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The article deals with such an interesting and rather complex, multidimensional phenomenon as lacuna on the material of three unrelated languages-Russian, Azerbaijani and English. The lexical lacunae are systematized and analyzed on the following groups: motivated and non-motivated lacunae. Motivated lacuna is connected with the following fact: the native speakers of the other languages do not have this reality idea. Such lacuna can be revealed in the field of the unequal lexeme. However, non-motivated lacuna is not explained by the absence of the idea. The idea exists, but the native speakers of the other languages did not call it owing to the certain cultural, mental, geographical, social, psychological or other reasons. Perhaps, they did not attach importance to them. So, non-motivated lacunae are considered on the concrete lexical-semantic groups in the article :1. Family relationship terms which are divided into two groups: a) blood relations; b) marital relationship. It should be noted that there are no special terms of marital relationship in English unlike Russian and Azerbaijani. The terms of blood relations are used together with the word “law” in postposition in order to denote the necessary marital relationship in English. 2. Nature: natural phenomena, flora and fauna. This group includes a lot of various lacunae connected with nature, natural phenomena. Such lacunae are caused by such objective factors as features of landscape, climatic conditions, relief, predominance of concrete animal, bird, insect, fish species etc. Certainly, the main factor is concrete people’s perception of nature, natural phenomena. Perception of the world influences nomination, highlighting specific natural objects taking into account the degree of their importance. When studying lacunae it is important to take into consideration both extra- and intralinguistic factors.

Traditional approaches to verbal periphrasis (compound tenses) treat auxiliary verbs as lexical items that enter syntactic derivation like any other lexical item, via Selection/Merge. An alternative view is that auxiliary verbs are inserted into a previously built structure (e.g., Bach 1967, Arregi 2000, Embick 2000, Cowper 2010, Bjorkman 2011, Arregi and Klecha 2015). Arguments for the insertion approach include auxiliaries’ last-resort distribution and the fact that, in many languages, auxiliaries are not systematically associated with a given inflectional category (Bjorkman’s (2011) “overflow” distribution). Here, I argue against the insertion approach. I demonstrate that the overflow pattern and last-resort distribution follow from Cyclic Selection (Pietraszko 2017)—a Merge counterpart of Cyclic Agree (Béjar and Rezac 2009). I also show that the insertion approach makes wrong predictions about compound tenses in Swahili, a language with overflow periphrasis. Under my approach, an auxiliary verb is a verbal head externally merged as a specifier of a functional head, such as T. It then undergoes m-merger with that head, instantiating an External-Merge version of Matushansky’s (2006) conception of head movement.

The anaphor agreement effect (AAE) is the crosslinguistic inability for anaphors to covary with φ-agreement (Rizzi 1990, Woolford 1999); languages use various strategies that conspire to circumvent this effect. In this squib, I identify and confirm a prediction arising from two previous observations by Woolford (1999) concerning the scope of the AAE, based on new evidence from Inuktitut (Eastern Canadian Inuit). I propose that anaphors in Inuktitut are lexically specified as projecting additional syntactic structure, spelled out as oblique case morphology; because φ-Agree in Inuktitut may only target ERG and ABS arguments, encountering an anaphor inevitably leads to failed Agree in the sense of Preminger 2011, 2014. I moreover argue that this exact AAE pattern is previously unattested, yet is predicted to arise given the range of existing strategies. Finally, this squib provides evidence against previous detransitivization-based approaches to reflexivity in Inuktitut (e.g., Bok-Bennema 1991).

Bruening and Al Khalaf (2020) deny the possibility of coordination of unlike categories. They use three mechanisms to reanalyze such coordination as involving same categories: conjunction reduction, super-categories, and empty heads. We show that their proposal leaves many cases of unlike category coordination unaccounted for, and we point out various methodological, technical, and empirical problems that it faces. We conclude that the so-called Law of the Coordination of Likes is a myth. Instead, all conjuncts must satisfy any external restrictions on the syntactic position they occupy. Such restrictions may be rigid, resulting in categorial sameness, but when they are underspecified or disjunctive, category “mismatches” may arise.

The aim of the present article is to provide an overview of the current state of affairs regarding foreign language education and bilingual education in the different parts of Belgium. In a brief historical contextualisation, we explain how language education in Belgium has been shaped by the country’s political and economic history, which has led to legal constraints concerning the language(s) of instruction as well as foreign language education. A paradoxical situation has now emerged: on the one hand, an apparently straightforward organisation of language education according to a ‘one community – one language’ principle; on the other hand, a complex and heterogeneous reality with respect to the organisation of the school system in general and language education in particular. We illustrate the present situation with figures from the different language communities (Dutch-, French-, and German-speaking) on (a) foreign languages learned at school in regular settings, and (b) alternatives to the regular framework that bypass the constrictive legislation, such as CLIL. The data reveal the intricate make-up of language education in Belgium, reflecting a tailor-made approach taken by each of the three official language communities.

Since Halle 1962, explicit algebraic variables (often called alpha notation) have been commonplace in phonological theory. However, Hayes and Wilson (2008) proposed a variable-free model of phonotactic learning, sparking a debate about whether such algebraic representations are necessary to capture human phonological acquisition. While past experimental work has found evidence that suggested a need for variables in models of phonology (Berent et al. 2012, Moreton 2012, Gallagher 2013), this article presents a novel mechanism, Probabilistic Feature Attention, that allows a variable-free model of phonotactics to predict a number of these phenomena. This approach also captures experimental results involving phonological generalization that cannot be explained by variables. These results cast doubt on whether variables are necessary to capture human-like phonotactic learning and provide a useful alternative to such representations.

