scholarly journals Experience with code-switching modulates the use of grammatical gender during sentence processing

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge R. Valdés Kroff ◽  
Paola E. Dussias ◽  
Chip Gerfen ◽  
Lauren Perrotti ◽  
M. Teresa Bajo
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Gender Effect ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Asymmetric Effect ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
English Bilingual

Abstract Using code-switching as a tool to illustrate how language experience modulates comprehension, the visual world paradigm was employed to examine the extent to which gender-marked Spanish determiners facilitate upcoming target nouns in a group of Spanish-English bilingual code-switchers. The first experiment tested target Spanish nouns embedded in a carrier phrase (Experiment 1b) and included a control Spanish monolingual group (Experiment 1a). The second set of experiments included critical trials in which participants heard code-switches from Spanish determiners into English nouns (e.g., la house) either in a fixed carrier phrase (Experiment 2a) or in variable and complex sentences (Experiment 2b). Across the experiments, bilinguals revealed an asymmetric gender effect in processing, showing facilitation only for feminine target items. These results reflect the asymmetric use of gender in the production of code-switched speech. The extension of the asymmetric effect into Spanish (Experiment 1b) underscores the permeability between language modes in bilingual code-switchers.

Grammatical gender selection and phrasal word order in child heritage Spanish: A feature re-assembly approach

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEJANDRO CUZA ◽  
ROCÍO PÉREZ-TATTAM
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Language Experience ◽  
Gender Assignment ◽  
English Bilingual

The present study examines the development of grammatical gender assignment, agreement, and noun-adjective word order in child heritage Spanish among thirty-two Spanish–English bilingual children born and raised in the United States. A picture-naming task revealed significant overextension of the masculine form and high levels of ungrammatical word order strings. There were no significant differences by age regarding gender concord or noun-adjective word order. We argue that the differences found can be accounted for in terms of a re-assembly of gender features leading to both morphological and syntactic variability. This approach allows for subsequent morphosyntactic shifts during early childhood depending on patterns of language use, and conceptualizes heritage language variation along the lines of current linguistic theorizing regarding the role of innate linguistic principles and language experience in language development.

Processing delays

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 65-78
Author(s):  
Loes Koring ◽  
Hans van de Koot
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Exact Time ◽  
On Line

Abstract An eye-tracking experiment using the Visual World Paradigm (VWP) shows that in on-line sentence processing in English the argument of an unaccusative verb reactivates late after verb offset. In contrast to previous studies, this VWP experiment establishes the exact time course of this effect, which matches the time course previously found for Dutch, despite differences in word order between the two languages. Furthermore, it uncovers an early reactivation of the argument of unergative verbs that has previously gone unnoticed. Such an effect has previously been observed for Dutch, but not for English. Moreover, the effect seems to occur earlier in English than in Dutch. We suggest that this difference may be due to the more rigid word order of English, which provides the parser with more informative cues.

scholarly journals Pronouns, Interrogatives, and (Quichua-Media Lengua) Code-Switching: The Eyes Have It

Languages ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
John M. Lipski
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Code Switching ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Subject Pronouns ◽  
Mixed Language ◽  
Relative Delay ◽  
Lexical Items

This study examines the processing of two putatively problematic intra-sentential code-switching configurations, following subject pronouns and interrogatives, in a bilingual speech community in which there are no confounding grammatical differences. The languages are Ecuadoran Quichua and the mixed language known as Media Lengua, consisting of the entire Quichua morphosyntactic system but with all lexical roots replaced by their Spanish counterparts. In eye-tracking processing experiments utilizing the visual world paradigm with auditorily presented stimuli, Quichua–Media Lengua bilinguals identified the languages more quickly after pronouns and interrogatives than after lexical items, while acknowledgement of code-switches after pronouns and interrogatives was delayed in comparison with switches following lexical items. The facilitation effect of pronouns and interrogatives evidently provokes a surprise reaction when they are immediately followed by items from another language, and this relative delay may play a role in the low acceptability of code-switched utterances that otherwise violate no grammatical constraints.

