LINGUIST List 8.981

Wed Jul 2 1997

Qs: Deictic localization, Psycholing, Xhosa

Editor for this issue: Ann Dizdar <annlinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Matthias Deja, Request for material about deictic localization / local cases
2. DAVID WHARTON, ambiguity in psycholinguistics
3. Michelle Moosally, Xhosa speakers? Coordinate Structure Resources?

We are working on two articles for the Handbook of Typology:

1) deictic localization (expressions like "here", "there", "left",
"downstairs" etc.),

2) local cases,

Of course, we already took notice of basic texts about these problems,
but if anyone has any additional information of the following kind,
please let us know:
a) exotic phenomena in these fields,
b) interesting material from lesser known languages,
c) studies that are of special interest, but may pass unnoticed,
d) latest or forthcoming publications (1997).

Please, contact us directly (esp. if you work in one of these fields
yourself or if you have interesting findings or material).

Martin Haase
Matthias Deja
- -
mdejacl-ki.uni-osnabrueck.de

Dear LINGUISTs,

I've done a pretty thorough reveiw of the psycholinguistic literature
on lexical ambiguity, but I'm left with a question that doesn't seem
to be addressed directly in any of the empirical studies I've
read. It's this: if an ambiguous word has a strongly dominant sense,
is that sense most likely to be the one actually selected in neutral
contexts? Of course the intuitive answer seems obivously to be "yes,"
but I haven't found any formal studies affirming this, as most studies
do not explicitly relate dominance bias or strength of activation with
the processes of sense selection.

Two more general questions: have the findings of Tabossi (refs. below)
pretty much spelled an end to a purely modularist view of lexial
processing?

And finally, to what extent are connectionist explanations of lexical
processing like Kawamoto's (see below) gaining credence among
psycholinguists?

- ----------------
References
- ----------------

Kawamoto, Alan (1993). `Nonlinear Dynamics in the Resolution of
Lexical Ambiguity: A Parallel Distributed Processing Account,' Journal
of Memory and Language, 32, 474-516.

Tabossi, P. 1988. `Accessing lexical ambiguity in different types of
sentential context.' Journal of Memory and Language 27, 324-340.

Tabossi, P., Colombo, L., & Job, R. 1987. `Accessing lexical
ambiguity: Effects of context and dominance.' Psychological Research
49, 161-167.

Tabossi, P., & Zardon, F. 1993. `Processing ambiguous
words in context.' Journal of Memory and Language 32, 359-372.

- -----------------

Thanks,

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
David Wharton
Department of Classical Studies
237 McIver Building
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Greensboro, NC 27412-5001
email: whartonduncg.edu tel. (910)334-5214
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hello, all.

I'm working on issues in class resolution strategies, particularly in
Bantu languages. I'm looking for a native speaker of Xhosa; I would
need grammaticality judgements and some help in constructing test
sentences.

I'm also looking for information on the coordination facts (and
probably eventually native speakers) of Tamil and Telugu.

Any information regarding resources or speakers would be appreciated.

Thanks!

- Michelle Moosally

michelmccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Department of Linguistics
UT-Austin
Austin, TX 78712