PD Dr. Martina Penke

Foto

Anschrift/Address:

Institut für Sprache und Information (Abt. Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft)
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Universitätsstr. 1
D-40225 Düsseldorf
Germany

Tel: ++49-211-8112925
e-mail:@

Sprechstunde:  Fr. 16.00-17.00 Uhr
Büro: Geb. 23.21.04.47



Inhaltsverzeichnis/Content




Arbeits- und Forschungsschwerpunkte / Research Interests [english version]

I.         Erforschung von Sprach- und Sprachentwicklungsstörungen

Deskriptive und theoretische Charakterisierung erhaltener und gestörter sprachlicher Leistungen sprachgestörter Sprecher insbesondere in den sprachlichen Phänomenbereichen:
a.    Flexionsmorphologie (Subjekt-Verb-Kongruenz, Nominalflexion, Partizipflexion)
b.    Syntax (Verbstellung und -bewegung, Frage- und Nebensätze, Nominalphrasen)
c.    Morphophonologie

  Untersuchte Störungsbilder: Broca-Aphasie, Morbus Parkinson, Williams Syndrom.


    II.        Arbeiten zum Spracherwerb

  Untersuchungen zum Erwerb von Phonologie, Morphologie und Syntax, zur Interaktion von Morphologie und Syntax sowie zur Interaktion von Phonologie und Morphologie bei monolingual deutschsprachigen Kindern.

 

III.       Untersuchung von Fragestellungen aus dem Bereich der theoretischen Linguistik mit den Methoden der Neurolinguistik und Psycholinguistik

a.     Untersuchungen zur mentalen Repräsentation regulär und irregulär flektierter Formen, zur Struktur und Organisation von Affixeinträgen im Mentalen Lexikon sowie zur Interaktion von Phonologie und Morphologie:

-       Studien an Broca-Aphasikern, Patienten mit Morbus Parkinson, Jugendlichen mit Williams Syndrom

-       EKP-Studien

-       Reaktionszeitexperimente

b.     EKP-Studien und Reaktionszeitexperimente zur deutschen Verbstellung

c.    in Kooperation mit Dr. Dr. Peter Indefrey (MPI für Psycholinguistik sowie Donders Center, Nijmegen) Untersuchungen zur Wortsemantik des Deutschen und zur neuronalen Lokalisation semantischer Merkmale mittels Reaktionszeitexperimenten und bildgebenden Verfahren (PET, fMRT).

 

IV.   Computer-Modellierung

       In Zusammenarbeit mit Dr. Gert Westermann (Oxford Brookes University) Simulation von Spracherwerb und Sprachstörungen im Bereich der Partizipflexion und der nominalen Pluralflexion des Deutschen in konnektionistischen neuronalen Netzen.

[zurück]




Wissenschaftlicher Werdegang / CV


ab 10. 2006:                 Vertretung des Lehrstuhls für Angewandte Sprachwissenschaft am Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft der Universität                                        Hamburg

10. 2005 - 07. 2006:    Lehrstuhlvertretung und Leitung des Seminars für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft am Institut für Sprache und Information                                        der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf

14. Januar 2003:          Abschluss des Habilitationsverfahrens und Erteilung von Lehrbefähigung und Lehrbefugnis für das Fach
                                       Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft an der Philosophischen Fakultät der Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf


                                            Titel der Habilitationsschrift:  "Flexion im mentalen Lexikon: eine neuro- und psycholinguistische
                                                                                              Perspektive
"

seit März 1999:           wissenschaftliche Assistentin (C1) am Institut für Sprache und Information, Abteilung Allgemeine
                                      Sprachwissenschaft (ISI) der Universität Düsseldorf

1997-2002:                  Leiterin des Projekts C8: "Neurolinguistische Untersuchun­gen zur Flexions- und Derivationsmorphologie"
                                      im Sonder­forschungsbereich "282 Theorie des Lexikons" an der Universität Düsseldorf

1996 – 1999:               wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am ISI der Universität Düsseldorf

19. Dezember 1996: Promotion zum Dr. phil. in Allgemeiner Sprachwissenschaft an der Universität Düsseldorf.

                                          Titel der Dissertation:         "Die Grammatik des Agrammatismus: Eine linguistische Untersuchung
                                                                                          zu Wortstellung und Flexion bei Broca-Aphasie
"

1995 - 1996:                wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Deutsche Sprache und Literatur der Universität zu Köln

1993 - 1995:                wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am ISI der Universität Düsseldorf, i. V. für Prof. Dr. Harald Clahsen

1989 - 1993:                Mitarbeit als stud. Hilfskraft bzw. als wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (1.4.-31.7.1993) im DFG-Projekt
                                      "LEXLERN" von Harald Clahsen an der Universität Düsseldorf

18. Februar 1993:       Magister in Allgemeiner Sprachwissenschaft an der Universität Düsseldorf. Note: mit Auszeichnung

                                             Thema:         "Agrammatismus als syntaktisches Defizit"


