Information structure in Makhuwa: Electrophysiological evidence for a universal processing account.

There is evidence from both behavior and brain activity that the way information is structured, through the use of focus, can up-regulate processing of focused constituents, likely to give prominence to the relevant aspects of the input. This is hypothesized to be universal, regardless of the different ways in which languages encode focus. In order to test this universalist hypothesis, we need to go beyond the more familiar linguistic strategies for marking focus, such as by means of intonation or specific syntactic structures (e.g., it-clefts). Therefore, in this study, we examine Makhuwa-Enahara, a Bantu language spoken in northern Mozambique, which uniquely marks focus through verbal conjugation. The participants were presented with sentences that consisted of either a semantically anomalous constituent or a semantically nonanomalous constituent. Moreover, focus on this particular constituent could be either present or absent. We observed a consistent pattern: Focused information generated a more negative N400 response than the same information in nonfocus position. This demonstrates that regardless of how focus is marked, its consequence seems to result in an upregulation of processing of information that is in focus.

Gender Congruency Effects in Spanish: Behavioral Evidence from Noun Phrase Production.

Grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature has been well explored, and the gender congruency effect has been observed in many languages (e.g., Dutch, German, Croatian, Czech, etc.). Yet, so far, this effect has not been found in Romance languages such as Italian, French, and Spanish. It has been argued that the absence of the effect in Romance languages is due the fact that the gender-marking definite article is not exclusively dependent on the grammatical gender of the head noun, but also on its onset phonology (e.g., lo zucchero is 'the sugar' in Italian, not il zucchero, il being the default masculine determiner in Italian). For Spanish, this argument has also been made because feminine words starting with a stressed /a/ take the masculine article (e.g., el água is 'the water', not la água). However, the number of words belonging to that set is rather small in Spanish, and it may be questionable whether or not this feature can be taken as an argument for the absence of a gender congruency effect in Spanish. In this study, we investigated the gender congruency effect in native Spanish noun phrase production. We measured 30 native Spanish speakers' naming latencies in four conditions via the picture-word interference paradigm by manipulating gender congruency (i.e., gender-congruent vs. gender-incongruent) and semantic relatedness (i.e., semantically related vs. semantically unrelated). The results revealed significantly longer naming latencies in gender-incongruent and semantically related conditions compared to gender-congruent and semantically unrelated conditions. This result suggests that grammatical gender as a lexico-syntactic feature in Spanish is used to competitively select determiners in native Spanish speakers' noun phrases. Our findings provide an important behavioral piece of evidence for the gender congruency effect in Romance languages.

Connectivity Profile of Middle Inferior Parietal Cortex Confirms the Hypothesis About Modulating Cortical Areas.

According to the correlated transmitter-receptor based structure of the inferior parietal cortex (IPC), this brain area is divided into three clusters, namely, the caudal, the middle and the rostral. Nevertheless, in associating different cognitive functions to the IPC, previous studies considered this part of the cortex as a whole and thus inconsistent results have been reported. Using multiband echo planar imaging (EPI), we investigated the connectivity profile of the middle IPC while forty-five participants performed a task requiring cognitive control. The middle IPC demonstrated functional associations which do not have similarities to a contributing part in the frontoparietal network, in processing cognitive control. At the same time, this cortical area showed negative functional connectivity with both the precuneus cortex, which is resting- state related, and brain areas related to general cognitive functions. That is, the functions of the middle IPC are not accommodated by the traditional categorization of different brain areas i.e. resting state-related or task-related networks and this advanced our hypothesis about modulating cortical areas. Such brain areas are characterized by their negative functional connectivity with parts of the cortex involved in task performance, proportional to the difficulty of the task; yet, their functional associations are inconsistent with the resting state-related cortical areas.

Orthography influences spoken word production in blocked cyclic naming.

Does the way a word is written influence its spoken production? Previous studies suggest that orthography is involved only when the orthographic representation is highly relevant during speaking (e.g., in reading-aloud tasks). To address this issue, we carried out two experiments using the blocked cyclic picture-naming paradigm. In both experiments, participants were asked to name pictures repeatedly in orthographically homogeneous or heterogeneous blocks. In the naming task, the written form was not shown; however, the radical of the first character overlapped between the four pictures in this block type. A facilitative orthographic effect was found when picture names shared part of their written forms, compared with the heterogeneous condition. This facilitative effect was independent of the position of orthographic overlap (i.e., the left, the lower, or the outer part of the character). These findings strongly suggest that orthography can influence speaking even when it is not highly relevant (i.e., during picture naming) and the orthographic effect is less likely to be attributed to strategic preparation.

