According to information-processing accounts of skill acquisition, learner performance becomes more automatic over time and with practice, requiring less attention, time, and cognitive effort (DeKeyser, "Skill acquisition theory," Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007a). This study set out to provide converging evidence for the development of…

Argues that the lexical production system takes a compositional approach to processing morphologically complex forms in cases of productive word formation even if the semantics of the word cannot be derived formally from the meaning of its constituents. Evidence is presented from a case of acquired naming impairment in a patient whose ability to…

Presents data from a positron emission tomographic study in which subjects were asked to produce the past tense forms of regular, irregular and nonce stems. Findings, which support the grammar/lexicon linguistic theories, reveal different amounts and areas of cortical activation in the regular and irregular tasks, as well as significantly…

Discusses analogical change in word structure where meaning seems to have had a role in determining the direction of the change. Many examples are given of pairs of British place names and other English words of various origins. A few examples are included from other languages. (Author/LMO)

This study was an investigation of reading and spelling errors of dyslexic Arabic readers ("n"=20) compared with two groups of normal readers: a young readers group, matched with the dyslexics by reading level ("n"=20) and an age-matched group ("n"=20). They were tested on reading and spelling of texts, isolated…

Reports four experiments examining subject-verb agreement errors in Spanish and English. Discusses cross-linguistic differences within the framework of the computational model of grammatical encoding proposed by Kempen and Hoenkamp. Suggests that languages differ in the extent to which the selection of the verb is controlled by features on the…

Errors can be considered concrete representations of stages through which one must go in order to acquire one's native language and a second language. It has been discovered that certain errors appear systematically, revealing an approximate system, or "interlanguage," behind the erroneous utterances. Present research in second language…