Given that both spoken and written language are subject to corruption from speech errors, disfluencies, and environmental noise, successful language comprehension sometimes requires deriving a non-veridical understanding of the linguistic input. Recent work has demonstrated that these non-veridical understandings are not merely semantic, but that,…

This study examined the influence of linguistic input on the development of productive and receptive skills across three fundamental language domains: lexico-semantics, syntax, and phonology. Seventy-one (35 female) Basque-Spanish bilingual children were assessed at three time points (Fall 2018, Summer 2019, Winter 2021), between 4 and 6 years of…

This dissertation is about the learnability of different generative, Separationist approaches to nominal morphosyntax. The core of my investigation is number, gender, and declension class, as manifested across nouns, adnominals (adjectives, numerals, demonstratives, and quantifiers), and articles. An extreme position would require that all of…

We examined whether input modality and individual differences in attention and motivation influence second language (L2) learning via syntactic priming. In an online study, we compared the primed production of English passives by 235 L2 and native English speakers in reading-to-writing versus listening-to-writing conditions. We measured immediate…

Effects of phonetically variable input (PVI) for processing instruction (PI) training and the number of training items were tested with a picture-selection eye-tracking task. Intermediate second language (L2) learners of French (n = 174) were tested before and after they received either a short (24 items), medium (48), or long (96) training on the…

Guided by both the interactionist and sociocultural learning theories, this study investigates the interactive communications in text-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and face-to-face (FTF) oral communication environments and the impacts they bring to subsequent L2 Chinese speaking. Learners' perspectives on using…

Speakers display considerable variability in language use and representations: they may have different pronunciations of the same word, different intended meanings for the same phrases, and different sets of syntactic constraints in their internalized grammars. Comprehenders adapt to such variability by constantly updating their expectations for…

This study investigated the feasibility of a vocabulary-based teacher intervention to increase preschool teachers' production of complement clauses (e.g. "I wonder if we can put the monkey in the tree") in teacher-children play interactions. Using a multiple baseline across participants design we measured the impact of an intervention…

Research on "parentese," the acoustically exaggerated, slower, and higher-pitched speech directed toward infants, has mostly focused on maternal contributions, although it has long been known that fathers also produce parentese. Given recent societal changes in family dynamics, it is necessary to revise these mother-centered models of…

"Wh"-words have been analysed as existential quantifiers (Chierchia in Logic in grammar: polarity, free choice, and intervention. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013; Fox, in Sauerland U, Stateva P (eds) Presupposition and implicature in compositional semantics (Palgrave studies in pragmatics, language and cognition). Palgrave…

We investigate concrete acquisition theories for a derived approach to linking theory development and explore to what extent two prominent linking theories in the syntactic literature--UTAH and rUTAH--can be derived from the data that English-learning children encounter. We leverage a conceptual acquisition framework that specifies key aspects of…

Early linguistic environment has shown an impact on children's later language development, particularly, child directed speech has been associated with providing children with linguistic input from which to look for regularities and patterns, and boosting children to produce utterances beyond their current competence. This article aims to examine…

Inaudible syntactic markers are especially difficult to spell. This paper examines how 455 fourth graders spell silent French plural markers in a dictation with real and pseudowords after one year of formal French instruction (L2). The Generalized Linear Mixed Model analysis shows first that noun plural spelling (real and pseudo) is a strong…

How early do children produce multiword utterances? Do children's early utterances reflect abstract syntactic knowledge or are they the result of data-driven learning? We examine this issue through corpus analysis, computational modeling, and adult simulation experiments. Chapter 1 investigates when children start producing multiword utterances;…

Young children can exploit the syntactic context of a novel word to narrow down its probable meaning. This is "syntactic bootstrapping." A learner that uses syntactic bootstrapping to foster lexical acquisition must first have identified the semantic information that a syntactic context provides. Based on the "semantic seed…