Prof. Aya Meltzer-Asscher

Department of Linguistics
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Prof. Aya Meltzer-Asscher
Phone: 03-6405024
Office: Webb - School of Languages, 412

about

My main research interest is sentence processing: how we process the stream of words we read or hear, and integrate them in order to understand a sentence in real time. Research in my lab, the Sentence Processing Lab, investigates both lexical-semantic and structural-syntactic aspects of sentence processing, with a focus on Hebrew, and the ways in which the grammar of this language shapes processing strategies. Our research utilizes behavioral measures (ratings, reaction times) and electrophysiology (i.e. measuring electrical activity in the brain).

I'm also affiliated with the Sagol School of Neuroscience.

CV

2019 - : Associate Professor at the Linguistics Department and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University

2013 -  2018: Senior Lecturer at the Linguistics Department and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University

2011 - 2012: Post-doctoral fellow at the Aphasia and Neurolinguistic Lab, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University.

2005 - 2010: Ph.D. in Linguistics, Tel-Aviv University, supervised by Prof. Tal Siloni and Prof. Julia Horvath. Dissertation title: "Adjectives and Argument Structure"

2003 - 2004: M.A. in Linguistics, Tel-Aviv University

2001 - 2002: B.A. in Computer Sciences and Linguistics, Tel Aviv University

 

Publications

REFEREED ARTICLES IN JOURNALS

 

Maayan Keshev & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (in press). The effects of syntactic pressures and pragmatic considerations on predictive dependency formation. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. [link]

 

Tal Ness & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2019). When is the verb a potential gap site? The influence of filler maintenance on the active search for a gap. Language, Cognition, & Neuroscience, 34, 936-948. [link]

 

Sladjana Lukic, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, James Higgins, Todd B. Parrish, & Cynthia K. Thompson (2019). Neurocognitive correlates of category ambiguous verb processing: The single versus dual lexical entry hypotheses. Brain & Language, 194, 65-76. [link]

 

Maayan Keshev & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2019). A processing-based account of subliminal wh-island effects. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 37, 621-657. [link]

 

Julie Fadlon, Adam M. Morgan, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, & Victor S. Ferreira (2019). It depends: Optionality in the production of filler-gap dependencies. Journal of Memory and Language, 106, 40-67. [link

 

Tal Ness & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2018). Predictive pre-updating and working memory capacity: Evidence from event-related potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 30, 1916-1938. [link]

 

Tal Ness & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2018). Lexical inhibition due to failed prediction: Behavioral evidence and ERP correlates. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 44, 1269-1285. [link]

 

Maayan Keshev & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2017). Active gap filling in islands: how grammatical resumption affects online sentence processing. Language, 93, 249-268. [link]

 

Tal Ness & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2017). Working memory in the processing of long-distance dependencies: Interference and filler maintenance. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46, 1353-1365. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher, Julie Fadlon, Kayla Goldstein, & Ariel Holan (2015). Direct object resumption in Hebrew: How modality of presentation and relative clause position affect acceptability. Lingua, 166, 65-79. [link]

 

Jennifer E. Mack, Sarah D. Chandler, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, Emily Rogalski, Sandra Weintraub, M.-Marsel Mesulam, & Cynthia K. Thompson (2015). What do pauses in narrative production reveal about the nature of word retrieval deficits in PPA? Neuropsychologia, 77, 211-222. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher, Jennifer E. Mack, Elena Barbieri, & Cynthia K. Thompson (2015). How the brain processes different aspects of argument structure complexity: Evidence from fMRI. Brain & Language, 142, 65-75. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher & Cynthia K. Thompson (2014). The forgotten grammatical category: Adjective use in agrammatic aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 30, 48-68. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2013). Ergative adjectives as proposition-selecting predicates. Brill's Annual of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics, 5, 191-223. [link]

 

Jennifer E. Mack, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, Elena Barbieri, & Cynthia K. Thompson (2013). Neural correlates of processing passive sentences. Brain Sciences, 3, 1198-1214. [link]

 

Cynthia K. Thompson, Ellyn Riley, Dirk-Bart den Ouden, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, & Sladjana Lukic (2013). Training verb argument structure production in agrammatic aphasia: Behavioral and neural recovery patterns. Cortex, 49, 2358-2376. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher, Julia Schuchard, Dirk-Bart den Ouden, & Cynthia K. Thompson (2013). The neural substrates of complex argument structure representations: Processing ‘alternating transitivity’ verbs. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28, 1154-1168. [link]

 

Cynthia K. Thompson, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, Soojin Cho, Jiyeon Lee, Christina Wieneke, Sandra Weintraub, & M.-Marsel Mesulam (2013). Syntactic and morphosyntactic processing in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia. Behavioral Neurology, 26, 35-54. [link]

 

Aneta Kielar, Aya Meltzer-Asscher, & Cynthia K. Thompson (2012). Electrophysiological responses to argument structure violations in healthy adults and individuals with agrammatic aphasia. Neuropsychologia, 50, 3320-3337. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2012). The subject of adjectives: Syntactic position and semantic interpretation. The Linguistic Review29, 149-190. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2011). Adjectival passives in Hebrew: Evidence for parallelism between the adjectival and verbal systems. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 29, 815-855. [link]

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2010). Present participles: Categorial classification and derivation. Lingua, 120, 2211-2239. [link]

 

REFEREED ARTICLES IN BOOKS

 

Cynthia K. Thompson & Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2014). Neurocognitive mechanisms of verb argument structure processing. In Asaf Bachrach, Isabelle Roy and Linaea Stockall (eds.) Structuring the Argument. Multidisciplinary research on verb argument structure, pp. 141-168. John Benjamins.

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2012). Verbal passives in Hebrew and English: a comparative study. In Martin Everaert, Marijana Marelj and Tal Siloni (eds.) The Theta System: Argument Structure at the Interface, pp. 279-307. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher (2014). Review of Non-Canonical Passives, Artemis Alexiadou & Florian Schäfer (Eds.). Journal of Linguistics, 50, 231-237.

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher & Tal Siloni (2012). Unaccusativity in Hebrew. In: The Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Brill. (Authors listed alphabetically)  

 

Aya Meltzer-Asscher & Tal Siloni (2012). Inalienable possession constructions in Hebrew. In: The Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics, Brill. (Authors listed alphabetically)

 

 

 

  

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