Over the last two decades, the question of to which linguistic cues learners pay attention when they decode a new language has been subject to controversy in the field of third language (L3) acquisition. In this article, we present an artificial language learning experiment that investigated how lexical and syntactic similarities between an…

The present work presents a critical assessment of claims in recent literature that moribund language varieties exhibit accelerated language decay, and that attrition in individual grammars has a causational relationship with language shift to the majority language. We show these claims to be unfounded. Based on two empirical points taken from…

Successful language use requires the ability to process nonadjacent dependencies (NADs) that occur in linguistic input. Learning such structural regularities seems therefore crucial for children, and researchers have indeed proposed that language problems in children with developmental language disorder (DLD), especially problems with grammar, are…

Learning language requires acquiring the grammatical categories of words in the language, but learning those categories requires understanding the role of words in the syntax. In this study, we examined how this chicken and egg problem is resolved by learners of an artificial language comprising nouns, verbs, adjectives, and case markers following…

Since the early 2000s, neurocognitive research on second language (L2) acquisition has been controversial as to how plastic the human brain is after puberty. Recent studies have extended this debate to first language loss (L1 attrition). This article gives an overview of the first event-related brain potential (ERP) studies on L1 attrition and L2…

This study examined the role of child cognitive abilities for procedural and declarative learning in the earliest stages of second language (L2) exposure. In the context of a computer game, 53 first language Italian monolingual children were aurally trained in a novel miniature language over 3 consecutive days. A mixed effects model analysis of…

New linguistic information must be integrated into our existing language system. Using a novel experimental task that incorporates a syntactic priming paradigm into artificial language learning, we investigated how new grammatical regularities and words are learned. This innovation allowed us to control the language input the learner received,…

Syntactic abilities vary across individuals. Weak syntax is typically ascribed to limited competence (knowledge) or poor performance (processing). However, with many questioning this dichotomy, alternative explanations should be considered. Arguments related to language exposure are insufficient because language-impaired children often have good…

In this study, we explored the role of emerging inhibitory control skills in language acquisition in 62 typically developing children aged 24-32 months and investigated whether early inhibitory control skills are longitudinally associated with language outcome. Specifically, we focused on two different inhibitory processes that develop…

A hallmark of grammatical knowledge is the ability to parse novel syntactic structures. Previous artificial language studies have examined learning hierarchical structures, but few have involved meaningful language and shown generalization to novel structures. This study addressed this issue using the semiartificial language paradigm. The…

We investigated the potential influence of implicit learning mechanisms on L2 morphosyntactic attainment by examining the relationship between age of onset (AoO), two cognitive abilities hypothesized to underlie implicit learning (phonological short-term memory and implicit statistical learning), and performance on an auditory grammaticality…

This study investigated the predictions of two approaches to second language acquisition. According to the usage-based approach, learner knowledge results from the strengths and weaknesses of input-driven statistical learning. According to the learner-varieties approach, pragmatic communication principles and language-internal constraints play…

Factors influencing native and nonnative signers' syntactic judgment ability in American Sign Language (ASL) were explored for 421 deaf students aged 7;6-18;5. Predictors for syntactic knowledge were chronological age, age of entering a school for the deaf, gender, and additional learning disabilities. Mixed-effects linear modeling analysis…

Situated within second language (L2) research about the acquisition of morphosyntax, this study investigated English L2 speakers' detection and primed production of a novel construction with morphological and structural features. We report on two experiments with Thai (n = 69) and Farsi (n = 70) English L2 speakers, respectively, carried out an…

This study examines aspects of the syntax-discourse interface in near-native French. Two cleft structures--"c'est" clefts and "avoir" clefts--are examined in experimental and spontaneous conversational data from 10 adult Anglophone learners of French and ten native speakers of French. "C'est" clefts mark focus, and…