This chapter discusses adverbs in Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). It consists of two parts: the first part provides an overview of the account of adverbs in RRG with illustrations from English and shows that they occur in the periphery of the nucleus, core or clause. The second part focuses on ideophonic (or mimetic) adverbs in Japanese and a few other languages as a further illustration of the RRG account of adverbs and its typological scope, and argues that ideophonic adverbs modify either the nucleus or core in Japanese, while they also occur as a nuclear-internal modifier in a Totonac-Tepehua language.

This chapter discusses two main aspects of the Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) conception of the architecture of grammar: the view that grammatical relations are construction-specific, rather than being global categories of a language and being found in every language, and the function of grammatical relations in referent tracking, which was a major insight in the development (and naming) of the framework. These two aspects of RRG syntax have significantly influenced linguistic theory beyond the RRG framework.

This chapter describes the basic syntax of the Amele (Papuan) language from a Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) perspective. Typologically, Amele has head-last syntax and is head-marking. Nominative-accusative agreement is suffixed to the verb stem and up to four arguments can be marked on the verb. There are only two major lexical categories, nouns and verbs, with very little overlap between these categories. Alternative undergoer selection may be made for ditransitive verbs. There is no passive construction in the language and the only choice for privileged syntactic argument (PSA) is [S, AT]. Focus may be expressed morphologically and by incorporation of modifier elements into the verb word. The language-specific topics featured are serial verb constructions and switch-reference (SR). SR applies to clauses in both coordinate and (some) embedded constructions. It is judged to be a local syntactic device for monitoring the referentiality of PSA arguments between adjacent clauses as to whether they have identical or non-identical reference.

This chapter reviews the existing Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) work on diachronic syntax and morphosyntax and shows how the tools of language description developed by RRG can also be used to account for several aspects of language change. Drawing evidence from developments which have occurred in a wide range of languages, it is argued that RRG allows for a more fine-grained analysis of diachronic processes than theoretically neutral approaches, that it answers fundamental questions about the nature and causes of syntactic change, and that it is not a mere tool of linguistic description, but a theory that makes falsifiable empirical predictions.

This chapter deals with lexical and grammatical categories in Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). First, it discusses a range of functionally motivated, non-endocentric syntactic categories, such as the nucleus (NUC), containing the predicate, referential phrases (RPs) and modifying phrases (MPs). Although these units are typically realized by verbs, nouns and adjectives/adverbs, respectively, this is not always so, and many languages allow for non-verbal predicates, non-adjectival modifying phrases, etc., while other languages show little to no evidence for categories such as noun, verb or adjective. This is captured in RRG by assuming that NUC, RP and MP are not universally linked to particular lexical categories. The chapter also discusses grammatical categories which are referred to in RRG as operators, and which ground the clause, core or nucleus (TAM markers, evidentials, etc.), as well as categories which are primarily concerned with questions of reference, such as number, definiteness, deixis, etc., which ground the RP.

The past twenty years have brought a revolution in the understanding of how the human brain accomplishes language comprehension, as more sophisticated models have been proposed in response to the discovery of brain regions in the left hemisphere other than Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas involved in syntactic and semantic processing. Nevertheless, some old mysteries remain unsolved. One of these is the surprising finding that some split-brain patients have some linguistic abilities in their isolated right hemisphere, including, for a few, the ability to make grammaticality judgements. If the neural machinery for syntactic processing is found exclusively in the left hemisphere, this should not be possible. This paper proposes an account of this unexpected phenomenon using the grammatical tools of Role and Reference Grammar, and the solution has implications for the theory itself as well as for another old mystery, namely the ability of some aphasics, who cannot correctly interpret reversible passives, to nevertheless judge the grammaticality of sentences.

After introducing the aims and scope of the Handbook, this chapter reflects on the contribution of Role and Reference Grammar to modern linguistic theory, highlighting the key features which uniquely characterize this framework and distinguish it from others.

