My name is Georgia Fotiadou and I hold a PhD in Psycholinguistics from the Department of English Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. I have also an MA in teaching Greek as a Foreign Language and a BA in French Studies. My academic work deals with language L1, L2 and 2L1 acquisition and its interrelationship with cognition, while some of my work touched upon children’s with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) language performance and the effect of bilingualism in Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Moreover, in my research I explored whether bidialectalism can protect against cognitive decline in healthy aging and if language attrition is evidenced in a number of linguistic phenomena. Address: Thessaloníki, Thessaloniki, Greece
Zeitschrift für Wortbildung / Journal of Word Formation
Pseudo(-) is generally considered to be a prefix or a prefixoid unit with an evaluative value of ... more Pseudo(-) is generally considered to be a prefix or a prefixoid unit with an evaluative value of pragmatic approximation and negative polarity: pseudo(-)X presents a distortion with respect to a standard X. It then enters the paradigm of expressions responsible for infusing subjectivity into the discourse. The interpretative mechanisms in play exploit two dimensions, semantic and pragmatic, according to principles that will be explained in this paper. Furthermore, our contribution aims to highlight the semantic dimension in the interpretation of pseudo(-) both in Greek and French and to show how it exploits the semantic and categorial properties of the nouns that are postposed to it, leading to three main types of categorization (pseudo(-)X belongs to the category X but it is not a good exemplar, pseudo(-)X is clearly not an X the categorization remains undecidable) and to several readings.
Healthy ageing is commonly accompanied by cognitive decline affecting several domains such as exe... more Healthy ageing is commonly accompanied by cognitive decline affecting several domains such as executive control, whereas certain verbal skills remain relatively preserved. Interestingly, recent scientific research has shown that some intellectual activities may be linked to beneficial effects, delaying or even alleviating cognitive decline in the elderly. Thirty young (age: M = 23) and thirty old (age: M = 66) adults were assessed in executive control (switching) and literacy experience (print exposure). First, we tried to confirm whether healthy ageing was generally associated with deficits in switching by looking at mixing cost effects, to then investigate if individual differences in print exposure explained variation in that age-related mixing costs. Both accuracy and reaction times mixing cost indexes demonstrated larger cost in old (but not in young) adults when switching from local to global information. More importantly, this cost effect was not present in old adults with hi...
The processing and resolution of syntactically ambiguous structures is accounted for by serial au... more The processing and resolution of syntactically ambiguous structures is accounted for by serial autonomous and multiple constraint satisfaction models differently. We investigated the extent to which frequency affects native speakers’ processing and interpretation of ‘voice (non)-alternating’ anticausative Greek verbs which differ in the availability or lack of voice alternation on the verb when it appears in intransitive structures. The accessibility of interpretations was measured with an online self-paced reading (SPR) task and an offline acceptability judgment (AJ) task addressed to 45 monolingual Greek-speaking adults. In order to investigate whether processing load is affected by statistical records in the parser, we compared empirical data with the frequency of the available readings that these verbs receive in formal and informal registers (ILSP, Web-Based Corpus). The online processing study indicated that the parser is sensitive to morphological cues ((N)ACT voice marking),...
The aim of this thesis is to address two questions related to the role of frequency on a) sentenc... more The aim of this thesis is to address two questions related to the role of frequency on a) sentence processing and b) language acquisition. Frequency is measured with respect to the phenomenon of transitivity alternations in Greek, which may or may not involve morphological changes of Voice marking on the verb. Regarding sentence processing, the question is whether the processing strategies involved in the disambiguation of temporarily ambiguous information are driven by the frequency of each of the available choices in the input. Regarding language acquisition the question is whether the developmental pattern of linguistic phenomena whose interpretation is underspecified by the grammar can be exclusively attributed to input frequency. The first question was addressed through the investigation of ‘voice alternating’ and ‘voice non-alternating’ anti-causative verbs. The two classes differ in the availability and lack thereof of Voice alternation on the verb when this appears in an int...
Η παρούσα έρeυνα eξeτάζeι την eπeξeργασία δομικά αμφίσημων προτάσeων στην eλληνική 16 μονόγλωσσων... more Η παρούσα έρeυνα eξeτάζeι την eπeξeργασία δομικά αμφίσημων προτάσeων στην eλληνική 16 μονόγλωσσων και 16 διδιαλeκτικών ομιλητών της ποντιακής μeγάλης ηλικίας (Μ.Ο.: 61 έτη) μe την τμηματική ανάγνωση προτάσeων και τις γνωστικές δeξιότητeς της διατήρησης της προσοχής, eπιλeκτικής προσοχής και eναλλαγής προσοχής. Οι διδιαλeκτικοί συμμeτέχοντeς προτίμησαν να προσκολλήσουν το αντικeίμeνο στο ρήμα της φράσης που βρισκόταν υπό eπeξeργασία, σύμφωνα μe την Αρχή του Όψιμου Κλeισίματος (Late Closure effect ), eνώ οι μονόγλωσσοι δeν έδeιξαν κάποια προτίμηση σe πραγματικό χρόνο. Στη δοκιμασία γραμματικότητας οι δύο ομάδeς eίχαν παρόμοιeς eπιδόσeις. Eπίσης, οι διδιαλeκτικοί συμμeτέχοντeς eμφάνισαν γνωστικό προβάδισμα στη δeξιότητα της eναλλαγής προσοχής.
Active and non-active morphology in Greek does not always correspond with active and passive read... more Active and non-active morphology in Greek does not always correspond with active and passive readings in a one-to-one fashion. In addition, the 'apo-phrase' is found in various syntactic contexts. This paper investigates how voice morphology, verb reading and animacy of the syntactic subject interact with the reading of 'apo-phrases' produced by Greek Native Speakers. Data, obtained through a Sentence Completion Task, show a general preference for the 'cause' reading of the 'apo-phrase' and an interaction of voice morphology, verb class and animacy of the syntactic subject on the status of the produced apo-phrase.
The impact of healthy cognitive ageing and decline on linguistic processing (speed and accuracy) ... more The impact of healthy cognitive ageing and decline on linguistic processing (speed and accuracy) and resolution preferences of sentences involving a subject/object ambiguity with morphological case as cues in monolingual Greek and Pontic-Greek bidialectal speakers.
PhD thesis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2010
Η διατριβή στοχεύει στην αξιολόγηση εμπειριοκρατικών μοντέλων γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας και μοντέλων... more Η διατριβή στοχεύει στην αξιολόγηση εμπειριοκρατικών μοντέλων γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας και μοντέλων γλωσσικής απόκτησης με βάση τη συχνότητα εμφάνισης συγκεκριμένων δομών στον απευθυνόμενο στα παιδιά λόγο. Το φαινόμενο που ερευνάται για την αξιολόγηση των παραπάνω θεωριών είναι οι ‘αλλαγές στην μεταβατικότητα του ρήματος’: Το ρήμα στην Ελληνική μπορεί να έχει Ενεργητική ή Μη Ενεργητική Μορφολογία. Η Ενεργητική Μορφολογία απαντάται σε μεταβατικές και αντιμεταβιβαστικές δομές ή δηλώνουν αμετάβατη δομή, ενώ η Μη Ενεργητική Μορφολογία σε αμετάβατες με αντιμεταβιβαστική ή παθητική ερμηνεία ή δηλώνουν αυτοπάθεια ή αλληλοπάθεια (εκτός της περίπτωσης των αποθετικών ρημάτων που δεν συμπεριλαμβάνονται στην έρευνα). Η αξιολόγηση εμπειριοκρατικών μοντέλων γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας έγινε με την διερεύνηση ‘Εργαστικών’ Ρημάτων με ή χωρίς Διτυπία: Η διαφορά μεταξύ τους έγκειται στο γεγονός ότι τα Εργαστικά με Διτυπία επιτρέπουν την αντιμεταβιβαστική ερμηνεία με Ενεργητική και Μη Ενεργητική Μορφολογία. ...
In this visual-world paradigm we investigated the processing and interpretation of two overt subj... more In this visual-world paradigm we investigated the processing and interpretation of two overt subject anaphoric expressions in Greek, a null-subject language with a relatively free word-order, in relation to specific linguistic properties and whether these differ across adulthood. Specifically, we explored whether changes in anaphoric type (o ídhios vs. aftós) and syntactic complexity (SVO vs. OVS word-orders) had similar effects in how reference was processed and finally resolved by young and elderly adults. We analysed (a) fixation duration in subject and object antecedent pictures to examine online processing and (b) offline responses in comprehension questions to investigate final interpretation, i.e., ambiguity resolution. Our offline results revealed that pronominal resolution patterned across age groups: A clear subject preference of o ídhios (‘the same’) was drawn from results irrespective of the word-order used, suggesting that this expression is preferentially linked to an ...
This study examines a potential relationship between reading and performance on a fluid intellige... more This study examines a potential relationship between reading and performance on a fluid intelligence test. Participants were 89 adults ( M age= 39.0) of various educational backgrounds. Reading volume was assessed by the Greek versions of the Author and Magazine Recognition test (here ART-GR and MRT-GR respectively) initially developed by Stanovich and West (1989). Fluid intelligence was assessed by the Raven Progressive Matrices Test (Raven 1938), a non-verbal, graphical test. Participants with greater print exposure as measured both by the ART-GR and the MRT-GR reported greater fluid intelligence scores. The same was true for participants with more advanced than lower educational background.
In sentence processing research involving the visual presentation of sentential stimuli, self-pac... more In sentence processing research involving the visual presentation of sentential stimuli, self-paced reading (henceforth, SPR) has become one of the most widely-accepted experimental tasks. However, just as it is incumbent on sentence processing researchers to scrutinize prominent theoretical claims, it is also necessary to probe this accepted methodology for weaknesses as well as to add new techniques to our methodological toolkits. Following this reasoning, the present paper addresses these methodological concerns by comparing the findings from the SPR and the crossmodal lexical priming (henceforth, CMLP) techniques on sentences involving unergative and unaccusative verbs in Greek. 1. The linguistic framework of the study On the basis of Tsimpli’s (2006) account of unaccusativity, the disambiguation of NACT verbs between an unaccusative and a reflexive reading seems to be non-fixed as it is dependent on pragmatic factors as well as on the [± animacy] of the syntactic subject of the...
Zeitschrift für Wortbildung / Journal of Word Formation
Pseudo(-) is generally considered to be a prefix or a prefixoid unit with an evaluative value of ... more Pseudo(-) is generally considered to be a prefix or a prefixoid unit with an evaluative value of pragmatic approximation and negative polarity: pseudo(-)X presents a distortion with respect to a standard X. It then enters the paradigm of expressions responsible for infusing subjectivity into the discourse. The interpretative mechanisms in play exploit two dimensions, semantic and pragmatic, according to principles that will be explained in this paper. Furthermore, our contribution aims to highlight the semantic dimension in the interpretation of pseudo(-) both in Greek and French and to show how it exploits the semantic and categorial properties of the nouns that are postposed to it, leading to three main types of categorization (pseudo(-)X belongs to the category X but it is not a good exemplar, pseudo(-)X is clearly not an X the categorization remains undecidable) and to several readings.
Healthy ageing is commonly accompanied by cognitive decline affecting several domains such as exe... more Healthy ageing is commonly accompanied by cognitive decline affecting several domains such as executive control, whereas certain verbal skills remain relatively preserved. Interestingly, recent scientific research has shown that some intellectual activities may be linked to beneficial effects, delaying or even alleviating cognitive decline in the elderly. Thirty young (age: M = 23) and thirty old (age: M = 66) adults were assessed in executive control (switching) and literacy experience (print exposure). First, we tried to confirm whether healthy ageing was generally associated with deficits in switching by looking at mixing cost effects, to then investigate if individual differences in print exposure explained variation in that age-related mixing costs. Both accuracy and reaction times mixing cost indexes demonstrated larger cost in old (but not in young) adults when switching from local to global information. More importantly, this cost effect was not present in old adults with hi...
