Input-output effects in the bilingual first language acquisition of English and Polish

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorota Gaskins
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Diary Study ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Input Output ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Usage Rates ◽  
Social Words

Abstract This diary study looks at the acquisition of early words in two bilingual sisters (0;9–2;03.22 and 0;9–1;09.13) exposed to English and Polish from birth. It examines whether their parents’ input recorded on video can explain the proportions of different types of words learnt. Their bias for social words is explained by these words being heard in isolation; that for nouns by competitive proportions of noun types heard in the input. Contrarily, the late acquisition of closed-class items is explained by their high usage rates as part of constructions. Meanwhile, high numbers of early verbs in both children’s Polish are explained by inflected Polish verbs being heard (a) in isolation and (b) at the beginning and end of utterances more frequently than their uninflected English counterparts. These results are discussed within the context of the usage-based theory, with focus on the impact of word types for the acquisition of word groups.

Internal motivations and formal approaches

2020 ◽  
pp. 188-221
Author(s):  
Anne Breitbarth ◽  
Christopher Lucas ◽  
David Willis
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
First Language ◽  
Negative Polarity ◽  
Semantic Features ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Linguistic Data ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Creation

This chapter argues that, while the creation of indefinites from generic nouns is grammaticalization in the form of upwards reanalysis from N to R, the quantifier and free-choice cycles do not in fact constitute instances of grammaticalization. Indefinites restricted to stronger negative-polarity contexts are not more functional than indefinites licensed in weaker negative-polarity contexts. Rather, it is argued that implicational semantic features requiring roofing by different types of operators situated in the Q head of indefinites, and in particular the way they are acquired in first language acquisition, are responsible for the diachronic developments. Negative concord items arise through an acquisitional mechanism maximizing the number of agreement relations in the acquired grammar consistent with the primary linguistic data.

scholarly journals Phonological processing in deaf signers and the impact of age of first language acquisition

NeuroImage ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 1369-1379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mairéad MacSweeney ◽  
Dafydd Waters ◽  
Michael J. Brammer ◽  
Bencie Woll ◽  
Usha Goswami
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Phonological Processing ◽  
First Language ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Deaf Signers

The impact of typological factors in monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Katharina Ochsenbauer ◽  
Helen Engemann
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
The Impact

The present study compares (1) monolingual English vs. French adults and children and (2) simultaneous French-English bilingual children who describe caused motion events. The results concerning L1 speakers showed developmental progressions in both languages, e.g., utterance complexity increases with age. However, response patterns differed considerably across languages in that responses were denser and more compact in English than in French. The results concerning bilingual children showed unidirectional crosslinguistic interactions. Responses elicited in English paralleled monolingual developmental patterns, whereas bilinguals’ French productions differed from those of monolingual French peers. The findings suggest that bilingual children transfer lexicalisation patterns from one of their languages to the other when the former provides more transparent means of achieving high semantic density.

scholarly journals The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
BEN AMBRIDGE ◽  
EVAN KIDD ◽  
CAROLINE F. ROWLAND ◽  
ANNA L. THEAKSTON
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Thematic Role ◽  
Frequency Effects ◽  
Different Types ◽  
As Effects ◽  
Theoretical Standpoint

ABSTRACTThis review article presents evidence for the claim that frequency effects are pervasive in children's first language acquisition, and hence constitute a phenomenon that any successful account must explain. The article is organized around four key domains of research: children's acquisition of single words, inflectional morphology, simple syntactic constructions, and more advanced constructions. In presenting this evidence, we develop five theses. (i) There exist different types of frequency effect, from effects at the level of concrete lexical strings to effects at the level of abstract cues to thematic-role assignment, as well as effects of both token and type, and absolute and relative, frequency. High-frequency forms are (ii) early acquired and (iii) prevent errors in contexts where they are the target, but also (iv) cause errors in contexts in which a competing lower-frequency form is the target. (v) Frequency effects interact with other factors (e.g. serial position, utterance length), and the patterning of these interactions is generally informative with regard to the nature of the learning mechanism. We conclude by arguing that any successful account of language acquisition, from whatever theoretical standpoint, must be frequency sensitive to the extent that it can explain the effects documented in this review, and outline some types of account that do and do not meet this criterion.

Infant-Directed Speech Effects in Adult Artificial Grammar Learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Sára Lukics ◽  
Ágnes Lukács
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Artificial Grammar ◽  
Combined Effect ◽  
First Language Acquisition ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Grammar Learning ◽  
Learning Rates

First language acquisition is facilitated by several characteristics of infant-directed speech, but we know little about their relative contribution to learning different aspects of language. We investigated infant-directed speech effects on the acquisition of a linear artificial grammar in two experiments. We examined the effect of incremental presentation of strings (starting small) and prosody (comparing monotonous, arbitrary and phrase prosody). Presenting shorter strings before longer ones led to higher learning rates compared to random presentation. Prosody marking phrases had a similar effect, yet, prosody without marking syntactic units did not facilitate learning. These studies were the first to test the starting small effect with a linear artificial grammar, and also the first to investigate the combined effect of starting small and prosody. Our results suggest that starting small and prosody facilitate the extraction of regularities from artificial linguistic stimuli, indicating they may play an important role in natural language acquisition.

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