Children have difficulty comprehending novel verbs in the double object dative (e.g., "Fred blicked the dog a stick") as compared to the prepositional dative (e.g., "Fred blicked a stick to the dog"). We explored this pattern with 3 and 4 year olds (N = 60). In Experiment 1, we replicated the documented difficulty with the…

This study uses conversation analysis (CA) to investigate the coupling of specific linguistic items with specific gestures in second language (L2) learning over time. In particular, we are interested in how gestures accompany learning of new vocabulary. CA-informed studies of gesture have previously shown the importance of embodiment in L2 use and…

We study the learnability problem concerning the dative alternations in English (Baker, 1979; Pinker, 1989). We consider how first language learners productively apply the double-object and to-dative constructions ("give the book to library"/"give the library the book"), while excluding negative exceptions ("donate the…

Research part of a Senior Honors Thesis submitted to Kent State University by Patricia Sorce, who was a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Participant while conducting this research. (VM)

The effects of sentence imitation and picture verification on the recall of subsequent digits were studied. Stimuli consisted of 20 sentences, each sentence followed by a string of five digit names, and five structural types of sentences were presented. Subjects were instructed to listen to the sentence and digit string and then either immediately…

Two experiments that study subjects' memory for active and passive sentences are reported. A reaction time methodology is used to measure subjects' memory for verbatim information about the sentence. Retention of verbatim information displays traditional short-term versus long-term discontinuity. (CHK)

To test hypothesis that young children may be open to learning non-SVO structures with novel transitive verbs, 12 children in each of three age groups (2-year olds, 3-year olds, and 4-year olds) were taught novel verbs, one in each of three sentence positions: medial, final, and initial. Results suggest English-speaking children's acquisition of a…

Spontaneous full passives and related constructions from 234 children aged 2;0 to 13;11 and elicited passives from 262 college students were analyzed. Full passives were classified as reversible (The dog was chased by the girl), instrumental non-reversible (The lamp was broken by [or with] the ball), or agentive non-reversible (The lamp was broken…

In this experiment, children were given three words (a triplet made up of two nouns and one verb) and were asked to produce an utterance with them. The results were analyzed in terms of word order chosen and age of child. (NCR)

Three response measures that have been used in the study of temporal codes for memories were evaluated. Subjects were shown a list of words singly for study, and recency, position, and language judgements were obtained. (SW)

The appearance of English auxiliaries in the speech of five native speakers of Spanish is described, as well as these subjects' acquisition of the negative and interrogative transformations. (Author/RM)

Analyses of the Null Subject Parameter (NSP) suggest that several factors may influence the resetting process for second language acquisition, such as specific "trigger" data, awareness of agreement as a part of awareness of agreement (INFL), and stylistic rules such as subject postposing and anaphoric reference. Four tests were…

Several recent reports on the untutored second language acquisition of English have suggested that the same developmental sequence holds for the acquisition of the interrogative structures irrespective of whether English is acquired as a first language (L1) or a second language (L2). These studies have been conducted within the Klima & Bellugi…

Investigations designed to eliminate ambiguities in the Andre and Kulhavy procedure and to investigate the effects of noun modifications and sentence voice in the category clustering of sentences were conducted. Two experiments were carried out; both employed a mixed factorial design and were prepared in dittoed booklets. The Ss were run in…

Reports four experiments examining subject-verb agreement errors in Spanish and English. Discusses cross-linguistic differences within the framework of the computational model of grammatical encoding proposed by Kempen and Hoenkamp. Suggests that languages differ in the extent to which the selection of the verb is controlled by features on the…