Testing a computational model of causative overgeneralizations: Child judgment and production data from English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese and K’iche’

How do language learners avoid the production of verb argument structure overgeneralization errors (*The clown laughed the man c.f. The clown made the man laugh), while retaining the ability to apply such generalizations productively when appropriate? This question has long been seen as one that is both particularly central to acquisition research and particularly challenging. Focussing on causative overgeneralization errors of this type, a previous study reported a computational model that learns, on the basis of corpus data and human-derived verb-semantic-feature ratings, to predict adults’ by-verb preferences for less- versus more-transparent causative forms (e.g., * The clown laughed the man vs The clown made the man laugh) across English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese and K’iche Mayan. Here, we tested the ability of this model (and an expanded version with multiple hidden layers) to explain binary grammaticality judgment data from children aged 4;0-5;0, and elicited-production data from children aged 4;0-5;0 and 5;6-6;6 (N=48 per language). In general, the model successfully simulated both children’s judgment and production data, with correlations of r=0.5-0.6 and r=0.75-0.85, respectively, and also generalized to unseen verbs. Importantly, learners of all five languages showed some evidence of making the types of overgeneralization errors – in both judgments and production – previously observed in naturalistic studies of English (e.g., *I’m dancing it). Together with previous findings, the present study demonstrates that a simple learning model can explain (a) adults’ continuous judgment data, (b) children’s binary judgment data and (c) children’s production data (with no training of these datasets), and therefore constitutes a plausible mechanistic account of the acquisition of verbs’ argument structure restrictions.

The interaction of working memory capacity and engagement with recasts on different L2 outcome measures: A replication of Révész ()

We report on a conceptual replication of Révész (2012) in order to investigate the idea whether learners provided with recasts do engage in different kinds of behavioral engagement as a function of their working memory and if/how this engagement comes to bear on performance on different measures. Engagement with recasts was measured through a coding method categorizing responses to the recasts running the gamut from: (1) no opportunity, (2) opportunity, but did not repeat, (3) repeated the recasted form, (4) negotiated the response, to (5) used the recasted form later in the discourse. Consistent with Révész (2012), though with lower effect sizes, the results showed that recasts were most conducive to gains on an oral task and less so on a written description task, but non-effective on a grammaticality judgment task. Furthermore, it was revealed that learners with a high phonological short-term memory were more prone to recast-induced engagement on an oral production task, whereas those enjoying a higher reading span were considerably less so. We propose that learner engagement be deemed more important in future interaction research.

Aspect in Heritage Greek: evidence from elicited production and online judgments

This study tests grammatical aspect in adult Heritage Speakers (HSs) of Greek in Germany (HSs-Germany) and the US (HSs-US), a topic which has not been investigated before for this language, exploring the role of the dominant language and the default value as an acquisition strategy. In an oral elicitation task (Experiment 1) targeting the production of aspectual marking in Greek, Greek monolinguals (MSs) and HSs-Germany exhibited ceiling performance, while HSs-US were significantly less accurate. Education in Greek reliably predicted their accuracy. In a speeded Grammaticality Judgment task (Experiment 2) targeting the comprehension of aspect in a Grammaticality x Aspect repeated measures design, similar results were obtained for the grammatical conditions as in Experiment 1. In ungrammatical conditions, accuracy on aspect was affected for all groups, and this was more evident for HSs. HSs-US were overall less accurate with the morphologically marked form (perfective). Decision Times (DTs) revealed that only MSs and HSs-Germany were sensitive to aspect violations exhibiting longer DTs. Education in Greek reliably predicted accuracy and DTs. The results are discussed within the realm of heritage languages, language contact, and aspect acquisition in Greek bilingual populations. Finally, certain novel verbal forms produced by HSs are also discussed.

