Purpose: ParAlg (Paraphasia Algorithms) is a software that automatically categorizes a person with aphasia's naming error (paraphasia) in relation to its intended target on a picture-naming test. These classifications (based on lexicality as well as semantic, phonological, and morphological similarity to the target) are important for…

This dissertation is about the learnability of different generative, Separationist approaches to nominal morphosyntax. The core of my investigation is number, gender, and declension class, as manifested across nouns, adnominals (adjectives, numerals, demonstratives, and quantifiers), and articles. An extreme position would require that all of…

Augmented Reality (AR) technology, as one of the emerging innovative technologies, is proven to have the potential to facilitate second language acquisition in terms of contextualized visualization and learning interactivity. Nevertheless, no empirical research has been conducted on the use of an AR-assisted approach to help adult Chinese language…

Several previous studies showed that prime-target pairs with orthographical overlap but no semantic or morphological relationship (e.g., freeze-free) produced a masked priming effect in second language (L2) speakers but not in first language (L1) speakers. The present study further explored this intriguing L1-L2 difference by comparing English…

Morphological awareness, or sensitivity to units of meaning, is an essential component of reading comprehension development. Current neurobiological models of reading and dyslexia have largely been built upon phonological processing models, yet reading for meaning is as essential as reading for sound. To fill this gap, the present study explores…

This mixed methods study draws upon theoretical perspectives from usage-based linguistics (UBL) and variationist sociolinguistics to explore four learners' use of second language (L2) Spanish present tense indicative verbal inflectional morphology (i.e., simple present conjugations). The study compares the frequency and distribution of students'…

Children learning Chinese must cope with an opaque orthography lacking transparent relations between oral pronunciations and written characters: a challenge heightened for L2 learners. Use of digital Pinyin input may facilitate connections between oral and written language by allowing learners to access vocabulary they cannot yet write. We…

Using written texts elicited from students with different proficiency levels, we studied the acquisition of nominal cases in Russian as a second language. We established the order in which cases were acquired (nominative, locative, accusative, genitive, instrumental, and dative), as well as certain characteristics of their acquisition…

Verbal morphology has been identified as a particularly vulnerable domain for adult heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish, especially when it involves the selection of subjunctive mood. A minimal amount is known, however, about the potential effects of the variability associated with these forms on the acquisition of related epiphenomena, such as the…

The study investigates the reflections on tempo-aspectual morphology in Italian expressed by undergraduate multilingual learners with previous knowledge of Swedish and a Romance language (N = 22). The reflections of the participants, who were divided into four groups depending on a combination of proficiency in their background Romance language…

Word learning in a second language (L2) is a complex process, which is affected by learner-related (e.g., morphological awareness) and language-related (e.g., word semantic transparency) factors. Morphological awareness is learners' sensitivity to the morphological structure of printed words, and semantic transparency is the degree to which…

In the present study, we used a scanpath approach to investigate reading processes and factors that can shape them in monolingual Russian-speaking adults, 8-year-old children, and bilingual Russian-speaking readers. We found that monolingual adults' eye movement patterns exhibited a fluent scanpath reading process, representing effortless…

It is often assumed that cross-linguistically more prevalent distinctions are easier to learn potentially due to their conceptual naturalness. Prior work supports this hypothesis in phonology, morphology and syntax but has not addressed semantics. This work aims to unravel the potential factors that contribute to the learnability and the…

In this study, we investigated crosslinguistic influence (CLI) at developmental stages of third language (L3) acquisition of English by Russian--Norwegian children (N = 31). We tested seven linguistic properties within three linguistic modules (morphology, syntax and syntax-semantics). We compared the L3 learners to Norwegian (N = 90) and Russian…

While semantic and syntactic properties of verb meaning can impact the success of verb learning at a single age, developmental changes in how these factors influence acquisition are largely unexplored. We ask whether the impact of syntactic and semantic properties on verb vocabulary development varies with age and language ability for toddlers…