Dagmar Divjak

• PhD
• Professor at University of Birmingham

This research addresses two major challenges in studying second language acquisition and bilingualism: reducing overlap in predictor variables and correctly classifying participants into language proficiency levels. Too many relevant predictors can harm statistical analysis due to an increased chance of overlap, known as multicollinearity. To tackl...

Construction Grammar is one of the fastest-growing branches of functional syntax. Bringing together an international team of scholars, this handbook provides a complete overview of the current issues and applications in this approach. Divided into six thematic parts, it covers the fundamental notions of Construction Grammar, its conceptual origins...

There are vast individual differences in heritage bilinguals' linguistic skills. It is not clear, however, to what extent this variation can be attributed to experience, cognitive ability or motivation. This study investigates factors influencing the acquisition of both Polish (HL = Heritage Language) and English (SocL = Societal Language) of schoo...

We explore how general principles of learning apply to and combine with usage‐based approaches to language learning and teaching, with a focus on the effects of order of exposure to new information in second language (L2) instruction. Although the effects of input spacing and timing on memory and learning have been previously explored (see Rogers,...

In cognitive linguistics, grammatical structure is known to be representative of meaning. This is also true of English articles. In this paper, we argue that the choice of article, when the grammar allows it, is dependent on the wider discourse context and most importantly on how the speaker construes this context. Using survey data from 181 native...

The process by which awareness and/or knowledge of linguistic categories arises from exposure to patterns in data alone, known as emergence, is the corner stone of usage-based approaches to language. The present paper zooms in on the types of patterns that language users may detect in the input to determine the content, and hence the nature, of the...

Over the past decades, focus has been on developing methods that allow tapping into aspects of cognition that are not directly observable. This includes linguistic knowledge and skills which develop largely without awareness and may therefore be difficult or impossible to articulate. Building on the relation between language cognition and the nervo...

The language of Heritage Speakers (HS), or of early bilinguals of a minority language, is often seen as incomplete or less developed than that of Monolingual Speakers (MS). This study investigates whether 7- to 9-year-old English/Polish HS can be distinguished from MS in terms of linguistic skills when complexity and fluency are focal rather than a...

This concise overview paper introduces the work done by the Out Of Our Minds research group at the University of Birmingham, highlighting the need for organic interdisciplinarity in contemporary language science. By summarizing two case studies, we underscore the need for compatible methodologies that address shared research objectives. Despite ini...

Despite a considerable amount of research conducted on the development of tense/aspect (TA) usage in English by second language (L2) learners, nuances in uses of TAs remain elusive to many L2 learners of English: the grammatical accounts proposed appear difficult to apply as they are either too general or too specific and fail to provide learners w...

Recent progress in deep learning and natural language processing has given rise to powerful models that are primarily trained on a cloze-like task and show some evidence of having access to substantial linguistic information, including some constructional knowledge. This groundbreaking discovery presents an exciting opportunity for a synergistic re...

Full-fledged grammatical article systems as attested in Germanic and Romance languages are rather uncommon from a typological perspective. The frequency with which articles occur in these languages, together with the difficulty encountered in detecting them and the lack of a water-tight account of article use, make article errors one of the most fr...

In this study, we propose an operationalization of the concept of emergence which plays a crucial role in usage-based theories of language. The abstractions linguists operate with are assumed to emerge through a process of generalization over the data language users are exposed to. Here, we use two types of computational learning algorithms that di...

Since its first adoption as a computational model for language learning, evidence has accumulated that Rescorla–Wagner error-correction learning (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972) captures several aspects of language processing. Whereas previous studies have provided general support for the Rescorla–Wagner rule by using it to explain the behavior of partici...

Although there is a broad consensus that both the procedural and declarative memory systems play a crucial role in language learning, use, and knowledge, the mapping between linguistic types and memory structures remains underspecified: by default, a dual‐route mapping of language systems to memory systems is assumed, with declarative memory handli...

Article prediction is a task that has long defied accurate linguistic description. As such, this task is ideally suited to evaluate models on their ability to emulate native-speaker intuition. To this end, we compare the performance of native English speakers and pre-trained models on the task of article prediction set up as a three way choice (a/a...

Article prediction is a task that has long defied accurate linguistic description. As such, this task is ideally suited to evaluate models on their ability to emulate native-speaker intuition. To this end, we compare the performance of native English speakers and pre-trained models on the task of article prediction set up as a three way choice (a/a...

The current study investigated the contributions of working memory, vocabulary size, education and age to letter fluency performance in healthy adults (N = 50, mean age = 26.5). We administered a letter fluency task using three stimulus letters (F, A, S). Using Bayesian generalized linear mixed model analysis, we established independent contributio...

We examined how language supports the expression of temporality within sentence boundaries in English, which has a rich inventory of grammatical means to express temporality. Using a computational model that mimics how humans learn from exposure we explored what the use of different tense and aspect (TA) combinations reveals about the interaction b...

