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Showing papers on "Head (linguistics) published in 2011"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article showed that the head of a relative construction cannot be more complex than a lexical item and showed massive evidence that when it is otherwise (e.g., the book about Obama that you bought), the modifier is late-merged after the noun has moved and relabeled the structure.
Abstract: A tenet of any version of phrase structure theory is that a lexical item can transmit its label when merged with another category. We assume that if it is internally merged, a lexical item can turn a clause into a nominal phrase. If the relabeling lexical item is a wh-word, a free relative results; if it is an N, a full relative results; if it is a non-wh D, a pseudorelative results. It follows that the head of a relative construction cannot be more complex than a lexical item. We show massive evidence that when it is otherwise (e.g., the book about Obama that you bought), the modifier is late-merged after the noun has moved and relabeled the structure.

84 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Two subject-verb agreement error elicitation studies indicate that agreement processes are strongly constrained by grammatical-level scope of planning, with local nouns planned closer to the head having a greater chance of interfering with agreement computation.

70 citations


BookDOI
03 Mar 2011

63 citations


Proceedings Article
01 Sep 2011
TL;DR: A new 3D photo-realistic talking head with a personalized, photo realistic appearance is proposed that has many useful applications such as voice-agent, tele-presence, gaming, social networking, etc.
Abstract: We propose a new 3D photo-realistic talking head with a personalized, photo realistic appearance. Different head motions and facial expressions can be freely controlled and rendered. It extends our prior, high-quality, 2D photo-realistic talking head to 3D. Around 20-minutes of audio-visual 2D video are first recorded with read prompted sentences spoken by a speaker. We use a 2D-to-3D reconstruction algorithm to automatically adapt a general 3D head mesh model to the individual. In training, super feature vectors consisting of 3D geometry, texture and speech are formed to train a statistical, multi-streamed, Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The HMM is then used to synthesize both the trajectories of geometry animation and dynamic texture. The 3D talking head animation can be controlled by the rendered geometric trajectory while the facial expressions and articulator movements are rendered with the dynamic 2D image sequences. Head motions and facial expression can also be separately controlled by manipulating corresponding parameters. The new 3D talking head has many useful applications such as voice-agent, tele-presence, gaming, social networking, etc.

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results provide evidence for a sentence-com composition effect analogous to the list-composition effect that has been well documented in memory research, in which the pattern of recall for common versus unusual items is different, depending on whether items are studied in a pure or mixed list context.
Abstract: In 2 experiments, the authors used an eye tracking while reading methodology to examine how different configurations of common noun phrases versus unusual noun phrases (NPs) influenced the difference in processing difficulty between sentences containing object- and subject-extracted relative clauses. Results showed that processing difficulty was reduced when the head NP was unusual relative to the embedded NP, as manipulated by lexical frequency. When both NPs were common or both were unusual, results showed strong effects of both commonness and sentence structure, but no interaction. In contrast, when 1 NP was common and the other was unusual, results showed the critical interaction. These results provide evidence for a sentence-composition effect analogous to the list-composition effect that has been well documented in memory research, in which the pattern of recall for common versus unusual items is different, depending on whether items are studied in a pure or mixed list context. This work represents an important step in integrating the list-memory and sentence-processing literatures and provides additional support for the usefulness of studying complex sentence processing from the perspective of memory-based models.

