Languages

22 pages, 792 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Childhood Heritage Languages: A Tangier Case Study

by Ariadna Saiz Mingo

Languages 2025, 10(7), 168; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070168 - 9 Jul 2025

Through the testimony of a Tangier female citizen who grew up in the “prolific multilingual Spanish-French-Darija context of international Tangier”, this article analyzes the web of beliefs projected onto both the inherited and local languages within her linguistic repertoire. Starting from the daily [...] Read more.

Through the testimony of a Tangier female citizen who grew up in the “prolific multilingual Spanish-French-Darija context of international Tangier”, this article analyzes the web of beliefs projected onto both the inherited and local languages within her linguistic repertoire. Starting from the daily realities in which she was immersed and the social networks that she formed, we focus on the representations of communication and her affective relationship with the host societies. The analysis starts from the most immediate domestic context in which Spanish, in its variant Jaquetía (a dialect of Judeo-Spanish language spoken by the Sephardic Jews of northern Morocco) was displaced by French as the language of instruction. After an initial episode of reversible attrition, we witnessed various phenomena of translanguaging within the host society. Following the binomial “emotion-interrelational space”, we seek to discern the affective contexts associated with the languages of a multilingual childhood, and which emotional links are vital for maintaining inherited ones. This shift towards the valuation of the affective culture implies a reorientation of the gaze towards everyday experiences as a means of research in contexts of language contact. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Linguistic Boundaries: From the Acquisition of Languages to Multilingual Practices)

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10 pages, 239 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Syntactic Adaptation: A Robust Phenomena with Open Questions

by Naomi Havron and Chiara Gambi

Languages 2025, 10(7), 167; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070167 - 9 Jul 2025

Abstract

Syntactic adaptation is the phenomenon whereby exposure to particular syntactic structures influences subsequent language processing and production [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Syntactic Adaptation)

19 pages, 896 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Online Effects of Processing Instruction on the Acquisition of the English Passive Structure

by Amin Pouresmaeil, Xin Wang and Alessandro Benati

Languages 2025, 10(7), 166; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070166 - 7 Jul 2025

Viewed by 77

Abstract

This study investigates the immediate and delayed effects of processing instruction (PI), which is an input-based pedagogical intervention, and its key component, structured input (SI), which aims to foster making correct form-meaning connections, on the acquisition of the English passive structure. Thirty-four ESL [...] Read more.

This study investigates the immediate and delayed effects of processing instruction (PI), which is an input-based pedagogical intervention, and its key component, structured input (SI), which aims to foster making correct form-meaning connections, on the acquisition of the English passive structure. Thirty-four ESL learners, who had not received any formal instruction on the target structure, were randomly assigned to either a PI group (n = 12), SI group (n = 12), or Control group (n = 10). Both the PI and SI groups received 1 hour of computer-based instruction, while the control group did not receive any instruction. A self-paced reading test was used to measure the accuracy of response and response time in selecting the correct pictures. The test was administered before instruction, immediately after instruction, and 3 weeks later. The results indicated that both the PI and SI groups improved significantly in accuracy on both posttests, while the control group did not. No significant gains, however, were found in response time for any of the groups on any of the posttests, although the PI group was comparatively faster than the SI group on the immediate posttest. Full article

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19 pages, 1271 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Reformulation in Early 20th Century Substandard Italian

by Giulio Scivoletto

Languages 2025, 10(7), 165; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070165 - 3 Jul 2025

Viewed by 128

Abstract

This study investigates reformulation in a substandard variety of Italian, italiano popolare, from the early 20th Century, focusing on a collection of letters and postcards from semi-literate Sicilian peasants during World War I. The analysis identifies three reformulation markers: cioè, anzi [...] Read more.