This article presents novel data from ellipsis in Nupe, a Benue-Congo language of Nigeria, and explores its theoretical implications. Three claims are made. First, sluicing in Nupe counterexemplifies Merchant’s (2001) Sluicing-COMP Generalization. Second, ungrammatical outputs resulting from extraction from perfect clauses are salvaged by ellipsis, arguing against Kandybowicz’s (2009) analysis where such a restriction is a narrow-syntax derivational constraint. Third, COMP-trace effects in Nupe are also repaired under ellipsis, lending support to Kandybowicz’s (2009) claim that the Nupe COMP-trace effect is an interface phenomenon. Our findings provide evidence for the claim that ellipsis can repair certain otherwise ill-formed structures.

Aşkın kavramsallaştırılmasında güzelliğin önemli olduğu bilinmektedir (Kövecses,1986). Bu çalışmada güzelliğin nasıl kavramsallaştırıldığının belirlemesi amaçlanmıştır. Bu çerçevede çalışmada 73.268 sözcükten oluşan bir bütünce üzerinden, dilde güzellik ile ilgili hangi metaforların bulunduğu ve bunların ne tür kaynak alanlarla eşleştiği araştırılmıştır. Çalışmada gözlemlenen iki temel kavramsal metafor; GÜZELLİK, FİZİKSEL BİR NESNEDİR (%59,38) ve GÜZELLİK, GÜÇTÜR (% 20.52) metaforlarıdır. Gücün güzelliğin kavramsallaşması için önemli olduğunu belirten Kövecses (1986)’e ek olarak bu çalışma, gücün güzelliğin kavramsallaştırmasında tek kaynak alan olmadığını göstermektedir. Aslında güzelliğin kavramsallaşmasında fiziksel bir nesne olarak güzellik, bir güç olarak güzellikten daha büyük bir yer tutmaktadır. Derlemde ortaya çıkan diğer daha az anlamlı metaforlar ise güzelliğin bir yer (%8,29), bir giz (%6,11), bir bitki (%3,4) veya bir besin (%2,18) olarak kavramsallaşmasını içermektedir. Dahası güzelliğin bir olay yapısı sunduğunda kaynak ve hedef alan arasında çok boyutlu bir eşleşmenin oluştuğu, güzelliğin büyük zincirin parçası olması durumunda ise, kaynak ve hedef alan arasındaki tek bir özelliğin eşleşmesinin oluştuğu gözlenmiştir., It is well known that beauty is important for the conceptualization of love (Kövecses,1986). This study aims to determine how beauty is conceptualized. In particular, using a corpus consisting of 73,268 tokens, we investigate what metaphors of beauty are significant in language, and what kinds of source domains it can be mapped onto. The two most important conceptual metaphors that emerged from the study were BEAUTY IS A PHYSICAL OBJECT (59.38%) and BEAUTY IS FORCE (20.52 %). In addition to Kövecses (1986) who claimed that beauty as a force metaphor is important for its conceptualization, this study illustrates that force is not the only significant source domain in the conceptualization of beauty. In fact, beauty as a physical object occupies a larger place in the conceptualization of beauty than beauty as a force. Other less significant metaphors that emerged from the corpus were, beauty is a place (8.29 %), a secret (6.11%), a plant (3.4%), or a nutrient (2.18%). Moreover, it was found that, when beauty is an event structure, a multidimensional mapping is observed between source and target domain, while, when beauty is part of a great chain, the mapping is expressed in terms of a single feature between the source and the target domain.

Suppletion is central to the debate on the nature of roots: whether roots are characterized by their phonology or are phonologically abstract. Borer (2014) holds that so-called suppletive verbs consist of different phonologically constant roots with overlapping semantics. Harley (2014), however, argues that suppletive verbs instantiate root suppletion: one abstract root with distinct phonological realizations dependent on grammatical environment. This squib presents additional evidence from verbal suppletion in Creek (Muskogean) that supports the view that roots are abstract. Creek suppletive verbs are part of a larger three-way number-marking paradigm and their distribution is dependent on the formal number features of their first argument.

When we couple the cyclic expansion of a probe’s domain assumed in Cyclic Agree (Rezac 2003, 2004, Béjar and Rezac 2009) with the lack of formal distinction between heads, intermediate projections, and phrases emphasized in Bare Phrase Structure (Chomsky 1995a,b), an interesting prediction arises. Maximal projections should be able to probe through the same mechanisms that allow intermediate projections to probe in familiar cases of Cyclic Agree. I argue that this prediction is borne out. I analyze agreeing adjunct C in Amahuaca (Panoan; Peru) as a maximal projection that probes its c-command domain in second-cycle Agree. This account derives C’s simultaneous sensitivity to DPs within its own clause and in the clause to which it adjoins. Therefore, I conclude that Amahuaca provides evidence that maximal projections can be probes. The account also yields insight into the syntax of switch-reference in Panoan and beyond.

