Description
Traditionally, due to the availability of technology, psycholinguistic research has focused mainly on Western languages. However, this focus has recently shifted towards a more diverse range of languages, whose structures often throw into question many previous assumptions in syntactic theory and language processing. Based on a case study in field-based comparative psycholinguistics, this pioneering book is the first to explore the neurocognition of endangered 'object-before-subject' languages, such as Kaqchikel and Seediq. It draws on a range of methods - including linguistic fieldwork, theoretical linguistic analysis, corpus research, questionnaire surveys, behavioural experiments, eye tracking, event-related brain potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging, and near-infrared spectroscopy – to consider preferred constituent orders in both language and thought, examining comprehension as well as production. In doing so, it highlights the importance of field-based cross-linguistic cognitive neuroscientific research in uncovering universal and language-particular aspects of the human language faculty, and the interaction between language and thought.
Table of Contents
Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Kaqchikel Mayan; 3. Word order preference in sentence comprehension I: behavioral studies; 4. Word order preference in sentence comprehension II: fMRI studies; 5. Word order preference in sentence comprehension III: ERP studies without context; 6. Word order preference in sentence comprehension IV: ERP studies with context; 7. Basic word order in language and natural order of thought; 8. Constituent order preference in event representation; 9. Word order preference in sentence production I: production frequency; 10. Word order preference in sentence production II: time course and cognitive load; 11. Grammatical processing and event apprehension; 12. Syntactic structure of Kaqchikel revisited; 13. Syntax and processing load; 14. Concluding remarks; Appendix A: spatial frames of reference of Kaqchikel speakers; Appendix B: syntax and processing in Seediq: a behavioral study.
