 966}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This book offers a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Different chapters examine the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors' introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on topic, prosody, and implicature. Part II covers a range of current issues in the field, including focus, quantification, and sign languages, while Part III is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including processes involved in its acquisition and comprehension. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world's language families}, language = {en} }