Thomas Pechmann

Timed picture naming in seven languages

Timed picture naming was compared in seven languages that vary along dimensions known to affect lexical access. Analyses over items focused on factors that determine cross-language universals and cross-language disparities. With regard to universals, number of alternative names had large effects on reaction time within and across languages after target-name agreement was controlled, suggesting inhibitory effects from lexical competitors. For all the languages, word frequency and goodness of depiction had large effects, but objective picture complexity did not. Effects of word structure variables (length, syllable structure, compounding, and initial frication) varied markedly over languages. Strong cross-language correlations were found in naming latencies, frequency, and length. Other-language frequency effects were observed (e.g., Chinese frequencies predicting Spanish reaction times) even after within-language effects were controlled (e.g., Spanish frequencies predicting Spanish reaction times). These surprising cross-language correlations challenge widely held assumptions about the lexical locus of length and frequency effects, suggesting instead that they may (at least in part) reflect familiarity and accessibility at a conceptual level that is shared over languages.

The activation of word class information during speech production.

In 5 picture-word interference experiments the activation of word class information was investigated. The first experiment, in which subjects used bare nouns to describe the pictures, failed to reveal any interference effect of noun distractor words as opposed to closed-class distractor words. In the next 4 experiments the pictures were named by using a definite determiner and the noun completing a sentence fragment. The data demonstrate that noun distractors interfere more strongly with picture naming than do non-noun distractors. This held for both visual and auditory presentation of the distractor words. The interference effect showed up in a time window where semantic interference can usually be observed, supporting the assumption that at an early stage of lexical access semantic and syntactic activation processes overlap.

Factors Influencing L2 Gender Processing.

In four experiments we explored processes underlying L2 gender retrieval. We focused on L1 interference and on the influence of the L2 nouns termination. In Experiments 1 and 2 we tried to manipulate the intensity of L1 interference. We found that L2 speakers cannot eliminate or substantially reduce the interlingual interference neither when they know the response language long in advance in a situation in which code-switching is required (Experiment 1), nor when they are close to the monolingual mode (Experiment 2). Experiments 3 and 4 yielded evidence that gender typicality of the L2 nouns termination also exerts an influence on L2 processing, both in production and comprehension. L2 gender thus does not seem to be stored as a fixed feature as it is assumed for L1. Rather, our data support the assumption that it is computed anew each time when needed for processing. Further implications for modeling are discussed.

The time course of recovery for grammatical category information during lexical processing for syntactic construction

In the experiments outlined in this article, the authors investigate lexical access processes in language production. In their earlier work, T. Pechmann and D. Zerbst (2002) reported evidence for grammatical category constraints in a picture-word interference task. Although grammatical category information was not activated when subjects produced bare noun descriptions of simple objects, a robust effect arose when the target word had to be embedded in a syntactic frame. The current experiments demonstrate that compilation of a simple noun phrase (NP) yields word class effects in picture-word interference experiments in the same time frame as that generally observed for semantic processing. Most significantly, the effect emerges both in German and English with very similar profiles. On these grounds, it is implausible that the effect depends on syntactic gender activation, because such constraints are lacking in the English language version of the experiments.

Different Interference Effects in Musicians and a Control Group

In the present study musicians and normal control subjects performed an S1-S2 pitch comparison task, which included the presentation of intervening tones during the retention interval. The time for encoding and storing the pitch of S1 was varied between 200 and 1,500 ms by changing the pause between the S1 offset and the onset of the intervening tones. Although musicians outperformed the control group with longer pauses after the S1 offset, this advantage was relatively small with shorter pauses. These results suggest that the advantage of musicians in storing auditory information is not solely due to their superior encoding of information but also to improved working memory operations.

Gender Processing in First and Second Languages: The Role of Noun Termination.

