@article{ClacksonHeyer2014, author = {Clackson, Kaili and Heyer, Vera}, title = {Reflexive anaphor resolution in spoken language comprehension: structural constraints and beyond}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {5}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00904}, pages = {9}, year = {2014}, abstract = {We report results from an eye-tracking during listening study examining English-speaking adults' online processing of reflexive pronouns, and specifically whether the search for an antecedent is restricted to syntactically appropriate positions. Participants listened to a short story where the recipient of an object was introduced with a reflexive, and were asked to identify the object recipient as quickly as possible. This allowed for the recording of participants' offline interpretation of the reflexive, response times, and eye movements on hearing the reflexive. Whilst our offline results show that the ultimate interpretation for reflexives was constrained by binding principles, the response time, and eye-movement data revealed that during processing participants were temporarily distracted by a structurally inappropriate competitor antecedent when this was prominent in the discourse. These results indicate that in addition to binding principles, online referential decisions are also affected by discourse-level information.}, language = {en} } @article{ClahsenRothweilerSterneretal.2014, author = {Clahsen, Harald and Rothweiler, Monika and Sterner, Franziska and Chilla, Solveig}, title = {Linguistic markers of specific language impairment in bilingual children: the case of verb morphology}, series = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, volume = {28}, journal = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, number = {9}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {London}, issn = {0269-9206}, doi = {10.3109/02699206.2014.886726}, pages = {709 -- 721}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @article{BamyaciHaeusslerKabak2014, author = {Bamyaci, Elif and Haeussler, Jana and Kabak, Baris}, title = {The interaction of animacy and number agreement: an experimental investigation}, series = {Lingua : international review of general linguistics}, volume = {148}, journal = {Lingua : international review of general linguistics}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0024-3841}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2014.06.005}, pages = {254 -- 277}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This paper investigates subject verb agreement in Turkish with particular focus on the role the animacy of plural subjects plays in verbal number marking. Previous descriptive grammars of Turkish (e.g., Sezer, 1978) report an asymmetry in number marking for plural subjects: if the plural subject denotes an animate entity, both plural and singular verbs are possible, whereas only singular verbs are possible when the plural subject denotes an inanimate entity. Using the magnitude estimation method, we measured the well-formedness of simple Turkish sentences consisting of a plural subject and a verb in two groups of participants that differ only in age (mean: 28 years old and 43 years old). The overall results provide an empirical validation of the proposed split between animate and inanimate subjects and suggest that the acceptability of plural agreement is sensitive to even more fine-grained distinctions of animacy. In particular, the plural dispreference was reduced for inanimates with a teleological capacity (in the sense of Folli and Harley, 2008) and for body parts, in comparison to true inanimates (e.g., furniture and clothes). Accordingly, we propose an animacy hierarchy for Turkish that is in line with typological observations (e.g., Corbett, 2000, 2006) and augment it with a further distinction between quasi-animates and inanimates. Although less pronounced in sentences with animate subjects, we observed a higher preference for singular verbs over plural verbs across all conditions. This suggests that the singular marking on the verb, which is zero marked in Turkish, is the default. Furthermore, we find a significant effect of age: in the older group, the singular preference is less pronounced across the conditions and almost absent in sentences with an animate subject. Moreover, the older participants made finer distinctions in the animacy hierarchy, further differentiating between two types of quasi-animates (teleologically capable entities vs. entities with inherited animacy). The two generations in our study share the animate inanimate split as well as the sharp contrast between singular and plural agreement in sentences with inanimate subjects; they differ, however, in degree of optionality. Altogether, these results suggest a decrease in the degree of optionality across generations. As in research on language attrition and bilingualism (Hulk and Muller, 2000; Muller and Hulk, 2001; Sorace, 2011), the results accord with the idea that interface phenomena are vulnerable to change; however, non-convergence between generations in our study stemmed from areas that yield gradient rather than categorical results. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{BollAvetisyanKager2014, author = {Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Kager, Rene}, title = {OCP-Place in speech segmentation}, series = {Language and speech}, volume = {57}, journal = {Language and speech}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {London}, issn = {0023-8309}, doi = {10.1177/0023830913508074}, pages = {394 -- 421}, year = {2014}, abstract = {OCP-Place, a cross-linguistically well-attested constraint against pairs of consonants with shared [place], is psychologically real. Studies have shown that the processing of words violating OCP-Place is inhibited. Functionalists assume that OCP arises as a consequence of low-level perception: a consonant following another with the same [place] cannot be faithfully perceived as an independent unit. If functionalist theories were correct, then lexical access would be inhibited if two homorganic consonants conjoin at word boundaries-a problem that can only be solved with lexical feedback. Here, we experimentally challenge the functional account by showing that OCP-Place can be used as a speech segmentation cue during pre-lexical processing without lexical feedback, and that the use relates to distributions in the input. In Experiment 1, native listeners of Dutch located word boundaries between two labials when segmenting an artificial language. This indicates a use of OCP-Labial as a segmentation cue, implying a full perception of both labials. Experiment 2 shows that segmentation performance cannot solely be explained by well-formedness intuitions. Experiment 3 shows that knowledge of OCP-Place depends on language-specific input: in Dutch, co-occurrences of labials are under-represented, but co-occurrences of coronals are not. Accordingly, Dutch listeners fail to use OCP-Coronal for segmentation.