scholarly journals Ways of looking: Lexicalizing visual paths in verbs

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
EWELINA WNUK
Keyword(s):  
Picture Naming ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Local Factors ◽  
Language System ◽  
Cross Domain ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
Verb Lexicon

The packaging of meaning in verbs varies widely across languages since verbs are free to encode different aspects of an event. At the same time, languages tend to display recurrent preferences in lexicalization, e.g. verb-framing vs. satellite-framing in motion. It has been noted, however, that the lexicalization patterns in motion are not carried over to the domain of vision, since gaze trajectory (‘visual path’) is coded outside the main verb even in verb-framed languages. This ‘typological split’ (Matsumoto 2001), however, is not universal. This article contains the first extensive report of verb-framing in the domain of vision based on data from Maniq (Austroasiatic, Thailand). The verbs are investigated using a translation questionnaire and a picture-naming task, which tap into subtle semantic detail. Results suggest the meanings of the verbs are shaped by universal constraints linked to earth-based verticality and bodily mechanics, as well as local factors such as the environment and the cultural scenarios of which looking is a salient part. A broader look across the whole Maniq verb lexicon reveals further cases of verbally encoded spatial notions and demonstrates a pervasive cross-domain systematicity, pointing to the language system itself as an important shaping force in lexicalization.

Coining Compounds and Derivations - A Crosslinguistic Elicitation Study of Word-Formation Abilities of Preschool Children and Adults in Polish and English

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 176-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Haman ◽  
Andrea Zevenbergen ◽  
Melissa Andrus ◽  
Marta Chmielewska
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Native Language ◽  
General Pattern ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Elicitation Study ◽  
American Children ◽  
To Come

Coining Compounds and Derivations - A Crosslinguistic Elicitation Study of Word-Formation Abilities of Preschool Children and Adults in Polish and English This paper examines word-formation abilities in coining compounds and derivatives in preschool children and adult speakers of two languages (English and Polish) differing in overall word-formation productivity and in favoring of particular word-formation patterns (compounding vs. derivation). An elicitation picture naming task was designed to assess these abilities across a range of word-formation categories. Adult speakers demonstrated well-developed word-formation skills in patterns both typical and non-typical for their native language. In contrast with adult results, preschool children predominantly coined innovations conforming to the general pattern of their language: Polish children favoring derivation and American children favoring compounding. The results show that although children are improving their wordformation skills during the preschool years, they need much more experience to come to the mature proficiency in using the variety of word-formation patterns available in their language.

Gestural symbolic strategies in children with Down syndrome

Gesture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 299-334
Author(s):  
Arianna Bello ◽  
Silvia Stefanini ◽  
Pasquale Rinaldi ◽  
Daniela Onofrio ◽  
Virginia Volterra
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Item Analysis ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Children With Down Syndrome ◽  
Communicative Development ◽  
Developmental Age ◽  
Representational Gestures

Abstract In early communicative development, children with Down syndrome (DS) make extensive use of gestures to compensate for articulatory difficulties. Here, we analyzed the symbolic strategies that underlie this gesture production, compared to that used by typically developing children. Using the same picture-naming task, 79 representational gestures produced by 10 children with DS and 42 representational gestures produced by 10 typically developing children of comparable developmental age (3;1 vs. 2;9, respectively) were collected. The gestures were analyzed and classified according to four symbolic strategies. The two groups performed all of the strategies, with no significant differences for either choice or frequency of the strategies used. The item analysis highlighted that some photographs tended to elicit the use of the same strategy in both groups. These results indicate that similar symbolic strategies are active in children with DS as in typically developing children, which suggests interesting similarities in their symbolic development.

The Development of Fundamental Frequency in 6- to 10-Year Old Children: A Brief Study

1998 ◽  
Vol 28 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. P. Whiteside ◽  
C. Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Final Position ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Age And Sex

This brief study investigates the development of fundamental frequency (FO) in pre-adolescent children as a function of age and sex. The children who took part in the study were divided into three age groups: 6, 8 and 10 years. Each group consisted of three males and three females. Each subject produced nine target phrases with [] in phrase-final position, which were elicited via a picture-naming task. FO was estimated for the nine target utterances and the following FO parameters were derived: mean FO for the whole phrase; FO range for the whole phrase; standard deviation values of FO for the whole phrase and mean FO for the phrase-final vowel [α:]. Results indicated that FO parameters generally decreased with age, and by age 10 years the males had lower values than the females for all four parameters. Results also indicated that the mean standard deviation of FO across the phrase was significantly higher for the females compared to that for the males.

