Structural priming refers to the tendency of speakers to repeat syntactic structures across sentences. We investigated the extent to which structural priming persists with age and whether the effect depends upon highly abstract syntactic representations that only encompass the global sentence structure or whether representations are specified for…

During the temporal delay between the filler and gap sites in long-distance dependencies, the "active filler" strategy can be implemented in two ways: the filler phrase can be actively maintained in working memory ("maintenance account"), or it can be retrieved only when the parser posits a gap ("retrieval account").…

The important role of collocations has been widely accepted in the current literature, but to date there are still relatively few studies on language learners' collocation knowledge and development within different local contexts. The current study intends to contribute to the literature by investigating the oral production of Chinese verb-noun…

Purpose: Children's ability to adjust one's language according to discourse context is important for success in academic settings. This study examined whether second graders vary in linguistic and discourse features depending on discourse contexts, that is, when describing pictures in contextualized (describing the picture to an examiner while…

Purpose: Children's ability to adjust one's language according to discourse context is important for success in academic settings. This study examined whether second graders vary in linguistic and discourse features depending on discourse contexts, that is, when describing pictures in contextualized (describing the picture to an examiner while…

This study explores how syntactic complexity and lexical complexity vary in argumentative essays written by L2 learners of English at B2 and C1 CEFR proficiency levels. We approach both syntactic complexity and lexical complexity from a multi-dimensional perspective, examining syntactic complexity at different levels (i.e., global, clausal, and…

Experimental research on the interface between second language vocabulary knowledge, including collocations, and translation competence is scarce. The present study investigates the role played by three determinants of collocation knowledge (knowledge level -- recall versus recognition, congruency, and constituent word types) in the accuracy of…

This study addresses the lack of comprehension data in second language acquisition research by focusing on English existential "there"-constructions (ETCs) with a locative extension (e.g., "there is an X on the Y"). The post-copular noun X used in the present study consisted of two types: actual and nonsense. Participants…

Although previous research has observed a facilitative influence of the first language (L1) on the acquisition and processing of gender agreement in a second language (L2), particularly in language pairs with similar gender agreement marking, the question of whether knowledge of two languages with gender can confer an additional advantage for…

Speakers typically design definite referring expressions to uniquely identify the intended referent with respect to the alternatives in the referential context, and addressees interpret these expressions with respect to the contextual alternatives. Although it is clear that the relevant context includes entities in the immediate context, less…

Speakers use speech and gestures to represent referents in discourse. Depending on referents' information status, in speech speakers will vary richness of expression (e.g., lexical noun phrase [NP]/pronoun), nominal definiteness (indefinite/definite), and grammatical role (subject/object). This study tested whether these three linguistic markers…

Purpose: This study examines the contribution of number morphology to language comprehension abilities among children with specific language impairment (SLI) and age-matched controls. It addresses the question of whether number agreement facilitates the comprehension accuracy of object-initial declarative sentences. According to the predictions of…

The present investigation focuses on first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers' sensitivity to lexical fixedness and compositionality of Italian word combinations. Two studies explored language users' intuitions about three types of word combinations: free combinations, collocations, and idioms. In Study 1, Italian Verb+Noun…

This paper investigates English-speaking children's acquisition of raising constructions (e.g. "John seems to Mary to be happy") and fnds an asymmetric effect of NP type on their comprehension: an improvement in performance is observed when a lexical NP is raised across a pronominal experiencer (e.g. "John seems to her to be…

This dissertation provides a formal and functional analysis of grammatical voice in Sasak, an Austronesian language spoken in Eastern Indonesia. The research addresses two primary questions, which are (1) how does Sasak clause structure and morphosyntax vary across dialects? and (2) what shapes speakers' syntactic production, namely grammatical…