Meaning, Life and Culture

This book is dedicated to Anna Wierzbicka, one of the most influential and innovative linguists of her generation. Her work spans a number of disciplines, including anthropology, cultural psychology, cognitive science, philosophy and religious studies, as well as her home base of linguistics. She is best known for the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to meaning—a versatile tool for exploring 'big questions' concerning the diversity and universals of people’s experience in the world. In this volume, Anna Wierzbicka’s former students, old and current colleagues, ‘kindred spirits’ and ‘sparring partners’ engage with her ideas and diverse body of work. These authors cover topics from the grammar of action verbs to cross-cultural pragmatics, and over 30 languages from around the world are represented. The chapters in Part 1 focus on the NSM approach and cover four themes: lexico-grammatical semantics, cultural keywords, semantics of nouns, and emotion. In Part 2, the contributors connect with a meaning-based approach from their own intellectual perspectives, including syntax, anthropology, cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics. The deep humanistic perspective, wide-ranging themes and interdisciplinary nature of Wierzbicka’s research are reflected in the contributions. The common thread running through all chapters is the primacy of meaning to the understanding of language and culture

Electrophysiological dynamics of Chinese phonology during visual word recognition in Chinese-English bilinguals

Silent word reading leads to the activation of orthographic (spelling), meaning, as well as phonological (sound) information. For bilinguals, native language information can also be activated automatically when they read words in their second language. For example, when Chinese-English bilinguals read words in their second language (English), the phonology of the Chinese translations is automatically activated. Chinese phonology, however, consists of consonants and vowels (segmental) and tonal information. To what extent these two aspects of Chinese phonology are activated is yet unclear. Here, we used behavioural measures, event-related potentials and oscillatory EEG to investigate Chinese segmental and tonal activation during word recognition. Evidence of Chinese segmental activation was found when bilinguals read English words (faster responses, reduced N400, gamma-band power reduction) and when they read Chinese words (increased LPC, gamma-band power reduction). In contrast, evidence for Chinese tonal activation was only found when bilinguals read Chinese words (gamma-band power increase). Together, our converging behavioural and electrophysiological evidence indicates that Chinese segmental information is activated during English word reading, whereas both segmental and tonal information are activated during Chinese word reading. Importantly, gamma-band oscillations are modulated differently by tonal and segmental activation, suggesting independent processing of Chinese tones and segments

First and second language visual word recognition : neighbourhood effects in Spanish and English

Current models of visual word recognition assume that the recognition of a stimulus word is affected by orthographically similar words (orthographic neighbourhood). In this thesis I explore the effects of neighbourhood on monolingual and bilingual word recognition. In particular I study the influence of Word Frequency, Neighbourhood Size (N) and Neighbourhood Frequency (NF) in English and Spanish lexical processing. N refers to the number of real words that can be created from a given word by changing one letter at a time while preserving letter position. NF refers to the frequency of the neighbours in relation to the frequency of the target word. There is a great deal of controversy as to whether orthographic neighbours facilitate or inhibit lexical processing and whether neighbourhood effects are consistent across languages. These questions are examined in four experiments carried out within the lexical decision paradigm.Experiment 1 investigates the effects of Word Frequency, N and NF with English stimuli and twenty-four English native speakers. Latency differences are not statistically reliable, but they show a tendency for both N and NF to be facilitative of lexical processing. Experiment 2 examines the same variables with Spanish stimuli and sixty-three Spanish native speakers. Data reveals null effects of N and reliable inhibitory effects of NF, with an interaction of NF with Word Frequency. In Spanish having higher frequency neighbours seems to delay lexical decision times, and this effect appears to be stronger for low frequency words. Experiment 3 explores neighbourhood effects in eighty bilingual speakers of English and Spanish with bilingual stimuli presented in two language blocks. General results show null effects of N and significant inhibitory effects of NF. Results by target language show reliable facilitative effects of N in English and highly robust inhibitory effects of NF in Spanish. Experiment 4 further investigates effects of NF in a cross-language lexical decision task with semantic translation) priming done with sixty-four bilingual speakers of English and Spanish. The purpose of the experiment is to examine the strength of cross-language priming effects under four NF conditions (NF Leaders and Nonleaders, for targets and primes). Data shows reliable priming effects in both language directions, LI to L2 and L2 to LI. Data also exhibits significant interaction between language and the priming influence of NF Leader primes and NF Nonleaders primes.The results of these experiments are discussed in the light of current experimental research and in terms of contemporary models of monolingual and bilingual lexical representation. Further questions for future research are outlined

Three Dogmas of First-Order Logic and some Evidence-based Consequences for Constructive Mathematics of differentiating between Hilbertian Theism, Brouwerian Atheism and Finitary Agnosticism