Disparate Oral and Written Language Abilities in Adolescents With Cochlear Implants: Evidence From Narrative Samples

Purpose: In spite of improvements in language outcomes for children with hearing loss (HL) arising from cochlear implants (CIs), these children can falter when it comes to academic achievement, especially in higher grades. Given that writing becomes increasingly relevant to educational pursuits as children progress through school, this study explored the hypothesis that one challenge facing students with CIs may be written language. Method: Participants were 98 eighth graders: 52 with normal hearing (NH) and 46 with severe-to-profound HL who used CIs. Oral and written narratives were elicited and analyzed for morphosyntactic complexity and global narrative features. Five additional measures were collected and analyzed as possible predictors of morphosyntactic complexity: Sentence Comprehension of Syntax, Grammaticality Judgment, Expressive Vocabulary, Forward Digit Span, and Phonological Awareness. Results: For oral narratives, groups performed similarly on both morphosyntactic complexity and global narrative features; for written narratives, critical differences were observed. Compared with adolescents with NH, adolescents with CIs used fewer markers of morphosyntactic complexity and scored lower on several global narrative features in their written narratives. Adolescents with NH outperformed those with CIs on all potential predictor measures, except for Sentence Comprehension of Syntax. Moderately strong relationships were found between predictor variables and individual measures of morphosyntactic complexity, but no comprehensive pattern explained the results. Measures of morphosyntactic complexity and global narrative features were not well correlated, suggesting these measures are assessing separate underlying constructs. Conclusions: Adolescents with CIs fail to show writing proficiency at high school entry equivalent to that of their peers with NH, which could constrain their academic achievement. Interventions for children with CIs need to target writing skills, and writing assessments should be incorporated into diagnostic assessments. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.17139059

DOUBLE-NUMBER MARKING MATTERS FOR BOTH L1 AND L2 PROCESSING OF NONLOCAL AGREEMENT SIMILARLY

The present study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine nonlocal agreement processing between native (L1) English speakers and Chinese–English second language (L2) learners, whose L1 lacks number agreement. We manipulated number marking with determiners (the vs. that/these) to see how determiner-specification influences both native and nonnative processing downstream for verbal number agreement. Behavioral and ERP results suggest both groups detected nonlocal agreement violations, indexed by a P600 effect. Moreover, the manipulation of determiner-number specification revealed a facilitation effect across the board in both grammaticality judgment and ERP responses for both groups: increased judgment accuracy and a larger P600 effect amplitude for sentences containing violations with demonstratives rather than bare determiners. Contrary to some claims regarding the potential for nonnative processing, the present data suggest that L1 and L2 speakers show similar ERP responses when processing agreement, even when the L1 lacks the relevant distinction.

Brief inductive learning but not explicit instruction of a new grammar can produce a Whorfian effect

It is known that brief training on new vocabulary and metaphors can shift how we represent concepts and categorize stimuli even when we are not using the language. But it remains unknown whether brief training on grammar can also produce such ‘Whorfian’ effects. Besides, previous studies have neglected how the way in which the language was learned might be a factor. To fill these gaps, Mandarin native speakers learned a new grammatical marker of transitivity through either inductive training or explicit instruction. In subsequent non-verbal matching task the inductively trained group based their judgments on the number of entities involved in motion events to a greater extent than controls naïve to the grammar, but the explicitly trained group did not, despite showing equivalent knowledge of the grammar in a grammaticality judgment task. We interpret the effects in terms of dynamic and unconscious top-down feedback from grammar to lower-level perceptual processes.

Developing Language-Specific Models Using a Neural Architecture Search

This paper applies the neural architecture search (NAS) method to Korean and English grammaticality judgment tasks. Based on the previous research, which only discusses the application of NAS on a Korean dataset, we extend the method to English grammatical tasks and compare the resulting two architectures from Korean and English. Since complex syntactic operations exist beneath the word order that is computed, the two different resulting architectures out of the automated NAS language modeling provide an interesting testbed for future research. To the extent of our knowledge, the methodology adopted here has not been tested in the literature. Crucially, the resulting structure of the NAS application shows an unexpected design for human experts. Furthermore, NAS has generated different models for Korean and English, which have different syntactic operations.

