| 1. |
- Horne, Merle, et al.
(författare)
-
Timing restrictions on prosodic phrasing
- 2006
-
Ingår i: Nordic Prosody IX. ; , s. 117-126
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Prosodic evidence for the existence of isochronal 2-2.5 sec speech production units is presented. Factors such as F0-declination patterns defined over these 2-2.5 sec. units, as well as boundary tones at the edges of these assumed planning units give support to the idea that prosodic structure serves as an important planning framework for an utterance. The findings provide support for the assumption of a ’Prosodic Planning Hypothesis’ such as that proposed by Shattuck-Hufnagel and Turk (1996) and Shattuck-Hufnagel (2000: 222), who assume that an utterance-specific frame ‘‘independent of its contents plays a role in production processing, and prosodic structure is a natural candidate for this structural frame’’. Similar ideas have also been presented by Wheeldon and Lahiri (1997: 377) who claim that ‘‘articulation is preceded by the generation of an abstract prosodic representation of an utterance’’. Breathing is assumed to play an important role in delimitation of the production units: Inspirations only occur at edges and can thus function as anchors for the grouping of speech into 2-2.5 sec speech chunks. Local prosodic information (pauses, boundary tones (H%/L%) and the timing restriction, can be used to make a further segmentation of spontaneous speech into 2-2.5 sec production units. The existence of such a timing restriction on speech planning can be used in the design of algorithms for the automatic segmentation of speech.
|
|
| 2. |
- Blomberg, Frida, et al.
(författare)
-
The role of affective meaning, semantic associates, and orthographic neighbours in modulating the N400 in single words
- 2020
-
Ingår i: The Mental Lexicon. - : John Benjamins Publishing Company. - 1871-1340 .- 1871-1375. ; 15:2, s. 161-188
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The N400 has been seen to be larger for concrete than abstract words, and for pseudowords than real words. Using a word vector analysis to calculate semantic associates (SA), as well as ratings for emotional arousal (EA), and a measure of orthographic neighbourhood (ON), the present study investigated the relation between these factors and N400 amplitudes during a lexical decision task using Swedish word stimuli. Four noun categories differing in concreteness: specific (squirrel), GENERAL (animal) emotional (happiness) and abstract (tendency) were compared with pseudowords (danalod). Results showed that N400 amplitudes increased in the order emotional < abstract < GENERAL < specific < PSEUDOWORD. A regression analysis showed that the amplitude of the N400 decreased the more semantic associates a word had and the higher the rating for emotional arousal it had. The N400 also increased the more orthographic neighbours a word had. Results provide support for the hierarchical organisation of concrete words assumed in lexical semantics. They also demonstrate how affective information facilitates meaning processing.
|
|
| 3. |
- Roll, Mikael, et al.
(författare)
-
Pre-activation negativity (PrAN) : A neural index of predictive strength of phonological cues
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Laboratory Phonology. - : Open Library of the Humanities. - 1868-6354. ; 14:1, s. 1-28
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We propose that a recently discovered event-related potential (ERP) component—the pre-activation negativity (PrAN)—indexes the predictive strength of phonological cues, including segments, word tones, and sentence-level tones. Specifically, we argue that PrAN is a reflection of the brain’s anticipation of upcoming speech (segments, morphemes, words, and syntactic structures). Findings from a long series of neurolinguistic studies indicate that the effect can be divided into two time windows with different possible brain sources. Between 136 and 200 ms from stimulus onset, it indexes activity mainly in the primary and secondary auditory cortices, reflecting disinhibition of neurons sensitive to the expected acoustic signal, as indicated by the brain regions’ response to predictive certainty rather than sound salience. After ~200 ms, PrAN is related to activity in Broca’s area, possibly reflecting inhibition of irrelevant segments, morphemes, words, and syntactic structures.
|
|
| 4. |
- Grönholm, Erik, et al.
(författare)
-
Predominance of caudate nucleus lesions in acute ischemic stroke patients with impairments in language and speech
- 2016
-
Ingår i: European Journal of Neurology. - : Wiley. - 1351-5101 .- 1468-1331. ; 23:1, s. 148-153
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background and purpose. Whereas traditional views of language processing in the brain have assumed that the language function is concentrated to a limited number of cortical areas (Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas), current knowledge points at a much more complex system of language and speech processing involving many brain areas, both cortical and subcortical. The purpose of the current study was to make an unbiased assessment of which cerebral areas are affected in first-ever acute ischemic stroke patients identified as having language and speech impairments according to the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Methods. Data from thirty-four patients with language and speech impairments, with a score of 1-3 on item 9 on the NIHSS, following ischemic stroke was collected from the Lund Stroke Register. MRI images acquired up to 20 days after stroke onset were used to create an overlap lesion image using MRIcron software. Results. The classical language areas, Wernicke’s and Broca’s area, were affected in less than one fourth of the patients. The most frequently affected region was a subcortical region - the left caudate nucleus and the adjacent corona radiata. Conclusions. These findings contribute to the growing body of evidence that the basal ganglia have a crucial role in the control over language and speech processing.
|
|
| 5. |
- Horne, Merle, et al.
