Although the linguistic properties of polar questions have been extensively studied, comparatively little is known about how polar questions are processed in real time. In this paper, we report on three eye-tracking experiments on the processing of positive and negative polar questions in English and French. Our results show that in the early…

Acquisitionists generally assume a relation between code-mixing in young bilingual and trilingual children and language dominance. In our cross-sectional study we investigated the possible relation between code-mixing and language dominance in 122 children raised in Spain or Germany. They were bilingual, trilingual or multilingual, the latter…

The purpose of this article was to test the predictions of a speech production model of cross-linguistic influence in French-English bilingual children. A speech production model predicts bidirectional influence (i.e., bilinguals' greater use of periphrastic constructions like the hat of the dog relative to monolinguals in English and reversed…

This study investigates how derivational complexity interacts with first language (L1) properties, second language (L2) input, age of first exposure to the target language, and length of exposure in child L2 acquisition. We compared elicited production of "wh"-questions in French in two groups of 15 participants each, one with L1 English…

The purpose of this research was to ascertain if the reading comprehension skills of English-speaking fifth grade students improve when they study a second language. The research was done in an inner-city elementary school in Rochester, New York. The researcher provided a weekly after-school workshop in foreign languages for a group of children…

Techniques are outlined for translating the French imperfect subjunctive into English without syntactic awkwardness, based on the approach that the verb form is a logical system regulated by well-defined syntactic rules. (MSE)

Reviews the grammatical, semantic, and stylistic difficulties in translating English passive constructions into French. (AM)

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)

Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Linguistics and Translation, October 4-7, 1972, Montreal, Canada. (DD)

The so-called deviant character of a set of non-native texts is examined by looking closely at how sentence syntax realizes and affects textual functions. Two broad groups of syntactic phenomena are considered: subordination and "marked structures," such as passives and clefts. Emphasis in this paper is on the following four ways in which syntax…

This article discusses the difference between French and English constructions of motion and change of place, by contrasting French and English examples of such constructions. (CLK)

Reports research at the University of Saskatchewan in which experiments with variously rearranged English and French sentences showed grammatical acceptability decreasing as the disruption of the sentence producing field of subject, verb, object, qualifier increased. (RM)

Attempts to show that exophora falls within the category of anaphora proper and not deixis; it is in terms of a conceptual representation of the situation evoked that the anaphor is interpreted; and exphora is a more central manifestation of anaphora than the "endophoric" type. Naturally occurring data from English and French are the…

A reassessment of the role of negative evidence in nonnative language acquisition argues that the grammar-building process cannot make use of negative evidence to restructure interlanguage grammars, and that second-language learners do not unlearn verb movement but extend the pattern with which they are already familiar. (46 references) (Author/CB)