Mapping caudal inferior parietal cortex supports the hypothesis about a modulating cortical area.

The cytoarchitectonically tripartite organization of the inferior parietal cortex (IPC) into the rostral, the middle and the caudal clusters has been generally ignored when associating different functions to this part of the cortex, resulting in inconsistencies about how IPC is understood. In this study, we investigated the patterns of functional connectivity of the caudal IPC in a task requiring cognitive control, using multiband EPI. This part of the cortex demonstrated functional connectivity patterns dissimilar to a cognitive control area and at the same time the caudal IPC showed negative functional associations with both task-related brain areas and the precuneus cortex, which is active during resting state. We found evidence suggesting that the traditional categorization of different brain areas into either task-related or resting state-related networks cannot accommodate the functions of the caudal IPC. This underlies the hypothesis about a new brain functional category as a modulating cortical area proposing that its involvement in task performance, in a modulating manner, is marked by deactivation in the patterns of functional associations with parts of the brain that are recognized to be involved in doing a task, proportionate to task difficulty; however, its patterns of functional connectivity in some other respects do not correspond to the resting state-related parts of the cortex.

Context Matters for Tone and Intonation Processing in Mandarin.

In tonal languages such as Mandarin, both lexical tone and sentence intonation are primarily signaled by F0. Their F0 encodings are sometimes in conflict and sometimes in congruency. The present study investigated how tone and intonation, with F0 encodings in conflict or in congruency, are processed and how semantic context may affect their processing. To this end, tone and intonation identification experiments were conducted in both semantically neutral and constraining contexts. Results showed that the overall performance of tone identification was better than that of intonation. Specifically, tone identification was seldom affected by intonation information irrespective of semantic contexts. However, intonation identification, particularly question intonation, was susceptible to the final lexical tone identity and affected by the semantic context. In the semantically neutral context, questions ending with a rising tone and a falling tone were equally difficult to identify. In the semantically constraining context, questions ending with a falling tone were much better identified than those ending with a rising tone. This perceptual asymmetry suggests that top-down information provided by the semantically constraining context can play a facilitating role for listeners to disentangle intonational information from tonal information, but mainly in sentences with the lexical falling tone in the final position.

Noun-phrase production as a window to language selection: An ERP study.

Characterising the time course of non-native language production is critical in understanding the mechanisms behind successful communication. Yet, little is known about the modulating role of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) on the temporal unfolding of non-native production and the locus of target language selection. In this study, we explored CLI effects on non-native noun phrase production with behavioural and neural methods. We were particularly interested in the modulation of the P300 as an index for inhibitory control, and the N400 as an index for co-activation and CLI. German late learners of Spanish overtly named pictures while their EEG was monitored. Our results indicate traceable CLI effects at the behavioural and neural level in both early and late production stages. This suggests that speakers faced competition between the target and non-target language until advanced production stages. Our findings add important behavioural and neural evidence to the underpinnings of non-native production processes, in particular for late learners.

Cross-Dialectal Novel Word Learning and Borrowing.

The objective of this paper was to study the cognitive processes underlying cross-dialectal novel word borrowing and loanword establishment in a Standard-Chinese-to-Shanghainese (SC-SH) auditory lexical learning and borrowing experiment. To investigate these underlying cognitive processes, SC-SH bi-dialectals were compared with SC monolectals as well as bi-dialectals of SC and other Chinese dialects (OD) to investigate the influence of short-term and long-term linguistic experience. Both comprehension and production borrowings were tested. This study found that early and proficient bi-dialectism, even if it is not directly related to the recipient dialect of lexical borrowing, has a protective effect on the ability of cross-dialectal lexical borrowing in early adulthood. Bi-dialectals tend to add separate lexical representations for incidentally encountered dialectal variants, while monolectals tend to assimilate dialectal variants to standard forms. Bi-dialectals, but not monolectals, use etymologically related morphemes between the source and recipient dialects to create nonce-borrowing compounds. Dialectal variability facilitates lexical borrowing via enriching instead of increasing the short-term lexical experience of learners. The long-term bi-dialectal experience of individuals, as well as their short-term exposure to each specific loanword, may collectively shape the route of lexical evolution of co-evolving linguistic varieties.

