TY - JOUR A1 - Spalek, Katharina A1 - Gotzner, Nicole A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Not only the apples BT - Focus sensitive particles improve memory for information-structural alternatives JF - Journal of memory and language : JML N2 - Focus sensitive particles highlight the relevance of contextual alternatives for the interpretation of a sentence. Two experiments tested whether this leads to better encoding and therefore, ultimately, better recall of focus alternatives. Participants were presented with auditory stimuli that introduced a set of elements ("context sentence") and continued in three different versions: the critical sentences either contained the exclusive particle nur ("only"), the inclusive particle sogar ("even"), or no particle (control condition). After being exposed to blocks of ten trials, participants were asked to recall the elements in the context sentence. The results show that both particles enhanced memory performance for the alternatives to the focused element, relative to the control condition. The results support the assumption that information-structural alternatives are better encoded in memory in the presence of a focus sensitive particle. KW - Information structure KW - Focus particles KW - Alternative set KW - Delayed recall KW - Memory Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2013.09.001 SN - 0749-596X SN - 1096-0821 VL - 70 SP - 68 EP - 84 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fanselow, Gisbert A1 - Lenertova, Denisa T1 - Left peripheral focus mismatches between syntax and information structure JF - Natural language & linguistic theory 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 givenness. 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. 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 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-010-9109-x SN - 0167-806X VL - 29 IS - 1 SP - 169 EP - 209 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Drenhaus, Heiner A1 - Zimmermann, Malte A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - Exhaustiveness effects in clefts are not truth-functional JF - Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience N2 - While it is widely acknowledged in the formal semantic literature that both the truth-functional focus particle only and it-clefts convey exhaustiveness, the nature and source of exhaustiveness effects with it-clefts remain contested. We describe a questionnaire study (n = 80) and an event-related brain potentials (ERP) study (n = 16) that investigated the violation of exhaustiveness in German only-foci versus it-clefts. The offline study showed that a violation of exhaustivity with only is less acceptable than the violation with it-clefts, suggesting a difference in the nature of exhaustivity interpretation in the two environments. The ERP-results confirm that this difference can be seen in online processing as well: a violation of exhaustiveness in only-foci elicited a centro-posterior positivity (600-800ms), whereas a violation in it-clefts induced a globally distributed N400 pattern (400-600ms). The positivity can be interpreted as a reanalysis process and more generally as a process of context updating. The N400 effect in it-clefts is interpreted as indexing a cancelation process that is functionally distinct from the only case. The ERP study is, to our knowledge, the first evidence from an online experimental paradigm which shows that the violation of exhaustiveness involves different underlying processes in the two structural environments. KW - ERP KW - It- clefts KW - Only-foci KW - Information structure KW - German Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2010.10.004 SN - 0911-6044 VL - 24 IS - 3 SP - 320 EP - 337 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Chen, Hui-Ching A1 - Szendroi, Krizsta A1 - Crain, Stephen A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Understanding Prosodic Focus Marking in Mandarin Chinese BT - Data from Children and Adults JF - Journal of Psycholinguistic Research N2 - This study investigated whether Mandarin speakers interpret prosodic information as focus markers in a sentence-picture verification task. Previous production studies have shown that both Mandarin-speaking adults and Mandarin-speaking children mark focus by prosodic information (Ouyang and Kaiser in Lang Cogn Neurosc 30(1-2):57-72, 2014; Yang and Chen in Prosodic focus marking in Chinese four-and eight-year-olds, 2014). However, while prosodic focus marking did not seem to affect sentence comprehension in adults Mandarin-speaking children showed enhanced sentence comprehension when the sentence focus was marked by prosodic information in a previous study (Chen in Appl Psycholinguist 19(4):553-582, 1998). The present study revisited this difference between Mandarin speaking adults and children by applying a newly designed task that tested the use of prosodic information to identify the sentence focus. No evidence was obtained that Mandarin-speaking children (as young as 3years of age) adhered more strongly to prosodic information than adults but that word order was the strongest cue for their focus interpretation. Our findings support the view that children attune to the specific means of information structure marking in their ambient language at an early age. KW - Focus KW - Prosody KW - Language acquisition KW - Mandarin Chinese KW - Information structure Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9580-9 SN - 0090-6905 SN - 1573-6555 VL - 48 IS - 1 SP - 19 EP - 32 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Burmester, Juliane A1 - Spalek, Katharina A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell T1 - Context updating during sentence comprehension: The effect of aboutness topic JF - Brain & language : a journal of the neurobiology of language KW - Information structure KW - Discourse context KW - Aboutness topic KW - Sentence processing KW - Word order variation KW - ERP KW - Late positivity KW - Syntax-Discourse Model Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2014.08.001 SN - 0093-934X SN - 1090-2155 VL - 137 SP - 62 EP - 76 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER -