Non-verbal referential communication is impaired in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). However, the development of difficulties with referential communication in the younger siblings of children with ASD (High-Risk Siblings)-and the degree to which early referential communication predicts later autism symptomatology-is not clear. We modeled the early developmental trajectories of th...

One standout feature of human language is our ability to reference external objects and events with socially learned symbols, or words. Exploring the phylogenetic origins of this capacity is therefore key to a comprehensive understanding of the evolution of language. While non-human primates can produce vocalizations that refer to external objects in the environment, it is generally accepted th...

INTRODUCTION A distinction has been proposed, on theoretical grounds, between referential and inferential semantic abilities. The former account for the relationship of words to the world, the latter for the relationship of words among themselves. The hypothesis of, at least partially, different neurological underpinnings for this distinction has been supported by the presence of double dissoci...

The beneficial effects of self-referential processing on memory have been demonstrated in numerous experiments with younger adults but have rarely been studied in older individuals. In the present study we tested young people, younger-older adults, and older-older adults in a self-reference paradigm, and compared self-referential processing to general semantic processing. Findings indicated tha...

In humans, referential gestures intentionally draw the attention of a partner to an object of mutual interest, and are considered a key element in language development. Outside humans, referential gestures have only been attributed to great apes and, most recently, ravens. This was interpreted as further evidence for the comparable cognitive abilities of primates and corvids. Here we describe a...

This paper proposes a rational analysis of referential inference. Referential inference is involved whenever a speaker has to provide an utterance that will effect some action on the part of their listener—a situation that occurs constantly in everyday language use. Our rational analysis of referring makes certain assumptions about the goal, environment, and computational constraints involved i...

In this paper we discuss referential choice – the process of referential device selection made by the speaker in the course of discourse production. We aim at explaining the actual referential choices attested in the discourse sample. Two alternative models of referential choice are discussed. The first approach of Kibrik (1996, 1999, 2000) is the cognitive calculative approach. It suggests tha...

In this paper we present the ongoing efforts to expand the depth and breath of the Open Multilingual Wordnet coverage by introducing two new classes of non-referential concepts to wordnet hierarchies: interjections and numeral classifiers. The lexical semantic hierarchy pioneered by Princeton Wordnet has traditionally restricted its coverage to referential and contentful classes of words: such ...

Referential expressions are used to introduce and continue reference to entities with par ticular referential properties, but also with particular discourse properties. In this paper we investigate the referential and discourse properties of pemarked indefi nite direct objects in Romanian, which are an instance of Diff erential Object Marking (DOM). Pe -marking is generally obligatory for defi ...

This paper examines issues related to transitivity in Chinese, looking in particular at verb use in non-referential contexts. Four variants of non-referential verb use involving generic bare nouns and postverbal manner adverbs are analyzed. It is suggested that in these cases of non-referential verb use, the verb is first merged with an adverbial complement, and then copied to yield the verb co...