In two experiments, naive participants took turns telling each other to click on a target picture while gaze was monitored. Critical trials included a "contrast" picture that differed from the target only in size. In both experiments, the timing of speakers' fixations on the contrast predicted whether the contrast was encoded in a phrase with a…

In this study, we tested the predictions of 2 opposing perspectives on the nature of the deficit in specific language impairment (SLI): the domain-general, cognitive/perceptual processing view and the domain-specific, linguistic representational view. Data consisted of spontaneous speech samples from French-English bilingual children with SLI;…

Binding theory (e.g., Chomsky, 1981) has played a central role in both syntactic theory and models of language processing. Its constraints are designed to predict that the referential domains of pronouns and reflexives are nonoverlapping, that is, are complementary; these constraints are also thought to play a role in online reference resolution.…

The current study addresses the debate between so-called "structural" and "processing limitation" accounts of aphasia, i.e., whether language impairments reflect the "loss" of linguistic knowledge or its representations, or instead reflect a limitation in processing resources. Confrontation-naming task and category-judgment tasks were used to…

Two experiments investigated the acquisition of English comparative adjective forms, "Adj+er" and "more Adj." In Experiment 1, 72 children, four- and seven-years-old, indicated their preferences for the synthetic or periphrastic comparative form for 16 adjectives in a forced-choice judgement task; their responses were compared to those of a group…

It is proposed that the concepts of location and goal are helpful instructional tools in Russian, encouraging competence and discouraging incorrect analyses of sentence structure. Minor reorganization of conventional instructional materials and addition of a few sentences for discussion would be of significant assistance in student understanding.…

The relationship between knowledge and reasoning was explored through 12 males' and 12 females' (aged 12, 15, and adult) solutions to written syllogisms containing four conjunctions, and evaluations of single sentences for their pragmatic content. The relationship between comprehension of pragmatic uncertainty and detection of uncertain…

Investigates the extent to which a representation of relative force can account for children's understanding of epistemic modals when their logical meaning is considered. Results confirm the influence of relative force and suggest that deductive inference is an early semantic component of modal terms. (29 references) (Author/CK)

A central question for psycholinguistics concerns the role of grammatical constraints in online sentence processing. Many current theories maintain that the language processing mechanism constructs a parse or parses that are grammatically consistent with the whole of the perceived input each time it processes a word. Several bottom-up, dynamical…

Two experiments examined the role of perceptual complexity, object familiarity and form class cues on how children interpret novel adjectives and count nouns. Four-year-old children participated in a forced-choice match-to-target task in which an exemplar was named with a novel word and children were asked to choose another one that matched the…

Prepositional phrase attachment was investigated in temporarily ambiguous sentences. Both attachment site (noun phrase or verb phrase) and argument status (argument or adjunct) were manipulated to test the hypothesis that arguments are processed differently than adjuncts. Contrary to this hypothesis, some previous research suggested that arguments…

The article reports on a comparative study of the abilities of aphasic speakers and normal control subjects to comprehend and produce verbs and sentences. The analysis is based on test results obtained as part of the standardization procedure for a test battery originally developed for Dutch and since translated and adapted for English and…

The acquisition of several word formation devices in American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf children learning ASL as a native language focused on some devices analogous to word formation devices in spoken languages (compounding, affixation, and derivation) and some in ASL that may not have counterparts in spoken languages. They were examined using…

A study of children's structuring of complex sentences requiring mood choices is reported. The objectives were to provide data for an understanding of sentence construction problems and to form a better idea of the acquisition of the intrinsic linguistic contrasts in the Spanish modal system. (MSE)

In three experiments, readers were presented with garden-path sentences containing reciprocal verbs, and their eye movements were monitored. Results demonstrate that information from the reciprocal verb influenced the earliest stages of syntactic processing. (29 references) (Author/CK)