In English, simple present (plain) and present progressive constructions can make reference to the future, in constructions known as futurates. In previous literature, these two types of futurate have often been discussed separately or treated as more or less equivalent. This squib argues that they convey different meanings: plain futurates presuppose the existence of a schedule, while progressive futurates do not. We propose a formal definition of a schedule and present novel empirical data based on a questionnaire study. We show that plain futurates are restricted to contexts providing a schedule, but progressive futurates are not.

This article is a study of the morphosyntax of the clausal periphery in Wolof, specifically the two layers commonly labeled CP and IP. It has long been noted that (a) C and I share a number of properties, and (b) languages differ in the amount of structure over which functional features are distributed. I propose a structure-building mechanism that can both explain the C-I relationship and derive the variation in the distribution of features over syntactic heads. I argue that features of C and I are bundled together and that this feature bundle can be divided into multiple heads via Head Splitting, which allows parts of feature bundles to reproject. The proposal is illustrated through a detailed exploration of the C-I domain in Wolof, which bundles C and I into one head in some structures and splits them in others.

This article discusses what happens when locality requirements—which favor short dependencies—come into conflict with antilocality requirements—which rule out dependencies that are too short. It is argued that in such circumstances, certain locality requirements may be minimally violated so that the antilocality requirement is satisfied. A theory along these lines is shown to derive a pervasive pattern of noniterative symmetry in A-movement—found in Haya and Luganda (Bantu), Tongan (Austronesian), and Japanese—in which the highest two arguments in a domain may undergo A-movement, but A-movement of lower arguments is systematically banned. The article concludes with some discussion of how interactions of this sort might be modeled in the grammar.

Jenks (2018) argues that Mandarin bare NPs cannot be classified as definites simpliciter. Adopting the distinction between weak- and strong-article definites in Schwarz 2009, he proposes that Mandarin makes a lexical distinction between the two types of definites: bare nouns are weak definites, demonstratives are strong definites. He further proposes that their distribution is regulated by a principle called Index!. In this article, we first point out some problems with the empirical generalizations presented in Jenks’s description of Mandarin and then sketch an alternative approach to the distinction between Mandarin demonstratives and bare nouns. We end with some comments about the kind of further empirical work that needs to be done before definitive claims can be made about the competition between demonstratives and other types of definites.

With more and more people interested in how sustainable and socially responsible companies are, the comprehensibility of content on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become paramount. Producing easy-to-read business content – either by writing it from scratch or revising it – is a cognitively demanding undertaking, especially for second-language non-professional writers. Both formal training and sustained practice can help writers build expertise and, in turn, be considerate of their intended audience. In particular, research on the impact of training has usually yielded positive results when examining the texts produced following specific instruction. However, the extent to which training has a positive effect on the process of writing and revision is still under-researched, especially in second language. To address this gap, we report on an experimental study that examines the impact of reader-oriented training on the cognitive effort experienced by 47 second-language university students when revising CSR content. We adopted a pre-test post-test design, and we used keystroke logging and retrospective interviews to collect data on students' pausing behaviour, use of online sources, and strategies to approach the revision task. Our training seemed to reduce the cognitive effort linked with lexical choices. Furthermore, it provided some students with procedural knowledge on how to approach the revision task in a more efficient way. We also observed a general tendency to rewrite (rather than revise) CSR content despite the higher cognitive effort required by rewriting. We discuss implications for training, limitations, and future research avenues.

La carta o epístola es un documento escrito tan antiguo como la escritura misma. Resultado de las prácticas comunicativas entre interlocutores que se encuentran a distancia, forma parte de un sistema comunicativo que responde, entre otras cuestiones, a elementos lingüísticos y culturales. Su estudio resulta de una pertinencia significativa para los saberes sobre la lengua y las diferentes sociedades. El análisis atiende a cuestiones tanto de índole lingüística como social. La indagación permite la caracterización de la carta como documento de análisis porque esta tipología textual, en tanto fuente de comunicación, se encuentra más cercana al individuo y a su subjetividad que cualquier otro documento. Es un escrito original que no precisa de intermediarios y a través del cual se expresa un contenido muy cercano al diálogo. Las cartas se distinguen por ser documentos auténticos y, por lo tanto, ofrecen información más expeditade la realidad de los diferentes usos lingüísticos. Su estudio posibilita la descripción de este tipo de documento, así como las peculiaridades de la variante cubana de la lengua en el siglo XIX. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo el análisis formal y pragmático de cartas escritas por Carlos Manuel de Céspedes para la caracterización de un estado de lengua, así como las determinantes del uso lingüístico a partir de las posiciones de los interlocutores. De esta manera, el estudio de la carta en contexto y en específico, en el contexto del siglo XIX, permite distinguir el soporte social y cultural en el que se inserta la comunicación. Se han seleccionado cuatro cartas de Carlos Manuel debido ala importancia de esta figura en la historia del país. El XIX sentó las bases de la nacionalidad al tiempo que permitió observar los más relevantes rasgos de la Isla. The letter or epistle is a written document as old as writing itself. Result of communicative practices between interlocutors who are at a distance, it is part of a communicative system that responds, among other issues, to linguistic and cultural elements. Its study is of significant relevance for knowledge about language and different societies. The analysis addresses both linguistic and social issues. The investigation allows the characterization of the letter as a document of analysis because this textual typology, as a source of communication, is closer to the individual and his subjectivity than any other document. It is an original piece of writing that does not require intermediaries and through which a content that is very close to dialogue is expressed. The letters are distinguished by being authentic documents and, therefore, they offer more expeditious information on the reality of the different linguistic uses. Its study enables the description of this type of document, as well as the peculiarities of the Cuban variant of the language in the 19th century. The objective of this work is the formal and pragmatic analysis of letters written by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes for the characterization of a state of language, as well as the determinants of linguistic use from the positions of the interlocutors. In this way, the study of the language in context and specifically, in the context of the 19th century, allows us to distinguish the social and cultural support in which the communication is inserted. Four letters from Carlos Manuel have been selected due to the importance of this figure in the history of the country. The 19th century laid the foundations for nationality while allowing the most relevant features of the Island to be observed.

