The Syntax of Sentential Negation in French and English

AbstractIn the last decades, the embodied approach to cognition and language gained momentum in the scientific debate, leading to evidence in different aspects of language processing. However, while the bodily grounding of concrete concepts seems to be relatively not controversial, abstract aspects, like the negation logical operator, are still today one of the main challenges for this research paradigm. In this framework, the present study has a twofold aim: (1) to assess whether mechanisms for motor inhibition underpin the processing of sentential negation, thus, providing evidence for a bodily grounding of this logic operator, (2) to determine whether the Stop-Signal Task, which has been used to investigate motor inhibition, could represent a good tool to explore this issue. Twenty-three participants were recruited in this experiment. Ten hand-action-related sentences, both in affirmative and negative polarity, were presented on a screen. Participants were instructed to respond as quickly and accurately as possible to the direction of the Go Stimulus (an arrow) and to withhold their response when they heard a sound following the arrow. This paradigm allows estimating the Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT), a covert reaction time underlying the inhibitory process. Our results show that the SSRT measured after reading negative sentences are longer than after reading affirmative ones, highlighting the recruitment of inhibitory mechanisms while processing negative sentences. Furthermore, our methodological considerations suggest that the Stop-Signal Task is a good paradigm to assess motor inhibition’s role in the processing of sentence negation.

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Intonational differences between the reduplicative babbling of French- and English-learning infants

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000900011223 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 501-516 ◽

Cited By ~ 59

Author(s):

D. H. Whalen ◽

Andrea G. Levitt ◽

Qi Wang

Keyword(s):

Fundamental Frequency ◽

The Other ◽

English Learning ◽

Complex Contour ◽

Language Groups ◽

French And English ◽

Target Languages ◽

Perceptual Assessment ◽

Language Environment

ABSTRACTThe two- and three-syllable reduplicative babbling of five French-learning and five English-learning infants (0;5 to 1; 1) was examined in two ways for intonational differences. The first measure was a categorization into one of five categories (RISING, FALLING, RISE-FALL, FALL-RISE, LEVEL) by expert listeners. The second was the fundamental frequency (F0) from the early, middle and late portion of each syllable. Both measures showed significant differences between the two language groups. 65% of the utterances from both groups were classified as either rising of falling. For the French children, these were divided equally into the rising and the falling categories, while 75% of those utterances for the English children were judged to have falling intonation. Proportions of the other three categories were not significantly different by language environment. In both languages, though, three-syllable utterances were more likely to have a complex contour than two-syllable ones. Analysis of the F0patterns confirmed the perceptual assessment. Several aspects of the target languages help explain these intonational differences in prelinguistic babbling.

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Normative Data for a Tablet-Based Dual-Task Assessment in Healthy Older Adults

Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology ◽

10.1093/arclin/acaa121 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Maxime Lussier ◽

Kathia Saillant ◽

Tudor Vrinceanu ◽

Carol Hudon ◽

Louis Bherer

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Dual Task ◽

Normative Data ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Highly Educated ◽

Coefficient Of Variability ◽

French And English ◽

Task Assessment ◽

English Speaking ◽

The Relationship

Abstract Objective The objective of this study is to provide normative data for a tablet-based dual-task assessment in older adults without cognitive deficits. Method In total, 264 participants aged between 60 and 90 years, French and English-speaking, were asked to perform two discrimination tasks, alone and concurrently. The participants had to answer as fast as possible to one or two images appearing in the center of the tablet by pressing to the corresponding buttons. Normative data are provided for reaction time (RT), coefficient of variation, and accuracy. Analyses of variance were performed by trial types (single-pure, single-mixed, dual-mixed), and linear regressions assessed the relationship between performance and sociodemographic characteristics. Results The participants were highly educated and a large proportion of them were women (73.9%). The accuracy on the task was very high across all blocks. RT data revealed both a task-set cost and a dual-task cost between the blocks. Age was associated with slower RT and with higher coefficient of variability. Men were significantly slower on dual-mixed trials, but their coefficient of variability was lower on single-pure trials. Education was not associated with performance. Conclusions This study provides normative data for a tablet-based dual-task assessment in older adults without cognitive impairment, which was lacking. All participants completed the task with good accuracy in less than 15 minutes and thus, the task is transferable to clinical and research settings.

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Ray, W., Story and History: Narrative Authority and Social Identity in the Eighteenth-Century French and English Novel. Pp. viii + 362. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Paperbound 13.95

Notes and Queries ◽

10.1093/notesj/38.3.392 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 38 (3) ◽

pp. 392-393

Author(s):

B. Roth

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Social Identity ◽

Narrative Authority ◽

English Novel ◽

French And English

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Early emergence of syntactic awareness and cross-linguistic influence in bilingual children’s judgments

International Journal of Bilingualism ◽

10.1177/1367006911425818 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 521-534 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Cassandra Foursha-Stevenson ◽

Elena Nicoladis

Keyword(s):

Syntactic Structure ◽

Language Choice ◽

Preschool Age ◽

Bilingual Children ◽

Metalinguistic Awareness ◽

Syntactic Awareness ◽

Grammaticality Judgment ◽

English Bilingual ◽

French And English ◽

Better Than

Bilingual children sometimes perform better than same-aged monolingual children on metalinguistic awareness tasks, such as a grammaticality judgment. Some of these differences can be attributed to bilinguals having to learn to control attention to language choice. This study tested the hypothesis that bilingual children, as young as preschool age, would score overall higher than monolingual children on a grammaticality judgment test. French–English bilingual preschoolers judged the acceptability of three constructions in French and English (i.e. adjective–noun ordering, obligatoriness of a determiner, and object pronoun placement). Their performance was compared with that of a group of age-matched English monolinguals. The results showed that the bilingual children scored higher than the monolingual children. These results demonstrate that syntactic awareness develops quite early for bilinguals. Additionally, the bilingual children demonstrated cross-linguistic influence of core syntactic structure in French, as their judgments were affected by English acceptability.

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Preface: The Historical Geography of the Hungarian Nation

Nationalities Papers ◽

10.1080/00905999608408453 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 24 (3) ◽

pp. 371-376

Author(s):

Andrew Ludanyi

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

World War I ◽

Status Quo ◽

World War ◽

East Central Europe ◽

East Central ◽

East European ◽

The Past ◽

French And English ◽

The Subject

The fate of Hungarian minorities in East Central Europe has been one of the most neglected subjects in the Western scholarly world. For the past fifty years the subject—at least prior to the late 1980s—was taboo in the successor states (except Yugoslavia), while in Hungary itself relatively few scholars dared to publish anything about this issue till the early 1980s. In the West, it was just not faddish, since most East European and Russian Area studies centers at American, French and English universities tended to think of the territorial status quo as “politically correct.” The Hungarian minorities, on the other hand, were a frustrating reminder that indeed the Entente after World War I, and the Allies after World War II, made major mistakes and significantly contributed to the pain and anguish of the peoples living in this region of the “shatter zone.”

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