Eric Pederson

Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization

This project collected linguistic data for spatial relations across a typologically and genetically varied set of languages. In the linguistic analysis, we focus on the ways in which propositions may be functionally equivalent across the linguistic communities while nonetheless representing semantically quite distinctive frames of reference. Running nonlinguistic experiments on subjects from these language communities, we find that a populations cognitive frame of reference correlates with the linguistic frame of reference within the same referential domain.

Geographic and manipulable space in two Tamil linguistic systems

This paper concerns the linguistic and conceptual contrast between 1) egocentric or speaker-relative spatial reference (such as left/right systems) and 2) absolute spatial reference (such as the use of cardinal directions). Urban Tamils, like European culture, use NSEW exclusively with large-scale or geographic space. In stark contrast with this, rural Tamils use absolute NSEW to depict their manipulable space, e.g. objects located on a table, as well as their geographic space. Urban and rural Tamil speakers were asked to match photographs by verbal description. The director and matcher had identical sets to select from, but they could not see one anothers choices. The photos in these sets varied either in the horizontal relations of the depicted objects or along some other nan-targeted relationship. Matches involving horizontal plane relationships were relatively more difficult for speakers using a relative system than for speakers using NSEW. The nature of these errors suggests that fundamental methods of manipulating conceptual representations of space vary according to the basic linguistic system used by each community.

Spatial operations in deixis, cognition, and culture: where to orient oneself in Belhare

Introduction The question I want to raise, ‘Where to orient oneself’, addresses two issues. First, it asks for the type of deictic field within which spatial information is transmitted. This issue is motivated by my attempts to understand what Belhare people mean when they tell you, for instance, to move something toba ‘up’; for it is by no means obvious where toba is. Secondly, the question looks for the domain in which spatial information is encoded and for the relation of this domain to grammar, semantics, and cognition. More specifically, I inquire into the effects that spatial deixis has on the grammar of Belhare, on the quality of different ‘senses’ in deixis (is there linguistically resolvable polysemy? or mere contextual vagueness?), and on the relation of linguistic deixis to other cognitive modalities that are basic to spatial orientation and manifest in cultural patterns and social behaviour. I address the cross-modal questions from a linguistic point of view, seeking for structural parallels in non-linguistic cognition. The language and people I am concerned with are called Belhare (Nep. Belhālre or Belhārīya ) or Belhare Rai, the term Rai (Nep. Rāī ) being the collective ethnonym for a subgroup of the Kiranti (Nep. Kiratī ) people in Eastern Nepal (cf. Vikal & Rāī 2051, Bickel 1996). The language is spoken by some two thousand people. Virtually all speakers are bilingual, also speaking Nepali, the national Indo-Aryan lingua franca, but Belhare is still the preferred means of communication.

How many reference frames

There is considerable cross-disciplinary confusion concerning the taxonomy of reference frames and no standard of comparison for reference frame usage exists to allow reliable comparison of cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, and task-specific variation. This paper proposes that we examine reference frame selection in terms of the underlying component operations. The selection of these operations can be mapped out in a multi-dimensional space defined in terms of the scalar properties of the reference objects and their relationship to the speaker/viewer.

Orienting attention during phonetic training facilitates learning.

The role of consciously directed attention toward speech input in learning has not yet been determined. Previous phonetic learning studies have manipulated acoustic signals and response feedback, but not conscious control over attentional orienting. This study tests whether directed attention facilitates learning of phonetic information. Two monolingual English-speaking groups were trained with feedback on the same auditory stimuli: Hindi words. One group was instructed to attend to the consonants and the other to the vowels. The consonant-oriented group, but not the vowel-oriented group, demonstrated post-training improvement in consonant perception, confirming a role for consciously directed attentional mechanisms during phonetic learning.

Event Representation in Language and Cognition

1. On representing events Eric Pederson and Jurgen Bohnemeyer 2. Event representation in serial verb constructions Andrew Pawley 3. The macro-event property: the segmentation of causal chains Jurgen Bohnemeyer, Nick Enfield, James Essegbey and Sotaro Kita 4. Event representation, time event relations and clause structure: a cross linguistic study of English and German Mary Carroll and Christiane von Stutterheim 5. Event representations in signed languages Asli Ozyurek and Pamela Perniss 6. Linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of complex motion events Jeff Loucks and Eric Pederson 7. Putting things in places: developmental consequences of linguistic typology Dan I. Slobin, Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown, Sonja Eisenbeiss and Bhuvana Narasimhan 8. Language-specific encoding of placement events in gestures Marianne Gullberg 9. Visual encoding of coherent and non-coherent scenes Christian Dobel, Reinhild Glanemann, Helene Kreysa, Pienie Zwitserlood and Sonja Eisenbeiss 10. Talking about events Barbara Tversky, Jeffrey M. Zacks, Julie Bauer Morrison and Bridgette Martin Hard 11. Absent causes, present effects: how omissions cause events Phillip Wolff, Matthew Hausknecht and Kevin Holmes.

