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Extending previous findings on adult L2 learners' integration of verbal and constructional information, this study investigated how child learners of English as a foreign language produce verbs in target constructions and whether (a) receptive skills and (b) the specific production modality (spoken versus written) modulate the integration process. Written and spoken samples from 76 Korean‑speaking children were analyzed for verb‐construction association strength using three independent measures. A mixed‐effects regression analysis showed that the written data contained fewer strongly associated verb‐construction combinations than did the spoken data, yet verb‐construction association in writing became stronger as the participants' receptive task scores increased. Subsequent cluster analyses revealed that the stronger verb‐construction associations found for increasing receptive skills in writing were due to the lower‐proficiency participants' matching some verbs with inappropriate constructions. The modulating role of production modes, as well as receptive skills, in children's integration of verbs and constructions is consistent with usage‐based approaches to language learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This mixed two-way experimental, cross-sectional study investigated fast-mapping (FM) of novel nouns and verbs in 63 Persian-speaking toddlers aged 30 months, including 31 late-talking (LT) and 32 typically developing (TD) matched with respect to age and maternal education. Toddlers were classified as LT if they had limited expressive vocabulary or limited two-word combinations. The fast-mapping task included four novel object and action labels and four familiar nouns and verbs. The LT group comprehended and produced significantly lower novel words than the TD group. The LT toddlers received significantly lower scores in the FM of verbs than in the FM of nouns, as well as in novel words production compared with novel word comprehension. These results demonstrate that children with LT behave in word-learning almost the same as children with specific language impairment, confirming the potential risk of later language disorder in children with LT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Expression of motion shows systematic inter-typological variability between language types, particularly with respect to manner and path components of motion: speakers of satellite-framed languages (S-language; e.g. German) frequently conflate manner and path into a single clause, while verb-framed language speakers (V-language; e.g. Spanish) typically express manner and path in separate clauses, a pattern that also becomes evident in bilinguals' expression of motion events in each language type. However, less is known about intra-typological variability within each language type, particularly for the expression of motion events among bilingual speakers. In this study, we examine motion descriptions produced by two groups of bilinguals – with Polish as first language – learning a second language that belongs to the same (Polish–German) or a different language type (Polish–Spanish), in comparison to monolinguals in each language (German, Spanish, Polish). Our results, based on written descriptions of animated motion scenes, showed evidence for both inter-typological and intra-typological variation in the expression of motion, with greater attunement to first-language (L1) patterns in learning a language of the same type, and closer alignment to second-language (L2) patterns in learning a language that belongs to a different language type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The current research project was designed according to the conceptualization that vocabulary knowledge is multidimensional (Jaen, 2007; Qian & Schedl, 2004) and the learning of grammatical and collocational patterns should be considered as important as, if not more important than, the acquisition of semantic knowledge of single words. The purposes of the project were to (1) propose a method of extracting grammar patterns for the most frequent content words (verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs) in a given corpus; and (2) derive a tentative grammar pattern list for the 115 most frequent academic verbs. The extraction of grammar patterns was realized through a rule-based programming approach, where the researchers coded all possible patterns of the most frequent academic verbs and used the script to extract grammar patterns from a given corpus. The extracted grammar patterns were compiled with corpus-based frequency information and developed into a grammar pattern list for the top-frequency academic verbs. The grammar pattern list is expected to complement the widely used EAP (English for academic purposes) word list, the Academic Vocabulary List (Gardner & Davies, 2014), by specifying the frequency of each verb patterns (e.g. provide n with n, select n from n, base n on n). • We propose a rule-based programming approach to the extraction of grammar patterns. • We develop a list of grammar patterns of the most frequent 115 academic verbs. • Our list provides pedagogical information and instructional aids. • Our list ranks patterns of specific verbs according to their frequency in academic texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

