Pause analysis is a method that investigates processes of writing by measuring the amount of time between pen strokes. It provides the field of second language studies with a means to explore the cognitive processes underpinning the nature of writing. This study examined the potential of using free handwritten copying of sentences as a means of investigating components of the cognitive processes of adults who have English as their Second Language (ESL). A series of one pilot and three experiments investigated possible measures of language skill and the factors that influence the quality of the measures. The pilot study, with five participants of varying English competence, identified copying without pre-reading to be an effective task and ‘median' at the beginning of words to be an effective measure. Experiment 1 (n=20 Malaysian speakers) found jumbled sentences at the letter and word levels to effectively differentiate test-taker competence in relation to grammatical knowledge. Experiment 2 (n=20 Spanish speakers) investigated the jumbling effects further, but found that participants varied their strategy depending on the order of the sentence types. As a result, Experiment 3 (n= 24 Malaysian speakers) used specific task instructions to control participant strategy use, so that they either attended to the meaning of the sentences, or merely copied as quickly as possible. Overall, these experiments show that it is feasible to apply pause analysis to cognitively investigate both grammar and vocabulary components of language processing. Further, a theoretical information processing model of copying (MoC) was developed. The model assists in the analysis and description of (1) the flow of copying processes; (2) the factors that might affect longer or shorter pauses amongst participants of varying competence level; and (3) sentence stimuli design.

Cette thèse porte sur les différents facteurs impliqués dans le traitement des relatives, notamment le traitement des relatives sujet et objet ainsi que celui de l’attachement des relatives sujet. En prenant appui sur les approches multifactorielles, (Trueswell et Tanenhaus, 1994 ; Spivey et Tanenhaus, 1998), j’insiste sur l’insuffisance de l’approche monofactorielle souvent adoptée dans l’analyse du traitement des relatives, et je mets en avant le rôle des propriétés fines des langues. Je propose alors dans cette thèse de dépasser les notions de langue avec un avantage pour la relative sujet ou objet, ou avec une préférence avec attachement haut ou bas.Je présente d’abord les ressemblances et différences des propriétés des relatives dans les quatre langues étudiées : l’anglais, le cantonais, le français et le mandarin. Cette description permet de mieux appréhender leur rôle dans le traitement, notamment pour comprendre les différences constatées dans les expériences entre les langues.Je me concentre ensuite dans les deux Parties suivantes sur l’interaction entre des facteurs principalement syntaxiques, cognitifs et grammaticaux en jeu dans le traitement des relatives, avec des expériences de jugements d’acceptabilité et de mouvements oculaires avec le paradigme monde visuel (relatives sujet et objet dans les quatre langues étudiées, et attachement en anglais et en français). Je poursuis par une réflexion sur l’approche multifactorielle en tenant compte des facteurs liés aux domaines sémantique et pragmatique. Pour cela, j’observe le traitement des relatives sujet et objet en français et en anglais dans une étude de corpus, des expériences de jugements d’acceptabilité, de lecture par autoprésentation segmentée, et de mouvements oculaires en lecture. Enfin, pour élargir les facteurs en jeu dans le traitement des relatives au-delà du domaine linguistique, je montre l’influence d’un domaine non linguistique (amorçage mathématique) sur le domaine linguistique (attachement) en français avec des expériences de choix restreints, et de mouvements oculaires avec le paradigme monde visuel. / The present dissertation focuses on the factors implied in relative clause processing, mainly subject/object relative clauses and relative clause attachment. Based on previous multifactorial approaches (Trueswell et Tanenhaus, 1994; Spivey et Tanenhaus, 1998), I show that the usual monofactorial way of thinking about processing is inadequate and that fine-grained language properties should also be taken into account. I propose to go beyond the notion of subject/object languages or high/low attachment languages. I present the relative clause properties in four languages (English, Mandarin, Cantonese and French). This description is necessary to grasp their influence in processing, especially the differences observed across languages in experiments. Based on the linguistic description, I look at the interaction between cognitive, syntactic and grammatical factors in relative clause processing. I present acceptability judgment tasks and visual world eye-tracking experiments in order to analyse subject/object relatives in the four languages, and relative clause attachment in English and French. In line with the multifactorial approach, I analyse the influence of semantics and pragmatics in relative clause processing, especially in French and English. For that, I show a corpus study, acceptability judgment and self-paced reading tasks and eye-tracking while reading experiments. Finally, to broaden the perspective beyond the linguistic domain, I show the influence of other non-linguistic factors on relative clause processing, by presenting visual world eye-tracking and forced choice experiments about the influence of mathematical priming on relative clause attachment in French.

