Artificial grammar learning (AGL) has been probed with forced-choice behavioral tests (active tests). Recent attempts to probe the outcomes of learning (implicitly acquired knowledge) with eye-movement responses (passive tests) have shown null results. However, these latter studies have not tested for sensitivity effects, for example, increased…

Is there an ideal time window for language acquisition after which nativelike representation and processing are unattainable? Although this question has been heavily debated, no consensus has been reached. Here, we present evidence for a sensitive period in language development and show that it is specific to grammar. We conducted a masked priming…

This study explores the time-course of word processing by grammatical class (verbs vs. nouns) and meaning (action vs. non-action) by means of an ERP experiment. The morphology of Spanish words allows for a noun (e.g., "bail"-e [a dance]) or a verb (e.g., "bail"-ar [to dance]) to be formed by simply changing the suffix attached…

Children and adults follow cues such as case marking and word order in their assignment of semantic roles in simple transitives (e.g., "the dog chased the cat"). It has been suggested that the same cues are used for the interpretation of complex sentences, such as transitive relative clauses (RCs) (e.g., "that's the dog that chased…

This dissertation explores why grammatical structures are better learned implicitly or explicitly by investigating differential object marking (DOM) in Spanish. To address the effectiveness of implicit versus explicit instruction in the classroom, the researcher focused on two of the main features that constrain DOM in Spanish: animacy and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of healthy aging on the ability to suppress grammatically illicit antecedents during pronoun resolution. Method: In 2 reading-based acceptability-judgment experiments, younger and older speakers of German read sentences containing an object pronoun and 2 potential antecedent noun…

This study investigated the effect of first language (L1) on the reading of modifier-head case agreement in second language (L2) Finnish by native Russian and Chinese speakers. Russian is similar to Finnish in that both languages use case endings to mark grammatical roles, whereas such markings are absent in Chinese. The critical nouns were…

An English double-embedded relative clause from which the middle verb is omitted can often be processed more easily than its grammatical counterpart, a phenomenon known as the grammaticality illusion. This effect has been found to be reversed in German, suggesting that the illusion is language specific rather than a consequence of universal…

The two main components of Processing Instruction (PI) are Explicit Information (EI) and Structured Input (SI). Most researchers have concluded that the SI is more responsible for learner gains than the EI (Benati, 2004a, 2004b; VanPatten & Oikennon, 1996; Wong, 2004). However, some researchers have found that EI does significantly impact…

Previous studies have shown that speakers of languages such as German, Spanish, and French reactivate the syntactic gender of the antecedent of a pronoun to license gender agreement. As syntactic gender is assumed to be stored in the lexicon, this has motivated the claim that pronouns in these languages reactivate the lexical entry of their…

We examined sources of morphological variability in second language (L2) learners of Spanish whose native language (L1) is English, with a focus on L1-L2 similarity, morphological markedness, and knowledge type (receptive vs. expressive). Experiment 1 uses event-related potentials to examine noun-adjective number (present in L1) and gender…

The present response time study investigated how a hypothesized time-based working memory constraint of 2-3 s affects the resolution of grammatical and semantic dependencies. Congruent and incongruent object relative (OR) and subject relative sentences were read at different presentation rates so that the distance between dependent words was…

This study aimed to elicit students' perceptions regarding their language-learning strategy preferences (LLSPs). A sample of 198 college-level students participated. Data were collected through a questionnaire and interviews. The findings reveal that language students tend to adopt a holistic view of the learning task and relate it to real-life…

Purpose: Classifying children into two language ability groups, with and without language impairment, may underestimate the number of groups with distinct language ability patterns, or, alternatively, there may be only a single group characterized by a continuum of language performance. The purpose of the current study was to identify the number…

A body of studies, which are mostly based on parental reports, have documented gender differences in early language proficiency, and girls tend to outperform boys in both language production and language comprehension. In this study, staff in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care institutions observed language comprehension, word…