Many studies demonstrate that detecting statistical regularities in linguistic input plays a key role in language acquisition. Yet, it is unclear to what extent statistical learning is involved in more naturalistic settings, when young children have to acquire meaningful grammatical elements. In the present study, we address these points, by investigating whether statistical learning is involved in acquiring a morpho-syntactic structure from input that resembles natural languages more closely. We exposed 50 kindergarteners (M = 5 years, 5 months) to a miniature language in which they had to learn a grammatical marker that expressed number, and which could only be acquired on the basis of the distributional properties in the input. Half of the children performed an attention check during the experiment. Results show that young children are able to learn this meaning. We found no clear evidence that facilitating attention to the input increases learning performance.

Speech perception is influenced by language-specific phonological knowledge. While phonotactics has long been established to play a role, the study of how phonological alternations influence perception is still in its infancy. In this paper, we make a case for the latter by investigating the role of regressive voicing assimilation (RVA) in the perception of obstruent clusters in Emilian dialects of Italian. We provide empirical evidence from a phoneme-detection task, in which Emilian listeners reported to have heard [b] significantly more often in stimuli with a /p/ before a voiced obstruent (RVA context) than before a vowel (non-RVA context). Our experimental findings add to recent work on the influence of phonology on speech perception. In addition, we provide an explicit formalisation, which bolsters the need for a rigid distinction between phonetic, surface and underlying representation, and an explicit mapping between all three, both in the process of speech production and comprehension.

Purpose: Children with a developmental language disorder (DLD) are often delayed in their grammatical development. This is suggested to be the most important characteristic and clinical marker of DLD. However, it is unknown if this assumption is valid for young children, in the earliest stages of grammatical development. For this reason, this study investigates the complexity, diversity, and accuracy of the grammatical repertoires of 3- to 6-year-old Dutch children with DLD, in comparison to that of typically developing (TD) children matched on grammatical level. Method: Language samples of 59 children (29 children with DLD and 30 TD children) were analyzed using multiple measures of grammatical complexity, diversity, and accuracy. The TD children and children with DLD were language-matched on their grammatical development using the levels of the Dutch version of the Language Assessment, Remediation, and Screening Procedure, the Taal Analyse Remediëring en Screening Procedure (TARSP; Schlichting, 2017). Thus, the children with DLD were significantly older than the TD children (respectively DLD age range: 2;7–5;4 [years;months], M age = 4;1; and TD age range: 2;0–3;9, M age = 2;9). Results: The results show that children with DLD are comparable to language-matched TD children in their grammatical accuracy and diversity, but that they produce less complex utterances. Conclusions: The results indicate that children with DLD lag behind in their grammatical complexity as compared to language-matched TD children. The results also suggest that grammatical TARSP level is not sufficiently informative for selecting treatment goals. Instead, the results underline the importance of conducting language sample analyses, with special reference to the complexity of the utterances of a child with DLD.

In this paper, we operationalize register differences at the intersection of formality and mode, and distinguish four broad register categories: spoken informal (conversations), spoken formal (parliamentary debates), written informal (blogs), and written formal (newspaper articles). We are specifically interested in the comparative probabilistic/variationist complexity of these registers – when speakers have grammatical choices, are the probabilistic grammars regulating these choices more or less complex in particular registers than in others? Based on multivariate modeling of richly annotated datasets covering three grammatical alternations in two languages (English and Dutch), we assess the complexity of probabilistic grammars by drawing on three criteria: (a) the number of constraints on variant choice, (b) the number of interactions between constraints, and (c) the relative importance of lexical conditioning. Analysis shows that contrary to theorizing in variationist sociolinguistics, probabilistic complexity differences between registers are not quantitatively simple: formal registers are consistently the most complex ones, while spoken registers are the least complex ones. The most complex register under study is written-formal quality newspaper writing. We submit that the complexity differentials we uncover are a function of acquisitional difficulty, of on-line processing limitations, and of normative pressures.

This article reports on a mixed methods study that investigated the extent to which written corrective feedback (WCF) contributes to L2 learners’ acquisition of regular past tense in English and the cognitive processes that underpin the corrective feedback provided. The study adopted a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design and involved 113 intermediate-level Chinese learners of English who were assigned to four conditions: indirect WCF, direct WCF, metalinguistic WCF, and control. A picture description task and a grammaticality judgement test were used to measure gains in the target structure. To explore how learners process feedback, nine learners, three from each treatment group, were selected to produce think aloud protocols. The study found that all three types of WCF had a positive effect on the picture description task, though none of them had a clear impact on the grammaticality judgement test. In addition, indirect WCF was found to have an advantage over direct and metalinguistic WCF on the delayed posttest, when compared to the control group. Think aloud data suggested that indirect WCF induced deeper cognitive processes than the other two kinds of feedback, which may account for the superiority of indirect WCF.