This study investigates reformulation in a substandard variety of Italian, italiano popolare, from the early 20th Century, focusing on a collection of letters and postcards from semi-literate Sicilian peasants during World War I. The analysis identifies three reformulation markers: cioè, anzi, and vuol dire. These markers are affected by hypercorrection, interference, and structural simplification, reflecting the sociolinguistic dynamics of italiano popolare. Additionally, the study of these markers sheds light on the relationships between reformulation and related discourse functions, namely paraphrase, correction, addition, and motivation. By positioning occurrences of reformulation along a continuum between the spoken and written mode, the findings suggest that this discourse function is employed more as a rhetorical strategy that characterizes planned written texts, rather than as a feature of disfluency that is typical of unplanned speech. Ultimately, examining reformulation in italiano popolare provides valuable insights into the relationship between sociolinguistic variation and language change in the beginning of the 20th Century, a key phase in the spread of Italian as a national language. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pragmatic Diachronic Study of the 20th Century)

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16 pages, 671 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Second Language Learner Attitudes Towards Peer Use of a Variable Sociophonetic Cue

by Elena Schoonmaker-Gates

Languages 2025, 10(7), 164; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070164 - 30 Jun 2025

Viewed by 167

Abstract

Studies that have examined /s/ weakening as a social practice have found that L1 Spanish speakers perceive this cue as an indicator of lower status, region of origin, and greater friendliness, and even L2 Spanish learners have been found to associate /s/ weakening [...] Read more.

Studies that have examined /s/ weakening as a social practice have found that L1 Spanish speakers perceive this cue as an indicator of lower status, region of origin, and greater friendliness, and even L2 Spanish learners have been found to associate /s/ weakening with lower status. The question remains, however, whether L2 learners who use /s/ weakening are perceived as having these same social attributes or whether their nonnative status interrupts said assessment. The present study examines the attitudes of 30 beginning and intermediate-level L2 learners of Spanish towards L1 and L2 speech that was digitally modified to contain /s/ deletion in coda positions, a regionally and stylistically variable sociophonetic cue in Spanish that is often not adopted by L2 learners. Participants rated the speech samples on Likert scales of perceived status, solidarity, and nativeness. Results revealed that learners rated L1 speech with /s/ deletion significantly lower for status and L2 speech with /s/ deletion significantly higher for nativeness. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Second Language Acquisition and Sociolinguistic Studies)

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19 pages, 1759 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Lost and Found? Shifts in Heritage Speakers’ Processing of Mood Morphology over the Course of a Semester Abroad

by David Giancaspro and Sara Fernández Cuenca

Languages 2025, 10(7), 163; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070163 - 29 Jun 2025

Viewed by 242

Abstract

Of the few studies that have investigated the linguistic development of heritage speakers (HSs) in the study abroad (SA) context, none have utilized on-line experiments, in spite of these tasks’ clear methodological benefits. In this study, therefore, we test HSs’ on-line sensitivity to [...] Read more.

Of the few studies that have investigated the linguistic development of heritage speakers (HSs) in the study abroad (SA) context, none have utilized on-line experiments, in spite of these tasks’ clear methodological benefits. In this study, therefore, we test HSs’ on-line sensitivity to lexically selected mood morphology in Spanish. Ten adult HSs completed a self-paced reading task at the beginning and end of a fifteen-week-long SA program in Spain. The task assessed both (a) whether HSs were sensitive to mood incongruencies (e.g., by slowing down after ungrammatical verbs) and (b) whether that (in)sensitivity was different with regular vs. irregular verbs. It was hypothesized that participants would be more sensitive to mood with irregular verbs and that their mood sensitivity would increase over the course of the semester abroad, but these hypotheses were only partially supported. Although HSs developed sensitivity to mood incongruencies with regular verbs over the course of the semester abroad, they showed the reverse pattern with irregular verbs, demonstrating sensitivity at Session 1 but not Session 2. Nonetheless, because participants’ reading times decreased sharply over the semester—and without any concomitant decrease in comprehension accuracy—we argue that SA immersion likely does facilitate morphosyntactic processing in the HL. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Processing in Spanish Heritage Speakers)

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36 pages, 7427 KiB

Open AccessArticle

What Is Written(ness), and What Is Spoken(ness) in a Letter? The Oral–Scriptural Interface Throughout Greetings and Farewells in a Corpus of Spanish Civil War Soldiers’ Correspondence

by Adrià Pardo Llibrer

Languages 2025, 10(7), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070162 - 29 Jun 2025

Viewed by 226

Abstract

This study examines around 350 handwritten letters from semiliterate soldiers during the Spanish Civil War, focusing on written orality and its interaction with scriptural conventions. The theoretical framework combines epistolography research (in which 20th-century popular correspondence reveals oral-like features) with studying the oral–scriptural [...] Read more.

