Preparing words in speech production is normally a fast and accurate process. We generate them two or three per second in fluent conversation; and overtly naming a clear picture of an object can easily be initiated within 600 msec after picture onset. The underlying process, however, is exceedingly complex. The theory reviewed in this target article analyzes this process as staged and feedforward. After a first stage of conceptual preparation, word generation proceeds through lexical selection, morphological and phonological encoding, phonetic (...) encoding, and articulation itself. In addition, the speaker exerts some degree of output control, by monitoring of self-produced internal and overt speech. The core of the theory, ranging from lexical selection to the initiation of phonetic encoding, is captured in a computational model, called WEAVER++. Both the theory and the computational model have been developed in interaction with reaction time experiments, particularly in picture naming or related word production paradigms, with the aim of accounting for the real-time processing in normal word production. A comprehensive review of theory, model, and experiments is presented. The model can handle some of the main observations in the domain of speech errors (the major empirical domain for most other theories of lexical access), and the theory opens new ways of approaching the cerebral organization of speech production by way of high-temporal-resolution imaging. (shrink)

Levelt, reviewing the AGL field from a psycholinguistic perspective, identifies various gaps and makes a number of concrete suggestions for improving several currently used experimental designs. He raises the question whether artificial (and natural) grammar learning is about detecting ‘rules’, as is commonly assumed, or rather the detection of a set of ‘constraints’. He cautions the community to not ignore ‘semantics’, and recommends to consider less artificial tasks, that may be needed for learning more complex rules by human or nonhuman (...) animals. (shrink)

The commentaries provide a multitude of perspectives on the theory of lexical access presented in our target article. We respond, on the one hand, to criticisms that concern the embeddings of our model in the larger theoretical frameworks of human performance and of a speaker's multiword sentence and discourse generation. These embeddings, we argue, are either already there or naturally forgeable. On the other hand, we reply to a host of theory-internal issues concerning the abstract properties of our feedforward spreading (...) activation model, which functions without the usual cascading, feedback, and inhibitory connections. These issues also concern the concrete stratification in terms of lexical concepts, syntactic lemmas, and morphophonology. Our response stresses the parsimony of our modeling in the light of its substantial empirical coverage. We elaborate its usefulness for neuroimaging and aphasiology and suggest further cross-linguistic extensions of the model. (shrink)

This commentary discusses whether abstract metrical frames are stored. For stress-assigning languages (e.g., Dutch and English), which have a dominant stress pattern, metrical frames are stored only for words that deviate from the default stress pattern. The majority of the words in these languages are produced without retrieving any independent syllabic or metrical frame.

How can one conceive of the neuronal implementation of the processing model we proposed in our target article? In his commentary (Pulvermüller 1999, reprinted here in this issue), Pulvermüller makes various proposals concerning the underlying neural mechanisms and their potential localizations in the brain. These proposals demonstrate the compatibility of our processing model and current neuroscience. We add further evidence on details of localization based on a recent meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of word production (Indefrey & Levelt 2000). We also (...) express some minor disagreements with respect to Pulvermüller's interpretation of the “lemma” notion, and concerning his neural modeling of phonological code retrieval. Branigan & Pickering discuss important aspects of syntactic encoding, which was not the topic of the target article. We discuss their well-taken proposal that multiple syntactic frames for a single verb lemma are represented as independent nodes, which can be shared with other verbs, such as accounting for syntactic priming in speech production. We also discuss how, in principle, the alternative multiple-frame-multiple-lemma account can be tested empirically. The available evidence does not seem to support that account. Footnotes1 BBS Note: The original manuscript of this Response article was received on January 14, 2000. (shrink)

It is a major move from the claim that the core linguistic problem in Broca's aphasia is the inability to deal with traces, to the claim that this is the syntactic operation only and that it is exclusively supported by Broca's region. Three arguments plead against this move. First, many Broca patients have no damage to Broca's area. Second, it is not only passive, but also active jabberwocky sentences that activate the frontal operculum in a judgment task. Third, the same (...) area is involved in a phrase-building production task that does not require tense processing. (shrink)

Some aspects of insect development were reconsidered in relation toWolpert's concept of “positional information”, which was briefly summarized. His distinction between positional information and “polarity potential” was shown to be unnecessary. The question was discussed whether transdetermination inDrosophila imaginai discs is a re-specification or a re-interpretation of positional information. In the first case transdetermination would depend on spatial relationships in the blastema, whereas in the second case it would not. As to the so-called “prepattern mutants”, it was emphasized that in (...) all cases published so far the supposed prepattern alterations are accompanied by growth disturbances which may account for changes in the specification of positional information. “Regulation” in imaginai discs is of a particular kind in that it depends on a proliferation phase. It takes place according to rules which were newly formulated in terms of positional information; the salient point of these rules is a tendency to maintain the slope of the positional information “gradients” and to produce symmetrically reduplicated, often defective organs. A short description of the postulated determinative processes occurring in imaginai discs from the early embryo up to the pupal stage was given. Intermingling of cells from various discs has shown that the cells may restore the original patterns in so far as their positional information has been stably specified,i.e. up to the level of the organ districts; within the districts mosaics are formed, which shows that positional information is specified with respect to new reference points. Transplantation experiments involving the abdominal epidermis of some other insects point to the possibility of limited local shifts in the positional information, and of both increase and reduction of the slope of the positional information curve. (shrink)

