Spelling And Reading Novel Homophones: Testing The Value Of Lexical Distinctiveness,
2021
Washington University in St. Louis
Spelling And Reading Novel Homophones: Testing The Value Of Lexical Distinctiveness, Jayde Homer
Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Lexical distinctiveness, according to which a written form represents one and only one morpheme, is a feature of some writing systems. For example, ‹bear› and ‹bare› are spelled differently in English. In two experiments, we asked whether readers and spellers of English benefit from distinctive spellings of homophones. In Experiment 1, university students listened to 40 passages, each containing a novel homophone (e.g., /kel/ used to mean a gossip-lover). In Experiment 2, participants read the passages. Half of the novel homophones were homographic (e.g., ‹kale›), and half were heterographic (e.g., ‹kail›). In both experiments, participants answered questions about the novel …
The Inevitability Of Collision: Creating Empathy Through Fiction,
2021
Regis University
The Inevitability Of Collision: Creating Empathy Through Fiction, Danielle Beckman
Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)
While the stigma for mental illnesses has greatly declined in the last decade, there is still a disconnect between individuals without neurological illnesses and those with neurological illnesses, especially those that cause individuals to lose contact with reality. The goal of this interdisciplinary paper is to create empathy for these individuals, specifically people with schizophrenia, Alzheimer disease, and post-traumatic amnesia. Through a collection of four stories told from the perspective of these unreliable narrators, I used fiction writing techniques from the field of cognitive literary studies such as gapping and defamiliarization to create more empathy in the reader. In reading …
Talking About Her(Self): Ambiguity Avoidance And Principle B. A Theoretical And Psycholinguistic Investigation Of Romanian Pronouns,
2020
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Talking About Her(Self): Ambiguity Avoidance And Principle B. A Theoretical And Psycholinguistic Investigation Of Romanian Pronouns, Rudmila-Rodica Ivan
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation answers a deceivingly simple question: why can her in Hermione talked about her refer to the sentence subject in Romanian, but not in English? The Romanian facts, which are surprising for both classic and competition-based accounts of the Binding Theory over the last 40 odd years, bring us to the following overarching question: what are the constraints on pronominal reference? To address these main questions, I carry out a psycholinguistic investigation of Romanian pronouns and argue that the distribution and interpretation of pronominal forms is jointly determined by pragmatic and morphosyntactic constraints. I discuss evidence from four experiments, …
Person-Based Prominence In Ojibwe,
2020
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Person-Based Prominence In Ojibwe, Christopher Hammerly
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation develops a formal and psycholinguistic theory of person-based prominence effects, the finding that certain categories of person such as "first" and "second" (the "local" persons) are privileged by the grammar. The thesis takes on three questions: (i) What are the possible categories related to person? (ii) What are the possible prominence relationships between these categories? And (iii) how is prominence information used to parse and interpret linguistic input in real time? The empirical through-line is understanding obviation — a “spotlighting” system, found most prominently in the Algonquian family of languages, that splits the (ani- mate) third persons into …
Representing Context: Presupposition Triggers And Focus-Sensitivity,
2020
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Representing Context: Presupposition Triggers And Focus-Sensitivity, Alexander Goebel
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation investigates the role of Focus-sensitivity for a typology of presupposition triggers. The central hypothesis is that Focus-sensitive triggers require a linguistic antecedent in the discourse model, whereas presuppositions of triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity are satisfied as entailments of the Common Ground. This hypothesis is supported by experimental evidence from two borne out predictions. First, Focus-sensitive triggers are sensitive to the salience of the antecedent satisfying their presupposition, as operationalized via the Question Under Discussion, and lead to interference-type effects, while triggers lacking Focus-sensitivity are indifferent to the QUD-structure. Second, Focus-sensitive triggers are harder to globally accommodate than triggers lacking …
Working Memory Training: Cognitive And Linguistic Implications In Adult English Language Learners,
2020
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Working Memory Training: Cognitive And Linguistic Implications In Adult English Language Learners, Deepti Wadhera
