Research:	Research interests	Current project	Curriculum Vitae
Download:	Papers	Handouts	Teaching

See also my other webpages: [Site 1] and [Site 2]

Research interests:

• Negation (sentential negation, negative quantifiers, NEG-shift).
• Comparative Syntax (primarily, but not only) of the Scandinavian Languages (Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish), English, and German.
• Syntactic Theory (phases, interfaces, displacement)
• Structure dependence (garden-path sentences, numerical processing)
• Linguistic Theory and Science (minimalism, optimality theory, computation, abstract elements)
• Language and the Brain (neurolinguistics, patholinguistics, aphasia, neuro-imaging).
  Click here to view an animated MR scanning of my own brain. [1.8 MB gif]
• Language and Mind (cognition, psycholinguistics).

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Curriculum Vitae:

(See also the Teaching section.)

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Current project:

The Bones of Cognition

Complexity and Structure in Language, Cognition and Brain

The project will investigate the relationship between language, cognition, and brain. One of the hallmarks of both language and cognition is structure dependency and varying degrees of structural complexity.

Briefly, there are two approaches to linguistics, functional and formal linguistics. According to the functional approach, communicative function determines the structure of language. The formal approach, on the other hand, claims that syntax (grammar) is an autonomous module and that linguistic structure can be characterised independent of function. There is thus disagreement on whether syntax and structure are domain-specific. The most recent formal approach, Minimalism, however, strives to reduce the domain-specific formal properties of language.

In cognitive neuroscience there is a debate on whether the brain is one big domain-non-specific uniform network or whether it is a network of specialised centres and to what extent such centres are domain-specific (this corresponds to some extent to the functional vs. formal debate in linguistics). By examining structure dependency and structural complexity in different symbolic systems, from numbers and words to complex sentences, the project will shed light on whether structure dependency and structural complexity are general features of cognitive or whether they are one or more domain-specific autonomous systems, and whether they activate the same area(s) in the brain. Here the project will focus particularly on the areas in and around the classical language areas, namely, Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, which have been found to be central to the brain’s predictions about incoming information (a principle called Anticipatory Set, Predictive Coding, or Top-Down Parsing). Thus, it will also be investigated whether the functions of these areas are domain-specific. Because structure dependency and structural complexity are to a large extend based on linguistic structure, the project will also show whether linguistic theory and analytic methodology can be applied to studies of other domains: Language as a window to brain and cognition. Furthermore, if structure dependency and structural complexity are general features of cognition, they can be viewed as the bones of cognition and if it turns out that Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area are the centres that implement them, Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area can be considered the motor cortex of cognition parallel to the motor cortex controlling the likewise structured movements of the body.

The project is financed by

• The Danish Research Council for the Humanities
• The Danish National Research Foundation’s Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN)
• Linguistic Graduate School North

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Papers:

Unpublished:

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2005) Interfaces: Negation - Syntax - Brain. PhD dissertation, Department of English, University of Aarhus, Denmark.
[Kort dansk resumé]     [Printer-friendly 2up version]

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2001) Language Impairment, Neurology and Linguistic Theory. MA thesis, Department of Linguistics, University of Aarhus, Denmark, 2001.
[Dansk resumé]

(See also my handouts and conference papers)

Submitted:

Christensen, K.R., Roepstorff, A., Saddy, D. (submitted) Outnumbering numerical processing.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (submitted) Syntactic and Semantic Garden-path Sentences and the (Pre-) Motor Cortex.

Christensen, K.R., Roepstorff, A., Saddy, D., Stødkilde-Jørgensen, H., Vikner, S. (submitted) Negated implausibility and Broca’s area.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (submitted) Quantifier Raising and Derivation by Phase.

Published:

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2009) Hjernebark og syntaktiske træer. To appear in Christensen, K.R. (ed.), Tidsskrift for Sprogforskning 7. Special issue on Language and Cognition.

Christensen, K.R., Vikner, S. (2009) Sprog og evolution. In Kjærgaard, Per C. (ed.), evolution.dk.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2009) Negative and affirmative sentences increase activation in different areas in the Brain. Journal of Neurolinguistics 22, 1-17.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2008) NEG-shift, Licensing, and Repair Strategies. Studia Linguistica 62.2, 182-223.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2008) Interfaces, syntactic movement, and neural activation: A new perspective on the implementation of language in the brain. Journal of Neurolinguistics 21.2, 73-103.

Christensen, K.R., Roepstorff, A., Saddy, D. (2007) "When a number is not only a number". Poster presented at Language in cognition, cognition in language, University of Aarhus, Denmark, Oct. 11-13, 2007.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2007) The Infinitive Marker across Scandinavian. NordLyd 34, 147-165.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2005) Sætningsnegation og negative objekter. Et korpusstudie., in Widell, Peter & Mette Kunøe (eds.) 10. Møde om Udforskningen af Dansk Sprog (MUDS), Nordic Department, University of Aarhus.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2003) On the Synchronic and Diachronic Status of the Negative Adverbial ikke/not. Working Papers in Scandinavian Syntax (WPSS) 72, 1-53.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2003) Review: Poole, Geoffrey (2002) Syntactic Theory, New York: Palgrave. English Studies.

Christensen, Ken Ramshøj (2001) The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain: A Review of Two Contrastive Views (Pinker & Deacon). Grazer Linguistische Studien (GLS) 55, 1-20.

