@phdthesis{Jurish2011, author = {Jurish, Bryan}, title = {Finite-state canonicalization techniques for historical German}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-55789}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2011}, abstract = {This work addresses issues in the automatic preprocessing of historical German input text for use by conventional natural language processing techniques. Conventional techniques cannot adequately account for historical input text due to conventional tools' reliance on a fixed application-specific lexicon keyed by contemporary orthographic surface form on the one hand, and the lack of consistent orthographic conventions in historical input text on the other. Historical spelling variation is treated here as an error-correction problem or "canonicalization" task: an attempt to automatically assign each (historical) input word a unique extant canonical cognate, thus allowing direct application-specific processing (tagging, parsing, etc.) of the returned canonical forms without need for any additional application-specific modifications. In the course of the work, various methods for automatic canonicalization are investigated and empirically evaluated, including conflation by phonetic identity, conflation by lemma instantiation heuristics, canonicalization by weighted finite-state rewrite cascade, and token-wise disambiguation by a dynamic Hidden Markov Model.}, language = {en} } @misc{PatilKentnerGollradetal.2008, author = {Patil, Umesh and Kentner, Gerrit and Gollrad, Anja and K{\"u}gler, Frank and F{\´e}ry, Caroline and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {Focus, word order and intonation in Hindi}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-46118}, year = {2008}, abstract = {A production study is presented that investigates the effects of word order and information structural context on the prosodic realization of declarative sentences in Hindi. Previous work on Hindi intonation has shown that: (i) non-final content words bear rising pitch accents (Moore 1965, Dyrud 2001, Nair 1999); (ii) focused constituents show greater pitch excursion and longer duration and that post-focal material undergoes pitch range reduction (Moore 1965, Harnsberger 1994, Harnsberger and Judge 1996); and (iii) focused constituents may be followed by a phrase break (Moore 1965). By means of a controlled experiment, we investigated the effect of focus in relation to word order variation using 1200 utterances produced by 20 speakers. Fundamental frequency (F0) and duration of constituents were measured in Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) and Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) sentences in different information structural conditions (wide focus, subject focus and object focus). The analyses indicate that (i) regardless of word order and focus, the constituents are in a strict downstep relationship; (ii) focus is mainly characterized by post-focal pitch range reduction rather than pitch raising of the element in focus; (iii) given expressions that occur pre-focally appear to undergo no reduction; (iv) pitch excursion and duration of the constituents is higher in OSV compared to SOV sentences. A phonological analysis suggests that focus affects pitch scaling and that word order influences prosodic phrasing of the constituents.}, language = {en} } @misc{FeryKuegler2008, author = {F{\´e}ry, Caroline and K{\"u}gler, Frank}, title = {Pitch accent scaling on given, new and focused constituents in German}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-46091}, year = {2008}, abstract = {The influence of information structure on tonal scaling in German is examined experimentally. Eighteen speakers uttered a total of 2277 sentences of the same syntactic structure, but with a varying number of constituents, word order and focus-given structure. The quantified results for German support findings for other Germanic languages that the scaling of high tones, and thus the entire melodic pattern, is influenced by information structure. Narrow focus raised the high tones of pitch accents, while givenness lowered them in prenuclear position and canceled them out postnuclearly. The effects of focus and givenness are calculated against all-new sentences as a baseline, which we expected to be characterized by downstep, a significantly lower scaling of high tones as compared to declination. The results further show that information structure alone cannot account for all variations. We therefore assume that dissimilatory tonal effects play a crucial role in the tonal scaling of German. The effects consist of final f0 drop, a steep fall from a raised high tone to the bottom line of the speaker, H-raising before a low tone, and H-lowering before a raised high tone. No correlation between word order and tone scaling could be established. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Trompelt2010, author = {Trompelt, Helena}, title = {Production of regular and non-regular verbs : evidence for a lexical entry complexity account}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-061-8}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-42120}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {x, 168}, year = {2010}, abstract = {The incredible productivity and creativity of language depends on two fundamental resources: a mental lexicon and a mental grammar. Rules of grammar enable us to produce and understand complex phrases we have not encountered before and at the same time constrain the computation of complex expressions. The concepts of the mental lexicon and mental grammar have been thoroughly tested by comparing the use of regular versus non-regular word forms. Regular verbs (e.g. walk-walked) are computed using a suffixation rule in a neural system for grammatical processing; non-regular verbs (run-ran) are retrieved from associative memory. The role of regularity has only been explored for the past tense, where regularity is overtly visible. To explore the representation and encoding of regularity as well as the inflectional processes involved in the production of regular and non-regular verbs, this dissertation investigated three groups of German verbs: regular, irregular and hybrid verbs. Hybrid verbs in German have completely regular conjugation in the present tense and irregular conjugation in the past tense. Articulation latencies were measured while participants named pictures of actions, producing the 3rd person singular of regular, hybrid, and irregular verbs in present and past tense. Studying the production of German verbs in past and present tense, this dissertation explored the complexity of lexical entries as a decisive factor in the production of verbs.}, language = {en} } @misc{MellWartenburgerMarschneretal.2009, author = {Mell, Thomas and Wartenburger, Isabell and Marschner, Alexander and Villringer, Arno and Reischies, Friedel M. and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {Altered function of ventral striatum during reward-based decision making in old age}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-45235}, year = {2009}, abstract = {Normal aging is associated with a decline in different cognitive domains and local structural atrophy as well as decreases in dopamine concentration and receptor density. To date, it is largely unknown how these reductions in dopaminergic neurotransmission affect human brain regions responsible for reward-based decision making in older adults. Using a learning criterion in a probabilistic object reversal task, we found a learning stage by age interaction in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dIPFC) during decision making. While young adults recruited the dlPFC in an early stage of learning reward associations, older adults recruited the dlPFC when reward associations had already been learned. Furthermore, we found a reduced change in ventral striatal BOLD signal in older as compared to younger adults in response to high probability rewards. Our data are in line with behavioral evidence that older adults show altered stimulus-reward learning and support the view of an altered fronto-striatal interaction during reward-based decision making in old age, which contributes to prolonged learning of reward associations.