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This study used a cognitive training paradigm to explore whether the same mechanisms of working memory underly conflict resolution in non-verbal and verbal domains in adult English language learners.The association between an individual’s Working Memory (WM) performance and their success in skills such as interference control, decision-making and language processing has been repeatedly highlighted by researchers in cognitive psychology and linguistic fields. Particularly, acquisition and use of a second language is one life experience in which WM ability seems valuable. However, when this association is put to the test in studies that train participants’ WM and measure transfer of these …
Bilingual Reading Fluency And Prediction: Heritage Language Versus Second Language,
2020
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Bilingual Reading Fluency And Prediction: Heritage Language Versus Second Language, Olga Parshina
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The thesis presents the first comparative investigation of reading fluency and factors that affect it by examining eye movements in reading by Heritage Speakers (HSs) and L2 learners of Russian. The eye movements of bilingual participants are compared to two control groups, monolingual adults and monolingual children. Following the introductory Chapter 1, in Chapter 2 we present the study that establishes basic eye-movement characteristics in reading for Heritage Speakers and L2 learners in connection to proficiency and linguistics factors of word length and frequency. Contrary to our predictions, we found that all eye-movement characteristics of high-proficiency HSs are different from …
Processing Coercion In A First, Non-Dominant Language: Mandarin-English Heritage Bilinguals,
2020
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Processing Coercion In A First, Non-Dominant Language: Mandarin-English Heritage Bilinguals, Christina N. Dadurian
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Recent work in heritage language grammars has shown variability in L1 competence, despite high proficiency in both languages. While sources of variation have been debated, little attention has been given to the role of language dominance. This thesis uses a self-paced listening task to explicitly investigate the roles of language dominance and pragmatic competence in how heritage speakers of Mandarin Chinese process aspectual coercion in their non-dominant home language, as compared to late bilinguals. Specifically, constructions that vary in acceptability and salience in input between Mandarin and English are tested: Iterative coercion, complement event coercion of entity NPs, and perfective …
The Acquisition Of Np-Trace In English,
2020
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
The Acquisition Of Np-Trace In English, Michiko Terada
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
The Acquisition Of Passive With Instrumental Prepositional Phrases In English,
2020
University of Massachusetts
The Acquisition Of Passive With Instrumental Prepositional Phrases In English, Xiaoping Teng
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
Deterministic Parsing And The Verb Raising Construction In German And Dutch,
2020
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Deterministic Parsing And The Verb Raising Construction In German And Dutch, Hotze Rullmann
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
The Parsing Of Anaphor Binding & Levels Of Representation,
2020
UMass
The Parsing Of Anaphor Binding & Levels Of Representation, Bernadette Plunkett
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
The Early Interpretation Of Expletive Pronouns,
2020
UMASS, Amherst
The Early Interpretation Of Expletive Pronouns, Ana Teresa Perez-Leroux, Sabina Aurilio
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
The Syntax And Processing Of Sentential Subjects,
2020
UMASS/Amherst
The Syntax And Processing Of Sentential Subjects, Jaye Padgett
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
Comprehending Sentences Containing Traces,
2020
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Comprehending Sentences Containing Traces, John S. Huitema
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
Processing Of Wh-Dependencies In A Null Subject Language: Referential And Non-Referential Whs.,
2020
Center for National Research
Processing Of Wh-Dependencies In A Null Subject Language: Referential And Non-Referential Whs., Marica De Vincenzi
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
Dissecting The Adjective Ordering Constraint In English,
2020
University of Massachusetts/Amherst
Dissecting The Adjective Ordering Constraint In English, Juli Carter
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
Formal Semantics Of Telegraphic Speech,
2020
UMass
Formal Semantics Of Telegraphic Speech, Virgina Brennan
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
Front Matter,
2020
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Front Matter, Bernadette Plunkett
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
From Cognition To Thematic Roles: The Projection Principle As An Acquisition Mechanism,
2020
SUNY
From Cognition To Thematic Roles: The Projection Principle As An Acquisition Mechanism, Dan Finer, Thomas Roeper
University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics
No abstract provided.
