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Leischner, Franziska N.; Weissenborn, Jürgen; Naigles, Letitia R. – Language Learning and Development, 2016
The study investigated the influence of universal and language-specific morpho-syntactic properties (i.e., flexible word order, case) on the acquisition of verb argument structures in German compared with English. To this end, 65 three- to nine-year-old German learning children and adults were asked to act out grammatical ("The sheep…
Descriptors: German, Language Acquisition, Grammar, Nouns
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Armon-Lotem, Sharon; Haman, Ewa; de López, Kristine Jensen; Smoczynska, Magdalena; Yatsushiro, Kazuko; Szczerbinski, Marcin; van Hout, Angeliek; Dabašinskiene, Ineta; Gavarró, Anna; Hobbs, Erin; Kamandulyte-Merfeldiene, Laura; Katsos, Napoleon; Kunnari, Sari; Nitsiou, Chrisa; Olsen, Lone Sundahl; Parramon, Xavier; Sauerland, Uli; Torn-Leesik, Reeli; van der Lely, Heather – Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 2016
This cross-linguistic study evaluates children's understanding of passives in 11 typologically different languages: Catalan, Cypriot Greek, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Hebrew, Lithuanian, and Polish. The study intends to determine whether the reported gaps between the comprehension of active and passive and between short and…
Descriptors: Language Research, Form Classes (Languages), Language Processing, Language Acquisition
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Jackson, Carrie N.; Roberts, Leah – Applied Psycholinguistics, 2010
The results of a self-paced reading study with German second language (L2) learners of Dutch showed that noun animacy affected the learners' on-line commitments when comprehending relative clauses in their L2. Earlier research has found that German L2 learners of Dutch do not show an on-line preference for subject-object word order in temporarily…
Descriptors: Nouns, Second Language Learning, Language Processing, Word Order
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Henry, Nicholas; Culmana, Hillah; VanPattena, Bill – Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 2009
The role of explicit information (EI) as an independent variable in instructed SLA is largely underresearched. Using the framework of processing instruction, however, a series of offline studies has found no effect for EI (e.g., Benati, 2004; Sanz & Morgan-Short, 2004; VanPatten & Oikkenon, 1996). Fernandez (2008) presented two online experiments…
Descriptors: Form Classes (Languages), Word Order, Sentence Structure, Predictor Variables
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Kempen, Gerard; Harbusch, Karin – Cognition, 2003
In a recent "Cognition" paper ("Cognition" 85 (2002) B21), Bornkessel, Schlesewsky, and Friederici report ERP data that they claim "show that online processing difficulties induced by word order variations in German cannot be attributed to the relative infrequency of the constructions in question, but rather appear to reflect the application of…
Descriptors: Grammar, Language Processing, Word Order, German
Sweetser, Eve E. – 1977
This research deals with how extraction rules are constrained in cases where their unconstrained application would give rise to semantic ambiguity. Of particular concern is the application of extraction rules to noun phrases (NP's) where word order is the only indication of the different syntactic functions of two adjacent NP's. Samples from…
Descriptors: Ambiguity, German, Grammar, Language Research
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Eubank, Lynn – Second Language Research, 1993
The processing strategies described by Clahsen to explain the development of German word order make predictions. Some experimental results show that inverted sentences result in significantly shorter response times than uninverted sentences for nonnative speakers but that native speakers do not respond at all to the inverted-uninverted contrast.…
Descriptors: Comparative Analysis, Foreign Countries, German, Language Processing
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Ellis, Rod – Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 1989
Reports on a study of the classroom acquisition of German word order by adult learners. Results of the study support the claim that classroom and naturalistic second language acquisition of complex grammatical features such as word order follow similar routes. (50 references) (Author/OD)
Descriptors: Adult Students, Comparative Analysis, German, Grammar
MacWhinney, Brian; And Others – Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1984
Supports claim that linguistic and psycholinguistic accounts based on study of English may prove unreliable as guides to sentence processing in even closely related languages such as German and Italian. Results of a test of sentence interpretation indicate that English-speaking Americans rely overwhelmingly on word order, Germans rely on both…
Descriptors: Comparative Analysis, Comprehension, English, German
Kathol, Andreas, Ed.; Pollard, Carl, Ed. – Working Papers in Linguistics, 1993
This collection of working papers in syntax includes: "Null Objects in Mandarin Chinese" (Christie Block); "Toward a Linearization-Based Approach to Word Order Variation in Japanese" (Mike Calcagno); "A Lexical Approach to Inalienable Possession Constructions in Korean" (Chung, Chan); "Chinese NP Structure"…
Descriptors: German, Japanese, Korean, Language Patterns
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Dean, O. C., Jr. – 1974
Recent work in word-order typology has demonstrated that the dominant order of verbs and objects (or complements) correlates well with the general ordering tendencies of languages. The work on German reported in this paper suggests, however, that certain traits, such as the order of adverbials, are influenced not only by general ordering…
Descriptors: Adverbs, Contrastive Linguistics, Descriptive Linguistics, German
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Moyer, Alene – Foreign Language Annals, 2005
In this study of German as a foreign language, formal classroom experience is compared with informal use of German outside the classroom focusing on three syntactic features: main clause word order (subject-verb-object, or SVO), topicalization (subject-verb inversion), and subordinate word order (subject-object-verb, or SOV). T tests and…
Descriptors: German, Second Languages, Language Research, Word Order
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Miller, Jim – Language Sciences, 1996
Discusses the ways languages of Europe render the "given"-"new" distinction on the basis of data collected by means of presenting speakers of various languages with the task of reconstructing a route on a map. The article raises questions about the nature of "wh"-pronouns in English and about what is shared by these…
Descriptors: Contrastive Linguistics, Dialogs (Language), Discourse Analysis, English
Dowty, David, Ed.; And Others – Working Papers in Linguistics, 1995
Papers in phonology, psycholinguistics, and syntax include: "Discriminating between Syntactic and Semantic Processing: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials" (Kim Ainsworth-Darnell); "The Syntactic Structure of Chinese Formal Focus" (Qian Gao); "Employing a Multimodal Logic in an Approach to German Pronoun Fronting"…
Descriptors: Bantu Languages, Chinese, Comparative Analysis, German