1987 – 1993:               Magisterstudium an der Universität Düsseldorf
                                      Fächerkombination: Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Neurologie, Philosophie

[zurück]



Forschungsprojekte / Research Projects 

DFG-Projekt:     "C8 Neurolinguistische Untersuchungen zur Flexions- und Deri­vationsmorphologie"/ "Neurolinguistic research in inflectional morphology" im Sonderforschungsbereich "282 Theorie des Lexikons" an der Universität Düsseldorf

                                    [http://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/sfb282/C8/]

                                    Förderungsdauer: sechs Jahre

                                    Mitarbeiter: 2 stud. Hilfskräfte, 2 wiss. Mitarbeiterinnen

Human Frontier Science Projekt:

Mitarbeit im Projekt "Semantic fields and grammatical class effects in language use: behavioral and neuroscientific investigation" (RG0148/2000-B, 2000-2003).  Antrag von Dr. Gabriella Vigliocco et al.

    Dauer: 09/2000 – 09/2003.

    Mitarbeiter: 2 studentische Hilfskräfte.

DFG-Netzwerk:

Thema:           "CP- und IP-relatierte Elemente in germanischen Sprachen: Evidenz aus normaler und gestörter
Sprache"

Antragsteller:   Dr. Frank Burchert (Institut für Linguistik/ Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft Universität Potsdam)

Mitglieder:        Prof. Dr. Ria De Bleser (Potsdam), PD Dr. Martina Penke (Düsseldorf), Prof. Dr. Josef Bayer (Konstanz), Dr. Ulrike Jansen (Marburg), Dr. Sonja Kotz (Leipzig), Dr. Andre Meinunger (Berlin), Dr. Arild Hestvik (Bergen), Dr. Naama Friedmann (Tel Aviv), Dr. Esterella de Roo (Leiden/Brüssel)


Royal Society Research Grant:

"TMS investigations of morphology in Broca's area"

Antragsteller: Joseph T. Devlin, FMRIB, University of Oxford, Martina Penke, Gert Westermann (Oxford Brookes University)


[zurück]



 Publikationen / Publications 

Monographien:

Penke, M. (2006): Flexion im mentalen Lexikon. Max Niemeyer: Tübingen.

Penke, M. (1998): Die Grammatik des Agrammatismus: Eine linguistische Untersuchung zu Wortstellung und Flexion bei Broca-Aphasie. Max Niemeyer: Tübingen.


Herausgeberschaften:

Penke, M. & A. Rosenbach (2004): What counts as evidence in linguistics? – The case of innateness. Sonderband der Zeitschrift Studies in Language, 28 (2). Benjamins: Amsterdam.


Artikel in Fachzeitschriften und Sammelbänden

Penke, M. (in Vorbereitung): "Sprachgene? Genetische Befunde und ihre Relevanz für die Diskussion um die genetische Fundierung der Sprach­fähigkeit".

Penke, M. (in Vorbereitung): "Das Williams-Syndrom - Dissoziation zwischen Kognition und Sprache".

Penke, M. & G. Westermann (im Druck): "Broca's area and inflectional morphology: evidence from Broca's aphasia and computer modeling". Cortex. [Abstract]

    Penke, M. (im Druck): "The representation of inflectional morphology in the mental lexicon: an overview on psycho- and neurolinguistic methods and results". In: D. Wunderlich (Hrsg.): Advances in the Theory of the Lexicon.  Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin.

       Penke, M. (im Druck): "Morphology and language disorder". In: M.J. Ball; M. Perkins, N. Müller & S. Howard (Hrsg.): The Handbook of Clinical Linguistics. Blackwell.

   Neuhaus, E. & M. Penke (im Druck): "Production and comprehension of wh-questions in German Broca’s aphasia". Journal of Neurolinguistics. [Abstract]

       Grijzenhout, J. & M. Penke (2005): "On the interaction of phonology and morphology in language acquisition and German and Dutch Broca's aphasia: the case of inflected verbs". Yearbook of Morphology 2005, 49-81. [Abstract

        Penke, M., Janssen, U., Indefrey, P. & R. Seitz (2005): "No evidence for a rule/procedural deficit in German patients with Parkinson’s disease". Brain and Language, 95, 139-140.

Penke, M. & A. Rosenbach (2004): "What counts as evidence in linguistics? An Introduction". In: M. Penke & A. Rosenbach (Hrsg.): What Counts as Evidence in Linguistics – the Case of Innateness. Sonderband der Zeitschrift Studies in Language, 28 (2), 1-70.

Penke, M. & M. Krause (2004): "Regular and irregular inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome". In: S. Niedeggen-Bartke & J. Siegmüller (Hrsg.): Williams Syndrome across Languages. Benjamins: Amsterdam, 245-270. [Abstract

Penke, M.; U. Janssen & S. Eisenbeiss (2004): "Psycholinguistic evidence for the underspecification of morphosyntactic features". Brain and Language, 90 (1-3), 423-433. [Abstract

Penke, M. (2003): "On the morphological basis of syntactic deficits". Brain and Language, 87, 50-51.