This study examines around 350 handwritten letters from semiliterate soldiers during the Spanish Civil War, focusing on written orality and its interaction with scriptural conventions. The theoretical framework combines epistolography research (in which 20th-century popular correspondence reveals oral-like features) with studying the oral–scriptural interface. As detailed in the methodology, including the corpus compilation process, I present the selection criteria for the letters, which were segmented using the Val.Es.Co. model of discourse units. Segmentation facilitates my analysis, which addresses two aspects of the oral–scriptural interface: ritualized politeness in salutations and procedural devices that structure discursive moves. After summarizing the key findings, I discuss the hybrid nature of these letters, in which oral and written conventions intertwine. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pragmatic Diachronic Study of the 20th Century)

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25 pages, 2054 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Perception and Interpretation of Contrastive Pitch Accent During Spoken Language Processing in Autistic Children

by Pumpki Lei Su, Duane G. Watson, Stephen Camarata and James Bodfish

Languages 2025, 10(7), 161; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070161 - 28 Jun 2025

Viewed by 320

Abstract

Although prosodic differences in autistic individuals have been widely documented, little is known about their ability to perceive and interpret specific prosodic features, such as contrastive pitch accent—a prosodic signal that places emphasis and helps listeners distinguish between competing referents in discourse. This [...] Read more.

Although prosodic differences in autistic individuals have been widely documented, little is known about their ability to perceive and interpret specific prosodic features, such as contrastive pitch accent—a prosodic signal that places emphasis and helps listeners distinguish between competing referents in discourse. This study addresses that gap by investigating the extent to which autistic children can (1) perceive contrastive pitch accent (i.e., discriminate contrastive pitch accent differences in speech); (2) interpret contrastive pitch accent (i.e., use prosodic cues to guide real-time language comprehension); and (3) the extent to which their ability to interpret contrastive pitch accent is associated with broader language and social communication skills, including receptive prosody, pragmatic language, social communication, and autism severity. Twenty-four autistic children and 24 neurotypical children aged 8 to 14 completed an AX same–different task and a visual-world paradigm task to assess their ability to perceive and interpret contrastive pitch accent. Autistic children demonstrated the ability to perceive and interpret contrastive pitch accent, as evidenced by comparable discrimination ability to neurotypical peers on the AX task and real-time revision of visual attention based on prosodic cues in the visual-world paradigm. However, autistic children showed significantly slower reaction time during the AX task, and a subgroup of autistic children with language impairment showed significantly slower processing of contrastive pitch accent during the visual-world paradigm task. Additionally, speed of contrastive pitch accent processing was significantly associated with pragmatic language skills and autism symptom severity in autistic children. Overall, these findings suggest that while autistic children as a group are able to discriminate prosodic forms and interpret the pragmatic function of contrastive pitch accent during spoken language comprehension, differences in prosody processing in autistic children may be reflected not in accuracy, but in speed of processing measures and in specific subgroups defined by language ability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in the Acquisition of Prosody)

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4 pages, 229 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

Typology of Chinese Languages: An Introduction to the Special Issue

by Umberto Ansaldo and Pui Yiu Szeto

Languages 2025, 10(7), 160; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070160 - 27 Jun 2025

Viewed by 234

Abstract

Of the world’s major language groups, the Sinitic (Chinese) branch of the Sino-Tibetan family stands out for the profound disconnect between its popular perception and its linguistic reality [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Typology of Chinese Languages: One Name, Many Languages)

23 pages, 3556 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Neglected Group: Cognitive Discourse Markers as Signposts of Prosodic Unit Boundaries

by Simona Majhenič, Mitja Beras and Janez Križaj

Languages 2025, 10(7), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070159 - 27 Jun 2025

Viewed by 154

Abstract

The present paper examines and compares the role of cognitive discourse markers (DMs), such as uhm, like, or I mean, and a set of prosodic parameters as indicators of prosodic boundaries. Cognitive DMs traditionally are not studied as a separate [...] Read more.