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{SennemaSkowronek2009, author = {Sennema-Skowronek, Anke}, title = {The use of focus markers in second language word processing}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-37237}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2009}, abstract = {There are many factors which make speaking and understanding a second language (L2) a highly complex challenge. Skills and competencies in in both linguistic and metalinguistic areas emerge as parts of a multi-faceted, flexible concept underlying bilingual/multilingual communication. On the linguistic level, a combination of an extended knowledge of idiomatic expressions, a broad lexical familiarity, a large vocabulary size, and the ability to deal with phonetic distinctions and fine phonetic detail has been argued necessary for effective nonnative comprehension of spoken language. The scientific interest in these factors has also led to more interest in the L2's information structure, the way in which information is organised and packaged into informational units, both within and between clauses. On a practical level, the information structure of a language can offer the means to assign focus to a certain element considered important. Speakers can draw from a rich pool of linguistic means to express this focus, and listeners can in turn interpret these to guide them to the highlighted information which in turn facilitates comprehension, resulting in an appropriate understanding of what has been said. If a speaker doesn't follow the principles of information structure, and the main accent in a sentence is placed on an unimportant word, then there may be inappropriate information transfer within the discourse, and misunderstandings. The concept of focus as part of the information structure of a language, the linguistic means used to express it, and the differential use of focus in native and nonnative language processing are central to this dissertation. Languages exhibit a wide range of ways of directing focus, including by prosodic means, by syntactic constructions, and by lexical means. The general principles underlying information structure seem to contrast structurally across different languages, and they can also differ in the way they express focus. In the context of L2 acquisition, characteristics of the L1 linguistic system are argued to influence the acquisition of the L2. Similarly, the conceptual patterns of information structure of the L1 may influence the organization of information in the L2. However, strategies and patterns used to exploit information structure for succesful language comprehension in the native L1, may not apply at all, or work in different ways or todifferent degrees in the L2. This means that L2 learners ideally have to understand the way that information structure is expressed in the L2 to fully use the information structural benefit in the L2. The knowledge of information structural requirements in the L2 could also imply that the learner would have to make adjustments regarding the use of information structural devices in the L2. The general question is whether the various means to mark focus in the learners' native language are also accessible in the nonnative language, and whether a L1-L2 transfer of their usage should be considered desirable. The current work explores how information structure helps the listener to discover and structure the forms and meanings of the L2. The central hypothesis is that the ability to access information structure has an impact on the level of the learners' appropriateness and linguistic competence in the L2. Ultimately, the ability to make use of information structure in the L2 is believed to underpin the L2 learners' ability to effectively communicate in the L2. The present study investigated how use of focus markers affects processing speed and word recall recall in a native-nonnative language comparison. The predominant research question was whether the type of focus marking leads to more efficient and accurate word processing in marked structures than in unmarked structures, and whether differences in processing patterns can be observed between the two language conditions. Three perception studies were conducted, each concentrating on one of the following linguistic parameters: 1. Prosodic prominence: Does prosodic focus conveyed by sentence accent and by word position facilitate word recognition? 2. Syntactical means: Do cleft constructions result in faster and more accurate word processing? 3. Lexical means: Does focus conveyed by the particles even/only (German: sogar/nur) facilitate word processing and word recall? Experiments 2 and 3 additionally investigated the contribution of context in the form of preceding questions. Furthermore, they considered accent and its facilitative effect on the processing of words which are in the scope of syntactic or lexical focus marking. All three experiments tested German learners of English in a native German language condition and in English as their L2. Native English speakers were included as a control for the English language condition. Test materials consisted of single sentences, all dealing with bird life. Experiment 1 tested word recognition in three focus conditions (broad focus, narrow focus on the target, and narrow focus on a constituent than the target) in one condition using natural unmanipulated sentences, and in the other two conditions using spliced sentences. Experiment 2 (effect of syntactic focus marking) and Experiment 3 (effect of lexical focus marking) used phoneme monitoring as a measure for the speed of word processing. Additionally, a word recall test (4AFC) was conducted to assess the effective entry of target-bearing words in the listeners' memory. Experiment 1: Focus marking by prosodic means Prosodic focus marking by pitch accent was found to highlight important information (Bolinger, 1972), making the accented word perceptually more prominent (Klatt, 1976; van Santen \& Olive, 1990; Eefting, 1991; Koopmans-van Beinum \& van Bergem, 1989). However, accent structure seems to be processed faster in native than in nonnative listening (Akker\& Cutler, 2003, Expt. 3). Therefore, it is expected that prosodically marked words are better recognised than unmarked words, and that listeners can exploit accent structure better for accurate word recognition in their L1 than they do in the L2 (L1 > L2). Altogether, a difference in word recognition performance in L1 listening is expected between different focus conditions (narrow focus > broad focus). Results of Experiments 1 show that words were better recognized in native listening than in nonnative listening. Focal accent, however, doesn't seem to help the German subjects recognize accented words more accurately, in both the L1 and the L2. This could be due to the focus conditions not being acoustically distinctive enough. Results of experiments with spliced materials suggest that the surrounding prosodic sentence contour made listeners remember a target word and not the local, prosodic realization of the word. Prosody seems to indeed direct listeners' attention to the focus of the sentence (see Cutler, 1976). Regarding the salience of word position, VanPatten (2002; 2004) postulated a sentence location principle for L2 processing, stating a ranking of initial > final > medial word position. Other evidence mentions a processing adantage of items occurring late in the sentence (Akker \& Cutler, 2003), and Rast (2003) observed in an English L2 production study a trend of an advantage of items occurring at the outer ends of the sentence. The current Experiment 1 aimed to keep the length of the sentences to an acceptable length, mainly to keep the task in the nonnative lnaguage condition feasable. Word length showed an effect only in combination with word position (Rast, 2003; Rast \& Dommergues, 2003). Therefore, word length was included in the current experiment as a secondary factor and without hypotheses. Results of Experiment 1 revealed that the length of a word doesn't seem to be important for its accurate recognition. Word position, specifically the final position, clearly seems to facilitate accurate word recognition in German. A similar trend emerges in condition English L2, confirming Klein (1984) and Slobin (1985). Results don't support the sentence location principle of VanPatten (2002; 2004). The salience of the final position is interpreted as recency effect (Murdock, 1962). In addition, the advantage of the final position may benefit from the discourse convention that relevant background information is referred to first, and then what is novel later (Haviland \& Clark, 1974). This structure is assumed to cue the listener as to what the speaker considers to be important information, and listeners might have reacted according to this convention. Experiment 2: Focus marking by syntactic means Atypical syntactic structures often draw listeners' attention to certain information in an utterance, and the cleft structure as a focus marking device appears to be a common surface feature in many languages (Lambrecht, 2001). Surface structure influences sentence processing (Foss \& Lynch, 1969; Langford \& Holmes, 1979), which leads to competing