@article{FelserJessen2021,
author = {Felser, Claudia and Jessen, Anna},
title = {Correlative coordination and variable subject-verb agreement in German},
series = {Languages : open access journal},
volume = {6},
journal = {Languages : open access journal},
number = {2},
publisher = {MDPI},
address = {Basel},
issn = {2226-471X},
doi = {10.3390/languages6020067},
pages = {20},
year = {2021},
abstract = {Coordinated subjects often show variable number agreement with the finite verb, but linguistic approaches to this phenomenon have rarely been informed by systematically collected data. We report the results from three experiments investigating German speakers' agreement preferences with complex subjects joined by the correlative conjunctions sowohl horizontal ellipsis als auch ('both horizontal ellipsis and'), weder horizontal ellipsis noch ('neither horizontal ellipsis nor') or entweder horizontal ellipsis oder ('either horizontal ellipsis or'). We examine to what extent conjunction type and a conjunct's relative proximity to the verb affect the acceptability and processibility of singular vs. plural agreement. Experiment 1 was an untimed acceptability rating task, Experiment 2 a timed sentence completion task, and Experiment 3 was a self-paced reading task. Taken together, our results show that number agreement with correlative coordination in German is primarily determined by a default constraint triggering plural agreement, which interacts with linear order and semantic factors. Semantic differences between conjunctions only affected speakers' agreement preferences in the absence of processing pressure but not their initial agreement computation. The combined results from our offline and online experimental measures of German speakers' agreement preferences suggest that the constraints under investigation do not only differ in their relative weighting but also in their relative timing during agreement computation.},
language = {en}
}
@article{DeVeaughGeiss2021,
author = {De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P.},
title = {n{\`a}-cleft (non-)exhaustivity},
series = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
volume = {6},
journal = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
number = {1},
publisher = {Open Library of Humanities},
address = {London},
issn = {2397-1835},
doi = {10.16995/glossa.5698},
pages = {41},
year = {2021},
abstract = {This paper presents two experimental studies on the exhaustive inference associated with focus-background na-clefts in Akan (among others, Boadi 1974; Duah 2015; Grubic \& Renans \& Duah 2019; Titov 2019), with a direct comparison to two recent experiments on German es-clefts employing an identical design (De Veaugh-Geiss et al. 2018). Despite the unforeseen response patterns in Akan in the incremental information-retrieval paradigm used, a post-hoc exploratory analysis reveals compelling parallels between the two languages. The results are compatible with a unified approach both (i) cross-linguistically between Akan and German; and (ii) cross-sententially between na-clefts (a na P, 'It is a who did P') and definite pseudoclefts, i.e., definite descriptions with identity statements (Nipa no a P ne a, 'The person who did P is a') (Boadi 1974; Ofori 2011). Participant variability in (non-)exhaustive interpretations is compatible with discourse pragmatic approaches to cleft exhaustivity (Pollard \& Yasavul 2016; De Veaugh-Geiss et al. 2018; Titov 2019).},
language = {en}
}
@article{RonasiFischerZimmermann2018,
author = {Ronasi, Golnoush and Fischer, Martin H. and Zimmermann, Malte},
title = {Language and Arithmetic},
series = {Frontiers in psychology},
volume = {9},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {1664-1078},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01524},
pages = {12},
year = {2018},
abstract = {We examined cross-domain semantic priming effects between arithmetic and language. We paired subtractions with their linguistic equivalent, exception phrases (EPs) with positive quantifiers (e.g., "everybody except John") while pairing additions with their own linguistic equivalent, EPs with negative quantifiers (e.g., "nobody except John"; Moltmann, 1995). We hypothesized that EPs with positive quantifiers prime subtractions and inhibit additions while EPs with negative quantifiers prime additions and inhibit subtractions. Furthermore, we expected similar priming and inhibition effects from arithmetic into semantics. Our design allowed for a bidirectional analysis by using one trial's target as the prime for the next trial. Two experiments failed to show significant priming effects in either direction. Implications and possible shortcomings are explored in the general discussion.},
language = {en}
}
@article{RenansDeVeaughGeiss2019,
author = {Renans, Agata and De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P.},
title = {Experimental Studies on it-Clefts and Predicate Interpretation},
series = {Semantics and pragmatics},
volume = {12},
journal = {Semantics and pragmatics},
publisher = {Linguistic Society of America},
address = {Washington},
issn = {1937-8912},
doi = {10.3765/sp.12.11},
pages = {50},
year = {2019},
abstract = {There is an ongoing discussion in the literature whether the series of sentences 'It's not α that did P. α and β did P.' is acceptable or not. Whereas the homogeneity approach in B{\"u}ring \& Križ 2013, Križ 2016, and Križ 2017 predicts these sentences to be unacceptable, the alternative-based approach predicts acceptability depending on the predicate being interpreted distributively or non- distributively (among others, Horn 1981, Velleman et al. 2012, Renans 2016a,b). We report on three experiments testing the predictions of both types of approaches. These studies provide empirical data that not only bears on these approaches, but also allows us to distinguish between different accounts of cleft exhaustivity that might otherwise make the same predictions. The results of the three studies reported here suggest that the acceptability of clefts depends on the interpretation of the predicate, thereby posing a serious challenge to the homogeneity approach, and contributing to the ongoing discussion on the semantics of it-clefts.},
language = {en}
}
@article{HeinBarnickel2018,
author = {Hein, Johannes and Barnickel, Katja},
title = {Replication of R-pronouns in German dialects},
series = {Zeitschrift f{\"u}r Sprachwissenschaft : ZS},
volume = {37},
journal = {Zeitschrift f{\"u}r Sprachwissenschaft : ZS},
number = {2},
publisher = {De Gruyter Mouton},
address = {Berlin},
issn = {0721-9067},
