We compared systematically the structure, the focus, the thematic sequences, the complexity and the syntactic properties between maternal and paternal infant-directed speech in engagements of infants with their mothers and fathers. Eleven mother-infant and 11 father-infant dyads were video-recorded during their natural interactions at home from…

By using the eye-tracking method, the present study explores whether working memory capacity assessed via the second language (L2) reading span (L2WMC) as well as the operational span task (OSPAN) affects the processing of subject-extraction and object-extraction in Chinese-English bilinguals. Results showed that L2WMC has no effects on the…

This paper reviews the complex literature on language acquisition in the autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Because of the high degree of interest in ASD in the past decade, the field has been changing rapidly, with progress in both basic science and applied clinical areas. In addition, psycholinguistically-trained researchers have increasingly…

Is children's language acquisition based on innate linguistic structures or built from cognitive and communicative skills? This book summarises the major theoretical debates in all of the core domains of child language acquisition research (phonology, word-learning, inflectional morphology, syntax and binding) and includes a complete introduction…

An influential theory posits that the syntactic properties of idioms are idiosyncratic and encoded in the mental lexicon in "superlemmas". It follows that experience with an idiom is necessary in order to judge the acceptability of syntactic operations on that idiom. To test these claims, Experiment 1 explored the acceptability of sentences…

A basic challenge for research into the neurobiology of language is understanding how the brain combines words to make complex representations. Linguistic theory divides this task into several computations including syntactic structure building and semantic composition. The close relationship between these computations, however, poses a strong…

THE PAPER QUESTIONS THE ADEQUACY OF CHOMSKY'S PROPOSALS FOR FORMALLY RECONSTRUCTING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES AND GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS. THE DEEP STRUCTURE VALIDITY OF THE NOTIONS "SUBJECT" AND "OBJECT" IS ALSO QUESTIONED. THE WRITER PROPOSES TO RECOGNIZE, INSTEAD, VARIOUS INTRODUCED NOUN PHRASES SUGGESTIVE…

The author accepts some of the technical comments in Dresher and Hornstein's article on artificial intelligence (AI), (EJ 161 384, Cognition, December 1976), but disagrees with several other comments. Although Dresher and Hornstein unquestioningly adopt Noam Chomsky's paradigm for the study of language, their real point is that AI researchers are…

Examined parental speech data demonstrating that linguistic input to children does not contain sufficient information to support unaided learning of the pronoun "one." Examined 18-month-olds' interpretation of sentences with a "one" substitution. Found that 18-month-olds have command of the syntax of "one." Because…

Proposes a new view of count nouns and mass nouns in which the use of count-mass syntax is often systematically related to a conceptual distinction in the minds of speakers. Provides preliminary evidence suggesting other reasons for count-mass syntax use that are not predicted by the cognitive individuation hypothesis. (Author/VWL)

The theory that reduction transformations provide speakers with the option of deleting redundant information when communicating to a topic-cognizant audience is supported. In the experiment, college physiology students were provided with deep structure proximal sentences (base propositions), and asked to communicate them to different audiences,…

"THE SOUND PATTERN OF ENGLISH" PRESENTS A THEORY OF SOUND STRUCTURE AND A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF THE SOUND STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF GENERATIVE GRAMMAR. IN THE PREFACE TO THIS BOOK THE AUTHORS STATE THAT THEIR "WORK IN THIS AREA HAS REACHED A POINT WHERE THE GENERAL OUTLINES AND MAJOR THEORETICAL PRINCIPLES ARE FAIRLY CLEAR" AND…

Citing results of an analysis of 46 college level essays, the author refutes W. Ross Winterowd's theory that, with only two exceptions, every T-unit must have one of seven transitional relationships with the unit before and after it. (HTH)

Discusses new understanding of the nature of language and of the importance of training teachers in the use of materials and equipment which have developed from this understanding. Language is basically patterns of sound, constantly changing in time, place and situation; patterns of sound appropriate to patterned social behaviour. (RB)

Details findings indicating that most early linguistic competence is item based. Maintains that language development proceeds without evidence of system-wide syntactic categories, schemas, or parameters. Suggests that findings are not easily explained by the development of children's skills of linguistic performance, pragmatics, or other external…