We show how removing faith-based beliefs in current philosophies of classical and constructive mathematics admits formal, evidence-based, definitions of constructive mathematics; of a constructively well-defined logic of a formal mathematical language; and of a constructively well-defined model of such a language. We argue that, from an evidence-based perspective, classical approaches which follow Hilbert's formal definitions of quantification can be labelled `theistic'; whilst constructive approaches based on Brouwer's philosophy of Intuitionism can be labelled `atheistic'. We then adopt what may be labelled a finitary, evidence-based, `agnostic' perspective and argue that Brouwerian atheism is merely a restricted perspective within the finitary agnostic perspective, whilst Hilbertian theism contradicts the finitary agnostic perspective. We then consider the argument that Tarski's classic definitions permit an intelligence---whether human or mechanistic---to admit finitary, evidence-based, definitions of the satisfaction and truth of the atomic formulas of the first-order Peano Arithmetic PA over the domain N of the natural numbers in two, hitherto unsuspected and essentially different, ways. We show that the two definitions correspond to two distinctly different---not necessarily evidence-based but complementary---assignments of satisfaction and truth to the compound formulas of PA over N. We further show that the PA axioms are true over N, and that the PA rules of inference preserve truth over N, under both the complementary interpretations; and conclude some unsuspected constructive consequences of such complementarity for the foundations of mathematics, logic, philosophy, and the physical sciences

Cross-linguistic similarity in Japanese-English bilingual processing and representation

The present thesis is devoted to the analysis of how cognates are processed and represented in the minds of Japanese-English bilinguals. Cognates are an interesting and important category of words in languages as they are distinguished by their similarity across languages, which includes both formal and semantic features. This thesis presents the most comprehensive description and analysis of Japanese-English cognates and how they are processed and represented in the minds of bilinguals. A large number of rating and norming data are presented, which will be of use to researchers in the field of bilingualism who are interested in languages that differ in script, such as Japanese and English. Utilising measures of formal (phonological) and semantic cross-linguistic similarity derived from bilinguals’ ratings, the present thesis presents evidence that cross-linguistic similarity impacts bilingual processing and representation in a variety of tasks, but is modulated by task type and language dominance. The findings of the present study complement previous research, which has often focused on languages that share script (e.g., Dutch-English), while advancing the use of continuous measures of formal and semantic similarity. Such measures are argued to be more appropriate in terms of current cognitive models of bilingual processing and representation. Following a review of previously documented cognitive models, the results are interpreted in terms of the most relevant models that address the issues of cross-linguistic similarity and language proficiency/dominance. The results are important for cognitive science, psycholinguistics and bilingual studies and may also feed into applied linguistics in terms of the potential implications for language learning and teaching

Electrophysiological studies of formal, derivational and repetition priming

ERPs have been found to be sensitive to formal (i.e. orthographic and phonological) and semantic relationships between words, as well as to word repetition. Such effects have been used to argue that the N400 component of the ERP may reflect processing of the representations of words, i.e. 'lexical processing'. If ERPs do reflect lexical processes then they may also be sensitive to morphological relationships between words which are thought to be lexically represented. The first three experiments investigated the sensitivity of ERPs to morphological relationships between words. Modulations of the ERP resulting from derivational, formal and repetition priming were compared. In each case, there was a positive-going shift in the ERP compared to the ERP elicited by unprimed words. However there was little evidence to suggest that the effects found in the derivational priming condition differed from those found when words were formally but not morphologically similar. A subsequent three experiments focused on these ERP formal priming effects. Formal priming effects were found when the proportion of related items was relatively low, with non-words and with words which were only orthographically similar and with words which were both orthographically and phonologically similar. In each case formal and repetition priming were initially of similar magnitude, with the repetition effect subsequently becoming greater in amplitude than the formal effect. Whilst the distribution of the repetition effect for non-words and the formal priming effects for words and non-words tended to be greatest over the right hemisphere, the word repetition effect was largest over the midline. It is concluded that the N400 does not reflect lexical processing, nor is it specific to semantic processing. Instead the N400 may reflect the operation of a similarity-sensitive mechanism which is sensitive to orthographic, phonological and/or semantic similarity and which may operate in an all-or-none fashion

Q(sqrt(-3))-Integral Points on a Mordell Curve

We use an extension of quadratic Chabauty to number fields,recently developed by the author with Balakrishnan, Besser and M ̈uller,combined with a sieving technique, to determine the integral points overQ(√−3) on the Mordell curve y2 = x3 − 4

Word Knowledge and Word Usage

Word storage and processing define a multi-factorial domain of scientific inquiry whose thorough investigation goes well beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplinary taxonomies, to require synergic integration of a wide range of methods, techniques and empirical and experimental findings. The present book intends to approach a few central issues concerning the organization, structure and functioning of the Mental Lexicon, by asking domain experts to look at common, central topics from complementary standpoints, and discuss the advantages of developing converging perspectives. The book will explore the connections between computational and algorithmic models of the mental lexicon, word frequency distributions and information theoretical measures of word families, statistical correlations across psycho-linguistic and cognitive evidence, principles of machine learning and integrative brain models of word storage and processing. Main goal of the book will be to map out the landscape of future research in this area, to foster the development of interdisciplinary curricula and help single-domain specialists understand and address issues and questions as they are raised in other disciplines

Анна Вежбицкая, слова и смыслы

This introduction to the Special Issue summarises Anna Wierzbicka’s contribution to the linguistic study of meaning. It presents the foundations of the approach known as the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) developed by Wierzbicka. The current state of the approach is discussed in the article with the ideas of 65 semantic primitives, universal grammar and the principle of reductive paraphrase in semantic explications. It traces the origin of Wierzbicka’s ideas to Leibniz. The framework has been tested on about thirty languages of diverse origin. The applications of the approach are broad and encompass lexical areas of emotions, social categories, speech act verbs, mental states, artefacts and animals, verbs of motion, kinship terms (among others), as well as grammatical constructions