Previous research on the effects of word-level factors on lexical acquisition has shown that frequency and concreteness are most important. Here, we investigate CDI data from 1,030 Dutch children, collected with the short form of the Dutch CDI, to address (i) how word-level factors predict lexical acquisition, once child-level factors are controlled, (ii) whether effects of these word-level factors vary with word class and age, and (iii) whether any interactions with age are due to differences in receptive vocabulary. Mixed-effects regressions yielded effects of frequency and concreteness, but not of word class and phonological factors (e.g., word length, neighborhood density). The effect of frequency was stronger for nouns than predicates. The effects of frequency and concreteness decreased with age, and were not explained by differences in vocabulary knowledge. These findings extend earlier results to Dutch, and indicate that effects of age are not due to increases in vocabulary knowledge.

This paper investigates multilingual learners’ attitudes to native (L1 – Ukrainian), second (L2 – Polish) and foreign (L3 – English) languages’ pronunciation, and discusses them from the perspective of structuring multilingual identity. In the study, the choice of the sample has been controlled in terms of the participants’ nationality and the context in which they acquire their second and foreign languages – variables that are interwoven in shaping identities. More specifically, the 40 Ukrainian individuals, taking part in the study, are in the process of a foreign language acquisition, English, embedded in the context of their second language, Polish. The attitudes to L1, L2 and L3 pronunciation of the 40 multilinguals have been measured quantitatively and analysed with the aim of providing more insight into understanding how individuals construe their multilingual identities. Negative relationships were found between those who reported an L1 accent as an important factor involved in the perception of their selves and the desire to sound native-like in L2 – Polish (r = −0.37, p r = −0.43, p r = 0.75, p r = 0.89, p

This paper proposes the notion of choreographed multilingualism to describe the top-down dimension of Singapore's linguistic landscape. Using a range of examples of official multilingual discourse, including public signage, exhibition artefacts, and print texts, it identifies a quadrilingual constellation that reiterates across different modalities, stabilizing into a visual-spatial formula. As a semiotic feature, the quadrilingual formula is an indexical that calls up the trope of neat multilingualism, whereby the four official languages of Singapore (English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil) are construed in a relation of equilibrium and equitability, while nonofficial/nonstandard languages, language varieties, and Chinese dialects are relegated to oblivion. The trope of neat multilingualism in turn evokes a larger sociolinguistic ambiance shaped by the official language policy and the language education system in Singapore. The paper theorises this situation in respect of Michel de Certeau's spatial theory, arguing that official discourses in Singapore corroborate the multilingual “place” produced by technologies of choreography.

Purpose: This study examined the relationship between voice quality and glottal geometry dynamics in patients with adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD). Method: An objective computer vision and machine learning system was developed to extract glottal geometry dynamics from nasolaryngoscopic video recordings for 78 patients with ADSD. General regression models were used to examine the relationship between overall voice quality and 15 variables that capture glottal geometry dynamics derived from the computer vision system. Two experts in ADSD independently rated voice quality for two separate voice tasks for every patient, yielding four different voice quality rating models. Results: All four of the regression models exhibited positive correlations with clinical assessments of voice quality ( R 2 s = .30–.34, Spearman rho = .55–.61, all with p < .001). Seven to 10 variables were included in each model. There was high overlap in the variables included between the four models, and the sign of the correlation with voice quality was consistent for each variable across all four regression models. Conclusion: We found specific glottal geometry dynamics that correspond to voice quality in ADSD.

Purpose: Narrative assessment is one potentially underutilized and inconsistent method speech-language pathologists may use when considering a diagnosis of developmental language disorder (DLD). However, narration research encompasses many varied methodologies. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to (a) investigate how various narrative assessment types (e.g., macrostructure, microstructure, and internal state language) differentiate children with typical development (TD) from children with DLD, (b) identify specific narrative assessment measures that result in greater group differences, and (c) evaluate participant and sample characteristics that may influence performance differences. Method: Electronic databases (PsycINFO, ERIC, and PubMed) and ASHAWire were searched on July 30, 2019, to locate studies that reported oral narrative language measures for both DLD and TD groups between ages 4 and 12 years; studies focusing on written narration or other developmental disorders only were excluded. We extracted data related to sample participants, narrative task(s) and assessment measures, and research design. Group differences were quantified using standardized mean differences. Analyses used mixed-effects meta-regression with robust variance estimation to account for effect size dependencies. Results: Searches identified 37 eligible studies published between 1987 and 2019, including 382 effect sizes. Overall meta-analysis showed that children with DLD had decreased narrative performance relative to TD peers, with an overall average effect of −0.82 SD , 95% confidence interval [−0.99, −0.66]. Effect sizes showed significant heterogeneity both between and within studies, even after accounting for effect size–, sample-, and study-level predictors. Across model specifications, grammatical accuracy (microstructure) and story grammar (macrostructure) yielded the most consistent evidence of TD–DLD group differences. Conclusions: Present findings suggest some narrative assessment measures yield significantly different performance between children with and without DLD. However, researchers need to improve consistency of inclusionary criteria, descriptions of sample characteristics, and reporting of correlations between measures to determine which assessment measures reliably distinguish between groups. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21200380