29 citations


Book
24 Jun 2011
TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that the non-projecting head moves to the specifier of the projecting head to eliminate symmetric c-command and establish linear order, and this process triggers successive compl-to-spec movement until a phonologically empty head is merged into the derivation.
Abstract: This thesis is concerned with how syntactic structures are mapped into a linear order. As a starting point, I consider the initial merger of two heads, a and b, which forms the unordered set {?, {a, b}}, where ? is the label of the set. The two heads, a and b c-command each other, in violation of Kayne’s Linear Correspondence Axiom. Adopting Moro’s Dynamic Antisymmetry, I propose that the non-projecting head moves to the specifier of the projecting head to eliminate symmetric c-command and establish linear order. This process triggers successive compl-to-spec movement until a phonologically empty head is merged into the derivation. Since phonologically empty elements do not need to be linearized, compl-to-spec movement is not required to break symmetric c-command. This process is the theoretical kernel of this thesis – that phrase structure is sensitive to the needs of PF, namely, the need to attain linear order, and that phrase structure is manipulated early in the derivation to achieve linear order. Empirically, this thesis is concerned with noun incorporation principally in Oneida (Iroquoian), but other languages are considered. It recognizes the robust cross-linguistic generalization for noun incorporation constructions to form N+V sequences, while non-incorporated constructions exhibit V+DP sequences (SOV languages aside, whose word order properties reduce to factors extraneous to those considered here). This thesis puts forth the proposal that noun incorporation arises by the need for grammar to be able to linearize the derivation. Thus, when a verb merges with a bare noun the {V, N} set is symmetric, thus non-linearizable. This symmetry forces compl-to-spec raising, giving rise to the observed N + V order. When the verb merges with a full DP, the verb asymmetrically c-commands material inside the DP, thus no compl-to-spec movement is required here. The empirical kernel of this thesis then is a Dynamic Antisymmetric treatment of the syntax of noun incorporation in which the cross-linguistically robust N + V sequence falls out as a consequence of the attempt on the part of phrase structure to achieve linearity.

28 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An experiment is presented showing that French 16-month-olds are able to exploit phonological phrase boundaries in order to constrain lexical access, and the conditioned head-turning technique is used, showing that infants trained to turn their head for a bisyllabic word responded more often to sentences that contained this word.
Abstract: Infants who are in the process of acquiring their mother tongue have to find a way of segmenting the continuous speech stream into word-sized units. We present an experiment showing that French 16-month-olds are able to exploit phonological phrase boundaries in order to constrain lexical access. Using the conditioned head-turning technique, we showed that infants trained to turn their head for a bisyllabic word responded more often to sentences that contained this word, than to sentences that contained both syllables of this word separated by a phonological phrase boundary. We compare these results with similar results obtained with English-speaking infants, and discuss their implication for lexical and syntactic acquisition.

22 citations


Book ChapterDOI
06 Jun 2011
TL;DR: The HeadDriven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) as mentioned in this paper is a grammar based on the Head-Driven Semantic Programming (HDSP) model.
Abstract: This chapter describes the theoretical foundations and descriptive mechanisms of HeadDriven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), as well as proposed treatments for a number of familiar grammatical phenomena. The anticipated reader has some familiarity with syntactic phenomena and the function of a theory of syntax, but not necessarily any expertise with modern theories of phrase structure grammar. The goal of this chapter is not so much to provide a tutorial in some consistent (and inevitably dated) version of HPSG as to explicate the philosophy and techniques of HPSG grammars, and to familiarize readers with foundations and techniques of HPSG accounts of grammatical phenomena so that readers can access the primary literature. In my opinion, the best means to fully understanding this approach, and to being able to write and read HPSG grammars, is to build an HPSG grammar from scratch, inventing and revising the details as one goes along, in accordance with the constraints imposed by the formal model (but not necessarily by every constraint ever proposed in the language of that model). This chapter assumes the reader is curious about HPSG, perhaps attracted by claims that it aims for psychological plausibility, or that it is computationally tractable and adaptable for computational implementations in both research and practical applications, or perhaps merely interested in seeing how HPSG accounts for the properties of natural languages that any adequate theory of natural language must account for. I have sought to provide an indepth introduction to the guiding principles and the nuts and bolts, as well to the notation, and to forgo the hard sell. Section 1.2 describes the character of HPSG grammars, and the elements and axioms of the system. Section 1.3 describes how linguistic entities are modeled,

21 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An online picture description methodology was used to investigate the interaction between lexical and syntactic information in spoken sentence production and demonstrated that lexical repetition returns when the effect of sentence structure is removed.
Abstract: An online picture description methodology was used to investigate the interaction between lexical and syntactic information in spoken sentence production. In response to arrays of moving pictures, participants generated prepositional sentences, such as "The apple moves towards the dog," as well as coordinate noun phrase sentences, such as "The apple and the dog move up." In Experiments 1 and 2, speakers produced the same sentence structures on prime and target trials. In addition, a pictured object was repeated in either similar or different sentence positions. Lexical repetition speeded sentence production when it occurred on the first item of the target sentence (Experiments 1 and 2). However, priming was dependent on the structural position of the to-be-repeated word in the prime sentence. In particular, a noun that occurred in a prepositional phrase did not result in facilitation when it was repeated as the head of the subject phrase (Experiment 1). This effect was shown to be independent of differences in the linear position of the repeated word in prime and target trials (Experiments 2). Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that lexical repetition returns when the effect of sentence structure is removed. Possible mechanisms for this interaction between lexical and structural repetition are explored.

