Bhuvana Narasimhan
University of Colorado, Boulder, Linguistics, Faculty Member
In addition to identifying the referents of novel words, language learners also have to learn to generalize newly acquired words to the appropriate range of referents. Here we ask: what is the relative importance of visual, auditory, and... more
In addition to identifying the referents of novel words, language learners also have to learn to generalize newly acquired words to the appropriate range of referents. Here we ask: what is the relative importance of visual, auditory, and linguistic information in influencing how adult learners generalize newly acquired verbs to novel contexts? In our study, participants learned two novel verbs associated with distinct auditory, visual, and linguistic cues. Then they labeled unfamiliar events in which each cue was either presented in isolation or placed in conflict with other cues. Participants’ production of the verb associated with each cue when in conflict with other cues was assessed relative to their baseline tendency to produce the verb associated with each cue presented in isolation. Findings show that visual cues dominate over linguistic and auditory cues in influencing participants’ verb extension patterns. In contrast, participants are rarely influenced by auditory or linguistic cues when they are placed in conflict with the other cue types. Our findings suggest that any account of word learning needs to factor in the dynamics of how multimodal cues interact to drive attention during word extension.
Case is one of the most heterogeneous nominal morphological categories: the number of case forms in morphological paradigms, the syntactic and semantic functions of case, and the set of declension classes differ even in typologically... more
Case is one of the most heterogeneous nominal morphological categories: the number of case forms in morphological paradigms, the syntactic and semantic functions of case, and the set of declension classes differ even in typologically similar languages. Hence, the acquisition of case presents the child with a major learning challenge. Our survey presents empirical studies and theoretical perspectives on the acquisition of case in children, focusing on generative, natural morphology, cognitive-functional, and usage-based approaches. Our empirical focus
will be on the acquisition of accusative, ergative, and split case systems, and our theoretical discussion will concentrate on (i) productivity in children’s early case forms, (ii) the role of nature and nurture in the acquisition of case, (iii) form–meaning mappings in the acquisition of case, and (iv) the time course of case development.
will be on the acquisition of accusative, ergative, and split case systems, and our theoretical discussion will concentrate on (i) productivity in children’s early case forms, (ii) the role of nature and nurture in the acquisition of case, (iii) form–meaning mappings in the acquisition of case, and (iv) the time course of case development.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Essex Research Reports in Linguistics present ongoing research activities of the members of the Department of Language and Linguistics. The main purpose of the reports is to provide a quick publication outlet. The reports have... more
Essex Research Reports in Linguistics present ongoing research activities of the members of the Department of Language and Linguistics. The main purpose of the reports is to provide a quick publication outlet. The reports have pre-publication status. The contents, form and distribution of the reports lie in the hands of the authors, and copyright remains with the author(s) of the
In this paper we present selected results from a study of the voicing profiles of consonants in five languages, viz. Mandarin Chinese, German, Hindi, Mexican Spanish, and Italian. We will focus here on the voicing properties of stop... more
In this paper we present selected results from a study of the voicing profiles of consonants in five languages, viz. Mandarin Chinese, German, Hindi, Mexican Spanish, and Italian. We will focus here on the voicing properties of stop closures in these languages. The voicing profile is defined as the frame-by-frame voicing status of a speech sound in continuous speech. We
Research Interests:
this paper, we examine the arguments provided by Levin & Rappaport-Hovav in favour of a lexical rule for this class of verbs and conclude that these arguments are not wellsupported empirically. While we do not attempt to elaborate an... more
this paper, we examine the arguments provided by Levin & Rappaport-Hovav in favour of a lexical rule for this class of verbs and conclude that these arguments are not wellsupported empirically. While we do not attempt to elaborate an alternative semantic account (see Wechsler 1996 for such an account), our observations suggest that an account relying on semantic factors alone can provide a simpler and more adequate explanation of the unaccusative behaviour of agentive manner of motion verbs. The class of agentive verbs of manner of motion such as walk, run, hobble etc. are unergative with respect to a number of diagnostics when used in isolation (1). They occur in *
this paper, I present the results of a detailed investigation of constructions which encode complex (sub)events in Hindi and English in the domains of motion, change of state, creation, and communication. The two languages differ in the... more
this paper, I present the results of a detailed investigation of constructions which encode complex (sub)events in Hindi and English in the domains of motion, change of state, creation, and communication. The two languages differ in the range of verbs which can appear with Goal/Result phrases in syntactic frames such SUBJECT-(OBJECT)- OBLIQUE and SUBJECT-OBJECT. English allows a range of verbs to occur in these syntactic frames whereas Hindi is extremely restricted: (1) a. The boy went/ran/hobbled under the bridge
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The present study examines young children's uses of semantically specific and general relational containment terms (eg in, enter) in Hindi and Tzeltal, and the extent to which their usage patterns are influenced by input frequency.... more
The present study examines young children's uses of semantically specific and general relational containment terms (eg in, enter) in Hindi and Tzeltal, and the extent to which their usage patterns are influenced by input frequency. We hypothesize that if children have a preference for ...
1. INTRODUCTION This paper investigates the voicing properties of stops by means of voicing profiles: the frame-by-frame voicing probability through-out the duration of stop closures. The voicing profiles reveal the dynamics of voicing... more
1. INTRODUCTION This paper investigates the voicing properties of stops by means of voicing profiles: the frame-by-frame voicing probability through-out the duration of stop closures. The voicing profiles reveal the dynamics of voicing status changes and thereby facilitate ...
Research Interests:
The main purpose of these reports is to provide a quick publication out- let. They have 'pre-publication status', and most will subsequently appear in revised form as research articles in professional journals or in edited... more
The main purpose of these reports is to provide a quick publication out- let. They have 'pre-publication status', and most will subsequently appear in revised form as research articles in professional journals or in edited books. ... Copyright remains with the author(s) of the reports. ...
Do language-specific patterns of motion event encoding along the lines of Talmy’s (2000) typology of verb-framed (V) vs. satellite-framed (S) languages influence nonlinguistic cognition? Finkbeiner et al. (2002), Gennari et al. (2002),... more
Do language-specific patterns of motion event encoding along the lines of Talmy’s (2000) typology of verb-framed (V) vs. satellite-framed (S) languages influence nonlinguistic cognition? Finkbeiner et al. (2002), Gennari et al. (2002), and Papafragou et al. (2002) found language-specific effects in similarity-judgment tasks only under prior verbal encoding or commitment of targets to memory. However, these studies raise methodological concerns: Gennari et al.’s participants found same-path variants more similar to targets than same-manner variants independently of language, while Finkbeiner et al.’s study produced the inverse pattern and Papafragou et al.’s results showed no significant preference either way. We conducted a similarity-judgment task which systematically varies types of manners and paths in 17 genetically and typologically diverse languages. We found an effect of language, which, however, is not directly based
1
on the V/S-distinction. V–languages fall into a group whose speakers strongly prefer same-manner choices and one whose speakers show a weak preference for same-path choices. Speakers of S–languages do not differ significantly, as a whole, from either group. Moreover, there are significant effects of finer-grained contrasts in path and manner that further call into question the generalizations offered in the previous studies.
1
on the V/S-distinction. V–languages fall into a group whose speakers strongly prefer same-manner choices and one whose speakers show a weak preference for same-path choices. Speakers of S–languages do not differ significantly, as a whole, from either group. Moreover, there are significant effects of finer-grained contrasts in path and manner that further call into question the generalizations offered in the previous studies.