Purpose: This systematic review provides a comprehensive summary of the diagnostic accuracy of English language sample analysis (LSA) measures for the identification of developmental language disorder. Method: An electronic database search was conducted to identify English publications reporting empirical data on the diagnostic accuracy of English LSA measures for children aged 3 years or older. Results: Twenty-eight studies were reviewed. Studies included between 18 and 676 participants ranging in age from 3;0 to 13;6 (years;months). Analyzed measures targeted multiple linguistic domains, and diagnostic accuracy ranged from less than 25% to greater than 90%. Morphosyntax measures achieved the highest accuracy, especially in combination with length measures, and at least one acceptable measure was identified for each 1-year age band up to 10 years old. Conclusion: Several LSA measures or combinations of measures are clinically useful for the identification of developmental language disorder, although more research is needed to replicate findings using rigorous methods and to explore measures that are informative for adolescents and across diverse varieties of English. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21183247

Purpose: The impact of stimulus-level psycholinguistic variables and person-level semantic and phonological processing skills on treatment outcomes in individuals with aphasia requires further examination to inform clinical decision making in treatment prescription and stimuli selection. This study investigated the influence of stimulus-level psycholinguistic properties and person-level semantic and phonological processing skills on word production accuracy and treatment response. Method: This retrospective analysis included 35 individuals with chronic, poststroke aphasia, 30 of whom completed typicality-based semantic feature treatment. Mixed-effects logistic regression models were used to predict binary naming accuracy (a) at baseline and (b) over the course of treatment using stimulus-level psycholinguistic word properties and person-level semantic and phonological processing skills as predictors. Results: In baseline naming, words with less complex lexical–semantic and phonological properties showed greater predicted accuracy. There was also an interaction at baseline between stimulus-level lexical–semantic properties and person-level semantic processing skills in predicting baseline naming accuracy. With treatment, words that were more complex from a lexical–semantic standpoint (vs. less complex) and less complex from a phonological standpoint (vs. more complex) improved more. Individuals with greater baseline semantic and phonological processing skills showed a greater treatment response. Conclusions: This study suggests that future clinical research and clinical work should consider semantic and phonological properties of words in selecting stimuli for semantically based treatment. Furthermore, future clinical research should continue to evaluate baseline individual semantic and phonological profiles as predictors of response to semantically based treatment. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21256341

Translanguaging was a relatively little-known concept 20 years ago, but has now become a ‘household name’ in academic contexts. The body of research on translanguaging is ever-growing and the concept covers a vast field from bilinguals’ everyday language use to a theory of language and education. By means of a scoping literature review this study focuses on translanguaging as a pedagogy within bilingual education and synthesises existing empirical research on the topic that was carried out between 1990 and 2020.

Albanian comprises two main dialects, Gheg and Tosk, as well as a Tosk-based standard variety. The study was concerned with the extent to which the vocalic system of Southern Gheg, spoken in the capital city Tirana and surrounding rural area, has been shaped in urban versus rural contexts by extensive contact with Tosk and the standard. Through an apparent-time comparison across two groups of adults and first-grade children, one from Tirana and the other from the nearby village of Bërzhitë, we investigated three vocalic features of Southern Gheg: rounding of /a/, vowel lengthening and monophthongization, all of which were expected to be maintained more in the rural community than in the urban one, and also more by adults than by children. Our results showed that rounding was changing in both locations, monophthongization in the urban setting only, while lengthening was well preserved. In general, the changes found for rounding and monophthongization were more advanced in children than adults. The relative complexity of the features is the main factor explored to account for why some features change faster than others. The reasons for a possible increase in the phonological complexity of Southern Gheg are also discussed.

While it is well known that the lyrical poetry of the Middle Dutch mystical author Hadewijch (c. 1240) is rich in courtly and religious intertext, references to the allegorical textual tradition have long been overlooked. These references become apparent when the poems are read, not just poetically but also from a narratological perspective, with a special eye to point of view, characters and storyline. Such a combined analysis reveals the presence of several peripheral characters, amongst which personified virtues, playing their part in the mystical love story between the two protagonists, the human soul and divine love. This article offers a detailed analysis of the closing stanza of Song 9 which stages a parading rider unexpectedly being thrown off his horse. The analysis shows that this trope is inspired by the representation of superbia (pride) in Prudentian allegory, and will, for the intended audience, have evoked an extra layer of meaning that remains implicit in the song. The article thus illustrates that a good understanding of the multiple-layered intertext of Hadewijch’s lyrical register provides a hermeneutical key of utmost importance, while also providing a deeper insight into the mystagogic functioning of the songs.

As in many linguistics subfields, studies of prosody have mainly focused on majority languages and dialects and on speakers who hold power in social structures. The goal of this Special Issue is to diversify prosody research in terms of the languages and dialects being investigated, as well as the social structures that influence prosodic variation. The Special Issue brings together prosody researchers and researchers exploring sociological variation in prosody, with a focus on the prosody of marginalized dialects and on prosodic differences based on gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. The papers in this volume don’t just advance our understanding of critical issues in sociolinguistics, but they also challenge some of the received wisdom in the exploration of sociolinguistic influences on prosody. Not only does this collection highlight the value of this work to informing theories of prosodic variation and change, but the collected papers also provide examples of methodological innovations in the field that will be valuable for all prosody researchers.