Neuhaus, E. & M. Penke (2003): "Wh-question production in German Broca's aphasia". Brain and Language, 87, 59-60.

Weyerts, H.; Penke, M.; Münte, T.; Heinze, H.-J. & H. Clahsen (2002): "Word order in sentence processing: An experimental study of verb placement in German". Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31(3), 211-268. [Abstract

Penke, M. & M. Krause (2002): "German noun plurals – a challenge to the Dual-Mechanism Model". Brain and Language, 81, 303-311. [Abstract

Janssen, U. & M. Penke (2002a): "How are inflectional affixes organized in the mental lexicon? Evidence from the investigation of agreement errors in agrammatic aphasics". Brain and Language, 81, 180-191. [Abstract] 

Janssen, U. & M. Penke (2002b): "Phonologically conditioned omissions of inflectional affixes in German Broca's aphasia". Brain and Language, 83, 99-101.

Krause, M. & M. Penke (2002): "Inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome". Brain and Cognition, 48, 410-412. [Abstract] 

Penke, M. (2001): "Controversies about CP: A comparison of language acquisition and language impairments in Broca's aphasia". Brain and Language, 77, 351-363. [Abstract

Penke, M. (2000): "Unpruned trees in German Broca's aphasia". Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(1), 46-47. [Abstract

Janssen, U. & M. Penke (2000): "The organization of agreement affixes in the mental lexicon: Evidence from German Broca's aphasia". Brain and Language, 74(3), 507-509.

Penke, M.; Janssen, U. & M. Krause (1999): "The representation of inflectional morphology: Evidence from Broca's aphasia". Brain and Language, 68, 225-232. [Abstract] 

Penke, M. & M. Krause (1999): "Broca's aphasia and German plural formation". Brain and Language, 69, 311-313.

Westermann, G.; Willshaw, D. & M. Penke (1999): "A constructivist neural network model of German verb inflection in agrammatic aphasia". Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, 916-921. [Abstract

Penke, M.; Weyerts, H.; Gross, M.; Zander, E.; Münte, T. & H. Clahsen (1997): "How the brain processes complex words: An event-related potential study of German verb inflections". Cognitive Brain Research, 6, 37-52. [Abstract

Weyerts, H.; Penke, M.; Dohrn, U.; Clahsen, H. & T. Münte (1997): "Brain potentials indicate differences between regular and irregular German plurals". Neuroreport, 8(4), 957-962. [Abstract

Penke, M.; Trommer, A.; Weyerts, H.; Münte, T. & H. Clahsen (1996): "Electrophysiological correlates of German participle formation". In: H.J. Heinze, T.F. Münte, G.R. Mangun & H. Scheich (Hrsg.): Mapping Cognition in Time and Space. Birkhäuser: Boston.

Clahsen, H.; Eisenbeiss, S. & M. Penke (1996): "Underspecification and lexical learning in early child grammars". In: H. Clahsen & R. Hawkins (Hrsg.): Generative Approaches to First and Second Language Acquisition. John Benjamins: Amsterdam, 129-159.

Clahsen, H.; Kursawe, C. & M. Penke (1996): "Introducing CP: Wh-questions and subordinate clauses in German child language". In: C. Koster & F. Wijnen (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the Groningen Assembly on Language Acquisition. Center for Language and Cognition: Groningen, 141-160. [Abstract

Clahsen, H.; Penke, M. & T. Parodi (1994): "Functional categories in early child German". Language Acquisition, 3 (4), 395-429. [Abstract] 

Clahsen, H. & M. Penke (1992): "The acquisition of agreement morphology and its syntactic consequences: New evidence on German child language from the Simone-Corpus". In: J. Meisel (Hrsg.): The Acquisition of Verb Placement: Functional Categories and V2 Phenomena in Language Acquisition. Kluwer: Dordrecht, 181-223.

Penke, M (1990): Buchbesprechung von K.-B. Günther (Hrsg.): "Sprachstörungen. Probleme ihrer Diagnostik bei mentalen Retardierungen, Entwicklungsdysphasien und Aphasien". Heidelberg: Edition Schindele, 1988. In: Neurolinguistik, 4(1), 83-85.

[zurück]



Vorträge und Poster auf wissenschaftlichen Tagungen / Talks 

2006:  & Neuhaus, E.: The left periphery in Wernicke’s aphasia. "LPIA Jahrestagung", Venedig.

2006:  How morphological typology affects language impairments in Broca’s aphasia. "12th International Morphology Meeting", Budapest (Ungarn).

2006:  Inflectional morphology in children and adults. Workshop on “Neurophysiological and educational aspects of language acquisition” Dortmund.

2005:  Psycholinguistic evidence for the underspecification of morphosyntactic features. "27. Jahrestagung der DGfS", Köln.

2005: The phonological shape of inflected forms in German Williams syndrome. "Xth International Congress for the Study of Child Language", Berlin.

2005:  & Grijzenhout, J.: The interaction of phonology and morphology in first language acquisition and Broca's aphasia. "Xth International Congress for the Study of Child Language", Berlin.