hypotheses in Experiment 2: on the one hand, the focusing effect of the cleft construction might reduce processing times. On the other, cleft constructions in German were found to be used less to mark fo than in English (Ahlemeyer \& Kohlhof, 1999; Doherty, 1999; E. Klein, 1988). The complexity of the constructions, and the experience from the native language might work against an advantage of the focus effect in the L2. Results of Experiment 2 show that the cleft structure is an effective device to mark focus in German L1. The processing advantage is explained by the low degree of structural markedness of cleft structures: listeners use the focus function of sentence types headed by the dummy subject es (English: it) due to reliance on 'safe' subject-prominent SVO-structures. The benefit of cleft is enhanced when the sentences are presented with context, suggesting a substantial benefit when focus effects of syntactic surface structure and coherence relation between sentences are integrated. Clefts facilitate word processing for English native speakers. Contrary to German L1, the marked cleft construction doesn't reduce processing times in English L2. The L1-L2 difference was interpreted as a learner problem of applying specific linguistic structures according to the principles of information structure in the target language. Focus marking by cleft did not help German learners in native or in nonnative word recall. This could be attributed to the phonological similarity of the multiple choice options (Conrad \& Hull, 1964), and to a long time span between listening and recall (Birch \& Garnsey, 1995; McKoon et al., 1993). Experiment 3: Focus marking by lexical means Focus particles are elements of structure that can indicate focus (K{\"o}nig, 1991), and their function is to emphasize a certain part of the sentence (Paterson et al., 1999). I argue that the focus particles even/only (German: sogar/nur) evoke contrast sets of alternatives resp. complements to the element in focus (Ni et al., 1996), which causes interpretations of context. Therefore, lexical focus marking isn't expected to lead to faster word processing. However, since different mechanisms of encoding seem to underlie word memory, a benefit of the focusing function of particles is expected to show in the recall task: due to focus particles being a preferred and well-used feature for native speakers of German, a transfer of this habitualness is expected, resulting in a better recall of focused words. Results indicated that focus particles seem to be the weakest option to mark focus: Focus marking by lexical particle don't seem to reduce word processing times in either German L1, English L2, or in English L1. The presence of focus particles is likely to instantiate a complex discourse model which lets the listener await further modifying information (Liversedge et al., 2002). This semantic complexity might slow down processing. There are no indications that focus particles facilitate native language word recall in German L1 and English L1. This could be because focus particles open sets of conditions and contexts that enlarge the set of representations in listeners rather than narrowing it down to the element in the scope of the focus particle. In word recall, the facilitative effect of focus particles emerges only in the nonnative language condition. It is suggested that L2 learners, when faced with more demanding tasks in an L2, use a broad variety of means that identify focus for a better representation of novel words in the memory. In Experiments 2 and 3, evidence suggests that accent is an important factor for efficient word processing and accurate recall in German L1 and English L1, but less so in English L2. This underlines the function of accent as core speech parameter and consistent cue to the perception of prominence native language use (see Cutler \& Fodor, 1979; Pitt \& Samuel, 1990a; Eriksson et al., 2002; Akker \& Cutler, 2003); the L1-L2 difference is attributed to patterns of expectation that are employed in the L1 but not (yet?) in the L2. There seems to exist a fine-tuned sensitivity to how accents are distributed in the native language, listeners expect an appropriate distribution and interpret it accordingly (Eefting, 1991). This pleads for accent placement as extremely important to L2 proficiency; the current results also suggest that accent and its relationship with other speech parameters has to be newly established in the L2 to fully reveal its benefits for efficient processing of speech. There is evidence that additional context facilitates processing of complex syntactic structures but that a surplus of information has no effect if the sentence construction is less challenging for the listener. The increased amount of information to be processed seems to impede better word recall, particularly in the L2. Altogether, it seems that focus marking devices and context can combine to form an advantageous alliance: a substantial benefit in processing efficiency is found when parameters of focus marking and sentence coherence are integrated. L2 research advocates the beneficial aspects of providing context for efficient L2 word learning (Lawson \& Hogben, 1996). The current thesis promotes the view that a context which offers more semantic, prosodic, or lexical connections might compensate for the additional processing load that context constitutes for the listeners. A methodological consideration concerns the order in which language conditions are presented to listeners, i.e., L1-L2 or L2-L1. Findings suggest that presentation order could enforce a learning bias, with the performance in the second experiment being influenced by knowledge acquired in the first (see Akker \& Cutler, 2003). To conclude this work: The results of the present study suggest that information structure is more accessible in the native language than it is in the nonnative language. There is, however, some evidence that L2 learners have an understanding of the significance of some information-structural parameters of focus marking. This has a beneficial effect on processing efficiency and recall accuracy; on the cognitive side it illustrates the benefits and also the need of a dynamic exchange of information-structural organization between L1 and L2. The findings of the current thesis encourage the view that an understanding of information structure can help the learner to discover and categorise forms and meanings of the L2. Information structure thus emerges as a valuable resource to advance proficiency in a second language.}, language = {en} } @misc{BaerHenney2009, type = {Master Thesis}, author = {Baer-Henney, Dinah}, title = {On natural and probabilisic effects during acquisition of morphophonemic alternations}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-36819}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2009}, abstract = {The acquisition of phonological alternations consists of many aspects as discussions in the relevant literature show. There are contrary findings about the role of naturalness. A natural process is grounded in phonetics; they are easy to learn, even in second language acquisition when adults have to learn certain processes that do not occur in their native language. There is also evidence that unnatural - arbitrary - rules can be learned. Current work on the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations suggests that their probability of occurrence is a crucial factor in acquisition. I have conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of naturalness as well as of probability of occurrence with 80 adult native speakers of German. It uses the Artificial Grammar paradigm: Two artificial languages were constructed, each with a particular alternation. In one language the alternation is natural (vowel harmony); in the other language the alternation is arbitrary (a vowel alternation depends on the sonorancy of the first consonant of the stem). The participants were divided in two groups, one group listened to the natural alternation and the other group listened to the unnatural alternation. Each group was divided into two subgroups. One subgroup then was presented with material in which the alternation occurred frequently and the other subgroup was presented with material in which the alternation occurred infrequently. After this exposure phase every participant was asked to produce new words during the test phase. Knowledge about the language-specific alternation pattern was needed to produce the forms correctly as the phonological contexts demanded certain alternants. The group performances have been compared with respect to the effects of naturalness and probability of occurrence. The natural rule was learned more easily than the unnatural one. Frequently presented rules were not learned more easily than the ones that were presented less frequently. Moreover, participants did not learn the unnatural rule at all, whether this rule was presented frequently or infrequently did not matter. There was a tendency that the natural rule was learned more easily if presented frequently than if presented infrequently, but it was not significant due to variability across participants.