In this commentary, I question Westergaard's argument that third language (L3) data can be used to decide between theories such as Full Transfer Full Access, involving wholesale transfer initially, and Full Transfer Potential, involving property-by-property transfer. I suggest that much L3 data will be amenable to explanation under either theory.…

This article is a response to commentaries on the article, "Microvariation in Multilingual Situations: The Importance of Property-by-Property Acquisition" (EJ1300541). This response is divided into sections focusing on the following issues: (1) full transfer and the notion of copying; (2) the definition of linguistic proximity; (3) some…

Ambridge argues that there is widespread agreement among child language researchers that learners store linguistic abstractions. In this commentary the authors first argue that this assumption is incorrect; anti-representationalist/exemplar views are pervasive in theories of child language. Next, the authors outline what has been learned from this…

In this commentary, the author defends the Multiple Grammars (MG) theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roepe (A&R) in the present issue. Topics discussed include second language acquisition, the concept of developmental optionality, and the idea that structural decisions involve the lexical dimension. The author states that A&R's…

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammars (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue. Multiple Grammars advances the claim that optionality is a constitutive characteristic of any one grammar, with interlanguage grammars being perhaps the clearest examples of a…

Optionality is a central phenomenon in second language acquisition (SLA), for which any adequate theory must account. Amaral and Roeper (this issue; henceforth A&R) offer an appealing approach to it, using Roeper's Multiple Grammars Theory, which was created with first language in mind but which extends very naturally to SLA. They include…

In her Keynote Article, Johanne Paradis does a service for the research and the clinical communities with this comprehensive review of the literature encompassing bilingualism and specific language impairment (SLI). Her work and the work of her colleagues for more than a decade have been persistent in bringing these two threads together: using…

Babcok et al. (2012) claim that Paradis (1994, 2004, 2009) argues that the reliance of late L2 learners on L1 neurocognitive mechanisms increases over time across both lexical and grammatical functions, namely for lexical items as well as rule-governed grammatical procedures, when in fact one can find repeated statements to the contrary in the…

Stoel-Gammon (this issue) highlights the close and symbiotic association that exists between the lexical and phonological domains in early linguistic development. Her comprehensive review considers two bodies of literature: (1) child-centred studies; and (2) studies based on adult psycholinguistic research. Within the child-centred studies, both…

Spivey, Grosjean, and Knoblich (2005) reported smoothly curved reaching movements, via computer-mouse tracking, which suggested a continuously evolving flow of distributed lexical activation patterns into motor movement during a phonological competitor task. For example, when instructed to click the "candy," participants' mouse-cursor trajectories…

The Keynote Article is a very welcomed, timely, and incisive review article that examines theoretical and clinical implications of research on bilingual development and specific language impairment (SLI). Paradis provides a considered examination of the available evidence and takes into account a number of potential influencing factors. In…

Joanne Paradis' Keynote Article on bilingualism and specific language impairment (SLI) is an impressive overview of research in language acquisition and language impairment. Studying different populations is crucial both for theorizing about language acquisition mechanisms, and for practical purposes of diagnosing and supporting children with…

What makes a child's language development trajectory have the patterns that it has, and what causes differences across children in those patterns? These fundamental questions have for over half a century been at the heart of research on language development in monolingual children, on the cross-linguistic development of language in children from…

In a recent series of publications (Traxler et al. J Mem Lang 39:558-592, 1998; Van Gompel et al. J Mem Lang 52:284-307, 2005; see also Van Gompel et al. (In: Kennedy, et al.(eds) Reading as a perceptual process, Oxford, Elsevier pp 621-648, 2000); Van Gompel et al. J Mem Lang 45:225-258, 2001) eye tracking data are reported showing that globally…

Studies about bilingualism and second language acquisition (SLA) have a long tradition within linguistic and psycholinguistic research. The contributions from psycholinguistic research are crucial to the improvement of neurolinguistic models. This importance stems from the fact that psycholinguistic research is posing more specific questions than…