19 citations


BookDOI
18 Aug 2011

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Reading compound words was studied in neglect dyslexia in order to assess the influence of 'headedness' and it is suggested that attention is captured by the head component after implicit reading of the whole word.

BookDOI
Naoki Fukui1
03 Mar 2011
TL;DR: This paper reviewed the history of modern linguistics to see how these characteristics have been captured by various different components of grammar, focusing on the operation Merge, which is assumed in bare phrase structure theory to be the fundamental operation in human language, and discuss its properties and problems.
Abstract: This chapter reviews the history of modern linguistics, to see how these characteristics have been captured by various different components of grammar. It focuses on the operation Merge, which is assumed in bare phrase structure theory to be the fundamental operation in human language, and discuss its properties and problems. The chapter explores a few different interpretations of Merge and related operations, and discusses some implications for comparative syntax, particularly Japanese syntax. Phrase structure in human language is generally "endocentric," in the sense that it is constructed based on a certain central element–called the "head" of a phrase–which determines the essential properties of the phrase, accompanied by other non-central elements, thus forming a larger structure. Phrase structure rules are too permissive as a theory of phrase structure in human language, in that they overgenerate phrase structures that are never actually permitted in human language, those structures that are not headed.

Journal Article
TL;DR: The present article documents the presence in a number of languages and language families (as well as in various child languages) of relative clauses displaying simultaneously an internal and an external head, and considers the implications of this finding for the general theory of relative clause.
Abstract: The present article documents the presence in a number of languages and language families (as well as in various child languages) of relative clauses displaying simultaneously an internal and an external head, and considers the implications of this finding for the general theory of relative clauses.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the distribution of gender exponents in early Middle English is discussed based on an analysis of two historical documents (Orosius, Peterborough Chronicle) and the most important factors responsible for the observable variation focusing on the properties of the head nouns and their referents.
Abstract: In this study we discuss the distribution of gender exponents in Old and early Middle English based on an analysis of two historical documents (Orosius, Peterborough Chronicle). The gender exponents investigated include demonstratives, adjectives, numerals and pronouns. We analyzed 179 noun phrases from the Orosius and 1,090 noun phrases from the Peterborough Chronicle. While the Orosius illustrates a highly consistent distribution of gender exponents, the Peterborough Chronicle contains substantial variation. As for the Peterborough Chronicle, we can demonstrate that the number of gender exponents that is used in conflict to the Old English gender system increases over time. In addition, we investigate the most important factors responsible for the observable variation focusing on the properties of the head nouns and their referents. Our results show that noun phrase internal and noun phrase external gender exponents behave differently. Moreover, formal properties of the head noun (structural and morphological case, number) are better predictors for gender variation than the properties of the referent (abstractness, degree of individuation).

01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Very often, the data the authors study as linguists are discrete in nature and the linguistic elements they study come in different categories and, trivially, if two elements are labeled the same, they belong to the same category, and if they are labeled differently, they belongs to different categories.
Abstract: Very often, the data we study as linguists are discrete in nature. That is, the linguistic elements we study come in different categories and, trivially, if two elements are labeled the same, they belong to the same category, and if they are labeled differently, they belong to different categories. In statistical approaches, this kind of scenario is usually described with the terminology of variables (or factors) and their levels. For example, when direct objects are studied, it may be interesting to describe them in terms of which part of speech the direct object's head is. In other terminology, each direct object studied is then described with regard to the variable PART OF SPEECH by assigning a particular variable level to it; depending on what the direct objects look like, the following levels are conceivable: PART OF SPEECH: LEXICAL NOUN, PART OF SPEECH: PRONOUN, PART OF SPEECH: SEMIPRONOUN, (such as matters or things), etc. Trivially, if direct objects are categorized this way, then a direct object whose head is categorized as PART OF SPEECH: PRONOUN is, for the purposes of this analysis, identical to another one whose head is categorized as PART OF SPEECH: PRONOUN and different from one whose head is categorized as PART OF SPEECH: LEXICAL NOUN. On other occasions, the observed variables are actually not discrete, but continuous, but for the purposes of an analysis they may be grouped into two or more categories such as

