Steps towards understanding the phonological output buffer and its role in the production of numbers, morphemes, and function words

Cortex ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 317-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dror Dotan ◽  
Naama Friedmann
Keyword(s):  
Output Buffer ◽  
Function Words ◽  
And Function

scholarly journals Professional or Amateur? The Phonological Output Buffer as a Working Memory Operator

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neta Haluts ◽  
Massimiliano Trippa ◽  
Naama Friedmann ◽  
Alessandro Treves
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Output Buffer ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Number Words ◽  
Cortical Areas ◽  
And Function ◽  
Phonological Errors ◽  
Self Consistency

The Phonological Output Buffer (POB) is thought to be the stage in language production where phonemes are held in working memory and assembled into words. The neural implementation of the POB remains unclear despite a wealth of phenomenological data. Individuals with POB impairment make phonological errors when they produce words and non-words, including phoneme omissions, insertions, transpositions, substitutions and perseverations. Errors can apply to different kinds and sizes of units, such as phonemes, number words, morphological affixes, and function words, and evidence from POB impairments suggests that units tend to substituted with units of the same kind—e.g., numbers with numbers and whole morphological affixes with other affixes. This suggests that different units are processed and stored in the POB in the same stage, but perhaps separately in different mini-stores. Further, similar impairments can affect the buffer used to produce Sign Language, which raises the question of whether it is instantiated in a distinct device with the same design. However, what appear as separate buffers may be distinct regions in the activity space of a single extended POB network, connected with a lexicon network. The self-consistency of this idea can be assessed by studying an autoassociative Potts network, as a model of memory storage distributed over several cortical areas, and testing whether the network can represent both units of word and signs, reflecting the types and patterns of errors made by individuals with POB impairment.

A Guide to Old Spanish

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven N. Dworkin
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Standard Language ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Sound System ◽  
Old Spanish ◽  
And Function ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Verb Tense ◽  
Modern Standard

This book describes the linguistic structures that constitute Medieval or Old Spanish as preserved in texts written prior to the beginning of the sixteenth century. It emphasizes those structures that contrast with the modern standard language. Chapter 1 presents methodological issues raised by the study of a language preserved only in written sources. Chapter 2 examines questions involved in reconstructing the sound system of Old Spanish before discussing relevant phonetic and phonological details. The chapter ends with an overview of Old Spanish spelling practices. Chapter 3 presents in some detail the nominal, verbal, and pronominal morphology of the language, with attention to regional variants. Chapter 4 describes selected syntactic structures, with emphasis on the noun phrase, verb phrase, object pronoun placement, subject-verb-object word order, verb tense, aspect, and mood. Chapter 5 begins with an extensive list of Old Spanish nouns, adjectives, verbs, and function words that have not survived into the modern standard language. It then presents examples of coexisting variants (doublets) and changes of meaning, and finishes with an overview of the creation of neologisms in the medieval language through derivational morphology (prefixation, suffixation, compounding). The book concludes with an anthology composed of three extracts from Spanish prose texts, one each from the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The extracts contain footnotes that highlight relevant morphological, syntactic, and lexical features, with cross references to the relevant sections in the body of the book.

scholarly journals 「テイル」形と「タ」形の派生アスペクト「パーフェクト性」と インドネシア語の機能語SudahとTelah

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-95
Author(s):  
Nandang Rachmat
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Aspect ◽  
Contrastive Analysis ◽  
Future Event ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Basic Meaning ◽  
And Function

The basic meaning of the morphological aspect of Japanese is the opposition between the form -ru/-tawhich expresses perfective,  and -teiru/-teitawhich expresses imperfective. Also there are perfect meanings which derivate from the basic meaning of -taand -teiru/-teitaforms. They refer to the fact that a certain result or effect of previous activity remain at a certain point of time. In Indonesian function wordssudahand telah, which are generally considered as perfective markers, can often be the equivalent of perfect meanings in Japanese. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the differences between perfect aspect meanings in both languages mainly regarding the use of words sudahandtelah. This paper aims to explain perfect meanings in Japanese and Indonesian through the use of -ta, -teiru, -teitaforms and function words sudahand telah by contrastive analysis. The analysis showed that the perfect meanings cannot be fully matched with the use of sudahandtelah. They are not interchangeable because of differences in aspectual, modal, and contextual meanings. Some of them are expressed without using sudahor telah at all. Sudahmeans ingressive aspect, and refers to the result or effect of previous activities. As modal meanings, sudah indicates two things, that the speaker possesses predictions about a future event and the speaker’s attitude to provide the hearer information. Telah means completive aspect. It does not refer to the meaning of the effect of a previous activity, therefore it can not function as taxis on future perfect aspect.

scholarly journals Dụ̈ysenȧlị Ȧbdịlȧšịm. Eskị Ḳazaḳ ǰazba tịlị [The Old Kazakh written language]

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 71-76
Author(s):  
Uldanay Jumabay ◽  
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Linguistic Description ◽  
Historical Archives ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
And Function ◽  
Nominal Morphology

