Laura Becker
Biographic Data
| ID | 5901704 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Laura Becker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Laura |
| FAMILY NAME | Becker |
| SIGNATURE | BECKER L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Freiburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1835-9404 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
The intangible demonstrative yu- in Hup
This study presents a detailed overview of the so-called intangible demonstrative yu- in Hup (Naduhup, Brazil). Analyzing its distribution in spontaneous speech data from narratives and conversation, we show that the demonstrative has a variety of discourse-managing functions, which have traditionally received less attention in the typological literature on demonstratives. We first present anaphoric and different discourse-deictic uses of yu- , a…
Authors’ response to “Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology”
We want to start our replies by thanking all the
Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology
Replication and replicability are fundamental tools to ensure that research results can be verified by an independent third party, reproducing the original study and ideally finding similar results. Yet, replication has not played a very important role in language typology so far, with most of the discussion around replication concerned with different types of language samples and sampling methods. This study addresses the issue of replication in…
Why modelling space is hard
In recent years there has been an increased interest in computational modeling of spatial phenomena in typology. While the main focus of most work so far has been on direct language contact, there are two different types of spatial dynamics of interest to typologists and areal linguists: language expansion, and asymmetric contact effects. In this paper we present five statistical techniques to model phylogenetic and spatial relations between lang…
Levshina, Natalia
The book Communicative Efficiency: Language Structure and Use takes the reader on a journey through various phenomena related to efficiency in language use and in grammatical structures.Efficiency is not a new topic in linguistics, and by now there is a large body of research on the topic from different linguistic angles, ranging from psycholinguistics to phonetics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, typology, sign language research, language evolut…
Syntactic pausing? Re-examining the associations
In this study, we look at the distribution of silent pauses within existing multi-language corpora to see whether their location and duration correlate with clause boundaries. Our study is based on data of seven languages from Multi-CAST. We supplemented the original clause boundary annotations with information about silent pauses in order to investigate the alignment of clause boundaries and pausing. We find a gradient association between clause…
Statistical bias control in typology
In this paper, we propose two new statistical controls for genealogical and areal bias in typological samples. Our test case being the effect of VO-order effect on affix position (prefixation vs. suffixation), we show how statistical modeling including a phylogenetic regression term (phylogenetic control) and a two-dimensional Gaussian Process (areal control) can be used to capture genealogical and areal effects in a large but unbalanced sample. …
Semantic maps and typological hierarchies
Although semantic maps and typological hierarchies are different analytical tools and make different predictions, there is, arguably, a particular kind of a semantic map that shares certain features with typological hierarchies, in particular, the property of directionality. First, we briefly illustrate that such maps are based on the notion of local markedness and are designed to model the interaction between grammatical categories. We then expl…
Coding efficiency in nominal inflection
Since (Zipf, George Kingsley. 1935. The psychobiology of language: An introduction to dynamic philology . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Zipf, George Kingsley. 1949. Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Journal of Consulting Psychology 13(3)), it has been known that more frequent lexical items tend to be shorter than less frequent ones, and this association between the length of an expression and its frequency has been applied to various …
Morphological marking of contrast in Tima
Tima (Niger-Congo, Sudan) has two morphological means to express contrast: focus marking and selective marking. We take the distribution of both marking options and their interaction as evidence for a broad approach to contrast, the latter being a gradient phenomenon rather than a categorical one. We show for Tima that exhaustivity and unexpectedness play a role in determining the strength of the contrast, with the selective marker and focus mark…
Psych predicates in European languages
Previous work on psych predicates has so far mostly focused on verbs and their non-canonical argument structures within and across languages. In this study, we propose a usage-based account using parallel subtitles in seven European languages in order to examine the intralinguistic and crosslinguistic variation of psychological expressions. We start out from 12 semantically defined psychological concepts rather than concrete constructions; this a…
Nutrition data use and needs
BACKGROUND: There is growing global demand for country-specific information to track nutritional status and its determinants, including intervention coverage. Periodic population-based surveys form the backbone of most national nutrition information systems. However, data on the coverage of many nutrition specific and sensitive interventions remain sparse. METHODS: tests used for statistical testing. RESULTS: < 0.05). The most commonly accessed i…