To learn a verb, children must attend to objects and relations, often within a dynamic scene. Several studies show that comparing varied events linked to a verb helps children learn verbs, but there is also controversy in this area. This study asks whether children benefit from seeing variation across events as they learn a new verb, and uses an eye tracker to test whether children adjust their visual attention to specific objects to better understand how they may be comparing events to each other. Children saw events in which the tool varied, the affected object varied, or there was no variation (control). No prior verb study has tested children's visual attention to specific objects under different variability conditions. We found 2½- and 3½-year-olds could extend verbs, and they were more successful with age. Analyses of the looking patterns in the learning phase show that children's attention to specific objects in events varied by condition, and that reduced looking to the tool was linked to less success at test. Eye tracking can provide a more detailed view of what children attend to while learning a new verb, which should help us better understand how children are learning from variation across examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

We explore children's use of syntactic distribution in the acquisition of attitude verbs, such as think, want, and hope. Because attitude verbs refer to concepts that are opaque to observation but have syntactic distributions predictive of semantic properties, we hypothesize that syntax may serve as an important cue to learning their meanings. Using a novel methodology, we replicate previous literature showing an asymmetry between acquisition of think and want, and we additionally demonstrate that interpretation of a less frequent attitude verb, hope, patterns with type of syntactic complement. This supports the view that children treat syntactic frame as informative about an attitude verb's meaning.* [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This study presents data from an experiment on the interpretation of thematic and non-thematic verbs in second language (L2) English by three groups of adult native Chinese speakers and a group of native English speakers. English allows non-thematic verbs to raise but requires thematic verbs to remain in-situ. In contrast, neither thematic nor non-thematic verbs are allowed to raise in Chinese. The results indicate that there is a discrepancy between native and non-native mental representations of the grammars concerned; whereas native grammars require English thematic verbs to remain in-situ but allow non-thematic verbs to raise, neither thematic nor non-thematic verbs are allowed to raise in learners L2 English grammars. Results of the study argue against the Valueless Features Hypothesis (Eubank 1993/94. On the transfer of parametric values in L2 development. Language Acquisition 3. 183–208, 1994. Optionality and the initial state in L2 development. In T. Hoekstra & B. Schwartz (eds), Language acquisition studies in generative grammar: Papers in Honour of Kenneth Wexler from the 1991 GLOW Workshop, 369–388. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1996. Negation in early German-English interlanguage: More valueless features in the L2 initial state. Second Language Research 12. 73–106.), which posits that the L1 syntactic features of INFL are initially inert and are not transferred. Instead, the results support the Interpretability Hypothesis (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopoulou 2007. The interpretability hypothesis: Evidence from wh-interrogatives in second language acquisition. Second Language Research 23. 215–242.), which argues for the inaccessibility of uninterpretable syntactic features beyond a critical period. In particular, it is argued that uninterpretable syntactic features not selected during early stages of primary language acquisition become inaccessible in subsequent language acquisition. The results suggest that there may be cases where apparent target-like performance conceals non-target-like underlying competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This study advances previous research about the effects of explicit instruction on second language (L2) development by examining learners' use of verbal morphology following different types of explicit information (EI) and comprehension practice. We investigated the extent to which additional EI about the first language (L1) can reduce the effects of crosslinguistic influence in L2 oral production. Sixty‐nine English‐speaking learners of L2 French undertook either: (a) a 'core' treatment of EI about the L2 with L2 comprehension practice, (b) the same L2 core + L1 comprehension practice, (c) the same L2 core + L1 comprehension practice + EI about L1, or (d) outcome tests only. Results showed that providing additional EI about the L1 benefitted the accuracy of oral production immediately after the instruction and then 6 weeks later. These results suggest that tailoring instruction, specifically the nature of the EI, to the nature of the learning problem can facilitate L2 learning. In particular, EI about L1 can facilitate L2 learning by increasing learners' awareness of similarities and differences in how L1 and L2 express the same meanings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Phrasal verbs are a notoriously difficult feature of English for most second language and foreign language learners to master. Different sources, such as movies, music, games and books, can provide learners with exposure to the most common phrasal verbs in English. This study aims to investigate the degree to which music can play a role in exposing learners to phrasal verbs through analyzing their frequency in song lyrics from different genres (i.e., Pop, Rock, Hip-hop and Metal). For this purpose, a corpus of 400 song lyrics by different artists from these four genres was searched for all existing phrasal verbs. The resulting list of phrasal verbs was compared to Garnier and Schmitt’s (2014) Phrasal Verb Pedagogical List in order to determine their value for learners. Further comparisons were subsequently drawn to determine which genre could be of greater use to language learning and instruction. The results revealed that song lyrics can potentially be a beneficial source for learning these constructions. Differences in the type and token frequency of phrasal verb among the four genres can also be used to determine the usefulness of each genre to students from various levels of proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Arab World English Journal is the property of Arab World English Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

