@phdthesis{Zona2024,
  author    = {Zona, Carlotta Isabella},
  title     = {Visuo-linguistic integration for thematic-role assignment across speakers},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-63185},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-631857},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {147},
  year      = {2024},
  abstract  = {This dissertation examines the integration of incongruent visual-scene and morphological-case information ("cues") in building thematic-role representations of spoken relative clauses in German. Addressing the mutual influence of visual and linguistic processing, the Coordinated Interplay Account (CIA) describes a mechanism in two steps supporting visuo-linguistic integration (Knoeferle \& Crocker, 2006, Cog Sci). However, the outcomes and dynamics of integrating incongruent thematic-role representations from distinct sources have been investigated scarcely. Further, there is evidence that both second-language (L2) and older speakers may rely on non-syntactic cues relatively more than first-language (L1)/young speakers. Yet, the role of visual information for thematic-role comprehension has not been measured in L2 speakers, and only limitedly across the adult lifespan. Thematically unambiguous canonically ordered (subject-extracted) and noncanonically ordered (object-extracted) spoken relative clauses in German (see 1a-b) were presented in isolation and alongside visual scenes conveying either the same (congruent) or the opposite (incongruent) thematic relations as the sentence did. 1 a Das ist der Koch, der die Braut verfolgt. This is the.NOM cook who.NOM the.ACC bride follows This is the cook who is following the bride. b Das ist der Koch, den die Braut verfolgt. This is the.NOM cook whom.ACC the.NOM bride follows This is the cook whom the bride is following. The relative contribution of each cue to thematic-role representations was assessed with agent identification. Accuracy and latency data were collected post-sentence from a sample of L1 and L2 speakers (Zona \& Felser, 2023), and from a sample of L1 speakers from across the adult lifespan (Zona \& Reifegerste, under review). In addition, the moment-by-moment dynamics of thematic-role assignment were investigated with mouse tracking in a young L1 sample (Zona, under review). The following questions were addressed: (1) How do visual scenes influence thematic-role representations of canonical and noncanonical sentences? (2) How does reliance on visual-scene, case, and word-order cues vary in L1 and L2 speakers? (3) How does reliance on visual-scene, case, and word-order cues change across the lifespan? The results showed reliable effects of incongruence of visually and linguistically conveyed thematic relations on thematic-role representations. Incongruent (vs. congruent) scenes yielded slower and less accurate responses to agent-identification probes presented post-sentence. The recently inspected agent was considered as the most likely agent ~300ms after trial onset, and the convergence of visual scenes and word order enabled comprehenders to assign thematic roles predictively. L2 (vs. L1) participants relied more on word order overall. In response to noncanonical clauses presented with incongruent visual scenes, sensitivity to case predicted the size of incongruence effects better than L1-L2 grouping. These results suggest that the individual's ability to exploit specific cues might predict their weighting. Sensitivity to case was stable throughout the lifespan, while visual effects increased with increasing age and were modulated by individual interference-inhibition levels. Thus, age-related changes in comprehension may stem from stronger reliance on visually (vs. linguistically) conveyed meaning. These patterns represent evidence for a recent-role preference - i.e., a tendency to re-assign visually conveyed thematic roles to the same referents in temporally coordinated utterances. The findings (i) extend the generalizability of CIA predictions across stimuli, tasks, populations, and measures of interest, (ii) contribute to specifying the outcomes and mechanisms of detecting and indexing incongruent representations within the CIA, and (iii) speak to current efforts to understand the sources of variability in sentence comprehension.},
  language  = {en}
}
@masterthesis{Zolotarenko2020,
  type      = {Bachelor Thesis},
  author    = {Zolotarenko, Olha},
  title     = {Visualization approaches for coherence relations},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-51699},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-516997},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Die hier vorliegende Arbeit stellt einen Versuch dar, den Visualisierungsans{\"a}tzen in dem Feld der annotierten Diskursrelationen nahezukommen und durch Vergleich verschiedener Programmierwerkzeuge eine anforderungsnahe L{\"o}sung zu finden. Als Gegenstand der Forschung wurden Koh{\"a}renzrelationen ausgew{\"a}hlt, welche eine Reihe an Eigenschaften aufweisen, die f{\"u}r viele Visualisierungsmethoden herausfordernd sein k{\"o}nnen. Die Arbeit stellt f{\"u}nf verschiedene Visualisierungsm{\"o}glichkeiten sowohl von der Anwendungs- als auch von der Entwicklungsperspektive vor. Die zun{\"a}chst getesteten einfachen HTML-Ans{\"a}tze sowie das Softwarepaket displaCy zeigen das unzureichende Niveau f{\"u}r die Visualisierungszwecke dieser Arbeit. Die alternative Implementierung mit D3 w{\"u}rde die Voraussetzungen zwar optimal erf{\"u}llen, sprengt aber deutlich den Rahmen des Projektes. Die gew{\"a}hlte Hauptmethode wurde als Single-Web-Anwendung konzipiert und verwendet das Annotationstool brat, welches die meisten definierten Voraussetzungen f{\"u}r die Repr{\"a}sentation der Koh{\"a}renzrelationen erf{\"u}llt. Die Anwendung stellt die im Text annotierten Koh{\"a}renzrelationen graphisch dar und bietet eine Filterfunktion f{\"u}r verschiedene Relationstypen an.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{ZimmermannFery2010,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte and F{\´e}ry, Caroline},
  title     = {Introduction},
  isbn      = {978-0-19-957095-9},
  year      = {2010},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{ZimmermannDeVeaughGeissToennisetal.2020,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte and De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P. and T{\"o}nnis, Swantje and Onea, Edgar},
  title     = {(Non-)exhaustivity in focus partitioning across languages},
  series = {Approaches to Hungarian},
  volume    = {16},
  journal   = {Approaches to Hungarian},
  publisher = {John Benjamins},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  pages     = {24},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {We present novel experimental evidence on the availability and the status of exhaustivity inferences with focus partitioning in German, English, and Hungarian. Results suggest that German and English focus-background clefts and Hungarian focus share important properties, ({\´E}. Kiss 1998, 1999; Szabolcsi 1994; Percus 1997; Onea \& Beaver 2009). Those constructions are anaphoric devices triggering an existence presupposition. EXH-inferences are not obligatory in such constructions in English, German, or Hungarian, against some previous literature (Percus 1997; B{\"u}ring \& Križ 2013; {\´E}. Kiss 1998), but in line with pragmatic analyses of EXH-inferences in clefts (Horn 1981, 2016; Pollard \& Yasavul 2016). The cross-linguistic differences in the distribution of EXH-inferences are attributed to properties of the Hungarian number marking system.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{ZimmermannDeVeaughGeissToennisetal.2020,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte and De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P. and T{\"o}nnis, Swantje and Onea, Edgar},
  title     = {(Non-)exhaustivity in focus partitioning across languages},
  series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  volume    = {16},
  journal   = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe},
  issn      = {1866-8364},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-52467},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-524677},
  pages     = {26},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {We present novel experimental evidence on the availability and the status of exhaustivity inferences with focus partitioning in German, English, and Hungarian. Results suggest that German and English focus-background clefts and Hungarian focus share important properties, ({\´E}. Kiss 1998, 1999; Szabolcsi 1994; Percus 1997; Onea \& Beaver 2009). Those constructions are anaphoric devices triggering an existence presupposition. EXH-inferences are not obligatory in such constructions in English, German, or Hungarian, against some previous literature (Percus 1997; B{\"u}ring \& Križ 2013; {\´E}. Kiss 1998), but in line with pragmatic analyses of EXH-inferences in clefts (Horn 1981, 2016; Pollard \& Yasavul 2016). The cross-linguistic differences in the distribution of EXH-inferences are attributed to properties of the Hungarian number marking system.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Zimmermann2018,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte},
  title     = {Wird Schon Stimmen!},
  series = {Journal of semantics},
  volume    = {35},
  journal   = {Journal of semantics},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0167-5133},
  doi       = {10.1093/jos/ffy010},
