Voice and Valency Morphology in Äiwoo

Næss, Åshild

doi:10.1353/ol.2021.0005

Cited by 3 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…In what follows, we corroborate earlier estimates of these probabilities (Næss, 2015a, 2021) with a corpus analysis. We analyzed all digitally available, transcribed texts (Næss, 2017) and annotated the role of preverbal arguments in them.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…Some transitive verbs are only attested in either agent or patient voice, with no counterparts. Naess (2021) gives a comprehensive overview of the voice marking morphology. Intransitive verbs are marked by the same set of prefixes as agent voice verbs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Intransitive verbs are marked by the same set of prefixes as agent voice verbs. However, there is no indication that agent voice verbs are syntactically intransitive beyond the shared morphology (Naess, 2021). 4 In linguistic typology and the language processing literature, these orders are often also termed "OVS" and "SVO," with S defined as the most agent-like and O as the most patient-like argument (Dryer, 2013;Kemmerer, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the role and syntactic function of arguments is indicated by the morphological form of the verb through voice marking (Naess, 2015a(Naess, , 2021. Each transitive verb is marked for either agent voice or patient voice, which select the agent or patient argument, respectively, as syntactically privileged for various syntactic promotion effects (Naess, 2021(Naess, , 2015b. 3 When the arguments of verbs are realized overtly as lexical noun phrases, the basic word order for intransitive sentences is sole argument-verb (SV, example 3a).…”

Section: The Order Of Agents and Patients In äIwoomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Äiwoo, there is no case marking, so that noun phrases are locally ambiguous with respect to their role. However, the role and syntactic function of arguments is indicated by the morphological form of the verb through voice marking (Naess, 2015a(Naess, , 2021. Each transitive verb is marked for either agent voice or patient voice, which select the agent or patient argument, respectively, as syntactically privileged for various syntactic promotion effects (Naess, 2021(Naess, , 2015b.…”

Section: The Order Of Agents and Patients In äIwoomentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

An Agent‐First Preference in a Patient‐First Language During Sentence Comprehension

Sauppe,

Næss,

Roversi

et al. 2023

Cognitive Science

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The language comprehension system preferentially assumes that agents come first during incremental processing. While this might reflect a biologically fixed bias, shared with other domains and other species, the evidence is limited to languages that place agents first, and so the bias could also be learned from usage frequency. Here, we probe the bias with electroencephalography (EEG) in Äiwoo, a language that by default places patients first, but where sentence‐initial nouns are still locally ambiguous between patient or agent roles. Comprehenders transiently interpreted nonhuman nouns as patients, eliciting a negativity when disambiguation was toward the less common agent‐initial order. By contrast and against frequencies, human nouns were transiently interpreted as agents, eliciting an N400‐like negativity when the disambiguation was toward patient‐initial order. Consistent with the notion of a fixed property, the agent bias is robust against usage frequency for human referents. However, this bias can be reversed by frequency experience for nonhuman referents.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Order Of Agents and Patients In äIwoomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Order Of Agents and Patients In äIwoomentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Agent‐First Preference in a Patient‐First Language During Sentence Comprehension

Sauppe,

Næss,

Roversi

et al. 2023

Cognitive Science

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Voice and transitivity in Äiwoo and Engdewu

Næss

2024

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This paper examines the structural and functional links between symmetrical voice systems, typologically unusual and characteristic of western Austronesian languages, and systems of accusative alignment. It compares the clausal patterns of two closely related languages, Äiwoo and Engdewu, where one is analysed as having symmetrical voice and the other as having accusative alignment. It argues that the usage patterns in Äiwoo point towards a possible path of reanalysis from one type of system to another, and that this involves two key factors: increased importance of referentiality of the patient argument as a condition for the choice between two alternative constructions, and loss of the distinction between subject and nonsubject actors in two domains of grammar. Referentiality in particular, being a key factor in the concept of transitivity as it is understood in the typological literature, provides a promising avenue for better understanding the relationships between the two types of system.

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Surprisal From Language Models Can Predict ERPs in Processing Predicate-Argument Structures Only if Enriched by an Agent Preference Principle

Huber,

Sauppe,

Isasi-Isasmendi

et al. 2024

Neurobiology of Language

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Language models based on artificial neural networks increasingly capture key aspects of how humans process sentences. Most notably, model-based surprisals predict event-related potentials such as N400 amplitudes during parsing. Assuming that these models represent realistic estimates of human linguistic experience, their success in modelling language processing raises the possibility that the human processing system relies on no other principles than the general architecture of language models and on sufficient linguistic input. Here, we test this hypothesis on N400 effects observed during the processing of verb-final sentences in German, Basque, and Hindi. By stacking Bayesian generalised additive models, we show that, in each language, N400 amplitudes and topographies in the region of the verb are best predicted when model-based surprisals are complemented by an Agent Preference principle that transiently interprets initial role-ambiguous NPs as agents, leading to reanalysis when this interpretation fails. Our findings demonstrate the need for this principle independently of usage frequencies and structural differences between languages. The principle has an unequal force, however. Compared to surprisal, its effect is weakest in German, stronger in Hindi, and still stronger in Basque. This gradient is correlated with the extent to which grammars allow unmarked NPs to be patients, a structural feature that boosts reanalysis effects. We conclude that language models gain more neurobiological plausibility by incorporating an Agent Preference. Conversely, theories of human processing profit from incorporating surprisal estimates in addition to principles like the Agent Preference, which arguably have distinct evolutionary roots.

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Voice and Valency Morphology in Äiwoo

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

An Agent‐First Preference in a Patient‐First Language During Sentence Comprehension

An Agent‐First Preference in a Patient‐First Language During Sentence Comprehension

Voice and transitivity in Äiwoo and Engdewu

Surprisal From Language Models Can Predict ERPs in Processing Predicate-Argument Structures Only if Enriched by an Agent Preference Principle

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