At the time when Scheler, Plessner, and Gehlen are credited with having founded anthropology as a separate branch of philosophy, Herman Dooyeweerd deserves the merit of having created a total view of the human person on the basis not of a humanistic but a Christian cosmology.2 He was deeply conscious of the fact that philosophy as such is not capable of fathoming the essence of humankind. Philosophy, in his opinion, is bound to the temporal horizon, while the human ego transcends (...) this horizon. The philosopher acquires a view of this ego only in its relation to God. Since this relation is religious in nature, the knowledge of self is also religious in nature. This true self-knowledge is effected by the revelation of God’s Word in the heart, the religious centre of human existence, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Dooyeweerd’s anthropology is therefore a transcendental anthropology, founded as it is on this transcendental critique of theoretical thought. In this transcendental critique the point of synthesis of theoretical thought is not found in some transcendental logical ego, in the sense of Immanuel Kant, but in the transcendent-religious ego of the human person. (shrink)

In his paper, MacKay reviews his Node Structure theory of error detection, but precedes it with a critical discussion of the Perceptual Loop theory of self-monitoring proposed in Levelt . The present commentary is concerned with this latter critique and shows that there are more than casual problems with MacKay's argumentation.

A comparison of Merge, a model of comprehension, and WEAVER, a model of production, raises five issues: merging models of comprehension and production necessarily creates feedback; neither model is a comprehensive account of word processing; the models are incomplete in different ways; the models differ in their handling of competition; as opposed to WEAVER, Merge is a model of metalinguistic behavior.

This article aims to explore a ‘lived discipleship’ by determining whether and how contemporary communities of faith could implement the norms and principles reflected in the Emmaus narrative of Luke 24:13–35 within a plausible epistemological framework that might facilitate a fresh understanding of Christian followership as discipleship. This was done through an empirical case study using two focus groups as co-researchers, in order to actively listen to their respective understandings of lived theology in their unique South African contexts. The two (...) focus groups consisted of (1) a contemporary Christian grouping of Afrikaans-speaking, active churchgoers situated in Hazeldean, a suburb in Pretoria East, Tshwane, Gauteng and (2) a contemporary Christian grouping of African, active churchgoers situated in Ivory Park, a suburb in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng. This article concluded that Luke 24:13–35 nudged the co-researchers to re-evaluate their contemporary understanding of discipleship and moved them to additional and new perspectives in terms of practical expressions thereof that can be best described as ‘lived followership’. A shift from perceiving Jesus in terms of an ‘act to follow’ by gaining the correct knowledge, to following Jesus as ‘a performative act’, a shift from ‘theoretical knowledge’ to ‘heart knowledge’. Contribution: This article is a part of the Festschrift for Prof. Stephan Joubert. This article plays into similar creative interdisciplinary relationship as seen in the work of Prof. Joubert, by looking at the relationship between New Testament and Practical Theology in order to improve practices of faith that is rooted in a biblical understanding of Jesus. (shrink)

The measurement of wellbeing is among the central aims of the capability approach. I develop one particular challenge to the operationalizability of the approach in the context of wellbeing measurement. I argue that the capability approach is both committed to Individuation of Wellbeing—the view that the wellbeing contribution of different capabilities and functionings is person-dependent—as well as Rejection of Subjectivism—the view that wellbeing should not be conceptualized in terms of subjective judgments of preference-satisfaction or happiness. I argue that there is (...) a tension between these two commitments that cannot be resolved in a viable way. (shrink)

In historiography Calvinism has suffered from several interpreters who have sought to recruit it for this or that contemporary school of thought. In this article I will discuss some of these approaches developed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the basis of recent research it is argued that it historically and theologically incorrect to force Calvinism into an overall system which is controlled by theological or socio-political ‘unit ideas’ or even a ‘central dogma.’ Instead the historian of theology should (...) attempt to develop a historical approach to the Reformed tradition after Calvin that is not influenced by nineteenth or twentieth century agenda's that impose categories of modern theology onto early modern theologians. Such an approach takes account of the complexity and wide variety of post-Reformation Reformed tradition. (shrink)

The essays collected together in this volume originated with a symposium which addressed a variety of issues associated with the publications of Professor W.H. Dray in the philosophy of history. In this expanded version of the original symposium, to which Professor Dray has provided a critical response, a group of prominent philosophers and historians address the central questions posed by contemporary philosophy of history - such as, the logic and methodology of historical explanation, the selection and uses of evidence, the (...) fact/value relationship, the nature of historical causation, the question of conflicting interpretations and their possible resolution, the idea of history as a school of practical wisdom, and the question whether history has any discernable pattern or meaning. These issues are approached from the experience of both historians and philosophers and represent an important increment to the long-standing and continuing debates concerning the nature and aims of the practice and philosophy of history. (shrink)