This dissertation examines the process of acquisition of semantic classes of reflexive verbs (RVs) in Russian by L2 learners with a native language English. The purpose of this study is to bridge the gap between current linguistic knowledge and the pedagogical literature existing in English on reflexives in Russian. RVs are taught partially and…

This study investigates brain potentials to derived word forms in Spanish. Two experiments were performed on derived nominals that differ in terms of their productivity and semantic properties but are otherwise similar, an acceptability judgment task and a reading experiment using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in which correctly and…

Adult learners have persistent difficulty processing second language (L2) inflectional morphology. We investigate associative learning explanations that involve the blocking of later experienced cues by earlier learned ones in the first language (L1; i.e., transfer) and the L2 (i.e., proficiency). Sagarra (2008) and Ellis and Sagarra (2010b) found…

In this article, we report the results of a self-paced reading experiment designed to investigate the question of whether or not advanced French and German learners of English as a second language (L2) are sensitive to tense/aspect mismatches between a fronted temporal adverbial and the inflected verb that follows (e.g. *"Last week, James has…

The objective of this dissertation is to present a preliminary grammatical account of Asheninka Perene an endangered Arawak language of Southeastern Peru. The description and analysis of the language is based on the 29-week field research conducted in an area of the Southwest Amazonian high jungle. Interesting issues of Asheninka Perene grammar…

This dissertation considers the problem of the semantic function of verbal aspectual morphology in Polish and other Slavic languages in the framework of generative syntax and semantics. Three kinds of such morphology are examined: (i) prefixes attaching directly to the root, (ii) "secondary imperfective" suffixes, and (iii) three prefixes that…

Recent theories of phonology hold that phonotactic well-formedness may be gradient, with some legal structures being more well-formed than others. Linguistic and psycholinguistic research has demonstrated that "within" morphemes, speakers encode both categorical (*n/Onset) and gradient (st/Onset greater than sin/Onset) phonotactic restrictions.…

This dissertation investigates licensing conditions of dependent indefinite pronouns, such as negative concord items and pronouns that depend on the presence of a c-commanding quantifier. In Chapter 2, I examine freestanding negative concord items in Russian. I provide a novel empirical generalization that freestanding negative concord items…

While affix ordering often reflects general syntactic or semantic principles, it can also be arbitrary or variable. This article develops a theory of morpheme ordering based on local morphotactic restrictions encoded as weighted bigram constraints. I examine the formal properties of morphotactic systems, including arbitrariness, nontransitivity,…

Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether young French-learning children (N = 76) are able to use a single number cue in subject-verb agreement contexts and match a visually dynamic scene with a corresponding verbal stimulus. Results from both preferential looking and pointing demonstrated significant comprehension in…

We investigated developmental changes during the transition from one-word to two-word production, focusing on strategies to lengthen utterances phonologically and to control utterances suprasegmentally. We hypothesized that there is a period of reorganization at the onset of word combinations indicated by decreases in both filler syllables…

Neuroscience has greatly improved our understanding of the brain basis of abstract lexical and semantic processes. The neuronal devices underlying words and concepts are distributed neuronal assemblies reaching into sensory and motor systems of the cortex and, at the cognitive level, information binding in such widely dispersed circuits is…

This article demonstrates how mind-mapping software can be used to help premedical students combine, learn, retain, apply and relate medical terminology sharing the same root/base, the same prefix or suffix, cognates, derivatives, singular and plural forms and relate details which radiate out from the centre. It shows how the mind-mapping software…

It is widely accepted that L2 learners often face communication problems due to lack of competency in the target language and familiarity with its culture of origin. One way to resolve miscommunication problems is to seek clarification of the utterance; this process is called "repair negotiation" (Nakahama et al. 2001). Repair…

Taking up analytical issues raised primarily in Dixon (2000) and Dixon & Aikhenvald (2000), this dissertation combines descriptive work with a medium-sized (50-language) typological study. Chapter 1 situates the dissertation against a concise survey of typological-functional work on causative constructions from the last few decades, and…