  pages     = {687 -- 739},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {The article puts forward a novel analysis of the German modal particle schon as a modal degree operator over propositional content. The proposed analysis offers a uniform perspective on the semantics of modal schon and its aspectual counterpart meaning 'already': Both particles are analyzed as denoting a degree operator, expressing a scale-based comparison over relevant alternatives. The alternatives are determined by focus in the case of aspectual schon (Krifka 2000), but are restricted to the polar alternatives p and ¬p in the case of modal schon. Semantically, modal schon introduces a presupposition to the effect that the circumstantial conversational background contains more factual evidence in favor of p than in favor of ¬p⁠, thereby making modal schon the not at-issue counterpart of the overt comparative form eher 'rather' (Herburger \& Rubinstein 2014). The analysis incorporates basic insights from earlier analyses of modal schon in a novel way, and it also offers new insights as to the underlying workings of modality in natural language as involving propositions rather than possible worlds (Kratzer 1977, 2012).},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Zimmermann2011,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte},
  title     = {On the functional architecture of DP and the feature content of pronominal quantifiers in Low German},
  series = {The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics},
  volume    = {14},
  journal   = {The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {New York},
  issn      = {1383-4924},
  doi       = {10.1007/s10828-011-9046-z},
  pages     = {203 -- 240},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {The article investigates the functional architecture of complex pronominal quantifying expressions (PQEs) in Low German, such as jeder-een 'everyone' and keen-een 'no-one', which provide overt evidence for a Num-projection, situated between the NP- and DP-layer. The feature specification of Num as [+lattice] or [-lattice] is responsible for whether the DP denotes into the domain of atomic or mass/plural entities, respectively. In the case of complex PQEs, the syntactic Num-head hosts the overt element een 'a, one', which carries a [-lattice] feature, thus ensuring that the PQE ranges exclusively over the domain of atomic entities, but not mass or plural entities. The Num-head een differs from its simplex counterpart wat 'something', which is analyzed as an NP-proform with an underspecified [lattice]-feature. As a result, wat can range over atomic and mass domains alike. In the final part of the article, it is argued that wat is also underspecified for the operator feature [rel/wh], for which reason it can also function as an interrogative expression (what) and as a relative pronoun (which), respectively, depending on the syntactic context. Throughout the article, the Low German data are compared with relevant data from other German dialects and Germanic and Romance languages, pointing out similarities and differences in the syntactic structure and feature content of PQEs across these languages and dialects.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Zimmermann2011,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte},
  title     = {The grammatical expression of focus in West Chadic variation and uniformity in and across languages},
  series = {Linguistics : an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences},
  volume    = {49},
  journal   = {Linguistics : an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences},
  number    = {5},
  publisher = {De Gruyter Mouton},
  address   = {Berlin},
  issn      = {0024-3949},
  doi       = {10.1515/LING.2011.032},
  pages     = {1163 -- 1213},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {The article provides an overview of the grammatical realization of focus in four West Chadic languages (Chadic, Afro-Asiatic). The languages discussed exhibit an intriguing crosslinguistic variation in the realization of focus, both among themselves as well as compared to European intonation languages. They also display language-internal variation in the formal realization of focus. The West Chadic languages differ widely in their ways of expressing focus, which range from syntactic over prosodic to morphological devices. In contrast to European intonation languages, the focus marking systems of the West Chadic languages are inconsistent in that focus is often not grammatically expressed, but these inconsistencies are shown to be systematic. Subject foci (contrastive or not) and contrastive nonsubject foci are always grammatically marked, whereas information focus on nonsubjects need not be marked as such. The absence of formal focus marking supports pragmatic theories of focus in terms of contextual resolution. The special status of focused subjects and contrastive foci is derived from the Contrastive Focus Hypothesis, which requires unexpected foci and unexpected focus contents to be marked as such, together with the assumption that canonical subjects in West Chadic receive a default interpretation as topics. Finally, I discuss certain focus ambiguities which are not attested in intonation languages, nor do they follow on standard accounts of focus marking, but which can be accounted for in terms of constraint interaction in the formal expression of focus.},
  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{Zimmermann2019,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte},
  title     = {Im Korpus gibt's keine V{\"o}gel nicht},
  series = {Of trees and birds. A Festschrift for Gisbert Fanselow},
  journal   = {Of trees and birds. A Festschrift for Gisbert Fanselow},
  publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam},
  address   = {Potsdam},
  isbn      = {978-3-86956-457-9},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-43254},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-432541},
  pages     = {287 -- 306},
  year      = {2019},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{Zimmermann2011,
  author    = {Zimmermann, Malte},
  title     = {The grammatical expression of focus in West Chadic},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-93617},
  pages     = {1163 -- 1213},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {The article provides an overview of the grammatical realization of focus in four West Chadic languages (Chadic, Afro-Asiatic). The languages discussed exhibit an intriguing crosslinguistic variation in the realization of focus, both among themselves as well as compared to European intonation languages. They also display language-internal variation in the formal realization of focus. The West Chadic languages differ widely in their ways of expressing focus, which range from syntactic over prosodic to morphological devices. In contrast to European intonation languages, the focus marking systems of the West Chadic languages are inconsistent in that focus is often not grammatically expressed, but these inconsistencies are shown to be systematic. Subject foci (contrastive or not) and contrastive nonsubject foci are always grammatically marked, whereas information focus on nonsubjects need not be marked as such. The absence of formal focus marking supports pragmatic theories of focus in terms of contextual resolution. The special status of focused subjects and contrastive foci is derived from the Contrastive Focus Hypothesis, which requires unexpected foci and unexpected focus contents to be marked as such, together with the assumption that canonical subjects in West Chadic receive a default interpretation as topics. Finally, I discuss certain focus ambiguities which are not attested in intonation languages, nor do they follow on standard accounts of focus marking, but which can be accounted for in terms of constraint interaction in the formal expression of focus.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{ZerbianDowningKuegler2009,
  author    = {Zerbian, Sabine and Downing, Laura and K{\"u}gler, Frank},
  title     = {Introduction : tone and intonation from a typological perspective},
  issn      = {0024-3841},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.lingua.2007.10.024},
  year      = {2009},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{ZerbianBarnard2010,
  author    = {Zerbian, Sabine and Barnard, Etienne},
  title     = {Realisation of two adjacent high tones : Acoustic evidence from Northern Sotho},
  issn      = {1607-3614},
  doi       = {10.2989/16073614.2010.519099},
  year      = {2010},
  abstract  = {We present findings of a multi-speaker production study that was undertaken to investigate the realisation of two adjacent high tones within the verb word in Northern Sotho, a Southern Bantu language. Experimental tokens are selected to ensure that the high tones originate from different combinations of morphosyntactic constituents. It is found that the morphosyntactic constituency determines how the adjacent high tones are realised. When both high tones originate within either the inflectional stem or the macrostem constituents, a single pitch peak is realised. Additionally, when the macrostem contains two high tones, the tone of the object concord is absorbed into the stem. Two adjacent high tones, of which one stems from the inflectional stem and the other from the macrostem, produce two pitch peaks, with the latter of the two delayed in order to satisfy the Obligatory Contour Principle. These generalisations are supported by acoustic data. A set of rules is formulated that describes the surface realisation of adjacent high tones in the verbal domain of Northern Sotho (with the exception of one unresolved issue).},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{Zerbian2012,
