This response argues against the proposal that novel utterances are formed by analogy with stored exemplars that are close in meaning. Strings of words that are similar in meaning or even identical can behave very differently once inserted into different syntactic environments. Furthermore, phrases with similar meanings but different underlying…

The syntactic behaviour of human beings cannot be explained by analogical generalization on the basis of concrete exemplars: analogies in surface form are insufficient to account for human grammatical knowledge, because they fail to hold in situations where they should, and fail to extend in situations where they need to. [For Ben Ambridge's…

The visual-manual modality of sign languages renders them a unique test case for language acquisition and processing theories. In this commentary the authors describe evidence from signed languages, and ask whether it is consistent with Ambridge's proposal. The evidence includes recent research on collocations in American Sign Language that reveal…

This commentary discusses Westergaard's (2021) keynote article, which presents a comprehensive model of first language (L1), second language (L2), and third language (L3) acquisition. The commentary presents evidence from a previous study of L3 learners that provides support for Westergaard's property-by-property transfer proposal. The commentary…

This article offers the author's commentary on the Multiple Grammars (MG) language acquisition theory proposed by Luiz Amaral and Tom Roeper in the present issue. Multiple Grammars advances the claim that optionality is a constitutive characteristic of any one grammar, with interlanguage grammars being perhaps the clearest examples of a…

The central claim in Amaral and Roeper's (this issue; henceforth A&R) keynote article is that everyone is multilingual, whether they speak one or more languages. In a nutshell, the idea is that each speaker has multiple grammars or "sub-sets of rules (or sub-grammars) that co-exist". Thus, rather than positing complex rules to…

Within the subfields of linguistics, traditional approaches tend to examine different phenomena in isolation. As Stoel-Gammon (this issue) correctly states, there is little interaction between the subfields. However, for a more comprehensive understanding of language acquisition in general and, more specifically, lexical and phonological…

Studies on complementation in English and other languages have traditionally focused on syntactic issues, most notably on the constituent structures of different complement types. As a result, they have neglected the role of meaning in the choice of different complements. This paper investigates the semantics of complementation within the…

Allen [Allen, M. (2005). "The preservation of verb subcategory knowledge in a spoken language comprehension deficit." "Brain and Language, 95", 255-264.] reports a single patient, WBN, who, during spoken language comprehension, is still able to access some of the syntactic properties of verbs despite being unable to access some of their semantic…

Examines use of modal auxiliary "should" when used to express probability as a weaker equivalent of "must." Study shows that in order to account for restrictions on use of "must" and "should," a theory must go beyond the syntactic and semantic characteristics and take into account semantic relations between…

Highlights the costly losses that scholars may incur in discussing questions of language evolution outside the framework of a shared, well-articulated linguistic ontology. (Author/VWL)

Argues that transportality of sentential and predicate adverbials can be handled by the Generalized Binding theory; discusses how adverbials are represented in phrase markers of perfect sentences, how those representations help Binding theory account for transportability of adverbials in perfect sentences; takes up transportation of adverbs…

Discusses the numerical distribution of the six logically possible orders of the Subject (S), Object (O), and Verb (V) across world languages. It is argued that the semantic relations of S, O, and V are best characterized as three concentric regions; S contained in O and O contained in V. (29 references) (Author/VWL)

A theme running through much of the functionalist literature in linguistics is that grammatical structure often has an "iconic" motivation. Claims supporting this theme are discounted, and the implications are discussed of iconic relationships in language for the autonomy hypothesis and the evolution of language. (190 references)…

Most recent approaches to language learnability and acquisition have assumed that parameter setting is largely a deductive process. This article develops the thesis that parameter setting is correctly viewed as nondeductive. This approach uses natural selection, as simulated by a genetic algorithm, to simulate parameter setting. (90 references)…