Romance N Prep N constructions in visual word recognition

N Prep N constructions such as Sp. bicicleta de montaña ‘mountain bike’ are very productive and frequent in Romance languages. They commonly have been classified as syntagmatic compounds that show no orthographic union and exhibit an internal structure that resembles free syntactic structures, such as Sp. libro para niños ‘book for children’. There is no consensus on how to best distinguish lexical from syntactic N Prep N constructions. The present paper presents an explorative eye-tracking study on N Prep N constructions, varying both lexical type (lexical vs. syntactic) and preposition across three languages, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The task of the eye-tracking study was a reading aloud paradigm of the constructions in sentence context. Constructions were fixated on less when more frequent, independent of lexical status. There was also modest evidence that a higher construction frequency afforded shorter total fixation durations, but only for lower deciles of the response distribution. The (construction-initial) head noun also received fewer fixations as construction frequency increased, and also when the head noun was more frequent. The second fixation durations on the head noun also revealed an effect of lexical status, with syntactic constructions receiving shorter fixations at the 5th and 7th deciles. The probability of a fixation on the preposition decreased with preposition frequency, but first fixations on the preposition increased with preposition frequency. The prepositions of Portuguese, the language with the richest inventory of prepositions, received more fixations than the prepositions of French and Spanish. The observed pattern of results is consistent with models of lexical processing in which reading is guided by knowledge of both higher-level constructions and knowledge of key constituents such as the head noun and the preposition.

Pitch Variation in Children With Childhood Apraxia of Speech: Preliminary Findings

Introduction Pitch variation, which refers to one's ability to vary fundamental frequency (F0) within or between syllables when speaking, has not been investigated in children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). However, pitch variation plays an important role in tone languages, as varying F0 patterns communicate different lexical meanings. This study investigated pitch variation abilities in individuals with CAS via the tone-sequencing tasks (TSTs), focusing on task performance and the effects of syllable structure, lexical status, and tones. Method Three Cantonese-speaking children with CAS (aged 3;7–5;8 [years;months]) and six children without CAS participated in the study. Children without CAS were divided into two control groups, comprising those with speech and/or language impairment or typical development. TSTs consisted of 56 sets of five repetitions of stimuli. The stimuli varied in syllable structure, lexical status, and tones. Percentage of tones correct (PTC), consistency scores, F0 values, and acoustic repetition duration were measured. Results The CAS group performed more poorly than the control groups on the TST with respect to tone accuracy, consistency, and repetition duration. No interaction effects between group and syllable structure or group and lexical status were found. No significant difference was found on F0 values across time between Tone 1 and Tone 2 syllables in the CAS group. However, interaction effects between group and time points of F0 values on Tone 2 syllables were found. Discussion The results suggest that children with CAS have difficulty with pitch variation, which was revealed on the TST with respect to tone accuracy, consistency, and repetition duration. Moreover, children with CAS have difficulty in varying F0 values to produce high-rising tones and tend to use high-level tones to substitute. Clinically, the TST may be useful to assist in the diagnosis of CAS. Isolated vowel stimuli may be useful to test young children or children with severe impairment. Future investigations and development of a normed tool for children with CAS are suggested.

The matrix of verb-verb sequences in Tamil

Verb-Verb sequences characterize many types of grammatical constructions in Tamil. A subset of these sequences, called V-V sequences, characterize a predicate construction which is known otherwise as a complex predicate or compound verbs or serial verbs, though these are not identical. This predicate construction is shared by most Indian languages and found also in languages outside India such as Japanese. One of the verbs in the V-V sequence does not have lexical status referentially, or often even structurally. The comparison of Tamil and Japanese shows that the grammatical functions and the structural features of the verb sequence differ from language to language. An interesting conclusion drawn from this comparison is that specific members of each type of the sequence may be distributed differently across a matrix of types. In other words, an instance of a V-V sequence of Type 1 in one language may belong to Type 3 in another language.

