TY - GEN A1 - Fanselow, Gisbert A1 - Lenertová, Denisa T1 - Left peripheral focus BT - mismatches between syntax and information structure T2 - Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - In Czech, German, and many other languages, part of the semantic focus of the utterance can be moved to the left periphery of the clause. The main generalization is that only the leftmost accented part of the semantic focus can be moved. We propose that movement to the left periphery is generally triggered by an unspecific edge feature of C (Chomsky 2008) and its restrictions can be attributed to requirements of cyclic linearization, modifying the theory of cyclic linearization developed by Fox and Pesetsky (2005). The crucial assumption is that structural accent is a direct consequence of being linearized at merge, thus it is indirectly relevant for (locality restrictions on) movement. The absence of structural accent correlates with given-ness. Given elements may later receive (topic or contrastive) accents, which accounts for fronting in multiple focus/contrastive topic constructions. Without any additional assumptions, the model can account for movement of pragmatically unmarked elements to the left periphery (‘formal fronting’, Frey 2005). Crucially, the analysis makes no reference at all to concepts of information structure in the syntax, in line with the claim of Chomsky (2008) that UG specifies no direct link between syntax and information structure. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 596 KW - Czech KW - German KW - Focus KW - Topic KW - Information structure KW - Intervention effects KW - Cyclic linearization KW - A-bar-movement KW - Prosody-syntax interface KW - Accentuation Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-428198 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 596 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Häussler, Jana A1 - Bader, Markus T1 - An interference account of the missing-VP effect N2 - Sentences with doubly center-embedded relative clauses in which a verb phrase (VP) is missing are sometimes perceived as grammatical, thus giving rise to an illusion of grammaticality. In this paper, we provide a new account of why missing-VP sentences, which are both complex and ungrammatical, lead to an illusion of grammaticality, the so-called missing-VP effect. We propose that the missing-VP effect in particular, and processing difficulties with multiply center-embedded clauses more generally, are best understood as resulting from interference during cue-based retrieval. When processing a sentence with double center-embedding, a retrieval error due to interference can cause the verb of an embedded clause to be erroneously attached into a higher clause. This can lead to an illusion of grammaticality in the case of missing-VP sentences and to processing complexity in the case of complete sentences with double center-embedding. Evidence for an interference account of the missing-VP effect comes from experiments that have investigated the missing-VP effect in German using a speeded grammaticality judgments procedure. We review this evidence and then present two new experiments that show that the missing-VP effect can be found in German also with less restricting procedures. One experiment was a questionnaire study which required grammaticality judgments from participants without imposing any time constraints. The second experiment used a self-paced reading procedure and did not require any judgments. Both experiments confirm the prior findings of missing-VP effects in German and also show that the missing-VP effect is subject to a primacy effect as known from the memory literature. Based on this evidence, we argue that an account of missing-VP effects in terms of interference during cue-based retrieval is superior to accounts in terms of limited memory resources or in terms of experience with embedded structures. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 278 KW - sentence parsing KW - center embedding KW - grammatical illusion KW - missing-VP effect KW - cue-based retrieval KW - interference KW - German Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-78673 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Jäger, Lena Ann A1 - Benz, Lena A1 - Roeser, Jens A1 - Dillon, Brian W. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Teasing apart Retrieval and Encoding Interference in the Processing of Anaphors N2 - Two classes of account have been proposed to explain the memory processes subserving the processing of reflexive-antecedent dependencies. Structure-based accounts assume that the retrieval of the antecedent is guided by syntactic tree-configurational information without considering other kinds of information such as gender marking in the case of English reflexives. By contrast, unconstrained cue-based retrieval assumes that all available information is used for retrieving the antecedent. Similarity-based interference effects from structurally illicit distractors which match a non-structural retrieval cue have been interpreted as evidence favoring the unconstrained cue-based retrieval account since cue-based retrieval interference from structurally illicit distractors is incompatible with the structure-based account. However, it has been argued that the observed effects do not necessarily reflect interference occurring at the moment of retrieval but might equally well be accounted for by interference occurring already at the stage of encoding or maintaining the antecedent in memory, in which case they cannot be taken as evidence against the structure-based account. We present three experiments (self-paced reading and eye-tracking) on German reflexives and Swedish reflexive and pronominal possessives in which we pit the predictions of encoding interference and cue-based retrieval interference against each other. We could not find any indication that encoding interference affects the processing ease of the reflexive-antecedent dependency formation. Thus, there is no evidence that encoding interference might be the explanation for the interference effects observed in previous work. We therefore conclude that invoking encoding interference may not be a plausible way to reconcile interference effects with a structure-based account of reflexive processing. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 275 KW - anaphors KW - reflexives KW - possessives KW - eye-tracking KW - German KW - Swedish KW - working-memory KW - interference Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-78714 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. T1 - Filling the Silence BT - Reactivation, not Reconstruction N2 - In a self-paced reading experiment, we investigated the processing of sluicing constructions (“sluices”) whose antecedent contained a known garden-path structure in German. Results showed decreased processing times for sluices with garden-path antecedents as well as a disadvantage for antecedents with non-canonical word order downstream from the ellipsis site. A post-hoc analysis showed the garden-path advantage also to be present in the region right before the ellipsis site. While no existing account of ellipsis processing explicitly predicted the results, we argue that they are best captured by combining a local antecedent mismatch effect with memory trace reactivation through reanalysis. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 285 KW - ellipsis processing KW - garden-path effect KW - German KW - retrieval KW - reconstruction KW - self-paced reading Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90480 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Adani, Flavia A1 - Stegenwallner-Schütz, Maja Henny Katherine A1 - Haendler, Yair A1 - Zukowski, Andrea T1 - Elicited production of relative clauses in German BT - evidence from typically developing children and children with specific language impairment T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - We elicited the production of various types of relative clauses in a group of German-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing controls in order to test the movement optionality account of grammatical difficulty in SLI. The results show that German-speaking children with SLI are impaired in relative clause production compared to typically developing children. The alternative structures that they produce consist of simple main clauses, as well as nominal and prepositional phrases produced in isolation, sometimes contextually appropriate, and sometimes not. Crucially for evaluating the movement optionality account, children with SLI produce very few instances of embedded clauses where the relative clause head noun is pronounced in situ; in fact, such responses are more common among the typically developing child controls. These results underscore the difficulty German-speaking children with SLI have with structures involving movement, but provide no specific support for the movement optionality account. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 409 KW - elicited production KW - first language acquisition KW - German KW - relative clauses KW - specific language impairment Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405149 IS - 409 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Paape, Dario L. J. F. A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Local coherence and preemptive digging-in effects in German T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - SOPARSE predicts so-called local coherence effects: locally plausible but globally impossible parses of substrings can exert a distracting influence during sentence processing. Additionally, it predicts digging-in effects: the longer the parser stays committed to a particular analysis, the harder it becomes to inhibit that analysis. We investigated the interaction of these two predictions using German sentences. Results from a self-paced reading study show that the processing difficulty caused by a local coherence can be reduced by first allowing the globally correct parse to become entrenched, which supports SOPARSE’s assumptions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 417 KW - local coherence KW - digging-in effects KW - self-paced reading KW - SOPARSE KW - sentence processing KW - German Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405337 IS - 417 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Logacev, Pavel A1 - Gattei, Carolina A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - When High-Capacity Readers Slow Down and Low-Capacity Readers Speed Up BT - Working Memory and Locality Effects N2 - We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German), while taking into account readers' working memory capacity and controlling for expectation (Levy, 2008) and other factors. We predicted only locality effects, that is, a slowdown produced by increased dependency distance (Gibson, 2000; Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). Furthermore, we expected stronger locality effects for readers with low working memory capacity. Contrary to our predictions, low-capacity readers showed faster reading with increased distance, while high-capacity readers showed locality effects. We suggest that while the locality effects are compatible with memory-based explanations, the speedup of low-capacity readers can be explained by an increased probability of retrieval failure. We present a computational model based on ACT-R built under the previous assumptions, which is able to give a qualitative account for the present data and can be tested in future research. Our results suggest that in some cases, interpreting longer RTs as indexing increased processing difficulty and shorter RTs as facilitation may be too simplistic: The same increase in processing difficulty may lead to slowdowns in high-capacity readers and speedups in low-capacity ones. Ignoring individual level capacity differences when investigating locality effects may lead to misleading conclusions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 288 KW - locality KW - working memory capacity KW - individual differences KW - Spanish KW - German KW - ACT-R Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90663 SP - 1 EP - 24 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Adani, Flavia A1 - Stegenwallner-Schütz, Maja Henny Katherine A1 - Niesel, Talea T1 - The Peaceful Co-existence of Input Frequency and Structural Intervention Effects on the Comprehension of Complex Sentences in German-Speaking Children N2 - The predictions of two contrasting approaches to the acquisition of transitive relative clauses were tested within the same groups of German-speaking participants aged from 3 to 5 years old. The input frequency approach predicts that object relative clauses with inanimate heads (e.g., the pullover that the man is scratching) are comprehended earlier and more accurately than those with an animate head (e.g., the man that the boy is scratching). In contrast, the structural intervention approach predicts that object relative clauses with two full NP arguments mismatching in number (e.g., the man that the boys are scratching) are comprehended earlier and more accurately than those with number-matching NPs (e.g., the man that the boy is scratching). These approaches were tested in two steps. First, we ran a corpus analysis to ensure that object relative clauses with number-mismatching NPs are not more frequent than object relative clauses with number-matching NPs in child directed speech. Next, the comprehension of these structures was tested experimentally in 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds respectively by means of a color naming