doi = {10.1515/zfs-2018-0009},
pages = {171 -- 204},
year = {2018},
abstract = {A considerable number of German dialects exhibit doubled R-pronouns with pronominal adverbs (dadamit, dadafur, dadagegen). At first sight, this type of in situ replication seems to be completely redundant since its occurrence is independent of R-pronoun extraction/movement. The main purpose of this paper is to account for (i) the difference between dialects with regard to replication of R-pronouns and (ii) why an (apparently redundant) process of replication occurs. Following Muller (2000a), who considers R-pronouns to be a repair phenomenon, we present an analysis in the framework of Optimality Theory. We argue that replication of R-pronouns is a consequence of different rankings of universal requirements like e.g. the Inclusiveness Condition, the Lexical Integrity Hypothesis and Antilocality and that the interaction of these constraints results in the occurrence of replication.},
language = {en}
}
@article{KrasotkinaGoetzHoehleetal.2020,
author = {Krasotkina, Anna and G{\"o}tz, Antonia and H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Schwarzer, Gudrun},
title = {Infants' gaze patterns for same-race and other-race faces, and the other-race effect},
series = {Brain Sciences},
volume = {10},
journal = {Brain Sciences},
number = {6},
publisher = {Brain Sciences},
address = {Basel},
issn = {2076-3425},
doi = {10.3390/brainsci10060331},
pages = {12},
year = {2020},
abstract = {The other-race effect (ORE) can be described as difficulties in discriminating between faces of ethnicities other than one's own, and can already be observed at approximately 9 months of age. Recent studies also showed that infants visually explore same-and other-race faces differently. However, it is still unclear whether infants' looking behavior for same- and other-race faces is related to their face discrimination abilities. To investigate this question we conducted a habituation-dishabituation experiment to examine Caucasian 9-month-old infants' gaze behavior, and their discrimination of same- and other-race faces, using eye-tracking measurements. We found that infants looked longer at the eyes of same-race faces over the course of habituation, as compared to other-race faces. After habituation, infants demonstrated a clear other-race effect by successfully discriminating between same-race faces, but not other-race faces. Importantly, the infants' ability to discriminate between same-race faces significantly correlated with their fixation time towards the eyes of same-race faces during habituation. Thus, our findings suggest that for infants old enough to begin exhibiting the ORE, gaze behavior during habituation is related to their ability to differentiate among same-race faces, compared to other-race faces.},
language = {en}
}
@article{HohausZimmermann2021,
author = {Hohaus, Vera and Zimmermann, Malte},
title = {Comparisons of equality with German so ... wie, and the relationship between degrees and properties},
series = {Journal of semantics},
volume = {38},
journal = {Journal of semantics},
number = {1},
publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press},
address = {Oxford},
issn = {0167-5133},
doi = {10.1093/jos/ffaa011},
pages = {95 -- 143},
year = {2021},
abstract = {We present a compositionally transparent, unified semantic analysis of two kinds of so ... wie-equative constructions in German, namely degree equatives and property equatives in the domain of individuals or events. Unlike in English and many other European languages (Haspelmath \& Buchholz 1998, Rett 2013), both equative types in German feature the parameter marker so, suggesting a unified analysis. We show that the parallel formal expression of German degree and property equatives is accompanied by a parallel syntactic distribution (in predicative, attributive, and adverbial position), and by identical semantic properties: Both equative types allow for scope ambiguities, show negative island effects out of context, and license the negative polarity item uberhaupt 'at all' in the complement clause. As the same properties are also shared by German comparatives, we adopt the influential quantificational analysis of comparatives in von Stechow (1984ab), Heim (1985, 2001, 2007), and Beck (2011), and treat both German equative types in a uniform manner as expressing universal quantification over sets of degrees or over sets of properties (of individuals or events). Conceptually, the uniform marking of degree-related and property-related meanings is expected given that the abstract semantic category degree (type ) can be reconstructed in terms of equivalence classes, i.e., ontologically simpler sets of individuals (type ) or events (type ). These are found in any language, showing that whether or not a language makes explicit reference to degrees (by means of gradable adjectives, degree question words, degree-only equatives) does not follow on general conceptual or semantic grounds, but is determined by the grammar of that language.},
language = {en}
}
@article{LopukhinaLopukhinLaurinavichyute2021,
author = {Lopukhina, Anastasiya and Lopukhin, Konstantin and Laurinavichyute, Anna},
title = {Morphosyntactic but not lexical corpus-based probabilities can substitute for cloze probabilities in reading experiments},
series = {PLOS ONE / Public Library of Science},
volume = {16},
journal = {PLOS ONE / Public Library of Science},
number = {1},
publisher = {PLoS},
address = {San Fransisco},
issn = {1932-6203},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0246133},
pages = {26},
year = {2021},
abstract = {During reading or listening, people can generate predictions about the lexical and morphosyntactic properties of upcoming input based on available context. Psycholinguistic experiments that study predictability or control for it conventionally rely on a human-based approach and estimate predictability via the cloze task. Our study investigated an alternative corpus-based approach for estimating predictability via language predictability models. We obtained cloze and corpus-based probabilities for all words in 144 Russian sentences, correlated the two measures, and found a strong correlation between them. Importantly, we estimated how much variance in eye movements registered while reading the same sentences was explained by each of the two probabilities and whether the two probabilities explain the same variance. Along with lexical predictability (the activation of a particular word form), we analyzed morphosyntactic predictability (the activation of morphological features of words) and its effect on reading times over and above lexical predictability. We found that for predicting reading times, cloze and corpus-based measures of both lexical and morphosyntactic predictability explained the same amount of variance. However, cloze and corpus-based lexical probabilities both independently contributed to a better model fit, whereas for morphosyntactic probabilities, the contributions of cloze and corpus-based measures were interchangeable. Therefore, morphosyntactic but not lexical corpus-based probabilities can substitute for cloze probabilities in reading experiments. Our results also indicate that in languages with rich inflectional morphology, such as Russian, when people engage in prediction, they are much more successful in predicting isolated morphosyntactic features than predicting the particular lexeme and its full morphosyntactic markup.},