Implicit sequence learning is an integral part of human experience, yet the nature of the mechanisms underlying this type of learning remains a matter of debate. In the current study, we provide a test for two accounts of implicit sequence learning, that is, one that highlights sequence learning in the absence of any motor responses (with suppresse...

We investigated the relation between implicit sequence learning and individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity. Participants performed an oculomotor version of the serial reaction time (SRT) task and three computerized WM tasks. Implicit learning was measured using anticipation measures only, as they represent strong indicators of learn...

In the present paper we use a range of modeling techniques to investigate whether an abstract phone could emerge from exposure to speech sounds. We test two opposing principles regarding the development of language knowledge in linguistically untrained language users: Memory-Based Learning (MBL) and Error-Correction Learning (ECL). A process of gen...

While lexico-semantic elements no doubt capture a large amount of linguistic information, it has been argued that they do not capture all information contained in text. This assumption is central to constructionist approaches to language which argue that language consists of constructions, learned pairings of a form and a function or meaning that a...

How language users become able to process forms they have never encountered in input is central to our understanding of language cognition. A range of models, including rule-based models, stochastic models, and analogy-based models have been proposed to account for this ability. Despite the fact that all three models are reasonably successful, we a...

While the effects of pattern learning on language processing are well known, the way in which pattern learning shapes exploratory behavior has long gone unnoticed. We report on the way in which individual differences in statistical pattern learning affect performance in the domain of language along multiple dimensions. Analyzing data from healthy m...

In this paper we present the Widrow-Hoff rule and its applications to language data. After contextualizing the rule historically and placing it in the chain of neurally inspired artificial learning models, we explain its rationale and implementational considerations. Using a number of case studies we illustrate how the Widrow-Hoff rule offers unexp...

The theoretical notion of ‘construal’ captures the idea that the way in which we describe a scene reflects our conceptualization of it. Relying on the concept of ception – which conjoins conception and perception – we operationalized construal and employed a Visual World Paradigm to establish which aspects of linguistic scene description modulate v...

Cognitive linguists are bound by the cognitive commitment, which is the commitment to providing a characterization of the general principles governing all aspects of human language, in a way that is informed by, and accords with, what is known about the brain and mind from other disciplines. But what do we know about aspects of cognition that are r...

This paper contributes to current debates in linguistic theory and methodology by focusing on discreteness versus continuity in linguistic description as well as on the importance of structure versus use for understanding mental representations of language phenomena. It does so through a case study on the Polish [finite verb + infinitive] construct...

In this paper, we focus on corpus-linguistic studies that address theoretical questions and on computational linguistic work on corpus annotation, that makes corpora useful for linguistic work. First, we discuss why the corpus linguistic approach was discredited by generative linguists in the second half of the 20th century, how it made a comeback...

The goal of the present study is to understand the role orthographic and semantic information play in the behaviour of skilled readers. Reading latencies from a self-paced sentence reading experiment in which Russian near-synonymous verbs were manipulated appear well-predicted by a combination of bottom-up sub-lexical letter triplets (trigraphs) an...

Since its conception, Cognitive Linguistics as a theory of language has been enjoying ever increasing success worldwide. With quantitative growth has come qualitative diversification, and within a now heterogeneous field, different – and at times opposing – views on theoretical and methodological matters have emerged. The historical “prototype” of...

Over the past 10 years, Cognitive Linguistics has taken a Quantitative Turn. Yet, concerns have been raised that this preoccupation with quantification and modelling may not bring us any closer to understanding how language works. We show that this objection is unfounded, especially if we rely on modelling techniques based on biologically and psych...

We report on a self-paced reading experiment that was run to ascertain whether the effect of differential tense, aspect and mood (henceforth TAM) marking on verbs would affect processing. TAM properties were identified as the strongest predictors for the choice between 6 near synonyms meaning TRY in Russian on the basis of regression models fit to...

A number of studies report that frequency is a poor predictor of acceptability, in particular at the lower end of the frequency spectrum. Because acceptability judgments provide a substantial part of the empirical foundation of dominant linguistic traditions, understanding how acceptability relates to frequency, one of the most robust predictors of...

Linguistic convention typically allows speakers several options. Evidence is accumulating that the various options are preferred in different contexts, yet the criteria governing the selection of the appropriate form are often far from obvious. Most researchers who attempt to discover the factors determining a preference rely on the linguistic anal...

Usage-based linguistics abounds with studies that use statistical classification models to analyse either textual corpus data or behavioral experimental data. Yet, before we can draw conclusions from statistical models of empirical data that we can feed back into cognitive linguistic theory, we need to assess whether the text-based models are cogni...

In this paper we present the results of an empirical study into the cognitive reality of existing classifications of modality using Polish data. We analyzed random samples of 250 independent observations for the 7 most frequent modal words (móc ‘can’, można ‘it is possible’, musieć ‘must’, należy ‘it is necessary’, powinien ‘should’, trzeba ‘it is...

In this paper, I pursue the distributional hypothesis that the meaning of a word is derived from the linguistic contexts in which it occurs and apply it to verbs of perception. Differently from NLP implementations of the distributional hypothesis, I explicitly limit the range of variables to the grammatical domain and chart the way in which verbs o...

