Drenhaus, H.; Zimmermann, M. & Vasishth, S. (2010) Exhaustiveness effects in clefts are not truth-functional. Journal of Neurolinguistics.

Abstract. While it is widely acknowledged in the formal semantic literature that both the truth-functional focus particle only and it-clefts convey exhaustiveness, the nature and source of exhaustiveness effects with it-clefts remain contested. We describe a questionnaire study (n=80) and an event-related brain potentials (ERP) study (n=16) that investigated the violation of exhaustiveness in German only-foci versus it-clefts. The offline study showed that a violation of exhaustivity with only is less acceptable than the violation with it-clefts, suggesting a difference in the nature of exhaustivity interpretation in the two environments. The ERPresults confirm that this difference can be seen in online processing as well: a violation of exhaustiveness in only-foci elicited a centro-posterior positivity (600–800ms), whereas a violation in it-clefts induced a globally distributed N400 pattern (400–600ms). The positivity can be interpreted as a reanalysis process and more generally as a process of context updating. The N400 effect in it-clefts is interpreted as indexing a cancelation process that is functionally distinct from the only case. The ERP study is, to our knowledge, the first evidence from an online experimental paradigm which shows that the violation of exhaustiveness involves different underlying processes in the two structural environments.

Vasishth, S. & Drenhaus, H. (accepted) Locality effects in German. Dialogue and Discourse.

Abstract. Three experiments (self-paced reading, eyetracking and an ERP study) show that in relative clauses, increasing the distance be tween the relativized noun and the relative-clause verb makes it more difficult to process the relative-clause verb (the so-called locality effect). This result is consistent with the predictions of several theories (Gibson 2000, Lewis and Vasishth 2005), and contradicts the recent claim (Levy 2008) that in relative-clause structures increasing argument-verb distance makes processing easier at the verb. Levy's expectation-based account predicts that the expectation for a verb becomes sharper as dis- tance is increased and therefore processing becomes easier at the verb. We argue that, in addition to expectation effects (which are seen in the eyetracking study in first-pass regression probability), processing load also increases with increasing distance. This contradicts Levy's claim that heightened expectation leads to lower processing cost. Dependency- resolution cost and expectation-based facilitation are jointly responsible for determining processing cost.

Drenhaus, H., Blaszczak, J. & Schütte, J. (under review) An ERP study on the strength of licensers in Negative Polarity constructions.

Abstract. In this paper we provide evidence from an event-related brain potentials (ERPs) study on Negative Polarity Item (NPI)-processing that a notion of simple downward entailment is too weak to correctly analyze various NPI-licensing environments. Licensing strength seems to offer a more promising analysis. The results with regard to the observed N400 and P600 effects confirm the insights of recent theoretical discussion (cf., among others, Zwarts 1993, 1996, van der Wouden 1997, Giannakidou 1998, 2001, also Krifka 1995, Szabolcsi 2004), and at the same time they allow us to discriminate between alternative proposals. Our evidence favours an approach based on (non)veridicality (Giannakidou 1998, 2001).

Drenhaus, H. & Féry, C. (in press) Animacy and Child Grammar: an OT account. Lingua.

Abstract. In this paper we report the results of an elicited imitation task on dative case marking in non-canonical double object constructions with 22 German children (3;9-6;8). The aim was to test the proficiency of the children's grammar and to see which strategies they use to produce ditransitive sentences in which the direct object precedes the indirect object. The analysis of the children's utterances/imitations shows that the animacy of the direct object affects the overt dative case marking of the indirect object. Children made more errors repeating dative case marking when the direct object was inanimate, i.e., they produced the accusative case on the indirect object (non-adult-like). When both objects were animate, children correctly produced the dative case on the indirect object. We describe and account for these performance strategies of the children in the framework of Optimality Theory. Assuming that the same universal constraints are at work as in the adult grammar, the difference between adults and children lies in the constraint ranking. We focus on a prominent pattern found in children's performance, which is absent (or rather oppressed) in the corresponding adult performance, and show that one and the same grammar accounts for both (in the sense of "strong continuity").

beim Graben, P., Drenhaus, H., Brehm, E., Rhode, B., Saddy, D. & Frisch, St. (in press) Enhancing dominant modes in nonstationary time series by means of the symbolic resonance analysis.