(författare)
-
The filler EH in Swedish
- 2006
-
Ingår i: Working Papers. - 0280-526X. ; 52, s. 65-68
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Findings from a pilot study on the distribution, function and phonetic realization of the filler EH in interviews from SweDia2000 interviews are presented. The results show that EH occurs almost exclusively after function words at the beginning of constituents. The phonetic realization of EH was seen to be of three basic forms: a middle-high vowel (e.g. [e], [ɛ], [ə]), a vowel+nasal (e.g. [ɛm], [əm], [ən]), and a vowel with a creaky phonation. The vowel+vowel realization occurs as has been shown for English before other delays and is associated with planning of complex utterances. Since creaky phonation is associated with terminality, the creaky voice realization of EH could be interpreted as signalling the juncture between the filler and an upcoming disfluency.
|
|
| 6. |
- Johansson, Victoria, et al.
(författare)
-
Språk och hjärna
- 2013. - 1
-
Ingår i: Språket, människan och världen. - Lund : Studentlitteratur AB. - 9789144083391 ; , s. 225-241
-
Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
|
|
| 7. |
- Horne, Merle, et al.
(författare)
-
Question intonation in Southern Swedish
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of Fonetik 2021 : Lund, June 8–9, 2021 - Lund, June 8–9, 2021. - 0280-526X. ; 56, s. 54-57
-
Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Swedish has been generally assumed not to have any well-defined question intonation. However, with respect to Southern Swedish, Lindblad & Gårding (1973) present data showing final rises in polar (Y/N) questions. Gårding (1979) also assumes a broader and higher F0 range in Y/N questions than in statements, particularly on the final focussed word. The present study investigates the extent to which these question cues occur in a material involving spontaneous dialogues led by a speaker of Southern Swedish (Malmö). Results for utterances with question syntax show final rises in 16% of the Y/N questions and 3% of the Wh-questions. For utterances without question syntax, 79% were associated with final rises. Comparing F0 on the first prosodic word of questions, both Y/N-and Wh-questions showed a significantly higher F0 level (ca. 2-3 ST higher) than statements. A further comparison of the F0 level on the most prominent word following the first prosodic word in questions and statements showed that Y/N questions had a higher F0 on the most prominent word than statements. However, Wh-questions did not differ significantly from statements in that respect. Thus initial F0-level appears to be a strong prosodic cue distinguishing between questions (both Y/N questions and Wh-questions) and statements in the Southern Swedish material examined. F0 level on the most prominent word following the first prosodic word is also a reliable prosodic cue distinguishing Y/N questions from statements and Wh-questions, but not for distinguishing between Y/N questions and Wh-questions.
|
|
| 8. |
- Söderström, Pelle, et al.
(författare)
-
Lexical frequency effects on word accent processing in Swedish
- 2016
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Lexical frequency effects on word accent processing in SwedishSeveral studies have investigated the neurophysiological underpinnings of the Swedish word accents, “accent 1” and “accent 2” ([1]-[5]), which are known to have a strong association with morphology ([6]-[8]). For example, if the singular noun suffix -en is attached to the word stem bil (‘car’), the resulting word is bil1-en (‘the car’) where the subscript indicates which word accent is attached. However, if the plural suffix -ar is attached to the stem, the word will be associated with accent 2 (bil2-ar, ‘cars’). The same is true for loan words: the word chatt ‘chat room’ takes accent 1 together with the singular suffix (chatt1-en) and accent 2 with the plural suffix (chatt2-ar). Furthermore, in Central Swedish, accent 2 is associated with compound words. Compounding is highly productive in Swedish, allowing the formation of novel compounds such as trädkrig2 (‘tree war’) or forskningsministerskola2 (‘research minister school’). Even if all constituents making up a compound would individually be accent 1 words, the compound will still have accent 2. For example, although neder1 ‘downwards’ and länderna1 ‘the lands’ are accent 1 words, the compound Nederländerna2 (‘the Netherlands’, example taken from [12]) has accent 2. What is interesting from the point of view of predictive models of language processing is that initial word stems with accent 2 (as opposed to stems with accent 1) could then potentially cue related accent 2 suffixes (e.g. plural, past tense) as well as a potentially infinite number of compounds. Investigations using the electroencephalography/event-related potentials (EEG/ERP) technique have found that words with accent 1 stems elicit larger ERP negativity effects as compared to accent 2 stems. This effect has previously