To acquire language, learners have to map the language onto the environment, but languages vary as to how much information they include to constrain how a sentence relates to the world. We investigated the conditions under which information within the language and the environment is combined for learning. In a cross-situational artificial language…

Previous studies using artificial languages suggest that sentence production can be guided by verb-specific as well as verb-general statistics present in the language input. Here we investigated whether the statistical properties of ongoing input in the speakers' native language systematically affected their sentence production. Three experiments…

Purpose: To examine lexical knowledge in children through a fast mapping task. Method: This study compared the performance of 60 African American English-speaking and general American English-speaking children between the ages of 4 and 6 years. They were presented with a comprehension task involving the fast mapping of novel verbs in 4 different…

This paper demonstrates systematic cross-linguistic differences in the electrophysiological correlates of conflicts between form and meaning ("semantic reversal anomalies"). These engender P600 effects in English and Dutch (e.g. [Kolk et al., 2003] and [Kuperberg et al., 2003]), but a biphasic N400--late positivity pattern in German (Schlesewsky…

This study examined children's acquisition of language by means of correlating spoken words and observed objects and actions. The common sense view of word learning via observation applies easily to learning nouns for objects, but becomes problematic in the process of learning verbs. When they encounter novel verbs applied to observed situations,…

Presents the case for a mapping theory of developmental language impairment, which branches into a theory that specific language impairment arises from impaired phonological processing and the consequent disruption of the mapping process through which the words and sentence structure of language are established. (Author/VWL)

This paper offers evidence for the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis, which holds that individuals with agrammatic aphasia tend to have difficulty comprehending sentences in which the order of NPs is not aligned with the structure of the corresponding event. We begin by identifying a set of constructions in English and Korean for which the IMH makes…

Describes the "Competition Model" (Bates and MacWhinney, 1982) dealing with second-language sentence processing by bilinguals and research that has further developed theories dealing with the model. (CB)

The effects of topical coherence on the comprehension of two groups of non-native (Finnish) users of English and a control group of English native speakers were observed, with reaction times from a visual word monitoring task as the dependent measure. The experiment examined the ability of intermediate and advanced second language students to…

This paper proposes a hypothesis for the interpretation of tense in English from the viewpoint of how the conception of time is reflected in linguistic temporal expressions. The hypothesis is then verified in light of acquisition data. The paper claims that following from the analysis of the conception of time in Section 2, three temporal…