Plurals as modifiers in Dutch and English noun-noun compounds express plurality in production

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arina Banga ◽  
Esther Hanssen ◽  
Anneke Neijt ◽  
Robert Schreuder
Keyword(s):  
Picture Naming ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Semantic Constraints ◽  
Noun Compounds ◽  
English Noun

The present study investigates the relation between conceptual plurality and the occurrence of a plural morpheme in novel Dutch and English noun-noun compounds. Using a picture-naming task, we compared the naming responses of native Dutch speakers and native English speakers to pictures depicting either one or multiple instances of the same object serving as a possible modifier in a novel noun-noun compound. While the speakers of both languages most frequently produced novel compounds containing a singular modifier, they also used compounds containing a plural modifier and did this more often to describe a picture with several instances of an object than to describe a picture with one instance of the object. Speakers of English incorporated some regular plurals into the noun-noun compounds they produced. These results contradict the words-and-rules theory of Pinker (1999) and also the semantic constraints for compounding put forth by Alegre and Gordon (1996). Interestingly, it appears, however, that the acceptability constraints put forth by Haskell, MacDonald, and Seidenberg (2003) apply to the production of compounds.

scholarly journals Comparing the cognate effect in spoken and written second language word production

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merel Muylle ◽  
Eva Van Assche ◽  
Robert Hartsuiker
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Word Production ◽  
Error Pattern ◽  
Underlying Processes

Cognates – words that share form and meaning between languages – are processed faster than control words. However, it is unclear whether this effect is merely lexical (i.e., central) in nature, or whether it cascades to phonological/orthographic (i.e., peripheral) processes. This study compared the cognate effect in spoken and typewritten production, which share central, but not peripheral processes. We inquired whether this effect is present in typewriting, and if so, whether its magnitude is similar to spoken production. Dutch-English bilinguals performed either a spoken or written picture naming task in English; picture names were either Dutch-English cognates or control words. Cognates were named faster than controls and there was no cognate-by-modality interaction. Additionally, there was a similar error pattern in both modalities. These results suggest that common underlying processes are responsible for the cognate effect in spoken and written language production, and thus a central locus of the cognate effect.

scholarly journals Does Object Size Matter with Regard to the Mental Simulation of Object Orientation?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sau-Chin Chen ◽  
Bjorn de Koning ◽  
Rolf Antonius Zwaan
Keyword(s):  
Picture Naming ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Object Orientation ◽  
Orientation Effect ◽  
Object Size ◽  
Verification Task ◽  
Potential Explanation ◽  
Size Matter ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

Language comprehenders have been argued to mentally represent the implied orientation of objects. However, compared to the effects of shape, size, and color, the effect of orientation is rather small. We examined a potential explanation for the relatively low magnitude of the orientation effect: object size moderates the orientation effect. Theoretical considerations led us to predict a smaller orientation effect for small objects than for large objects in a sentence-picture verification task. We furthermore investigated whether this pattern generalizes across languages (Chinese, Dutch, and English) and tasks (picture-naming task). The results of the verification task show an orientation effect overall, which is not moderated by object size (contrary to our hypothesis) and language (consistent with our hypothesis). Meanwhile the preregistered picture-picture verification task showed the predicted interaction between object size and orientation effect. We conducted exploratory analyses to address additional questions.

scholarly journals Naming pictures and sounds: Stimulus type affects semantic context effects

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Wöhner ◽  
Andreas Mädebach ◽  
Jörg D. Jescheniak
Keyword(s):  
Picture Naming ◽  
Context Effect ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Semantic Category ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Semantic Context ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Semantic Interference ◽  
Lexical Processes ◽  
Naming Tasks

