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Diagnostik und Therapie von Lese-Rechtschreibschwierigkeiten in der integrativen Lerntherapie
(2017)
The German sibilant /integral/ is produced with a constriction in the postalveolar region and often with protruded lips. By covarying horizontal lip and tongue position speakers can keep a similar acoustic output even if the articulation varies. This study investigates whether during two weeks of adaptation to an artificial palate speakers covary these two articulatory parameters, whether tactile landmarks have an influence on the covariation and to what extent speakers can foresee the acoustic result of the covariation without auditory feedback. Six German speakers were recorded with EMA. Four of them showed a covariation of lip and tongue, which is consistent with the motor equivalence hypothesis. The acoustic output, however, does not stay entirely constant but varies with the tongue position. The role of tactile landmarks is negligible. To a certain extent, speakers are able to adapt even without auditory feedback.
This article presents data from three production experiments investigating the prosodic means of encoding information structure in Akan, a tone language that belongs to the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo family, spoken in Ghana. Information structure was elicited via context questions that put target words either in wide, informational, or corrective focus, or in one of the experiments also in pre-focal or post-focal position rendering it as given. The prosodic parameters F0 and duration were measured on the target words. Duration is not consistently affected by information structure, but contrary to the prediction that High (H) and Low (L) tones are raised in ex situ (fronted) focus constructions we found a significantly lower realization of both H and L tones under corrective focus in ex situ and in situ focus constructions. Givenness does not seem to be marked prosodically. The data suggest that pragmatic prominence is expressed prosodically by means of a deviation from an unmarked prosodic structure. Results are thus contradicting the view of the effort code that predicts a positive correlation of more effort resulting in higher F0 targets.
In this thesis, I develop a theoretical implementation of prosodic reconstruction and apply it to the empirical domain of German sentences in which part of a focus or contrastive topic is fronted.
Prosodic reconstruction refers to the idea that sentences involving syntactic movement show prosodic parallels with corresponding simpler structures without movement. I propose to model this recurrent observation by ordering syntax-prosody mapping before copy deletion.
In order to account for the partial fronting data, the idea is extended to the mapping between prosody and information structure. This assumption helps to explain why object-initial sentences containing a broad focus or broad contrastive topic show similar prosodic and interpretative restrictions as sentences with canonical word order.
The empirical adequacy of the model is tested against a set of gradient acceptability judgments.
In two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated the effect of changes in antecedent complexity on processing times for ellipsis. Pointer- or “sharing”-based approaches to ellipsis processing (Frazier & Clifton 2001, 2005; Martin & McElree 2008) predict no effect of antecedent complexity on reading times at the ellipsis site while other accounts predict increased antecedent complexity to either slow down processing (Murphy 1985) or to speed it up (Hofmeister 2011). Experiment 1 manipulated antecedent complexity and elision, yielding evidence against a speedup at the ellipsis site and in favor of a null effect. In order to investigate possible superficial processing on part of participants, Experiment 2 manipulated the amount of attention required to correctly respond to end-of-sentence comprehension probes, yielding evidence against a complexity-induced slowdown at the ellipsis site. Overall, our results are compatible with pointer-based approaches while casting doubt on the notion that changes antecedent complexity lead to measurable differences in ellipsis processing speed.
In two self-paced reading experiments, we investigated the effect of changes in antecedent complexity on processing times for ellipsis. Pointer- or “sharing”-based approaches to ellipsis processing (Frazier & Clifton 2001, 2005; Martin & McElree 2008) predict no effect of antecedent complexity on reading times at the ellipsis site while other accounts predict increased antecedent complexity to either slow down processing (Murphy 1985) or to speed it up (Hofmeister 2011). Experiment 1 manipulated antecedent complexity and elision, yielding evidence against a speedup at the ellipsis site and in favor of a null effect. In order to investigate possible superficial processing on part of participants, Experiment 2 manipulated the amount of attention required to correctly respond to end-of-sentence comprehension probes, yielding evidence against a complexity-induced slowdown at the ellipsis site. Overall, our results are compatible with pointer-based approaches while casting doubt on the notion that changes antecedent complexity lead to measurable differences in ellipsis processing speed.
For several decades, researchers have tried to explain how speakers of more than one language (multilinguals) manage to keep their languages separate and to switch from one language to the other depending on the context. This ability of multilingual speakers to use the intended language, while avoiding interference from the other language(s) has recently been termed “language control”.