language = {en}
}
@article{AmaechiGeorgi2019,
author = {Amaechi, Mary Chimaobi and Georgi, Doreen},
title = {Quirks of subject (non-)extraction in Igbo},
series = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
volume = {4},
journal = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
number = {1},
publisher = {Ubiquity Press},
address = {London},
issn = {2397-1835},
doi = {10.5334/gjgl.607},
pages = {36},
year = {2019},
abstract = {In this paper we present new data on a subject/non-subject extraction asymmetry in Igbo constituent questions. We provide evidence that the superficially morphological phenomenon reflects a deeper syntactic asymmetry: Unlike wh-non-subjects, wh-subjects cannot undergo local (A) over bar -movement to the left periphery (SpecFoc); rather, they have to stay in their canonical position SpecT. The same constraint also leads to the that-trace effect (absence of the complementizer) in the embedded clause of long subject wh-movement. We argue that what is responsible for the special status of wh-subjects is their high structural position. We provide an optimality-theoretic analysis of the asymmetry that is based on anti-locality: Local subject (A) over bar -movement is excluded because it is too short. Moreover, we address the nature of apparent wh-in-situ in Igbo.},
language = {en}
}
@article{Vasishth2020,
author = {Vasishth, Shravan},
title = {Using approximate Bayesian computation for estimating parameters in the cue-based retrieval model of sentence processing},
series = {MethodsX},
volume = {7},
journal = {MethodsX},
publisher = {Elsevier},
address = {Amsterdam},
issn = {2215-0161},
doi = {10.1016/j.mex.2020.100850},
pages = {6},
year = {2020},
abstract = {A commonly used approach to parameter estimation in computational models is the so-called grid search procedure: the entire parameter space is searched in small steps to determine the parameter value that provides the best fit to the observed data. This approach has several disadvantages: first, it can be computationally very expensive; second, one optimal point value of the parameter is reported as the best fit value; we cannot quantify our uncertainty about the parameter estimate. In the main journal article that this methods article accompanies (Jager et al., 2020, Interference patterns in subject-verb agreement and reflexives revisited: A large-sample study, Journal of Memory and Language), we carried out parameter estimation using Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC), which is a Bayesian approach that allows us to quantify our uncertainty about the parameter's values given data. This customization has the further advantage that it allows us to generate both prior and posterior predictive distributions of reading times from the cue-based retrieval model of Lewis and Vasishth, 2005.
Instead of the conventional method of using grid search, we use Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) for parameter estimation in the [4] model.
The ABC method of parameter estimation has the advantage that the uncertainty of the parameter can be quantified.},
language = {en}
}
@article{StoneVasishthMalsburg2022,
author = {Stone, Kate and Vasishth, Shravan and Malsburg, Titus von der},
title = {Does entropy modulate the prediction of German long-distance verb particles?},
series = {PLOS ONE},
journal = {PLOS ONE},
publisher = {PLOS ONE},
address = {San Francisco, California, US},
issn = {1932-6203},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0267813},
pages = {1 -- 25},
year = {2022},
abstract = {In this paper we examine the effect of uncertainty on readers' predictions about meaning. In particular, we were interested in how uncertainty might influence the likelihood of committing to a specific sentence meaning. We conducted two event-related potential (ERP) experiments using particle verbs such as turn down and manipulated uncertainty by constraining the context such that readers could be either highly certain about the identity of a distant verb particle, such as turn the bed […] down, or less certain due to competing particles, such as turn the music […] up/down. The study was conducted in German, where verb particles appear clause-finally and may be separated from the verb by a large amount of material. We hypothesised that this separation would encourage readers to predict the particle, and that high certainty would make prediction of a specific particle more likely than lower certainty. If a specific particle was predicted, this would reflect a strong commitment to sentence meaning that should incur a higher processing cost if the prediction is wrong. If a specific particle was less likely to be predicted, commitment should be weaker and the processing cost of a wrong prediction lower. If true, this could suggest that uncertainty discourages predictions via an unacceptable cost-benefit ratio. However, given the clear predictions made by the literature, it was surprisingly unclear whether the uncertainty manipulation affected the two ERP components studied, the N400 and the PNP. Bayes factor analyses showed that evidence for our a priori hypothesised effect sizes was inconclusive, although there was decisive evidence against a priori hypothesised effect sizes larger than 1μV for the N400 and larger than 3μV for the PNP. We attribute the inconclusive finding to the properties of verb-particle dependencies that differ from the verb-noun dependencies in which the N400 and PNP are often studied.},
language = {en}
}
@article{PerugiaPaetzelPruesmannAlanenpaeaeetal.2021,
author = {Perugia, Giulia and Paetzel-Pr{\"u}smann, Maike and Alanenp{\"a}{\"a}, Madelene and Castellano, Ginevra},
title = {I can see it in your eyes},
series = {Frontiers in robotics and AI},