}, language = {en} } @article{ArslanAksuKocMavisetal.2014, author = {Arslan, Se{\c{c}}kin and Aksu-Koc, Ayhan and Mavis, Ilknur and Bastiaanse, Roelien}, title = {Finite verb inflections for evidential categories and source}, series = {Journal of pragmatics : an interdisciplinary journal of language studies}, volume = {70}, journal = {Journal of pragmatics : an interdisciplinary journal of language studies}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0378-2166}, doi = {10.1016/j.pragma.2014.07.002}, pages = {165 -- 181}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @article{VerissimoClahsen2014, author = {Verissimo, Joao Marques and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Variables and similarity in linguistic generalization: Evidence from inflectional classes in Portuguese}, series = {Journal of memory and language}, volume = {76}, journal = {Journal of memory and language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0749-596X}, doi = {10.1016/j.jml.2014.06.001}, pages = {61 -- 79}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Two opposing viewpoints have been advanced to account for morphological productivity, one according to which some knowledge is couched in the form of operations over variables, and another in which morphological generalization is primarily determined by similarity. We investigated this controversy by examining the generalization of Portuguese verb stems, which fall into one of three conjugation classes. In Study 1, an elicited production task revealed that the generalization of 2nd and 3rd conjugation stems is influenced by the degree of phonological similarity between novel roots and existing verbs, whereas the 1st conjugation generalizes beyond similarity. In Study 2, we directly contrasted two distinct computational implementations of conjugation class assignment in how well they matched the human data: a similarity-driven model that captures phonological similarities, and a dual-mechanism model that implements an explicit distinction between context-free and similarity-based generalizations. The similarity-driven model consistently underestimated 1st conjugation responses and overestimated proportions of 2nd and 3rd conjugation responses, especially for novel verbs that are highly similar to existing verbs of those classes. In contrast, the expected proportions produced by the dual-mechanism model were statistically indistinguishable from human responses. We conclude that both context-free and context-sensitive processes determine the generalization of conjugations in Portuguese, and that similarity-based algorithms of morphological acquisition are insufficient to exhibit default-like generalization. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{BurmesterSpalekWartenburger2014, author = {Burmester, Juliane and Spalek, Katharina and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Context updating during sentence comprehension: The effect of aboutness topic}, series = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language}, volume = {137}, journal = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {San Diego}, issn = {0093-934X}, doi = {10.1016/j.bandl.2014.08.001}, pages = {62 -- 76}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @article{BacskaiAtkari2014, author = {Bacskai-Atkari, Julia}, title = {Structural case and ambiguity in reduced comparative subclauses in English and German}, series = {Acta linguistica Hungarica : an international journal of linguistics}, volume = {61}, journal = {Acta linguistica Hungarica : an international journal of linguistics}, number = {4}, publisher = {Akad{\´e}miai Kiad{\´o}}, address = {Budapest}, issn = {1216-8076}, doi = {10.1556/ALing.61.2014.4.1}, pages = {363 -- 378}, year = {2014}, abstract = {The paper argues that structural case assignment properties of English and German reduced comparative subclauses arise from syntactic requirements as well as processes holding at the syntax-phonology interface. I show that constructions involving both an adjectival and a verbal predicate require the subject remnant of the adjectival predicate to be marked for the accusative case both in English and German, which cannot be explained by the notion of default accusative case, especially because German has no default accusative case. I argue that a phonologically defective subclause is reanalysed as part of the matrix clausal object, and hence receives accusative morphological case.}, 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{BosHanneWartenburgeretal.2014, author = {Bos, Laura S. and Hanne, Sandra and Wartenburger, Isabell and Bastiaanse, Roelien}, title = {Losing track of time? Processing of time reference inflection in agrammatic and healthy speakers of German}, series = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, volume = {65}, journal = {Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0028-3932}, doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.10.026}, pages = {180 -- 190}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Background: Individuals with agrammatic aphasia (IWAs) have problems with grammatical decoding of tense inflection. However, these difficulties depend on the time frame that the tense refers to. Verb morphology with reference to the past is more difficult than with reference to the non-past, because a link needs to be made to the past event in discourse, as captured in the PAst Discourse Linking Hypothesis (PADILIH; Bastiaanse, R., Bamyaci, E., Hsu, C., Lee, J., Yarbay Duman, T., Thompson, C. K., 2011. Time reference in agrammatic aphasia: A cross-linguistic study. J. Neurolinguist. 