task. By comparing the predictions of the two approaches within the same participant groups, we were able to uncover that the effects predicted by the input frequency and by the structural intervention approaches co-exist and that they both influence the performance of children on transitive relative clauses, but in a manner that is modulated by age. These results reveal a sensitivity to animacy mismatch already being demonstrated by 3-year-olds and show that animacy is initially deployed more reliably than number to interpret relative clauses correctly. In all age groups, the animacy mismatch appears to explain the performance of children, thus, showing that the comprehension of frequent object relative clauses is enhanced compared to the other conditions. Starting with 4-year-olds but especially in 5-year-olds, the number mismatch supported comprehension—a facilitation that is unlikely to be driven by input frequency. Once children fine-tune their sensitivity to verb agreement information around the age of four, they are also able to deploy number marking to overcome the intervention effects. This study highlights the importance of testing experimentally contrasting theoretical approaches in order to characterize the multifaceted, developmental nature of language acquisition. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 352 KW - German KW - animacy KW - input frequency KW - language acquisition KW - number KW - relative clauses KW - sentence comprehension Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403672 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Sauermann, Antje A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Word order in German child language and child-directed speech BT - A corpus analysis on the ordering of double objects in the German middlefield T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - We report two corpus analyses to examine the impact of animacy, definiteness, givenness and type of referring expression on the ordering of double objects in the spontaneous speech of German-speaking two- to four-year-old children and the child-directed speech of their mothers. The first corpus analysis revealed that definiteness, givenness and type of referring expression influenced word order variation in child language and child-directed speech when the type of referring expression distinguished between pronouns and lexical noun phrases. These results correspond to previous child language studies in English (e.g., de Marneffe et al. 2012). Extending the scope of previous studies, our second corpus analysis examined the role of different pronoun types on word order. It revealed that word order in child language and child-directed speech was predictable from the types of pronouns used. Different types of pronouns were associated with different sentence positions but also showed a strong correlation to givenness and definiteness. Yet, the distinction between pronoun types diminished the effects of givenness so that givenness had an independent impact on word order only in child-directed speech but not in child language. Our results support a multi-factorial approach to word order in German. Moreover, they underline the strong impact of the type of referring expression on word order and suggest that it plays a crucial role in the acquisition of the factors influencing word order variation. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 687 KW - German KW - word order KW - corpus study KW - language acquisition KW - information structure KW - referring expression Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-470174 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 687 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Klassert, Annegret A1 - Bormann, Sarah A1 - Festman, Julia A1 - Gerth, Sabrina T1 - Rechtschreibung von Konsonantenclustern und morphologische Bewusstheit bei Grundschüler_innen T1 - Primary school children’s spelling of consonant clusters and morphological awareness T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Die vorliegenden Studien untersuchen die Entwicklung der Rechtschreibfähigkeit für finale Konsonantencluster im Deutschen und die ihr zugrundeliegenden Strategien bei Erst- bis Drittklässler_innen (N = 209). Dazu wurde der Einfluss der morphologischen Komplexität (poly- vs. monomorphematische Cluster) auf die Rechtschreibung qualitativ und quantitativ analysiert, sowie mit einer Messung zur morphologischen Bewusstheit korreliert. Von der ersten Klasse an zeigt sich eine hohe Korrektheit in der Schreibung und somit eine sprachspezifisch schnelle Entwicklung der alphabetischen Rechtschreibstrategie für finale Konsonantencluster. Der Einfluss morphologischer Verarbeitungsprozesse wurde allerdings erst für die Drittklässler_innen gefunden. Obwohl bereits die Erstklässler_innen gut entwickelte morphologische Bewusstheit zeigten, scheinen sie noch nicht in der Lage zu sein, diese bei der Rechtschreibung anzuwenden. Die Ergebnisse werden im Kontrast zu den umfangreicher vorliegenden Befunden für die englische Sprache diskutiert. N2 - The present studies investigate the development of the ability to spell final consonant clusters in German and its underlying strategies in first- to third-graders (N = 209). In these studies, the influence of morphological complexity (poly- vs. monomorphemic clusters) was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively, and correlated with a measure of morphological awareness. From the first grade onwards, we found a high spelling accuracy and therefore a language-specific early development of the alphabetic spelling strategy for final consonant clusters. However, the influence of morphological processing mechanisms was only found for third graders. Although even first graders showed a well-developed morphological awareness, they did not seem to be able to use it during spelling. The results are discussed in contrast to extensive previous research in English. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 610 KW - Rechtschreibung KW - finale Konsonantencluster KW - morphologische Bewusstheit KW - Deutsch KW - spelling KW - final consonant clusters KW - morphological awareness KW - German Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-434156 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 610 SP - 115 EP - 125 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Grubic, Mira A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - Presupposition Accommodation of the German Additive Particle auch (= “too”) T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Presupposition triggers differ with respect to whether their presupposition is easily accommodatable. The presupposition of focus-sensitive additive particles like also or too is often classified as hard to accommodate, i.e., these triggers are infelicitous if their presupposition is not entailed by the immediate linguistic or non-linguistic context. We tested two competing accounts for the German additive particle auch concerning this requirement: First, that it requires a focus alternative to the whole proposition to be salient, and second, that it merely requires an alternative to the focused constituent (e.g., an individual) to be salient. We conducted two experiments involving felicity judgments as well as questions asking for the truth of the presupposition to be accommodated. Our results suggest that the latter account is too weak: mere previous mention of a potential alternative to the focused constituent is not enough to license the use of auch. However, our results also suggest that the former account is too strong: when an alternative of the focused constituent is prementioned and certain other accommodation-enhancing factors are present, the context does not have to entail the presupposed proposition. We tested the following two potentially accommodation-enhancing factors: First, whether the discourse can be construed to be from the perspective of the individual that the presupposition is about, and second, whether the presupposition is needed to establish coherence between the host sentence of the additive particle and the preceding context. The factor coherence was found to play a significant role. Our results thus corroborate the results of other researchers showing that discourse participants go to great lengths in order to identify a potential presupposition to accommodate, and we contribute to these results by showing that coherence is one of the factors that enhance accommodation. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 547 KW - alternatives KW - additive particles KW - presupposition KW - anaphoricity KW - accommodation KW - experimental data KW - German Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-428003 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 547 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Clausen, Yulia A1 - Scheffler, Tatjana T1 - A corpus-based analysis of meaning variations in German tag questions evidence from spoken and written conversational corpora T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - This paper addresses semantic/pragmatic variability of tag questions in German and makes three main contributions. First, we document the prevalence and variety of question tags in German across three different types of conversational corpora. Second, by annotating question tags according to their syntactic and semantic context, discourse function, and pragmatic effect, we demonstrate the existing overlap and differences between the individual tag variants. Finally, we distinguish several groups of question tags by identifying the factors that influence the speakers’ choices of tags in the conversational context, such as clause type, function, speaker/hearer knowledge, as well as conversation type and medium. These factors provide the limits of variability by constraining certain question tags in German against occurring in specific contexts or with individual functions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 706 KW - German KW - tag questions KW - discourse functions KW - pragmatic variability KW - corpus annotation Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-467882 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 706 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Grubic, Mira A1 - Wierzba, Marta T1 - The German additive particle noch BT - testing the role of topic situations T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The particle noch (‘still’) can have an additive reading similar to auch (‘also’). We argue that both particles indicate that a previously partially answered QUD is re-opened to add a further answer. The particles differ in that the QUD, in the case of auch, can be re-opened with respect to the same topic situation, whereas noch indicates that the QUD is re-opened with respect to a new topic situation. This account predicts a difference in the accommodation behavior of the two particles. We present an experiment whose results are in line with this prediction. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 709 KW - additive particles KW - noch KW - auch KW - German KW - topic situation KW - semantics KW - experiments Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-510049 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 709 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Westphal, Andrea A1 - Vock, Miriam A1 - Kretschmann, Julia T1 - Unravelling the relationship between teacher-assigned grades, student personality, and standardized test scores T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The Big Five personality traits play a major role in student achievement. As such, there is consistent evidence that students that are more conscientious receive better teacher-assigned grades in secondary school. However, research often does not support the claim that students that are more conscientious similarly achieve higher scores in domain-specific standardized achievement tests. Based on the Invest-and-Accrue Model, we argue that conscientiousness explains to some extent why certain students receive better grades despite similar academic accomplishments (i.e., achieving similar scores in domain-specific standardized achievement tests). Therefore, the present study examines to what extent the relationship between student personality and teacher-assigned grades consists of direct as opposed to indirect associations (via subject-specific standardized test scores). We used a representative sample of 14,710 ninth-grade students to estimate these direct and indirect pathways in mathematics and German. Structural equation models showed that test scores explained between 8 and 11% of the variance in teacher-assigned grades in mathematics and German. The Big Five personality traits in students additionally explained between 8 and 10% of the variance in grades. Finally, the personality-grade relationship consisted of direct (0.02 | β| ≤ 0.27) and indirect associations via test scores (0.01 | β| ≤ 0.07). Conscientiousness explained discrepancies between teacher-assigned grades and students’ scores in domain-specific standardized tests to a greater extent than any of the other Big Five personality traits. Our findings suggest that students that are more conscientious may invest more effort to accomplish classroom goals, but fall short of mastery. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 719 KW - Big Five KW - student personality KW - teacher-assigned grades KW - grading practice KW - conscientiousness KW - mathematics KW - German KW - secondary school Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-523024 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 12 ER -