The present paper examines and compares the role of cognitive discourse markers (DMs), such as uhm, like, or I mean, and a set of prosodic parameters as indicators of prosodic boundaries. Cognitive DMs traditionally are not studied as a separate DM group on par with the ideational, sequential, rhetorical, or interpersonal group. However, as they reflect the speaker’s mental processes during speech production, they offer an exceptional glimpse into how speakers construct their verbalisations. Along with the analysis of DMs, prosodic parameters, including pitch and intensity reset, speech rate change, and pauses, were automatically annotated to determine how well they overlapped with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. To accommodate for the natural variability in speech, the parameters were evaluated using relative comparison methods. Among the prosodic parameters, pauses were found to overlap most often with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. Cognitive DMs in the function of realising new information, restructuring, and emphasis indeed proved as relevant boundary indicators, however, the group of cognitive DMs as a whole fell behind the group of sequential and rhetorical DMs, which overlapped most frequently with the manually annotated prosodic boundaries. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Trends in Discourse Marker Research)

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23 pages, 385 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Syntax of Null Possessors with Kinship Terms and Body Part Nouns in Vietnamese

by Andrew Simpson and Linh Pham

Languages 2025, 10(7), 158; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070158 - 27 Jun 2025

Viewed by 220

Abstract

Bare nouns representing kinship terms (KNs) and body parts (BPNs) can be assumed to project a null possessor argument, which allows for the interpretation of such nouns relative to other linguistically present NPs. In Vietnamese, the distribution of KNs and BPNs is subject [...] Read more.

Bare nouns representing kinship terms (KNs) and body parts (BPNs) can be assumed to project a null possessor argument, which allows for the interpretation of such nouns relative to other linguistically present NPs. In Vietnamese, the distribution of KNs and BPNs is subject to different locality conditions and leads to the analysis of null possessors with KNs as covert anaphors, while null possessors with BPNs are null pronominals (pro). This contrasts with Mandarin Chinese, where it has been suggested that null possessors of KNs and BPNs are two different types of null anaphors. The observed distributional differences and analyses of bare KNs and BPNs in Vietnamese vs. Chinese raise questions of parametric variation with regard to null elements with parallel interpretive properties and also whether linking mechanisms may occur with other bare nouns without the projection of null possessors that are subject to binding theoretic locality restrictions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Issues in Vietnamese Linguistics)

46 pages, 6738 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Corrective and Exhaustive Foci: A Comparison Between Italian and French

by Marco Casentini and Tania Stortini

Languages 2025, 10(7), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070157 - 26 Jun 2025

Viewed by 176

Abstract

This paper investigates the acceptability of focused Objects with [+corrective, +exhaustive] features in Italian and French, considering the role of syntactic rigidity, Exhaustivity Markers (EMs), and argument structure. We conducted two parallel acceptability judgment experiments (one per language), testing focused Objects in three [...] Read more.

This paper investigates the acceptability of focused Objects with [+corrective, +exhaustive] features in Italian and French, considering the role of syntactic rigidity, Exhaustivity Markers (EMs), and argument structure. We conducted two parallel acceptability judgment experiments (one per language), testing focused Objects in three positions: (i) in situ, (ii) fronted (FF), and (iii) clefted (CC). Each sentence was also presented with and without an explicit EM, and the verb type was controlled across three categories: transitive, unergative, and unaccusative verbs. Results reveal key cross-linguistic differences: (i) FF is the least acceptable strategy in both languages, contradicting the assumption that Italian tolerates FF more than French; (ii) Italian speakers prefer in situ Focus with an explicit EM, whereas French speakers rate in situ and CC Focus equally acceptable, favoring implicit exhaustivity; (iii) verb type does not significantly impact Focus acceptability, except in French, where intervention effects may reduce FF acceptability in transitive/unergative contexts; (iv) CC remains a viable alternative to in situ Focus in French, possibly acting as a repair strategy. These findings suggest that, as far as [+corrective, +exhaustive] Focus is concerned, Italian does not appear to be less syntactically rigid than French. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Narrow Focus and Fronting Strategies)

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24 pages, 1102 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Semantic Development in Taiwan Mandarin-Speaking Children: A Study of V-Diao

by Chun-Yin Doris Chen and Jheng-Syun Eliot Huang

Languages 2025, 10(7), 156; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070156 - 26 Jun 2025

Viewed by 260

Abstract

This study investigates the semantic development of V-diao in Taiwan Mandarin-speaking children, focusing on how they acquire both literal and non-literal meanings. Three key factors influencing this acquisition—type, metaphoricality, and context—were examined. This study recruited sixty elementary school children, divided into three age [...] Read more.