volume = {8},
journal = {Frontiers in robotics and AI},
publisher = {Frontiers Media},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {2296-9144},
doi = {10.3389/frobt.2021.645956},
pages = {18},
year = {2021},
abstract = {Over the past years, extensive research has been dedicated to developing robust platforms and data-driven dialog models to support long-term human-robot interactions. However, little is known about how people's perception of robots and engagement with them develop over time and how these can be accurately assessed through implicit and continuous measurement techniques. In this paper, we explore this by involving participants in three interaction sessions with multiple days of zero exposure in between. Each session consists of a joint task with a robot as well as two short social chats with it before and after the task. We measure participants' gaze patterns with a wearable eye-tracker and gauge their perception of the robot and engagement with it and the joint task using questionnaires. Results disclose that aversion of gaze in a social chat is an indicator of a robot's uncanniness and that the more people gaze at the robot in a joint task, the worse they perform. In contrast with most HRI literature, our results show that gaze toward an object of shared attention, rather than gaze toward a robotic partner, is the most meaningful predictor of engagement in a joint task. Furthermore, the analyses of gaze patterns in repeated interactions disclose that people's mutual gaze in a social chat develops congruently with their perceptions of the robot over time. These are key findings for the HRI community as they entail that gaze behavior can be used as an implicit measure of people's perception of robots in a social chat and of their engagement and task performance in a joint task.},
language = {en}
}
@article{SchreiberOneaGaspar2021,
author = {Schreiber, Alexander and Onea G{\´a}sp{\´a}r, Edgar},
title = {Are narrow focus exhaustivity inferences Bayesian inferences?},
series = {Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation},
volume = {12},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation},
publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {1664-1078},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.677223},
pages = {19},
year = {2021},
abstract = {In successful communication, the literal meaning of linguistic utterances is often enriched by pragmatic inferences. Part of the pragmatic reasoning underlying such inferences has been successfully modeled as Bayesian goal recognition in the Rational Speech Act (RSA) framework. In this paper, we try to model the interpretation of question-answer sequences with narrow focus in the answer in the RSA framework, thereby exploring the effects of domain size and prior probabilities on interpretation. Should narrow focus exhaustivity inferences be actually based on Bayesian inference involving prior probabilities of states, RSA models should predict a dependency of exhaustivity on these factors. We present experimental data that suggest that interlocutors do not act according to the predictions of the RSA model and that exhaustivity is in fact approximately constant across different domain sizes and priors. The results constitute a conceptual challenge for Bayesian accounts of the underlying pragmatic inferences.},
language = {en}
}
@article{MazzarellaGotzner2021,
author = {Mazzarella, Diana and Gotzner, Nicole},
title = {The polarity asymmetry of negative strengthening},
series = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
volume = {6},
journal = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
number = {1},
publisher = {Open Library of Humanities},
address = {London},
issn = {2397-1835},
doi = {10.5334/gjgl.1342},
pages = {17},
year = {2021},
abstract = {The interpretation of negated antonyms is characterised by a polarity asymmetry: the negation of a positive polarity antonym (X is not interesting) is more likely to be strengthened to convey its opposite ('X is uninteresting') than the negation of a negative polarity antonym (X is not uninteresting to convey that 'X is interesting') is. A classical explanation of this asymmetry relies on face-management. Since the predication of a negative polarity antonym (X is uninteresting) is potentially face-threatening in most contexts, the negation of the corresponding positive polarity antonym (X is not interesting) is more likely to be interpreted as an indirect strategy to minimise face-threat while getting the message across. We present two experimental studies in which we test the predictions of this explanation. In contrast with it, our results show that adjectival polarity, but not face-threatening potential, appears to be responsible for the asymmetric interpretation of negated antonyms.},
language = {en}
}
@article{StoneVasishthvonderMalsburg2022,
author = {Stone, Kate and Vasishth, Shravan and von der Malsburg, Titus Raban},
title = {Does entropy modulate the prediction of German long-distance verb particles?},
series = {PLOS ONE},
volume = {17},
journal = {PLOS ONE},
number = {8},
publisher = {PLOS},
address = {San Francisco, California, US},
issn = {1932-6203},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0267813},
pages = {25},
year = {2022},
abstract = {In this paper we examine the effect of uncertainty on readers' predictions about meaning. In particular, we were interested in how uncertainty might influence the likelihood of committing to a specific sentence meaning. We conducted two event-related potential (ERP) experiments using particle verbs such as turn down and manipulated uncertainty by constraining the context such that readers could be either highly certain about the identity of a distant verb particle, such as turn the bed [...] down, or less certain due to competing particles, such as turn the music [...] up/down. The study was conducted in German, where verb particles appear clause-finally and may be separated from the verb by a large amount of material. We hypothesised that this separation would encourage readers to predict the particle, and that high certainty would make prediction of a specific particle more likely than lower certainty. If a specific particle was predicted, this would reflect a strong commitment to sentence meaning that should incur a higher processing cost if the prediction is wrong. If a specific particle was less likely to be predicted, commitment should be weaker and the processing cost of a wrong prediction lower. If true, this could suggest that uncertainty discourages predictions via an unacceptable cost-benefit ratio. However, given the clear predictions made by the literature, it was surprisingly unclear whether the uncertainty manipulation affected the two ERP components studied, the N400 and the PNP. Bayes factor analyses showed that evidence for our a priori hypothesised effect sizes was inconclusive, although there was decisive evidence against a priori hypothesised effect sizes larger than 1 mu Vfor the N400 and larger than 3 mu V for the PNP. We attribute the inconclusive finding to the properties of verb-particle dependencies that differ from the verb-noun dependencies in which the N400 and PNP are often studied.},
