Idiom and proverb processing in autism: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Figurative language processing impairments in autism have been widely demonstrated, and have been considered a defining feature of autism. Studies in this area often consider different types of figurative language together, and less attention has been paid to identifying the factors that might contribute to difficulties in processing specific types of figurative language. Here we present a preregistered systematic review and meta-analysis of studies assessing the comprehension of idioms and proverbs in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as compared to typically developing (TD) individuals. Idioms are widely used multi-word figurative expressions, which are understood by using contextual information. Proverbs are a related type of fixed, figurative, formulaic expression in a sentential form, typically linked with wisdom. Idioms and proverbs represent forms of figurative language which are more conventionalized and frequently opaquer than metaphors, pointing to a unique way that they are processed in conversational contexts. Our analysis encompassed a total of 11 studies from 10 papers (involving 235 autistic and 224 TD individuals), which met our inclusion criteria (the ASD and TD groups were matched on both chronological age and intelligence). The analysis of accuracy data revealed a group difference favouring the TD over the ASD group, with a medium effect size, and no indication of a publication bias. Participants’ age was unrelated to the magnitude of group differences, but there was a trend for smaller group differences in the case of participants with higher (verbal) intelligence. We discuss these findings with reference to theories related to the nature of figurative language impairments in autism.

On the Membership Problem of Permutation Grammars — A Direct Proof of NP-Completeness

One of the most essential classes of problems related to formal languages is the membership problem (also called word problem), i.e., to decide whether a given input word belongs to the language specified, e.g., by a generative grammar. For context-free languages the problem is solved efficiently by various well-known parsing algorithms. However, there are several important languages that are not context-free. The membership problem of the context-sensitive language class is PSPACE-complete, thus, it is believed that it is generally not solvable in an efficient way. There are various language classes between the above mentioned two classes having membership problems with various complexity. One of these classes, the class of permutation languages, is generated by permutation grammars, i.e., context-free grammars extended with permutation rules, where a permutation rule allows to interchange the position of two consecutive nonterminals in the sentential form. In this paper, the membership problem for permutation languages is studied. A proof is presented to show that this problem is NP-complete.

Response Systems: The Syntax and Semantics of Fragment Answers and Response Particles

This article critically reviews the main research issues raised in the study of response systems in natural languages by addressing the syntax and semantics of fragment answers and yes/no response particles. Fragment answers include replies that do not have a sentential form, whereas response particles consist solely of an affirmative or a negative adverb. While the main research question in the syntax of fragments and response particles has been whether these contain more syntactic structure than what is actually pronounced, the key issues in the study of their semantics are question–answer congruence, the anaphoric potential of response particles, and the meaning of fragments in relation to positive and negative questions. In connection to these issues, this review suggests some interesting avenues for further research: ( a) providing an analysis of particles other than yes/no, ( b) choosing between echoic versus nonechoic forms as answers to polar questions, and ( c) deciding whether some non-lexically-based or nonverbal responses are systematically used in combination with polar particles to express (dis)agreement.

A Pumping Lemma for Permitting Semi-Conditional Languages

Permitting semi-conditional grammars (pSCGs) are extensions of context-free grammars where each rule is associated with a word [Formula: see text] and such a rule can be applied to a sentential form [Formula: see text] only if [Formula: see text] is a subword of [Formula: see text]. We consider permitting generalized SCGs (pgSCGs) where each rule [Formula: see text] is associated with a set of words [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] is applicable only if every word in [Formula: see text] occurs in [Formula: see text]. We investigate the generative power of pgSCGs with no erasing rules and prove a pumping lemma for their languages. Using this lemma we show that pgSCGs are strictly weaker than context-sensitive grammars. This solves a long-lasting open problem concerning the generative power of pSCGs. Moreover, we give a comparison of the generating power of pgSCGs and that of forbidding random context grammars with no erasing rules.

Regular and linear permutation languages

A permutation rule is a non-context-free rule whose both sides contain the same multiset of symbols with at least one non-terminal. This rule does not add or substitute any symbols in the sentential form, but can be used to change the order of neighbouring symbols. In this paper, we consider regular and linear grammars extended with permutation rules. It is established that the generative power of these grammars relies not only on the length of the permutation rules, but also whether we allow or forbid the usage of erasing rules. This is quite surprising, since there is only one non-terminal in sentential forms of derivations for regular or linear grammars. Some decidability problems and closure properties of the generated families of languages are investigated. We also show a link to a similar model which mixes the symbols: grammars with jumping derivation mode.

Deverbal -mine action nominals in the Estonian dialect corpus

This article describes the typical properties and functions of Estonian -mine action nominals, using dialect corpus data. The dialect data entails non-standard spoken language with a regional dimension and therefore has the potential to display more variation in terms of the behaviour of action nominals in actual language use. This will be demonstrated, inter alia, by the non-canonical realization of arguments, e.g. retaining the sentential form of the patient argument, in phrases headed by -mine action nominals. The article also discusses the problems of assigning a word class to the regularly derived and productive type of action nominals, when taking into account all the possible contexts and constructions in which they can occur.Kokkuvõte. Maarja-Liisa Pilvik: Deverbaalsed mine-teonimed eesti murrete korpuses. Artiklis kirjeldatakse eesti keele mine-teonimede tüüpilisi omadusi ja funktsioone, kasutades eesti murrete korpuse andmeid. Murdekorpus sisaldab mittestandardset kõneldud keelt, millel on ka geograafiline dimensioon, ning seetõttu on korpuse andmetel potentsiaal näidata mine-teonimede käitumises tegelikus keelekasutuses laiemat varieerumist. Seda ilmestab muuhulgas verbi argumentide mittekanooniline realiseerumine, nt patsienti väljendav lauseliige võib säilitada oma lauselise vormi nimisõnafraasides, mille peasõnaks mine-teonimi on. Artiklis puudutatakse ka probleeme, mis seonduvad regulaarselt tuletatavatele mine-teonimedele sõnaklassi määramisega, kui võtta arvesse kontekste ja konstruktsioone, milles mine-teonimed võivad esineda.Võtmesõnad: murdesüntaks; teonimed; nominalisatsioon; konstruktsioonid; eesti keel

TOWARD UNDERSTANDING THE GENERATIVE CAPACITY OF ERASING RULES IN MATRIX GRAMMARS

This article presents approaches to the open problem of whether erasing rules can be eliminated in matrix grammars. The class of languages generated by non-erasing matrix grammars is characterized by the newly introduced linear Petri net grammars. Petri net grammars are known to be equivalent to arbitrary matrix grammars (without appearance checking). In linear Petri net grammars, the marking has to be linear in size with respect to the length of the sentential form. The characterization by linear Petri net grammars is then used to show that applying linear erasing to a Petri net language yields a language generated by a non-erasing matrix grammar. It is also shown that in Petri net grammars (with final markings and arbitrary labeling), erasing rules can be eliminated, which yields two reformulations of the problem of whether erasing rules in matrix grammars can be eliminated.