Interspeaker variation in the negated perfective aspect of Zamboanga Chavacano

Framed from four perspectives, (1) Schütze & Curbach (2019), grammaticality judgment and linguistic methodology; (2) Mcwhorter’s (2011), description of the complexity of creoles as flourishing over time from an original state; (3) Steinkruger (2013), explanation of negated sentences in the perfective aspect; and (4) Lee (2005), delineation of native speakers of a language, this research paper looked into the combination of the negator nohay and the perfective aspect markers ya and yan (ya man) in the sentence. A negated sentence with a perfective aspect is a structure that seems to be accepted by some native speakers of Chavacano (or Chabacano) but rejected by others. In the literature, only Steinkruger (2013), describes the permissibility of the forenamed combination in the syntactic structure of Chavacano. It was hypothesized that such a combination is acceptable in Chavacano and that there is an interspeaker variation pertinent to its acceptability. To confirm these hypotheses, data were collected via grammaticality judgment from 105 native Chavacano speakers and another set of data were collected via interview from 10 native speakers of Chavacano for corroborative purposes.

English Adjectives and Estonian Nouns: Looking for Agreement?

This study investigated how speakers of Estonian as L1 with varying degree of proficiency in English judge grammaticality of bilingual constructions English adjective + Estonian noun from the point of view of adjective agreement. Estonian is rich in inflectional morphology, and adjectives agree with nouns in case and number. The empirical evidence from English-Estonian bilingual speech shows that agreement is not always the case even when an English adjective fits into Estonian declension system. It is hypothesized that the higher proficiency in/exposure to English is, the higher is the acceptability of bilingual adjective phrases, and (non-)agreement does not play a role. To test this, an experiment was designed where the test corpus of 108 sentences consisted of real and constructed examples, both in agreement and non-agreement condition. Real sentences came from fashion and beauty blogs and vlogs. The test was administered online and the participants were asked to rate adjective acceptability. The hypothesis was confirmed: increased proficiency in English, together with younger age, had a positive correlation with acceptability of all adjective types, independent of adjective (non-)agreement. Residence and birthplace had a small effect on acceptability of some adjective types. Whether sentences were real or constructed, had only a minor effect. Male participants tended to assess real sentences lower, probably because of the topics typical for female blogs. Monosyllabic consonant-ending adjectives were exceptional, as their assessment did not depend on any factor. All in all, the study demonstrated that grammaticality judgment among the native speakers of the same L1 differs because of different degrees of bilingualism, and structural factors, such as compatibility with Estonian declension system, are not decisive. Thus, it is not clear what an ideal native speaker is.

Clause-sensitivity of Inflectional Morphology in L2 English

The Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2000) developed in line with the Minimalist theory of grammar (Chomsky, 1995 et seq.) supports the view of L2 acquisition that syntactic properties are acquired early while the acquisition of interface properties is delayed. One of the interface properties is inflectional morphology on English verbs, which involves subject-verb agreement at the syntax-morphology interface. Previous studies have revealed that for learners of L2 English, acquiring third person singular -s is harder than regular past -ed due to the absence of meaningless morphemes in L1. However, one question has been disregarded: Where in a clause are these morphemes inserted more successfully? Given that subordinate clauses are more complex than main clauses, this study examines the clause-sensitivity of L2 inflectional morphology. 44 Japanese university students learning English as L2 were asked to complete a grammaticality judgment test and write an essay about a specified topic. The learners’ inflection pattern was surveyed through the test scores and text analysis of the essays. Results show that -s tends to be omitted regardless of clause types, but -ed is omitted more frequently in complement clauses than main clauses. These are due to negative L1 transfer on L2 inflectional morphology and our findings imply the importance of clauses as meaningful units in L2 grammar instructions. Keywords: Clause-sensitivity, Inflectional morphology, L2 grammar instructions, The Interface Hypothesis.