language = {en}
}
@article{SotiropoulouGafos2022,
author = {Sotiropoulou, Stavroula and Gafos, Adamantios I.},
title = {Phonetic indices of syllabic organization in German stop-lateral clusters},
series = {Laboratory Phonology},
volume = {13},
journal = {Laboratory Phonology},
number = {1},
publisher = {Open Library of humanities},
address = {Cambridge},
issn = {1868-6346},
doi = {10.16995/labphon.6440},
pages = {42},
year = {2022},
abstract = {Using articulatory data from five German speakers, we study how segmental sequences under different syllabic organizations respond to perturbations of phonetic parameters in the segments that compose them. Target words contained stop-lateral sequences /bl, gl, kl, pl/ in word-initial and cross-word contexts and were embedded in carrier phrases with different prosodic boundaries, i.e., no phrase boundary versus an utterance phrase boundary preceded the target word in the case of word-initial clusters, or separated the consonants in the case of cross-word sequences. For word-initial cluster (CCV) onsets, we find that increasing C1 stop duration or the lag between two consonants leads to earlier vowel initiation and reduced local timing stability across CV, CCV. Furthermore, as the inter-consonantal lag increases, C2 duration decreases. In contrast, for cross-word C\#CV sequences, increasing inter-consonantal lag does not lead to earlier vowel initiation and robust local timing stability is maintained across CV, C\#CV. In other words, in CCV sequences within words, local perturbations to segments have effects that ripple through the rest of the sequence. Instead, in cross-word C\#CV sequences, local perturbations stay local. Overall, the findings indicate that the effects of phonetic perturbations on coordination patterns depend on the syllabic organization superimposed on these clusters.},
language = {en}
}
@article{BarthWeingartenKuettnerRaymond2021,
author = {Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar and K{\"u}ttner, Uwe-Alexander and Raymond, Chase Wesley},
title = {Pivots revisited},
series = {Open linguistics},
volume = {7},
journal = {Open linguistics},
number = {1},
publisher = {de Gruyter},
address = {Warsaw},
issn = {2300-9969},
doi = {10.1515/opli-2020-0152},
pages = {613 -- 637},
year = {2021},
abstract = {The term "pivot" usually refers to two overlapping syntactic units such that the completion of the first unit simultaneously launches the second. In addition, pivots are generally said to be characterized by the smooth prosodic integration of their syntactic parts. This prosodic integration is typically achieved by prosodic-phonetic matching of the pivot components. As research on such turns in a range of languages has illustrated, speakers routinely deploy pivots so as to be able to continue past a point of possible turn completion, in the service of implementing some additional or revised action. This article seeks to build on, and complement, earlier research by exploring two issues in more detail as follows: (1) what exactly do pivotal turn extensions accomplish on the action dimension, and (2) what role does prosodic-phonetic packaging play in this? We will show that pivot constructions not only exhibit various degrees of prosodic-phonetic (non-)integration, i.e., differently strong cesuras, but that they can be ordered on a continuum, and that this cline maps onto the relationship of the actions accomplished by the components of the pivot construction. While tighter prosodic-phonetic integration, i.e., weak(er) cesuring, co-occurs with post-pivot actions whose relationship to that of the pre-pivot tends to be rather retrospective in character, looser prosodic-phonetic integration, i.e., strong(er) cesuring, is associated with a more prospective orientation of the post-pivot's action. These observations also raise more general questions with regard to the analysis of action.},
language = {en}
}
@article{GafosLieshout2020,
author = {Gafos, Adamantios I. and Lieshout, Pascal H. H. M. van},
title = {Models and theories of speech production},
series = {Frontiers in psychology},
volume = {11},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {1664-1078},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01238},
pages = {4},
year = {2020},
language = {en}
}
@article{KuberskiGafos2019,
author = {Kuberski, Stephan R. and Gafos, Adamantios I.},
title = {The speed-curvature power law in tongue movements of repetitive speech},
series = {PLoS one},
volume = {14},
journal = {PLoS one},
number = {3},
publisher = {PLoS},
address = {San Fransisco},
issn = {1932-6203},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0213851},
pages = {25},
year = {2019},
abstract = {The speed-curvature power law is a celebrated law of motor control expressing a relation between the kinematic property of speed and the geometric property of curvature. We aimed to assess whether speech movements obey this law just as movements from other domains do. We describe a metronome-driven speech elicitation paradigm designed to cover a wide range of speeds. We recorded via electromagnetic articulometry speech movements in sequences of the form /CV…/ from nine speakers (five German, four English) speaking at eight distinct rates. First, we demonstrate that the paradigm of metronome-driven manipulations results in speech movement data consistent with earlier reports on the kinematics of speech production. Second, analysis of our data in their full three-dimensions and using advanced numerical differentiation methods offers stronger evidence for the law than that reported in previous studies devoted to its assessment. Finally, we demonstrate the presence of a clear rate dependency of the power law's parameters. The robustness of the speed-curvature relation in our datasets lends further support to the hypothesis that the power law is a general feature of human movement. We place our results in the context of other work in movement control and consider implications for models of speech production.},