Cross-linguistic interference in late language learners: An ERP study.

This study investigated cross-linguistic interference in German low-proficient late learners of Spanish. We examined the modulating influence of gender congruency and cognate status using a syntactic violation paradigm. Behavioural results demonstrated that participants were more sensitive to similarities at the syntactic level (gender congruency) than to phonological and orthographic overlap (cognate status). Electrophysiological data showed that they were sensitive to syntactic violations (P600 effect) already in early acquisition stages. However, P600 effect sizes were not modulated by gender congruency or cognate status. Therefore, our late learners of Spanish did not seem to be susceptible to influences from inherent noun properties when processing non-native noun phrases at the neural level. Our results contribute to the discussion about the neural correlates of grammatical gender processing and sensitivity to syntactic violations in early acquisition stages.

Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence regarding their representation and processing.

In Chinese, when objects are named with their quantity, a numeral classifier must be inserted between the quantifier and the noun to produce a grammatically correct quantifier + classifier + noun phrase. In this study, we adopted the picture-word interference paradigm to examine participants' naming latencies for multiple objects and their electroencephalogram in four conditions by manipulating two factors, i.e. semantic relatedness and classifier congruency. Results show that in noun phrase production, naming latencies are significantly longer in classifier-incongruent and semantically related conditions than in classifier-congruent and semantically unrelated conditions. Also, an N400-like effect was observed and found to be stronger in classifier-incongruent and semantically unrelated conditions. Together, the behavioral data and event-related potential analyses suggest that the use of classifiers as lexico-syntactic features in Mandarin Chinese takes place via a competitive selection process in noun phrase production.

Dual Function of Primary Somatosensory Cortex in Cognitive Control of Language: Evidence from Resting State fMRI.

Resting state functional connectivity can be leveraged to investigate bilingual individual differences in cognitive control of language; however, thus far no report is provided on how the connectivity profiles of brain functional networks at rest point to different language control behavior in bilinguals. In order to address this gap in state-of-the-art research we did a functional connectivity analysis on the resting state data acquired via multiband EPI to investigate three resting state networks of interest namely, the frontoparietal network (FPN), the salience network (SN), and the default mode network (DMN), which are related to cognitive control, between two groups of Dutch-English bilinguals based on how they performed in a language switching task. Results demonstrated that there is the increased coupling of the left primary somatosensory cortex with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the group with better performance in cognitive control of language and the increased coupling of the right primary somatosensory cortex with the inferior parietal cortex in the group with poorer performance in this executive function. As regards these results, we claim that the primary somatosensory cortex has a dual function in coupling with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the inferior parietal cortex in the FPN, and in fact, in what characterizes bilingual individual differences in cognitive control of language in healthy participants. The results of this study provide a model for future research in cognitive control of language and may serve as a reference in clinical neuroscience when bilinguals are diagnosed with dysfunction in cognitive control.

(Not so) Great Expectations: Listening to Foreign-Accented Speech Reduces the Brain's Anticipatory Processes.

This study examines the effect of foreign-accented speech on the predictive ability of our brain. Listeners actively anticipate upcoming linguistic information in the speech signal so as to facilitate and reduce processing load. However, it is unclear whether or not listeners also do this when they are exposed to speech from non-native speakers. In the present study, we exposed native Dutch listeners to sentences produced by native and non-native speakers while measuring their brain activity using electroencephalography. We found that listeners' brain activity differed depending on whether they listened to native or non-native speech. However, participants' overall performance as measured by word recall rate was unaffected. We discussed the results in relation to previous findings as well as the automaticity of anticipation.

Tonal mapping of Xi'an Mandarin and Standard Chinese.