This dissertation discusses the convergence of aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, the language acquisition and development of young children who are minimally verbal or nonverbal who acquire their native language while simultaneously learning to use an aided AAC system, and explicit and implicit elements that influence language outcomes. Factors investigated include those related to language acquisition universals, the AAC system, the young aided AAC user, and practices, philosophies, and beliefs of speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Further examined were: (a) language acquisition parallels in atypical populations who do not possess the full range of senses who have been shown to develop language, and (b) analogies between the linguistic structures of pidgins, interlanguages, and the syntax of young aided AAC users. This dissertation employed a survey methodology to capture the practices and beliefs of SLPs as a means of identifying potential contributing factors to the reduced linguistic outcomes of these children. Quantitative findings revealed statistically significant differences in SLPs’ perceptions of confidence and qualification with the two populations of children with language impairments who use an oral modality and young aided AAC users. Descriptive trends across all constructs measured suggested differences in SLPs’ practices, belifes, and perspectives in their work with these two populations. The analysis of the syntactic structures of the language of young aided AAC users revealed definitive parallels with the construct of interlanguages.

Devoir et pouvoir, comme les verbes modaux d’autres langues, ont déjà fait l’objet d’une littérature abondante. Le fait qu’ils puissent recevoir des sens différents selon leur contexte d’emploi a particulièrement suscité l’attention des sémanticiens et des pragmaticiens. Cette thèse revient sur la question de la nature des différentes interprétations de devoir et pouvoir, et tente d’établir si leur plurivocité relève de la polysémie ou de la sous-spécification. L’hypothèse polysémique, la plus répandue dans la littérature française, implique qu’au moins le sens radical et le sens épistémique soient inscrits dans la langue et donc représentés en mémoire. Selon l’hypothèse de la sous-spécification, la multiplicité de sens relève de l’enrichissement contextuel d’un unique sens sous-spécifié stocké dans le lexique mental. L’état actuel des recherches, l’examen des différentes interprétations de devoir et pouvoir et de la sous-détermination potentielle de leur sens en contexte, comme l’étude de leur évolution sémantique en diachronie, ne permettent pas de falsifier l’une ou l’autre hypothèse. Des méthodes expérimentales, développées en psycholinguistique et en pragmatique expérimentale, sont donc convoquées. Notamment, l’examen des temps de traitement en lecture, dans une expérience d’eye tracking manipulant le sens et le contexte, suggère une représentation effectivement polysémique pour devoir, mais une représentation monosémique sous-spécifiée pour pouvoir. Devoir et pouvoir sont souvent traités ensemble, les études considérant que l’un constitue, dans son domaine modal, le pendant de l’autre. Nous relevons que le parallèle effectué n’est pas aussi motivé qu’il n’y paraît. / Devoir and pouvoir, as modal verbs in other languages, have already been the subject of extensive literature. The fact that they can convey different meanings depending on the specific context in which they occur is of particular interest to semanticists andpragmaticians. This thesis focuses on the nature of the various interpretations of devoir and pouvoir and attempts to ascertain whether their meaning multiplicity is a result of their polysemy or of their underspecified semantics. The polysemy hypothesis, which is the prevalent view in the French literature, implies that at least both the root sense and the epistemic sense fully belong to the linguistic system and hence that both are represented in memory. On the contrary, according to the underspecification model, contextual enrichment of a unique underspecified meaning stored in the mental lexicon accounts for meaning multiplicity. The current state of research, the review of the several possible interpretations of devoir and pouvoir, the investigation of potential meaning underdetermination in context, as well as the study of their semantic evolution in diachrony, do not allow us to rule out any of the two hypotheses. Experimental methods, developed in psycholinguistics and in experimental pragmatics, are thus used. Notably, analysis of processing times in reading in an eye tracking experiment in which both meaning and context are manipulated favours a polysemic representation for devoir, but a monosemic and underspecified representation for pouvoir. The two modal verbs are traditionally examined together since it is assumed that one matches the other in its own modal domain. This thesis casts doubt on this assumption.