Abstract. We present the symbolic resonance analysis (SRA) as a viable method for addressing the problem of enhancing a weakly dominant mode in a mixture of impulse responses obtained from a nonlinear dynamical system. We demonstrate this using results from a numerical simulation with Duffing oscillators in different domains of their parameter space, and by analyzing event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from a language processing experiment in German as a representative application. In this paradigm, the averaged ERPs exhibit an N400 followed by a sentence final negativity. Contemporary sentence processing models predict a late positivity (P600) as well. We show that the SRA is able to unveil the P600 evoked by the critical stimuli as a weakly dominant mode from the covering sentence final negativit

Vasishth, S., Lewis, R. L., Brüssow, S. & Drenhaus, H. (in press) Processing Polarity: How the ungrammatical intrudes on the grammatical.

Abstract. A central question in human sentence comprehension is: how are linguis- tic relations established between different parts of a sentence? Previous work has shown that this dependency resolution process can be computationally expensive, but the underlying reasons for this are still unclear. We argue that dependency resolution is mediated by cue-based retrieval, constrained by independently motivated working memory principles defined in a cognitive architecture (ACT-R). To demonstrate this, we investigate an unusual instance of dependency resolution, the processing of negative and positive polarity items, and confirm a surprising prediction of the cue-based retrieval model: partial cue-matches -which constitute a kind of similarity- based interference- can give rise to the intrusion of ungrammatical retrieval candidates, leading to both processing slow-downs and even errors of judgment that take the form of illusions of grammaticality in patently ungrammatical structures. A notable achievement is that good quantitative fits are achieved without adjusting the model parameters.

Drenhaus, H., Blaszczak, J. & Schütte, J. (in press) Some psycholinguistic comments on NPI licensing. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 11, Barcelona, Spain.

Abstract. In this paper, we discuss the relevance of c-command and licensing strength for NPI licensing. Furthermore, we review the results of an experiment using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in which we investigated the difference in strength of licensing the German negative polarity item jemals 'ever'. The two licensing contexts under discussion are negation and wh-question. We found a sustained negativity on the Negative polarity item (NPI) in wh-context compared to the context where the NPI appeared in the scope of negation. We discuss our ERP results in the light of some recent theoretical proposals on negative polarity licensing.

Drenhaus, H., beim Graben, P., Frisch, St., & Saddy, D. (2006) Diagnosis and repair of negative polarity constructions in the light of symbolic resonance analysis. Brain and Language, 96, 255-268.

Abstract. In a post-hoc analysis, we investigate differences in event-related potentials of two studies (Saddy et al., 2004, Drenhaus et al., 2004; to appear) by using the symbolic resonance analysis (beim Graben & Kurths, 2003). The studies under discussion, examined the failure to license a negative polarity item (NPI) in German: Saddy et al. (2004a) reported an N400 component when the NPI was not accurately licensed by negation; Drenhaus et al. (2004; to appear) considered additionally the influence of constituency of the licensor in NPI constructions. A biphasic N400-P600 response was found for the two induced violations (the lack of licensor and the inaccessibility of negation in a relative clause). The symbolic resonance analysis (SRA) revealed an effect in the P600 time window for the data in Saddy et al., which was not found by using the averaging technique. The SRA of the ERPs in Drenhaus et al. showed that the P600 components are distinguishable concerning the amplitude and latency. It was smaller and earlier in the condition where the licensor is inaccessible, compared to the condition without negation in the string. Our findings suggest that the failure in licensing NPIs is not exclusively related to semantic integration costs (N400). The elicited P600 components reflect differences in syntactic processing. Our results confirm and replicate the effects of the traditional voltage average analysis and show that the SRA is a useful tool to reveal and pull apart ERP differences which are not evident using the traditional voltage average analysis.

Drenhaus, H., Saddy, D. & Frisch, St. (2005) Processing negative polarity items: When negation comes through the backdoor. In: Kepser, S. & Reis, M. (Eds.), Linguistic Evidence -- Empirical, Theoretical, and Computational Perspectives. Mouton de Gruyter (Studies in Generative Grammar 85), 145-165.

