We report 2 experiments using a sentence--picture matching task concerned with the interpretation of prepositional phrases that were ambiguous between high and low attachment (Branigan, Pickering, & McLean, 2005). After reading a prime sentence with a particular interpretation, participants tended to interpret an ambiguous prepositional phrase…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel citation recommendation system that inputs a text and recommends publications that should be cited by it. Its goal is to help researchers in finding related works. Further, this paper seeks to explore the effect of using relational features in addition to textual features on the quality of…

Subjectification, as the diachronic facet of subjectivity, has raised in the last two decades a number of interesting questions in grammaticalization and semantic change theory. In this paper I shall reflect on the nature and construal of subjectification, focusing on the question, formulated by Traugott (2010a, p. 58), "whether it is possible to…

Many important problems require consideration of multiple constraints, such as choosing a job based on salary, location, and responsibilities. We used the Remote Associates Test to study how people solve such multiply-constrained problems by asking participants to make guesses as they came to mind. We evaluated how people generated these guesses…

What is the relative salience of different aspects of word meaning in the developing lexicon? The current study examines the time-course of retrieval of semantic and color knowledge associated with words during toddler word recognition: At what point do toddlers orient toward an image of a yellow cup upon hearing color-matching words such as…

Knowledge capitalization is one of many problems facing online communities of practice (CoPs). Knowledge accumulated through the participation in the community must be capitalized for future reuse. Most of proposals are specific and focus on knowledge modeling disregarding the reuse of that knowledge. In this paper, we are particularly interested…

The present study explores the longitudinal development between Grade 3 word level reading skills and higher level semantic skills to Grade 10 reading comprehension for 3,157 students. In particular, this work focused on how the developmental relations varied for subsamples of students who are English learners (EL; N = 308), students identified as…

The study examines performance on an evaluation instrument for classroom use for the purpose of improving instruction that focuses on awareness of language in reading and writing. Findings are reported on the piloting of the first in a series of literacy assessments with students from a rural elementary school in Ecuador. All students who…

Since the colonization of the Americans, Filipinos have been using English as their second language and have been accustomed to using the language alongside local languages. The centuries of the extensive contact between American English and Filipino language raises questions pertaining language change and language identity. This paper reports the…

The present paper attempts to study the realization of refusal responses to invitations and requests among Yemen EFL learners in equal, higher and lower social status. It also aims to find out the pragmatic failure resulted from negative pragmatic transfer. In order to do so, refusals of 40 Yemeni EFL (20 high and 20 low proficient) learners were…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate discourses on globalisation and world society and to disclose the commonalities and differences of both scientific debates. In particular, it draws attention to theoretical concepts of globalisation and world society. This is considered fruitful for comprehending the complex mechanisms of…

As text sources are getting broader, measuring text similarity is becoming more compelling. Automatic text classification, search engines and auto answering systems are samples of applications that rely on text similarity. Learning management systems (LMS) are becoming more important since electronic media is getting more publicly available. As…

This article is comprised of two essays by Paul Alper. The first essay, "Linda VA AG 2013 and Knitting Needles," provides examples of how a natural language does not necessarily work the way of logic. The second essay, "Words," discusses how the words of winners tend to become what we call the enduring historical record. The…

Languages differ in how they package the components of an event into words to form sentences. For example, while some languages typically encode the manner of motion in the verb (e.g., running), others more often use verbs that encode the path (e.g., ascending). Prior research has demonstrated that children and adults have lexicalization biases;…

Purpose: To investigate sensitivity to prosodic and semantic cues to emotion in individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA). Method: Emotional prosody and semantics were independently manipulated to assess the relative influence of prosody versus semantics on speech processing. A sample of 10-year-old typically developing children (n = 10) and…