This paper presents an alternative analysis of the two Japanese existential verbs: aru and iru. By appealing to the notion of conceptualisation that pervades the cognitive linguistic literature, I demonstrate that the two verbs pattern as motion verbs, and not simply as verbs of existence and/or location. Throughout the paper, I demonstrate that…

Participants (aged 5-6 yrs, 9-10 yrs and adults) rated (using a five-point scale) grammatical (intransitive) and overgeneralized (transitive causative) uses of a high frequency, low frequency and novel intransitive verb from each of three semantic classes [Pinker, S. (1989a). "Learnability and cognition: the acquisition of argument structure."…

The current study addresses the challenge of investigating the SLA of "estar" with adjectives when highlighting two specific contextual meanings: comparisons within an individual frame of reference and speaker reactions as a result of immediate experience with the referent. "Estar" is examined within these contexts using a picture-description task…

Using a self-paced reading task, the present study explores how second language (L2) German speakers at different proficiency levels use case-marking information when processing subject-object ambiguities in German. Results indicate that advanced L2 German speakers rapidly integrated case-marking information during online processing, exhibiting a…

This article investigates how linguistic expressions of time--in particular, temporal adverbs and verb tense morphemes--are used to establish temporal reference at the level of brain physiology. First, a formal semantic analysis of tense and temporal adverbs is outlined. It is argued that computing temporal reference amounts to solving a…

Previous research on event-related potentials (ERPs) on second language processing has revealed a great degree of plasticity in brain mechanisms of adult language learners. Studies with natural and artificial languages show that the N400 as well as the P600 component appear in learners after sufficient training. The present experiment tests if and…

Several recent studies have suggested that young children who stutter (CWS) tend to show depressed lexical performance relative to peers. Given the developmental literature as well as several studies of verb processing in individuals who stutter, verbs may pose a particular challenge for this group. The purpose of the present study was to examine…

Explicit systematic phonics instruction is more effective for native English-speaking children learning to read and write than non explicit phonics instruction (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). This study goes beyond native speakers, and explores the effects that systematic and explicit phonics instruction has on…

There is little agreement on the mechanisms involved in second language (L2) processing of regular and irregular inflectional morphology and on the exact role of age, amount, and type of exposure to L2 resulting in differences in L2 input and use. The article contributes to the ongoing debates by reporting the results of two experiments on Russian…

This article presents new evidence from offline and online processing of garden-path sentences that are ambiguous between reduced relative clause resolution and main verb resolution. The participants of this study are intermediate and advanced German learners of English who have learned the language in a nonimmersed context. The results show that…

This paper explores tense and agreement marking in the spontaneous production of verbs in Arabic-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and two groups of typically developing children: one group matched for mean length of utterance, and the other group matched for age. The special characteristics of Arabic such as its rich bound…

In the neuropsychological literature, there is converging evidence for a dominant role of the left hemisphere in morphological processing. However, two right hemisphere patients were described with a clear dissociation between impaired derivational morphology and preserved inflectional processing. A recent fMRI experiment confirmed the involvement…

Much developmental work has been devoted to the acquisition of object clitics in French. There is a consensus that in early grammar, children omit object clitics in contexts where an adult would not. Several analyses have been put forth, among which, one proposing a close link between the omission of object clitics and the presence of past…

Children with word finding difficulties (CwWFDs) are slower and less accurate at naming monomorphemic words than typically developing children (Dockrell, Messer & George, 2001), but their difficulty in naming morphologically complex words has not yet been investigated. One aim of this paper was to identify whether CwWFDs are similar to typically…

We assessed whether and under what conditions noncanonical agreement patterns occur in Russian, with the goal of understanding the factors involved in normal agreement. Russian is a morphosyntactically rich language in which agreement involves features for number, gender, and case. If consistent, overt specification of number and gender agreement…