24, 652-673). With respect to reference to the (non-discourse-linked) future, data so far indicate that IWAs experience less difficulties as compared to past time reference (Bastiaanse, R., Bamyaci, E., Hsu, C., Lee, J., Yarbay Duman, T., Thompson, C. K., 2011. Time reference in agrammatic aphasia: A cross-linguistic study. J. Neurolinguist. 24, 652-673), supporting the assumptions of the PADILIH. Previous online studies of time reference in aphasia used methods such as reaction times analysis (e.g., Faroqi-Shah, Y., Dickey, M. W., 2009. On-line processing of tense and temporality in agrammatic aphasia. Brain Lang. 108, 97-111). So far, no such study used eye-tracking, even though this technique can bring additional insights (Burchert, F., Hanne, S., Vasishth, S., 2013. Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: the concept of chance performance revisited. Aphasiology 27, 112-125, doi:10.1080/02687038.2012.730603). Aims: This study investigated (1) whether processing of future and past time reference inflection differs between non-brain-damaged individuals (NBDs) and IWAs, and (2) underlying mechanisms of time reference comprehension failure by IWAs. Results and discussion: NBDs scored at ceiling and significantly higher than the IWAs. IWAs had below-ceiling performance on the future condition, and both participant groups were faster to respond to the past than to the future condition. These differences are attributed to a pre-existing preference to look at a past picture, which has to be overcome. Eye movement patterns suggest that both groups interpret future time reference similarly, while IWAs show a delay relative to NBDs in interpreting past time reference inflection. The eye tracking results support the PADILIH, because processing reference to the past in discourse syntax requires additional resources and thus, is problematic and delayed for people with aphasia. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @book{Roon2014, author = {Roon, Kevin}, title = {Vorlesung 2013-01-14 : A dynamical computational model of phonological planning}, publisher = {Univ.-Bibl.}, address = {Potsdam}, year = {2014}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Logačev2014, author = {Logačev, Pavel}, title = {Underspecification and parallel processing in sentence comprehension}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-82047}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2014}, abstract = {The aim of the present thesis is to answer the question to what degree the processes involved in sentence comprehension are sensitive to task demands. A central phenomenon in this regard is the so-called ambiguity advantage, which is the finding that ambiguous sentences can be easier to process than unambiguous sentences. This finding may appear counterintuitive, because more meanings should be associated with a higher computational effort. Currently, two theories exist that can explain this finding. The Unrestricted Race Model (URM) by van Gompel et al. (2001) assumes that several sentence interpretations are computed in parallel, whenever possible, and that the first interpretation to be computed is assigned to the sentence. Because the duration of each structure-building process varies from trial to trial, the parallelism in structure-building predicts that ambiguous sentences should be processed faster. This is because when two structures are permissible, the chances that some interpretation will be computed quickly are higher than when only one specific structure is permissible. Importantly, the URM is not sensitive to task demands such as the type of comprehension questions being asked. A radically different proposal is the strategic underspecification model by Swets et al. (2008). It assumes that readers do not attempt to resolve ambiguities unless it is absolutely necessary. In other words, they underspecify. According the strategic underspecification hypothesis, all attested replications of the ambiguity advantage are due to the fact that in those experiments, readers were not required to fully understand the sentence. In this thesis, these two models of the parser's actions at choice-points in the sentence are presented and evaluated. First, it is argued that the Swets et al.'s (2008) evidence against the URM and in favor of underspecification is inconclusive. Next, the precise predictions of the URM as well as the underspecification model are refined. Subsequently, a self-paced reading experiment involving the attachment of pre-nominal relative clauses in Turkish is presented, which provides evidence against strategical underspecification. A further experiment is presented which investigated relative clause attachment in German using the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) paradigm. The experiment provides evidence against strategic underspecification and in favor of the URM. Furthermore the results of the experiment are used to argue that human sentence comprehension is fallible, and that theories of parsing should be able to account for that fact. Finally, a third experiment is presented, which provides evidence for the sensitivity to task demands in the treatment of ambiguities. Because this finding is incompatible with the URM, and because the strategic underspecification model has been ruled out, a new model of ambiguity resolution is proposed: the stochastic multiple-channel model of ambiguity resolution (SMCM). It is further shown that the quantitative predictions of the SMCM are in agreement with experimental data. In conclusion, it is argued that the human sentence comprehension system is parallel and fallible, and that it is sensitive to task-demands.