In two eye-tracking experiments we examined whether wider discourse information helps the recognition of reduced pronunciations (e.g., "puter") more than the recognition of canonical pronunciations of spoken words (e.g., "computer"). Dutch participants listened to sentences from a casual speech corpus containing canonical and reduced target words.…

In this study, 5-year-olds and adults described scenes that differed according to whether (a) the subject or object of a transitive verb represented an accessible or inaccessible referent, consistent or inconsistent with patterns of preferred argument structure, and (b) a simple noun was sufficient to uniquely identify an inaccessible referent.…

Investigates the interaction of syntax, semantics, and pragamatics from the perspectives of functional constraints on sentence processing. Findings reveal that native speakers of Italian first become aware of the importance of the concept of word order in a second language before being able to determine the specifics of word order in that…

Samples of the communicative behavior of a group of mildly mentally retarded adults were examined for indications of mature linguistic competence (specifically, grammatical morpheme and complex sentence use).Findings confirmed the expectation that the eventual mastery of these aspects of linguistic competence in higher-level retarded individuals…

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)