language = {en}
}
@article{SchadVasishth2022,
author = {Schad, Daniel and Vasishth, Shravan},
title = {The posterior probability of a null hypothesis given a statistically significant result},
series = {The quantitative methods for psychology},
volume = {18},
journal = {The quantitative methods for psychology},
number = {2},
publisher = {University of Montreal, Department of Psychology},
address = {Montreal},
issn = {1913-4126},
doi = {10.20982/tqmp.18.2.p011},
pages = {130 -- 141},
year = {2022},
abstract = {When researchers carry out a null hypothesis significance test, it is tempting to assume that a statistically significant result lowers Prob(H0), the probability of the null hypothesis being true. Technically, such a statement is meaningless for various reasons: e.g., the null hypothesis does not have a probability associated with it. However, it is possible to relax certain assumptions to compute the posterior probability Prob(H0) under repeated sampling. We show in a step-by-step guide that the intuitively appealing belief, that Prob(H0) is low when significant results have been obtained under repeated sampling, is in general incorrect and depends greatly on: (a) the prior probability of the null being true; (b) type-I error rate, (c) type-II error rate, and (d) replication of a result. Through step-by-step simulations using open-source code in the R System of Statistical Computing, we show that uncertainty about the null hypothesis being true often remains high despite a significant result. To help the reader develop intuitions about this common misconception, we provide a Shiny app (https://danielschad.shinyapps.io/probnull/). We expect that this tutorial will help researchers better understand and judge results from null hypothesis significance tests.},
language = {en}
}
@article{CzapkaSchwieterFestman2022,
author = {Czapka, Sophia and Schwieter, John W. and Festman, Julia},
title = {The influence of peripheral emotions on inhibitory control among children},
series = {Acta psychologica : international journal of psychonomics},
volume = {223},
journal = {Acta psychologica : international journal of psychonomics},
publisher = {Elsevier},
address = {Amsterdam},
issn = {0001-6918},
doi = {10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103507},
pages = {10},
year = {2022},
abstract = {In this study, we investigated the cognitive-emotional interplay by measuring the effects of executive competition (Pessoa, 2013), i.e., how inhibitory control is influenced when emotional information is encountered. Sixty-three children (8 to 9 years of age) participated in an inhibition task (central task) accompanied by happy, sad, or neutral emoticons (displayed in the periphery). Typical interference effects were found in the main task for speed and accuracy, but in general, these effects were not additionally modulated by the peripheral emoticons indicating that processing of the main task exhausted the limited capacity such that interference from the task-irrelevant, peripheral information did not show (Pessoa, 2013). Further analyses revealed that the magnitude of interference effects depended on the order of congruency conditions: when incongruent conditions preceded congruent ones, there was greater interference. This effect was smaller in sad conditions, and particularly so at the beginning of the experiment. These findings suggest that the bottom-up perception of task-irrelevant emotional information influenced the top-down process of inhibitory control among children in the sad condition when processing demands were particularly high. We discuss if the salience and valence of the emotional stimuli as well as task demands are the decisive characteristics that modulate the strength of this relation.},
language = {en}
}
@article{HoehleFritzscheBollAvetisyanetal.2021,
author = {H{\"o}hle, Barbara and Fritzsche, Tom and Boll-Avetisyan, Natalie and Hullebus, Marc and Gafos, Adamantios I.},
title = {Respect the surroundings},
series = {JASA Express Letters},
volume = {1},
journal = {JASA Express Letters},
number = {2},
publisher = {AIP Publ.},
address = {Melville},
issn = {2691-1191},
doi = {10.1121/10.0003574},
pages = {7},
year = {2021},
abstract = {Fourteen-month-olds' ability to distinguish a just learned word, /bu?k/, from its minimally different word, /du?k/, was assessed under two pre-exposure conditions: one where /b, d/-initial forms occurred in a varying vowel context and another where the vowel was fixed but the final consonant varied. Infants in the experiments benefited from the variable vowel but not from the variable final consonant context, suggesting that vowel variability but not all kinds of variability are beneficial. These results are discussed in the context of time-honored observations on the vowel-dependent nature of place of articulation cues for consonants.},
language = {en}
}
@article{LiuGoetzLoretteetal.2022,
author = {Liu, Liquan and G{\"o}tz, Antonia and Lorette, Pernelle and Tyler, Michael D.},
title = {How tone, intonation and emotion shape the development of infants' fundamental frequency perception},
series = {Frontiers in psychology},
volume = {13},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {1664-1078},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2022.906848},
pages = {14},
year = {2022},
abstract = {Fundamental frequency (integral(0)), perceived as pitch, is the first and arguably most salient auditory component humans are exposed to since the beginning of life. It carries multiple linguistic (e.g., word meaning) and paralinguistic (e.g., speakers' emotion) functions in speech and communication. The mappings between these functions and integral(0) features vary within a language and differ cross-linguistically. For instance, a rising pitch can be perceived as a question in English but a lexical tone in Mandarin. Such variations mean that infants must learn the specific mappings based on their respective linguistic and social environments. To date, canonical theoretical frameworks and most empirical studies do not view or consider the multi-functionality of integral(0), but typically focus on individual functions. More importantly, despite the eventual mastery of integral(0) in communication, it is unclear how infants learn to decompose and recognize these overlapping functions carried by integral(0). In this paper, we review the symbioses and synergies of the lexical, intonational, and emotional functions that can be carried by integral(0) and are being acquired throughout infancy. On the basis of our review, we put forward the Learnability Hypothesis that infants decompose and acquire multiple integral(0) functions through native/environmental experiences. Under this hypothesis, we propose representative cases such as the synergy scenario, where infants use visual cues to disambiguate and decompose the different integral(0) functions. Further, viable ways to test the scenarios derived from this hypothesis are suggested across auditory and visual modalities. Discovering how infants learn to master the diverse functions carried by integral(0) can increase our understanding of linguistic systems, auditory processing and communication functions.},