VerbNet—the most extensive online verb lexicon currently available for English—has proved useful in supporting a variety of NLP tasks. However, its exploitation in multilingual NLP has been limited by the fact that such classifications are available for few languages only. Since manual development of VerbNet is a major undertaking, researchers have recently translated VerbNet classes from English to other languages. However, no systematic investigation has been conducted into the applicability and accuracy of such a translation approach across different, typologically diverse languages. Our study is aimed at filling this gap. We develop a systematic method for translation of VerbNet classes from English to other languages which we first apply to Polish and subsequently to Croatian, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian, and Finnish. Our results on Polish demonstrate high translatability with all the classes (96% of English member verbs successfully translated into Polish) and strong inter-annotator agreement, revealing a promising degree of overlap in the resultant classifications. The results on other languages are equally promising. This demonstrates that VerbNet classes have strong cross-lingual potential and the proposed method could be applied to obtain gold standards for automatic verb classification in different languages. We make our annotation guidelines and the six language-specific verb classifications available with this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The present study investigated the effects of two types of core-image-based basic verb learning approaches: the learner-centered and the teacher-centered approaches. The learner-centered approach was an activity in which participants found semantic relationships among several definitions of each basic target verb through a picture-elucidated card game. By contrast, the teacher-centered approach involved explicit instruction from the teacher explaining how several definitions of the basic target verbs are interrelated. A total of 241 Japanese EFL (English as a foreign language) junior high school students acted as participants in this comparative study to determine the superior approach. At the end of the treatment period, a short questionnaire was distributed. A two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the learner-centered approach was more effective than the teacher-centered approach with regard to both retention rates for learned definitions and accuracy rates for novel definitions of the basic target verbs. The results of paired t-tests for the questionnaire also support these findings. Considering the results, it can be argued that basic verbs may be best taught through a learner-centered collaborative approach, with conventional teacher-centered explicit instruction as a supplement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Revista Científica Guillermo de Ockham is the property of Revista Cientifica Guillermo de Ockham, Universidad de San Buenaventura and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

This paper examines complementiser and complement clause preference for verb-heads in the written English of Nigerian undergraduates. Data for the study were obtained from the respondents through a written test designed to elicit the preference of complementisers and complement clause types of some verb-heads in English. The findings of the study showed a higher preference for clausal complements introduced by the complementiser that. Of the entire tokens of clausal complements in the data collected, 128 of them (54.46%) were complement clauses headed by that, while complement clauses introduced by whether and if complementisers had preference scores of 31.07% and 8.94% respectively. The complement clause-type which recorded the lowest preference was the one headed by the complementiser for (5.53%). Further findings from the study revealed that the semantic features of relevant embedding verb heads were sometimes not taken into consideration in the choice of complementisers which introduce certain complement clauses. The low preference of the forclause is explicable in terms of the fact that the respondents regarded for as a preposition, and not a complementiser. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Purpose: Complexity-based approaches to treatment have been gaining popularity in domains such as phonology and aphasia but have not yet been tested in child morphological acquisition. In this study, we examined whether beginning treatment with easier-to-inflect (easy first) or harder-to-inflect (hard first) verbs led to greater progress in the production of regular past-tenseed by children with developmental language disorder. Method: Eighteen children with developmental language disorder (ages 4-10) participated in a randomized controlled trial (easy first, N = 10, hard first, N = 8). Verbs were selected on the basis of frequency, phonological complexity, and telicity (i.e., the completedness of the event). Progress was measured by the duration of therapy, number of verb lists trained to criterion, and pre/post gains in accuracy for trained and untrained verbs on structured probes. Results: The hard-first group made greater gains in accuracy on both trained and untrained verbs but did not have fewer therapy visits or train to criterion on more verb lists than the easy-first group. Treatment fidelity, average recasts per session, and verbs learned did not differ across conditions. Conclusion: When targeting grammatical morphemes, it may be most efficient for clinicians to select harder rather than easier exemplars of the target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Abstract: Extending new verbs is important in becoming a productive speaker of a language. Prior results show children have difficulty extending verbs when they have seen events with varied agents. This study further examines the impact of variability on verb learning and asks whether variability interacts with event complexity or differs by language. Children (aged 2½ to 3 years) in the United States, China, Korea, and Singapore learned verbs linked to simple and complex events. Sets of events included one or three agents, and children were asked to extend the verb at test. Children learning verbs linked to simple movements performed similarly across conditions. However, children learning verbs linked to events with multiple objects were less successful if those events were enacted by multiple agents. A follow‐up study rules out an influence of event order. Overall, similar patterns of results emerged across languages, suggesting common cognitive processes support children's verb learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Abstract: Children have difficulty comprehending novel verbs in the double object dative (e.g., Fred blicked the dog a stick) as compared to the prepositional dative (e.g., Fred blicked a stick to the dog). We explored this pattern with 3 and 4 year olds (N = 60). In Experiment 1, we replicated the documented difficulty with the double object frame, even though we provided more contextual support. In Experiment 2, we tested a novel hypothesis that children would comprehend novel verbs in, and generalize them to, the double object frame if they were first familiarized to the verbs in the prepositional frame. They did, suggesting that part of their difficulty with the double object frame is due to uncertainty about a new verb's semantic/syntactic properties, information that the easy‐to‐comprehend prepositional frame provides. The benefits of training were short‐lived, however; children again struggled after a 2‐h delay. The results are discussed in the context of mechanisms underlying verb acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of European Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

Copyright of Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of Universidade de Vigo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

The current project investigated the effects of concept-based instruction (CBI) in phrasal verbs learning. CBI was carefully designed on the basis of two important principles of cognitive linguistics (CL): image-schemas and conceptual metaphors. The analysis focused on conceptual development in the participants who were graduate students registered in an ESL speaking course. Specifically, the influence of the image schema and conceptual metaphor was examined with various data sets. This study focuses on one of the datasets, verbalization tasks. They were provided as a homework assignment to familiarize participants with the new way of understanding particles and phrasal verbs and to internalize the relevant image schemas and conceptual metaphors by externalizing their understanding. The analysis showed that the metaphorical and imagistic associations that students made had a strong impact on their subsequent accounts of the meanings of the phrasal verbs. The metaphorical and imagistic performance of some students demonstrated that CBI can fundamentally impact on learner understanding of the semantics of particles and phrasal verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Action categorization is necessary for human cognition and is foundational to learning verbs, which label categories of actions and events. In two studies using a nonlinguistic preferential looking paradigm, 10- to 12-month-old English-learning infants were tested on their ability to discriminate and categorize a dynamic human manner of motion (i.e., way in which a figure moves; e.g., marching ). Study 1 results reveal that infants can discriminate a change in path and actor across instances of the same manner of motion. Study 2 results suggest that infants categorize the manner of motion for dynamic human events even under conditions in which other components of the event change, including the actor’s path and the actor. Together, these two studies extend prior research on infant action categorization of animated motion events by providing evidence that infants can categorize dynamic human actions, a skill foundational to the learning of motion verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article examines the difficulties in the encoding of path in German by 15 L1 Spanish learners with different levels of proficiency. The participants were asked to describe a set of video clips depicting different types of path of motion. The data analysis shows that the observed difficulties are not only related to the typological differences between German and Spanish but also to the complexity of the encoding of path in German. Based