Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
The conceptual link between space and time is accounted for by two different theories: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT, Lakoff and Johnson 1980) and A Theory of Magnitude (ATOM, Walsh 2003). Within...Show moreThe conceptual link between space and time is accounted for by two different theories: Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT, Lakoff and Johnson 1980) and A Theory of Magnitude (ATOM, Walsh 2003). Within a linguistic framework, CMT provides evidence for an asymmetric conceptual link between space and time, opposed to the symmetric link predicted by ATOM. Casasanto and Boroditsky (2008) and Casasanto (2010) presented evidence in favour of CMT from non-linguistic psychophysical tasks. Longer lines appeared to positively affect participants’ estimation of duration, analogous to metaphors for duration using spatial words such as long and short, but duration did not influence the perception of space (Casasanto and Boroditsky 2008). A subsequent study revealed language specific differences in effects of different stimulus types, parallel to the typical duration metaphors found in these languages (Casasanto 2010). The present investigation of Dutch shows that the relation between duration metaphors and the perception of space and duration is less straightforward than what might be expected on the basis of the accounts of Casasanto and Boroditsky (2008) and Casasanto (2010). The results of an experiment with speakers of Dutch reveal a symmetric link between space and duration in the case of space presented in the form of one-dimensional length, but an asymmetric link is reported in case of more-dimensional size. Overall, this provides evidence for ATOM rather than CMT.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Sentence final particles (SFPs) play an important role in the every-day spoken communication of various languages. For example, the addition of a Dutch intentional particle hè or hoor to a bare...Show moreSentence final particles (SFPs) play an important role in the every-day spoken communication of various languages. For example, the addition of a Dutch intentional particle hè or hoor to a bare declarative utterance such as het is lekker weer ‘the weather is great’ can make the difference between the sentence being interpreted as an agreement-seeking question, or a correction. Still, we know very little about the psycho- and neurolinguistic properties of the processing and production of final particles. The purpose of this thesis is to generate more research on the psycholinguistics side and to deepen the theoretical knowledge we have by gathering experimental data. There are theoretical reasons to assume that intentional SFPs play an important role from the beginning of sentence formulation. The SFP-head selects for the entire proposition as its complement, so it is possible that speakers plan the particle ahead before they start producing the rest of the sentence. This hypothesis also makes sense from a psycholinguistic perspective, as it is presumed that the intention of the speaker is already determined before he/she starts uttering a sentence. In this thesis, I focus on sentences in isolation, and investigate the production, planning and perception of Dutch pragmatic particles (i.e. SFPs) that convey the speaker’s intention. The question I pursued to answer is whether Dutch sentence final particles are planned in advance, or whether they are inserted at the final moment. To investigate the potential planning of intentional SFPs I conducted three experiments. In a production experiment (Experiment 1) I investigated whether the speaker already starts encoding the intention of the message with prosodic cues preceding the intentional particle. Such cues would indicate that the speaker is already building up the illocutionary force of the sentence before the particle. Results indicate that there are such cues, and that even though they are sometimes quite small, they are used quite consistently across participants. In Experiment 2, the gating-technique is used in a perception experiment to investigate whether these prosodic cues preceding the particle could possibly help the listener anticipate for the intention or attitude expressed by an utterance. The results of this experiment indicate that participants were not that good at anticipating the end of sentences containing the final particles hè and hoor in the given task. Experiment 3 directly addresses the question whether the speaker plans a final particle ahead or whether they integrate the particle at a later stage of production. This question is about how incremental and how far ahead a sentence is planned in production. In this experiment, I examined the production process of the intentional SFPs hè and hoor in Dutch with a variant on the picture-word-interference task to investigate whether the particles are planned in advance, or not. I created an experiment that manipulates the prime preceding colored pictures, which are associated in a training task with a particular final element. The target condition of the experiment contains sentences with the final elements hè and hoor, which are intentional final particles. The effect of the distractor prime on the target condition was compared to a control condition. A congruent prime was assumed to facilitate sentence production at speech onset, only if the speaker is already planning the particle congruent with the prime. In the control conditions, in which it is assumed that speakers are not yet planning ahead for the final element of the sentence at speech onset, facilitation was assumed not to take place at speech onset. The results obtained for this experiment were not significant, due to high standard deviations. In future research it would be interesting to see whether the paradigm of this experiment could be adjusted, to gain more reliable results that can answer the main question we pursued.Show less
This thesis investigates the prosodic properties of the Mandarin Chinese sentence final particle ne. Frequency (F0) and duration of the particle in questions and declaratives are analyzed, as well...Show moreThis thesis investigates the prosodic properties of the Mandarin Chinese sentence final particle ne. Frequency (F0) and duration of the particle in questions and declaratives are analyzed, as well as the influence of the particle on prosodic properties of preceding syllables. It was found that the particle ne has different realizations with respect to interrogative and declarative sentences, and that it influences the prosody of preceding syllables to a certain extent.Show less
