TY - JOUR
A1 - Felser, Claudia
A1 - Jessen, Anna
T1 - Correlative coordination and variable subject-verb agreement in German
JF - Languages : open access journal
N2 - 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.
KW - correlative coordination
KW - subject– verb agreement
KW - German
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6020067
SN - 2226-471X
VL - 6
IS - 2
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P.
T1 - nà-cleft (non-)exhaustivity
BT - variability in Akan
JF - Glossa : a journal of general linguistics
N2 - 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).
KW - Akan
KW - nà-clefts
KW - definite pseudoclefts
KW - exhaustivity
KW - experimental studies
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.16995/glossa.5698
SN - 2397-1835
VL - 6
IS - 1
PB - Open Library of Humanities
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ronasi, Golnoush
A1 - Fischer, Martin H.
A1 - Zimmermann, Malte
T1 - Language and Arithmetic
BT - a failure to find cross cognitive domain semantic priming between exception phrases and subtraction or addition
JF - Frontiers in psychology
N2 - 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.
KW - cross-domain priming
KW - language
KW - arithmetic
KW - information integration
KW - cognitive module
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01524
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 9
PB - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Renans, Agata
A1 - De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P.
T1 - Experimental Studies on it-Clefts and Predicate Interpretation
JF - Semantics and pragmatics
N2 - 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 Büring & 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.
KW - it-clefts
KW - exhaustivity
KW - homogeneity
KW - distributive,collective, and mixed predicates
KW - distributive vs. non-distributive interpretation
KW - experimental study
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.12.11
SN - 1937-8912
VL - 12
PB - Linguistic Society of America
CY - Washington
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Hein, Johannes
A1 - Barnickel, Katja
T1 - Replication of R-pronouns in German dialects
JF - Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft : ZS
N2 - 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.
KW - R-pronouns
KW - Optimality Theory
KW - doubling
KW - German
KW - dialectal variation
Y1 - 2018
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/zfs-2018-0009
SN - 0721-9067
SN - 1613-3706
VL - 37
IS - 2
SP - 171
EP - 204
PB - De Gruyter Mouton
CY - Berlin
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Krasotkina, Anna
A1 - Götz, Antonia
A1 - Höhle, Barbara
A1 - Schwarzer, Gudrun
T1 - Infants’ gaze patterns for same-race and other-race faces, and the other-race effect
JF - Brain Sciences
N2 - 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.
KW - eye-tracking
KW - infancy
KW - habituation
KW - other-race effect
KW - face
KW - discrimination
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10060331
SN - 2076-3425
VL - 10
IS - 6
PB - Brain Sciences
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Hohaus, Vera
A1 - Zimmermann, Malte
T1 - Comparisons of equality with German so ... wie, and the relationship between degrees and properties
JF - Journal of semantics
N2 - 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.
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffaa011
SN - 0167-5133
SN - 1477-4593
VL - 38
IS - 1
SP - 95
EP - 143
PB - Oxford Univ. Press
CY - Oxford
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Lopukhina, Anastasiya
A1 - Lopukhin, Konstantin
A1 - Laurinavichyute, Anna
T1 - Morphosyntactic but not lexical corpus-based probabilities can substitute for cloze probabilities in reading experiments
JF - PLOS ONE / Public Library of Science
N2 - 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.
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246133
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
IS - 1
PB - PLoS
CY - San Fransisco
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Amaechi, Mary Chimaobi
A1 - Georgi, Doreen
T1 - Quirks of subject (non-)extraction in Igbo
JF - Glossa : a journal of general linguistics
N2 - 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.
KW - extraction asymmetries
KW - wh-movement
KW - wh-in-situ
KW - focus marking
KW - that-trace effect
Y1 - 2019
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.607
SN - 2397-1835
VL - 4
IS - 1
PB - Ubiquity Press
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Vasishth, Shravan
T1 - Using approximate Bayesian computation for estimating parameters in the cue-based retrieval model of sentence processing
JF - MethodsX
N2 - 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.
KW - Bayesian parameter estimation
KW - Prior and posterior predictive
KW - distributions
KW - Psycholinguistics
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2020.100850
SN - 2215-0161
VL - 7
PB - Elsevier
CY - Amsterdam
ER -