  author    = {Zerbian, Sabine},
  title     = {Variation in the grammar of black south African English},
  series = {Southern African linguistics and applied language studies},
  volume    = {30},
  journal   = {Southern African linguistics and applied language studies},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {NISC},
  address   = {Grahamstown},
  issn      = {1607-3614},
  doi       = {10.2989/16073614.2012.693721},
  pages     = {131 -- 135},
  year      = {2012},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Zerbian2013,
  author    = {Zerbian, Sabine},
  title     = {Prosodic marking of narrow focus across varieties of South African English},
  series = {English world-wide : a journal of varieties of English},
  volume    = {34},
  journal   = {English world-wide : a journal of varieties of English},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Benjamins},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {0172-8865},
  doi       = {10.1075/eww.34.1.02zer},
  pages     = {26 -- 47},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {This paper reports on an elicited production study which investigates prosodic marking of narrow focus in modified noun phrases in varieties of South African English. The acoustic analysis of fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration in narrow focus is presented and discussed. The results suggest that these three acoustic parameters are manipulated differently in narrow focus in the varieties of English as a Second Language as compared to General South African English. The article compares the results to what is known about prosodic marking of information structure in other varieties of English as a Second Language and underlines the necessity of carefully controlled data in the investigation of phonological and phonetic variation in varieties of English.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{ZarriessSchlangen2019,
  author    = {Zarriess, Sina and Schlangen, David},
  title     = {Objects of Unknown Categories},
  series = {The 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics},
  journal   = {The 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics},
  publisher = {Association for Computational Linguistics},
  address   = {Stroudsburg},
  isbn      = {978-1-950737-48-2},
  pages     = {654 -- 659},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Zero-shot learning in Language \& Vision is the task of correctly labelling (or naming) objects of novel categories. Another strand of work in L\&V aims at pragmatically informative rather than "correct" object descriptions, e.g. in reference games. We combine these lines of research and model zero-shot reference games, where a speaker needs to successfully refer to a novel object in an image. Inspired by models of "rational speech acts", we extend a neural generator to become a pragmatic speaker reasoning about uncertain object categories. As a result of this reasoning, the generator produces fewer nouns and names of distractor categories as compared to a literal speaker. We show that this conversational strategy for dealing with novel objects often improves communicative success, in terms of resolution accuracy of an automatic listener.},
  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}
}
@phdthesis{Zakarias2018,
  author    = {Zakari{\´a}s, Lilla},
  title     = {Transfer effects after working memory training in post-stroke aphasia},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-42360},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-423600},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {178},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Background: Individuals with aphasia after stroke (IWA) often present with working memory (WM) deficits. Research investigating the relationship between WM and language abilities has led to the promising hypothesis that treatments of WM could lead to improvements in language, a phenomenon known as transfer. Although recent treatment protocols have been successful in improving WM, the evidence to date is scarce and the extent to which improvements in trained tasks of WM transfer to untrained memory tasks, spoken sentence comprehension, and functional communication is yet poorly understood. Aims: We aimed at (a) investigating whether WM can be improved through an adaptive n-back training in IWA (Study 1-3); (b) testing whether WM training leads to near transfer to unpracticed WM tasks (Study 1-3), and far transfer to spoken sentence comprehension (Study 1-3), functional communication (Study 2-3), and memory in daily life in IWA (Study 2-3); and (c) evaluating the methodological quality of existing WM treatments in IWA (Study 3). To address these goals, we conducted two empirical studies - a case-controls study with Hungarian speaking IWA (Study 1) and a multiple baseline study with German speaking IWA (Study 2) - and a systematic review (Study 3). Methods: In Study 1 and 2 participants with chronic, post-stroke aphasia performed an adaptive, computerized n-back training. 'Adaptivity' was implemented by adjusting the tasks' difficulty level according to the participants' performance, ensuring that they always practiced at an optimal level of difficulty. To assess the specificity of transfer effects and to better understand the underlying mechanisms of transfer on spoken sentence comprehension, we included an outcome measure testing specific syntactic structures that have been proposed to involve WM processes (e.g., non-canonical structures with varying complexity). Results: We detected a mixed pattern of training and transfer effects across individuals: five participants out of six significantly improved in the n-back training. Our most important finding is that all six participants improved significantly in spoken sentence comprehension (i.e., far transfer effects). In addition, we also found far transfer to functional communication (in two participants out of three in Study 2) and everyday memory functioning (in all three participants in Study 2), and near transfer to unpracticed n-back tasks (in four participants out of six). Pooled data analysis of Study 1 and 2 showed a significant negative relationship between initial spoken sentence comprehension and the amount of improvement in this ability, suggesting that the more severe the participants' spoken sentence comprehension deficit was at the beginning of training, the more they improved after training. Taken together, we detected both near far and transfer effects in our studies, but the effects varied across participants. The systematic review evaluating the methodological quality of existing WM treatments in stroke IWA (Study 3) showed poor internal and external validity across the included 17 studies. Poor internal validity was mainly due to use of inappropriate design, lack of randomization of study phases, lack of blinding of participants and/or assessors, and insufficient sampling. Low external validity was mainly related to incomplete information on the setting, lack of use of appropriate analysis or justification for the suitability of the analysis procedure used, and lack of replication across participants and/or behaviors. Results in terms of WM, spoken sentence comprehension, and reading are promising, but further studies with more rigorous methodology and stronger experimental control are needed to determine the beneficial effects of WM intervention. Conclusions: Results of the empirical studies suggest that WM can be improved with a computerized and adaptive WM training, and improvements can lead to transfer effects to spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication in some individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia. The fact that improvements were not specific to certain syntactic structures (i.e., non-canonical complex sentences) in spoken sentence comprehension suggest that WM is not involved in the online, automatic processing of syntactic information (i.e., parsing and interpretation), but plays a more general role in the later stage of spoken sentence comprehension (i.e., post-interpretive comprehension). The individual differences in treatment outcomes call for future research to clarify how far these results are generalizable to the population level of IWA. Future studies are needed to identify a few mechanisms that may generalize to at least a subpopulation of IWA as well as to investigate baseline non-linguistic cognitive and language abilities that may play a role in transfer effects and the maintenance of such effects. These may require larger yet homogenous samples.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{ZakariasSalisWartenburger2018,
  author    = {Zakarias, Lilla and Salis, Christos and Wartenburger, Isabell},
  title     = {Transfer effects on spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication after working memory training in stroke aphasia},
  series = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience},
  volume    = {48},
  journal   = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Oxford},
  issn      = {0911-6044},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.12.002},
  pages     = {47 -- 63},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Recent treatment protocols have been successful in improving working memory (WM) in individuals with aphasia. However, the evidence to date is small and the extent to which improvements in trained tasks of WM transfer to untrained memory tasks, spoken sentence comprehension, and functional communication is yet poorly understood. To address these issues, we conducted a multiple baseline study with three German-speaking individuals with chronic post stroke aphasia. Participants practised two computerised WM tasks (n-back with pictures and aback with spoken words) four times a week for a month, targeting two WM processes: updating WM representations and resolving interference. All participants showed improvement on at least one measure of spoken sentence comprehension and everyday memory activities. Two of them showed improvement also on measures of WM and functional communication. Our results suggest that WM can be improved through computerised training in chronic aphasia and this can transfer to spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication in some individuals.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{ZakariasKellySailsetal.2019,
  author    = {Zakarias, Lilla and Kelly, Helen and Sails, Christos and Code, Chris},
  title     = {The methodological quality of short-term/working memory treatments in poststroke aphasia},
  series = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research},
  volume    = {62},
  journal   = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research},
  number    = {6},
  publisher = {American Speech-Language-Hearing Assoc.},
  address   = {Rockville},
  issn      = {1092-4388},
  doi       = {10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-18-0057},
  pages     = {1979 -- 2001},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {Purpose: The aims of this systematic review are to provide a critical overview of short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) treatments in stroke aphasia and to systematically evaluate the internal and external validity of STM/WM treatments. Method: A systematic search was conducted in February 2014 and then updated in December 2016 using 13 electronic databases. We provided descriptive characteristics of the included studies and assessed their methodological quality using the Risk of Bias in N-of-1 Trials quantitative scale (Tate et al., 2015), which was completed by 2 independent raters. Results: The systematic search and inclusion/exclusion procedure yielded 17 single-case or case-series studies with 37 participants for inclusion. Nine studies targeted auditory STM consisting of repetition and/or recognition tasks, whereas 8 targeted attention and WM, such as attention process training including n-back tasks with shapes and clock faces as well as mental math tasks. In terms of their methodological quality, quality scores on the Risk of Bias in N-of-1 Trials scale ranged from 4 to 17 (M = 9.5) on a 0-30 scale, indicating a high risk of bias in the reviewed studies. Effects of treatment were most frequently assessed on STM, WM, and spoken language comprehension. Transfer effects on communication and memory in activities of daily living were tested in only 5 studies. Conclusions: Methodological limitations of the reviewed studies make it difficult, at present, to draw firm conclusions about the effects of STM/WM treatments in poststroke aphasia. Further studies with more rigorous methodology and stronger experimental control are needed to determine the beneficial effects of this type of intervention. To understand the underlying mechanisms of STM/WM treatment effects and how they relate to language functioning, a careful choice of outcome measures and specific hypotheses about potential improvements on these measures are required. Future studies need to include outcome measures of memory functioning in everyday life and psychosocial functioning more generally to demonstrate the ecological validity of STM and WM treatments.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Zaccarella2015,
  author    = {Zaccarella, Emiliano},
  title     = {Breaking down complexity},
  series = {MPI series human cognitive and brain sciences ; 175},
  journal   = {MPI series human cognitive and brain sciences ; 175},
  publisher = {Max-Planck-Institute},
  address   = {Leipzig},
  isbn      = {978-3-941504-60-8},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {217},
  year      = {2015},
  abstract  = {The unbounded expressive capacity of human language cannot boil down to an infinite list of sentences stored in a finite brain. Our linguistic knowledge is rather grounded around a rule-based universal syntactic computation—called Merge—which takes categorized units in input (e.g. this and ship), and generates structures by binding words recursively into more complex hierarchies of any length (e.g. this ship; this ship sinks…). Here we present data from different fMRI datasets probing the cortical implementation of this fundamental process. We first pushed complexity down to a three-word level, to explore how Merge creates minimally hierarchical phrases and sentences. We then moved to the most fundamental two-word level, to directly assess the universal invariant nature of Merge, when no additive mechanisms are involved. Our most general finding is that Merge as the basic syntactic operation is primarily performed by confined area, namely BA 44 in the IFG. Activity reduces to its most ventral-anterior portion at the most fundamental level, following fine-grained sub-anatomical parcellation proposed for the region. The deep frontal operculum/anterior-dorsal insula (FOP/adINS), a phylogenetically older and less specialized region, rather appears to support word-accumulation processing in which the categorical information of the word is first accessed based on its lexical status, and then maintained on hold before further processing takes place. The present data confirm the general notion of BA 44 being activated as a function of complex structural hierarchy, but they go beyond this view by proposing that structural sensitivity in BA 44 is already appreciated at the lowest levels of complexity during which minimal phrase-structures are build up, and syntactic Merge is assessed. Further, they call for a redefinition of BA 44 from multimodal area to a macro-region with internal localizable functional profiles},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{YueBastiaanseAlter2014,
  author    = {Yue, Jinxing and Bastiaanse, Roelien and Alter, Kai},
  title     = {Cortical plasticity induced by rapid Hebbian learning of novel tonal word-forms: Evidence from mismatch negativity},
  series = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language},
  volume    = {139},
  journal   = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {San Diego},
  issn      = {0093-934X},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.bandl.2014.09.007},
  pages     = {10 -- 22},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {Although several experiments reported rapid cortical plasticity induced by passive exposure to novel segmental patterns, few studies have devoted attention to the neural dynamics during the rapid learning of novel tonal word-forms in tonal languages, such as Chinese. In the current study, native speakers of Mandarin Chinese were exposed to acoustically matched real and novel segment-tone patterns. By recording their Mismatch Negativity (MMN) responses (an ERP indicator of long-term memory traces for spoken words), we found enhanced MMNs to the novel word-forms over the left-hemispheric region in the late exposure phase relative to the early exposure phase. In contrast, no significant changes were identified in MMN responses to the real word during familiarisation. Our results suggest a rapid Hebbian learning mechanism in the human neocortex which develops long-term memory traces for a novel segment-tone pattern by establishing new associations between the segmental and tonal representations. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{YueAlterHowardetal.2017,
  author    = {Yue, Jinxing and Alter, Kai-Uwe and Howard, David and Bastiaanse, Roelien},
  title     = {Early access to lexical-level phonological representations of Mandarin word-forms},
  series = {Language, cognition and neuroscience},
  volume    = {32},
  journal   = {Language, cognition and neuroscience},
  number    = {9},
  publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group},
  address   = {Abingdon},
  issn      = {2327-3798},
  doi       = {10.1080/23273798.2017.1290261},
  pages     = {1148 -- 1163},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {An auditory habituation design was used to investigate whether lexical-level phonological representations in the brain can be rapidly accessed after the onset of a spoken word. We studied the N1 component of the auditory event-related electrical potential, and measured the amplitude decrements of N1 associated with the repetition of a monosyllabic tone word and an acoustically similar pseudo-word in Mandarin Chinese. Effects related to the contrastive onset consonants were controlled for by introducing two control words. We show that repeated pseudo-words consistently elicit greater amplitude decrements in N1 than real words. Furthermore, this lexicality effect is free from sensory fatigue or rapid learning of the pseudo-word. These results suggest that a lexical-level phonological representation of a spoken word can be accessed as early as 110ms after the onset of the word-form.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{YadavHusainFutrell2021,
