Two word-learning experiments were conducted to investigate the understanding of negative sentences in 18- and 24-month-old children. In Experiment 1, after learning that "bamoule" means "penguin" and "pirdaling" means "cartwheeling," 18-month-olds (n = 48) increased their looking times when listening to…

Languages differ in how they encode causal events, placing greater or lesser emphasis on the agent or patient of the action. Little is known about how these preferences emerge and the relative influence of cognitive biases and language-specific input at different stages in development. In these studies, we investigated the emergence of sentence…

This technical report describes the conceptual foundation and measurement properties of the Reading Inventory and Scholastic Evaluation (RISE). The RISE is a 6-subtest, Web-administered reading skills components battery. The theoretical and empirical foundations of each subtest in the battery are reviewed, as well as item designs. The results…

Background: Sentence construction and syntactic organization are known to be poor in children with specific language impairments (SLI), but little is known about the way in which children with SLI approach language tasks, and static standardized tests contribute little to the differentiation of skills within the population of children with…

This study focuses on the question of whether structural analyses of verb-arguments are postponed until the head has been processed or initiated prior to the appearance of the verb. To explore this question in relation to a head-final language, a Japanese dative argument attachment ambiguity was examined in both a questionnaire study and a…

A study examined the conditions necessary to construct appropriate sentences and sequential responding in three Japanese students with autism using a computer-based training and testing procedure. Construction of the correct sentence for 24 untrained stimuli emerged after only three sentences were trained in a matrix training procedure.…

An outline is provided of the contents and boundaries of three areas of competence, or systems of knowledge, that are to be minimally included in a theory of communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. Grammatical competence is concerned with the rules of sentence grammar and sentence…

Three experiments are reported that showed effects of "structure priming," the tendency to repeat syntactic structure across successive sentences. These effects were demonstrated in Dutch, a previously untested language. All experiments studied spoken sentence production. (Author/JL)

Investigated whether the methodologies of explicit and implicit language instruction account for differences in the identification of grammatically well-formed sentences for college students of Spanish. Results showed that students receiving implicit instruction scored significantly higher in a grammaticality judgment test than those receiving…

Analyses of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP) suggest that several factors may influence the resetting process for second language acquisition, such as specific "trigger" data, awareness of agreement as a part of awareness of agreement (INFL), and stylistic rules such as subject postposing and anaphoric reference. Four tests were…

This study examines the effects of different kinds of verbal instructions given by teachers on the performance of young children, investigating whether task performance is significantly affected by small changes in verbal content or in the sequence of components of an instruction. Kindergarten children (48 boys and 52 girls) were randomly assigned…

Investigates the discourse coherence of school-aged children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI). Children with SLI were found to be significantly impaired in the areas of topic maintenance, event sequencing, explicitness, conjunctive cohesion, and fluency. Theoretical and clinical implications of the results are discussed. (Author/ER)

A study investigated the effects of eight sessions of classroom instruction on the ability of adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) to produce Wh- questions orally. Preliminary assessment of the students' writing samples enabled classification of two groups: "proficient" (n=6), consistently able to produce written samples…

Three experiments investigated whether word order and case markers play a role in the native speaker's comprehension of Japanese. In Japanese, verbs are at the clause-final position and the order of words other than the verb appear to be flexible. The fact that verb information does not become available until the end of a clause suggests that…

This research explored the fundamental processes involved in comprehending linguistic material: the duration of the process, the sequence of processes, and the sources of errors. One project examined the comprehension of affirmative and negative sentences that are read and verified with respect to a picture. A model developed to account for the…