The goal of this chapter is to present RRG as a formalized grammatical theory which puts emphasis on mathematical and logical rigour. It is shown how the syntactic dimension of RRG can be formally expressed as a tree rewriting grammar consisting of elementary tree templates that can be combined with larger syntactic units by three modes of composition: substitution, adjunction and wrapping. Special attention is given to the structure and derivation of extraction constructions and complex sentences.

This chapter outlines key foci for future research on prosociality and its development. It seeks to identify challenges and priorities and to delineate exciting possibilities for moving the field forward. These include the need for a useful taxonomy to help map the different dimensions and forms of prosociality across development; a call to extend the construct of prosociality by incorporating the perspectives of children and individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds; the need to integrate knowledge from different levels of analysis; the notion that for a more complete understanding of prosociality in humans, both specificities and commonalities in processes of prosocial development must be addressed; and the need to understand major obstacles to prosocial development – how is it that, despite the human potential for prosociality, some individuals do not become prosocial? – and how to transcend such barriers. Addressing these issues, using rigorous and innovative work, will promote a new era of prosociality science.

Submitted manuscripts usually have an arduous journey, while also having the potential to make significant contributions that reach wide and relevant audiences. In this chapter, I offer a path and guidelines for journal submissions; this includes both the editor’s perspective on handling submitted manuscripts and implications for the authors. Although journals may vary in how manuscripts are handled, the following three main phases most likely occur in some form: (1) submissions are screened to determine their appropriateness for a journal; (2) manuscripts that remain after screening are usually assigned to reviewers by the editor or associate editor; and (3) manuscripts that remain after the review process are accepted and published. I’m hopeful that the information will be helpful to editors and authors by elucidating the process of handling submitted manuscripts and improving the chances of successful and productive contributions.

The social world is fascinating – full of complexities, tensions, and contradictions. Social scientists have long been interested in better understanding the social world around us. Unlike quantitative research, that focuses on collecting and analyzing numerical data to make statistical inferences about the social world, qualitative research contributes to empirical and theoretical understandings of society by examining and explaining how and why people think and act as they do through the use of non-numerical data. In other words, qualitative research uncovers social processes and mechanisms undergirding human behavior. In this chapter, we will discuss how to design a qualitative research project using two of the most common qualitative research methods: in-depth interviewing and ethnographic observations (also known as ethnography or participant observation). We will begin the chapter by discussing the what, how, and why of interviewing and ethnography. We will then discuss the importance of interrogating one’s underlying ontological and epistemological assumptions regarding research (and the research process) and the steps to follow in designing a qualitative study. We conclude the chapter by reviewing the different elements to consider when developing a qualitative research project.

A neurobiological perspective can inform us about the proximate mechanisms of prosocial behavior. Brain regions involved in empathic processing have been implicated in prosocial behaviors. However, prosocial behavior is dependent on regions beyond those involved in empathy. We outline recent meta-analyses that have converged on the finding that regions implicated in reward processing also play key roles in prosocial behaviors as do ventromedial and dorsolateral regions of the prefrontal cortex. We describe instances in which empathic processing is affected – in psychiatric conditions or following psychopharmacological interventions – and what consequences this can have for the neural correlates of prosocial behavior. We emphasize the need to have clear definitions of concepts like “empathy” and “prosocial behavior,” as these will ultimately inform the behavioral tasks used to measure the neural underpinnings of these phenomena. Finally, we discuss how advancements in neuroscientific techniques could further our understanding of the neurocognitive basis of prosocial behavior.

This chapter provides an overview of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) from an applied perspective. We start with a discussion of general issues and applications, including definitions of EFA and the underlying common factors model. We briefly cover history and general applications. The most substantive part of the chapter focuses on six steps of EFA. More specifically, we consider variable (or indicator) selection (Step 1), computing the variance–covariance matrix (Step 2), factor-extraction methods (Step 3), factor-retention procedures (Step 4), factor-rotation methods (Step 5), and interpretation (Step 6). We include a data analysis example throughout (with example code for R), with full details in an online supplement. We hope the chapter will provide helpful guidance to applied researchers in the social and behavioral sciences.