This study applies the Apriori algorithm to analyse patterns, syntactic structures, and thematic clusters in Chinese studies data from various genres. This study aims to identify recurring linguistic elements in order to shed light on the dynamic nature of the Chinese language across different contexts and time periods. The Apriori algorithm is…

This dissertation features a relative clause island, whose status has been known to differ significantly across languages and extraction types. By conducting a series of acceptability judgment experiments with human participants, as well as measuring token-by-token surprisal values among large language models, I demonstrate the following: First,…

We present in this article corpus analyses, two experiments, and a preliminary English-French comparison on children's acquisition of "wh"-in-situ. Our examination of 10,000 "wh"-questions from CHILDES reveals that the reported empirical picture of "wh"-question acquisition in English is incomplete: A type of…

Research on "parentese," the acoustically exaggerated, slower, and higher-pitched speech directed toward infants, has mostly focused on maternal contributions, although it has long been known that fathers also produce parentese. Given recent societal changes in family dynamics, it is necessary to revise these mother-centered models of…

We investigate concrete acquisition theories for a derived approach to linking theory development and explore to what extent two prominent linking theories in the syntactic literature--UTAH and rUTAH--can be derived from the data that English-learning children encounter. We leverage a conceptual acquisition framework that specifies key aspects of…

Speakers display considerable variability in language use and representations: they may have different pronunciations of the same word, different intended meanings for the same phrases, and different sets of syntactic constraints in their internalized grammars. Comprehenders adapt to such variability by constantly updating their expectations for…

Attitude verbs like "think" and "want" describe mental states (belief and desire) that lack reliable physical correlates that could help children learn their meanings. Nevertheless, children succeed in doing so. For this reason, attitude verbs have been a parade case for syntactic bootstrapping. We assess a recent syntactic…

A central concern of the cognitive science of language since its origins has been the concept of the linguistic system. Recent approaches to the system concept in language point to the exceedingly complex relations that hold between many kinds of interdependent systems, but it can be difficult to know how to proceed when "everything is…

How do children learn the meaning of words like "pretty" and "tall," which are not only gradable and context dependent (Kennedy & McNally 2005), but encode speaker subjectivity? Despite their complex semantics (Stephenson 2007; Lasersohn 2009; Bylinina 2014), these and other adjectives like them, are some of the most…

This study builds on prior research on second language (L2) Spanish psych verbs, which has centered on morphosyntactic properties, by examining their syntactic distribution, which relies on lexical semantic knowledge. The fact that certain forms are licensed for some verbs, but not others, is the result of an underlying lexical semantic difference…

This dissertation investigates the wide-ranging implications of a simple fact: language unfolds over time. Whether as cognitive symbols in our minds, or as their physical realization in the world, if linguistic computations are not made over transient and shifting information as it occurs, they cannot be made at all. This dissertation explores the…

In Dialogic syntax (cf. Du Bois 2014; Tantucci et al. 2018), naturalistic interaction is inherently grounded in resonance, viz. the catalytic activation of affinities across turns (Du Bois and Giora 2014). Resonance occurs dynamically when interlocutors creatively coconstruct utterances that are formally and phonetically similar to the utterance…

In this article, we propose a reconceptualization of the principles and parameters (P&P) framework. We argue that in lieu of discrete parameter values, a parameter value exists on a gradient plane that encodes a learner's confidence that a particular parametric structure licenses the utterances in the learner's linguistic input. Crucially,…

Multi-word expressions are formulaic language universals with arbitrary and idiosyncratic collocations. Their usage and mastery are required of learners of a second language in achieving naturalness. However, despite the importance of multi-word expressions to mastering a second language, their syntactic architecture and colligational…

Due to the typological differences between Korean's aspect system and English's aspect system in terms of progressive construction "-ko iss," learners can no doubt have difficulty acquiring and using the "-ko iss" construction in learner Korean. This dissertation investigates two main points: (i) how is the "-ko iss"…