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{BacskaiAtkari2014, author = {Bacskai-Atkari, Julia}, title = {The syntax of comparative constructions : operators, ellipsis phenomena and functional left peripheries}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-301-5}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-71255}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiii, 310}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Adopting a minimalist framework, the dissertation provides an analysis for the syntactic structure of comparatives, with special attention paid to the derivation of the subclause. The proposed account explains how the comparative subclause is connected to the matrix clause, how the subclause is formed in the syntax and what additional processes contribute to its final structure. In addition, it casts light upon these problems in cross-linguistic terms and provides a model that allows for synchronic and diachronic differences. This also enables one to give a more adequate explanation for the phenomena found in English comparatives since the properties of English structures can then be linked to general settings of the language and hence need no longer be considered as idiosyncratic features of the grammar of English. First, the dissertation provides a unified analysis of degree expressions, relating the structure of comparatives to that of other degrees. It is shown that gradable adjectives are located within a degree phrase (DegP), which in turn projects a quantifier phrase (QP) and that these two functional layers are always present, irrespectively of whether there is a phonologically visible element in these layers. Second, the dissertation presents a novel analysis of Comparative Deletion by reducing it to an overtness constraint holding on operators: in this way, it is reduced to morphological differences and cross-linguistic variation is not conditioned by way of postulating an arbitrary parameter. Cross-linguistic differences are ultimately dependent on whether a language has overt operators equipped with the relevant - [+compr] and [+rel] - features. Third, the dissertation provides an adequate explanation for the phenomenon of Attributive Comparative Deletion, as attested in English, by way of relating it to the regular mechanism of Comparative Deletion. I assume that Attributive Comparative Deletion is not a universal phenomenon, and its presence in English can be conditioned by independent, more general rules, while the absence of such restrictions leads to its absence in other languages. Fourth, the dissertation accounts for certain phenomena related to diachronic changes, examining how the changes in the status of comparative operators led to changes in whether Comparative Deletion is attested in a given language: I argue that only operators without a lexical XP can be grammaticalised. The underlying mechanisms underlying are essentially general economy principles and hence the processes are not language-specific or exceptional. Fifth, the dissertation accounts for optional ellipsis processes that play a crucial role in the derivation of typical comparative subclauses. These processes are not directly related to the structure of degree expressions and hence the elimination of the quantified expression from the subclause; nevertheless, they are shown to be in interaction with the mechanisms underlying Comparative Deletion or the absence thereof.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{BrandtKobele2014, author = {Brandt-Kobele, Oda-Christina}, title = {Comprehension of verb inflection in German-speaking children}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-216-2}, issn = {1869-3822}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-62046}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xx, 325}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Previous studies on the acquisition of verb inflection in normally developing children have revealed an astonishing pattern: children use correctly inflected verbs in their own speech but fail to make use of verb inflections when comprehending sentences uttered by others. Thus, a three-year old might well be able to say something like 'The cat sleeps on the bed', but fails to understand that the same sentence, when uttered by another person, refers to only one sleeping cat but not more than one. The previous studies that have examined children's comprehension of verb inflections have employed a variant of a picture selection task in which the child was asked to explicitly indicate (via pointing) what semantic meaning she had inferred from the test sentence. Recent research on other linguistic structures, such as pronouns or focus particles, has indicated that earlier comprehension abilities can be found when methods are used that do not require an explicit reaction, like preferential looking tasks. This dissertation aimed to examine whether children are truly not able to understand the connection the the verb form and the meaning of the sentence subject until the age of five years or whether earlier comprehension can be found when a different measure, preferential looking, is used. Additionally, children's processing of subject-verb agreement violations was examined. The three experiments of this thesis that examined children's comprehension of verb inflections revealed the following: German-speaking three- to four-year old children looked more to a picture showing one actor when hearing a sentence with a singular inflected verb but only when their eye gaze was tracked and they did not have to perform a picture selection task. When they were asked to point to the matching picture, they performed at chance-level. This pattern indicates asymmetries in children's language performance even within the receptive modality. The fourth experiment examined sensitivity to subject-verb agreement violations and did not reveal evidence for sensitivity toward agreement violations in three- and four-year old children, but only found that children's looking patterns were influenced by the grammatical violations at the age of five. The results from these experiments are discussed in relation to the existence of a production-comprehension asymmetry in the use of verb inflections and children's underlying grammatical knowledge.}, language = {en} }