2004:  & Grijzenhout, J.: The interaction of phonology and morphology in first language acquisition and Broca's aphasia. "11th International Morphology Meeting", Wien (Österreich).

2004: & Westermann, G.: The Dual-Mechanism debate. Eingeladener Vortrag bei "Compositionality, Concepts and Cognition", Düsseldorf.

2003:  Flexionsmorphologie im Agrammatismus. "3. Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Aphasieforschung und –behandlung", Leipzig.

2003:  & Grijzenhout, J.: First language acquisition and Broca's aphasia: Evidence for the emergence of the unmarked. "11th Manchester Phonology Meeting", Manchester (Großbritannien).

2003:   On the morphological basis of syntactic deficits. "41st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Aphasia", Wien (Österreich) (Poster).

2003:  & Krause, M.: Regular and irregular inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome. "4th Science of Aphasia Conference", Trieste (Italien) und "Child Language Seminar", Newcastle (Großbritannien) (Poster).

2003:  & Neuhaus, E.: Wh-question production in German Broca's aphasia. "4th Science of Aphasia Conference", Trieste (Italien) sowie "41st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Aphasia", Wien (Österreich) (Poster).

2002:  Beeinträchtigung der Flexionsmorphologie bei Williams Syndrom. Eingeladener Vortrag auf der "2. Interdisziplinäre Fachtagung über Sprachentwicklungsstörungen (ISES)", Potsdam.

2002:   Agrammatism and theoretical morphology – a promising cooperation. Eingeladener Vortrag auf dem "2nd Workshop: Grammatical Disorders in Aphasia", Groningen (Niederlande).

2002:  On the morphological basis of syntactic deficits. Eingeladener Vortrag auf dem "Workshop on Representation and Processing in Agrammatism", Potsdam.

2002:  & Krause, M.: The formation of participles, noun plurals, and noun compounds in German Williams syndrome. "Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics: Euro Conference on the Syntax of Normal and Impaired Language", Korinth (Griechenland) (Poster).

2002:  & Janssen, U.: Phonologically conditioned omissions of inflectional affixes in German Broca's aphasia. "40th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Aphasia", New York (USA) (Poster).

2001:  What agrammatism reveals about inflectional morphology. Eingeladener Vortrag auf der "European Science Foundation Conference: The Science of Aphasia", Giens (Frankreich).

2001:  & Janssen, U.; Eisenbeiss, S.: Agreement features in sentence processing: A sentence-matching study on subject-verb and noun phrase internal agreement in German. "Texas Linguistic Society Conference: The Role of Agreement in Natural Language", Austin (USA).

2001:  & Janssen, U.; Eisenbeiss, S.: The role of feature specification in sentence processing. "14th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing", Philadelphia (USA)(Poster).

2001:  & Krause, M.: Inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome. "22th Annual Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders", Madison (USA) sowie "Annual Meeting of Theoretical and Experimental Neuropsychology (TENNET)", Montreal (Kanada) sowie "2nd International Conference on the Mental Lexicon", Montreal (Kanada) (Poster).

2001:  & Janssen, U.; Eisenbeiss, S.: A sentence-matching study on German noun-phrase internal agreement. "The Lexicon in Linguistic Theory", Düsseldorf.

2000:  & Krause, M.: German noun plurals – a challenge to the Dual-Mechanism Model. "2nd International Conference on the Mental Lexicon", Montreal (Kanada).

2000:  & Janssen, U.: The organization of agreement affixes in the mental lexicon: Evidence from German Broca's aphasia. "38th Academy of Aphasia", Montreal (Kanada) sowie "2nd International Conference on the Mental Lexicon", Montreal (Kanada).

2000:  & Weyerts, H.; Münte, T.; Heinze, H.-J.; Clahsen, H.: Processing verb placement in German: Evidence from self-paced reading and ERPs. "13th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing", San Diego (USA) (Poster).

2000:  & Krause, M.: Psycho- and neurolinguistic studies on German plural morphology. "9th International Morphology Meeting", Wien (Österreich).

1999:  & Krause, M.: Broca's aphasia and German plural formation. "37th Academy of Aphasia", Venedig (Italien).

1999:  & Westermann. G.; Willshaw, D.: A constructivist neural network model of German verb inflection in agrammatic aphasia. "9th International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN)", Edinburgh (Großbritannien).

1999:  Controversies on CP: A comparison of language acquisition and language impairments in Broca's aphasia. "Workshop on Language Acquisition and Language Breakdown", Utrecht (Niederlande).

1999:  & Weyerts, H.; Janssen, U.: Neurolinguistic evidence for dualistic approaches to inflection. "17th European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology: An interdisciplinary approach", Academia Cusano Brixen (Italien) (Poster).

1998:  Der Erwerb der Verbstellung des Deutschen: Eine kontrastive Untersuchung zum Erst- und Zweitspracherwerb. Einladung zum English-Language-Teacher-Association-Rhine Symposium "Language 2001", Bergisch-Gladbach.