  author    = {Yadav, Himanshu and Husain, Samar and Futrell, Richard},
  title     = {Do dependency lengths explain constraints on crossing dependencies?},
  series = {Linguistics vanguard : multimodal online journal},
  volume    = {7},
  journal   = {Linguistics vanguard : multimodal online journal},
  publisher = {De Gruyter Mouton},
  address   = {Berlin ; New York, NY},
  issn      = {2199-174X},
  doi       = {10.1515/lingvan-2019-0070},
  pages     = {15},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {In syntactic dependency trees, when arcs are drawn from syntactic heads to dependents, they rarely cross. Constraints on these crossing dependencies are critical for determining the syntactic properties of human language, because they define the position of natural language in formal language hierarchies. We study whether the apparent constraints on crossing syntactic dependencies in natural language might be explained by constraints on dependency lengths (the linear distance between heads and dependents). We compare real dependency trees from treebanks of 52 languages against baselines of random trees which are matched with the real trees in terms of their dependency lengths. We find that these baseline trees have many more crossing dependencies than real trees, indicating that a constraint on dependency lengths alone cannot explain the empirical rarity of crossing dependencies. However, we find evidence that a combined constraint on dependency length and the rate of crossing dependencies might be able to explain two of the most-studied formal restrictions on dependency trees: gap degree and well-nestedness.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Yadav2023,
  author    = {Yadav, Himanshu},
  title     = {A computational evaluation of feature distortion and cue weighting in sentence comprehension},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-58505},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-585055},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {iv, 115},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {Successful sentence comprehension requires the comprehender to correctly figure out who did what to whom. For example, in the sentence John kicked the ball, the comprehender has to figure out who did the action of kicking and what was being kicked. This process of identifying and connecting the syntactically-related words in a sentence is called dependency completion. What are the cognitive constraints that determine dependency completion? A widely-accepted theory is cue-based retrieval. The theory maintains that dependency completion is driven by a content-addressable search for the co-dependents in memory. The cue-based retrieval explains a wide range of empirical data from several constructions including subject-verb agreement, subject-verb non-agreement, plausibility mismatch configurations, and negative polarity items. However, there are two major empirical challenges to the theory: (i) Grammatical sentences' data from subject-verb number agreement dependencies, where the theory predicts a slowdown at the verb in sentences like the key to the cabinet was rusty compared to the key to the cabinets was rusty, but the data are inconsistent with this prediction; and, (ii) Data from antecedent-reflexive dependencies, where a facilitation in reading times is predicted at the reflexive in the bodybuilder who worked with the trainers injured themselves vs. the bodybuilder who worked with the trainer injured themselves, but the data do not show a facilitatory effect. The work presented in this dissertation is dedicated to building a more general theory of dependency completion that can account for the above two datasets without losing the original empirical coverage of the cue-based retrieval assumption. In two journal articles, I present computational modeling work that addresses the above two empirical challenges. To explain the grammatical sentences' data from subject-verb number agreement dependencies, I propose a new model that assumes that the cue-based retrieval operates on a probabilistically distorted representation of nouns in memory (Article I). This hybrid distortion-plus-retrieval model was compared against the existing candidate models using data from 17 studies on subject-verb number agreement in 4 languages. I find that the hybrid model outperforms the existing models of number agreement processing suggesting that the cue-based retrieval theory must incorporate a feature distortion assumption. To account for the absence of facilitatory effect in antecedent-reflexive dependen� cies, I propose an individual difference model, which was built within the cue-based retrieval framework (Article II). The model assumes that individuals may differ in how strongly they weigh a syntactic cue over a number cue. The model was fitted to data from two studies on antecedent-reflexive dependencies, and the participant-level cue-weighting was estimated. We find that one-fourth of the participants, in both studies, weigh the syntactic cue higher than the number cue in processing reflexive dependencies and the remaining participants weigh the two cues equally. The result indicates that the absence of predicted facilitatory effect at the level of grouped data is driven by some, not all, participants who weigh syntactic cues higher than the number cue. More generally, the result demonstrates that the assumption of differential cue weighting is important for a theory of dependency completion processes. This differential cue weighting idea was independently supported by a modeling study on subject-verb non-agreement dependencies (Article III). Overall, the cue-based retrieval, which is a general theory of dependency completion, needs to incorporate two new assumptions: (i) the nouns stored in memory can undergo probabilistic feature distortion, and (ii) the linguistic cues used for retrieval can be weighted differentially. This is the cumulative result of the modeling work presented in this dissertation. The dissertation makes an important theoretical contribution: Sentence comprehension in humans is driven by a mechanism that assumes cue-based retrieval, probabilistic feature distortion, and differential cue weighting. This insight is theoretically important because there is some independent support for these three assumptions in sentence processing and the broader memory literature. The modeling work presented here is also methodologically important because for the first time, it demonstrates (i) how the complex models of sentence processing can be evaluated using data from multiple studies simultaneously, without oversimplifying the models, and (ii) how the inferences drawn from the individual-level behavior can be used in theory development.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WulffBuschhueterWestphaletal.2020,
  author    = {Wulff, Peter and Buschh{\"u}ter, David and Westphal, Andrea and Nowak, Anna and Becker, Lisa and Robalino, Hugo and Stede, Manfred and Borowski, Andreas},
  title     = {Computer-based classification of preservice physics teachers' written reflections},
  series = {Journal of science education and technology},
  volume    = {30},
  journal   = {Journal of science education and technology},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {Dordrecht},
  issn      = {1059-0145},
  doi       = {10.1007/s10956-020-09865-1},
  pages     = {1 -- 15},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {Reflecting in written form on one's teaching enactments has been considered a facilitator for teachers' professional growth in university-based preservice teacher education. Writing a structured reflection can be facilitated through external feedback. However, researchers noted that feedback in preservice teacher education often relies on holistic, rather than more content-based, analytic feedback because educators oftentimes lack resources (e.g., time) to provide more analytic feedback. To overcome this impediment to feedback for written reflection, advances in computer technology can be of use. Hence, this study sought to utilize techniques of natural language processing and machine learning to train a computer-based classifier that classifies preservice physics teachers' written reflections on their teaching enactments in a German university teacher education program. To do so, a reflection model was adapted to physics education. It was then tested to what extent the computer-based classifier could accurately classify the elements of the reflection model in segments of preservice physics teachers' written reflections. Multinomial logistic regression using word count as a predictor was found to yield acceptable average human-computer agreement (F1-score on held-out test dataset of 0.56) so that it might fuel further development towards an automated feedback tool that supplements existing holistic feedback for written reflections with data-based, analytic feedback.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{WulffDeDeyneJonesetal.2019,
  author    = {Wulff, Dirk U. and De Deyne, Simon and Jones, Michael N. and Mata, Rui and Austerweil, Joseph L. and Baayen, R. Harald and Balota, David A. and Baronchelli, Andrea and Brysbaert, Marc and Cai, Qing and Dennis, Simon and Hills, Thomas T. and Kenett, Yoed N. and Keuleers, Emmanuel and Marelli, Marco and Pakhomov, Serguei and Ramscar, Michael and Schooler, Lael J. and Shing, Yee Lee and da Souza, Alessandra S. and Siew, Cynthia S. Q. and Storms, Gert and Ver{\´i}ssimo, Joao Marques},