This volume analyzes constructions with non-canonical subjects in individual languages and cross-linguistically, drawing on insights from cognitive and discourse-functional linguistics. Prototypical subjects have often been characterized in terms of their semantic, syntactic and discourse features, such as animacy, agentivity, topicality, referenti...

Cognitive Linguistics is an approach to language study based on the assumptions that our linguistic abilities are firmly rooted in our cognitive abilities, that meaning is essentially conceptualization, and that grammar is shaped by usage. The Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics provides state-of-the-art overviews of the numerous subfields of cogniti...

This volume seeks to advance and popularise the use of corpus-driven quantitative methods in the study of semantics. The first part presents state-of-the-art research in polysemy and synonymy from a Cognitive Linguistic perspective. The second part presents and explains in a didactic manner each of the statistical techniques used in the first part...

Over the past four decades, two distinct alternatives have emerged to rule-based models of how linguistic categories are stored and represented as cognitive structures, namely the prototype and exemplar theories. Although these models were initially thought to be mutually exclusive, shifts from one mechanism to the other have been observed in categ...

In this paper we will present a corpus-based cognitive-semantic analysis of five verbs that express 'begin' in English and Russian, i.e. begin, start, načat', načat'sja and stat'. On the basis of a quantitative analysis of data extracted from the ICE-GB and the Uppsala Corpus we conclude that the prototype for each verb and set of verbs in each lan...

Given that we lack sensory-motor experience for abstract concepts, how do we find out what they mean? How far can we get by tracking frequency distributions in input? The volume tackles the question of what language has to offer the language learner in his/her quest for meaning, and explicitly addresses how semantic knowledge may be distributed alo...

This paper deals with the assignment of aspect in Russian modal constructions with adverbial or adjectival predicatives and impersonal verbs that combine with an infinitive. Unlike previous accounts, this paper takes a strictly corpus-based, quantitative approach within which corpus data on the relationship between aspect and modality are modeled u...

n this paper we will present a corpus-based cognitive-semantic analysis of five verbs that express 'begin' in English and Russian, i.e. begin, start, načat', načat'sja and stat'. On the basis of a quantitative analysis of data extracted from the ICE-GB and the Uppsala Corpus we conclude that the prototype for each verb and set of verbs in each lang...

Aims and Scope The volume presents an overview of recent cognitive linguistic research on Slavic languages. Slavic languages, with their rich inflectional morphology in both the nominal and the verbal system, provide an important testing ground for a linguistic theory that seeks to motivate linguistic structure. Therefore, the volume touches upon a...

This paper provides experimental evidence to support the existence of mental correlates of lexical clusters. Data were collected by means of a sorting task and a gap filling task designed to study the cognitive reality of clusters of near synonyms as well as of the properties that have high predictive power for subcategorizing near synonyms. The re...

Abstract This article focuses on grammatical constructions that attenuate or eliminate the expression of agency in Russian, using the frameworks of Radical Construction Grammar and Cognitive Grammar. Emphasis is on the organization of these constructions in larger networks of related personal and impersonal constructions, with impersonal constructi...

This paper reports the principles behind designing a tagset to cover Russian morphosyntactic phenomena, modifications of the core tagset, and its evaluation. The tagset and associated morphosyntactic specifications are based on the MULTEXT-East fra mework, while the decisions in designing it were aimed at achieving a balance between parameters impo...

In this paper I merge insights from cognitive and functional approaches to complementation to present a comprehensive model, a binding scale, for the 293 verbs that combine with an infinitive in Russian. Assuming a strong correlation between syntactic and semantic structure, and playing on the human capacity to impose alternate structurings on a co...

This article proposes a methodology for addressing three long-standing problems of near synonym research. First, we show how the internal struc- ture of a group of near synonyms can be revealed. Second, we deal with the problem of distinguishing the subclusters and the words in those sub- clusters from each other. Finally, we illustrate how these r...

This article proposes a methodology for addressing three long-standing problems of near synonym research.First,we show how the internal structure of a group of near synonyms can be revealed.Second,we deal with the problem of distinguishing the subclusters and the words in those sub-clusters from each other.Finally,we illustrate how these results id...

This article presents a fine-grained syntactic categorization of Dutch subordinating conjunctions, both simple and phrasal. By means of a hierarchical set of formal criteria, this article provides a detailed description of the syntactic behavior of 87 conjunctions with a total of 154 different readings. These formal criteria test the degree of depe...

In this paper, we assess objections formulated against (quantitative) corpus-linguistic methods in cognitive linguistics. We present claims critical of both corpus linguistics in general and particular corpus-linguistic analyses in particular and discuss a variety of theoretical as well as empirical shortcomings of these claims. In addition, we sum...

In cognitive linguistics, prototype theory is currently one of the dominant views of how linguistic categories are stored and represented as cognitive structures in the brain. Yet two problems arise: Cognitive linguistics is a usage-based theory but has thus far not at-tempted to show how prototypes can be ob-served in usage in a systematic way. Fu...