Children achieve better long-term language outcomes than adults. However, it remains unclear whether children actually learn language "more quickly" than adults during real-time exposure to input--indicative of true superior language learning abilities--or whether this advantage stems from other factors. To examine this issue, we…

Recent research has shown that knowledge of second language (L2) collocations is important to learners for improving their language processing and production but also that acquiring L2-specific collocations is a very burdensome task for learners. Thus, bootstrapping knowledge of L2 collocations through generalization is highly desirable, but this…

Background: There is variability in the language of children with autism, even those who are high functioning. However, little is known about how they process language structures in real time, including how they handle potential ambiguity, and whether they follow referential constraints. Previous research with older autism spectrum disorder (ASD)…

Generic sentences (e.g., "Birds lay eggs") convey generalizations about entire categories and may thus be an important source of knowledge for children. However, these sentences cannot be identified by a simple rule, requiring instead the integration of multiple cues. The present studies focused on 3- to 5-year-olds' (N = 91) use of…

The primary goal of the present study is to gain more insight into the phenomena of Expletive Negation. Chapter 1 starts with the observed hallmark properties of EN and theoretical backgrounds. In chapter 2, I show the pragmatic contribution of two scalar meanings of undesirability and unlikelihood. It is further shown that the base of scale…

This dissertation presents experimental research on speech errors in Tunisian Arabic. The nonconcatenative morphology of Arabic shows interesting interactions of phrasal and lexical constraints with morphological structure during language production. The central empirical questions revolve around properties of "exchange errors". These…