Semantic context effects obtained in naming tasks have been most influential in devising and evaluating models of word production. We re-investigated this effect in the frequently used blocked-cyclic naming task in which stimuli are presented repeatedly either sorted by semantic category (homogeneous context) or intermixed (heterogeneous context). Previous blocked-cyclic naming studies have shown slower picture naming responses in the homogeneous context. Our study compared this context effect in two task versions, picture naming and sound naming. Target words were identical across task versions (e.g., participants responded with the word “dog” to either the picture of that animal or to the sound [barking] produced by it). We found semantic interference in the homogeneous context also with sounds and the effect was substantially larger than with pictures (Experiments 1 and 2). This difference is unlikely to result from extended perceptual processing of sounds as compared to pictures (Experiments 3 and 4) or from stronger links between pictures and object names than between sounds and object names (Experiment 5). Overall, our results show that semantic context effects in blocked-cyclic naming generalize to stimulus types other than pictures and – in part – also reflect pre-lexical processes that depend on the nature of the stimuli used for eliciting the naming responses.

scholarly journals Conceptual alignment in a joint picture-naming task performed with a social robot

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giusy CIRILLO ◽  
Elin Runnqvist ◽  
Kristof Strijkers ◽  
Noel Nguyen ◽  
Cristina Baus
Keyword(s):  
Logistic Regression ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Regression Models ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Social Robot ◽  
Logistic Regression Models ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Basic Level

Conversation entails a tight coordination between the interlocutors in terms of co-representation and linguistic alignment (e.g., word choices). In this study we investigated whether people conceptually align in a language task with a robot. 24 French native speakers alternated with an artificial partner in naming images of objects belonging to different semantic categories (e.g., mammals, clothes…). For five out of fifteen categories the robot produced the item’s category instead of the preferred basic-level name. Logistic regression models on participants' errors revealed that they adapted to the robot’s conceptual choices, and produced more category names over the course of the experiment. This pattern was most prominent for the semantic categories for which the robot had used a category name, and importantly, it applied to novel items. These results provide strong evidence for conceptual alignment affecting word choices, indicating that prototypical concepts can be overwritten in conversation to adapt to the interlocutor.

Phonetic Imitation by Young Children and Its Developmental Changes

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 2065-2075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuniko Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Age Effect ◽  
Third Graders ◽  
Developmental Changes ◽  
Phonological Development ◽  
Before And After

Purpose In the current study, the author investigated the developmental course of phonetic imitation in childhood, and further evaluated existing accounts of phonetic imitation. Method Sixteen preschoolers, 15 third graders, and 18 college students participated in the current study. An experiment with a modified imitation paradigm with a picture-naming task was conducted, in which participants' voice-onset time (VOT) was compared before and after they were exposed to target speech with artificially increased VOT. Results Extended VOT in the target speech was imitated by preschoolers and 3rd graders as well as adults, confirming previous findings in phonetic imitation. Furthermore, an age effect of phonetic imitation was observed; namely, children showed greater imitation than adults, whereas the degree of imitation was comparable between preschoolers and 3rd graders. No significant effect of gender or word specificity was observed. Conclusions Young children imitated fine phonetic details of the target speech, and greater degree of phonetic imitation was observed in children compared to adults. These findings suggest that the degree of phonetic imitation negatively correlates with phonological development.

scholarly journals Links Between Short-Term Memory and Word Retrieval in Aphasia

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1S) ◽  
pp. 379-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Minkina ◽  
Nadine Martin ◽  
Kristie A. Spencer ◽  
Diane L. Kendall
Keyword(s):  
Word Pair ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Word Retrieval ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Retrieval Errors ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Repetition Task

Purpose This study explored the relationship between anomia and verbal short-term memory (STM) in the context of an interactive activation language processing model. Method Twenty-four individuals with aphasia and reduced STM spans (i.e., impaired immediate serial recall of words) completed a picture-naming task and a word pair repetition task (a measure of verbal STM). Correlations between verbal STM and word retrieval errors made on the picture-naming task were examined. Results A significant positive correlation between naming accuracy and verbal span length was found. More intricate verbal STM analyses examined the relationship between picture-naming error types (i.e., semantic vs. phonological) and 2 measures of verbal STM: (a) location of errors on the word pair repetition task and (b) imageability and frequency effects on the word pair repetition task. Results indicated that, as phonological word retrieval errors (relative to semantic) increase, bias toward correct repetition of high-imageability words increases. Conclusions Results suggest that word retrieval and verbal STM tasks likely rely on a partially shared temporary linguistic activation process.

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