Unmarked transitivity

A processing constraint on linking

Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky | Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig

Matthias Schlesewsky | Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz

Recent experimental evidence suggests that a prototypical concept of transitive events (“unmarked transitivity”), which has proven a useful descriptive notion in language typological research, also plays a crucial role during real time language comprehension. In this chapter, we review neurocognitive evidence for unmarked transitivity from both a neuroanatomical (spatial) and neurophysiological (temporal) perspective. We further show how unmarked transitivity, which we characterise as the default realisation of a more general requirement for argument distinctness, can be integrated into a comprehensive model of cross-linguistic language comprehension. Finally, we discuss possible consequences of the comprehension findings for theoretical characterisations of language architecture, with a particular focus on Role and Reference Grammar.

Published online: 21 November 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.105.29bor

Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

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2014. In Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space [Studies in Language Companion Series, 157],

Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina & Matthias Schlesewsky

2009. Minimality as vacuous distinctness: Evidence from cross-linguistic sentence comprehension. Lingua 119:10 ► pp. 1541 ff.

Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Ina & Matthias Schlesewsky

2009. The Role of Prominence Information in the Real-Time Comprehension of Transitive Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Approach. Language and Linguistics Compass 3:1 ► pp. 19 ff.

Dröge, Alexander, Laura Maffongelli & Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky

2014. In Structuring the Argument [Language Faculty and Beyond, 10], ► pp. 83 ff.

Roehm, Dietmar, Antonella Sorace & Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky

2013. Processing flexible form-to-meaning mappings: Evidence for enriched composition as opposed to indeterminacy. Language and Cognitive Processes 28:8 ► pp. 1244 ff.

Wang, Luming, Matthias Schlesewsky, Markus Philipp & Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky

2012. In Case, Word Order and Prominence [Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, 40], ► pp. 91 ff.

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