  title     = {New Perspectives on the Aging Lexicon},
  series = {Trends in cognitive science},
  volume    = {23},
  journal   = {Trends in cognitive science},
  number    = {8},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {London},
  organization    = {Aging Lexicon Consortium},
  issn      = {1364-6613},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.tics.2019.05.003},
  pages     = {686 -- 698},
  year      = {2019},
  abstract  = {The field of cognitive aging has seen considerable advances in describing the linguistic and semantic changes that happen during the adult life span to uncover the structure of the mental lexicon (i.e., the mental repository of lexical and conceptual representations). Nevertheless, there is still debate concerning the sources of these changes, including the role of environmental exposure and several cognitive mechanisms associated with learning, representation, and retrieval of information. We review the current status of research in this field and outline a framework that promises to assess the contribution of both ecological and psychological aspects to the aging lexicon.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WuKaiserVasishth2017,
  author    = {Wu, Fuyun and Kaiser, Elsi and Vasishth, Shravan},
  title     = {Effects of early cues on the processing of chinese relative clauses},
  series = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society},
  volume    = {42},
  journal   = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society},
  publisher = {Wiley},
  address   = {Hoboken},
  issn      = {0364-0213},
  doi       = {10.1111/cogs.12551},
  pages     = {1101 -- 1133},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {We used Chinese prenominal relative clauses (RCs) to test the predictions of two competing accounts of sentence comprehension difficulty: the experience-based account of Levy () and the Dependency Locality Theory (DLT; Gibson, ). Given that in Chinese RCs, a classifier and/or a passive marker BEI can be added to the sentence-initial position, we manipulated the presence/absence of classifiers and the presence/absence of BEI, such that BEI sentences were passivized subject-extracted RCs, and no-BEI sentences were standard object-extracted RCs. We conducted two self-paced reading experiments, using the same critical stimuli but somewhat different filler items. Reading time patterns from both experiments showed facilitative effects of BEI within and beyond RC regions, and delayed facilitative effects of classifiers, suggesting that cues that occur before a clear signal of an upcoming RC can help Chinese comprehenders to anticipate RC structures. The data patterns are not predicted by the DLT, but they are consistent with the predictions of experience-based theories.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WittenbergPaczynskiWieseetal.2014,
  author    = {Wittenberg, Eva and Paczynski, Martin and Wiese, Heike and Jackendoff, Ray and Kuperberg, Gina},
  title     = {The difference between "giving a rose" and "giving a kiss": Sustained neural activity to the light verb construction},
  series = {Journal of memory and language},
  volume    = {73},
  journal   = {Journal of memory and language},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {San Diego},
  issn      = {0749-596X},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.jml.2014.02.002},
  pages     = {31 -- 42},
  year      = {2014},
  abstract  = {We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neurocognitive mechanisms associated with processing light verb constructions such as "give a kiss". These constructions consist of a semantically underspecified light verb ("give") and an event nominal that contributes most of the meaning and also activates an argument structure of its own ("kiss"). This creates a mismatch between the syntactic constituents and the semantic roles of a sentence. Native speakers read German verb-final sentences that contained light verb constructions (e.g., "Julius gave Anne a kiss"), non-light constructions (e.g., "Julius gave Anne a rose"), and semantically anomalous constructions (e.g., 'Julius gave Anne a conversation"). ERPs were measured at the critical verb, which appeared after all its arguments. Compared to non-light constructions, the light verb constructions evoked a widely distributed, frontally focused, sustained negative-going effect between 500 and 900 ms after verb onset. We interpret this effect as reflecting working memory costs associated with complex semantic processes that establish a shared argument structure in the light verb constructions.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WilliamsEscuderoGafos2018,
  author    = {Williams, Daniel Philip and Escudero, Paola and Gafos, Adamantios I.},
  title     = {Spectral change and duration as cues in Australian English listeners' front vowel categorization},
  series = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America},
  volume    = {144},
  journal   = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America},
  number    = {3},
  publisher = {American Institute of Physics},
  address   = {Melville},
  issn      = {0001-4966},
  doi       = {10.1121/1.5055019},
  pages     = {EL215 -- EL221},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Australian English /iː/, /ɪ/, and /ɪə/ exhibit almost identical average first (F1) and second (F2) formant frequencies and differ in duration and vowel inherent spectral change (VISC). The cues of duration, F1 × F2 trajectory direction (TD) and trajectory length (TL) were assessed in listeners' categorization of /iː/ and /ɪə/ compared to /ɪ/. Duration was important for distinguishing both /iː/ and /ɪə/ from /ɪ/. TD and TL were important for categorizing /iː/ versus /ɪ/, whereas only TL was important for /ɪə/ versus /ɪ/. Finally, listeners' use of duration and VISC was not mutually affected for either vowel compared to /ɪ/.},
  language  = {en}
}
@misc{WilliamsEscuderoGafos2018,
  author    = {Williams, Daniel and Escudero, Paola and Gafos, Adamantios I.},
  title     = {Perceptual sensitivity to spectral change in Australian English close front vowels},
  series = {19 th annual conference of the international speech communicaton association (INTERSPEECH 2018), VOLS 1-6: Speech research for emerging marjets in multilingual societies},
  journal   = {19 th annual conference of the international speech communicaton association (INTERSPEECH 2018), VOLS 1-6: Speech research for emerging marjets in multilingual societies},
  publisher = {ISCA-International Speech Communication Association},
  address   = {Baixas},
  isbn      = {978-1-5108-7221-9},
  issn      = {2308-457X},
  doi       = {10.21437/Interspeech.2018-2505},
  pages     = {1442 -- 1446},
  year      = {2018},
  abstract  = {Speech scientists have long noted that the qualities of naturally-produced vowels do not remain constant over their durations regardless of being nominally "monophthongs" or "diphthongs". Recent acoustic corpora show that there are consistent patterns of first (F1) and second (F2) formant frequency change across different vowel categories. The three Australian English (AusE) close front vowels /i:, 1, i/ provide a striking example: while their midpoint or mean F1 and F2 frequencies are virtually identical, their spectral change patterns distinctly differ. The results indicate that, despite the distinct patterns of spectral change of AusE /i:, i, la/ in production, its perceptual relevance is not uniform, but rather vowel-category dependent.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WieseOncuBracker2017,
  author    = {Wiese, Heike and Oncu, Mehmet Tahir and Bracker, Philip},
  title     = {Verb-third-position in Turkish-German Language Contact},
  series = {Deutsche Sprache : ds ; Zeitschrift f{\"u}r Theorie, Praxis, Dokumentation},
  volume    = {45},
  journal   = {Deutsche Sprache : ds ; Zeitschrift f{\"u}r Theorie, Praxis, Dokumentation},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Erich Schmidt},
  address   = {Berlin},
  issn      = {0340-9341},
  pages     = {31 -- 52},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {In present-day German we find new word order options, particularly well-known from Turkish-German bilingual speakers in the contexts of new urban dialects, which allow violations of the canonical verb-second position in independent declarative clauses. In these cases, two positions are occupied in the forefield in front of the finite verb, usually by an adverbial and a subject, which identify, at the level of information structure, frame-setter and topic, respectively. Our study investigates the influence of verbal versus language -independent information-structural preferences for this linearisation, comparing Turkish-German multilingual speakers who have grown up in Germany with monolingual German and Turkish speakers. For tasks, in which grammatical restrictions were largely minimised, the results indicate a general tendency to place verbs in a position after the frame-setter and the topic; in addition, we found language-specific influences that distinguish Turkish-German and monolingual German speakers from monolingual Turkish ones. We interpret this as evidence for an information-structural motivation for verb-third, and for a clear dominance of German for Turkish-German speakers in Germany.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WieseMayrKraemeretal.2017,