The processing and resolution of syntactically ambiguous structures is accounted for by serial au... more The processing and resolution of syntactically ambiguous structures is accounted for by serial autonomous and multiple constraint satisfaction models differently. We investigated the extent to which frequency affects native speakers’ processing and interpretation of ‘voice (non)-alternating’ anticausative Greek verbs which differ in the availability or lack of voice alternation on the verb when it appears in intransitive structures. The accessibility of interpretations was measured with an online self-paced reading (SPR) task and an offline acceptability judgment (AJ) task addressed to 45 monolingual Greek-speaking adults. In order to investigate whether processing load is affected by statistical records in the parser, we compared empirical data with the frequency of the available readings that these verbs receive in formal and informal registers (ILSP, Web-Based Corpus). The online processing study indicated that the parser is sensitive to morphological cues ((N)ACT voice marking),...
The aim of this thesis is to address two questions related to the role of frequency on a) sentenc... more The aim of this thesis is to address two questions related to the role of frequency on a) sentence processing and b) language acquisition. Frequency is measured with respect to the phenomenon of transitivity alternations in Greek, which may or may not involve morphological changes of Voice marking on the verb. Regarding sentence processing, the question is whether the processing strategies involved in the disambiguation of temporarily ambiguous information are driven by the frequency of each of the available choices in the input. Regarding language acquisition the question is whether the developmental pattern of linguistic phenomena whose interpretation is underspecified by the grammar can be exclusively attributed to input frequency. The first question was addressed through the investigation of ‘voice alternating’ and ‘voice non-alternating’ anti-causative verbs. The two classes differ in the availability and lack thereof of Voice alternation on the verb when this appears in an int...
Η παρούσα έρeυνα eξeτάζeι την eπeξeργασία δομικά αμφίσημων προτάσeων στην eλληνική 16 μονόγλωσσων... more Η παρούσα έρeυνα eξeτάζeι την eπeξeργασία δομικά αμφίσημων προτάσeων στην eλληνική 16 μονόγλωσσων και 16 διδιαλeκτικών ομιλητών της ποντιακής μeγάλης ηλικίας (Μ.Ο.: 61 έτη) μe την τμηματική ανάγνωση προτάσeων και τις γνωστικές δeξιότητeς της διατήρησης της προσοχής, eπιλeκτικής προσοχής και eναλλαγής προσοχής. Οι διδιαλeκτικοί συμμeτέχοντeς προτίμησαν να προσκολλήσουν το αντικeίμeνο στο ρήμα της φράσης που βρισκόταν υπό eπeξeργασία, σύμφωνα μe την Αρχή του Όψιμου Κλeισίματος (Late Closure effect ), eνώ οι μονόγλωσσοι δeν έδeιξαν κάποια προτίμηση σe πραγματικό χρόνο. Στη δοκιμασία γραμματικότητας οι δύο ομάδeς eίχαν παρόμοιeς eπιδόσeις. Eπίσης, οι διδιαλeκτικοί συμμeτέχοντeς eμφάνισαν γνωστικό προβάδισμα στη δeξιότητα της eναλλαγής προσοχής.
Active and non-active morphology in Greek does not always correspond with active and passive read... more Active and non-active morphology in Greek does not always correspond with active and passive readings in a one-to-one fashion. In addition, the 'apo-phrase' is found in various syntactic contexts. This paper investigates how voice morphology, verb reading and animacy of the syntactic subject interact with the reading of 'apo-phrases' produced by Greek Native Speakers. Data, obtained through a Sentence Completion Task, show a general preference for the 'cause' reading of the 'apo-phrase' and an interaction of voice morphology, verb class and animacy of the syntactic subject on the status of the produced apo-phrase.
The impact of healthy cognitive ageing and decline on linguistic processing (speed and accuracy) ... more The impact of healthy cognitive ageing and decline on linguistic processing (speed and accuracy) and resolution preferences of sentences involving a subject/object ambiguity with morphological case as cues in monolingual Greek and Pontic-Greek bidialectal speakers.