A multitude of studies showed that when bilinguals process one language, the other language is also activated and might compete for selection. According to the most influential model of language control developed over the last two decades, competition from the non-intended language is solved via inhibition. In particular, the Inhibitory Control (IC) model proposed by Green (1998) puts forward that the amount of inhibition applied to the non-relevant language depends on its dominance, in that the stronger the language the greater the strength of inhibition applied to it. Within this account, the cost required to reactivate a previously inhibited language depends on the amount of inhibition previously exerted on it, that is, reactivation costs are greater for a stronger compared to a weaker language. In a nutshell, according to the IC model, language control is determined by language dominance.
The goal of the present dissertation is to investigate the extent to which language control in multilinguals is affected by language dominance and whether and how other factors might influence this process. Three main factors are considered in this work: (i) the time speakers have to prepare for a certain language or PREPARATION TIME, (ii) the type of languages involved in the interactional context or LANGUAGE TYPOLOGY, and (iii) the PROCESSING MODALITY, that is, whether the way languages are controlled differs between reception and production.
The results obtained in the four manuscripts, either published or in revision, indicate that language dominance alone does not suffice to explain language switching patterns. In particular, the present thesis shows that language control is profoundly affected by each of the three variables described above. More generally, the findings obtained in the present dissertation indicate that language control in multilingual speakers is a much more dynamic system than previously believed and is not exclusively determined by language dominance, as predicted by the IC model (Green, 1998).
The article presents first results of a pilot study on the syntactic changes in Polish as a language contact in Germany. On the base of the experimental data tests the study examines the syntactic changes in Polish of two diaspora-generations: the so called forgetters and the incomplete learners. The article focuses on the questions: how the situation of languages in contact influences the syntactic changes in the heritage language (Polish) and which status have those syntactic transferences. Other linguistic and sociolinguistic factors, capable to cause the language change in the situation of language contact, are also discussed in the article.
Rezensiertes Werk
Theresa Biberauer u. George Walkden (Hgg.): Syntax over Time: Lexical, Morphological, and Information – Structural Interactions - Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015, 418 S.
This thesis investigates the processing of non-canonical word orders and whether non-canonical orders involving object topicalizations, midfield scrambling and particle verbs are treated the same by native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers. The two languages investigated are Norwegian and German.
32 L1 Norwegian and 32 L1 German advanced learners of Norwegian were tested in two experiments on object topicalization in Norwegian. The results from the online self-paced reading task and the offline agent identification task show that both groups are able to identify the non-canonical word order and show a facilitatory effect of animate subjects in their reanalysis. Similarly high error rates in the agent identification task suggest that globally unambiguous object topicalizations are a challenging structure for L1 and L2 speakers alike.
The same participants were also tested in two experiments on particle placement in Norwegian, again using a self-paced reading task, this time combined with an acceptability rating task. In the acceptability rating L1 and L2 speakers show the same preference for the verb-adjacent placement of the particle over the non-adjacent placement after the direct object. However, this preference for adjacency is only found in the L1 group during online processing, whereas the L2 group shows no preference for either order.
Another set of experiments tested 33 L1 German and 39 L1 Slavic advanced learners of German on object scrambling in ditransitive clauses in German. Non-native speakers accept both object orders and show neither a preference for either order nor a processing advantage for the canonical order. The L1 group, in contrast, shows a small, but significant preference for the canonical dative-first order in the judgment and the reading task.
The same participants were also tested in two experiments on the application of the split rule in German particle verbs. Advanced L2 speakers of German are able to identify particle verbs and can apply the split rule in V2 contexts in an acceptability judgment task in the same way as L1 speakers. However, unlike the L1 group, the L2 group is not sensitive to the grammaticality manipulation during online processing. They seem to be sensitive to the additional lexical information provided by the particle, but are unable to relate the split particle to the preceding verb and recognize the ungrammaticality in non-V2 contexts.
Taken together, my findings suggest that non-canonical word orders are not per se more difficult to identify for L2 speakers than L1 speakers and can trigger the same reanalysis processes as in L1 speakers. I argue that L2 speakers’ ability to identify a non-canonical word order depends on how the non-canonicity is signaled (case marking vs. surface word order), on the constituents involved (identical vs. different word types), and on the impact of the word order change on sentence meaning. Non-canonical word orders that are signaled by morphological case marking and cause no change to the sentence’s content are hard to detect for L2 speakers.