on the observed difficulties, this article also presents the first results relating to a didactic approach which should allow L1 Spanish learners of German to more easily acquire the linguistic means to encode path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This study investigated the performance of school age Greek-speaking children with SLI on verbal short-term memory (VSTM) and Subject–Verb (S-V) agreement in comparison to chronological age controls and younger typically developing children. VSTM abilities were assessed by means of a non-word repetition task (NRT) and an elicited production task, an off-line grammaticality judgment (GJ) task, and an on-line self-paced listening task were employed to examine S-V agreement abilities. The study found significant between-group differences in the NRT and the off-line GJ task. No significant between-group differences were found for the S-V agreement production task and for reaction times of the on-line task. The authors argue that the children with SLI showed increased grammatical sensitivity in S-V agreement and relate their lower performance on the off-line GJ task to the task’s metalinguistic demands. The findings suggest that deficits in VSTM constitute a robust marker for SLI and claim that S-V agreement can be acquired by SLI individuals with apparent limitations in VSTM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This article studies the use of support verb constructions (SVCs) in the written production of learners of Spanish. SVCs are lexical combinations whose content is similar to verbal predicates but is distributed between a verb and a noun, the noun being the carrier of the core lexical meaning of the predicate. Although there is considerable agreement on the importance of these constructions in the learning process, their use in the production of learners of Spanish has so far attracted little attention. This study examines the difficulties posed to learners by this construction by means of a qualitative analysis of the errors registered in 3 samples consisting of essays by learners with 3 different mother tongues (English, Swedish, and Japanese). It focuses on 3 types of error, 2 of which-the support verb choice and the determiner choice-seem to be especially problematic due to the unpredictability of the units involved. The third type-using an SVC instead of a more idiomatic 1-word verb-is regularly found only in the samples of the Japanese speakers, which suggests the influence of a particular mother tongue in its production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The paper will analyze situations when students in engineering need to use and understand properly the meaning of modal verbs in scientific research papers. Examples of the meanings of modal verbs will be given from the book "Strategic Planning for Water" by Hugh Howes. The functions identified by Adam Smith (1984) will serve as criteria for analyzing uses of modal verbs in Howes' book, namely: "1. Assessing probability or possibility related to the truth or definiteness of a thesis; 2. Recommending or expressing obligation or necessity; 3. Evaluating; 4. Emphasizing comments; 5. Expressing ability; 6. Arguing for a point or action; 7. Expressing expected or unexpected outcomes." Problems arising from incorrect translation from Romanian into English and the other way round of the modals which can alter the meaning of the technical text will be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Imageability is the ability of words to elicit mental sensory images of their referents. Recent research has suggested that imageability facilitates the processing and acquisition of inflected word forms. The present study examined whether inflected word forms are acquired earlier in highly imageable words in Czech children. Parents of 317 children (mean age 28 months) were asked whether their child used specific forms of 63 nouns and 35 verbs. For nouns, the forms were nominative singular and plural; for verbs, third person singular present, second person singular present, and the past participle. Plural nouns, and second person and past participle verbs were considered the marked, inflected forms. Analyses revealed that imageability is positively related to the use of the inflected form, even when controlling for the use of the unmarked form in each child, and the inflected form frequency. Two main explanations are suggested: facilitation of form retrieval from long-term memory, or facilitation of inflected form processing, especially by supporting the representations in working memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of English Teaching & Learning is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

This pilot study made comparisons on image-based basic verb learning through learner and teacher-centred approaches. To this purpose, 121 Japanese EFL junior high school students participated. In a learner-centred activity, they just engaged in a card game in which they were able to pay attention to relationships between situational images and forms of the targeted basic verbs. In a teacher-centred instruction, the participants were explicitly taught how given definitions of another basic verb were motivated semantically from situational-images. Immediately after each treatment, post-tests were administered. A week after each immediate post-test, delayed post-tests were given. Analysis of the results found that only high proficiency learners were capable of image-based basic verb learning through either the card game activity or the explicit instruction alone. Considering the results and a SLA model, the authors concluded that image-based basic verb