Learners must simultaneously learn a grammar and a lexicon from observed forms, yet some structures that the grammar and lexicon reference are unobservable in the acoustic signal. Moreover, these "hidden" structures interact: the grammar maps an underlying form to a particular interpretation. Learning one structure depends on learning…

This study investigates the nature of semantic compatibility between constructions and lexical items that occur in them in relation with language use, and the related concept, coercion, based on a usage-based approach to language, in which linguistic knowledge (grammar) is grounded in language use. This study shows that semantic compatibility…

This dissertation presents a formal theory of Serbo-Croatian grammar. The theory predicts acceptable form/meaning pairs for a substantial chunk of Serbo-Croatian. In particular, we analyze Serbo-Croatian declarative and interrogative main clauses, embedded clauses, a couple of different types of nominal modification, control and predication, as…

The concern for the realization of a prophetic announcement in the books of Kings is evident from the frequent fulfillment claims. Fulfillment details are often included in the formulaic notice to highlight its miraculous nature. However, as one correlates the prediction with the fulfillment details, there are noticeable discrepancies. This study…

Northern Mao is an endangered Afroasiatic-Omotic language of western Ethiopia with fewer than 5,000 speakers. This study is a comprehensive grammar of the language, written from a functional/typological perspective which embraces historical change as an explanation for synchronic structure. The grammar introduces the Northern Mao people, aspects…

The purpose of this dissertation is twofold-to investigate, in brief, the available guides to Russian lyric diction and to present my own comprehensive guide, which gives singers the tools to prepare the pronunciation of Russian vocal pieces independently. The survey examines four guides to Russian lyric diction found in popular anthologies or…

This dissertation presents an approach for a productive way forward in the study of language acquisition, sealing the rift between claims of an innate linguistic hypothesis space and powerful domain general statistical inference. This approach breaks language acquisition into its component parts, distinguishing the input in the environment from…

This dissertation explores the interplay of grammar and context in the interpretation of modal words like "ought," "necessary," and "need." The empirical foci of the discussion are patterns in the use of strong and weak necessity modals in conversation, and the interpretation of syntactically and semantically…

In German, nouns are assigned to one of the three gender classes. For most animal names, however, the assignment is independent of the referent's biological sex. We examined whether German-speaking children understand this independence of grammar from semantics or whether they assume that grammatical gender is mapped onto biological sex when…

This paper investigates two naturally occurring business interpreting situations where there are a number of participants. Unlike dialogue interpreting situations where there are only two primary interlocutors, the overall interaction shows more complexity in these multi-party situations. This, in turn, means that the interpreters' functions and…

This study investigates the use of subject-verb agreement and verb argument structure in the spoken Dutch of monolingual Dutch children with specific language impairment (SLI) and bilingual Frisian-Dutch children with SLI. Both SLI groups appeared to be less efficient in their use of subject-verb agreement and verb argument structure than the…

This Teaching Tip article explores the importance of phrasing while reading. It also presents an instructional intervention strategy for helping students develop greater proficiency in reading with phrases that reflect the meaning of the text.

Gender priming studies have demonstrated facilitation of noun production following pre-activation of a target noun's grammatical gender. Findings provide support for models in which syntactic information relating to words is stored within the lexicon and activated during lexical retrieval. Priming effects are observed in the context of determiner…

All linguistic and psycholinguistic theories aim to provide psychologically valid analyses of particular grammatical patterns and the relationships that hold among them. Until recently, no tools were available to distinguish neural correlates of particular grammatical constructions that shared the same content words, propositional meaning, and…

Many people imagine dictionaries to be bulky tomes that are hard to lift and are only useful for quick translations or to check the meaning or spelling of difficult words. This paper aims to dispel that myth and show how online versions of monolingual English learners' dictionaries (MELDs) can be used pedagogically to engage students in academic…