  author    = {Wiese, Heike and Mayr, Katharina and Kr{\"a}mer, Philipp and Seeger, Patrick and M{\"u}ller, Hans-Georg and Mezger, Verena},
  title     = {Changing teachers' attitudes towards linguistic diversity},
  series = {International Journal of Applied Linguistics},
  volume    = {27},
  journal   = {International Journal of Applied Linguistics},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Wiley},
  address   = {Hoboken},
  issn      = {0802-6106},
  doi       = {10.1111/ijal.12121},
  pages     = {198 -- 220},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {We discuss an intervention programme for kindergarten and school teachers' continuing education in Germany that targets biases against language outside a perceived monolingual 'standard' and its speakers. The programme combines anti-bias methods relating to linguistic diversity with objectives of raising critical language awareness. Evaluation through teachers' workshops in Berlin and Brandenburg points to positive and enduring attitudinal changes in participants, but not in control groups that did not attend workshops, and effects were independent of personal variables gender and teaching subject and only weakly associated with age. We relate these effects to such programme features as indirect and inclusive methods that foster active engagement, and the combination of 'safer' topics targeting attitudes towards linguistic structures with more challenging ones dealing with the discrimination of speakers.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WieseAlexiadouAllenetal.2022,
  author    = {Wiese, Heike and Alexiadou, Artemis and Allen, Shanley and Bunk, Oliver and Gagarina, Natalia and Iefremenko, Kateryna and Martynova, Maria and Pashkova, Tatiana and Rizou, Vicky and Schroeder, Christoph and Shadrova, Anna and Szucsich, Luka and Tracy, Rosemarie and Tsehaye, Wintai and Zerbian, Sabine and Zuban, Yulia},
  title     = {Heritage speakers as part of the native language continuum},
  series = {Frontiers in psychology},
  volume    = {12},
  journal   = {Frontiers in psychology},
  publisher = {Frontiers Media},
  address   = {Lausanne},
  issn      = {1664-1078},
  doi       = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717973},
  pages     = {19},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. (1) We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. (2) We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. (3) In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Wiese2011,
  author    = {Wiese, Heike},
  title     = {So as a focus marker in German},
  series = {Linguistics : an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences},
  volume    = {49},
  journal   = {Linguistics : an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences},
  number    = {5},
  publisher = {De Gruyter Mouton},
  address   = {Berlin},
  issn      = {0024-3949},
  doi       = {10.1515/LING.2011.028},
  pages     = {991 -- 1039},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {This paper discusses a hitherto undescribed usage of the particle so as a dedicated focus marker in contemporary German. I discuss grammatical and pragmatic characteristics of this focus marker, supporting my account with natural linguistic data and with controlled experimental evidence showing that so has a significant influence on speakers' understanding of what the focus expression in a sentence is. Against this background, I sketch a possible pragmaticalization path from referential usages of so via hedging to a semantically bleached focus marker, which, unlike particles such as auch 'also'/'too' or nur 'only', does not contribute any additional meaning.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WierzbaFanselow2020,
  author    = {Wierzba, Marta and Fanselow, Gisbert},
  title     = {Factors influencing the acceptability of object fronting in German},
  series = {The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics},
  volume    = {23},
  journal   = {The journal of comparative Germanic linguistics},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address   = {New York},
  issn      = {1383-4924},
  doi       = {10.1007/s10828-020-09113-1},
  pages     = {77 -- 124},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {In this paper, we address some controversially debated empirical questions concerning object fronting in German by a series of acceptability rating studies. We investigated three kinds of factors: (i) properties of the subject (given/new, pronoun/full DP), (ii) emphasis, (iii) register. The first factor is predicted to play a crucial role by models in which object fronting possibilities are limited by prosodic properties. Two experiments provide converging evidence for a systematic effect of this factor: we find that the relative acceptability of object fronting across subjects that require an accent (new DPs) is lower than across deaccentable subjects (pronouns and given DPs). Other models predict object fronting across full phrases (but not across pronouns) to be limited to an emphatic interpretation. This prediction is also borne out, suggesting that both types of models capture an empirically valid generalization and can be seen as complementing each other rather than competing with each other. Finally, we find support for the view that informal register facilitates object fronting. In sum, our experiments contribute to clarifying the empirical basis concerning a phenomenon influenced by a range of interacting factors. This, in turn, informs theoretical approaches to the prefield position and helps to identify factors that need to be carefully controlled in this field of research.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Wierzba2017,
  author    = {Wierzba, Marta},
  title     = {Revisiting prosodic reconstruction},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403152},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {vi, 224},
  year      = {2017},
  abstract  = {In this thesis, I develop a theoretical implementation of prosodic reconstruction and apply it to the empirical domain of German sentences in which part of a focus or contrastive topic is fronted. Prosodic reconstruction refers to the idea that sentences involving syntactic movement show prosodic parallels with corresponding simpler structures without movement. I propose to model this recurrent observation by ordering syntax-prosody mapping before copy deletion. In order to account for the partial fronting data, the idea is extended to the mapping between prosody and information structure. This assumption helps to explain why object-initial sentences containing a broad focus or broad contrastive topic show similar prosodic and interpretative restrictions as sentences with canonical word order. The empirical adequacy of the model is tested against a set of gradient acceptability judgments.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WeskottFanselow2011,
  author    = {Weskott, Thomas and Fanselow, Gisbert},
  title     = {On the informativity of different measures of linguistic acceptability},
  series = {Language : journal of the Linguistic Society of America},
  volume    = {87},
  journal   = {Language : journal of the Linguistic Society of America},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {Linguistic Society of America},
  address   = {Washington},
  issn      = {0097-8507},
  pages     = {249 -- 273},
  year      = {2011},
  abstract  = {This article deals with the claim that the MAGNITUDE ESTIMATION (ME) method of gathering acceptability judgments produces data that are more informative for linguists than binary or n-point scale judgments. We performed three acceptability-rating experiments that directly compared ME data to binary and seven-point scale data. The results clearly falsify the hypothesis that data gathered by the ME method carry a larger amount of information about the acceptability of a given linguistic phenomenon. The three measures are largely equivalent with respect to informativity. Moreover, ME judgments are shown to be more liable to producing spurious variance under certain circumstances.*},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Weskott2005,
  author    = {Weskott, Thomas},
  title     = {Stopn bashing givenness! a note on Elke Kasimir's "Question-answer test and givenness"},
  isbn      = {3-937786-01-5},
  year      = {2005},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WellmannHolzgrefeLangTruckenbrodtetal.2012,
  author    = {Wellmann, Caroline and Holzgrefe-Lang, Julia and Truckenbrodt, Hubert and Wartenburger, Isabell and H{\"o}hle, Barbara},
  title     = {How each prosodic boundary cue matters evidence from German infants},
  series = {Frontiers in psychology},
  volume    = {3},
  journal   = {Frontiers in psychology},
  publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
  address   = {Lausanne},
  issn      = {1664-1078},
  doi       = {10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00580},
