Lecturers and Talks

Speakers:

• Diogo Almeida, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
• Roelien Bastiaanse, University of Groningen / National Research University Higher School of Economics
• Kasper Boye, University of Copenhagen
• Mariya Khudyakova, National Research University Higher School of Economics
• Maria Polinsky, University of Maryland / Harvard University
• Irina Sekerina, College of Staten Island – The City University of New York / National Research University Higher School of Economics

Day 1: July 1, Monday

Mariya Khudyakova,  National Research University Higher School of Economics

Linguistic diversity in experimental linguistics

The talk will provide some illustrations of how typological features of a language can affect its processing, justifying the need to extend psycho- and neurolinguistic research to underrepresented languages.


Kasper Boye, University of Copenhagen

Grammatical vs. lexical words: Converging crosslinguistic evidence

This talk first briefly outlines a usage-based theory of the distinction between grammatical and lexical words, and then presents a series of recent studies which support the theory: studies of language production in persons with aphasia and of language production and perception in non-brain damaged persons. Languages covered are Danish, Dutch, French and Spanish.

Download (PDF, 1.34 Mb) 

Determiner production and what it tells us about grammatical impairment

This talk presents a series of studies which contrast the production of grammatical determiners (indefinite articles) and lexical ones (numerals) in Broca’s aphasia and in non-brain-damaged speech. Subsequently, it discusses the implications of these studies for our understanding of grammatical impairment. Languages covered are Danish and West Greenlandic.

Download (PDF, 1.02 Mb) 

Diogo Almeida, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

How are speech sounds represented in long-term memory?

Download (PDF, 37.15 Mb) 

Day 2: July 2, Tuesday

Diogo Almeida, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Neurobiology of lexical access in the visual modality

Download  (PDF, 24.02 Mb)  

Maria Polinsky, University of Maryland / Harvard University

Ergativity: syntax and processing across languages

This talk presents and analyzes the puzzle of syntactic ergativity. While the ergative is structurally superior to the absolutive, a large number of ergative languages have a constraint against the A-bar movement of the ergative DP (a phenomenon known as syntactic ergativity). Among morphologically ergative languages, syntactic ergativity is found in the Northwest Caucasian languages, some Mayan languages (e.g., Q’anjob’al) or in Oceania in Tongan or Roviana, where the ergative extraction requires resumption at the extraction site. In contrast, Kartvelian, Nakh-Dagestanian languages, and Niuean are only morphologically ergative. They allow extraction of the ergative DP with a gap at the extraction site, just as under the extraction of the absolutive.

A possible explanation for syntactic ergativity could come from processing preferences; ergative gaps are harder to process than absolutive gaps, and if so syntactic ergativity could be explained as the grammaticalization of a gradient processing constraint. This hypothesis is tested in a series of processing experiments in Avar (Nakh-Dagestanian), Chol (Mayan), and Niuean (Polynesian); the results show that there is no processing disadvantage for the ergative. In the absence of a processing explanation for syntactic ergativity, we propose a purely syntactic explanation, according to which there are two types of ergative expressions: ergative as a PP and ergative as a DP. Languages with PP-ergative exhibit syntactic ergativity, which correlates with a number of other predictable properties.

Download (PDF, 2.79 Mb) 

Suggested reading: 

- Longenbaugh N, & Polinsky M. (2017). Experimental approaches to ergative languages. In: The Oxford Handbook of Ergativity.

Day 3: July 3, Wednesday

 
Maria Polinsky, University of Maryland / Harvard University & Irina Sekerina, College of Staten Island – The City University of New York / National Research University Higher School of Economics

Case and agreement at the intersection of theoretical and experimental syntax

The current state of relationship between theoretical linguistics and experimental psycholinguistic is rapidly becoming a two-way street. In the series of three joint lectures, Maria Polinsky and Irina Sekerina will illustrate this by discussing how theoretical developments in morphosyntax (i.e., grammatical gender/number, and case) are supported and enriched by eye-tracking studies in Russian, Norwegian, and Tagalog.

Download - Part 1 (Tagalog) (PDF, 1.61 Mb) 

Download - Part 2 (Agreement - Russian, Spanish) (PDF, 1.59 Mb) 

Download - Part 3 (Gender - Norwegian) (PDF, 952 Kb) 

Suggested readings: 

- Polinsky, M., & Preminger, O. (2014). Case and grammatical relations. In: The Routledge Handbook of Syntax.
- Norris, M. (2017). Description and analyses of nominal concord (Part I). Language and Linguistics Compass, 11, e12266.
- Norris, M. (2017). Description and analyses of nominal concord (Part II). Language and Linguistics Compass, 11, e12267.
- Polinsky, M., & Scontras, G. (2019). Understanding heritage languages. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1–17. doi:10.1017/S1366728919000245



Roelien Bastiaanse, University of Groningen / National Research University Higher School of Economics

Cross-linguistic studies on verb and sentence production and comprehension in agrammatic aphasia 

Download (PDF, 74.97 Mb)