CiteULike: briordan grammatical-gender

Effects of morphosyntactic gender features in bilingual language processing

Matthias Scheutz — 2008-05-26T14:32:32-00:00

Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4. (2004), pp. 559-588.

A central issue in bilingual research concerns the extent to which linguistic representations in the two languages are processed independently of each other. This paper reports the results of an empirical study and a model stimulation, which provide evidence for the interactive view, which holds that processing is not independent. Specifically, a reading experiment examined whether morpho-syntactic features associated with lexical representations in a bilinguals' native language, in this case the masculine gender feature associated with the er ending of agentive nouns in German, are automatically activated by the processing of morphologically related representations in their second language, in this case English agentive nouns that end in er. Experimental findings suggest that the GermanEnglish bilinguals have a bias to interpret the referents of such nouns as male relative to English monolinguals. Subsequent computational simulation studies with an interactive activation network confirmed that this effect is due to the influence of the morphosyntactic er representation in the bilingual models that is absent in the monolingual models. The results provide evidence for an interactive view of bilingual memory and processing for language learners of age 8 and above. © 2004 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.

Grammatical Gender in Speech Production: Evidence from Czech

Denisa Bordag — 2008-02-18T14:06:41-00:00

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 37, No. 2. (29 March 2008), pp. 69-85.

Abstract Three experiments demonstrate gender congruency effects (i.e., naming times of a picture are faster when the name of the target picture and a distractor noun are gender congruent) in Czech. In the first experiment, subjects named the pictures by producing gender-marked demonstrative pronouns and a noun. In the second and third experiments, subjects produced a gender-marked numeral (marked with a suffix) plus a noun. Two types of such suffixes exist in Czech. Some numerals vary in nominative singular with gender, others do not. The results show significant gender congruency effects in all experiments. They suggest that gender congruency effects can be obtained not only with free, but also with bound morphemes. In the second and third experiment the effect only emerged when the suffix was gender-marked (as opposed to gender-invariant), supporting the view that the gender congruency effect is due to competition at the level of phonological forms rather than at the grammatical level.

Processing definitional and stereotypical gender in reference resolution: Evidence from eye-movements

Hamutal Kreiner — 2008-02-09T01:56:23-00:00

Journal of Memory and Language, Vol. 58, No. 2. (February 2008), pp. 239-261.

Readers immediately slow down when an anaphor (e.g. herself) refers to an antecedent that mismatches in stereotypical gender (e.g. minister). The mismatch-cost has been attributed to a clash between the gender of the pronoun and the gender associated with the stereotypical role noun. However, the nature of such stereotypical gender is still controversial; according to the mental models approach it is inferred from world knowledge, while according to a lexical view it is stored as part of the lexical representation. We report two eye-tracking experiments designed to investigate the processing of stereotypical gender. In these experiments stereotypical nouns (e.g. minister) are contrasted with definitional nouns (e.g. king) in which gender information is part of the definition of the word. Experiment 1 shows that in anaphora sentences, where the role noun is presented earlier than the reflexive that conveys gender information, stereotypical and definitional gender nouns lead to a similar mismatch-cost. Experiment 2 shows that in cataphora sentences, where the reflexive precedes the stereotypical noun, a mismatch-cost is exhibited only for definitional gender nouns. These results indicate that stereotypical gender can be overridden when gender is specified by prior discourse, unlike lexically defined gender. We discuss the differences between these noun types and their implications for the representation and processing of stereotypical gender.

Anticipating Words and Their Gender: An Event-related Brain Potential Study of Semantic Integration, Gender Expectancy, and Gender Agreement in Spanish Sentence Reading

Nicole Wicha — 2007-12-04T21:46:41-00:00

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Vol. 16, No. 7. (September 2004), pp. 1272-1288.

Linguistic Gender and Spoken-Word Recognition in French

Delphine Dahan — 2007-06-06T17:32:28-00:00

Journal of Memory and Language, Vol. 42, No. 4. (May 2000), pp. 465-480.