Department of Modern Languages Bibliography: leaves 309-390

Experimental and quantitative research in the field of human language processing and production strongly depends on the quality of the underlying language material: beside its size, representativeness, variety and balance have been discussed as important factors which influence design, analysis and interpretation of experiments and their results. This volume brings together creators and users of both general purpose and specialized lexical resources which are used in psychology, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics and cognitive research. It aims to be a forum to report experiences and results, review problems and discuss perspectives of any linguistic data used in the field. / Experimentelle und quantitative Forschung im Bereich der menschlichen Sprachverarbeitung und -produktion hängt wesentlich von der Qualität des zugrundeliegenden Sprachmaterials ab: Neben dessen Umfang wurden auch Repräsentativität, Vielfalt und Ausgewogenheit als wichtige Einflüsse auf Design, Analyse und Interpretation entsprechender Experimente und deren Ergebnisse diskutiert. Der vorliegende Band enthält Arbeiten von Entwicklern und Anwendern sowohl allgemeiner als auch spezialisierter lexikalischer Ressourcen aus den Bereichen Psychologie, Psycho-, Neurolinguistik und Kongitionswissenschaften. Ziel ist es anhand der dargestellten Ergebnisse Probleme und Perspektiven bei der Arbeit mit linguistischen Daten aufzuzeigen.