Lexical Influences on Categorical Speech Perception Are Driven by a Temporoparietal Circuit

Categorical judgments of otherwise identical phonemes are biased toward hearing words (i.e., “Ganong effect”) suggesting lexical context influences perception of even basic speech primitives. Lexical biasing could manifest via late stage postperceptual mechanisms related to decision or, alternatively, top–down linguistic inference that acts on early perceptual coding. Here, we exploited the temporal sensitivity of EEG to resolve the spatiotemporal dynamics of these context-related influences on speech categorization. Listeners rapidly classified sounds from a /gɪ/-/kɪ/ gradient presented in opposing word–nonword contexts ( GIFT–kift vs. giss–KISS), designed to bias perception toward lexical items. Phonetic perception shifted toward the direction of words, establishing a robust Ganong effect behaviorally. ERPs revealed a neural analog of lexical biasing emerging within ~200 msec. Source analyses uncovered a distributed neural network supporting the Ganong including middle temporal gyrus, inferior parietal lobe, and middle frontal cortex. Yet, among Ganong-sensitive regions, only left middle temporal gyrus and inferior parietal lobe predicted behavioral susceptibility to lexical influence. Our findings confirm lexical status rapidly constrains sublexical categorical representations for speech within several hundred milliseconds but likely does so outside the purview of canonical auditory-sensory brain areas.

Assessing children’s incremental word knowledge in the upper primary grades

Word knowledge acquisition is an incremental process that relies on exposure. As a result, word knowledge can broadly range from recognizing the word’s lexical status, to knowing its meaning in context, and to knowing its meaning independent of context. The present study aimed to model incremental word knowledge in 1454 upper primary school children from grades 3 to 5 by investigating their abilities on three word knowledge tasks originating from the same set of 300 words: lexical decision, context decision, and definitional decision. A mixed-effects model showed significant differences in performance between tasks and between grades, and a significant interaction indicating that task differences were different for children in grade 5 compared to children in grades 3 and 4. In order to examine further the different task relation patterns at the word level, a cluster analysis was performed using the observed item means, which were corrected for the guessing chance. The analysis showed that for most words, recognition of its lexical status was easier than knowing its meaning in context, which in turn was easier than knowing its meaning independent of context. It is concluded that task relation patterns differ based on mean log frequency as a proxy of word exposure.

Lexical influences on categorical speech perception are driven by a temporoparietal circuit

Categorical judgments of otherwise identical phonemes are biased toward hearing words (i.e., “Ganong effect”) suggesting lexical context influences perception of even basic speech primitives. Lexical biasing could manifest via late stage post-perceptual mechanisms related to decision or alternatively, top-down linguistic inference which acts on early perceptual coding. Here, we exploited the temporal sensitivity of EEG to resolve the spatiotemporal dynamics of these context-related influences on speech categorization. Listeners rapidly classified sounds from a /gi/ - /ki/ gradient presented in opposing word-nonword contexts (GIFT-kift vs. giss-KISS), designed to bias perception toward lexical items. Phonetic perception shifted toward the direction of words, establishing a robust Ganong effect behaviorally. ERPs revealed a neural analog of lexical biasing emerging within ∼200 ms. Source analyses uncovered a distributed neural network supporting the Ganong including middle temporal gyrus (MTG), inferior parietal lobe (IPL), and middle frontal cortex. Yet, among Ganong-sensitive regions, only left MTG and IPL predicted behavioral susceptibility to lexical influence. Our findings confirm lexical status rapidly constrains sub-lexical categorical representations for speech within several hundred milliseconds but likely does so outside the purview of canonical “auditory-linguistic” brain areas.

Thalamic encoding of lexical status is lateralized during reading aloud

To explore whether the thalamus participates in lexical status encoding, local field potentials were recorded in patients undergoing deep brain stimulation lead implantation while they read aloud single-syllable words and nonwords. Bilateral decreases in thalamic beta (12-30Hz) activity were preferentially locked to stimulus presentation, and these decreases were greater when nonwords were read. Increased broadband gamma (70-150Hz) activity also was locked preferentially to speech onset bilaterally, but greater nonword-related increases in this activity were observed only on the left, demonstrating lateralization of thalamic gamma selectivity for lexical status. In addition, this lexical status effect was strongest in more anterior thalamic locations, regions which are more likely to receive pallidal than cerebellar afferents. These results provide evidence from intracranial thalamic recordings for the lateralization and topography of subcortical lexical status processing.