Journal ArticleDOI
John Bowers1
01 May 2011-Lingua
TL;DR: The authors showed that if noun incorporation is syntactic, then productive compounds such as deer hunter, painting consignor, etc. can be derived syntactically as well and that the order of incorporated nouns in such structures mirrors precisely the order in which argument categories are merged.

Mustafa Aksan1
18 Aug 2011
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of the body parts in the embodied conceptualization of social stratification in Turkish is investigated, exploiting the image schema of verticality (up-down), where the head (up) profiles the cultural metonymies head for order, head for ruler, and head for talent while the foot (down) profiles conceptual metaphors such as less is down, low status is down and being subject to control or force is down.
Abstract: Terms for the body parts head and feet appear in various conceptual metonymies and metaphors in Turkish. This chapter investigates the role of these body parts in the embodied conceptualization of social stratification in Turkish, exploiting the image schema of verticality (up-down). The head (up) profiles the cultural metonymies head for order, head for ruler, head for talent. The foot (down) profiles conceptual metaphors such as less is down, low status is down, and being subject to control or force is down. As a consequence of these metaphoric and metonymic folk models, ‘head’ most often implies positive cultural values whereas ‘foot’ is evaluated negatively. Cases are analyzed in which terms for ‘head’ and ‘feet’ combine in a number of metonymies and metaphors. In such expressions, the position of body parts on the verticality scale is used to conceptualize contrasts in social stratification.

01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: An analysis for ne...que is provided that assimilates the construction to the syntax of a reduced clausal comparative, and if the exception phrase following que is treated as the remnant of an elliptical clause adjoined to an optionally covert NPI, the syntactic properties of ne…que cease to be problematic.
Abstract: This paper examines the syntax of the French neque exceptive construction Although ne is typically analyzed as the negative head, and que as a complementizer, in this construction, the distribution of these morphemes is anything but typical In the interest of lexical economy, this paper provides an analysis for neque that assimilates the construction to the syntax of a reduced clausal comparative If the exception phrase following que is treated as the remnant of an elliptical clause adjoined to an optionally covert NPI, the syntactic properties of neque cease to be problematic

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article analyzed adjectival modification in elliptical NPs based on a corpus analysis and showed that adjectives can be used without nominal heads in English without the need of a nominal head.
Abstract: This article analyses adjectival modification in elliptical NPs based on a corpus analysis. It illustrates the fact that descriptive adjectives can be used without nominal heads in English. Whereas in spoken language adjectives denoting more inherent properties feature prominently when the referents are present in the text-external world, no particular types of adjectives appear in written language. In terms of the latter, two major types of linguistic contexts are identified which do not require the use of a nominal head. It is argued that a conception of ‘contrast’ as a ‘non-identity’ condition cannot account for the variation between one-replacement and noun ellipsis since it holds for both phenomena. Similarly, partitivity is argued not to be a relevant requirement for the use of adjectives without nouns.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that this movement serves to avoid violating locality when the T head tries to enter into a multiple agreement relation with the adjective as well as with the subject.
Abstract: Corver (2009) accounts for the postadjectival placement of the measure phrase in Romance by preposing the adjectival phrase over the measure phrase. I show that this movement serves to avoid violating locality when the T head tries to enter into a multiple agreement relation with the adjective as well as with the subject. I also suggest that the feature content of the potentially intervening measure phrase influences the range of parametric options.

Journal Article
TL;DR: Speakers were faster to initiate speech when the head and local noun were integrated than when they were unintegrated, suggesting that speakers who do more advance planning are more likely to experience interfer- ence during agreement computation.