language = {en}
}
@article{SchefflerBrandtdelaFuenteetal.2022,
author = {Scheffler, Tatjana and Brandt, Lasse and de la Fuente, Marie and Nenchev, Ivan},
title = {Stimulus data and experimental design for a self-paced reading study on emoji-word substitutions},
series = {Data in Brief},
volume = {43},
journal = {Data in Brief},
publisher = {Elsevier},
address = {Amsterdam},
issn = {2352-3409},
doi = {10.1016/j.dib.2022.108399},
pages = {7},
year = {2022},
abstract = {This data paper presents the experimental design and stimuli from an online self-paced reading study on the processing of emojis substituting lexically ambiguous nouns. We recorded reading times for the target ambiguous nouns and for emojis depicting either the intended target referent or a contextually inappropriate homophonous noun. Furthermore, we recorded comprehension accuracy, demographics and a self-assessment of the participants' emoji usage frequency. The data includes all stimuli used, the raw data, the full JavaScript code for the online experiment, as well as Python and R code for the data analysis. We believe that our dataset may give important insights related to the comprehension mechanisms involved in the cognitive processing of emojis. For interpretation and discussion of the experiment, please see the original article entitled "The processing of emoji-word substitutions: A self-paced-reading study".},
language = {en}
}
@article{WieseAlexiadouAllenetal.2022,
author = {Wiese, Heike and Alexiadou, Artemis and Allen, Shanley and Bunk, Oliver and Gagarina, Natalia and Iefremenko, Kateryna and Martynova, Maria and Pashkova, Tatiana and Rizou, Vicky and Schroeder, Christoph and Shadrova, Anna and Szucsich, Luka and Tracy, Rosemarie and Tsehaye, Wintai and Zerbian, Sabine and Zuban, Yulia},
title = {Heritage speakers as part of the native language continuum},
series = {Frontiers in psychology},
volume = {12},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
publisher = {Frontiers Media},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {1664-1078},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2021.717973},
pages = {19},
year = {2022},
abstract = {We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals with heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. (1) We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. (2) We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. (3) In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike.},
language = {en}
}
@article{MuehlenbeckPritschWartenburgeretal.2020,
author = {M{\"u}hlenbeck, Cordelia Anna and Pritsch, Carla and Wartenburger, Isabell and Telkemeyer, Silke and Liebal, Katja},
title = {Attentional bias to facial expressions of different emotions},
series = {Frontiers in psychology},
volume = {11},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {1664-1078},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00795},
pages = {9},
year = {2020},
abstract = {The attentional bias to negative information enables humans to quickly identify and to respond appropriately to potentially threatening situations. Because of its adaptive function, the enhanced sensitivity to negative information is expected to represent a universal trait, shared by all humans regardless of their cultural background. However, existing research focuses almost exclusively on humans from Western industrialized societies, who are not representative for the human species. Therefore, we compare humans from two distinct cultural contexts: adolescents and children from Germany, a Western industrialized society, and from the not equal Akhoe Hai parallel to om, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers in Namibia. We predicted that both groups show an attentional bias toward negative facial expressions as compared to neutral or positive faces. We used eye-tracking to measure their fixation duration on facial expressions depicting different emotions, including negative (fear, anger), positive (happy), and neutral faces. Both Germans and the not equal Akhoe Hai parallel to om gazed longer at fearful faces, but shorter on angry faces, challenging the notion of a general bias toward negative emotions. For happy faces, fixation durations varied between the two groups, suggesting more flexibility in the response to positive emotions. Our findings emphasize the need for placing research on emotion perception into an evolutionary, cross-cultural comparative framework that considers the adaptive significance of specific emotions, rather than differentiating between positive and negative information, and enables systematic comparisons across participants from diverse cultural backgrounds.},
language = {en}
}
@article{StoneNicenboimVasishthetal.2023,
author = {Stone, Kate and Nicenboim, Bruno and Vasishth, Shravan and R{\"o}sler, Frank},
title = {Understanding the effects of constraint and predictability in ERP},
series = {Neurobiology of language},
volume = {4},
journal = {Neurobiology of language},
number = {2},
publisher = {MIT Press},
address = {Cambridge, MA, USA},
issn = {2641-4368},
doi = {10.1162/nol_a_00094},
pages = {221 -- 256},
year = {2023},