In this paper we explore the influences of normal ageing and verb transitivity on sentence production. The underlying aim is to provide a foundation for further research on sentence production in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We used a computer-based written sentence production task, designed to elicit intransitive, monotransitive and ditransitive sentences. Data was collected using keystroke logging, a technique to capture the entire typing process. Data of ninety healthy elderly was analysed focusing on the following writing process variables: time on task, production time and pause times. Results show that age influences time on task, pause time before sentences and within words. Verb transitivity influences time on task, production time and pause time between words. For pause time before sentences and between words, an interaction effect between age and verb transitivity was found as well. These results indicate that a follow-up study with AD patients should not attribute a slowdown in one of these variables to the disease in its entirety but should instead be compared with the slowdown in age-matched healthy peers.

Purpose: Children exposed to adversity (e.g., chronic poverty, traumatic events, and maltreatment) are at increased risk for performing below age expectations on norm-referenced language assessments, but it is unknown whether the risk is higher for specific language impairment (SLI). This exploratory study investigated whether adversity exposure is associated with reduced grammar knowledge and SLI. Method: The syntax subtest of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation–Norm-Referenced (DELV-NR) assessment was administered to 30 school-age children with known histories of adversity exposure. Their primary caregiver also completed a comprehensive adversity exposure measure, which captured adverse event type, frequency, chronicity, and severity. Analyses included t tests, correlations, Mann–Whitney U tests, and chi-square. Results: Overall, the sample performed below age expectations on the DELV-NR Syntax subtest, and a higher percentage of participants (20%) met diagnostic criteria for SLI than expected. The SLI and typical language (TL) groups did not significantly differ in adversity dosage, frequency, chronicity, or severity; however, participants in the SLI group were 1.46 times more likely to have experienced physical trauma than the participants in the TL group. Conclusions: Children with known histories of adversity exposure presented with grammatical deficits and SLI more often than expected based on the DELV-NR normative sample; however, features of the adverse event did not associate with SLI status except for exposure to physical trauma (e.g., physical abuse and victimization). Future research is needed to investigate the prevalence and potential causal pathways of SLI in this population. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20483706

Purpose: Little is known about the specific nature of language abilities of autistic adolescents and young adults with language impairment (LI), limiting our knowledge of developmental trajectories and ability to develop efficacious speech/language supports. An important first step is establishing proof of concept of identification of LI in this population, with considerations for feasibility of assessment. This research note describes such a study in a sample of autistic adolescents and young adults with LI. Method: Thirteen autistic adolescents and young adults completed an assessment protocol of age-referenced language and nonverbal cognitive assessments. Assessment took place once per year for 3 years; the first two assessments were conducted in person, and the final was conducted online due to the pandemic. All assessments included measures of overall language and morphosyntax; the third added measures of expressive and receptive vocabulary, verbal working memory, and nonverbal intelligence (NVIQ). Analysis included descriptives and comparison of individual performance with epidemiological criteria for LI. Results: All participants qualified for LI, with overall receptive and expressive language scores persistently in the LI range. Other outcomes were variable. Some participants had nonword repetition and vocabulary abilities within age expectations, and some consistently showed adultlike morphosyntactic performance. NVIQ was variable, with no consistent associations with language outcomes. Discussion: Our findings support the use of the current protocol, as implemented in person or online, to identify LI in autistic adolescents and young adults. This exploratory work is limited by a small sample and missing data. The findings contribute to our understanding of linguistic strengths and variability in the language skills of autistic young adults with LI.

Previous research has extensively addressed the relationship between collaborative knowledge construction and communicative language use. For interactive academic talk, a broad range of socio-cultural factors has been investigated to examine group dynamics for the construction of disciplinary or linguistic knowledge. What has been overlooked, however, is a focus on the basic unit of meaning for a cognitive interpretation of knowledge structures. This study is aimed to bridge the research gap by examining the semantic–pragmatic interface involved in collaborative knowledge construction in a Higher Educational setting. Using a specialized corpus of university small group talk, this study conducts an empirical linguistic inquiry into the participants’ discursive practice of drawing particular lexical concepts to invoke and manipulate knowledge structures for meaning negotiation. The research findings contribute to understanding the relationship between linguistically represented knowledge and the way language users conceptualize the academic world.

A much-debated issue in English is the use of “epicene pronouns”, i.e. third-person singular pronouns of indeterminate gender. Previous studies have shown that singular they is the most common epicene in L1 English, but this pronoun has not received much attention in studies of L2 use. The present study extends previous research by examining variation between L2 groups in the distribution of epicene pronouns, focussing particularly on the use of singular they and how it is affected by three features of the antecedent: definiteness, notional number, and gender expectancy. The data originate in an elicitation experiment, which was completed by 338 university students of English from eight L1 backgrounds. The results show that singular they was most frequently used with notionally plural antecedents, whereas it was least common with gender-stereotyped antecedents. The study also disclosed variation between learners: In some L1 groups, they was used frequently with all types of antecedents, suggesting that these learners perceive singular they as a singular pronoun in its own right. In other groups, singular they appeared to function mostly as a modification of the plural they, as the pronoun was only frequent with notionally plural antecedents. The findings have important implications for language teaching.