1998:  & Krause, M.; Janssen, U.: The representation of inflectional morphology: Evidence from German agrammatism. "1st International Conference on the Mental Lexicon", Alberta (Kanada).

1998:  & Clahsen, H.; Eisenbeiss, S.; Sonnenstuhl, I.: Morphological paradigms in language processing and in aphasia. "Lexicon in Focus", Wuppertal.

1998:  & Krause, M.; Janssen U.: Towards a proper analysis of the German plural: Evidence from aphasia. "Lexicon in Focus", Wuppertal (Poster).

1998:  & Krause, M.; Janssen U.: How participles are organized in the mental lexicon: Evidence from aphasia. "Lexicon in Focus", Wuppertal (Poster).

1998:  Krause, M.; Janssen, U.: Storage and computation in German participle formation: Evidence from language disorders. "Congres on Storage and Computation in Linguistics", Utrecht (Niederlande) sowie "Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing AMLaP98", Freiburg (Poster).

1997:  & Clahsen, H.; Sonnenstuhl, I.: German plurals in child language acquisition and adult language comprehension. "10th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing", Los Angeles (USA) (Poster).

1997:  & Eisenbeiss, S.: Kasusfilter versus Checkingtheorie: Evidenz aus dem Erstspracherwerb. "Generative Grammatik des Südens (GGS)", Wien (Österreich).

1997:  & Weyerts, H.: Brain potentials argue for different representations of regular and irregular inflectional morphology; "3rd European Congress of Psychophysiology", Konstanz (Poster).

1997:  Selective impairments of regular and irregular inflectional morphology in German agrammatism; "15th European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology: An interdisciplinary approach", Academia Cusano Brixen (Italien) (Poster).

1996:  & Eisenbeiss, S.: Children checking checking theory: A comparison of case-filter and feature-checking approaches based on German child language. "WCHTSALT Symposion", Utrecht (Niederlande).

1996:  & Clahsen, H.; Eisenbeiss, S.: Parsing German participles. "9th CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing", New York (USA) (Poster).

1996:  & Weyerts, H.: Regular and irregular morphology: The representation of German participles in the mental lexicon. "7th International Morphology Meeting", Wien (Österreich).

1995:  & Clahsen, H.; Kursawe, C.: Introducing CP: wh-questions and embedded clauses in German child language. "Groningen Assembly on Language Acquisition (GALA)", Groningen (Niederlande).

1995:  & Eisenbeiss, S.: Case-filter versus checking: Some new findings on case development in German child language. "Groningen Assembly on Language Acquisition (GALA)", Groningen (Niederlande).

1995:  & Clahsen, H.; Weyerts, H.: The representation of participles in the mental lexicon: Evidence for the dual-mechanism model. "Morphology Workshop", MPI Nijmegen (Niederlande).

1994:  & Clahsen, H.; Eisenbeiss, S.: Connections between the acquisition of DP and AGRP in early child German. "Boston University Conference on Language Development", Boston (USA).

1994:  & Clahsen, H.; Eisenbeiss, S.: Underspecified phrase-structure positions and lexical learning in early child grammars. Eingeladener Vortrag auf dem "Workshop on Generative Studies of the Acquisition of Case and Agreement", Essex (Großbritannien) sowie "Great Britain Child Language Seminar", Bangor (Großbritannien).

1994:  Penke, M.; Weyerts, H.; Trommer, A.; Münte, T.; Clahsen, H.: Electrophysiological correlates of German participle formation. "Mapping Cognition in Time and Space", Magdeburg (Poster).

1993:   Agrammatismus als syntaktisches Defizit. "Generative Grammatik des Südens (GGS)", Köln.

1992:  & Clahsen, H.; Parodi, T.: Frühe IPs: Stufe I beim Erwerb des Deutschen. "14. Jahrestagung der DGfS", Bremen.

1992:  & Woest, A.: Agrammatismus als Option – eine linguistische Analyse. "14. Jahrestagung der DGfS", Bremen.

1991:  & Clahsen, H.: The acquisition of agreement morphology and its syntactic consequences. "International Conference on Child Language", Tübingen.

[zurück]



Lehrveranstaltungen

Vorlesung:

 

Hauptseminare: (Zielgruppe Studierende im Hauptstudium)

 

Thematische Seminare: (Zielgruppe Studierende im Grund- und Hauptstudium)


Proseminare: (Zielgruppe Studierende im Grundstudium)

[zurück]



Privates

My daughter Eva Lilli (13 month) while testing a theoretical approach to language acquisition:

My daughter Eva Lilli while testing a theoretical approach to language acquisition.