Connective ties in discourse: Three ERP studies on causal, temporal and concessive connective ties and their influence on language processing. <br><br> Questions<br><br> In four experiments the influence of lexical connectives such as " darum", therefore, " danach", afterwards, and " trotzdem", nevertheless, on the processing of short two-sentence discourses was examined and compared to the processing of deictical sentential adverbs such as " gestern", yesterday, and " lieber", rather. These latter words do not have the property of signaling a certain discourse relation between two sentences, as connective ties do. Three questions were central to the work: <br><br> * Do the processing contrasts found between connective and non-connective elements extend to connective ties and deictical sentential adverbs (experiments 2 and 3)? <br><br> * Does the semantic content of the connective ties play the primary role, i.e is the major distinction to be made indeed between connective and non-connective or instead between causal, temporal and concessive? <br><br> * When precisely is the information provided by connective ties used? There is some evidence that connective ties can have an immediate influence on the integration of subsequent elements, but the end of the second sentences appears to play an important role as well: experiments 2, 3, and 4. <br><br> Conclusions<br><br> First of all, the theoretical distinction between connective and non-connective elements does indeed have " cognitive reality" . This has already been shown in previous studies. The present studies do however show, that there is also a difference between one-place discourse elements (deictical sentential adverbs) and two-place discourse elements, namely connective ties, since all experiments examining this contrast found evidence for qualitatively and quantitatively different processing (experiments 1, 2, and 3).<br><br> Secondly, the semantic type of the connective ties also plays a role. This was not shown for the LAN, found for all connective ties when compared to non-connective elements, and consequently interpreted as a more abstract reflection of the integration of connective ties. There was also no difference between causal and temporal connective ties before the end of the discourses in experiment 3. <br><br> However, the N400 found for incoherent discourses in experiment 2, larger for connective incoherent than non-connective incoherent discourses, as well as the P3b found for concessive connective ties in the comparison between causal and concessive connective ties gave reason to assume that the semantic content of connective ties is made use of in incremental processing, and that the relation signaled by the connective tie is the one that readers attempt to construct.<br><br> Concerning when the information provided by connective ties is used, it appears as if connectivity is generally and obligatorily taken at face value. As long as the meaning of a connective tie did not conflict with a preferred canonical discourse relation, there were no differences found for varying connective discourses (experiment 3). However, the fact that concessive connective ties announce the need for a more complex text representation was recognized and made use of immediately (experiment 4). Additionally, a violation of the discourse relation resulted in more difficult semantic integration if a connective tie was present (experiment 2). It is therefore concluded here that connective ties influence processing immediately.<br><br> This claim has to be modified somewhat, since the sentence-final elements suggested that connective ties trigger different integration processes than non-connective elements. It seems as if the answer to the question of when connective ties are processed is neither exclusively immediately nor exclusively afterwards, but that both viewpoints are correct. It is suggested here that before the end of a discourse economy plays a central role in that a canonical relation is assumed unless there is evidence to the contrary. A connective tie could have the function of reducing the dimensions evaluated in a discourse to the one signaled by the connective tie. At the end of the discourse the representation is evaluated and verified, and an integrated situation model constructed. Here, the complexity of the different discourse relations that connective ties can signal, is expressed. / Konnektiva im Diskurs: Drei EKP-Studien zu kausalen, temporalen und konzessiven Konnektoren und ihrem Einfluss auf die Sprachverarbeitung. <br><br> Einführung und Fragestellung<br><br> In vier Experimenten wurde der Einfluss von lexikalischen Konnektiva wie " darum", " danach" und " trotzdem" auf die Verarbeitung von kurzen zweisätzigen Diskursen untersucht und mit der Verarbeitung von deiktischen Satzaderbien wie " gestern" und " lieber" verglichen, die nicht wie die Konnektiva die Eigenschaft haben, die Diskursrelation zwischen zwei Sätzen explizit auszudrücken.<br><br> Drei Fragen standen im Mittelpunkt der Arbeit: <br><br> * Findet sich der Kontrast zwischen konnektiven und nicht-konnektiven Elementen auch zwischen Konnektiva und deiktischen Satzadverbien wieder (Experimente 2 und 3)? <br><br> * Spielt der semantische Inhalt der Konnektiva die primäre Rolle: ist die Hauptunterscheidung zwischen konnektiven und nicht-konnektiven Elementen zu machen, oder zwischen kausalen (darum, deshalb), temporalen (danach, hinterher) und konzessiven (trotzdem, dennoch) Elementen (Experimente 3 / 4)? <br><br> * Wann genau wird die Information, die Konnektiva bieten, genutzt? Es gibt Evidenz dafür, dass Konnektiva einen sofortigen Einfluss haben, aber auch dafür, dass das Ende der Texte eine gewichtige Rolle spielt: Experimente 2, 3, und 4. <br><br> Konklusionen<br><br> Zunächst einmal hat die theoretische Unterscheidung zwischen konnektiven und nicht-konnektiven Worten tatsächlich " kognitive Realität" . Dies wurde bereits in früheren Studien gezeigt. Die aktuellen Experimente zeigten jedoch, dass es auch einen Unterschied zwischen einstelligen (deiktische Satzadverbien) und zweistelligen (Konnektiva) Diskursrelationen gibt, da alle Experimente, die diesen Kontrast untersuchten, qualitativ und quantitativ andere Verarbeitung für Konnektiva zeigten (Experimente 1, 2 und 3).<br><br> Zweitens spielt der semantische Typus der Konnektiva ebenfalls eine Rolle. Dieser Einfluss zeigte sich nicht für die LAN, die für alle Konnektiva im Vergleich mit nicht-konnektiven Elementen gefunden wurde, und die dementsprechend auch als Korrelat abstrakterer Integration von Konnektiva vorgeschlagen wird. Es zeigte sich ebenfalls kein Unterschied zwischen kausalen und temporalen Konnektiva vor dem Ende des Diskurses in Experiment 3. Die N400, gefunden für inkohärente Satzpaare in Experiment 2, größer für inkohärent konnektive als inkohärent nicht-konnektive Diskurse, wie auch die P3b, gefunden im Vergleich zwischen kausalen und konzessiven Konnektiva in Experiment 4, lieferten jedoch Grund zu der Annahme, dass die Bedeutung von Konnektiva in der inkrementellen Verarbeitung genutzt wird, und dass die Relation, die Konnektiva signalisieren, diejenige ist, die Leser versuchen zu erstellen.<br><br> Im Hinblick auf wann die Information, die Konnektiva liefern, genutzt wird, scheint es, also ob Konnektivität generell und obligatorisch für bare Münze genommen wird. So lange die Bedeutung der Konnektiva nicht mit einer präferierten kanonischen Diskursrelation konfligierte, zeigten sich keine Differenzen innerhalb verschiedener konnektiver Diskurse (Experiment 3), aber die Tatsache, dass konzessive Konnektiva die Notwendigkeit einer komplexeren Textrepräsentation voraussagen, wurde sofort erkannt und genutzt (Experiment 4). Zusätzlich resultierte eine Verletzung der Diskursrelation in Experiment 2 in erschwerterer semantischer Integration, wenn ein Konnektivum vorhanden war. Es wird daher gefolgert, dass Konnektiva die Verarbeitung sofort beeinflussen. <br><br> Diese Schlussfolgerung muss jedoch etwas abgeschwächt werden, da die satzfinalen Elemente darauf hinwiesen, dass Konnektiva andere Integrationsprozesse am Ende der Diskurse auslösten als nicht-konnektive Elemente. Es scheint, dass die Antwort auf die Frage, wann Konnektiva verarbeitet werden, weder sofort noch hinterher ist, sondern dass beide Sichtweisen korrekt sind. Es wird hier vorgeschlagen, dass vor dem Ende eines Diskurses Ökonomie insofern eine entscheidende Rolle spielt, als eine kanonische Relation angenommen wird so lange es keine gegenteilige Evidenz gibt. Ein Konnektivum könnte die evaluierten Dimensionen in einem Diskurs auf die signalisierten reduzieren. Am Ende des Diskurses wird die erstellte Textrepräsentation evaluiert und verifiziert, und ein integriertes Situationsmodell erstellt. Hier drückt sich dann die Komplexität der verschiedenen Diskursrelationen, die Konnktiva signalisieren können, aus.