In 2 picture-naming and 2 grammaticality judgment experiments, the authors explored how the phonological form of a word, especially its termination, affects gender processing by monolinguals and unbalanced bilinguals speaking German. The results of the 2 experiments with native German speakers yielded no significant differences: The reaction times were statistically identical for items from gender typical, ambiguous, and gender atypical groups. The 2 experiments with English bilinguals who had learned German as a second language (L2), however, provided evidence that the L2 words termination plays a role in L2 gender processing. Participants were fastest when producing gender-marked noun phrases containing a noun with a gender typical termination and slowest when the noun had a gender atypical termination. Analogous results were obtained in the grammaticality judgment experiment. These findings support the assumption that there is interaction between the levels of phonological encoding and grammatical encoding at least in bilingual processing.

Wortstellung im deutschen Mittelfeld

Naturliche Sprachen unterscheiden sich betrachtlich in der Freiheit ihrer Wortstellung. Am einen Ende der Skala finden sich Sprachen wie das Englische, das eine sehr rigide Wortstellung hat, zumindest was Phrasenkopfe und ihre Komplemente betrifft. Am anderen Ende stehen Sprachen wie das australische Warlpiri, fur das nur sehr wenige Wortstellungsregeln existieren. Fur einige Zeit wurde angenommen, das diese Sprache jede Permutation der Worter eines Satzes erlaubt (vgl. Hale, 1983). Obwohl sich diese extreme Annahme als unhaltbar erwies, bleibt Warlpiri eine Sprache mit sehr freier Wortstellung. Die Mehrzahl der Sprachen, einschlieslich des Deutschen, stellen eine Mischung aus freier und geregelter Wortstellung dar.

Grammatical Gender in Translation.

In three experiments native speakers of Czech translated bare nouns and gender-marked adjective + noun phrases into German, their second language (L2). In Experiments 1-3 we explored the so-called gender interference effect from first language (L1) as observed in previous picture naming studies (naming latencies were longer when the L1 noun and its L2 translation had different genders than when their genders were congruent). In Experiments 2 and 3 we investigated the influence of gender transparency in L2 (longer latencies when an L2 noun has a gender-atypical or gender-ambiguous termination than when its termination is gender-typical). Although both effects were observed in L2 picture naming, only the gender transparency effect could be demonstrated in L1 to L2 translation tasks. The resulting constraints on L2 gender processing during translation are discussed in the framework of bilingual speech production models.

Priming word order by thematic roles: No evidence for an additional involvement of phrase structure

Three experiments are reported that studied the priming of word order in German. Experiment 1 demonstrated priming of the order of case-marked verb arguments. However, order of noun phrases and order of thematic roles were confounded. In Experiment 2, we therefore aimed at disentangling the impact of these two possible factors. By using primes that differed from targets in phrase structure but were parallel with regard to the order of thematic roles, we nevertheless found priming demonstrating the critical impact of thematic roles. Experiment 3 replicated the priming effects from Experiments 1 and 2 within participants and revealed no evidence for a modulation of priming by phrase structure. Consequently, our findings suggest that word order priming crucially depends on the structural outline of thematic roles rather than on the linearization of phrases.

Bidirectional structural priming across alternations: Evidence from the generation of dative and benefactive alternation structures in German

In two experiments, we investigated the primed generation of dative and benefactive alternation structures in German. As benefactive alternation structures differ from dative alternation structures in event semantics but are assumed to inherit some of their syntactic properties, the crucial question here is whether bidirectional cross-alternation priming can be found. Experiment 1 revealed priming of dative alternation structures by benefactive alternation structures whereas Experiment 2 is the first to our knowledge to show priming of benefactive alternation structures by dative alternation structures. We conclude that structural persistence neither hinges on lexical subcategorisation frames nor is it necessarily sensitive to semantic and syntactic differences associated with dative and benefactive alternation structures. However, the effects we found are compatible with both a phrase structural account and a proto-roles account of structural priming. Moreover, the new sentence generation paradigm we designed qualified as an appropriate method to investigate structural priming for nondepictable events.