[zurück]



Abstracts


"Production and Comprehension of wh-questions in German Broca's aphasia"

Current proposals suggest that agrammatic speakers have severe deficits in producing and understanding wh-questions. Whereas the CP layer is assumed to be pruned such that wh-questions can no longer be produced, for comprehension it has been suggested that the agrammatic deficit leads to a deletion of movement traces in syntactically derived sentences. We present data from three experiments testing the production and comprehension of wh-questions in nine German agrammatic Broca's aphasics. In an elicitation and a repetition task we found that wh-question production is generally not impaired in German agrammatic aphasics, thus indicating that the CP layer can still be projected. The results of a picture pointing task show, however, that deficits in the comprehension of wh-questions are common. A closer analysis reveals a variety of error patterns in our subjects. The additive effects non-canonical word order and costs associated with discourse-linking a referential NP exert on the performance of our subjects in the comprehension task cannot be captured by current syntactic deficit accounts on agrammatism.
[zurück]



"Broca's area and inflectional morphology: Evidence from Broca's aphasia and computer modeling"

In a series of articles Ullman (Ullman et al., 1997; Ullman, 2001, 2004) has proposed that regular inflection is critically subserved by Broca's area. A basic tenet of this proposal is the finding that English speaking Broca's aphasics show selective deficits with regular inflection. Here we argue that this assumption is based on a confound between inflectional suffix and regularity that is specific to the English language. We present data from two experimental studies of participle inflection with 13 German and 12 Dutch Broca's aphasics. None of these aphasic speakers are selectively impaired for regular inflection but instead most show selective deficits with irregular inflection. These data suggest that a selective regular deficit is not a characteristic of Broca's aphasia across languages. Moreover, our data suggest that Broca's area is not critically involved in regular inflection. To investigate the nature and localization of the processes underlying inflection we present a connectionist model that accounts for the deficits of the German aphasic speakers. The model suggests that inflection can be subserved by a single mechanism with multiple representations that emerge from experience-dependent brain development. Selective impairment of irregular participle inflection is in the model explained with a global processing deficit to this single mechanism system. In this way the modeling data exemplifies the view that a selective impairment of irregular participles as shown by German and Dutch Broca's aphasics does not presuppose two distinctly localized mechanisms or processes that can be selectively affected by brain damage.

[zurück]


"First language acquisition and Broca's aphasia: The emergence of the unmarked in German and Dutch inflected verbs"

This paper discusses the acquisition of German rhyme structure and the consequences of steps in the development of rhyme structure on the realisation of inflectional endings.  Segmental morphemes are realised only if they fit the syllable structure that the child assumes. At a relatively late acquisitional stage we see the emergence of a markedness constraint (*C1«C1) which affects the realisation of inflectional endings and which was at that point “hidden” in the child’s grammar. We argue that the child has to learn to demote this particular constraint below the corresponding faithfulness constraint for inflectional endings. Elicited data of German and Dutch Broca’s aphasics indicate that unmarked structures similar to the ones in child speech emerge in aphasic speech. Whereas the emergence of the unmarked in child speech can be attributed to the fact that initially markedness constraints outrank faithfulness constraints, the emergence of the unmarked in Broca’s aphasia is due to the loss of ranking between a markedness constraint and the corresponding faithfulness constraint.

[zurück]




"Regular and irregular inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome"

A central issue in the investigation of language capacities in WS is whether or not the inflectional system is affected by a selective deficit with irregular inflected forms. Whereas Clahsen and Almazan (1998, 2001) have reported such a selective deficit for English children with Williams syndrome (WS), Thomas et al. (2001) have argued that this deficit is an artifact caused by a delay in language development and disappears when verbal mental age is controlled for. To contribute to this controversy and to investigate whether the observations on English WS carry over to a different language with different morphological systems, we present data on three experiments on German participle and noun plural inflection that were administered with five German WS subjects and control subjects matching in mental and chronological age. Comparable to the results of Clahsen & Almazan, we find that regular inflection is intact in our WS subjects, whereas the production of irregular forms is impaired. We will argue that our data cannot be accounted for by assuming a developmental delay. In addition, we will show that it is not only stored irregular forms that are impaired in German WS, but that there is an additional deficit affecting morphophonological capacities as well.


[zurück]





"Psycholinguistic evidence for the underspecification of morphosyntactic features"

This paper investigates the paradigmatic relations between inflected word forms (or their affixes) and the feature specifications of these elements. In two sentence-matching experiments German speakers had to decide whether sentence pairs involving inflected adjectives or determiners were identical or not. In both experiments, there was a delay when an inflected form contained positive feature specifications for grammatical features that did not match the feature specifications of the grammatical context in which it appeared. No delay, however, occurred when an incorrectly inflected form had mismatching negative specifications whereas its positively specified features matched the respective positive features of the context. This result provides evidence for a different status of positively and negatively specified morphosyntactic features. It supports the idea of radical underspecification according to which only positive feature specifications are part of the representations of morphologically complex forms or affixes, whereas negative feature specifications are assigned on the basis of paradigmatic contrasts.