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Handouts:

Syntax and the brain:A new perspective on the role of Broca’s area in syntactic processing.
The 22nd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Aalborg University, Denmark, June 20, 2006.

Object positions in the brain.
Ph.D. course & workshop on Object Positions and Clause Structure The Sandbjerg Estate, Denmark, June 15, 2006

Modularity and Language.
CCC workshop, Modularity in Language, Brain and Mind, Aarhus, Denmark, April 7, 2006.

Mapping Discourse Functions onto Syntactic Domains.
Workshop on Discourse and Linguistic Form. Center for Linguistics, University of Aalborg, Denmark, September 29-30, 2005.

The infinitival marker across Scandinavian.
Workshop for PhD students and young researchers
Grand Meeting for Scandinavian Dialect Syntax (ScanDiaSyn), Leikanger, Norway, August 25, 2005.

Quantifiers and Phases.
Grammatik i Fokus [Grammar in Focus], Lund University, Sweden, February 10, 2005.

Quantifier Movement and Derivation by Phase - Now You See It, Now You Don't.
Workshop on Comparative and Theoretical Syntax.When and why do constituents move?,
Dep. of English, Univ. of Aarhus, December 14-16, 2004.
[abstract]

Theories of Long-distance Dependencies.
Workshop on Comparative and Theoretical Syntax.When and why do constituents move?,
Dep. of English, Univ. of Aarhus, December 14-16, 2004.

On the Synchronic and Diachronic Status of the Negative Adverbials ikke and not.
Workshop on the Syntax of English and the Nordic languages,
Ninth Nordic Conference for English Studies, Aarhus, May 27-29, 2004.
[abstract]

Negation and Infinitives: att inte vara or að vera ekki.
Grammatik i Fokus [Grammar in Focus], Lund University, Sweden, February 6, 2004.
[abstract]

Negative Objects, NEG-shift, and Crosslinguistic Microvariation.
Workshop on Syntactic Microvariation,
20th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, University of Helsinki, January 7-9, 2004.
[abstract]

Sentential Negation & Indefinite Objects.
Seminar on Language Typology. Center for Linguistics, University of Aalborg, Denmark, October 25, 2003.

OBJ-shift, NEG-shift & Double Objects.
ZAS Syntaxzirkel meeeting, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin, Germany, July 3, 2003.

NEG-shift and Repair Strategies: Pied Piping vs. Preposition Stranding.
ZAS-Potsdam Workshop on OT-SYNTAX+, Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), Berlin, Germany, May 16-17, 2003.
[abstract]

NEG-shift in the Scandinavian Languages and English.
Grammatik i Fokus [Grammar in Focus], Lund University, Sweden, February 6, 2003.

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Teaching:

Morphology & Syntax, Spring 2009

See course description here.

Lectures:	Monday 11:15-12:00	Building 1441, Auditorium 1
Seminars:	("Hold A")	Wednesday 10:15-11:00	Building 1453, Room 223
	("Hold B")	Thursday 09:15-10:00	Building 1453, Room 227
	("Hold C")	Thursday 08:15-09:00	Building 1453, Room 223
"Sidefag" [BA minor]:	Tuesday 13:15-14:00	Building 1463, Room 416

Some additional helpful extra material for the intro course in GB syntax:

Summary handout ("Everything in 12 pages")
Constituency tests

How to draw trees in MS Word
Hvordan man tegner træer i MS Word

1. Some extra exercises (with solutions)
2. Some more extra exercises (also with solutions)
3. Even more extra exercises (also with solutions)

 

 

Neurolinguistics - Language, Cognition and the Brain, Spring 2009

(See the course description here.)

The course will look into the complex interplay between language and other cognitive systems, including the place of language in human cognition in general, and how language is organised in the brain (including the question of modularity). The emphasis will be on which parts of the brain show increased activity when we process different types of linguistic stimuli, and the linguistic consequences of brain damage (aphasia). The topics will include the following:

• Thought vs. Language vs. Communication
• Modularity and implementation - the organisation and architecture of language
• Psycho- and neurolinguistics - brain imaging with fMRI and ERP
• Negation - cognition, syntax, and semantics
• Garden-path phenomena - parsing and structural ambiguity
• Gibberish and the structure of silence - ellipsis and reconstruction
• Word order variation, aphasia, and Broca's area
• Semantic, pragmatic, and syntactic anomalies
• Language and mathematics - numbers, language, and syntax

Open to students from all subjects at SLK. To be taught in English.

 

 

Psychology of Language, 2002

Handouts (in Danish) from a course I taught in 2002 at Dept. of Psychology. Univ. of Aarhus, Denmark.

Resumé.
1. Introduktion. (Introduction)
2. Sprog og Kommunikation. (Language and Communication)
3. Sprog og Kognition 1. (Language and Thought)
4. Sproglig Forståelse: Parsing. (Linguistic Comprehension: Parsing)
5. Sprogtilegnelse 1: Normale. (Normal Language Acquisition)
6. Sprogtilegnelse 2: Ekstreme Tilfælde. (Language Acquisition in Extreme Cases)
7. Sprog og Kognition 2: 'Theory of Mind'. (English version) (Language and Theory of Mind)
8. Læsning og Ordblindhed. (Reading and Dyslexia)
9. Afasi og Agrammatisme. (Aphasia and Agrammatism)
10. Connectionism vs. Biolinguistics. (No handout)
11. Sprog og Hjerne. (Language and Brain)

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Last updated June 24, 2009.