This paper aims to investigate the effects of the alignment entailed in the continuation task on syntactic complexity in L2 written production. A total number of 48 sophomores majoring in English at a university in China were randomly assigned to two groups, one is the continuation group and the other is the topic writing group. The current study…

This article presents a generative analysis of the acquisition of formulaic language as an alternative to current usage-based proposals. One influential view of the role of formulaic expressions in second language (L2) development is that they are a bootstrapping mechanism into the L2 grammar; an initial repertoire of constructions allows for…

This dissertation provides a syntactic account for the Jarai noun phrase and for the three regions of the Jarai clause: the operator domain, the inflectional domain, and the theta domain. Within the noun phrase, I argue that demonstrative-final word order involves phrasal movement of the demonstrative's complement into Spec,D, where it…

The meaning of some phrasal verbs can be guessed from the meanings of the parts (to sit down = sit + down, run after = run + after) and the meaning of some others have to be learned (to put up (a visitor) = accommodate, to hold up = cause delay or try to rob someone) due to their syntactic and semantic complexities. In this regard, the syntactic…

The study investigated the influence of universal and language-specific morpho-syntactic properties (i.e., flexible word order, case) on the acquisition of verb argument structures in German compared with English. To this end, 65 three- to nine-year-old German learning children and adults were asked to act out grammatical ("The sheep…

The present study examines the acquisition of double object constructions (DOCs) ("Susan gave Peter an apple") by 90 Basque/Spanish learners of English as a third language (L3). The aim of this study was to explore whether (i) learners established a distinction when accepting DOCs vs. prepositional phrase constructions (PPCs)…

In this study we investigate young children's knowledge of syntactic constraints on Noun Phrase reference by testing 30-month-olds' interpretation of two types of transitive sentences. In a preferential looking task, we find that children prefer different interpretations for transitive sentences whose object NP is a name (e.g., "She's patting…

We used eye tracking to investigate the downstream processing consequences of encountering noun/verb (NV) homographs (i.e., park) in semantically neutral but syntactically constraining contexts. Target words were followed by a prepositional phrase containing a noun that was plausible for only 1 meaning of the homograph. Replicating previous work,…

Taking a dynamic usage-based perspective, this longitudinal case study compares the development of sentence complexity in speaking versus writing in two beginner Taiwanese learners of English (identical twins) in an extensive corpus consisting of 100 oral and 100 written texts of approximately 200 words produced by each twin over 8 months. Three…

This corpus study brings a second language (L2) research perspective, insights from generative grammar, and new empirical evidence to bear on a long-accepted claim in the World Englishes literature--namely, that inversion with "wh"-movement in colloquial Indian English is obligatory in embedded clauses and impossible in main clauses. It…

Atypical expressive prosody is reported as a consistent challenge for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and is associated with a broad set of clinical impairments including perceptions of oddness from others. Theories of atypical prosody in ASD have attributed these impairments to the broader symptoms of ASD, particularly in the…

Legal translation of contract agreements is a challenge to translators as it involves combining the literary translation with the technical terminological precision. In translating legal contract agreements, a legal translator must utilize the lexical or syntactic precision and, more importantly, the pragmatic awareness of the context. This will…

An increasing number of studies have looked at the value of corpus-based data-driven learning (DDL) for second language (L2) written error correction, with generally positive results. However, a potential conundrum for language teachers involved in the process is how to provide feedback on students' written production for DDL. The study looks at…

This dissertation establishes the syntactic representation and derivation of relative clause (RC) constructions in Bizkaiera Basque. Using native speaker introspection, grammaticality judgment under direct elicitation and formal experiments, I show that Bizkaiera follows the Head raising strategy in RC construction. Evidence for this comes from…

This dissertation is an analysis of two types of nominal compounds in Turkish, primary compounds and synthetic compounds within the framework of Distributed Morphology. A nominal primary compound is formed by two nouns, and its meaning is largely determined by world knowledge. A synthetic compound, on the other hand, is formed by a noun and a…