Key Words: German determiner and adjective inflection, underspecification, morphosyntactic features, inflectional paradigm, sentence-matching

[zurück]




"Word order in sentence processing: An experimental study of verb placement in German"

We examine the question of whether the human comprehension device exhibits word-order preferences during on-line sentence comprehension. The focus is on the positioning of finite verbs and auxiliaries relative to subjects and objects in German. Results from three experiments (using self-paced reading and event-related brain potentials) show that native speakers of German prefer to process finite verbs in second position (i.e., immediately after the subject and before the object). We will account for this order preference in terms of the relative processing costs associated with SVfO and SOVf. Our finding that word-order preferences play an important role in the on-line comprehension of German sentences is compatible with results from previous studies on English and other languages.

KEY WORDS: verb placement; ERP; syntactic processing cost; P600; anterior negativity.

[zurück]




"German noun plurals – a challenge to the Dual-Mechanism Model"

In this paper, we are testing one of the central claims of the Dual-Mechanism Model (Pinker & Prince, 1994), i.e. that regular inflection equals default inflection. Based on results from an elicitation task with eight agrammatic Broca's aphasics and a lexical-decision task with unimpaired subjects, we will show that this assumption is not borne out. Our data on German plural inflection rather indicate that regular inflection is not necessarily identical to default-inflection. To capture the German data, we have to assume regular but input restricted inflection besides regular default inflection.

Key Words: German, morphology, plural inflection, Dual-Mechanism Model, Broca's aphasia

[zurück]




"How are affixes organized in the mental lexicon? Evidence from the investigation of agreement errors in agrammatic aphasics."

Recent psycholinguistic studies have provided evidence that regularly inflected words are decomposed into stems and affixes both of which have their own representations in the mental lexicon. Specific models of the lexical organization of inflectional affixes have, however, only rarely been investigated in psycho- or neurolinguistic work. We will test two recently proposed theoretical models: a representation of affixes (i) in default inheritance trees (Corbett & Fraser, 1993), and (ii) in underspecified paradigms (Wunderlich, 1996). Based on an analysis of agreement errors in elicited speech-production data of German agrammatic aphasics, we will argue that affixes are organized with respect to the morphosyntactic features they encode. Specifically, our data indicate that inflectional affixes are best captured within an underspecified paradigm.

Key Words: Broca's aphasia; agrammatism; inflectional affixes; paradigms; inheritance trees

[zurück]




"Inflectional morphology in German Williams syndrome"

In a recent paper, Clahsen and Almazan (1998) report a dissociation between unimpaired regular and impaired irregular past tense morphology in English Williams syndrome (WS). Our aim is to investigate whether these findings carry over to another language with different morphological systems. We present data on regular and irregular participles and noun plurals from 2 German WS subjects and 10 controls matching in mental age. For noun plurals, regular morphology is intact in WS, whereas irregular forms are impaired. A similar dissociation is observed for participles: While regular inflection is unimpaired, WS subjects, unlike controls, apply the regular suffix incorrectly to frequent irregular verbs. We discuss our findings against the current debate between connectionist and dualistic approaches to the language faculty.

[zurück]




"Controversies about CP: A comparison of language acquisition and language impairments in Broca's aphasia"

In both, language acquisition research and in the study of language impairments in Broca's aphasia there is an ongoing debate whether or not phrase-structure representations contain the CP layer. To shed some light on this debate, I will provide data on German child language and on German agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Analyses of subordinate clauses, wh-questions, and verb placement indicate that early child grammars do not generate the CP layer yet, whereas the ability to project the CP layer is retained in agrammatism.

Key words: Broca's aphasia, agrammatism, language acquisition, syntax, phrase structure, CP

[zurück]





"Unpruned trees in German Broca's aphasia"

Grodzinsky proposes that agrammatism leads to a "pruning" of the syntactic tree in speech production. For German, this assumption predicts that syntactic processes related to the functional projections AgrP and CP should be impaired. An analysis of spontaneous-speech data from four Broca's aphasics with respect to subject-verb agreement and verb placement, however, indicates that phrase-structure representations in agrammatism are intact.

[zurück]






"The Representation of Inflectional Morphology: Evidence from Broca's Aphasia"

Dualistic models of inflection assume a qualitative distinction between affix-based regular forms and stored irregular forms, predicting that the two distinct mechanisms can be selectively affected in  language disorders. We present data on German participle formation from 11 agrammatic Broca's aphasics which show that irregular participles can be selectively affected in agrammatism. Moreover, the distribution of errors reveals a frequency effect for irregular but not for regular participles. Both findings argue for a dualistic representation of inflection. Moreover, we want to propose a modification of dualistic models by suggesting that both regularity and irregularity are better conceived of as scalar.

Keywords: Inflectional morphology, Broca's aphasia, agrammatism, German participles
[zurück]





"A constructivist neural network model of German verb inflection in agrammatic aphasia"

We present a constructivist neural network that closely models the performance of agrammatic aphasics in German participle inflection. The network constructs a modular architecture leading to a double dissociation between regular and irregular verbs, and lesioning the trained network accounts for data obtained  from aphasic subjects. We analyze the internal structure of the network with respect to the representation of regular and irregular verbs and argue that the constructivist neural network presents a more plausible account of verb inflection than a recently proposed dual-mechanism theory.

[zurück]





"How the brain processes complex words: an event-related potential study of German verb inflections".

