This study reports on the pattern of performance on spoken and written naming, spelling to dictation, and oral reading of single verbs and nouns in a bilingual speaker with aphasia in two first languages that differ in morphological complexity, orthographic transparency, and script: Greek (L1a) and English (L1b). The results reveal no verb/noun…

Many studies on bilingual language processing have shown that lexical access is not selective with respect to language. These studies typically used nouns as word stimuli. The aim of the present study was to extend the previous findings on noun processing to verb processing. In the first experiment, Dutch-English bilinguals performed a lexical…

When preschoolers listen to storybooks, are their eye movements related to their vocabulary acquisition in this context? This study addressed this question with 36 four-year-old French-speaking participants by assessing their general receptive vocabulary knowledge and knowledge of low-frequency words in 3 storybooks. These books were read verbatim…

This thesis investigates the syntactic status of adjectives in Spanish through a crossdisciplinary perspective, incorporating methodologies from both theoretical linguistics and neurolinguistics, specifically, event-related potentials (ERPs). It presents conflicting theories about the syntax of adjectives and explores the ways that the processing…

This study was designed to examine whether infants acquiring languages that place a differential emphasis on nouns and verbs, focus their attention on motions or objects in the presence of a novel word. An infant-controlled habituation paradigm was used to teach 18- to 20-month-old English-, French-, and Japanese-speaking infants' novel words for…

It is generally held that noun processing is specifically sub-served by temporal areas, while the neural underpinnings of verb processing are located in the frontal lobe. However, this view is now challenged by a significant body of evidence accumulated over the years. Moreover, the results obtained so far on the neural implementation of noun and…

While increasing evidence points to a critical role for the motor system in language processing, the focus of previous work has been on the linguistic category of verbs. Here we tested whether nouns are effective in modulating the motor system and further whether different kinds of nouns--those referring to artifacts or natural items, and items…

Neuroimaging studies of English suggest that speech comprehension engages two interdependent systems: a bilateral fronto-temporal network responsible for general perceptual and cognitive processing, and a specialised left-lateralised network supporting specifically linguistic processing. Using fMRI we test this hypothesis in Polish, a Slavic…

We investigated the influence of word class and translation ambiguity on cross-linguistic representation and processing. Bilingual speakers of English and Spanish performed translation production and translation recognition tasks on nouns and verbs in both languages. Words either had a single translation or more than one translation. Translation…

In 2 separate self-paced reading experiments, Farmer, Christiansen, and Monaghan (2006) found that the degree to which a word's phonology is typical of other words in its lexical category influences online processing of nouns and verbs in predictive contexts. Staub, Grant, Clifton, and Rayner (2009) failed to find an effect of phonological…

Function words support many aspects of language acquisition. This study investigated whether toddlers understand the number feature of determiners and use it for noun comprehension. French offers an ideal "test case" as number is phonetically marked in determiners but not in nouns. Twenty French-learning 24-month-olds completed a split-screen…

Background: Understanding lexical abilities in infants and toddlers is important, yet no single tool can be used. Aims: To perform a validation of a new tool (known as the Picture Naming Game, or "PiNG") for assessing lexical comprehension and production in toddlers and to obtain developmental trends for Italian children. Methods &…

Although "wh"-words generally stay in situ in Chinese "wh"-questions, they can be topicalized. However, the "wh"-topicalization is determined at the syntax-discourse interface and has to be governed by discourse conditions; only discourse-linked (D-linked) "wh"-words can be topicalized, but non-D-linked ones cannot. This article reports on an…

This article discusses the acquisition of gender in Russian, focusing on some exceptional subclasses of nouns that display a mismatch between semantics and morphology. Experimental results from twenty-five Russian-speaking monolinguals (age 2 ; 6-4 ; 0) are presented and, within a cue-based approach to language acquisition, we argue that children…

The paper reports on a perception experiment in German that investigated the neuro-cognitive processing of information structural concepts and their prosodic marking using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Experimental conditions controlled the information status (given vs. new) of referring and non-referring target expressions (nouns vs.…