Eye movements were monitored as French participants followed spoken instructions to use a computer mouse to click on one of four displayed pictures. Experiment 1 demonstrated that, in the absence of grammatical gender in the context preceding the referent name [e.g., cliquez sur les boutons (click on the(plural neut.) buttons(masc.))], participants fixated pictures with names sharing initial sounds with the target [e.g., bouteilles (bottles(fem.))] more than on pictures with phonologically unrelated names, replicating "cohort" effects previously found with this paradigm. When a gender-marked article immediately preceded the noun [e.g., cliquez sur le bouton (click on the(masc.) button)], the early activation of the gender-inconsistent cohort was completely eliminated (Experiment 2). This demonstrates that the set of candidates initially considered for recognition of the noun is constrained by the gender-marked article. Two alternative accounts of these results, one based on grammatical level of processing and the other based on form-based statistics, are discussed.

Facilitatory and inhibitory effects of grammatical agreement: Evidence from readers' eye fixation patterns

Seppo Vainio — 2007-12-04T02:22:06-00:00

Brain and Language, Vol. 85, No. 2. (May 2003), pp. 197-202.

The study examined how grammatical agreement affects reading in Finnish. Readers' eye fixation patterns were recorded when they read one of three alternative versions of the same sentences, where the critical difference was the type of preceding word of the target nouns. The preceding word was (a) an agreeing modifier (mainioksi ORKESTERIKSI=`for an excellent orchestra'), (b) a non-agreeing modifier that was grammatical, unambiguous and synonymous to the agreeing modifier (kelpo ORKESTERIKSI=`for an excellent orchestra'), or (c) a baseline condition without a modifier (orkesteriksi=`for an orchestra'). Two different types of agreement were used, a modifier-head agreement and a possessive agreement. The results showed that the agreeing modifiers facilitate and the non-agreeing modifiers inhibit the reading of the target nouns compared to the neutral baseline condition. These effects appeared in the second-pass reading. The pattern was similar between the two agreement structures.

Young Children Learning Spanish Make Rapid Use of Grammatical Gender in Spoken Word Recognition

Casey Lew-Williams — 2007-04-17T11:42:44-00:00

Psychological Science, Vol. 18, No. 3. (March 2007), pp. 193-198.

“They” as a gender-unspecified singular pronoun: Eye tracking reveals a processing cost

Anthony Sanford — 2007-12-04T02:02:10-00:00

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol. 60, No. 2. (2007), pp. 171-178.

The plural pronouns <i>they</i> and <i>them</i> are used to refer to individuals with unknown gender and when a random allocation of gender is undesirable. Despite this apparently felicitous usage, “singular they/them” should raise processing problems under the theory that pronouns seek gender- and number-matched antecedents. Using eye-tracking, we investigated whether there was any processing cost associated with using singular they/them. There was a clear cost of number incompatibility for they/them. Thus, although singular they/them is in current usage, it does not appear that they/them is immediately tolerant of a plural antecedent, though such may be rapidly accommodated. The data are consistent with the search account of pronoun resolution and preserve the semantics of they/them as denoting plurality.

Grammatical Gender and Number Agreement in Spanish: An ERP Comparison

Horacio Barber — 2007-12-04T01:55:58-00:00

J. Cogn. Neurosci., Vol. 17, No. 1. (1 January 2005), pp. 137-153.

The role of grammatical gender and number representations in syntactic processes during reading in Spanish was studied using the event-related potentials (ERPs) technique. The electroencephalogram was recorded with a dense array of 128 electrodes while Spanish speakers read word pairs (Experiment 1) or sentences (Experiment 2) in which gender or number agreement relationships were manipulated. Disagreement in word pairs formed by a noun and an adjective (e.g., faro-alto [lighthouse-high]) produced an N400-type effect, while word pairs formed by an article and a noun (e.g., el-piano [the-piano]) showed an additional left anterior negativity effect (LAN). Agreement violations with the same words inserted in sentences (e.g., El piano estaba viejo y desafinado [the m-s piano m-s was old m-s and off-key]) resulted in a pattern of LAN-P600. This effect was found both when the violation occurred in the middle of the sentence (at the adjective), as well as when this happened at the beginning of the sentence (at the noun), but the last segment of the P600 effect was greater for the middle sentence position, which could indicate differences in the complexity of reanalysis processes. Differences between grammatical gender and number disagreement were found in late measures. In the word pairs experiment, P3 peak latency varied across conditions, being later for gender than for number disagreement. Similarly, in the sentence experiment, the last segment of the P600 effect was greater for gender than for number violations. These event-related potentials (ERPs) effects lend support to the idea that reanalysis or repair processes after grammatical disagreement detection could involve more steps in the case of gender disagreement, as grammatical gender is a feature of the lexical representation in contrast to number, which is considered a morphological feature that combines with the stem of the word.