learning should be implemented through learner-centred activity first, followed by teacher-centred explicit instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Counterfactual thinking is a cognitive process in which reality is compared to an imagined view of what might have been. Previous studies in Linguistics have focused on the description of the conditional construction if P (then) Q. Our study aims to compare the grammatical devices used by thirty French native speakers and thirty Spanish native speakers. Participants were presented with a story that led to a particular outcome and were asked to provide alternative scenarios that might have prevented such an outcome from happening. The results showed (i) that counterfactuality is not expressed most frequently by conditional constructions and (ii) that the use of evaluative modal markers within the mutation core is a salient difference between French and Spanish. The minor role of conditional constructions suggests that the boundaries of conditionality as a conceptualization process need to be reconsidered within the realm of irreality. In addition, the frequency of evaluative modals in French suggests a preference for counterfactual scenarios that integrate an overt critical judgement from the speaker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Despite the enormous potential of mobile assisted language learning (MALL) in teaching and learning foreign languages, no serious attention has been paid to develop this phase of education at schools and universities in Iran. This study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of SMS as a subset of MALL on learning phrasal verbs among university students in Iran. Also, the role of gender in learning phrasal verbs by SMS was investigated. A group of 75 students were selected from 90 students who were studying different engineering fields at Arak University of Technology. They were assigned randomly into two experimental and control groups. During the study which lasted 25 days, participants in control group received 25 phrasal verbs in a booklet and participants in experimental group received 25 phrasal verbs via SMS. The pre- and post-test scores of two groups were compared using ANCOVA. The results of data analysis showed that experimental group outperformed control group. But there was no relationship between gender and learning phrasal verbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

CEFR (The Common European Framework) is the basis of teaching and assessment of second language (L2) in Europe. In the CEFR functional specifications of the L2 proficiency levels are given, which are universal for all languages. These specifications need to be completed with language specific linguistic descriptions. In this article the investigation of the linguistic content of the B1 and B2 levels of Estonian as a second language is described according to the CAF triad dimensions: complexity, accuracy and fluency. The presence of verb forms in the national examination texts (stored in the Estonian Interlanguage Corpus) on the both levels has been studied by using corpusdriven approach and the DEMfad model. Common verb forms on the B1 and B2 level have been identified. The verb tahtma 'to want', 'to wish' has been investigated more precisely; the distribution, frequency and accuracy of its constructions on the B1 and B2 level have been investigated. The main similarities and main differences between the levels are analyzed comparatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Several studies on children and adults with and without linguistic impairment have reported differences between verb and noun processing. The present study assessed whether noun and verb bases affect differently children's reading of derived words. Thirty-six Italian good readers and 18 poor readers, all 4th or 5th graders, were asked to read aloud nouns derived from either a noun base (e.g., artista, artist) or a verb base (e.g., punizione, punishment). Word and base frequency affected latencies only for deverbal nouns, while an effect of word length emerged for denominal nouns and an inhibitory effect of suffix length was found for both types of stimuli. A high base frequency and a high whole-word frequency both led to higher levels of accuracy. Verb bases led to higher error rates than noun bases. Poor readers, although slower and less accurate than good readers, showed a pattern of results similar to that of typically developing readers. Data confirm that in 4th and 5th graders morphological decomposition may affect reading aloud of long complex words, and that the grammatical class of the base can modulate this effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Revista Nebrija de Lingüística Aplicada a la Enseñanza de Lenguas is the property of Revista Nebrija de Linguistica Aplicada a la Ensenanza de Lenguas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

Various accounts of overpassivization errors in the L2 acquisition of English unaccusative verbs have been proposed, but different studies have examined different factors (movement, transitivization, discourse, L1 influence) and some findings are in conflict. This study examines the factors of discourse (external causation), semantics (animacy) and L1 morphological influence (verb alternation), which were tested on 99 Chinese and 117 Korean students of English at four proficiency levels. The study shows that the effect of each factor varies depending on the L1s and the proficiency levels of L2 learners. An L1 morphological factor is the most strong and persistent for L2 English learners when their L1 morphology differs from the target language, and the discourse factor is stronger than animacy. Taken together, the findings suggest that a multi-faceted approach to SLA provides a broader perspective on SLA research and leads to a deeper understanding of SLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

