The word order myth

1983 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard M. Weist
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
New Information ◽  
Comprehension Process

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this research was to investigate the function of word order, inflections and discourse context in the sentence comprehension process. Ten 2; 6 and ten 3; 6 Polish children acted out sentences with toys. The target sentences were either inflected or uninflected, and given inflectional information sentences were ordered SVO or OVS. Context sentences established given information which was in initial or final position in the target sentences. When inflectional information was available, all the children used it effectively with very little interference from OVS and new–given arrangements. In spite of the fact that word order distributes given and new information in adult Polish, children could utilize word order to recover semantic functions with uninflected sentence problems.

Processing subject focus across two Spanish varieties

Probus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-127
Author(s):  
Bradley Hoot ◽  
Tania Leal
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Judgment Task ◽  
Spanish Speakers ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Reading Task ◽  
New Information ◽  
Basic Facts

AbstractLinguists have keenly studied the realization of focus – the part of the sentence introducing new information – because it involves the interaction of different linguistic modules. Syntacticians have argued that Spanish uses word order for information-structural purposes, marking focused constituents via rightmost movement. However, recent studies have challenged this claim. To contribute sentence-processing evidence, we conducted a self-paced reading task and a judgment task with Mexican and Catalonian Spanish speakers. We found that movement to final position can signal focus in Spanish, in contrast to the aforementioned work. We contextualize our results within the literature, identifying three basic facts that theories of Spanish focus and theories of language processing should explain, and advance a fourth: that mismatches in information-structural expectations can induce processing delays. Finally, we propose that some differences in the existing experimental results may stem from methodological differences.

Cue conflicts in context: interplay between morphosyntax and discourse context in Danish preschoolers' semantic role assignment

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 1237-1266 ◽  
Author(s):  
DITTE BOEG THOMSEN ◽  
MADS POULSEN
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
First Language ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Contextual Cues ◽  
Semantic Roles ◽  
Role Assignment ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Basic Task

AbstractWhen learning their first language, children develop strategies for assigning semantic roles to sentence structures, depending on morphosyntactic cues such as case and word order. Traditionally, comprehension experiments have presented transitive clauses in isolation, and cross-linguistically children have been found to misinterpret object-first constructions by following a word-order strategy (Chan, Lieven & Tomasello, 2009; Dittmar, Abbot-Smith, Lieven & Tomasello, 2008; Hakuta, 1982; McDonald, 1989; Slobin & Bever, 1982). In an act-out study, we replicated this finding with Danish preschoolers. However, object-first clauses may be context-sensitive structures, which are infelicitous in isolation. In a second act-out study we presented OVS clauses in supportive and unsupportive discourse contexts and in isolation and found that five- to six-year-olds' OVS comprehension was enhanced in discourse-pragmatically felicitous contexts. Our results extend previous findings of preschoolers' sensitivity to discourse-contextual cues in sentence comprehension (Hurewitz, 2001; Song & Fisher, 2005) to the basic task of assigning agent and patient roles.

scholarly journals Word Order Alignment in Three-Argument Constructions of Irish

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (11 Zeszyt specjalny) ◽  
pp. 149-169
Author(s):  
Brian Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Functional Model ◽  
Word Alignment ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Linguistic Complexity ◽  
Role And Reference Grammar ◽  
Reference Grammar ◽  
New Information ◽  
Irish Data

This study examines the ordering of the actor (A), theme (T) and recipient (R) arguments in three-argument clauses, the prepositional ditransitive constructions of Irish. The ordering of the A, T and R arguments in three-argument clauses is an area where linguistic complexity is manifest in the Irish grammar. Across languages, the factors which influence word order adjustments, from a basic word order of A-T-R, are known to include iconicity, information structure and topicalisation, the distinction between given and new information, the effects of the various referential hierarchies, and syntactic weight. We show that some, but not all, of these apply to the Irish data. Under certain conditions, the word order of these Irish three-argument clauses changes in a different alignment. Specifically, if the T is an accusative pronoun then the word order alignment changes and consequently the T occurs after the R in clause final position, yielding an A R-T word order. We argue that post-positioning of the theme PN is due to the alignment effects that can be explained by reference to the nominal and person hierarchies, and their intersection with the principle of syntactic weight. The Irish grammar seems to be disposed to place the accusative object PN T in clause final position in word order, adding an imposed salience. We characterise the effects of the nominal and person hierarchies, and syntactic weight, on word order within these constructions. We use elements of the functional model of Role and Reference Grammar in this characterisation. These word alignment effects raise important questions of the distribution of linguistic complexity across the grammar of Irish, and the interfaces between semantics, and syntax, as well as information structure.

