Most evidence concerning cross-linguistic variation in noun bias, the preponderance of nouns in early expressive lexicons (Gentner, 1982), has come from comparisons of monolingual children acquiring different languages. Such designs are susceptible to a number of potential confounders, including group differences in developmental level and…

This study builds on research investigating the construct validity of elicited imitation (EI) as a measure of implicit second language (L2) grammatical knowledge. It differs from previous studies in that the EI task focuses on a single grammatical feature and time on task is strictly controlled. Seventy-three EFL learners and 20 native English…

To investigate the influence of L2 proficiency and syntactic similarity on English passive sentence processing, the present ERP study asked 40 late Chinese-English bilinguals (27 females and 13 males, mean age = 23.88) with high or intermediate L2 proficiency to read the sentences carefully and to indicate for each sentence whether or not it was…

This dissertation investigates the syntax of Spanish complementizers, with special attention to double-complementizer constructions and non-high "que" "that" complementizers. The goal is to explore the consequences of the behavior and distribution of such complementizers for the mapping of the Spanish left periphery, the…

Second language (L2) researchers are becoming more interested in both L2 learners' knowledge of the target language and how that knowledge is put to use during real-time language processing. Researchers are therefore beginning to see the importance of combining traditional L2 research methods with those that capture the moment-by-moment…

Three experiments on structural priming in Mandarin-speaking 5-year-olds were conducted to test the priming as implicit learning hypothesis. It describes a learning mechanism that acts on a shared abstract syntactic representation in response to linguistic input using an equi-biased Mandarin SVO-"ba" alternation. The first two…

The way in which an event is packaged linguistically can be informative about the number of participants in the event and the nature of their participation. At times, however, a sentence is ambiguous, and pragmatic information weighs in to favor one interpretation over another. Whereas adults may readily know how to pick up on such cues to…

Given that L1A of subject properties in non-null subject languages emerges later than that of null subject languages, this study aims at determining to what extent the same pattern of acquisition is observed in early child L2A in bilingual immersion settings where English and Spanish are both source and target languages. Using an elicited oral…

The present study investigates the influence of word category on naming performance in two populations: bilingual and monolingual children. The question is whether and, if so, to what extent monolingual and bilingual children differ with respect to noun and verb naming and whether a noun bias exists in the lexical abilities of bilingual children.…

The triad dimensions of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) has been widely used for assessing second language performance and development. Unlike accuracy and fluency, the construct of Chinese syntactic complexity has not been comprehensibly conceptualized or operationalized. Moreover, not tailored to the typological differences such as the…

This paper presents an extension of the Multiple Grammars Theory (Roeper, 1999) to provide a formal mechanism that can serve as a generative-based alternative to current descriptive models of interlanguage. The theory extends historical work by Kroch and Taylor (1997), and has been taken into a computational direction by Yang (2003). The proposal…

This study investigates how syntactic complexity affects speaking performance in first (L1) and second language (L2) in terms of speaking fluency. Participants (30 Dutch native speakers with an average to advanced level of English) performed two speaking experiments, one in Dutch (L1) and one in English (L2). Syntactic complexity was…

This research aims to define a sustainable resource in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). In order for a CALL resource to be sustainable it must work within existing educational curricula. This feature is a necessary prerequisite of sustainability because, despite the potential for educational change that digitalization has offered since…

This dissertation seeks to refine the meaning of [Torah] in Psalms 1, 19, 37, 40, 78, 89, 94, 105, and 119. Through an exegetical analysis of the nine Psalms that utilize the term, the study argues that [Torah] most frequently refers to the written Pentateuch. Chapter 1 introduces the research question, thesis, and surveys the various approaches…

Prosody plays a vital role in communication, but is one of the most widely neglected topics in language documentation. This omission is doubly detrimental since intonation is unrecoverable from transcribed texts, the most prevalent data sources for many indigenous languages. One of the underlying reasons for the dearth of prosodic data is…