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Recent evidence indicates that a word's paradigmatic neighbors affect production. However, these findings have mostly been obtained in careful laboratory settings using words in isolation, and thus ignoring potential effects that may arise from the syntagmatic context, which is typically present in spontaneous speech. The current corpus analysis investigates paradigmatic and syntagmatic effects in Estonian spontaneous speech. Following work on English, we focus on the duration of inflected and uninflected word-final /-s/ in content words, while simultaneously investigating whole words. Our analyses reveal three points. First, we find an effect of realized inflectional paradigm size, such that smaller paradigms actively used by the speakers lead to longer durations. Second, higher conditional probability is associated with shorter word forms and shorter segments. Finally, we do not directly replicate previous work on effects of inflectional status as in English word-final /-s/. Instead, we find that inflectional status interacts with conditional probability. We discuss the results in light of models of speech production and how they account for morphologically complex words and their paradigmatic neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a masked morphological priming experiment, we compared the processing of derived and inflected morphologically complex Turkish words in heritage speakers of Turkish living in Berlin and in native speakers of Turkish raised and living in Turkey. The results show significant derivational and inflectional priming effects of a similar magnitude in the heritage group and the control group. For both participant groups, semantic and orthographic control conditions indicate that these priming effects are genuinely morphological in nature, and cannot be due to semantic or orthographic similarity between prime and target. These results suggest that morphological processing in heritage speakers is based on the same fundamental processing mechanisms as in prototypical native speakers. We conclude that heritage speakers, despite the fact that they have acquired the language in a particular setting and were exposed to a relatively limited amount of input, can nevertheless develop native-like processing mechanisms for complex words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: We compared the processing of morphologically complex derived vs. inflected forms in native speakers of German and highly proficient native Russian second language (L2) learners of German. Design/methodology/approach: We measured morphological priming effects for derived and inflected German words. To ensure that priming effects were genuinely morphological, the design also contained semantic and orthographic control conditions. Data and analysis: 40 native speakers of German and 36 native Russian learners of L2 German participated in a masked-priming lexical-decision experiment. For both participant groups, priming effects for derived vs. inflected words were compared using linear mixed effects models. Findings/conclusions: While first language (L1) speakers showed similar facilitation effects for both derived and inflected primes, L2 speakers showed a difference between the two prime types, with robust priming effects only for derived, but not for inflected forms. Originality: Unlike in previous studies investigating derivation and inflection in L2 processing, priming effects for derived and inflected prime–target pairs were determined on the basis of the same target word, allowing for a direct comparison between the two morphological phenomena. In this respect, this is the first study to directly compare the processing of derived vs. inflected forms in L2 speakers. Significance/implications: The results are inconsistent with accounts predicting general L1/L2 differences for all types of morphologically complex forms as well as accounts assuming that L1 and L2 processing are based on the same mechanisms. We discuss theoretical implications for L2 processing mechanisms, and propose an explanation which can account for the data pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research with children learning a second language (L2) has reported errors with verb inflection and cross-linguistic variation in accuracy and error patterns. However, owing to the cross-linguistic complexity and diversity of different verbal paradigms, the cross-linguistic effects on the nature of default forms has not been directly addressed in L2 acquisition studies. In the present study, we compared accuracy and error patterns in verbal agreement inflections in L2 children acquiring Dutch and Greek, keeping the children’s L1 constant (Turkish). Results showed that inflectional defaults in Greek follow universal predictions regarding the morphological underspecification of paradigms. However, the same universal predictions do not apply to the same extent to Dutch. It is argued that phonological properties of inflected forms should be taken into account to explain cross-linguistic differences in the acquisition of inflection. By systematically comparing patterns in child L2 Dutch and Greek, this study shows how universal mechanisms and target language properties work in tandem in the acquisition of inflectional paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports an eye-tracking study on the native and non-native processing of case in Spanish. Twenty-four native and 27 first language (L1) German non-native speakers of Spanish were tested on their sensitivity to case marking violations involving structural case with objects of ditransitive verbs and to violations of inherent case for objects of transitive verbs (differential object marking; DOM). Both groups distinguished between grammatical and ungrammatical case marking for all sentence types in off-line acceptability judgments. In reading, however, the non-native speakers, unlike the native speakers, were sensitive only to violations of structural case marking with ditransitive verbs and the erroneous realization of DOM with inanimate objects. In contrast, they did not show processing slowdowns for the omission of DOM with animate objects. We interpret the asymmetry in non-native processing as reflecting sensitivity of the parser to grammatical feature hierarchies in that the parser licenses default case markings, yet flags feature clashes occasioned by the suppliance of erroneous inflectional forms with inherent case marking. We discuss the findings in the context of current approaches to second language (L2) acquisition and processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies testing the knowledge of syntactic properties have resulted in two potentially contrasting proposals in relation to third language acquisition (TLA); the Cumulative Enhancement Model (Flynn et al., 2004), which proposes that previously learned languages will positively affect the acquisition of a third language (L3); and the ‘second language (L2) status factor’ hypothesis (Bardel and Falk, 2007), which proposes that the primacy of the L2 can block the potential positive effects that may be transferable from the first language (L1). This article attempts to extend these hypotheses to the domain of morphosyntax, in relation to the TLA of the properties of grammatical number and gender concord marking on German attributive adjectives; these properties not present in the L1 of Japanese, or the L2 of English. Two further factors are of interest in the current study; first, the performance of the learners according to their L3 and their L2 proficiency levels, a variable not discussed in the above-mentioned studies; and, second, the role that the type of task has on the performance of these learners. Three groups of Japanese native speakers (matched for proficiency within each German group), but with differing English proficiencies, completed a carefully balanced gap-filling task, together with two oral elicitation tasks in the form of games; both of these elicited tokens of adjectival inflection. Initial results offer partial support for weaker versions of the two hypotheses mentioned above. However, neither of the L3 models tested can fully account for the results obtained, which are more consistent with a feature-based account of the organization of grammar in the domain of morphosyntax, such as that of Distributed Morphology (DM) (Halle and Marantz, 1993). DM is a model for language acquisition which — coupled with a view that the Subset Principle proposed by this account is not observed by non-primary language learners — has recently been proposed to explain the optionality observed in L2 learners’ production (Hawkins et al., 2006). The data presented here suggest that it could be extended to L3 learners’ production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curved shapes are frequent subjects of maneuvers by the human hand. In robotics, it is well known that antipodal grasps exist on curved objects and guarantee force closure under proper finger contact conditions. This paper presents an efficient algorithm that computes, up to numerical resolution, all pairs of antipodal points on a simple, closed, and twice continuously differentiable plane curve. Dissecting the curve into segments everywhere convex or everywhere concave, the algorithm marches simultaneously on a pair of such segments with provable convergence and interleaves marching with numerical bisection recursively. It makes use of new insights into the differential geometry at two antipodal points. We have avoided resorting to traditional nonlinear programming, which would neither be quite as efficient nor guarantee to find all antipodal points. A byproduct of our result is a procedure that constructs all common tangent lines of two curves, achieving quadratic convergence rate. Dissection and the coupling of marching with bisection constitute an algorithm design scheme potentially applicable to computational problems involving curves and curved shapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]