This article presents a study of preschool-aged children's knowledge of the semantics of the negative polarity item (NPI) "any". NPIs like "any" differ in distribution from non-polarity-sensitive indefinites like "a": "Any" is restricted to downward-entailing linguistic environments (Fauconnier 1975, 1979;…

I will propose a tentative framework of how words in two languages could be organized in the cerebral cortex based on neural assembly theory, according to which neurons that fire synchronously are bound into large-scale distributed functional units (assemblies), which represent a mental event as a whole ("gestalt"). For language this…

Drawing on the findings of longitudinal studies in uninstructed contexts over the last two decades, this synthesis explores variations in developmental patterns across second language (L2) pragmatic features. Two synthesis questions were addressed: (a) What are the variations in developmental patterns across pragmatic features?, and (b) What are…

A re-emergence in language documentation has brought with it a recent recognition of the potential contributions which collaboration with other disciplines has to offer linguistics. For example, ten chapters of the recently published Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Fieldwork (Thieberger 2012) were explicitly devoted to cross-discipline…

The intrinsic relationship between language and society has a great influence on how native English speakers evaluate the non-native ones. Such evaluation may lead to language discrimination, prejudice or other types of exclusion (BAGNO, 2007; CAMACHO, 2001; CALVET, 2002; GNERRE, 1985). In light of this perspective, this bibliographic study aims…

This paper deals with the study of tone in languages that additionally have a phonological contrastive of quantity, such as vowel length or stress. In such complex word-prosodic systems, tone and the quantity contrast(s) can be fully independent of one another, or they may interact. Both of these configurations are illustrated in this paper, and…

In this paper I review the methodology that I used in beginning my early fieldwork on a tonal Athabaskan language, including preparation through reading and listening, working with speakers, organizing data, and describing and analyzing the data, stressing how these are not steps or stages, but intersect and interact with each other.

Since its inception, the field of second language research has utilized methods from a number of areas, including general linguistics, psychology, education, sociology, anthropology and, recently, neuroscience and corpus linguistics. As the questions and objectives expand, researchers are increasingly pushing methodological boundaries to gain a…

Natural language processing (NLP) provides a powerful approach for discourse processing researchers. However, there remains a notable degree of hesitation by some researchers to consider using NLP, at least on their own. The purpose of this article is to introduce and make available a "simple" NLP (SiNLP) tool. The overarching goal of…

The Hebrew verbal system is riddled with difficulties that have caused Hebraist much consternation for centuries. The study of the Hebrew verb system is complicated further because no living informant of the language exists. Without a living witness of the language, uncovering the nuances has been limited to the corpus of written material…

This article focuses on the description of one of the main features of current multilingualism, complexity, through a selection of issues related to its role in L2 acquisition, as the proper notion of multilingualism, multilingualism as a social phenomenon and multilingualism as a multidimensional phenomenon. We also present several aspects of…

Negation in modern Mongolian was analyzed by scholars namely: Luvsanvandan Sh (1968, 2000), Wonsoo Yu (1991), Mönkh-Amgalan Yu (1998), Purev-Ochir B. (1998, 2001), Byambasan P. (2006), Kunihiko Hasimoto (2008), BatIreedui J.(2009), Ravdan E. (2009), Mönkh-Amgalan Yu & Kan Shin (2014). Sentential negation in modern Mongolian is not sufficiently…

The present paper demonstrates that insights from the affordances perspective can contribute to developing a more comprehensive model of grammaticalization. The authors argue that the grammaticalization process is afforded differently depending on the values of three contributing parameters: the factor (schematized as a qualitative-quantitative…

In this conceptual article we invite multilingual researchers to consider the concept of translanguaging through the lens of human capital theory. Our thinking about the interconnections among human capital, multilingualism, and translanguaging is motivated by our research in border "colonias" and other minoritized communities in South…

There has been considerable debate about the relevance and applicability of SLA theory and research for L2 pedagogy. There are those who maintain that SLA must be applicable to L2 pedagogy: a view based on the argument that because SLA is a subfield of applied linguistics, it should have direct relevance to L2 teaching. Others take the view that…