The present dissertation reports the results of a multi-disciplinary experimental study, which combines psycholinguistic and cognitive methodologies in order to achieve two broad objectives. The first objective is providing a comparative psycholinguistic analysis of the expression of motion events in three languages, namely Turkish, English and French, taking Talmy&lsquo / s verb-framed language vs. satellite-framed language typology (Talmy, 1985) as the framework. The second one is investigating the relationship between linguistic representation and conceptual representation by taking motion events as the testing ground. In order to pursue these two lines of inquiry, five complementary tasks are conducted on three groups of adult subjects. The results of the first two tasks, the language production task and the language comprehension task, verify the Talmyan typology experimentally by showing sharp differences between the data obtained from native speakers of typologically different languages (English vs. Turkish and French), as well as remarkable similarities between the data obtained from native speakers of typologically similar languages (Turkish and French). On the other hand, the remaining three non-verbal tasks, the categorization task and the two eye-tracking tasks, present valuable insights into the nature of conceptual event representation by revealing a uniform pattern across languages. This latter result is inconsistent with the renowned linguistic relativity hypothesis (Whorf, 1956) / however in line with the universalist view (Jackendoff, 1990, 1996), which suggests that conceptual event representation is language-free and independent of the linguistic encoding preferences of different languages.

The aim of this thesis is to test two hypotheses. The first one is about the nature of comprehension impairment in Broca&#039 / s aphasia, namely the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH), and the other is about the similarity between child and aphasic language, namely the Regression Hypothesis. According to TDH, agrammatic patients are impaired in comprehension of certain structures that are formed by movement transformation whereas they show normal comprehension in canonical structures. TDH proposes that patients use a default strategy, which assigns the first NP the agent role. As for the Regression hypothesis, children follow a hierarchy while acquiring a language, which is also followed by aphasic patients in the reversed order. That is, what is learnt last is lost first as a result of brain damage. In order to test these two hypotheses, we designed a psycholinguistic test in which the comprehension of Turkish relative clauses is tested via sentence-picture matching task. The same test is applied to children, agrammatic patients, and normal control subjects. We expected that Broca&#039 / s patients would be impaired in their comprehension of subject relative clauses in order for TDH to be confirmed and that children would also exhibit the same impairment as the agrammatic patients in order for the Regression Hypothesis to be supported. The results we obtained were not compatible with the TDH hypothesis in that the patients did not show comprehension deficit in subject relatives but they had problems in object relative clauses, which led us to conclude that TDH did not offer a cross-linguistic explanation for the nature of comprehension deficit in agrammatism and that even if the traces were deleted, the default strategy applied in each language was a parametric feature. We propose that Turkish patients assign the agent role to the first NP that is in the pre-verbal position, which is called the pre-verbal strategy. Also, we hypothesize that the difficulty the Turkish agrammatic patients present might be due to an impairment in another feature, which is agreement morphology rather than the deletion of traces. This study is compatible with the Regression Hypothesis in that both the patients and children exhibited similar impairment in the comprehension of object relative clauses.

Habilitationsschrift--Bonn, 1979. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-222).