Sentence comprehension in heritage language: Isomorphism, word order, and language transfer

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832199790
Author(s):  
Anna Chrabaszcz ◽  
Elena Onischik ◽  
Olga Dragoy
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Language Transfer ◽  
Processing Strategy ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Linguistic Transfer

This study examines the role of cross-linguistic transfer versus general processing strategy in two groups of heritage speakers ( n = 28 per group) with the same heritage language – Russian – and typologically different dominant languages: English and Estonian. A group of homeland Russian speakers ( n = 36) is tested to provide baseline comparison. Within the framework of the Competition model (MacWhinney, 2012), cross-linguistic transfer is defined as reliance on the processing cue prevalent in the heritage speaker’s dominant language (e.g. word order in English) for comprehension of heritage language. In accordance with the Isomorphic Mapping Hypothesis (O’Grady and Lee, 2005), the general processing strategy is defined in terms of isomorphism as a linear alignment between the order of the sentence constituents and the temporal sequence of events. Participants were asked to match pictures on the computer screen with auditorily presented sentences. Sentences included locative or instrumental constructions, in which two cues – word order (basic vs. inverted) and isomorphism mapping (isomorphic vs. nonisomorphic) – were fully crossed. The results revealed that (1) Russian native speakers are sensitive to isomorphism in sentence processing; (2) English-dominant heritage speakers experience dominant language transfer, as evidenced by their reliance primarily on the word order cue; (3) Estonian-dominant heritage speakers do not show significant effects of isomorphism or word order but experience significant processing costs in all conditions.

The influence of discourse context on children's provision of auxiliary BE

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA L. THEAKSTON ◽  
ELENA V. M. LIEVEN
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Discourse Context ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Prior Use ◽  
Single Child ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Children's Speech

ABSTRACTChildren pass through a stage in development when they produce utterances that contain auxiliary BE (he's playing) and utterances where auxiliary BE is omitted (he playing). One explanation that has been put forward to explain this phenomenon is the presence of questions in the input that model S-V word order (Theakston, Lieven & Tomasello, 2003). The current paper reports two studies that investigate the role of the input in children's use and non-use of auxiliary BE in declaratives. In Study 1, 96 children aged from 2 ; 5 to 2 ; 10 were exposed to known and novel verbs modelled in questions only or declaratives only. In Study 2, naturalistic data from a dense database from a single child between the ages of 2 ; 8 to 3 ; 2 were examined to investigate the influence of (1) declaratives and questions in the input in prior discourse, and (2) the child's immediately previous use of declaratives where auxiliary BE was produced or omitted, on his subsequent use or non-use of auxiliary BE. The results show that in both the experimental and naturalistic contexts, the presence of questions in the input resulted in lower levels of auxiliary provision in the children's speech than in utterances following declaratives in the input. In addition, the children's prior use or non-use of auxiliary BE influenced subsequent use. The findings are discussed in the context of usage-based theories of language acquisition and the role of the language children hear in their developing linguistic representations.

scholarly journals Typological Shift in Bilinguals’ L1: Word Order and Case Marking in Two Varieties of Child Quechua

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Kalt ◽  
Jonathan A. Geary
Keyword(s):  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
New Information ◽  
Sentence Level ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Case Morphology ◽  
Grammatical Roles

We compare speech production and find morphosyntactic change among children and adolescents speaking two closely related varieties of Quechua in Cuzco, Peru, and Chuquisaca, Bolivia. Quechua languages traditionally employ Object-Verb (OV) word order in main clauses, but robust case marking permits other orders, especially to focalize new information through constituent fronting. In Chuquisaca, but not Cuzco, we find that schoolchildren often omit the accusative suffix -ta from direct objects while retaining a prosodic trace of -ta. In other varieties, loss of accusative marking is associated with a shift towards Verb-Object (VO) word order, as in Spanish. However, we find that Chuquisaqueños use more canonical OV and possessor-possessed order in declarative sentences than do Cuzqueños, who employ a wide range of word orders at the sentence level and deviate from the possessor-possessed norm for Quechua noun phrases. Our finding of more rigid word order in Chuquisaca highlights the complex factors contributing to typological shift in word order and morphology: Omission of case morphology places a greater burden on word order to identify grammatical roles. Further, we find that Chuquisaqueño schoolchildren alone have begun to use huk, “one,” to mark indefiniteness, perhaps to replace determiner-like functions ascribed to -ta and to obsolescent markers such as evidentials.