PhD thesis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2010
Η διατριβή στοχεύει στην αξιολόγηση εμπειριοκρατικών μοντέλων γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας και μοντέλων... more Η διατριβή στοχεύει στην αξιολόγηση εμπειριοκρατικών μοντέλων γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας και μοντέλων γλωσσικής απόκτησης με βάση τη συχνότητα εμφάνισης συγκεκριμένων δομών στον απευθυνόμενο στα παιδιά λόγο. Το φαινόμενο που ερευνάται για την αξιολόγηση των παραπάνω θεωριών είναι οι ‘αλλαγές στην μεταβατικότητα του ρήματος’: Το ρήμα στην Ελληνική μπορεί να έχει Ενεργητική ή Μη Ενεργητική Μορφολογία. Η Ενεργητική Μορφολογία απαντάται σε μεταβατικές και αντιμεταβιβαστικές δομές ή δηλώνουν αμετάβατη δομή, ενώ η Μη Ενεργητική Μορφολογία σε αμετάβατες με αντιμεταβιβαστική ή παθητική ερμηνεία ή δηλώνουν αυτοπάθεια ή αλληλοπάθεια (εκτός της περίπτωσης των αποθετικών ρημάτων που δεν συμπεριλαμβάνονται στην έρευνα). Η αξιολόγηση εμπειριοκρατικών μοντέλων γλωσσικής επεξεργασίας έγινε με την διερεύνηση ‘Εργαστικών’ Ρημάτων με ή χωρίς Διτυπία: Η διαφορά μεταξύ τους έγκειται στο γεγονός ότι τα Εργαστικά με Διτυπία επιτρέπουν την αντιμεταβιβαστική ερμηνεία με Ενεργητική και Μη Ενεργητική Μορφολογία. ...
In this visual-world paradigm we investigated the processing and interpretation of two overt subj... more In this visual-world paradigm we investigated the processing and interpretation of two overt subject anaphoric expressions in Greek, a null-subject language with a relatively free word-order, in relation to specific linguistic properties and whether these differ across adulthood. Specifically, we explored whether changes in anaphoric type (o ídhios vs. aftós) and syntactic complexity (SVO vs. OVS word-orders) had similar effects in how reference was processed and finally resolved by young and elderly adults. We analysed (a) fixation duration in subject and object antecedent pictures to examine online processing and (b) offline responses in comprehension questions to investigate final interpretation, i.e., ambiguity resolution. Our offline results revealed that pronominal resolution patterned across age groups: A clear subject preference of o ídhios (‘the same’) was drawn from results irrespective of the word-order used, suggesting that this expression is preferentially linked to an ...
This study examines a potential relationship between reading and performance on a fluid intellige... more This study examines a potential relationship between reading and performance on a fluid intelligence test. Participants were 89 adults ( M age= 39.0) of various educational backgrounds. Reading volume was assessed by the Greek versions of the Author and Magazine Recognition test (here ART-GR and MRT-GR respectively) initially developed by Stanovich and West (1989). Fluid intelligence was assessed by the Raven Progressive Matrices Test (Raven 1938), a non-verbal, graphical test. Participants with greater print exposure as measured both by the ART-GR and the MRT-GR reported greater fluid intelligence scores. The same was true for participants with more advanced than lower educational background.
In sentence processing research involving the visual presentation of sentential stimuli, self-pac... more In sentence processing research involving the visual presentation of sentential stimuli, self-paced reading (henceforth, SPR) has become one of the most widely-accepted experimental tasks. However, just as it is incumbent on sentence processing researchers to scrutinize prominent theoretical claims, it is also necessary to probe this accepted methodology for weaknesses as well as to add new techniques to our methodological toolkits. Following this reasoning, the present paper addresses these methodological concerns by comparing the findings from the SPR and the crossmodal lexical priming (henceforth, CMLP) techniques on sentences involving unergative and unaccusative verbs in Greek. 1. The linguistic framework of the study On the basis of Tsimpli’s (2006) account of unaccusativity, the disambiguation of NACT verbs between an unaccusative and a reflexive reading seems to be non-fixed as it is dependent on pragmatic factors as well as on the [± animacy] of the syntactic subject of the...
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Papers by Georgia Fotiadou