One long-neglected fact in linguistic research on Standard Chinese (SC) is that most speakers of SC also speak a local dialect, which may share phonological features with SC. Tonal information can be a determinant of the phonological similarities or differences between some Chinese dialects and SC, yet relatively little empirical research has been conducted on the tonal system of other language varieties in Chinese aside from SC. Among these dialects, Xi'an Mandarin (XM) is particularly interesting for the seemingly simple, yet intricate mapping between its lexical tones with those in SC. In this study, the tonal systems of XM and SC were compared empirically. Tones with similar contours from XM and SC were paired, and both tone production and perception experiments were carried out on bidialectal speakers of XM and SC. The two experiments together showed that there is indeed systematic mapping of tones between XM and SC. The degree of similarity of the mapped tone pair in tone perception was largely dependent on the acoustic phonetic similarity between the tones in tone production, with a phonological rule playing a role in the tone pair of low contour.

Cognitive demand modulates connectivity patterns of rostral inferior parietal cortex in cognitive control of language.

The inferior parietal cortex (IPC) is involved in different cognitive functions including language. In line with the correlated transmitter receptor-based organization of the IPC, this part of the brain is parcellated into the rostral, the middle and the caudal clusters; however, the tripartite organization of the IPC has not been addressed in studies with a focus on cognitive control of language. Using multiband EPI, in this study we investigated how the rostral IPC contributes to this executive function in bilinguals. In doing so, we focused on the functional connectivity patterns of this part of the cortex with other brain areas in a context characterized with language engagement and disengagement that recruits the neural mechanisms of cognitive control. We found that in switching to L2, which was cognitively less demanding, the right rostral IPC had positive functional connectivity with the anterior division of the cingulate gyrus and the precentral gyrus. However, in switching to L1, which was cognitively more demanding, the right IPC rostral cluster had negative functional coupling with the postcentral gyrus and the precuneus cortex and positive connectivity with the posterior lobe of the cerebellum. In this condition, the left IPC rostral cluster had negative functional coupling with the superior frontal gyrus and the precuneus cortex. Thus, the connectivity patterns of the rostral IPC was influenced by the cognitive demand in an asymmetrical and lateral manner during cognitive control of language.

High amyloid burden is associated with fewer specific words during spontaneous speech in individuals with subjective cognitive decline.

Self-perceived word-finding difficulties are common in aging individuals as well as in Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Language and speech deficits are difficult to objectify with neuropsychological assessments. We therefore aimed to investigate whether amyloid, an early AD pathological hallmark, is associated with speech-derived semantic complexity. We included 63 individuals with subjective cognitive decline (age 64 ±â€¯8, MMSE 29 ±â€¯1), with amyloid status (positron emission tomography [PET] scans n = 59, or Aß1-42 cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] n = 4). Spontaneous speech was recorded using three open-ended tasks (description of cookie theft picture, abstract painting and a regular Sunday), transcribed verbatim and subsequently, linguistic parameters were extracted using T-scan computational software, including specific words (content words, frequent, concrete and abstract nouns, and fillers), lexical complexity (lemma frequency, Type-Token-Ratio) and syntactic complexity (Developmental Level scale). Nineteen individuals (30%) had high levels of amyloid burden, and there were no differences between groups on conventional neuropsychological tests. Using multinomial regression with linguistic parameters (in tertiles), we found that high amyloid burden is associated with fewer concrete nouns (ORmiddle (95%CI): 7.6 (1.4-41.2), ORlowest: 6.7 (1.2-37.1)) and content words (ORlowest: 6.3 (1.0-38.1). In addition, we found an interaction for education between high amyloid burden and more abstract nouns. In conclusion, high amyloid burden was modestly associated with fewer specific words, but not with syntactic complexity, lexical complexity or conventional neuropsychological tests, suggesting that subtle spontaneous speech deficits might occur in preclinical AD.

Prosody perception and production by children with cochlear implants.

The perception and production of emotional and linguistic (focus) prosody were compared in children with cochlear implants (CI) and normally hearing (NH) peers. Thirteen CI and thirteen hearing-age-matched school-aged NH children were tested, as baseline, on non-verbal emotion understanding, non-word repetition, and stimulus identification and naming. Main tests were verbal emotion discrimination, verbal focus position discrimination, acted emotion production, and focus production. Productions were evaluated by NH adult Dutch listeners. All scores between groups were comparable, except a lower score for the CI group for non-word repetition. Emotional prosody perception and production scores correlated weakly for CI children but were uncorrelated for NH children. In general, hearing age weakly predicted emotion production but not perception. Non-verbal emotional (but not linguistic) understanding predicted CI children's (but not controls') emotion perception and production. In conclusion, increasing time in sound might facilitate vocal emotional expression, possibly requiring independently maturing emotion perception skills.