Comprehension of Reversible Sentences in Specifically Language-Impaired Children

1990 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather K. J. van der Lely ◽  
Margaret Harris
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Vocabulary Test ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Thematic Roles ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Impaired Children ◽  
Very High

This study investigated comprehension of reversible sentences in specifically language-impaired (SLI) children. Two experiments, using different paradigms, were undertaken. In Experiment 1, 14 SLI children (aged 4:10–7:10) were compared with children matched on chronological age and language age (LA). Subjects acted out 36 semantically reversible sentences that varied in thematic content (transitives, locatives, and datives) and in the order of thematic roles (canonical and noncanonical). The SLI children performed at a significantly lower level than both control groups. In Experiment 2, the same sentences were presented using a picture-pointing task. A single word vocabulary test preceded the test sentences to assess semantic knowledge of the predicates. Sixteen SLI children were compared with language age controls. No significant differences were found between the performance of the two groups on the vocabulary test, and in general, the results of Experiment 2 supported those of Experiment 1. Analysis of individual children's error patterns identified qualitative differences between the SLI children and the LA controls. The majority of SLI children had a very high proportion of word order errors. The proportion of word order errors of the SLI children, unlike those of the LA controls, was unrelated to language age. These findings are considered in relation to the processes involved in sentence comprehension.

The intonation of wh-questions in Franco-Ontarian

1973 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-101
Author(s):  
Renée Baligand ◽  
Eric James
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Important Research ◽  
Grammatical Structure ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Interrogative Sentence ◽  
Question Intonation

The melodic structure of an interrogative utterance frequently depends on the grammatical structure of the sentence in question. In addition to the enunciative sentence of the kind vous venez? which bears a particular acoustic mark of interrogation, a rise in fundamental frequency in sentence-final position, there exist also interrogative utterances signalled by inversion of word order and still others marked by lexical means, the WH-questions. It is the intonation of this latter type of sentence which we intend to examine in the Canadian-French spoken in Ontario.The intonation of interrogative sentences has for some years been the object of important research in different languages. Wells (1945) and Trager and Smith (1951) note in English an intonation curve at the following levels: 2 - 3 - 1 - without any tonal prominence on the interrogative word. Armstrong and Ward (1926), Jones (1932) and Faure (1948) also find that this type of interrogative sentence has a descending intonation. Fries (1964) finds no specific intonation pattern in a spontaneous corpus from which he studied yes-no questions. For German, Von Essen (1956) notes two intonation patterns: one rising (question intonation) and one falling (interrogative intonation).

Children's knowledge of hierarchical phrase structure: quantifier floating in Japanese

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
TAKAAKI SUZUKI ◽  
NAOKO YOSHINAGA
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Linear Ordering ◽  
Comprehension Strategy ◽  
Old Japanese ◽  
Floating Quantifiers ◽  
Children's Grammar

AbstractThe interpretation of floating quantifiers in Japanese requires knowledge of hierarchical phrase structure. However, the input to children is insufficient or even misleading, as our analysis indicates. This presents an intriguing question on learnability: do children interpret floating quantifiers based on a structure-dependent rule which is not obvious in the input or do they employ a sentence comprehension strategy based on the available input? Two experiments examined four- to six-year-old Japanese-speaking children for their interpretations of floating quantifiers in SOV and OSV sentences. The results revealed that no child employed a comprehension strategy in terms of the linear ordering of constituents, and most five- and six-year-olds correctly interpreted floating quantifiers when word-order difficulty was reduced. These facts indicate that children's interpretation of floating quantifiers is structurally dependent on hierarchical phrase structure, suggesting that this knowledge is a part of children's grammar despite the insufficient input available to them.

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