The acquisition of argument structures of intransitive and transitive verbs in Japanese: The role of parental input

The present study investigated the role of morphosyntactic information in the acquisition of transitive and intransitive verb argument structures (VAS) in the Japanese language, which allows massive omissions of arguments and case markers. In particular, we investigated how the ‘variation sets’ proposed by Küntay and Slobin work in Japanese. Longitudinal interaction data from three Japanese-speaking mother–child pairs were collected at five different times between the ages of 0;10 and 3;01. Children’s acquisition of VAS and mothers’ use of verbs were examined, including morphologically related verbs in a variety of sentence frames with null and overt arguments. The results indicate that all three mothers showed an increase in overt arguments in different syntactic roles as well as lexical given arguments around the time that children started uttering words. However, the use of a variety of sentence frames with null and overt arguments was not uniform among the mothers, and such individual differences were related to the acquisition of VAS among children. These findings support the role of ‘variation sets’ in the acquisition of VAS in Japanese and suggest that the availability of morphosyntactic information in the input helps children to reconstruct VAS.

Sun-health behaviours and attitudes towards sun safety amongst Australian teenagers: a qualitative update

Objective This study aimed to explore current attitudes towards sun protection, and sun-seeking behaviour among young Australian adolescents. It was done as part of a larger project aiming to develop a digital resource to support young people in making informed sun-health decisions. Results Ten (4 male, 6 female) adolescents (12–13 years of age) living in Perth (Western Australia) were recruited through a social media-based strategy. Each participant engaged in a semi-structured telephone interview which explored their sun-health decision-making, with interview transcripts assessed qualitatively using NVivo. Three major themes (and eight sub-themes) were identified: (1) ‘personal sun health considerations’; (2) ‘attitudes towards sun protection’; and (3) ‘recommendations’. The importance of sun protection was appreciated by participants. However, females were more diligent in the use of sun protection while males were indifferent. Behaviours were influenced by parental input, the school environment and engagement in sport. Adolescents had limited knowledge of the UV Index and its implications for sun protection, and the health importance of sun-derived vitamin D. Overall, the importance of sun protection was acknowledged but did not consistently translate into sun protective behaviours.

Ecological-evolutionary ethology of the amphibians: conceptual synthesis of research results at regional and European level

Following long-term investigations of over 50 amphibian populations in the Republic of Moldova and Italy, the ecological and evolutionary peculiarities of reproductive behavior in some species of the orders Caudata and Anura were elucidated. For the first time, at the autecological and synecological level, the evaluation of amphibian nuptial systems - parental input, reproductive success, “r” and “K” reproductive strategies and their role in the evolution of sexual selection and the realization of the reproduction potential as a fundamental mechanism for the survival of amphibian populations in various environmental conditions was emphasized.

Stylistic Variation and the Role of Dialect Contact in the leísmo of Basque-Spanish

There is considerable debate with respect to the status of Basque-Spanish leísmo as a contact phenomenon. To address this conundrum, the present study adds another variable, dialect contact and examines the synchronic variation of Basque-Spanish leísmo among educated young speakers, paying special attention to possible stylistic effects. The speech of 41 Basque-Spanish speakers was gathered by means of sociolinguistic interviews and an elicited production task. Participants were stratified by region: 22 speakers were recruited from Gernika where contact with Basque has been intense and compared to 19 speakers from the Greater Bilbao Area where the contact with Basque is less strong. Dialect contact was operationalized through parental input (Basque Country vs. Monolingual Spain). Results indicate that leísmo is quite extended in the Spanish of the Basque Country and mainly driven by animacy. Basque-Spanish leísmo is also subject to stylistic effects, whereby animacy and grammatical gender effects were found, suggesting that Basque-Spanish speakers alternate between two systems depending on speech formality. Finally, results indicate that parental origin had an effect in Bilbao, but not in Gernika. I situate these results within a discussion of previous work on dialect contact.

Early Rearing Conditions Affect Monoamine Metabolite Levels During Baseline and Periods of Social Separation Stress: A Non-human Primate Model (Macaca mulatta)

A variety of studies show that parental absence early in life leads to deleterious effects on the developing CNS. This is thought to be largely because evolutionary-dependent stimuli are necessary for the appropriate postnatal development of the young brain, an effect sometimes termed the “experience-expectant brain,” with parents providing the necessary input for normative synaptic connections to develop and appropriate neuronal survival to occur. Principal among CNS systems affected by parental input are the monoamine systems. In the present study, N = 434 rhesus monkeys (233 males, 201 females) were reared in one of two conditions: as mother-reared controls (MR; n = 269) or without adults with 24-h access to same-aged peers (PR; n = 165). When subjects were six-months-old, they underwent a separation paradigm involving 4, sequential, four-day social separations from their mothers or peers, with each separation followed by three-day reunions with their mothers or their peers. Prior to the separation paradigm, baseline cisternal CSF samples were obtained, as well as at the end of each the four social separations, and after final separation, during a recovery period. CSF was assayed for concentrations of monoamine metabolites and a blood sample was genotyped for the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype. Replicating earlier landmark findings, PR subjects with the s allele exhibited lower baseline concentrations of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), when compared to PR subjects homozygous for the L allele. MR subjects were undifferentiated by genotype. PR subjects exhibited lower CSF 5-HIAA concentrations during baseline, but higher CSF 5-HIAA during social separations, when compared to MR subjects. There were rearing effects for the dopamine metabolite homovanillic acid (HVA) and for the norepinephrine metabolite 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), with PR subjects showing higher HVA and lower MHPG when compared to MR subjects. These findings indicate that there are long-term deficits in the response of monoamines following early maternal absence. The results of this study confirm and extend earlier findings that early parental absence has deleterious consequences for the development of the monoamine systems, and that these consequences are modulated by the 5-HTT genotype.

A Four-Year Longitudinal Comparative Study on the Lexicon Development of Russian and Turkish Heritage Speakers in Germany

Russian and Turkish are the most frequently spoken and intensively investigated heritage languages in Germany, but contrastive research on their development in early childhood is still missing. This longitudinal study compares the trajectories of expressive lexicon development in Russian (n = 70) and Turkish (n = 79) heritage speakers and identifies predictors for their lexicon size at preschool age. Heritage lexicon size was tested with two comparable tests assessing the expressive lexicon at four test points between the mean ages of 3.3 (range: 25–49 months) and 5.6 (range: 54–78 months) years. The influence of language-related factors, such as input quantity, parents’ heritage language proficiency and age of onset (AoO) of German, and other potential predictors, i.e., intelligence and socio-economic status, is evaluated. Results show that the Turkish group’s abilities grow slower but are similar at the last test point. Common predictors for lexicon size are input quantity from siblings and AoO. Group-specific influences are parental input quantity in the Russian group and siblings’ proficiency in the Turkish group. Our findings emphasize the interplay of input quantity and society language AoO for heritage lexicon development. The relevance of our results for the usage-based theory of language acquisition is discussed.