While previous sociolinguistic research has demonstrated that children faithfully acquire probabilistic input constrained by sociolinguistic and linguistic factors (e.g., gender and socioeconomic status), research suggests children regularize inconsistent input-probabilistic input that is not sociolinguistically constrained (e.g., Hudson Kam &…

This study explores the source of transfer in third language (L3) English by two distinct groups of Catalan-Spanish bilinguals, simultaneous bilinguals and late bilinguals. Our study addresses two research questions: (1) Does transfer come from the first language (L1), the second language (L2), or both? and (2) Does age of acquisition of the L2…

This paper describes a project developed within an ongoing study at the University of Athens. In our previous studies we analyzed the errors of Greek learners of Italian language, using Learner Corpora evidence and we retrieved useful information about their interlanguage and its interaction to the language learning process. In this study we…

Research on linguistic variation suggests that usage patterns are deeply embedded in native and non-native speakers' knowledge of grammar. This study explores the transfer of these variable sociolinguistic patterns at the initial stages of third language acquisition. We elicited narratives in Portuguese from two mirror-image groups of sequential…

Considering the controversy about the nature of ergativity, the issue of whether a case morpheme is theta assigning or just structural case-marking, the present study tried to provide an evidence for either side or both. To this aim, the acquisition and use of ergative verbs were studied and possible explications of the errors were presented.…

This article explores what kind of second language (L2) input influences Japanese learners' acquisition of adjective ordering restrictions (AOR) in English where Japanese exhibits no AOR. In Study I, an explicit instruction (EI) group (n = 13) and a natural exposure (NE) group (n = 12) responded to a preference task. In Study II, an input flood…

The current study aims to explore the perceptions of 55 Turkish EFL student teachers towards using corpus-based materials in English phrasal-prepositional verb learning. It also explores gender-based differences and similarities towards using such materials in the learning of English phrasal-prepositional verbs. To do so, the study adopted a mixed…

The aim of this study was twofold: first, to develop an experimental technique as a tool to investigate learning outcomes of spontaneous, naturalistic second language (L2) learning under controlled laboratory conditions; and second, to explore how this technique can be used to understand the basic conditions and limits of this learning. Two…

Variability in the form of article (i.e., a and the) omissions and stressing has been attributed to a mismatch between first (L1) and second language (L2) prosodic and syntactic structures. An overlap between the L1 and L2 systems, on the other hand, is expected to contribute to native-like article productions. This case study aims to explore the…

Cross-linguistically, monolingual children produce target-like inflected verbs much earlier than they can reliably distinguish between singular and plural subject-verb agreement morphology in comprehension (i.e. Johnson, V., J. de Villiers, and H. Seymour. 2005. "Agreement Without Understanding? The Case of Third Person Singular /s/."…

Relative-clause sentences (RCs) have been a key test case for psycholinguistic models of comprehension. While object-relative clauses (e.g., ORCs: "The bear that 'the horse' . . .") are distinguished from subject-relative clauses (SRCs) after the second noun phrase (NP2; e.g., SRCs: "The bear that 'pushed' . . ."), role…

The study aims to analyze the distributional features of adverbial modifier of manner in two languages that are typologically and genealogically different: English and Azerbaijani. Although the issue has been focused in these languages separately from various angles including semantic, syntactic and prosodic perspectives, there is a gap in the…

This study examined the development of and possible predictors of interrogative forms and functions in early childhood Mandarin. All the interrogatives drawn from the Early Child Mandarin Corpus (168 children 2;6, 3;6, 4;6, and 5;6) were analyzed. The main results indicated that (i) there were significant age effects in interrogative forms and…

This study investigates relationships between acquisition of exhaustivity in single and multiple "wh"-questions, mastery of semantic and pragmatic aspects of quantifier comprehension, and general skills in receptive grammar. The participants of the study were 25 Polish monolingual typically developing children aged 4;02-6;02, who were…

In this study we compare the titles of scientific letters and those of research papers published in the field of astrophysics in order to identify the possible differences and/or similarities between both genres in terms of several linguistic and extra-linguistic variables (length, lexical density, number of prepositions, number of compound…