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Regel2008, author = {Regel, Stefanie}, title = {The comprehension of figurative language : electrophysiological evidence on the processing of irony}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-33376}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2008}, abstract = {Diese Dissertation untersucht das Verstehen figurativer Sprache, im Besonderen die zeitliche Verarbeitung von verbaler Ironie. In sechs Experimenten wurde mittels ereignis-korrelierter Potentiale (EKP) die Gehirnaktivit{\"a}t beim Verstehen ironischer {\"A}ußerungen im Vergleich zu entsprechenden nicht-ironischen {\"A}ußerungen gemessen und analysiert. Dar{\"u}berhinaus wurde der Einfluss verschiedener sprachbegleitender Hinweisreize, z.B. von Prosodie oder der Verwendung von Satzzeichen, sowie außersprachlicher Hinweisreize, wie bspw. pragmatischen Wissens, auf das Ironieverstehen untersucht. Auf Grundlage dieser Ergebnisse werden verschiedene psycholinguistische Modelle figurativer Sprachverarbeitung, d.h. 'standard pragmatic model', 'graded salience hypothesis', sowie 'direct access view', diskutiert.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{OPUS4-2990, title = {Optimality theory and minimalism : interface theories}, editor = {Broekhuis, Hans and Vogel, Ralf}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-940793-61-4}, issn = {1616-7392 print}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-27577}, pages = {212}, year = {2009}, abstract = {The papers contained in this issue share the insight that the different components of the grammar sometimes impose conflicting requirements on the grammar's output, and that, in order to handle such conflicts, it seems advantageous to combine aspects from minimalist and OT modelling. The papers show that this can be undertaken in a multiplicity of ways, by using varying proportions of each framework, and offer a broad range of perspectives for future research.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schmitz2008, author = {Schmitz, Michaela}, title = {The perception of clauses in 6- and 8-month-old German-learning infants : influence of pause duration and the natural pause hierarchy}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-29078}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2008}, abstract = {The present dissertation focuses on the question whether and under which conditions infants recognise clauses in fluent speech and the role a prosodic marker such as a pause may have in the segmentation process. In the speech signal, syntactic clauses often coincide with intonational phrases (IPhs) (Nespor \& Vogel, 1986, p. 190), the boundaries of which are marked by changes in fundamental frequency (e.g., Price, Ostendorf, Shattuck-Hufnagel \& Fong, 1991), lengthening of the final syllable (e.g., Cooper \& Paccia-Cooper, 1980) and the occurrence of a pause (Nespor \& Vogel, 1986, p. 188). Thus, IPhs seem to be reliably marked in the speech stream and infants may use these cues to recognise them. Furthermore, corpus studies on the occurrence and distribution of pauses have revealed that there is a strong correlation between the duration of a pause and the type of boundary it marks (e.g., Butcher, 1981, for German). Pauses between words are either non-existent or short, pauses between phrases are a bit longer, and pauses between clauses and at sentence boundaries further increase in duration. This suggests the existence of a natural pause hierarchy that complements the prosodic hierarchy described by Nespor and Vogel (1986). These hierarchies on the side of the speech signal correspond to the syntactic hierarchy of a language. In the present study, five experiments using the Headturn preference paradigm (Hirsh-Pasek, Kemler Nelson, Jusczyk, Cassidy, Druss \& Kennedy, 1987) were conducted to investigate German-learning 6- and 8-month-olds' use of pauses to recognise clauses in the signal and their sensitivity to the natural pause hierarchy. Previous studies on English-learning infants' recognition of clauses (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 1987; Nazzi, Kemler Nelson, Jusczyk \& Jusczyk, 2000) have found that infants as young as 6 months recognise clauses in fluent speech. Recently, Seidl and colleagues have begun to investigate the status the pause may have in this process (Seidl, 2007; Johnson \& Seidl, 2008; Seidl \& Cristi{\`a}, 2008). However, none of these studies investigated infants' sensitivity to the natural pause hierarchy and especially the sensitivity to the correlation between pause durations and the respective within-sentence clause boundaries / sentence boundaries. To address these questions highly controlled stimuli were used. In all five experiments the stimuli were sentences consisting of two IPhs which each coincided with a syntactic clause. In the first three experiments pauses were inserted either at clause and sentence boundaries or within the first clause and the sentence boundaries. The duration of the pauses varied between the experiments. The results show that German-learning 6-month-olds recognise clauses in the speech stream, but only in a condition in which the duration of the pauses conforms to the mean duration of pauses found at the respective boundaries in German. Experiments 4 and 5 explicitly addressed the question of infants' sensitivity to the natural pause hierarchy by inserting pauses at the clause and sentence boundaries only. Their durations were either conforming to the natural pause hierarchy or were being reversed. The results of these experiments provide evidence that 8-, but not 6-month-olds seem to be sensitive to the correlation of the duration of pauses and the type of boundary they demarcate. The present study provides first evidence that infants not only use pauses to recognise clause and sentence boundaries, but are sensitive to the duration and distribution of pauses in their native language as reflected in the natural pause hierarchy.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{OPUS4-2516, title = {Finite-state methods and natural language processing : 6th International Workshop, FSMNLP 2007 Potsdam, Germany, september 14 - 16 ; revised papers}, editor = {Hanneforth, Thomas and W{\"u}rzner, Kay-Michael}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-940793-57-7}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-23812}, pages = {225}, year = {2008}, abstract = {Proceedings with the revised papers of the FSMNLP (Finite-state Methods and Natural Language Processing) 2007 Workshop in Potsdam}, language = {en} } @article{Fanselow2007, author = {Fanselow, Gisbert}, title = {The restricted access of information structure to syntax}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19713}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This paper sketches the view that syntax does not directly interact with information structure. Therefore, syntactic data are of little help when one wants to narrow down the interpretation of terms such as "focus", "topic", etc.}, language = {en} } @article{Fery2007, author = {F{\´e}ry, Caroline}, title = {Information structural notions and the fallacy of invariant correlates}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19692}, year = {2007}, abstract = {In a first step, definitions of the irreducible information structural categories are given, and in a second step, it is shown that there are no invariant phonological or otherwise grammatical correlates of these categories. In other words, the phonology, syntax or morphology are unable to define information structure. It is a common mistake that information structural categories are expressed by invariant grammatical correlates, be they syntactic, morphological or phonological. It is rather the case that grammatical cues help speaker and hearer to sort out which element carries which information structural role, and only in this sense are the grammatical correlates of information structure important. Languages display variation as to the role of grammar in enhancing categories of information structure, and this variation reflects the variation found in the 'normal' syntax and phonology of languages.