Holger Diessel
Biographic Data
| ID | 434211 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Holger Diessel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Holger |
| FAMILY NAME | Diessel |
| SIGNATURE | DIESSEL H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Friedrich Schiller University Jena |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4385-3287 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 251 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Learn what is detectable, detect what is useful
Many computational models of morphology that do not presuppose hand-coding of input data (i.e., do not draw on model-external linguistic knowledge) use character-based formal representations to account for lexical processing and acquisition. While such models are simple and efficient, they are not without problems. From a cognitive perspective, it remains unclear exactly what, according to these models, is represented in the mental lexicon and ho…
The richness of the stimulus
In a seminal study, Cameron-Faulkner et al. made two important observations about utterance-level constructions in English child-directed speech (CDS). First, they observed that canonical in/transitive sentences are surprisingly infrequent in child-direct speech (given that SVO word order is often thought to play a key role in the acquisition of English syntax). Second, they found that many CDS constructions are introduced by a lexical frame (suc…
Author Correction
Acquisition of demonstratives in cross-linguistic perspective
This paper examines the acquisition of demonstratives (e.g., that, there ) from a cross-linguistic perspective. Although demonstratives are often said to play a crucial role in L1 acquisition, there is little systematic research on this topic. Using extensive corpus data of spontaneous child speech, the paper investigates the emergence and development of demonstratives in three European (English, French, Spanish) and four non-European languages (…
Spatial communication systems across languages reflect universal action constraints
The extent to which languages share properties reflecting the non-linguistic constraints of the speakers who speak them is key to the debate regarding the relationship between language and cognition. A critical case is spatial communication, where it has been argued that semantic universals should exist, if anywhere. Here, using an experimental paradigm able to separate variation within a language from variation between languages, we tested the u…
The Grammar Network
Cognitive linguists and psychologists have often argued that language is best understood as an association network; however while the network view of language has had a significant impact on the study of morphology and lexical semantics, it is only recently that researchers have taken an explicit network approach to the study of syntax. This innovative study presents a dynamic network model of grammar in which all aspects of linguistic structure,…
Cross-linguistic patterns in the structure, function, and position of (object) complement clauses
The present contribution examines object complement clauses from the perspective of constituent-order typology. In particular, it provides the first principled empirical investigation of the position of object clauses relative to the matrix verb. Based on a stratified sample of 100 languages, we establish that there is an overall cross-linguistic preference for postverbal complements, due largely to the heterogeneous ordering patterns in OV-langu…
Frequency shapes syntactic structure
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space
There is a large body of research indicating that speakers of (familiar) European languages tend to encode and conceptualize space from an egocentric perspective, but linguistic fieldworkers have shown that speakers of certain other languages (e.g. Tzeltal) often describe the same spatial scenes based on fixed coordinates of the environment. This has led some researcher to challenge long-standing assumptions about semantic universals of space and…
Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language
This paper considers Arbib's hypothesis that (oral) language has its roots in gesture in light of recent research on demonstratives, joint attention, and deictic pointing (Michael Arbib. 2012. How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press). It is argued that demonstratives provide an important link between gesture, discourse, and grammar that rests on their communicative function to coordinate the inter…
Clause Linkage in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
The acquisition of German relative clauses
This paper investigates the development of relative clauses in the speech of one German-speaking child aged 2 ; 0 to 5 ; 0. The earliest relative clauses we found in the data occur in topicalization constructions that are only a little different from simple sentences: they contain a single proposition, express the actor prior to other participants, assert new information and often occur with main-clause word order. In the course of the developmen…
Iconicity of sequence
Recent work in functional and cognitive linguistics has argued and presented evidence that the positioning of adverbial clauses is motivated by competing pressures from syntactic parsing, discourse pragmatics, and semantics. Continuing this line of research, the current paper investigates the effect of the iconicity principle on the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses. The iconicity principle predicts that the linear ordering of main and su…
Frequency effects in language acquisition, language use, and diachronic change
Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar
Drawing on recent work in developmental and comparative psychology, this paper argues that demonstratives function to coordinate the interlocutors' joint focus of attention, which is one of the most basic functions of human communication. The communicative importance of demonstratives is reflected in a number of properties that together characterize them as a particular word class: In contrast to other closed-class expressions, demonstratives are…
Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses
This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses. Using corpus data from spoken and written English, it is shown that the positioning of finite adverbial clauses vis-à-vis the main clause varies with their meaning or function: conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause, temporal clauses are common in both initial and final position, and causal clauses usually follow the main clause. The article argues that th…
A New Look at the Acquisition of Relative Clauses
This study reconsiders the acquisition of relative clauses based on data from two sentencerepetition tasks. Usingmaterials modeled on the relative constructions of spontaneous child speech, we asked four-year-old English- and German-speaking children to repeat six different types of relative clauses. Although English and German relative clauses are structurally very different, the results were similar across studies: intransitive subject relative…
The Acquisition of Complex Sentences
This book presents a comprehensive study of how children acquire complex sentences. Drawing on observational data from English-speaking children aged 2 to 5, Holger Diessel investigates the acquisition of infinitival and participial complement clauses, finite complement clauses, finite and nonfinite relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and coordinate clauses. His investigation shows that the development of complex sentences originates from simple…
The relationship between demonstratives and interrogatives
This paper examines two types of expressions that seem to exist in all languages, demonstratives and interrogatives. Based on a representative sample of 100 languages it is shown that demonstratives and interrogatives have some striking features in common. They cross-cut the boundaries of several word classes and encode the same semantic features: person, thing, place, direction, manner, time, and amount. It is the central hypothesis of this stud…
The development of relative clauses in spontaneous child speech
This study examines the development of relative clauses in the speech of four English-speaking children between 1;9 and 5;2 years of age. It is shown that the earliest relative clauses occur in presentational constructions that express a single proposition in two ®nite clauses. Starting from such simple sentences, children gradually learn the use of more complex constructions in which the relative clause modi®es the noun of a fulledged main claus…
The acquisition of finite complement clauses in English
This article examines the development of finite complement clauses in the speech of seven English-speaking children aged 1;2 to 5;2. It shows that in most of children's complex utterances that seem to include a finite complement clause, the main clause does not express a full proposition; rather, it functions as an epistemic marker, attention getter, or marker of illocutionary force. The whole construction thus contains only a single proposition …
The Ordering Distribution of Main and Adverbial Clauses
This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses in crosslinguistic perspective. Using a representative sample of forty languages, the author shows that the ordering of main and adverbial clauses correlates with the position of the subordinator in the subordinate clause. In languages in which adverbial clauses have a final subordinator, adverbial clauses tend to precede the main clause, whereas in languages in which a…
Demonstratives
All languages have demonstratives, but their form, meaning and use vary tremendously across the languages of the world. This book presents the first large-scale analysis of demonstratives from a cross-linguistic and diachronic perspective. It is based on a representative sample of 85 languages. The first part of the book analyzes demonstratives from a synchronic point of view, examining their morphological structures, semantic features, syntactic…
Verb-First Constructions in German
Why Complement Clauses Do Not Include a That-Complementizer in Early Child Language
Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (2000)
Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar
Drawing on recent work in developmental and comparative psychology, this paper argues that demonstratives function to coordinate the interlocutors' joint focus of attention, which is one of the most basic functions of human communication. The communicative importance of demonstratives is reflected in a number of properties that together characterize them as a particular word class: In contrast to other closed-class expressions, demonstratives are…
Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space
There is a large body of research indicating that speakers of (familiar) European languages tend to encode and conceptualize space from an egocentric perspective, but linguistic fieldworkers have shown that speakers of certain other languages (e.g. Tzeltal) often describe the same spatial scenes based on fixed coordinates of the environment. This has led some researcher to challenge long-standing assumptions about semantic universals of space and…
Frequency effects in language acquisition, language use, and diachronic change
Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses
This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses. Using corpus data from spoken and written English, it is shown that the positioning of finite adverbial clauses vis-à-vis the main clause varies with their meaning or function: conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause, temporal clauses are common in both initial and final position, and causal clauses usually follow the main clause. The article argues that th…
Iconicity of sequence
Recent work in functional and cognitive linguistics has argued and presented evidence that the positioning of adverbial clauses is motivated by competing pressures from syntactic parsing, discourse pragmatics, and semantics. Continuing this line of research, the current paper investigates the effect of the iconicity principle on the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses. The iconicity principle predicts that the linear ordering of main and su…
The acquisition of finite complement clauses in English
This article examines the development of finite complement clauses in the speech of seven English-speaking children aged 1;2 to 5;2. It shows that in most of children's complex utterances that seem to include a finite complement clause, the main clause does not express a full proposition; rather, it functions as an epistemic marker, attention getter, or marker of illocutionary force. The whole construction thus contains only a single proposition …