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded as German-speaking subjects read verbs in correct and incorrect participle forms. The critical words were presented in three differnt versions to three different groups of subjects, as part of a simple sentence, in a word list, and embedded in a story; for each version separate ERPs were recorded. Three types of verbs were investigated, regulars, irregulars and nonce verbs. We compared correct regular and irregular participles with incorrect ones; the latter had -(e)n on verbs that actually take -t participles (*getanz-en), or -(e)t on verbs that require -(e)n (*gelad-et). For the nonce verbs, we compared participles with the unexpected -(e)n ending with the expected -t participle forms. The ERP responses were very consistent across the three versions of the experiment: (i) incorrect irregular participles (*gelad-et) elicited a left frontotemporal negativity; (ii) incorrect regulars (*getanz-en) produced no differences to the correct ones; (iii) nonce verbs were associated with an N400 component but did not show a difference between expected and unexpected endings. We will interpret these findings with respect to psycholinguistic models of morphological processing and argue that the brain processes regularly inflected words differently from irregularly inflected ones, the latter by accessing full-form entries stored in memory and the former by a computational process that decomposes complex words into stems and affixes.

Key words: Event-related potential; Language processing; Left anterior negativity; Regular and irregular inflection; Psycholinguistics; Morphology of language

[zurück]





"Brain potentials indicate differences between regular and irregular German Plurals"

Event-related brain potentials were recorded as 18 German-speaking subjects read sentences that contained as critical words German nouns in correct and incorrect plural forms. Two types of plurals were investigated: regular -s plural (e.g. Karussell-s `round-abouts') and irregular -(e)n plurals (Muskel-n `muscles'). We compared correct regular and irregular plurals with incorrect ones; the latter had -(e)n on nouns that actually take -s plurals (*Karussell-en), or -s on nouns that require -(e)n (*Muskel-s). ERPs showed different responses to regular and irregular plurals: incorrect irregulars (*Muskel-s) elicited a ramp-shaped left frontotemporal negativity, whereas incorrect regulars (*Karussell-en) produced a central phasic negativity with 380ms maximum. This dissociation supports the view that regularly inflected words are processed differently from irregularly inflected ones.

Key words: Event-related potential; German plurals; Irregular inflection; Regular inflection; Language

[zurück]







"Introducing CP: wh-questions and subordinate clauses in German child language"

This paper investigates the development of wh-questions and subordinate clauses from the perspective of the Lexical Learning Hypothesis (LLH) according to which phrase structure gradually emerges in child language development, driven by the child's learning of words and morphemes. We will show that children's early subordinate clauses and wh-questions differ from those of  adults, and that the child's grammar generates adult-like CPs once lexical complementizers have been acquired. We will interpret these findings as support for the LLH.

[zurück]





"Functional categories in early German"

In this article, we study the representation of phrase structure in early child German through the investigation of extensive longitudinal data from 7 monolingual German-speaking children (ages 1;8 to 2;9) with respect to verb placement, verb inflection, negation, wh-pronouns, and complementizers. In our data, we find clear evidence that children's grammar at Stage I generates at least one functional projection - namely, IP, or rather F(inite)P. There is, however, no empirical support for a second functional projection (CP) in Stage I. We argue that children construct phrase-structure trees in a gradual fashion, on the basis of X-bar theory and the input they receive.

[zurück]




Research Interests 

I.           Acquired and developmental language disorders

Descrition and theoretical characterisation of retained and impaired language capacities in language impaired speakers, especially in the areas of :
a.    Inflectional morphology (paradigms, subjekt-verb agreement, nominal inflection, participles)
b.    Syntax (verbplacement and -movement, wh-questions, subordinate clauses, noun phrases)
c.    Morphophonology  (interaction of phonology and morphology)

  Focus on: Broca's aphasia, Morbus Parkinson, Williams syndrome.


    II.        Language acquisition

  Studies on the acquisition of phonology (rhyme-structure), morphology (inflectional morphology), syntax (word order in main clauses, subordinate clauses and wh-questions), the interaction of inflectional morphology and syntax (syntactic consequences of the acquisition of inflectional morphology), and on the interaction of phonology and morphology in monolingual German children

 

III.        Neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics

a.    Investigation of the representation of regular and irregular inflected words  in the mental lexicon, of the structure and organisation of affix entries in the mental lexicon, of the interaction of phonology and morphology by

-       Experimental studies of language deficits in Broca's aphasia, Parkinson, and Williams syndrome

-       ERP experiments

-       Reaction-time experiments (lexical decision, sentence-matching)

b.    ERP studies and reaction-time experiments (sentence-matching, self-paced reading) on German verb placement

c.    Research on the mental representation and cerebral localisation of semantic features (in cooperation with Peter Indefrey, Donders Center, Nijmegen)

 

IV.   Computer modeling

       Simulation of language acquisition and language disorders in the area of inflectional morphology in artificial constructivist neural network models (in cooperation with Gert Westermann, Oxford Brookes University)


[zurück]