There is an extensive body of research concerning the second language (L2) acquisition of tense-aspect morphology in relation to an inherent aspectual property of verb predicates (Andersen and Shirai 1994, 1996; Shirai 2009). Specifically, it has been well documented that in an emergent use of tense-aspect morphology, L2 learners tend to use each tense-aspect form according to the inherent semantic aspectual property of verbs (Andersen and Shirai 1994, 1996). Although this phenomenon has been extensively attested in studies examining L2 learners' use of the simple past tense form, the progressive marker, and the present tense form (Andersen and Shirai 1994, 1996; Shirai 2004, 2009), relatively few studies have investigated the use of the English present perfect form in relation to the inherent semantic aspectual property of verbs. This is unfortunate in view of the unique aspectual characteristic the form exhibits (Leech 1970; McCord 1978; Smith 1991). In order to address this issue, the present study examines the L2 use of the present perfect form in relation to the inherent semantic aspectual property of verbs. A cloze test was administered to 29 Japanese learners of English. The results showed that learners associated the present perfect form with particular semantic aspectual properties of verbs, suggesting that L2 use of the present perfect form is constrained by such aspects. This study proposes multiple factors to account for this finding: perceptual saliency (Slobin 1985), cognitive processing principles, (Andersen 1993; Bybee 1985) and learners' prototype formation in the early use of tense-aspect morphology (Shirai and Andersen 1995). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Miscelánea: A Journal of English & American Studies is the property of Miscelanea: A Journal of English & American Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

Research on embodied cognition has shown that action and language are closely intertwined. The present study seeks to exploit this relationship, by systematically investigating whether motor activation would improve eight-to-nine year old children's learning of vocabulary in their first language. In a within-subjects paradigm, 49 children learned novel object manipulation, locomotion and abstract verbs via a verbal definition alone and in combination with gesture observation, imitation, or generation (i.e., enactment). Results showed that learning of locomotion verbs significantly improved through gesture observation compared to verbal definitions only. For learning object-manipulation verbs, children with good language skills seemed to benefit from imitation and enactment, while this appeared to hinder children with poor language skills. Learning of abstract verbs was not differentially affected by instructional condition. This study suggests that the effectiveness of observing and generating gestures for vocabulary learning may differ depending on verb type and language proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Usage-based models of grammar claim that, in a nutshell, speakers glean their tacit knowledge about language from their linguistic experience in communicative exchanges. Verbal compounding can be considered a challenge to usage-based models: on the one hand, genuine verbal compounding is generally regarded as not being a productive pattern for the formation of new English words; on the other hand, complex lexemes which could very well be the result of such a process, but were created by means of back-formation or conversion, e.g. to dry-clean, to babysit or to house-train, exist in non-negligible quantities. From a usage-based perspective, then, the question arises as to why speakers of English apparently do not have a productive schema for the creation of genuine verbal compounds at their disposal, even though they are confronted with linguistic input that seems to suggest, at least on the surface, that verbal compounding is indeed a productive process. Given that speakers with no training in linguistics are unlikely to be aware of the formation history of existing verbal compounds, what is the nature of the tacit knowledge they do seem to have that generally prevents them from creating new genuine verbal compounds and from judging them as acceptable when they come across them? This is the question addressed in the present paper. We offer findings from a systematic dictionary-cum-corpus analysis and from an acceptability and comprehension task which strongly suggest that hearers actually do not process novel genuine verbal compounds as compounds, but rely on different processing strategies instead, trying to take recourse to possible base nouns or adjectives and interpreting meanings on the basis of analogies to similar lexical items in the network. A check for the nameworthiness of the concepts denoted by the verbal compounds also seems to be involved. The paper concludes with a set of models representing the processing of different types of genuine verbal compounds and verbal pseudo-compounds, and showing that the ways in which these forms are processed are not conducive to the formation of a productive schema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Copyright of Abant İzzet Baysal Üniversitesi Journal of Social Sciences / Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi is the property of Journal of Abant Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.) more...

