Humans are remarkably sensitive to the statistical structure of language. However, different mechanisms have been proposed to account for such statistical sensitivities. The present study compared adult learning of syntax and the ability of two models of statistical learning to simulate human performance: Simple Recurrent Networks, which learn by…

This study aims to examine the relationship between bilingual experience and children's development of morphological and morpho-syntactic awareness. To capture both universal and language-specific bilingual effects, the study included four groups of participants: English-speaking children from a general education programme, Spanish-speaking and…

This document is the seventh report in the Language Research in Progress (LRIP) series, and lists a wide variety of language-related research projects current between April 1968 and November 1968. Research projects terminated in the six months prior to publication are included as well. Approximately 250 projects in the U.S. and abroad are…

This study examines the effect of expectation (children's judgments as to the probable actor within a given sentence) upon comprehension of passive sentences, the relationship of syntactic comprehension to the paradigmatic-syntagmatic shift in word associations, and the effect of sex on each. Forty first-graders and 40 kindergarteners were blocked…

The present study is an attempt to apply a paradigm to the shift of verbal behavior before and after the age of seven in order to see if linguistic contexts affect verbal behavior differentially before seven or after seven. (Author/CFM)

Examined the strength of the association between language exposure estimates and vocabulary learning for simultaneous bilingual infants with differing patterns of exposure to the languages being learned. Findings revealed that the correlation was strong, even for children whose language environments changed by more than 20% between observations.…

Argues that much of language acquisition is sequence learning and that the resultant long-term knowledge base of language sequences serves as the database for grammar acquisition. The article also proposes mechanisms to analyze sequence information that result in knowledge of underlying grammar. (184 references) (Author/CK)

A study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of oral language responses as predictors of the reading performance of intermediate-grade students. Responses were considered to be paradigmatic if they illustrated superordinate, coordinate, contrast, or part-whole relationships. Other responses were considered syntagmatic. Subjects were 52 fourth…