Facilitative use of grammatical gender in Heritage Spanish

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zuzanna Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Lexical Retrieval ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
Heritage Speakers Of Spanish

Abstract This paper presents an eye-tracking study using the Visual World Paradigm that tests whether participants are able to access gender information on definite articles and deploy it to facilitate lexical retrieval of subsequent nouns. A comparison of heritage speakers of Spanish with control monolingual speakers of Spanish suggests that the heritage speakers’ performance on this task is qualitatively similar to that of the baseline. This suggests that, despite non-target-like performance in offline tasks targeting gender production and comprehension, heritage speakers of Spanish can use gender in a target-like manner in online tasks. In line with proposals put forth by Grüter et al. (2012) and Montrul et al. (2014), a preliminary comparison with previous work on L2 learners (Lew-Williams & Fernald, 2010; Grüter et al., 2012; Dussias et al., 2013) provides tentative support for the idea that the nature of early language learning is crucial in developing the ability to use grammatical gender to facilitate lexical retrieval (Grüter et al., 2012; Montrul et al., 2014).

scholarly journals Are Dutch posture verbs lexical or functional elements?

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 40-64
Author(s):  
Iris Mulders
Keyword(s):  
Functional Property ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Functional Elements ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Reference Resolution

Abstract In Dutch, posture verbs like liggen ‘lie’ and staan ‘stand’ are obligatorily used in locative constructions with inanimate subjects, classifying the spatial Figure-Ground relation. Prima facie, in this use, posture verbs seem more like functional elements than like lexical verbs. This paper investigates processing of Dutch posture verbs in a reference resolution task in the visual world paradigm, to get more clarity on the nature of these verbs. We know that lexical verbs like rinkelen ‘ring’ cause anticipatory looks towards a matching target referent like telefoon ‘telephone’; and that they suppress looks to a phonological competitor like telescoop ‘telescope’. The functional property of grammatical gender on determiners (de vs. het) is less robust in directing looks. When it comes to anticipating the target referent, and suppressing looks to a phonological competitor, do posture verbs pattern with lexical verbs, or with functional elements like grammatical gender?

scholarly journals On-line processing of English which-questions by children and adults: a visual world paradigm study

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 415-441 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARLA CONTEMORI ◽  
MATTHEW CARLSON ◽  
THEODOROS MARINIS
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Visual World Paradigm ◽  
Number Agreement ◽  
Garden Path ◽  
Initial Preference ◽  
Syntactic Information ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
On Line ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractPrevious research has shown that children demonstrate similar sentence processing reflexes to those observed in adults, but they have difficulties revising an erroneous initial interpretation when they process garden-path sentences, passives, and wh-questions. We used the visual-world paradigm to examine children's use of syntactic and non-syntactic information to resolve syntactic ambiguity by extending our understanding of number features as a cue for interpretation to which-subject and which-object questions. We compared children's and adults’ eye-movements to understand how this information shapes children's commitment to and revision of possible interpretations of these questions. The results showed that English-speaking adults and children both exhibit an initial preference to interpret an object-which question as a subject question. While adults quickly override this preference, children take significantly longer, showing an overall processing difficulty for object questions. Crucially, their recovery from an initially erroneous interpretation is speeded when disambiguating number agreement features are present.

When Hearing Does Not Mean Understanding: On the Neural Processing of Syntactically Complex Sentences by Listeners With Hearing Loss

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Margreet Vogelzang ◽  
Christiane M. Thiel ◽  
Stephanie Rosemann ◽  
Jochem W. Rieger ◽  
Esther Ruigendijk
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Cognitive Demands ◽  
Sentence Complexity ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
And Task

Purpose Adults with mild-to-moderate age-related hearing loss typically exhibit issues with speech understanding, but their processing of syntactically complex sentences is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that listeners with hearing loss' difficulties with comprehension and processing of syntactically complex sentences are due to the processing of degraded input interfering with the successful processing of complex sentences. Method We performed a neuroimaging study with a sentence comprehension task, varying sentence complexity (through subject–object order and verb–arguments order) and cognitive demands (presence or absence of a secondary task) within subjects. Groups of older subjects with hearing loss ( n = 20) and age-matched normal-hearing controls ( n = 20) were tested. Results The comprehension data show effects of syntactic complexity and hearing ability, with normal-hearing controls outperforming listeners with hearing loss, seemingly more so on syntactically complex sentences. The secondary task did not influence off-line comprehension. The imaging data show effects of group, sentence complexity, and task, with listeners with hearing loss showing decreased activation in typical speech processing areas, such as the inferior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus. No interactions between group, sentence complexity, and task were found in the neuroimaging data. Conclusions The results suggest that listeners with hearing loss process speech differently from their normal-hearing peers, possibly due to the increased demands of processing degraded auditory input. Increased cognitive demands by means of a secondary visual shape processing task influence neural sentence processing, but no evidence was found that it does so in a different way for listeners with hearing loss and normal-hearing listeners.

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