been viewed as a positivity effect driven by accent 2’s prosodic salience ([1]). However, recent investigations have shown that accent 1 stems lead to increased neural activity, meaning that the ERP effect is more likely to be driven by some feature associated with accent 1 stems instead ([4]-[5]). We propose that the accent 1 stem negativity reflects a process by which upcoming suffixes are pre-activated by the word accent. Furthermore, evidence ([3]-[4]) now indicates that accent 1 stems pre-activate their associated suffixes more strongly than accent 2 stems. In the present contribution, we present results that suggest that the stem negativity is modulated by both the token and type frequency of lexical items that are possible continuations of a particular stem.ReferencesM. Roll, M. Horne and M. Lindgren, “Word accents and morphology—ERPs of Swedish word processing,” Brain Research, vol. 1330, pp. 114–123, 2010.M. Roll, P. Söderström and M. Horne, “Word-stem tones cue suffixes in the brain.” Brain Research, vol. 1520, pp. 116–120, 2013. P. Söderström, M. Horne and M. Roll, “Stem tones pre-activate suffixes in the brain,” (submitted).M. Roll, P. Söderström, P. Mannfolk, Y. Shtyrov, M. Johansson, D. van Westen and M. Horne, “Word tones cueing morphosyntactic structure: neuroanatomical substrates and activation time course assessed by EEG and fMRI,” Brain & Language, vol. 150, pp. 14–21, 2015.M. Roll, “A neurolinguistic study of South Swedish word accents: Electrical brain potentials in nouns and verbs,” Nordic Journal of Linguistics, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 149–162, 2015.G. Bruce, Swedish word accents in sentence perspective. Lund: Gleerup, 1977.T. Riad, The Phonology of Swedish. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.J. Rischel, “Morphemic Tone and Word Tone in Eastern Norwegian,” Phonetica, vol. 10, no. 3–4, pp. 154–164, 1963.
|
|
| 9. |
- Gosselke Berthelsen, Sabine, et al.
(författare)
-
Different neural mechanisms for rapid acquisition of words with grammatical tone in learners from tonal and non-tonal backgrounds : ERP evidence
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Brain Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0006-8993. ; 1729
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Initial second language acquisition proceeds surprisingly quickly. Foreign words can sometimes be used within minutes after the first exposure. Yet, it is unclear whether such rapid learning also takes place for more complex, multi-layered properties like words with complex morphosyntax and/or tonal features, and whether it is influenced by transfer from the learners’ native language. To address these questions, we recorded tonal and non-tonal learners’ brain responses while they acquired novel tonal words with grammatical gender and number on two consecutive days. Comparing the novel words to repeated but non-taught pseudoword controls, we found that tonal learners demonstrated a full range of early and late event-related potentials in novel tonal word processing: an early word recognition component (~50 ms), an early left anterior negativity (ELAN), a left anterior negativity (LAN), and a P600. Non-tonal learners exhibited mainly late processing when accessing the meaning of the tonal words: a P600, as well as a LAN after an overnight consolidation. Yet, this group displayed correlations between pitch perception abilities and ELAN, and between acquisition accuracy and LAN, suggesting that certain features may lead to facilitated processing of tonal words in non-tonal learners. Furthermore, the two groups displayed indistinguishable performance at the behavioural level, clearly suggesting that the same learning outcome may be achieved through at least partially different neural mechanisms. Overall, the results suggest that it is possible to rapidly acquire words with grammatical tone and that transfer plays an important role even in very early second language acquisition.
|
|
| 10. |
- Mårtensson, Frida, et al.
(författare)
-
Sensory-specific anomic aphasia following left occipital lesions : Data from free oral descriptions of concrete word meanings
- 2014
-
Ingår i: Neurocase. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1355-4794 .- 1465-3656. ; 20:2, s. 192-207
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present study investigated hierarchical lexical semantic structure in oral descriptions of concrete word meanings produced by a subject (ZZ) diagnosed with anomic aphasia due to left occipital lesions. The focus of the analysis was production of a) nouns at different levels of semantic specificity (e.g., "robin"-"bird"-"animal") and b) words describing sensory or motor experiences (e.g., "blue," "soft," "fly"). Results show that in contrast to healthy and aphasic controls, who produced words at all levels of specificity and mainly vision-related sensory information, ZZ produced almost exclusively nouns at the most non-specific levels and words associated with sound and movement.
|
|