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Morphological marking of contrast in Tima
Tima (Niger-Congo, Sudan) has two morphological means to express contrast: focus marking and selective marking. We take the distribution of both marking options and their interaction as evidence for a broad approach to contrast, the latter being a gradient phenomenon rather than a categorical one. We show for Tima that exhaustivity and unexpectedness play a role in determining the strength of the contrast, with the selective marker and focus mark…
Psych predicates in European languages
Previous work on psych predicates has so far mostly focused on verbs and their non-canonical argument structures within and across languages. In this study, we propose a usage-based account using parallel subtitles in seven European languages in order to examine the intralinguistic and crosslinguistic variation of psychological expressions. We start out from 12 semantically defined psychological concepts rather than concrete constructions; this a…
Nutrition data use and needs
BACKGROUND: There is growing global demand for country-specific information to track nutritional status and its determinants, including intervention coverage. Periodic population-based surveys form the backbone of most national nutrition information systems. However, data on the coverage of many nutrition specific and sensitive interventions remain sparse. METHODS: tests used for statistical testing. RESULTS: < 0.05). The most commonly accessed i…
Coding efficiency in nominal inflection
Since (Zipf, George Kingsley. 1935. The psychobiology of language: An introduction to dynamic philology . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Zipf, George Kingsley. 1949. Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Journal of Consulting Psychology 13(3)), it has been known that more frequent lexical items tend to be shorter than less frequent ones, and this association between the length of an expression and its frequency has been applied to various …
Statistical bias control in typology
In this paper, we propose two new statistical controls for genealogical and areal bias in typological samples. Our test case being the effect of VO-order effect on affix position (prefixation vs. suffixation), we show how statistical modeling including a phylogenetic regression term (phylogenetic control) and a two-dimensional Gaussian Process (areal control) can be used to capture genealogical and areal effects in a large but unbalanced sample. …
Semantic maps and typological hierarchies
Although semantic maps and typological hierarchies are different analytical tools and make different predictions, there is, arguably, a particular kind of a semantic map that shares certain features with typological hierarchies, in particular, the property of directionality. First, we briefly illustrate that such maps are based on the notion of local markedness and are designed to model the interaction between grammatical categories. We then expl…
Levshina, Natalia
The book Communicative Efficiency: Language Structure and Use takes the reader on a journey through various phenomena related to efficiency in language use and in grammatical structures.Efficiency is not a new topic in linguistics, and by now there is a large body of research on the topic from different linguistic angles, ranging from psycholinguistics to phonetics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, typology, sign language research, language evolut…
Syntactic pausing? Re-examining the associations
In this study, we look at the distribution of silent pauses within existing multi-language corpora to see whether their location and duration correlate with clause boundaries. Our study is based on data of seven languages from Multi-CAST. We supplemented the original clause boundary annotations with information about silent pauses in order to investigate the alignment of clause boundaries and pausing. We find a gradient association between clause…
The intangible demonstrative yu- in Hup
This study presents a detailed overview of the so-called intangible demonstrative yu- in Hup (Naduhup, Brazil). Analyzing its distribution in spontaneous speech data from narratives and conversation, we show that the demonstrative has a variety of discourse-managing functions, which have traditionally received less attention in the typological literature on demonstratives. We first present anaphoric and different discourse-deictic uses of yu- , a…
Authors’ response to “Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology”
We want to start our replies by thanking all the
Replication and methodological robustness in quantitative typology
Replication and replicability are fundamental tools to ensure that research results can be verified by an independent third party, reproducing the original study and ideally finding similar results. Yet, replication has not played a very important role in language typology so far, with most of the discussion around replication concerned with different types of language samples and sampling methods. This study addresses the issue of replication in…
Why modelling space is hard
In recent years there has been an increased interest in computational modeling of spatial phenomena in typology. While the main focus of most work so far has been on direct language contact, there are two different types of spatial dynamics of interest to typologists and areal linguists: language expansion, and asymmetric contact effects. In this paper we present five statistical techniques to model phylogenetic and spatial relations between lang…
Computer Science (7 works) · Linguistics (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (6 works) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (5 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works) · Language and cultural evolution (4 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (4 works) · Mathematics (4 works) · Psychology (4 works)