A New Look at the Acquisition of Relative Clauses
This study reconsiders the acquisition of relative clauses based on data from two sentencerepetition tasks. Usingmaterials modeled on the relative constructions of spontaneous child speech, we asked four-year-old English- and German-speaking children to repeat six different types of relative clauses. Although English and German relative clauses are structurally very different, the results were similar across studies: intransitive subject relative…
The relationship between demonstratives and interrogatives
This paper examines two types of expressions that seem to exist in all languages, demonstratives and interrogatives. Based on a representative sample of 100 languages it is shown that demonstratives and interrogatives have some striking features in common. They cross-cut the boundaries of several word classes and encode the same semantic features: person, thing, place, direction, manner, time, and amount. It is the central hypothesis of this stud…
The Ordering Distribution of Main and Adverbial Clauses
This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses in crosslinguistic perspective. Using a representative sample of forty languages, the author shows that the ordering of main and adverbial clauses correlates with the position of the subordinator in the subordinate clause. In languages in which adverbial clauses have a final subordinator, adverbial clauses tend to precede the main clause, whereas in languages in which a…
Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language
This paper considers Arbib's hypothesis that (oral) language has its roots in gesture in light of recent research on demonstratives, joint attention, and deictic pointing (Michael Arbib. 2012. How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press). It is argued that demonstratives provide an important link between gesture, discourse, and grammar that rests on their communicative function to coordinate the inter…
Cross-linguistic patterns in the structure, function, and position of (object) complement clauses
The present contribution examines object complement clauses from the perspective of constituent-order typology. In particular, it provides the first principled empirical investigation of the position of object clauses relative to the matrix verb. Based on a stratified sample of 100 languages, we establish that there is an overall cross-linguistic preference for postverbal complements, due largely to the heterogeneous ordering patterns in OV-langu…
Spatial communication systems across languages reflect universal action constraints
The extent to which languages share properties reflecting the non-linguistic constraints of the speakers who speak them is key to the debate regarding the relationship between language and cognition. A critical case is spatial communication, where it has been argued that semantic universals should exist, if anywhere. Here, using an experimental paradigm able to separate variation within a language from variation between languages, we tested the u…
Processing Factors of Pre- and Postposed Adverbial Clauses
Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on The Role of Learnability in Grammatical Theory (1996)
Predicative Demonstratives
Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session and Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Structure (1997)
Demonstratives
All languages have demonstratives, but their form, meaning and use vary tremendously across the languages of the world. This book presents the first large-scale analysis of demonstratives from a cross-linguistic and diachronic perspective. It is based on a representative sample of 85 languages. The first part of the book analyzes demonstratives from a synchronic point of view, examining their morphological structures, semantic features, syntactic…
Verb-First Constructions in German
Why Complement Clauses Do Not Include a That-Complementizer in Early Child Language
Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (2000)
The development of relative clauses in spontaneous child speech
This study examines the development of relative clauses in the speech of four English-speaking children between 1;9 and 5;2 years of age. It is shown that the earliest relative clauses occur in presentational constructions that express a single proposition in two ®nite clauses. Starting from such simple sentences, children gradually learn the use of more complex constructions in which the relative clause modi®es the noun of a fulledged main claus…
The acquisition of finite complement clauses in English
This article examines the development of finite complement clauses in the speech of seven English-speaking children aged 1;2 to 5;2. It shows that in most of children's complex utterances that seem to include a finite complement clause, the main clause does not express a full proposition; rather, it functions as an epistemic marker, attention getter, or marker of illocutionary force. The whole construction thus contains only a single proposition …
The Ordering Distribution of Main and Adverbial Clauses
This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses in crosslinguistic perspective. Using a representative sample of forty languages, the author shows that the ordering of main and adverbial clauses correlates with the position of the subordinator in the subordinate clause. In languages in which adverbial clauses have a final subordinator, adverbial clauses tend to precede the main clause, whereas in languages in which a…
The relationship between demonstratives and interrogatives
This paper examines two types of expressions that seem to exist in all languages, demonstratives and interrogatives. Based on a representative sample of 100 languages it is shown that demonstratives and interrogatives have some striking features in common. They cross-cut the boundaries of several word classes and encode the same semantic features: person, thing, place, direction, manner, time, and amount. It is the central hypothesis of this stud…
The Acquisition of Complex Sentences