01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: In this article, the correlation between head movement and focus assignment is studied, both in the laboratory and in spontaneous speech, with the aim of finding out what these head movements look like in detail.
Abstract: Speech communication normally involves not only speech but also face and head movements. In the present investigation, the correlation between head movement and focus assignment is studied, both in the laboratory and in spontaneous speech, with the aim of finding out what these head movements look like in detail. Specifically addressed questions are whether the head movements are an obligatory signal of focus assignment, and in that case how often a head movement will accompany the prosodic information. Also studied are where in the focused word the head movement has its extreme value, the relationship of that value to the extreme value of the fundamental frequency, and whether it is possible to simulate the head movements that accompany focal accent with a secondary order linear system. In this study, the head movements are recorded by the Qualisys MacReflex motion tracking system simultaneously with the speech signal. The results show that, for the subjects studied, the head movements that coincide with the signalling of focal accent in the speech signal, in most cases, have their extreme values at the primary stressed syllable of the word carrying focal accent, independent of the word accent type in Swedish. It should be noted that focal accent in Swedish has the fundamental frequency manifestation in words carrying the word accent II on the secondary stressed vowel. The time required for the head movement to reach the extreme value is longer than the corresponding time for the fundamental frequency rise probably due to the mass of the head in comparison to the structure involved for the fundamental frequency manipulation. The head movements are simulated with a high accuracy by a second order linear system.



Proceedings Article
01 Dec 2011
TL;DR: This study has found that the semantic information of a compound event noun can be inherited from the modifier or the head, and the modifier acts as a qualia role of the head.
Abstract: Event nouns can lexically encode eventive information. Recently these nouns have generated considerable scholarly interest. However, little research has been conducted in their morphological and syntactic structure, qualia modification, event representing feature, and information inheritance characteristics. This study has these main findings. 1) Morphologically, the modifier and the head is either free or bound morpheme. Syntactically the modifier is a nominal, adjectival, verbal or numeral morpheme, while the head is a nominal morpheme. 2) The modifier acts as a qualia role of the head. 3) All heads represent events, while the modifier is or is not an event. 4) The semantic information of a compound event noun can be inherited from the modifier or the head.

18 Aug 2011
TL;DR: This article investigated the importance of the human body in shaping conceptualization and categorization, relying on a corpus constructed from German and Indonesian newspapers and found that the metaphoric and metonymic extensions of head and eye differ strikingly in frequency of occurrence in the two languages.
Abstract: n this chapter I investigate the importance of the human body in shaping conceptualization and categorization, relying on a corpus constructed from German and Indonesian newspapers. The figurative extensions of two source concepts, head and eye, are compared across the two genetically unrelated languages. My data provide evidence that a given source concept often targets the same conceptual domain in both languages (e.g. (human) leader or character traits); yet they also reveal interesting language-specific distinctions. A quantitative analysis of the corpus data shows that the metaphoric and metonymic extensions of head and eye differ strikingly in frequency of occurrence in the two languages. The findings indicate that German speakers have a preference for targeting the function of Kopf ‘head’ and Auge ‘eye’, while Indonesian speakers preferentially target the position of kepala ‘head’ and the appearance or shape of mata ‘eye’.

Journal Article
TL;DR: This paper showed that an action nominal construction can have internal structural properties that are neither noun-phrase-like nor clause-like, with the conclusion that this is indeed a possibility and discussed a number of examples of this type.
Abstract: Earlier work has shown clearly that action nominals can be characterized in terms of the extent to which their internal structure is noun-phrase-like (corresponding to a construction with a noun as its head) versus clause-like (corresponding to a construction with a verb as its head).1 Different languages combine different nounphrase and clause properties, with some restrictions on the possible combinations. A question that arises is whether an action nominal construction can have internal structural properties that are neither noun-phrase-like nor clause-like. A number of examples of this type are discussed, with the conclusion that this is indeed a possibility. The debate relates to the broader issue of the genesis of new parts of speech, since the consideration of action nominals between verbs and nouns also impinges on such issues as the status of adjectives between verbs and nouns or of participles between verbs and adjectives.