One of the frequent complaints of teachers of Spanish as a foreign language to Brazilian students relates to the difficulty in understanding these syntactic function of the verb gustar. Although the lexical item gustar be quite transparent to the Brazilian apprentice, who has like how the Portuguese equivalent, there are some issues to consider when it comes to the domain of syntactic structure of this verb in Spanish. Thus, this study is the following question : Why do many Brazilian students studying at pre -intermediate, intermediate or even still produce forms like *nosotros gustamos the studio español ? Given the typological proximity between the Portuguese and the Spanish language, at first, we discuss to what extent the existing lexical transparency between these languages helps or hinders the acquisition of Spanish by Brazilian learners . Finally, we analyze the difference between syntactic constructions of Portuguese as Maria gosta do João and its Spanish equivalent A María le gusta Juan. These are the main questions that will guide our reflections in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This study tracks the development of syntactic complexity in the writing of two beginning German as a second language learners with English as a first language over four semesters of collegiate language study by using developmental profiling techniques applied to an annotated learner corpus. The focus of the investigation is on individual developmental pathways and differences between learners who follow the same instructional sequences. The study explores variation in terms of frequencies of the selected complexity features (coordinate, nominal, and nonfinite verb structures) using corpus analysis techniques with semi-automatic corpus annotation. Two developmental profiles emerge from an in-depth contextual investigation of the target linguistic phenomena. The results show that the general developmental trend is for increasing frequency and range of syntactic complexity features with learners diverging more from one another in the second half of the observation period. This study addresses existing gaps in interlanguage complexity research by focusing on benchmarking development rather than gauging proficiency, addressing specific rather than global complexity measures, and targeting instructed learners at beginning rather than high-intermediate and advanced proficiency levels. Suggestions for future developmental second language acquisition research and foreign language pedagogy are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article discusses the study done to examine the two vector model with respect to dynamic models of the lexical semantics of the literature for representation of the meanings of the verbs used. Topics discussed include distinction between cognitive representations and linguistic representations, using a pattern of interacting forces for representing actions including walking and swimming, and interpreting the meanings of the verb by separation of force and result vectors. more...

Full-verb inversion constructions in which the subject follows the entire verb phrase in a declarative clause-as in 'At the top of each Ministry was a British adviser' or 'Here, in otherwise total darkness, shone a single square of light'-have been the subject of extensive research in recent years, the focus of different studies varying according to the nature and goals of the specific theoretical framework adopted. On the basis of the kind of phrasal category occurring as clause-initial constituent, five different types of full inversion have traditionally been distinguished in the literature: noun phrase, adverb phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, and prepositional phrase full inversion. Broadly speaking, analyses of full-verb inversion carried out within the generative and functional paradigms have focused mainly on inversions following a locative constituent, which subsumes spatial locations, path, and directions, and their extension to some temporal and abstract locative domains. In this sense, they neglect the analysis of those full inversion types, namely noun phrase and adjective phrase full inversion, which do not normally contain such clause-initial constituents. In order to bridge this gap, the present paper offers a corpus-based analysis of noun phrase inversion in present-day written English texts. It is argued that the distribution of the construction is related to the degree of abstractness of its texts, and that noun phrase inversion can be considered a syntactic device that codes abstract relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

This paper aims to study the relationship between the verbal inflection and the listening comprehension skill of Taiwanese learners who take Spanish as a foreign language besides English, by analyzing complex sentences with nominal clauses preceded by impersonal constructions, as well as by evaluating the influence of the morphological and syntactical simplification in the learning process. As there exists a long distance between the linguistic system of the native language and the target language, we will verify whether the conclusions drawn by Lee (1987, 1998) can be applied to the listening comprehension skills in our Taiwanese experience. The results obtained show that the simplification that of the verbal forms does not affect significantly the listening comprehension of identification, nor translation from Spanish to Chinese. Furthermore, this research confirms that the verbal simplification does not play a role in the learning of the subjunctive for Taiwanese students, and going one step further, we have investigated the interaction between different methods of evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Many languages employ articles as an expression device to mark identifiability. There are, however, other means to mark identifiability in languages. In this paper I show that one of the two sets of cross-referencing markers on the transitive verb in Hungarian serves this purpose, i.e., it represents the instruction from the speaker that he considers the referent of the object argument to be identifiable to the hearer. Next, attention is paid to four sets of Hungarian data which are seemingly at odds with this claim. These sets relate to the use of particular person distinctions, indefinite noun phrases which contain either a possessive restrictor or the interrogative pronoun melyik ‘which’, and to relative clauses. Apart from a descriptive account of the relevant data, the paper also offers a theoretical account within the framework of functional discourse grammar, where the speaker assessment of identifiability of referents is formally represented by operators which apply to the referential act, represented by the variable R at the interpersonal level. Distinctions made at the interpersonal level thus affect the choice of verbal forms in Hungarian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...