Abstract. In two experiments, we investigated the influence of the accessibility of negation in negative polarity constructions in German using speeded judgment tasks and event-related brain potentials (ERPs). In particular, we examined the influence of constituency and linear order of the negator in negative polarity constructions. Our findings suggest that a non-c-commanding but linear preceding constituent negation can improve the acceptability of a negative polarity item like jemals (ever).

Saddy, J. D, beim Graben, P., Drenhaus, H. & Frisch, S. (2004) Distinguishing Process from Content in Language Processing: a new answer to an old question, American Institute of Physics proceedings of the eighth Experimental Chaos Conference, 94-105.

Abstract. Complexity within the language system arises from two a priori distinct sources: the computational complexity inherent in the grammar of the language itself or ìformal linguistic complexityî, and the procedural complexity resulting from marshalling processing resources in order to produce or interpret utterances that correspond to the grammar. Whether or not these two aspects of language can be distinguished is a long debated issue. In this short paper we will outline how the use of symbolic encoding techniques may reveal both markers of procedural processing and markers of formal linguistic content.

Hüttner, T., Drenhaus, H., van de Vijver, R. & Weissenborn, J. (2004) The acquisition of the German Focus particle auch 'too': Comprehension does not always precede production. In: BUCLD 28: Proceedings of the 28th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development.

Abstract. Focus in German can be marked (1) prosodically, i.e. by stress, (2) syntactically, i.e. by position, and (3) lexically, e.g. by the focus particle auch (also). All three means may be used simultaneously as seen in the following examples:

1.a. Max will AUCH VP[Kuchen essen].(1,3)(Max wants too cake eat.)
1.b. Max will auch NP[KUCHEN] essen.(1,3) (Max wants too cake eat.)
2.a. Auch Max will Kuchen essen. (2,3)( Also Max wants cake to eat.)
2.b. Auch Kuchen will Max essen.(2,3) (Also cake wants Max to eat.)
3.a. Max wants to eat cake, too. (i.e. like Lisa.)
3.b. Max wants to eat cake, too. (i.e. not only apples.)

Abstract. The interpretations of auch in (a) and (b) differ in scope: wide scope over the VP in (a), narrow scope over the following NP in (b). The aim of our study was to investigate the relevance of these different means and their interaction for the comprehension of these structures in children of different age as compared to adults.

Saddy, D., Drenhaus, H. & Frisch, St. (2004) Processing Polarity Items: Contrastive Licensing Costs, Brain and Language, 495-502.

Abstract. We describe an experiment that investigated the failure to license polarity items in German using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The results reveal distinct processing reflexes associated with failure to license positive polarity items in comparison to failure to license negative polarity items. Failure to license both negative and positive polarity items elicited an N400 component reflecting semantic integration cost. Failure to license positive polarity items, however, also elicited a P600 component. The additional P600 in the positive polarity violations may reflect higher processing complexity associated with a negative operator. This difference between the two types of violation suggests that the processing of negative and positive polarity items does not involve identical mechanisms.

Drenhaus, H. (2002) On the acquisition of German nicht 'not' as sentential negation: Evidence from Negative Polarity items. BUCLD 26: Proceedings of the 26th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development edited by B. Skarabela, S. Fish & A. H.-J. Do. Cascadilla Press, Somerville, 166-174.

This paper provide evidence that an adverb like jemals 'ever' and its negative counterpart niemals 'never' might trigger the acquisition of nicht 'not' as sentential negation. 20 children ranging in age 3;5-6;6 were asked to repeat questions. These structures were combined with the adverbs niemals 'never' and jemals 'ever' in the unmarked (adult) position in front of the verb:

Wer will dem Mann das Buch jemals/ niemals geben?
Who wants the man[Dat] the book[Acc] ever/ never give?
Who would ever/ never want to give the book to the man?

The distribution of the elements in the children's repetitions and additionally the replacing of niemals with the negator nicht gives evidence that jemals and its negation niemals gives children the clue to reanalyze nicht as sentence negator. We propose a minimalist account of the distribution of the data which relies on the idea of Formal Features (Chomsky 1995/ 1998).