Form-priming effects from sublexical (syllabic or segmental) primes in masked priming can be accounted for in two ways. One is the sublexical pre-activation view according to which segments are pre-activated by the prime, and at the time the form-related target is to be produced, retrieval/assembly of those pre-activated segments is faster…

We describe an experiment that investigated the failure to license polarity items in German using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The results reveal distinct processing reflexes associated with failure to license positive polarity items in comparison to failure to license negative polarity items. Failure to license both negative and…

Event-related potentials were recorded in a paradigm where an unrelated word was interposed between two related words. In one condition, the intervening item was masked and in another condition it was not. The N400 component indicated that priming of the related word was disrupted by the intervening item whether it was masked or not. The data are…

"QuickAssist," the program presented in this paper, uses natural language processing (NLP) technologies. It places a range of NLP tools at the disposal of learners, intended to enable them to independently read and comprehend a German text of their choice while they extend their vocabulary, learn about different uses of particular words,…

Phonological acquisition traditionally has been measured using constructs that focus on segments rather than the whole words. Findings from recent research have suggested whole-word productions be evaluated using measures such as phonological mean length of utterance (pMLU) and the proportion of whole-word proximity (PWP). These measures have been…

A number of studies have shown that bilingual children have an advantage when performing on phonological awareness tasks, particularly in their stronger language. Little research has been done to date, examining the effects of bilingualism on both languages of bilingual children. In this study Mandarin-English bilingual children's performance on…

Adele Miccio recognized the paucity of information on the phonological development of children from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and emphasized the need to apply advances in bilingual phonological research toward an appropriate phonological measure for bilingual children. In the spirit of her pioneering work, the present study…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the psychometric properties of a non-word repetition task (NRT), the Late-8 Non-word Repetition Task (L8NRT). This task was designed similarly to the NRT, but contains only Late-8 consonants to increase articulatory demands and avoid ceiling effects in studies with adolescents and adults. Thirty college…

For teachers of a second language (L2), the role of grammar instruction in the classroom has been a perennial subject of debate and has undergone many changes over the years. For example, the once well-respected traditional methods that relied on extensive drilling and memorization of grammar evoked a backlash in the 1970s, which resulted in new…

This paper attempts to address the issue of language development in hearing impaired children. It argues that interpreters, teachers or peers can provide deaf children with language exposure so that they can acquire their native languages more easily. It also argues that the provision of a developmentally appropriate print-rich environments is the…

A large-scale study of complex "wh"-questions with 1,000 subjects aged 4-9 years is reported. The subjects' dialects were Mainstream American English or African American English, and approximately one-third were language impaired. The study examined when children permit long distance "wh"-movement, and when they respect a variety of syntactic…

This article deals with current notions of idiomaticity. It argues that lack of adequate empirical study and scholarship has prompted some authors to apply research findings from first language (L1) to second language (L2) contexts without scrutinizing more closely the factors affecting L2 idiom understanding. As a result, certain propositions…

The role of morphology in reading aloud was examined measuring naming latencies to pseudowords and words composed of morphemes (roots and derivational suffixes) and corresponding simple pseudowords and words. Three groups of Italian children of different ages and reading abilities, including dyslexic children, as well as one group of adult readers…

The present study examined the general hypothesis that, as for nouns, stable representations of semantic knowledge relative to situations expressed by verbs are available and accessible in long term memory in normal people. Regular associations between verbs and past tenses in French adults allowed to abstract two superordinate semantic features…

Purpose: Previous findings from event-related brain potentials (ERPs) indicate that adults who stutter (AWS) exhibit processing differences for visually presented linguistic information. This study explores how neural activations for AWS may differ for a linguistic task that does not require preparation for overt articulation or engage the…