Birgit Hellwig
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View article: A comparative study of child-directed language across five cultures based on data from the <i>Acquisition Sketch Project</i>
A comparative study of child-directed language across five cultures based on data from the <i>Acquisition Sketch Project</i> Open
Special Issue: In Memory of Barbara F. Kelly
View article: The evolution of infant-directed communication: Comparing vocal input across all great apes
The evolution of infant-directed communication: Comparing vocal input across all great apes Open
Human language is unique among communication systems since many elements are learned and transmitted across generations. Previous research suggests that this process is best predicted by infant-directed communication, i.e., a mode of commu…
View article: Negation in First Language Acquisition: Universal or Language‐Specific?
Negation in First Language Acquisition: Universal or Language‐Specific? Open
Negation is a cornerstone of human language and one of the few universals found in all languages. Without negation, neither categorization nor efficient communication would be possible. Languages, however, differ remarkably in how they exp…
View article: The Scientific and Cultural Cost of Convenience Sampling in the Face of Rising Language Endangerment: Highlighting the Role of Language Acquisition
The Scientific and Cultural Cost of Convenience Sampling in the Face of Rising Language Endangerment: Highlighting the Role of Language Acquisition Open
We live in an unprecedented era of language endangerment and loss. In the midst of this crisis, it is becoming more and more evident that the psychological and cognitive sciences know very little about how most of the world’s languages are…
View article: Split case marking and constituent order in Nilotic languages
Split case marking and constituent order in Nilotic languages Open
This paper presents a survey of split case marking across the Nilotic languages of East Africa. Expanding on König’s (2008) original insights, the survey is set within Chappell and Verstraete’s (2019) typology on alternations and optionali…
View article: Discourse prominence and differential argument marking
Discourse prominence and differential argument marking Open
Special morphosyntactic encoding in language is typically motivated by the need to mark a deviation from a preferred and more frequently encountered pattern. Previous accounts often focused primarily on deviations concerning semantic featu…
View article: Bringing and taking
Bringing and taking Open
This chapter proposes a typology of expressions of directed caused accompanied motion (directed CAM): it introduces and defines this semantic domain, presents the corpus-based methodology used by the authors of this volume, and gives an ov…
View article: Qaqet
Qaqet Open
Qaqet (Glottocode qaqe1238; ISO 639-3: byx) is a Papuan (i.e. non-Austronesian) Baining language that is spoken by an estimated 15,000 people in Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province. Figure 1 shows a map of where Qaqet and the four…
View article: Voicing in Qaqet: Prenasalization and language contact
Voicing in Qaqet: Prenasalization and language contact Open
Qaqet is a non-Austronesian Baining language of Papua New Guinea, with a very small phoneme inventory of 16 consonants and four vowels, including the voiced stops /b d ɡ/. These stops are often phonetically realized as prenasalized [mb nd …
View article: Language Acquisition. To appear, subject to editing changes, in N. Evans &amp; S. Fedden (eds.), The Oxford Guide to Papuan Languages
Language Acquisition. To appear, subject to editing changes, in N. Evans & S. Fedden (eds.), The Oxford Guide to Papuan Languages Open
This chapter reviews existing research on language acquisition in Papuan languages. It will appear, subject to editing changes, in N. Evans & S. Fedden (eds.), The Oxford Guide to Papuan Languages. We point readers interested further i…
View article: Public access to research data in language documentation: Challenges and possible strategies
Public access to research data in language documentation: Challenges and possible strategies Open
The Open Access Movement promotes free and unfettered access to research publications and, increasingly, to the primary data which underly those publications. As the field of documentary linguistics seeks to record and preserve culturally …
View article: Roots of Ergativity in Africa (and Beyond)
Roots of Ergativity in Africa (and Beyond) Open
In the literature, it is often assumed that ergative constructions originate in passive constructions. The present contribution explores the likelihood of such a passive-to-ergative analysis for one language (Tima, Niger-Congo, Sudan), sho…
View article: Child-directed language – and how it informs the documentation and description of the adult language
Child-directed language – and how it informs the documentation and description of the adult language Open
Language documentation efforts are most often concerned with the adult language and usually do not include the language used by and with children. Essential parts of the natural linguistic behaviour of communities thus remain undocumented,…
View article: Linguistic diversity, language documentation and psycholinguistics: The role of stimuli
Linguistic diversity, language documentation and psycholinguistics: The role of stimuli Open
Our psycholinguistic theories tend to be based on empirical data from a biased sample of well-described languages, not doing justice to the enormous linguistic diversity in the world. As Evans and Levinson (2009: 447) put it, a major chall…
View article: Goemai
Goemai Open
Goemai is an Afroasiatic (Chadic, West Chadic A, Angas-Goemai group) language spoken in Central Nigeria. The name Goemai [ɡ m i ] is used by the speakers themselves to refer to both their language and their ethnic group. To outsiders, they…