We argue, following Barros and Vicente (2011), that right-node raising (RNR) results from either ellipsis or multidominance. Four considerations support this claim. (a) RNR has properties of ellipsis and of multidominance. (b) Where these are combined, the structure results from repeated RNR: a pivot created through ellipsis contains a right-peripheral secondary pivot created through multidominance. (c) In certain circumstances, one or the other derivation is blocked, so that RNR behaves like pure ellipsis or pure multidominance. (d) Linearization of RNR-as-multidominance requires pruning. The same pruning operation delivers RNR-as-ellipsis, which explains why the two derivations must meet the same ordering constraints.

The Person-Case Constraint (PCC) is a family of restrictions on the relative person of the two objects of a ditransitive. PCC effects offer a testing ground for theories of Agree and of syntactic features, both those on nominals and those found on agreement probes. This article offers a new theory of PCC effects in an interaction/satisfaction theory of Agree (Deal 2015a) and shows the advantages of this framework in capturing PCC typology. On this model, probes are specified for interaction, determining which features will be copied to them, and for satisfaction, determining which features will cause probing to stop. Applied to the PCC, this theory (a) captures all four types of PCC effect recognized by Nevins (2007) under a unified notion of Agree; (b) captures the restriction of PCC effects to contexts of “Double Weakness” in many prominent examples (e.g., in Italian, Greek, and Basque, where PCC effects hold only when both objects are expressed with clitics); (c) naturally extends to PCC effects in syntactic environments without visible clitics or agreement for one or both objects, as well as to the absence of PCC effects in some languages with clitics or agreement for both objects. Two refinements of the interaction/satisfaction theory are offered: a new notation for probes’ interaction and satisfaction specifications, clarifying the absence of uninterpretable/unvalued features as drivers of Agree; and a proposal for the way that probes’ behavior may change over the course of a derivation, dubbed dynamic interaction.

Wei and Walker (2020) and Zymet (2018) claim that derivational lookahead effects are attested in the interactions between reduplication and other phonological processes in Mbe and Logoori, respectively. On the basis of this evidence, they argue that reduplication in these languages cannot be modeled by Serial Template Satisfaction (McCarthy, Kimper, and Mullin 2012), a theory of reduplication set in Harmonic Serialism. This article refutes these claims and provides serial analyses for both languages. It further identifies a novel prediction of Base-Reduplicant Correspondence Theory (McCarthy and Prince 1994, 1995, 1999), a parallel theory of reduplication, that reduplicants may surface with marked structures unattested elsewhere in the language, and it demonstrates that these patterns are not replicated in serial.

The thrust of this study was to investigate the impact of learning styles in general and Field dependence/Independence (FD/I) in particular on the receptive/productive lexical performance of language learners. It aimed to check whether FD/I learners perform differently on receptive and productive vocabulary tests. To achieve this, first, 94 Iranian language learners were given the Group Embedded Figure Test (GEFT) to determine their learning style; and second, they were put into two groups and were asked to take a receptive and a productive vocabulary test. Having collected and analyzed the data, the study revealed that first, with regard to the receptive test, although FI learners outperformed the FD ones, this outperformance was not significant statistically. Second, for the productive test, a significant difference was found between FIs and FDs with FI learners having a better performance. Third, FI learners acted significantly better in the productive test compared with receptive test. Finally, FD learners performed almost similarly in both receptive and productive tests. The pertinent implications are also discussed.

Empirical research on cognitive processing in AVT has been on the rise in recent years. A number of overarching works have recommended more standardised approaches and methodological frameworks to contribute to more streamlined, replicable, reproducible and valid future AVT research. To date, the issue of comparability of research materials (e.g., clips, subtitle tracks, comprehension questionnaires) and, more specifically, how to achieve comparability in quasi-experimental and experimental studies, particularly those involving repeated measures, has received little attention. This paper aims to address this knowledge gap by proposing a common-sense ten-step preparatory process for quasi-experimental and experimental subtitling studies. This preparatory process has previously been used in the S4AE project. The paper will focus on the final four steps, consisting of the preparation and comparison of multiple subtitle tracks. These steps were conceptualized taking into account the present research on subtitle parameters and the obstacles encountered while preparing comparable subtitle tracks.

People with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) show anomalies in language processing with respect to “who is doing what” in an action. This linguistic behavior is suggestive of an atypical representation of the formal concepts of “Agent” in the lexical representation of a verb, i.e., its thematic grid. To test this hypothesis, we administered a silent-reading task with sentences including a semantic violation of the animacy trait of the grammatical subject to 30 people with SSD and 30 healthy control participants (HCs). When the anomalous grammatical subject was the Agent of the event, a significant increase of Gaze Duration was observed in HCs, but not in SSDs. Conversely, when the anomalous subject was a Theme, SSDs displayed an increased probability of go-back movements, unlike HCs. These results are suggestive of a higher tolerability for anomalous Agents in SSD compared to the normal population. The fact that SSD participants did not show a similar tolerability for anomalous Themes rules out the issue of an attention deficit. We suggest that general communication abilities in SSD might benefit from explicit training on deep linguistic structures.