Prosodic profile of American Aviation English

Aviation English (AE) is under scrutiny due to miscommunication between international pilots and controllers. To enhance public safety, since 2011, aviation professionals must prove technical and practical English proficiency. Previous studies measure AE speech accuracy by task performance and repeated elements (Barshi and Healy, 2011), and speech comprehensibility using native speaker judgments (Farris et al., 2008). The current study develops a quantifiable index for evaluating AE production based on prosody. Reasonably fluent prosody is critical to language comprehensibility generally, but since AE has no predictable intonation due to signal limitations, lack of function words, standard phraseology and rapid speech rate, we are specifically developing a rhythm profile of Native Speaker AE (NSAE) to evaluate Non-native Speaker AE production and model training methods for different first language (L1) prosodic types. We are training a speech aligner on tapes of US controllers to calculate a baseline for ...

The rhythm of Aviation English by Native American English speakers

Air traffic controllers (ATC) and pilots at international airports must speak Aviation English (AE). Native and non-native English speakers alike must learn and effectively communicate using this technical language based on standard English. This project calculates the rhythmic profile of Native Speaker Aviation English (NSAE), which serves as the target for learners of AE and against which potential communication failures can be evaluated. NSAE rhythmic profile can be contrasted with the first language (L1) prosody to evaluate learner AE production and model training methods for specific L1 AE learners. NSAE generally exhibits flat intonational contours, so we focus on rhythm metrics. Our previous study’s findings demonstrated that NSAE metrics pattern differently than standard American English, falling between “stress-timed” and “syllable-timed” languages. Rhythm metrics based on consonant and vowel duration are affected by AE’s lack of function words (i.e., fewer reducible vowels), standard phraseology...

Event Representation in Language and Cognition: Contents

1. On representing events Eric Pederson and Jurgen Bohnemeyer 2. Event representation in serial verb constructions Andrew Pawley 3. The macro-event property: the segmentation of causal chains Jurgen Bohnemeyer, Nick Enfield, James Essegbey and Sotaro Kita 4. Event representation, time event relations and clause structure: a cross linguistic study of English and German Mary Carroll and Christiane von Stutterheim 5. Event representations in signed languages Asli Ozyurek and Pamela Perniss 6. Linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of complex motion events Jeff Loucks and Eric Pederson 7. Putting things in places: developmental consequences of linguistic typology Dan I. Slobin, Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown, Sonja Eisenbeiss and Bhuvana Narasimhan 8. Language-specific encoding of placement events in gestures Marianne Gullberg 9. Visual encoding of coherent and non-coherent scenes Christian Dobel, Reinhild Glanemann, Helene Kreysa, Pienie Zwitserlood and Sonja Eisenbeiss 10. Talking about events Barbara Tversky, Jeffrey M. Zacks, Julie Bauer Morrison and Bridgette Martin Hard 11. Absent causes, present effects: how omissions cause events Phillip Wolff, Matthew Hausknecht and Kevin Holmes.

Event Representation in Language and Cognition: Contributors

1. On representing events Eric Pederson and Jurgen Bohnemeyer 2. Event representation in serial verb constructions Andrew Pawley 3. The macro-event property: the segmentation of causal chains Jurgen Bohnemeyer, Nick Enfield, James Essegbey and Sotaro Kita 4. Event representation, time event relations and clause structure: a cross linguistic study of English and German Mary Carroll and Christiane von Stutterheim 5. Event representations in signed languages Asli Ozyurek and Pamela Perniss 6. Linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of complex motion events Jeff Loucks and Eric Pederson 7. Putting things in places: developmental consequences of linguistic typology Dan I. Slobin, Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown, Sonja Eisenbeiss and Bhuvana Narasimhan 8. Language-specific encoding of placement events in gestures Marianne Gullberg 9. Visual encoding of coherent and non-coherent scenes Christian Dobel, Reinhild Glanemann, Helene Kreysa, Pienie Zwitserlood and Sonja Eisenbeiss 10. Talking about events Barbara Tversky, Jeffrey M. Zacks, Julie Bauer Morrison and Bridgette Martin Hard 11. Absent causes, present effects: how omissions cause events Phillip Wolff, Matthew Hausknecht and Kevin Holmes.