  pages     = {13},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {Previous studies have revealed that infants aged 6-10 months are able to use the acoustic correlates of major prosodic boundaries, that is, pitch change, preboundary lengthening, and pause, for the segmentation of the continuous speech signal. Moreover, investigations with American-English- and Dutch-learning infants suggest that processing prosodic boundary markings involves a weighting of these cues. This weighting seems to develop with increasing exposure to the native language and to underlie crosslinguistic variation. In the following, we report the results of four experiments using the headturn preference procedure to explore the perception of prosodic boundary cues in German infants. We presented 8-month-old infants with a sequence of names in two different prosodic groupings, with or without boundary markers. Infants discriminated both sequences when the boundary was marked by all three cues (Experiment 1) and when it was marked by a pitch change and preboundary lengthening in combination (Experiment 2). The presence of a pitch change (Experiment 3) or preboundary lengthening (Experiment 4) as single cues did not lead to a successful discrimination. Our results indicate that pause is not a necessary cue for German infants. Pitch change and preboundary lengthening in combination, but not as single cues, are sufficient. Hence, by 8 months infants only rely on a convergence of boundary markers. Comparisons with adults' performance on the same stimulus materials suggest that the pattern observed with the 8-month-olds is already consistent with that of adults. We discuss our findings with respect to crosslinguistic variation and the development of a language-specific prosodic cue weighting.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Wellmann2023,
  author    = {Wellmann, Caroline},
  title     = {Early sensitivity to prosodic phrase boundary cues: Behavioral evidence from German-learning infants},
  doi       = {10.25932/publishup-57393},
  url       = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-573937},
  school      = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam},
  pages     = {xii, 136},
  year      = {2023},
  abstract  = {This dissertation seeks to shed light on the relation of phrasal prosody and developmental speech perception in German-learning infants. Three independent empirical studies explore the role of acoustic correlates of major prosodic boundaries, specifically pitch change, final lengthening, and pause, in infant boundary perception. Moreover, it was examined whether the sensitivity to prosodic phrase boundary markings changes during the first year of life as a result of perceptual attunement to the ambient language (Aslin \& Pisoni, 1980). Using the headturn preference procedure six- and eight-month-old monolingual German-learning infants were tested on their discrimination of two different prosodic groupings of the same list of coordinated names either with or without an internal IPB after the second name, that is, [Moni und Lilli] [und Manu] or [Moni und Lilli und Manu]. The boundary marking was systematically varied with respect to single prosodic cues or specific cue combinations. Results revealed that six- and eight-month-old German-learning infants successfully detect the internal prosodic boundary when it is signaled by all the three main boundary cues pitch change, final lengthening, and pause. For eight-, but not for six-month-olds, the combination of pitch change and final lengthening, without the occurrence of a pause, is sufficient. This mirrors an adult-like perception by eight-months (Holzgrefe-Lang et al., 2016). Six-month-olds detect a prosodic phrase boundary signaled by final lengthening and pause. The findings suggest a developmental change in German prosodic boundary cue perception from a strong reliance on the pause cue at six months to a differentiated sensitivity to the more subtle cues pitch change and final lengthening at eight months. Neither for six- nor for eight-month-olds the occurrence of pitch change or final lengthening as single cues is sufficient, similar to what has been observed for adult speakers of German (Holzgrefe-Lang et al., 2016). The present dissertation provides new scientific knowledge on infants' sensitivity to individual prosodic phrase boundary cues in the first year of life. Methodologically, the studies are pathbreaking since they used exactly the same stimulus materials - phonologically thoroughly controlled lists of names - that have also been used with adults (Holzgrefe-Lang et al., 2016) and with infants in a neurophysiological paradigm (Holzgrefe-Lang, Wellmann, H{\"o}hle, \& Wartenburger, 2018), allowing for comparisons across age (six/ eight months and adults) and method (behavioral vs. neurophysiological methods). Moreover, materials are suited to be transferred to other languages allowing for a crosslinguistic comparison. Taken together with a study with similar French materials (van Ommen et al., 2020) the observed change in sensitivity in German-learning infants can be interpreted as a language-specific one, from an initial language-general processing mechanism that primarily focuses on the presence of pauses to a language-specific processing that takes into account prosodic properties available in the ambient language. The developmental pattern is discussed as an interplay of acoustic salience, prosodic typology (prosodic regularity) and cue reliability.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WeissenbornRoeperDeVilliers1995,
  author    = {Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen and Roeper, Thomas and DeVilliers, Jill},
  title     = {WH-acquisition in French and German : connections between case, WH- features and unique triggers},
  year      = {1995},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WeissenbornPennerSchoenberger1994,
  author    = {Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen and Penner, Zvi and Sch{\"o}nberger, Manuela},
  title     = {The acquisition of object placement in early German and Swiss German},
  year      = {1994},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WeissenbornPenner1996,
  author    = {Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen and Penner, Zvi},
  title     = {Strong continuity, parameter setting and the trigger hierarchy : on the acquisition of the DP in Bernese Swiss German and High German},
  year      = {1996},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WeissenbornHoehleKieferetal.2000,
  author    = {Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Kiefer, D. and Cavar, Damir},
  title     = {On the Structure of early syntactic knowledge : continuity and Economy},
  year      = {2000},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WeissenbornHaverkort1995,
  author    = {Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen and Haverkort, Marco},
  title     = {Parameters and cliticization in early child german},
  year      = {1995},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Weissenborn1998,
  author    = {Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Children's sensitivity to word-order violations in German : evidence for very early parameter-setting},
  year      = {1998},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Weissenborn1994,
  author    = {Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen},
  title     = {Constraining the child's grammar : local wellformedness in the development of verb movement in German and French},
  year      = {1994},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{WeirichLanciaBrunner2013,
  author    = {Weirich, Melanie and Lancia, Leonardo and Brunner, Jana},
  title     = {Inter-speaker articulatory variability during vowel-consonant-vowel sequences in twins and unrelated speakers},
  series = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America},
  volume    = {134},
  journal   = {The journal of the Acoustical Society of America},
  number    = {5},
  publisher = {American Institute of Physics},
  address   = {Melville},
  issn      = {0001-4966},
  doi       = {10.1121/1.4822480},
  pages     = {3766 -- 3780},
  year      = {2013},
  abstract  = {The purpose of this study is to examine and compare the amount of inter-speaker variability in the articulation of monozygotic twin pairs (MZ), dizygotic twin pairs (DZ), and pairs of unrelated twins with the goal of examining in greater depth the influence of physiology on articulation. Physiological parameters are assumed to be very similar in MZ twin pairs in contrast to DZ twin pairs or unrelated speakers, and it is hypothesized that the speaker specific shape of articulatory looping trajectories of the tongue is at least partly dependent on biomechanical properties and the speaker's individual physiology. By means of electromagnetic articulography (EMA), inter-speaker variability in the looping trajectories of the tongue back during /VCV/ sequences is analyzed. Results reveal similar looping patterns within MZ twin pairs but in DZ pairs differences in the shape of the loop, the direction of the upward and downward movement, and the amount of horizontal sliding movement at the palate are found.},
  language  = {en}
}
@phdthesis{Weber2004,
  author    = {Weber, Christiane},
  title     = {Rhythm is gonna get you : electrophysiological markers of rhythmic processing in infants with and without risk for specific language impairment (SLI)},
  series = {MPI series in human cognitive and brain sciences},
  volume    = {52},
  journal   = {MPI series in human cognitive and brain sciences},
  publisher = {Max Planck Inst. for Human Cognitive and Brain Schiences},
  address   = {Leipzig},
  isbn      = {3-936816-25-5},
  pages     = {158 S. : Ill., graph. Darst.},
  year      = {2004},
  language  = {en}
}