}, language = {en} } @article{EndrissHinterwimmer2007, author = {Endriss, Cornelia and Hinterwimmer, Stefan}, title = {Direct and indirect aboutness topics}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19640}, year = {2007}, abstract = {We propose a definition of aboutness topicality that not only encompasses individual denoting DPs, but also indefinites. We concentrate on the interpretative effects of marking indefinites as topics: they either receive widest scope in their clause, or they are interpreted in the restrictor of an overt or covert Q-adverb. We show that in the first case they are direct aboutness topics insofar as they are the subject of a predication expressed by the comment, while in the second case they are indirect aboutness topics: they define the subject of a higher-order predication - namely the set of situations that the respective Q-adverb quantifies over.}, language = {en} } @article{Kasimir2006, author = {Kasimir, Elke}, title = {On 'nicht...sondern...' (contrastive 'not...but...')}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19537}, year = {2006}, abstract = {This article presents an analysis of German nicht...sondern... (contrastive not...but...) which departs from the commonly held view that this construction should be explained by appeal to its alleged corrective function. It will be demonstrated that in nicht A sondern B (not A but B), A and B just behave like stand-alone unmarked answers to a common question Q, and that this property of sondern is presuppositional in character. It is shown that from this general observation many interesting properties of nicht...sondern... follow, among them distributional differences between German 'sondern' and German 'aber' (contrastive but, concessive but), intonational requirements and exhaustivity effects. sondern's presupposition is furthermore argued to be the result of the conventionalization of conversational implicatures.}, language = {en} } @article{vandeVijverSennemaZimmer–Stahl2006, author = {van de Vijver, Ruben and Sennema, Anke and Zimmer-Stahl, Anne}, title = {An analysis of pitch and duration in material used to test L2 processing of words}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19583}, year = {2006}, abstract = {The material reported on in this paper is part of a set of experiments in which the role of Information Structure on L2 processing of words is tested. Pitch and duration of 4 sets of experimental material in German and English are measured and analyzed in this paper. The well-known finding that accent boosts duration and pitch is confirmed. Syntactic and lexical means of marking focus, however, do not give the duration and the pitch of a word an extra boost.}, language = {en} } @article{SchmitzHoehleMuelleretal.2006, author = {Schmitz, Michaela and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and M{\"u}ller, Anja and Weissenborn, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {The recognition of the prosodic focus position in German-learning infants from 4 to 14 months}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19566}, year = {2006}, abstract = {The aim of the present study was to elucidate in a study with 4-, 6-, 8-, and 14-month-old German-learning children, when and how they may acquire the regularities which underlie Focus-to-Stress Alignment (FSA) in the target language, that is, how prosody is associated with specific communicative functions. Our findings suggest, that 14-month-olds have already found out that German allows for variable focus positions, after having gone through a development which goes from a predominantly prosodically driven processing of the input to a processing where prosody interacts more and more with the growing lexical and syntactic knowledge of the child.}, language = {en} } @article{EndrissHinterwimmer2006, author = {Endriss, Cornelia and Hinterwimmer, Stefan}, title = {Quantificational Variability Effects with plural definites}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19512}, year = {2006}, abstract = {In this paper we compare the behaviour of adverbs of frequency (de Swart 1993) like usually with the behaviour of adverbs of quantity like for the most part in sentences that contain plural definites. We show that sentences containing the former type of Q-adverb evidence that Quantificational Variability Effects (Berman 1991) come about as an indirect effect of quantification over situations: in order for quantificational variability readings to arise, these sentences have to obey two newly observed constraints that clearly set them apart from sentences containing corresponding quantificational DPs, and that can plausibly be explained under the assumption that quantification over (the atomic parts of) complex situations is involved. Concerning sentences with the latter type of Q-adverb, on the other hand, such evidence is lacking: with respect to the constraints just mentioned, they behave like sentences that contain corresponding quantificational DPs. We take this as evidence that Q-adverbs like for the most part do not quantify over the atomic parts of sum eventualities in the cases under discussion (as claimed by Nakanishi and Romero (2004)), but rather over the atomic parts of the respective sum individuals.}, language = {en} } @article{HellmuthSkopeteas2007, author = {Hellmuth, Sam and Skopeteas, Stavros}, title = {Information structure in linguistic theory and in speech production : validation of a Cross-Linguistic data set}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-939469-72-8}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19450}, pages = {141 -- 186}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The aim of this paper is to validate a dataset collected by means of production experiments which are part of the Questionnaire on Information Structure. The experiments generate a range of information structure contexts that have been observed in the literature to induce specific constructions. This paper compares the speech production results from a subset of these experiments with specific claims about the reflexes of information structure in four different languages. The results allow us to evaluate and in most cases validate the efficacy of our elicitation paradigms, to identify potentially fruitful avenues of future research, and to highlight issues involved in interpreting speech production data of this kind.}, language = {en} } @article{KueglerSkopeteasVerhoeven2007, author = {K{\"u}gler, Frank and Skopeteas, Stavros and Verhoeven, Elisabeth}, title = {Encoding information structure in Yucatec Maya}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19469}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The aim of this paper is to outline the means for encoding information structure in Yucatec Maya. Yucatec Maya is a tone language, displaying a three-fold opposition in the tonal realization of syllables. From the morpho-syntactic point of view, the grammar of Yucatec Maya contains morphological (topic affixes, morphological marking of out-of-focus predicates) and syntactic (designated positions) means to uniquely specify syntactic constructions for their information structure. After a descriptive overview of these phenomena, we present experimental evidence which reveals the impact of the nonavailability of prosodic alternatives on the choice of syntactic constructions in language production.}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-1430, title = {The notions of information structure}, editor = {F{\´e}ry, Caroline and Fanselow, Gisbert and Krifka, Manfred}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-939469-88-9}, issn = {1614-4708}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-15472}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {235}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Contents: Introduction (The Editors) Basic Notions of Information Structure (Manfred Krifka) Notions of Focus Anaphoricity (Mats Rooth) Topic and Focus: Two Structural Positions Associated with Logical Functions in the Left Periphery of the Hungarian Sentence (Katalin {\´E}. Kiss) Direct and Indirect Aboutness Topics (Cornelia Endriss \& Stefan Hinterwimmer) Information Structure as Information-based Partition (Satoshi Tomioka) Focus Presuppositions (Dorit Abush) Contrastive Focus, Givenness and the Unmarked Status of "Discourse-new"(Elisabeth O. Selkirk) Contrastive Focus (Malte Zimmermann) The Fallacy of Invariant Phonological Correlates of Information Structural Notions (Caroline F{\´e}ry) Notions and Subnotions of Information Structure (Carlos Gussenhoven) The Restricted Access of Information Structure to Syntax - A Minority Report (Gisbert Fanselow) Focus and Tone (Katharina Hartmann)}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-1294, title = {Information structure in cross-linguistic corpora : annotation guidelines for phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and information structure}, editor = {Dipper, Stefanie and Goetze, Michael and Skopeteas, Stavros}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-939469-66-7}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-14199}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {210}, year = {2007}, abstract = {This volume presents annotation guidelines that have been developed in the context of the SFB 632, a collaborative research center entitled "Information Structure: the Linguistic Means for Structuring Utterances, Sentences and Texts". An important result of the SFB 632 are the SFB corpora from more than 20 typologically different languages, which have been annotated according to the guidelines presented here. The ultimate target of the data and its annotations is to support the study of Information Structure. Information Structure involves all levels of grammar and, hence, the present guidelines cover relevant aspects of all these levels: - Phonology - Morphology - Syntax - Semantics - Information Structure These levels are dealt with in individual chapters, containing tagset declarations with obligatory and optional tags, detailed annotation instructions, and illustrative examples. The volume also presents an evaluation of inter-annotator agreement of Syntax and Information Structural annotation.}, language = {en} } @book{SkopeteasFiedlerHellmuthetal.2006, author = {Skopeteas, Stavros and Fiedler, Ines and Hellmuth, Sam and Schwarz, Anne and Stoel, Ruben and Fanselow, Gisbert and F{\´e}ry, Caroline and Krifka, Manfred}, title = {Questionnaire on information structure (OUIS): reference manual}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-939469-14-8}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-12413}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {263}, year = {2006}, abstract = {Contents: Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Information Structure 2 Grammatical Correlates of Information Structure 3 Structure of the Questionnaire 4 Experimental Tasks 5 Technicalities 6 Archiving 7 Acknowledgments Chapter 2. General Questions 1 General Information 2 Phonology 3 Morphology and Syntax Chapter 3. Experimental tasks 1 Changes (Given/New in Intransitives and Transitives) 2 Giving (Given/New in Ditransitives) 3 Visibility (Given/New, Animacy and Type/Token Reference) 4 Locations (Given/New in Locative Expressions) 5 Sequences (Given/New/Contrast in Transitives) 6 Dynamic Localization (Given/New in Dynamic Loc. Descriptions) 7 Birthday Party (Weight and Discourse Status) 8 Static Localization (Macro-Planning and Given/New in Locatives) 9 Guiding (Presentational Utterances) 10 Event Cards (All New) 11 Anima (Focus types and Animacy) 12 Contrast (Contrast in pairing events) 13 Animal Game (Broad/Narrow Focus in NP) 14 Properties (Focus on Property and Possessor) 15 Eventives (Thetic and Categorical Utterances) 16 Tell a Story (Contrast in Text) 17 Focus Cards (Selective, Restrictive, Additive, Rejective Focus) 18 Who does What (Answers to Multiple Constituent Questions) 19 Fairy Tale (Topic and Focus in Coherent Discourse) 20 Map Task (Contrastive and Selective Focus in Spontaneous Dialogue) 21 Drama (Contrastive Focus in Argumentation) 22 Events in Places (Spatial, Temporal and Complex Topics) 23 Path Descriptions (Topic Change in Narrative) 24 Groups (Partial Topic) 25 Connections (Bridging Topic) 26 Indirect (Implicational Topic) 27 Surprises (Subject-Topic Interrelation) 28 Doing (Action Given, Action Topic) 29 Influences (Question Priming) Chapter 4. Translation tasks 1 Basic Intonational Properties 2 Focus Translation 3 Topic Translation 4 Quantifiers Chapter 5. Information structure summary survey 1 Preliminaries 2 Syntax 3 Morphology 4 Prosody 5 Summary: Information structure Chapter 6. Performance of Experimental Tasks in the Field 1 Field sessions 2 Field Session Metadata 3 Informants' Agreement}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-1107, title = {Optimality theory and minimalism : a possible convergence?}, editor = {Broekhuis, Hans and Vogel, Ralf}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-939469-54-4}, issn = {1616-7392}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-11909}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {vii ; 231}, year = {2006}, abstract = {This issue of Linguistics in Potsdam contains a number of papers that grew out of the workshop Descriptive and Empirical Adequacy in Linguistics held in Berlin on December 17-19 December, 2005. One of the goals of this meeting was to bring together scholars working in various frameworks (with emphasis on the Minimalist Program and Optimality Theory) and to discuss matters concerning descriptive and empirical adequacy. Another explicit goal was to discuss the question whether Minimalism and Optimality Theory should be considered incompatible and, hence, competing theories, or whether the two frameworks should rather be considered complementary in certain respects (see http://let.uvt.nl/deal05/call.html for the call for papers). Five of the seven papers in this volume directly grew out of the oral presentations given at the workshop. Although Vieri Samek-Lodovici's paper was not part of the workshop, it can also be considered a result of the workshop since it pulls together some of his many comments during the discussion time. The paper by Eva Engels and Sten Vikner discusses a phenomenon that received much interest from both minimalist and optimality theoretic syntax in the recent years, Scandinavian object shift. The paper may serve as a practical example for a claim that is repeatedly made in this volume: minimalist and OT analyses, even where they might be competing, can fruitfully inform each other in a constructive manner, leading to a deeper understanding of syntactic phenomena.}, language = {en} } @book{BlaszczakFischer2001, author = {Blaszczak, Joanna and Fischer, Susann}, title = {Multiple Wh-Konstruktionen im Slavischen : state of the art report}, issn = {1864-1857}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-10973}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2001}, abstract = {Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt eine kritische {\"U}bersicht {\"u}ber den Forschungsstand zu multiplen Wh-Konstruktionen im Slavischen dar. Das Ziel ist es, die Unklarheit der Datenlage und die Widerspr{\"u}chlichkeit der auf solchen "unklaren" Daten basierten Theorien aufzuzeigen. Inhalt: Historischer Hintergrund (Wachowicz 1974) Einige {\"a}ltere Ans{\"a}tze H{\"o}hepunkt: die folgenschwere Arbeit von Rudin (1988) Probleme: - Das Problem der Zuverl{\"a}sslichkeit von Daten - Das Problem der Relevanz von Daten "Harte" Fakten: - Strikte Superiorit{\"a}tseffekte im Bulgarischen - Obligatorische Wh-Anhebung im Slavischen Neuere Ans{\"a}tze: - "Qualitative" Ans{\"a}tze - "Quantitative" Ans{\"a}tze - Alternative Ans{\"a}tze}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-1011, title = {Experimental studies in linguistics 1}, editor = {Fischer, Susann and van de Vijver, Ruben and Vogel, Ralf}, issn = {1864-1857}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-10960}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2003}, abstract = {This is the first issue of a series in which affiliates of the Institute of Linguistics report the results of their experimental work. Generative linguistics usually rely on the method of native speaker judgements in order to test their hypotheses. If a hypothesis rules out a set of sentences, linguistics can ask native speakers whether they feel these sentences are indeed ungrammatical in their language. There are, however, circumstances where this method is unreliable. In such cases a more elaborate method to test a hypothesis is called. All papes in this series, and hence, all papers in this volume deal with issues that cannot be reliably tested with native speaker judgements. This volume contains 7 papers, all using different methods and finding answers to very different questions. This heterogenity, by the way, reflects the various interests and research programs of the institute. The paper, by Trutkowski, Zugck, Blaszczak, Fanselow, Fischer and Vogel deals with superiority in 10 Indo-European languages. The paper by Schlesewsky, Fanselow and Frisch and by Schlesewsky and Frisch, deal with the role of case in processing German sentences. The paper by Vogel and Frisch deals with resolving case conflicts, as does the paper by Vogel and Zugck. The nature of partitive case is the topic of the paper by Fischer. The paper by K?gler deals with the realization of question intonation in two German dialects. We hope that you enjoy reading the papers!