This study investigates the hypothesis that non-isomorphic syntax-semantics mappings pose a greater challenge for non-native (L2) than for native (L1) speakers, focusing on a previously understudied phenomenon. We carried out an antecedent judgment task with L1 German and L1 Russian-speaking, proficient L2 learners of German to examine Condition C…

Despite the seemingly simple mapping between adjectives and perceptual properties (e.g., color, texture), preschool children have difficulty establishing the appropriate extension of novel adjectives. When children hear a novel adjective applied to an individual object, they successfully extend the adjective to other members of the same object…

In verbal communication, a receiver often needs to resolve referential ambiguity. This study set two experimental conditions to separate the possibility of local correspondence based on the persisting strategy of reference assignment from that of more flexible reference skills. A total of 139 three-year-old and five-year-old children engaged in…

Purpose: Recent findings in preschool children indicated novel adjective recall was enhanced when learned using repeated retrieval with contextual reinstatement (RRCR) compared to repeated study (RS). Recall was similar for learned pictures used during training and new (generalized) pictures with the same adjective features. The current study…

Quantificational elements such as some pose a challenge to young language learners, given their vague meaning and ability to take on an upper-bounded interpretation (relative to "all") in certain contexts. The challenge is enhanced when a child is acquiring multiple languages that do not share a one-to-one mapping between their lexical…

This article investigates near-native grammars at the syntax--discourse interface by examining the second language (L2) acquisition of two different domains of object movement in Dutch, which exhibit syntax-discourse or syntax-semantics level properties. English and German near-native speakers of Dutch, where German but not English allows the same…

One of the most prominent issues in early cognitive and linguistic development concerns how children figure out meanings of words from hearing them in context, since in many contexts there are multiple words and multiple potential referents for those words. Recent findings concerning on-line sentence comprehension suggest that, within the…

We investigate the hypothesis that our conceptual systems provide two formally distinct ways of representing categories by investigating the manner in which lexical nominals (e.g., "tree," "picnic table") and phrasal nominals (e.g., "black bird," "birds that like rice") are interpreted. Four experiments found that lexical nominals may be mapped…

While attentional models of SLA postulate attention as crucial for learning to take place (e.g., Robinson, 1995b; Schmidt, 1990, 2001; Tomlin & Villa, 1994), the role that awareness or lack thereof plays remains debatable. Indeed, the studies that have empirically addressed the construct of unawareness reveal conflicting results (e.g.,…

Objective: To identify facilitative strategies that could be used in developing a tobacco cessation program for community dental practices. Methods: Nominal group technique (NGT) meetings and a card-sort task were used to obtain formative data. A cognitive mapping approach involving multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis was…

The present study explores knowledge of Spanish grammatical gender in both comprehension and production by heritage language speakers and second language (L2) learners, with native Spanish speakers as a baseline. Most L2 research has tended to interpret morphosyntactic variability in interlanguage production, such as errors in gender agreement, as…