Lexico-syntactic features are activated but not selected in bare noun production: Electrophysiological evidence from overt picture naming.

To produce a word, speakers need to retrieve the lexico-syntactic representation of the word and encode the phonological form for articulation. It is not precisely known yet if a word's syntactic features (e.g., number, gender, etc.) are automatically activated and selected in bare noun production. Cubelli, Lotto, Paolieri, Girelli, and Job (2005) proposed that only in languages that have a complex morphological structure (e.g., Italian), the selection of grammatical gender is required. In languages with a relatively simpler morphological structure, the selection of grammatical gender is by-passed. Here, we investigated this issue further by employing a language with an extremely simple morphological structure, i.e., Mandarin Chinese. Using the picture-word interference paradigm, we manipulated the congruency of the lexico-syntactic classifier feature (comparable to grammatical gender) between the target picture and the superimposed distractor word. We measured participants' naming latencies and their electroencephalogram (EEG). As a result, relative to the classifier-congruent condition, classifier incongruency elicited a stronger N400 effect in the ERP analyses, suggesting the automatic activation of lexico-syntactic features in bare noun production. However, classifier congruency did not affect naming latencies, suggesting that the lexico-syntactic feature is not selected in bare noun naming when it is irrelevant for production.

Do Persian Native Speakers Prosodically Mark Wh-in-situ Questions?

It has been shown that prosody contributes to the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity, notably in interrogative utterances lacking lexico-syntactic features of interrogativity. Accordingly, it may be proposed that prosody plays a role in marking wh-in-situ questions in which the interrogativity feature (the wh-phrase) does not move to sentence-initial position, as, for example, in Persian. This paper examines whether prosody distinguishes Persian wh-in-situ questions from declaratives in the absence of the interrogativity feature in the sentence-initial position. To answer this question, a production experiment was designed in which wh-questions and declaratives were elicited from Persian native speakers. On the basis of the results of previous studies, we hypothesize that prosodic features mark wh-in-situ questions as opposed to declaratives at both the local (pre- and post-wh part) and global level (complete sentence). The results of the current study confirm our hypothesis that prosodic correlates mark the pre-wh part as well as the complete sentence in wh-in-situ questions. The results support theoretical concepts such as the frequency code, the universal dichotomous association between relaxation and declarativity on the one hand and tension and interrogativity on the other, the relation between prosody and pragmatics, and the relation between prosody and encoding and decoding of sentence type.

Basic Measures of Prosody in Spontaneous Speech of Children With Early and Late Cochlear Implantation.

Purpose: Relative to normally hearing (NH) peers, the speech of children with cochlear implants (CIs) has been found to have deviations such as a high fundamental frequency, elevated jitter and shimmer, and inadequate intonation. However, two important dimensions of prosody (temporal and spectral) have not been systematically investigated. Given that, in general, the resolution in CI hearing is best for the temporal dimension and worst for the spectral dimension, we expected this hierarchy to be reflected in the amount of CI speech's deviation from NH speech. Deviations, however, were expected to diminish with increasing device experience. Method: Of 9 Dutch early- and late-implanted (division at 2 years of age) children and 12 hearing age-matched NH controls, spontaneous speech was recorded at 18, 24, and 30 months after implantation (CI) or birth (NH). Six spectral and temporal outcome measures were compared between groups, sessions, and genders. Results: On most measures, interactions of Group and/or Gender with Session were significant. For CI recipients as compared with controls, performance on temporal measures was not in general more deviant than spectral measures, although differences were found for individual measures. The late-implanted group had a tendency to be closer to the NH group than the early-implanted group. Groups converged over time. Conclusions: Results did not support the phonetic dimension hierarchy hypothesis, suggesting that the appropriateness of the production of basic prosodic measures does not depend on auditory resolution. Rather, it seems to depend on the amount of control necessary for speech production.