}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-1006, title = {Three papers on German verb movement}, editor = {Vogel, Ralf}, isbn = {978-3-937786-07-0}, issn = {1864-1857}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-10934}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2004}, abstract = {This volume offers new arguments and perspectives in the ongoing debate about the optimal analysis of verb movement, mainly, but not exclusively, in German. Fanselow and Meinunger deal with verb second (V2) movement in German main clauses. Fanselow argues that head movement of the substitution type follows the standard minimalist conceptions of Merge and Move and is therefore not subject to the same objections as head movement as head adjunction which violates Chomsky's minimalist extension condition, operates countercyclically, and fails to let the moved head c-command its trace. Fanselow argues for V2 movement as head movement of the substitution type. Meinunger discusses a restriction on V2 movement imposed by phrases like "mehr als" ('more than'), as in "Der Wert hat sich weit mehr als verdreifacht" ('the value has far more than tripled') where V2 movement is ruled out (cf. *"Der Wert verdreifachte sich mehr als"). Meinunger claims that this restriction is best analysed in phonological terms: the preposition/complementiser "als" acts as a prefixal clitic to its host, the finite verb, which therefore may not move without it. With respect to the V2 debate, Meinunger argues for an interface perspective. He shows that V2 is restricted from both the conceptual and the phonological interface. Vogel, finally, discusses the syntax of clause-final verbal complexes and their dialectal variation in German. He compares three different syntactic analyses, a minimalist head movement analysis, a minimalist XP movement analysis, and an Optimality theoretic PF movement analysis. The three accounts are evaluated relative to the additional assumptions they have to make, the complications they face and how they fit the observations. Vogel argues in favour of the phonologically oriented OT analysis because of its ability to create a direct link between the coming about of a particular word order pattern and its basically phonological trigger. Each of the three papers recognises the relevance of surface forms in the analysis of German verb movement. They differ, however in the extent to which phonological aspects take part in the explanations they offer.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{OPUS4-964, title = {brandial'06 : Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on the semantics and pragmatics of dialogue (SemDial-10)}, editor = {Schlangen, David and Fern{\´a}ndez, Raquel}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-939469-29-2}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-10484}, pages = {vii ; 201}, year = {2006}, abstract = {brandial06 was the tenth in a series of workshops that aims to bring together researchers working on the semantics and pragmatics of dialogues in fields such as artificial intelligence, formal semantics and pragmatics, computational linguistics, philosophy, and psychology. This volume collects all presented papers and posters and gives abstracts of the invited talks.}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-724, title = {Approaches and findings in oral, written and gestural language}, editor = {Dipper, Stefanie and G{\"o}tze, Michael and Stede, Manfred}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8255}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {244}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Der vorliegende dritte Band der Serie "Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure" enth{\"a}lt sieben Beitr{\"a}ge aus verschiedenen Projekten des Sonderforschungsbereiches "Informationsstruktur: Die sprachlichen Mittel der Gliederung von {\"A}ußerung, Satz und Text" (SFB 632). Der Titel "Approaches and Findings in Oral, Written and Gestural Language" reflektiert die Bandbreite der Untersuchungen zum Thema Informationsstruktur. In ihrem Artikel hinterfragt Elke Kasimir die Zuverl{\"a}ssigkeit des sog. Frage-Antwort-Tests zur Bestimmung des fokussierten Elementes in S{\"a}tzen. Ihr alternativer L{\"o}sungsvorschlag wird in dem Kommentar von Thomas Weskott kritisch diskutiert. Der Artikel von Paul Elbourne befasst sich mit Ph{\"a}nomenen der Ellipse und bietet eine neue semantische Analyse an. Spezielle morphologisch stark markierte Fokuskonstruktionen aus f{\"u}nf verschiedenen afrikanischen Sprachen der Gur- und Kwa-Sprachgruppe werden von Ines Fiedler und Anne Schwarz analysiert und diachronisch interpretiert. Ebenfalls sprachhistorisch ausgerichtet ist der Artikel von Roland Hinterh{\"o}lzl, Svetlana Petrova und Michael Solf, die Belege f{\"u}r die Interaktion von Wortstellung und Informationsstruktur bereits in der althochdeutschen Tatian-{\"U}bersetzung fanden. Anke Sennema, Ruben van de Vijver, Susanne E. Carroll und Anne Zimmer-Stahl diskutieren anhand einer Serie von Experimenten die Nutzung von Prosodie, Wortl{\"a}nge und -Stellung f{\"u}r die semantischen Interpretation in der Erst- und Zweitsprache. Die besondere Rolle von Gestik in Verbindung mit Intonation f{\"u}r die Strukturierung des sprachlichen Diskurses wird von Stefanie Jannedy und Norma Mendoza-Denton hervorgehoben.}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-723, title = {Heterogeneity in focus : creating and using linguistic databases}, editor = {Dipper, Stefanie and G{\"o}tze, Michael and Stede, Manfred}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-937786-48-3}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8244}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {145}, year = {2005}, abstract = {The papers in this volume were presented at the workshop Heterogeneity in Linguistic Databases', which took place on July 9, 2004 at the University of Potsdam. The workshop was organized by project D1: Linguistic Database for Information Structure: Annotation and Retrieval', a member project of the SFB 632, a collaborative research center entitled Information Structure: the Linguistic Means for Structuring Utterances, Sentences and Texts'. The workshop brought together both developers and users of linguistic databases from a number of research projects which work on an empirical basis, all of which have to cope with different sorts of heterogeneity: primary linguistic data and annotated information may be heterogeneous, as well as the data structures representing them. The first four papers (by Wagner, Schmidt, L{\"u}deling, and Witt) address aspects of heterogeneous data from the point of view of database developers; the remaining three papers (by Meyer, Smith, and Teich/Fankhauser) focus on data exploitation by the users.}, language = {en} } @book{OPUS4-721, title = {Interdisciplinary studies on information structure : ISIS ; working papers of the SFB 632. - Vol. 1}, editor = {Ishihara, Shinichiro and Schmitz, Michaela and Schwarz, Anne}, issn = {1866-4725}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8237}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Contents: A1: Phonology and syntax of focussing and topicalisation: Gisbert Fanselow: Cyclic Phonology-Syntax-Interaction: Movement to First Position in German Caroline F{\´e}ry and Laura Herbst: German Sentence Accent Revisited Shinichiro Ishihara: Prosody by Phase: Evidence from Focus Intonation-Wh-scope Correspondence in Japanese A2: Quantification and information structure: Cornelia Endriss and Stefan Hinterwimmer: The Influence of Tense in Adverbial Quantification A3: Rhetorical Structure in Spoken Language: Modeling of Global Prosodic Parameters: Ekaterina Jasinskaja, J{\"o}rg Mayer and David Schlangen: Discourse Structure and Information Structure: Interfaces and Prosodic Realization B2: Focussing in African Tchadic languages: Katharina Hartmann and Malte Zimmermann: Focus Strategies in Chadic: The Case of Tangale Revisited D1: Linguistic database for information structure: Annotation and retrieval: Stefanie Dipper, Michael G{\"o}tze, Manfred Stede and Tillmann Wegst: ANNIS: A Linguistic Database for Exploring Information Structure}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{BrehmJurish2005, author = {Brehm-Jurish, Eva Ute}, title = {Connective ties in discourse : three ERP-studies on causal, temporal and concessive connective ties and their influence on language processing}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-6780}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Connective ties in discourse: Three ERP studies on causal, temporal and concessive connective ties and their influence on language processing. Questions In four experiments the influence of lexical connectives such as " darum", therefore, " danach", afterwards, and " trotzdem", nevertheless, on the