Studied procedures used by French and English speakers to implement message packaging during sentence formulation. Results provide new evidence for similar and contrasting ways in which speakers of different languages respond to decisions about message packaging. (DR)

Three studies investigated Spanish and English readers' interpretations of sentences with complex noun phrases (NPs). In contrast to earlier findings, results provided evidence for cross-language universality of the late closure parsing principle. Results suggest that late closure is not language-specific but specific to only certain classes of…

Five experiments examined how the duration of a word spoken in a sentence is influenced by the grammatical category to which it belongs, and the position of the word in a constituent. The findings indicated that a binary distinction between major and minor categories is sufficient for a theory of speech timing and synthesis. (Author/JAC)

This study presents a view of diachronic change in language which focuses on the conflicting interaction of principles determining language organization. Principles of structural and perceptual nature are in conflict in language of the Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) type, because of the relative clause construction. Theoretical and empirical evidence…

Reports four experiments examining subject-verb agreement errors in Spanish and English. Discusses cross-linguistic differences within the framework of the computational model of grammatical encoding proposed by Kempen and Hoenkamp. Suggests that languages differ in the extent to which the selection of the verb is controlled by features on the…