Segmentation is a cornerstone of language processing across levels of linguistic analysis, and yet, standard models of linguistic memory leave the role of higher-order segments in online comprehension understudied. This dissertation advances the Context-Sensitive Encoding (CSE) hypothesis: that implicit prosodic boundaries (Bader, 1998; J. Fodor,…

Previous work has shown that English native speakers interpret sentences as predicted by a noisy-channel model: They integrate both the real-world plausibility of the meaning--the prior--and the likelihood that the intended sentence may be corrupted into the perceived sentence. In this study, we test the noisy-channel model in Mandarin Chinese, a…

Subject-verb agreement errors are common in sentence production. Many studies have used experimental paradigms targeting the production of subject-verb agreement from a sentence preamble ("The key to the cabinets") and eliciting verb errors (… "*were shiny"). Through reanalysis of previous data (50 experiments; 102,369…

Due to the fact that both the subject and the topic can occupy the initial position of the sentence, English subject is always deemed as the UNMARKED TOPIC (Lambrecht, 1994), while the topic is not always the subject. In accordance with Rizzi's (1997) topicalization, both the subject and the topicalized constituents can be topics. Many other…

The sentence structure complexity and clause positioning (Staveley, 2013) represent the striking features of the writing style of the 19th century British fiction writers. The present syntactic study brings detailed quantitative and qualitative syntactic analyses of peripheral sentence elements, sentence (stance) adverbials, occurring in the…

Purpose: This tutorial is an introduction to first phase syntax (FPS; Ramchand, 2008). FPS provides a new, cross-linguistically motivated perspective on clause internal structure. A new sequence of syntactic development is proposed based on FPS with 4 levels of complexity: (0) verb particles and adjectives in the 1-word stage, (1) semantic…

We present a self-organizing approach to sentence processing that sheds new light on notional plurality effects in agreement attraction, using pseudopartitive subject noun phrases (e.g., "a bottle of pills"). We first show that notional plurality ratings (numerosity judgments for subject noun phrases) predict verb agreement choices in…

The syntactic complexities of English sentence structures induced the Indonesian students' sentence-level accuracies blurred. Reciprocally, the meanings conveyed are left hanging. The readers are increasingly at sixes and sevens. The Sentence Crimes were, therefore, the major essences of diagnosing the students' sentence-level inaccuracies in this…

The effect of religious priming has been studied in relation to a number of variables, most extensively with prosocial behavior. The effects of priming on cognitive domains, however, are relatively understudied. The present study examined the effects of religious priming, compared with reflective and neutral priming, on the conjunction fallacy.…

In this article, I present a collection of student sentences to explore what it means to, and how a writer might, inhabit a sentence. Such inhabitation is a matter of ethos, style, and composition--a matter of a writer located grammatically within a discourse. Relying on student sentences, I challenge sentence-appreciation books and websites that…

This research deals with the students' error in using conjunction (because, since, as, in case) in the sentences. Conjunction is very important for the learners to develop a skill in grammar. And grammar is the most important part of language for anyone. Should be first understood before being able to construct sentences, rules based on the…

Purpose: With Aim 1, we compared the comprehension of and sensitivity to canonical and noncanonical word order structures in school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI) and same-age typically developing (TD) children. Aim 2 centered on the developmental improvement of sentence comprehension in the groups. With Aim 3, we compared…

The ability to understand sentences contributes to students' reading comprehension. However, many reading programs tend to underemphasize explicit instruction aimed at enhancing students' knowledge of sentence structures. Children with language impairments, students with learning disabilities, and English language learners may particularly benefit…

To understand how children develop adult argument structure, we must understand the nature of syntactic and semantic representations during development. The present studies compare the performance of children aged 2;6 on the two intransitive alternations in English: patient ("Daddy is cooking the food"/"The food is cooking")…

Research in era of data representation to contribute and improve key data policy involving the assessment of learning, training and English language competency. Students are required to communicate in English with high level impact using language and influence. The electronic technology works to assess students' questions positively enabling…