processing of short two-sentence discourses was examined and compared to the processing of deictical sentential adverbs such as " gestern", yesterday, and " lieber", rather. These latter words do not have the property of signaling a certain discourse relation between two sentences, as connective ties do. Three questions were central to the work: * Do the processing contrasts found between connective and non-connective elements extend to connective ties and deictical sentential adverbs (experiments 2 and 3)? * Does the semantic content of the connective ties play the primary role, i.e is the major distinction to be made indeed between connective and non-connective or instead between causal, temporal and concessive? * When precisely is the information provided by connective ties used? There is some evidence that connective ties can have an immediate influence on the integration of subsequent elements, but the end of the second sentences appears to play an important role as well: experiments 2, 3, and 4. Conclusions First of all, the theoretical distinction between connective and non-connective elements does indeed have " cognitive reality" . This has already been shown in previous studies. The present studies do however show, that there is also a difference between one-place discourse elements (deictical sentential adverbs) and two-place discourse elements, namely connective ties, since all experiments examining this contrast found evidence for qualitatively and quantitatively different processing (experiments 1, 2, and 3). Secondly, the semantic type of the connective ties also plays a role. This was not shown for the LAN, found for all connective ties when compared to non-connective elements, and consequently interpreted as a more abstract reflection of the integration of connective ties. There was also no difference between causal and temporal connective ties before the end of the discourses in experiment 3. However, the N400 found for incoherent discourses in experiment 2, larger for connective incoherent than non-connective incoherent discourses, as well as the P3b found for concessive connective ties in the comparison between causal and concessive connective ties gave reason to assume that the semantic content of connective ties is made use of in incremental processing, and that the relation signaled by the connective tie is the one that readers attempt to construct. Concerning when the information provided by connective ties is used, it appears as if connectivity is generally and obligatorily taken at face value. As long as the meaning of a connective tie did not conflict with a preferred canonical discourse relation, there were no differences found for varying connective discourses (experiment 3). However, the fact that concessive connective ties announce the need for a more complex text representation was recognized and made use of immediately (experiment 4). Additionally, a violation of the discourse relation resulted in more difficult semantic integration if a connective tie was present (experiment 2). It is therefore concluded here that connective ties influence processing immediately. This claim has to be modified somewhat, since the sentence-final elements suggested that connective ties trigger different integration processes than non-connective elements. It seems as if the answer to the question of when connective ties are processed is neither exclusively immediately nor exclusively afterwards, but that both viewpoints are correct. It is suggested here that before the end of a discourse economy plays a central role in that a canonical relation is assumed unless there is evidence to the contrary. A connective tie could have the function of reducing the dimensions evaluated in a discourse to the one signaled by the connective tie. At the end of the discourse the representation is evaluated and verified, and an integrated situation model constructed. Here, the complexity of the different discourse relations that connective ties can signal, is expressed.}, subject = {Sprachverarbeitung }, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Engels2004, author = {Engels, Eva}, title = {Adverb placement : an optimality theoretic approach}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-2453}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Adverb positioning is guided by syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic considerations and is subject to cross-linguistic as well as language-specific variation. The goal of the thesis is to identify the factors that determine adverb placement in general (Part I) as well as in constructions in which the adverb's sister constituent is deprived of its phonetic material by movement or ellipsis (gap constructions, Part II) and to provide an Optimality Theoretic approach to the contrasts in the effects of these factors on the distribution of adverbs in English, French, and German. In Optimality Theory (Prince \& Smolensky 1993), grammaticality is defined as optimal satisfaction of a hierarchy of violable constraints: for a given input, a set of output candidates are produced out of which that candidate is selected as grammatical output which optimally satisfies the constraint hierarchy. Since grammaticality crucially relies on the hierarchic relations of the constraints, cross-linguistic variation can be traced back to differences in the language-specific constraint rankings. Part I shows how diverse phenomena of adverb placement can be captured by corresponding constraints and their relative rankings: - contrasts in the linearization of adverbs and verbs/auxiliaries in English and French - verb placement in German and the filling of the prefield position - placement of focus-sensitive adverbs - fronting of topical arguments and adverbs Part II extends the analysis to a particular phenomenon of adverb positioning: the avoidance of adverb attachment to a phonetically empty constituent (gap). English and French are similar in that the acceptability of pre-gap adverb placement depends on the type of adverb, its scope, and the syntactic construction (English: wh-movement vs. topicalization / VP Fronting / VP Ellipsis, inverted vs. non-inverted clauses; French: CLLD vs. Cleft, simple vs. periphrastic tense). Yet, the two languages differ in which strategies a specific type of adverb may pursue to escape placement in front of a certain type of gap. In contrast to English and French, placement of an adverb in front of a gap never gives rise to ungrammaticality in German. Rather, word ordering has to obey the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic principles discussed in Part I; whether or not it results in adverb attachment to a phonetically empty constituent seems to be irrelevant: though constraints are active in every language, the emergence of a visible effect of their requirements in a given language depends on their relative ranking. The complex interaction of the diverse factors as well as their divergent effects on adverb placement in the various languages are accounted for by the universal constraints and their language-specific hierarchic relations in the OT framework.}, subject = {Adverb}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Trommer2001, author = {Trommer, Jochen}, title = {Distributed optimality}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0001377}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2001}, abstract = {In dieser Dissertation schlage ich eine Synthese (Distributed Optimality, DO) von Optimalit{\"a}tstheorie und einem derivationellen, morphologischem Asatz, Distributed Morphology (DM; Halle \& Marantz, 1993) vor. Durch die Integration von OT in DM wird es m{\"o}glich, Ph{\"a}nomene, die in DM durch sprachspezifische Regeln oder Merkmale von lexikalischen Eintr{\"a}ge erfasst werden, auf die Interaktion von verletzbaren, universellen Constraints zur{\"u}ckzuf{\"u}hren. Andererseits leistet auch DM zwei substantielle Beitr{\"a}ge zu DO, Lokalit{\"a}t und Impoverishment. Lokalit{\"a}t erlaubt eine formal einfache Interpretation von DO, w{\"a}hrend sich Impoverishment als unverzichtbar erweist, um Kongruenz-Morphologie ad{\"a}quat zu beschreiben. Die empirische Grundlage der Arbeit sind die komplexen Kongruenzsysteme von genetisch unterschiedlichen Sprachen. Der theoretische Schwerpunkt liegt in zwei Bereichen: Erstens, sogenannte Direkt/Invers-Markierung, f{\"u}r die gezeigt wird, dass eine Behandlung durch Constraints {\"u}ber Merkmalsrealisierung am angemessensten ist. Zweitens, die Effekte von Abfolge-Constraints, die den Satus von Affixen als Pr{\"a}fixe und Suffixe sowie ihre relative Reihenfolge regeln. Eine konkrete Typologie f{\"u}r die Abfolge von Kongruenz-Affixen auf der Basis von OT-Constraints wird vorgeschlagen.}, language = {en} }