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Dear colleagues,<br>
<br>
thank you for the helpful feedback and the many references. We will
have a close look at everything. However, from what we've got now it
seems that we can't use the measure for what we wanted it to use: to
test whether children identify more with one character in their
narrative than with another. And if you have any other suggestion of
what feature of grammar (in the widest sense) could be informative
for this purpose, please let us know.<br>
<br>
Best,<br>
<br>
Lars, and Gerlind<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/8/2013 9:29 PM, Brian MacWhinney
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:B79EDB7D-31D5-436A-8EC8-A8C8D83A5C98@cmu.edu"
type="cite">
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Dear Lars (and Tom),
<div> </div>
<div>Good question. Unfortunately, my answer will be rather
long-winded.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My 1977 version of the Perspective Hypothesis, as well as the
experimental evidence from Gernsbacher (1990), focuses mainly on
the forces determining selection of the subject of the main
clause. However, it was already clear then that only nominals
constitute real starting points. So, in the Adv-V-S order of
German as in "Hier kommt der Mann" there is no real sense in
which the initial element is a perspective. It is an
attentional focus but not the fundamental structural building
block of Gernsbacher 1990.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A fuller answer to your question involves a discussion of
perspective shifting or switching. In 1977, I saw that the data
from Herb Clark's (1969) sentence-picture verification task
could be addressed in terms of something close to
perspective-shifting operations. Then, in MacWhinney and Pleh
(Cognition, 1988), we found that it was necessary to extend the
item of perspective-shifting still further to get a fuller
understanding of the dynamics of processing for relative clauses
in Hungarian (as well as related data for relative clauses in
other languages). </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also, in MacWhinney (1975), which eventually surfaced as
MacWhinney and Bates (1978) we provided evidence for online
perspective-shifting from marked verb forms like "get" to
unmarked forms like "get" along with retracing and pausing in
picture descriptions by both children and adults.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Returning to these issues much later in these two papers, I
tried to explain in greater detail how perspective shifts
between clauses:</div>
<div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-indent: -36px;
font-size: 12px; ">MacWhinney, Brian. (1999). The emergence of
language from embodiment. In B. MacWhinney (Ed.), <i>The
emergence of language</i> (pp. 213-256). Mahwah, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.</div>
<div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; text-indent: -36px;
font-size: 12px; ">MacWhinney, Brian. (2008). How mental
models encode embodied linguistic perspectives. In R.
Klatzky, B. MacWhinney & M. Behrmann (Eds.), <i>Embodiment,
Ego-Space, and Action</i> (pp. 369-410). Mahwah: Lawrence
Erlbaum.</div>
</div>
<div>Your best reference would be the 2008 paper. For English,
my claim is that the subject (which is nearly always
preverbal) is the initial perspective and must be referential.
However, if there is a preceding PP or subordinate clause,
then specific cues within that phrase can set up cataphoric
expectations for a following referential perspective. More
generally, I have become increasingly convinced that the
primary function of grammatical markings is to signal
perspective shift and maintenance. There are far too many
constructions and cues involved here to capture in a brief
email message and even the 2008 paper is just a sketch of this
territory.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In regard to freer word order languages like German,
Russian, or Hungarian, the placement of an NP with accusative
marking before the verb does not establish a true perspective.
It does serve the role of "placing an actor on stage" as
Chafe (1974) argued, but if the accusative marking is clear
then the NP is not processed as a perspective, and the
processor holds that role open, but as in the case of preposed
cataphoric subordinates. This is perhaps clearest in
Hungarian and Japanese where case marking is far less
ambiguous than in German. Sanako Mitsugi and I have various
eye movement and self-paced reading studies in Japanese
demonstrating this. Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky and Matthias
Schlesewsky have also done wonderful crosslinguistic work
demonstrating similar principles using ERP methodology. The
basic idea is that the whole system of starting points exists
as a general default overlay on the more item-based system of
grammatical role marking.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Apart from cues found in preposed clauses, there are a
myriad of interesting perspective shift effects in deictics
(here, now) and the anaphoric systems studied by
government-and-binding theory. There are also crucial
perspective-shifting effects within the clause as attention
shifts from the starting point to the direct and indirect
objects. Basically, the Perspective Hypothesis offers a
pragmatic explanation for the various principles alternatively
formulated through c-command.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Some of the effects regarding GPOV that Tom mentions
interact with clausal syntax, as in the processing of control
verbs such as "easy to see" vs. "eager to see". Peggy Speas,
Carol Tenny, and others have studied a variety of
perspective-shifting emotion words and expressions such as
"happily" or "that darned ..." that do not touch clausal
syntax that much. I would like to think of
perspective-shifting as a high-level frontal lobe function
based on role assignment and scene construction that then
connects with syntax and lexicon as interactive inputs. Maybe
this is what Jackendoff means about interfaces?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In terms of practical application for your work, the
default assumption is one of perspective continuation across
clauses. However, to tell a story effectively, perspectives
must be frequently shifted. As MacWhinney and Bates (1978)
showed, young children do not seem to have full control over
the use of grammatical marking to mark these shifts. So this
is what often makes it hard to follow their stories. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>--Brian MacWhinney</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>On Oct 8, 2013, at 3:46 AM, Gerlind Gro�e <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:Gerlind.Grosse@eva.mpg.de">Gerlind.Grosse@eva.mpg.de</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">Dear colleagues,<br>
<br>
We would like to analyze a corpus of children’s stories (5
year olds) regarding the type of starting points. We depart
from the Perspective Hypothesis (MacWinney, 1977, 2008,
Gernsbacher 1990) which holds that “…given a choice between
two starting points, speakers and listeners prefer the
starting point closest to the one they assume or which to
assume in their own interactions with the world.” Now, our
current question is about how to determine starting points
in complex sentences or sentence fragments. Does each
sub-clause indicate a new starting point? Is the starting
point always the very first element or the first main
functional element, i.e. (SVO)? We are dealing with German
which has a flexible word order.<br>
Any ideas, references or advices are welcome.<br>
<br>
<br>
Many thanks!<br>
<br>
Lars White, and Gerlind Grosse<br>
(Leipzig)<br>
<br>
<br>
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