This book presents a comprehensive study of how children acquire complex sentences. Drawing on observational data from English-speaking children aged 2 to 5, Holger Diessel investigates the acquisition of infinitival and participial complement clauses, finite complement clauses, finite and nonfinite relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and coordinate clauses. His investigation shows that the development of complex sentences originates from simple…
Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses
This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses. Using corpus data from spoken and written English, it is shown that the positioning of finite adverbial clauses vis-à-vis the main clause varies with their meaning or function: conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause, temporal clauses are common in both initial and final position, and causal clauses usually follow the main clause. The article argues that th…
A New Look at the Acquisition of Relative Clauses
This study reconsiders the acquisition of relative clauses based on data from two sentencerepetition tasks. Usingmaterials modeled on the relative constructions of spontaneous child speech, we asked four-year-old English- and German-speaking children to repeat six different types of relative clauses. Although English and German relative clauses are structurally very different, the results were similar across studies: intransitive subject relative…
Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar
Drawing on recent work in developmental and comparative psychology, this paper argues that demonstratives function to coordinate the interlocutors' joint focus of attention, which is one of the most basic functions of human communication. The communicative importance of demonstratives is reflected in a number of properties that together characterize them as a particular word class: In contrast to other closed-class expressions, demonstratives are…
Frequency effects in language acquisition, language use, and diachronic change
The acquisition of German relative clauses
This paper investigates the development of relative clauses in the speech of one German-speaking child aged 2 ; 0 to 5 ; 0. The earliest relative clauses we found in the data occur in topicalization constructions that are only a little different from simple sentences: they contain a single proposition, express the actor prior to other participants, assert new information and often occur with main-clause word order. In the course of the developmen…
Iconicity of sequence
Recent work in functional and cognitive linguistics has argued and presented evidence that the positioning of adverbial clauses is motivated by competing pressures from syntactic parsing, discourse pragmatics, and semantics. Continuing this line of research, the current paper investigates the effect of the iconicity principle on the positioning of temporal adverbial clauses. The iconicity principle predicts that the linear ordering of main and su…
Clause Linkage in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language
This paper considers Arbib's hypothesis that (oral) language has its roots in gesture in light of recent research on demonstratives, joint attention, and deictic pointing (Michael Arbib. 2012. How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis. Oxford: Oxford University Press). It is argued that demonstratives provide an important link between gesture, discourse, and grammar that rests on their communicative function to coordinate the inter…
Demonstratives, Frames of Reference, and Semantic Universals of Space
There is a large body of research indicating that speakers of (familiar) European languages tend to encode and conceptualize space from an egocentric perspective, but linguistic fieldworkers have shown that speakers of certain other languages (e.g. Tzeltal) often describe the same spatial scenes based on fixed coordinates of the environment. This has led some researcher to challenge long-standing assumptions about semantic universals of space and…
Frequency shapes syntactic structure
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Cross-linguistic patterns in the structure, function, and position of (object) complement clauses
The present contribution examines object complement clauses from the perspective of constituent-order typology. In particular, it provides the first principled empirical investigation of the position of object clauses relative to the matrix verb. Based on a stratified sample of 100 languages, we establish that there is an overall cross-linguistic preference for postverbal complements, due largely to the heterogeneous ordering patterns in OV-langu…
The Grammar Network
Cognitive linguists and psychologists have often argued that language is best understood as an association network; however while the network view of language has had a significant impact on the study of morphology and lexical semantics, it is only recently that researchers have taken an explicit network approach to the study of syntax. This innovative study presents a dynamic network model of grammar in which all aspects of linguistic structure,…
Acquisition of demonstratives in cross-linguistic perspective
This paper examines the acquisition of demonstratives (e.g., that, there ) from a cross-linguistic perspective. Although demonstratives are often said to play a crucial role in L1 acquisition, there is little systematic research on this topic. Using extensive corpus data of spontaneous child speech, the paper investigates the emergence and development of demonstratives in three European (English, French, Spanish) and four non-European languages (…
Spatial communication systems across languages reflect universal action constraints
The extent to which languages share properties reflecting the non-linguistic constraints of the speakers who speak them is key to the debate regarding the relationship between language and cognition. A critical case is spatial communication, where it has been argued that semantic universals should exist, if anywhere. Here, using an experimental paradigm able to separate variation within a language from variation between languages, we tested the u…
Author Correction
Linguistics (16 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (15 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Language Development and Disorders (7 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (7 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (6 works) · Natural Language Processing Techniques (6 works) · Adverbial (5 works)