abstract = {Intuitively, strongly constraining contexts should lead to stronger probabilistic representations of sentences in memory. Encountering unexpected words could therefore be expected to trigger costlier shifts in these representations than expected words. However, psycholinguistic measures commonly used to study probabilistic processing, such as the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, are sensitive to word predictability but not to contextual constraint. Some research suggests that constraint-related processing cost may be measurable via an ERP positivity following the N400, known as the anterior post-N400 positivity (PNP). The PNP is argued to reflect update of a sentence representation and to be distinct from the posterior P600, which reflects conflict detection and reanalysis. However, constraint-related PNP findings are inconsistent. We sought to conceptually replicate Federmeier et al. (2007) and Kuperberg et al. (2020), who observed that the PNP, but not the N400 or the P600, was affected by constraint at unexpected but plausible words. Using a pre-registered design and statistical approach maximising power, we demonstrated a dissociated effect of predictability and constraint: strong evidence for predictability but not constraint in the N400 window, and strong evidence for constraint but not predictability in the later window. However, the constraint effect was consistent with a P600 and not a PNP, suggesting increased conflict between a strong representation and unexpected input rather than greater update of the representation. We conclude that either a simple strong/weak constraint design is not always sufficient to elicit the PNP, or that previous PNP constraint findings could be an artifact of smaller sample size.},
language = {en}
}
@article{PueblaAntunesFelser2022,
author = {Puebla Antunes, Cecilia and Felser, Claudia},
title = {Discourse Prominence and Antecedent MisRetrieval during Native and Non-Native Pronoun Resolution},
series = {Discours : revue de linguistique, psycholinguistique et informatique},
journal = {Discours : revue de linguistique, psycholinguistique et informatique},
number = {29},
publisher = {Universit{\´e} de Paris-Sorbonne, Maion Recherche},
address = {Paris},
issn = {1963-1723},
doi = {10.4000/discours.11720},
pages = {33},
year = {2022},
abstract = {Previous studies on non-native (L2) anaphor resolution suggest that L2 comprehenders are guided more strongly by discourse-level cues compared to native (L1) comprehenders. Here we examine whether and how a grammatically inappropriate antecedent's discourse status affects the likelihood of it being considered during L1 and L2 pronoun resolution. We used an interference paradigm to examine how the extrasentential discourse impacts the resolution of German object pronouns. In an eye-tracking-during-reading experiment we examined whether an elaborated local antecedent ruled out by binding Condition B would be mis-retrieved during pronoun resolution, and whether initially introducing this antecedent as the discourse topic would affect the chances of it being mis-retrieved. While both participant groups rejected the inappropriate antecedent in an offline questionnaire irrespective of its discourse prominence, their real-time processing patterns differed. L1 speakers initially mis-retrieved the inappropriate antecedent regardless of its contextual prominence. L1 Russian/L2 German speakers, in contrast, were affected by the antecedent's discourse status, considering it only when it was discourse-new but not when it had previously been introduced as the discourse topic. Our findings show that L2 comprehenders are highly sensitive to discourse dynamics such as topic shifts, supporting the claim that discourse-level cues are more strongly weighted during L2 compared to L1 processing.},
language = {en}
}
@article{PanedaLagoVaresetal.2020,
author = {Pa{\~n}eda, Claudia and Lago, Sol and Vares, Elena and Ver{\´i}ssimo, Jo{\~a}o Marques and Felser, Claudia},
title = {Island effects in Spanish comprehension},
series = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
volume = {5},
journal = {Glossa : a journal of general linguistics},
number = {1},
publisher = {Open Library of Humanities},
address = {London},
issn = {2397-1835},
doi = {10.5334/gjgl.1058},
pages = {30},
year = {2020},
abstract = {A growing body of experimental syntactic research has revealed substantial variation in the magnitude of island effects, not only across languages but also across different grammatical constructions. Adopting a well-established experimental design, the present study examines island effects in Spanish using a speeded acceptability judgment task. To quantify variation across grammatical constructions, we tested extraction from four different types of structure (subjects, complex noun phrases, adjuncts and interrogative clauses). The results of Bayesian mixed effects modelling showed that the size of island effects varied between constructions, such that there was clear evidence of subject, adjunct and interrogative island effects, but not of complex noun phrase island effects. We also failed to find evidence that island effects were modulated by participants' working memory capacity as measured by an operation span task. To account for our results, we suggest that variability in island effects across constructions may be due to the interaction of syntactic, semantic-pragmatic and processing factors, which may affect island types differentially due to their idiosyncratic properties.},
language = {en}
}
@article{BoschDeCesareDemskeetal.2021,
author = {Bosch, Sina and De Cesare, Ilaria and Demske, Ulrike and Felser, Claudia},
title = {New empirical approaches to grammatical variation and change},
series = {Languages : open access journal},
volume = {6},
journal = {Languages : open access journal},
number = {3},
publisher = {MDPI},
address = {Basel},
issn = {2226-471X},
doi = {10.3390/languages6030113},
pages = {3},
year = {2021},
language = {en}
}
@article{HollensteinTrondlePlomeckaetal.2023,
author = {Hollenstein, Nora and Trondle, Marius and Plomecka, Martyna and Kiegeland, Samuel and Ozyurt, Yilmazcan and J{\"a}ger, Lena Ann and Langer, Nicolas},
title = {The ZuCo benchmark on cross-subject reading task classification with EEG and eye-tracking data},
series = {Frontiers in psychology},
volume = {13},
journal = {Frontiers in psychology},
publisher = {Frontiers Media},
address = {Lausanne},
issn = {1664-1078},
doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1028824},
pages = {20},
year = {2023},
abstract = {We present a new machine learning benchmark for reading task classification with the goal of advancing EEG and eye-tracking research at the intersection between computational language processing and cognitive neuroscience. The benchmark task consists of a cross-subject classification to distinguish between two reading paradigms: normal reading and task-specific reading. The data for the benchmark is based on the Zurich Cognitive Language Processing Corpus (ZuCo 2.0), which provides simultaneous eye-tracking and EEG signals from natural reading of English sentences. The training dataset is publicly available, and we present a newly recorded hidden testset. We provide multiple solid baseline methods for this task and discuss future improvements. We release our code and provide an easy-to-use interface to evaluate new approaches with an accompanying public leaderboard: .},
language = {en}
}