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An Exemplar Model Should Be Able to Explain All Syntactic Priming Phenomena: A Commentary on Ambridge (2020)
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Messenger, Katherine; Hardy, Sophie M.; Coumel, Marion – First Language, 2020
The authors argue that Ambridge's radical exemplar account of language cannot clearly explain all syntactic priming evidence, such as inverse preference effects ("greater" priming for less frequent structures), and the contrast between short-lived lexical boost and long-lived abstract priming. Moreover, without recourse to a level of…
Descriptors: Language Acquisition, Syntax, Priming, Criticism
Character Introductions in Oral Narratives of Swedish-German Bilingual Preschoolers
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Lindgren, Josefin; Reichardt, Valerie; Bohnacker, Ute – First Language, 2022
Closely related Swedish and German both mark information status of referents morphologically, though little is known about its acquisition. This study investigates character introductions in the narratives of 4- and 6-year-old Swedish-German bilinguals (N = 40) in both languages, elicited with MAIN "Cat/Dog." We analyse effects of age…
Descriptors: Preschool Children, Nouns, Phrase Structure, Form Classes (Languages)
Reference Maintenance in the Narratives of Albanian-Greek and Russian-Greek Children with Developmental Language Disorder: A Study on Crosslinguistic Effects
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Andreou, Maria; Peristeri, Eleni; Tsimpli, Ianthi Maria – First Language, 2022
Although a considerable number of studies have shown D(eterminer) elements, i.e. determiners and pronominal clitics, to be particularly vulnerable to impairment in monolingual children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), little is known about the use of appropriate or/and grammatically correct referring expressions in the children's…
Descriptors: Greek, Russian, Indo European Languages, Form Classes (Languages)
Prosodic Constraints on Children's Use of Grammatical Morphemes
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Demuth, Katherine – First Language, 2019
It has long been known that children may use a particular grammatical morpheme inconsistently at early stages of acquisition. Although this has often been thought to be evidence of incomplete syntactic representations, there is now a large body of crosslinguistic evidence showing that much of this early within-speaker variability is due to still…
Descriptors: Suprasegmentals, Child Language, Grammar, Morphemes
The Production of Preverbal and Postverbal Subjects by Italian Heritage Children: Timing of Acquisition Matters
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Listanti, Andrea; Torregrossa, Jacopo – First Language, 2023
Heritage language (HL) speakers seem to diverge from monolingual speakers in the acquisition of syntax-discourse interface phenomena. However, most of the studies reporting this finding do not make any distinction between different types of syntax-discourse interface structures. Therefore, it is an open question whether these structures are…
Descriptors: Italian, Language Acquisition, Verbs, Narration
How Do 5-Year-Olds Understand Questions? Differences in Languages across Europe
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Sauerland, Uli; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Guasti, Maria Teresa; Andelkovic, Darinka; Argus, Reili; Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Arosio, Fabrizio; Avram, Larisa; Costa, João; Dabašinskiene, Ineta; de López, Kristine; Gatt, Daniela; Grech, Helen; Haman, Ewa; van Hout, Angeliek; Hrzica, Gordana; Kainhofer, Judith; Kamandulyte-Merfeldiene, Laura; Kunnari, Sari; Kovacevic, Melita; Kuvac Kraljevic, Jelena; Lipowska, Katarzyna; Mejias, Sandrine; Popovic, Maša; Ruzaite, Jurate; Savic, Maja; Sevcenco, Anca; Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Varnava, Marina; Yatsushiro, Kazuko – First Language, 2016
The comprehension of constituent questions is an important topic for language acquisition research and for applications in the diagnosis of language impairment. This article presents the results of a study investigating the comprehension of different types of questions by 5-year-old, typically developing children across 19 European countries, 18…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Questioning Techniques, Preschool Children, Language Acquisition