We apply the largest-chunk segmentation algorithm to texts consisting of syllables as smallest units. The algorithm was proposed in Drienkó (2016, 2017a), where it was used for texts considered to have letters/characters as smallest units. The present study investigates whether the largest chunk segmentation strategy can result in higher precision of boundary inference when syllables are processed rather than characters. The algorithm looks for subsequent largest chunks that occur at least twice in the text, where text means a single sequence of characters, without punctuation or spaces. The results are quantified in terms of four precision metrics: Inference Precision, Alignment Precision, Redundancy, and Boundary Variability. We segment CHILDES texts in four languages: English, Hungarian, Mandarin, and Spanish. The data suggest that syllable-based segmentation enhances inference precision. Thus, our experiments (i) provide further support for the possible role of a cognitive largest-chunk segmentation strategy, and (ii) point to the syllable as a more optimal unit for segmentation than the letter/phoneme/character, (iii) in a cross-linguistic context.

When children tell stories, they gesture; their gestures can predict how their narrative abilities will progress. Five-year-olds who gestured from the point of view of a character (CVPT gesture) when telling stories produced better-structured narratives at later ages (Demir, Levine, & Goldin-Meadow, 2014). But does gesture just predict narrative structure, or can asking children to gesture in a particular way change their narratives? To explore this question, we instructed children to produce CVPT gestures and measured their narrative structure. Forty-four kindergarteners were asked to tell stories after being trained to produce CVPT gestures, gestures from an observer’s viewpoint (OVPT gestures), or after no instruction in gesture. Gestures were coded as CVPT or OVPT, and stories were scored for narrative structure. Children trained to produce CVPT gestures produced more of these gestures, and also had higher narrative structure scores compared to those who received the OVPT training. Children returned for a follow-up session one week later and narrated the stories again. The training received in the first session did not impact narrative structure or recall for the events of the stories. Overall, these results suggest a brief gestural intervention has the potential to enhance narrative structure. Due to the fact that stronger narrative abilities have been correlated with greater success in developing writing and reading skills at later ages, this research has important implications for literacy and education.

This paper studies two types of cognitive factors which have been assumed to underpin people’s interpretation of conditional promises and threats: logic and socio-cognitive assumptions about what conditional promisors and threateners are obliged and permitted to do. We consider whether the logic of conditionals is compatible with the socio-cognitive assumptions underlying their interpretation or whether the two come apart. From the classical logical accounts of conditionals, almost all modern theories have inherited a constraint which specifies that a conditional cannot be true if its antecedent is true and consequent false. This logical constraint is widely assumed to constitute, at least partially, a conditional’s semantics, or ‘core meaning’. A replication of Beller et al.’s (2005) study, reported in this paper, calls for revisiting this long-standing, cross-theoretically assumed constraint. As predicted, we have found that, in English, conditional promises are generally consistent with this logical constraint, but threats are not. Our findings provide evidence for the existence of a new usage-based category of conditional threats, and support the claim that the observed logical asymmetry in the interpretation of conditional promises versus threats is just an epiphenomenon of a socio-cognitive symmetry which pertains to people’s assumptions about the deontic commitments of both conditional promisors and threateners. Based on (i) the observed lack of uniform application of the logical constraint and (ii) a consideration of individual variation in the interpretation of conditional promises and threats, we argue that an exemplar approach to conditionals is a plausible option.

Conceptual metaphor research has benefited from advances in discourse analytic and corpus linguistic methodologies over the years, especially given recent developments with Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. Such technologies are now capable of identifying metaphoric expressions across large bodies of text. Here we focus on how one particular analytic tool, MetaNet, can be used to study everyday discourse about personal and social problems, in particular, poverty and cancer, by leveraging reusable networks of primary metaphors enhanced with specific metaphor subcases. We discuss the advantages of this approach in allowing us to gain valuable insights into cross-linguistic metaphor commonalities and variation. To demonstrate its utility, we analyze corpus data from English and Spanish.

This paper presents a cross-linguistic investigation of a constraint on the use on intrinsic frames of reference proposed by Levelt (1984, 1996). This proposed constraint claims that use of intrinsic frames when the ground object is in non-canonical position is blocked due to conflict with gravitational-based reference frames. Regression models of the data from Arabic, K’iche’, Spanish, Yucatec, and Zapotec suggest that this constraint is valid across languages. However, the strength at which the constraint operates is predicted by the frequency of canonical intrinsic frames in the particular language. The ratio of the incidence of intrinsic usage with canonical vs. non-canonical orientation appears to be remarkably uniform across languages, which suggests the possibility of a strong cognitive universal.

The likelihood with which language users insert optional words or morphemes that explicitly mark syntactic structure tends to increase in complex grammatical environments. This positive correlation between explicitness and complexity, best known as the Complexity Principle, has been observed for a multitude of case studies in both naturally occurring language and experimental settings. Researchers have sought the explanation for this Complexity Principle in three different domains: cognitive comprehension processing, the language channel, and cognitive production processing. Based on these accounts, we formulate predictions regarding the action radius of the Complexity Principle in the alternation between a direct and prepositional object of the Dutch verb zoeken ‘search’. These predictions are tested against corpus observations. Our results confirm accounts according to which optional elements indicate production difficulties, as well as those that explain the Principle as a result of restrictions on the language channel. In addition, our results indicate that the Principle is sensitive to context-determined restrictions that are the result of its underlying cause. This may present a possible caveat for alternation studies.