The paper presents a review of Düysen ̣ ȧlị Ȧbdịlȧšịm’s monograph “The Old Kazakh Written Language” (“Eskị Ḳazaḳ J̌ azba Tịlị”), which is written in Kazakh and published in Beijing in 2014. The monograph is a linguistic description of the documents of the Kazakh Khanates written in the period from the first half of the 18th century until the early 19th century. The Old Kazakh documents were mostly written by Kazakh Khans and Sultans and sent to Chinese emperors of the Qing dynasty and to officials in charge of the border. Currently all the documents are preserved in the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing. The monograph is designed as a manual for university students studying Kazakh philology. The significance of the book lies in its being the first and only book providing a comprehensive linguistic description of the Old Kazakh historical documents. The monograph is divided into three chapters. The phonetics and writing system of the Old Kazakh documents are studied in the first chapter. Chapter 2 investigates the nominal morphology, in which five word classes: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, and function words have been discussed. The last chapter presents lexical terms for temporal units. The review provides a short description of all chapters and points out that the usage of the term “Turki” is more appropriate for defining the language of the presented documents than the term “Old Kazakh Written Language”, since it manifests prevalence of non-Kazakh features.

scholarly journals Consistency and Variability in Children’s Word Learning Across Languages

Open Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 52-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mika Braginsky ◽  
Daniel Yurovsky ◽  
Virginia A. Marchman ◽  
Michael C. Frank
Keyword(s):  
Word Learning ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Parent Report ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Derived Properties ◽  
Report Data ◽  
And Function

Why do children learn some words earlier than others? The order in which words are acquired can provide clues about the mechanisms of word learning. In a large-scale corpus analysis, we use parent-report data from over 32,000 children to estimate the acquisition trajectories of around 400 words in each of 10 languages, predicting them on the basis of independently derived properties of the words’ linguistic environment (from corpora) and meaning (from adult judgments). We examine the consistency and variability of these predictors across languages, by lexical category, and over development. The patterning of predictors across languages is quite similar, suggesting similar processes in operation. In contrast, the patterning of predictors across different lexical categories is distinct, in line with theories that posit different factors at play in the acquisition of content words and function words. By leveraging data at a significantly larger scale than previous work, our analyses identify candidate generalizations about the processes underlying word learning across languages.

scholarly journals The company that words keep: comparing the statistical structure of child- versus adult-directed language

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 586-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS HILLS
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Statistical Structure ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Contextual Diversity ◽  
Associative Structure ◽  
Word Acquisition ◽  
Word Classes ◽  
Language Statistics ◽  
And Function

ABSTRACTDoes child-directed language differ from adult-directed language in ways that might facilitate word learning? Associative structure (the probability that a word appears with its free associates), contextual diversity, word repetitions and frequency were compared longitudinally across six language corpora, with four corpora of language directed at children aged 1 ; 0 to 5 ; 0, and two adult-directed corpora representing spoken and written language. Statistics were adjusted relative to shuffled corpora. Child-directed language was found to be more associative, repetitive and consistent than adult-directed language. Moreover, these statistical properties of child-directed language better predicted word acquisition than the same statistics in adult-directed language. Word frequency and repetitions were the best predictors within word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and function words). For all word classes combined, associative structure, contextual diversity and word repetitions best predicted language acquisition. These results support the hypothesis that child-directed language is structured in ways that facilitate language acquisition.

scholarly journals Linguistic Factors Influencing Speech Audiometric Assessment

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Coene ◽  
Stefanie Krijger ◽  
Matthias Meeuws ◽  
Geert De Ceulaer ◽  
Paul J. Govaerts
Keyword(s):  
Target Language ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Verbal Morphology ◽  
Function Words ◽  
Speech Stimuli ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
And Function ◽  
Verbal Repetition ◽  
Cognitive Cost

In speech audiometric testing, hearing performance is typically measured by calculating the number of correct repetitions of a speech stimulus. We investigate to what extent the repetition accuracy of Dutch speech stimuli presented against a background noise is influenced by nonauditory processes. We show that variation in verbal repetition accuracy is partially explained by morpholexical and syntactic features of the target language. Verbs, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and pronouns yield significantly lower correct repetitions than nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. The reduced repetition performance for verbs and function words is probably best explained by the similarities in the perceptual nature of verbal morphology and function words in Dutch. For sentences, an overall negative effect of syntactic complexity on speech repetition accuracy was found. The lowest number of correct repetitions was obtained with passive sentences, reflecting the cognitive cost of processing a noncanonical sentence structure. Taken together, these findings may have important implications for the audiological practice. In combination with hearing loss, linguistic complexity may increase the cognitive demands to process sentences in noise, leading to suboptimal functional hearing in day-to-day listening situations. Using test sentences with varying degrees of syntactic complexity may therefore provide useful information to measure functional hearing benefits.

Function Words of Arabic Origin in Hausa

2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 18-51
Author(s):  
Patryk Zając
Keyword(s):  
Web Site ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Function Words ◽  
And Function ◽  
Contextual Adaptation

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyse Hausa function words of Arabic origin which act as grammatical elements within sentence structure. The twenty-one items identified in Hausa dictionaries as Arabic loans have been presented with reference to their grammatical status (nouns, particles, phrases) and function (co- and subordinators, prepositions). The descriptive features of the Arabic forms and their Hausa counterparts have been taken from reference grammars and verified contextually in regard to their functioning in sentences extracted from texts published on the BBC web-site. As a result, the function words of Arabic origin in Hausa were divided into groups according to their grammatic or pragmatic/stylistic functions. The analysis shows that the Hausa function words are result of contextual adaptation of the Arabic words to the Hausa grammar rather than simply lexical borrowings.

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