This study investigates the semantic development of V-diao in Taiwan Mandarin-speaking children, focusing on how they acquire both literal and non-literal meanings. Three key factors influencing this acquisition—type, metaphoricality, and context—were examined. This study recruited sixty elementary school children, divided into three age groups (7, 9, and 11 years old), along with twenty graduate students serving as an adult control group. Two truth value judgment tasks were employed: the Word-in-Sentences (WISE) task, which presents sentences containing the V-diao construction, and the Word-in-Scenarios (WISC) task, which uses stories and pictures as additional aids. The results indicated that V-diao₁ was the easiest for children to comprehend, followed by V-diao₂, while V-diao₃ and V-diao₄ were more challenging. Literal meanings of V-diao were found to be easier to acquire than non-literal ones, highlighting the metaphorical effect. Additionally, participants performed better on the WISE task than the WISC task, suggesting that contextual aids like stories and pictures did not enhance performance. These findings provide insights into the semantic development of Mandarin-speaking children and the role of metaphorical and contextual factors in language acquisition. Full article

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32 pages, 5438 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Intonational Focus Marking by Syrian Arabic Learners of German: On the Role of Cross-Linguistic Influence and Proficiency

by Zarah Kampschulte, Angelika Braun and Katharina Zahner-Ritter

Languages 2025, 10(7), 155; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070155 - 25 Jun 2025

Viewed by 333

Abstract

Acquiring prosodic focus marking in a second language (L2) is difficult for learners whose native language utilizes strategies that differ from those of the target language. German typically uses pitch accents (L+H*/H*) to mark focus, while (Modern Standard) Arabic preferably employs a syntactic [...] Read more.

Acquiring prosodic focus marking in a second language (L2) is difficult for learners whose native language utilizes strategies that differ from those of the target language. German typically uses pitch accents (L+H*/H*) to mark focus, while (Modern Standard) Arabic preferably employs a syntactic strategy (word order) or lexical means. In Syrian Arabic, a variety which is predominantly oral, pitch accents are used to mark focus, but the distribution and types are different from German. The present study investigates how Syrian Arabic learners of German prosodically mark focus in L2 German. A question–answer paradigm was used to elicit German subject-verb-object (SVO)-sentences with broad, narrow, or contrastive focus. Productions of advanced (C1, N = 17) and intermediate (B1/B2, N = 8) Syrian Arabic learners were compared to those of German controls (N = 12). Like the controls, both learner groups successfully placed pitch accents on focused constituents. However, learners, especially those with lower proficiency, used more pitch accents in non-focal regions than the controls, revealing challenges in de-accentuation. These may result from the larger number of phrase boundaries in learners’ productions, which in turn might be explained by transfer from the L1 or aspects of general fluency. Learners also differed from the controls with respect to accent type. They predominantly used H* for narrow or contrastive focus (instead of L+H*); proficiency effects played only a minor role here. Our study hence reveals an intricate interplay between cross-linguistic influence and proficiency in the L2 acquisition of prosodic focus marking, targeting a language pair so far underrepresented in the literature (German vs. Syrian Arabic). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in the Acquisition of Prosody)

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25 pages, 964 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Formal Address Forms in Heritage Polish in Germany: The Dynamics of Transgenerational Language Change

by Vladislava Warditz

Languages 2025, 10(7), 154; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070154 - 25 Jun 2025

Viewed by 343

Abstract

This paper investigates transgenerational change in the use of formal address forms among Polish heritage speakers in Germany by analyzing their language attitudes and usage preferences. The survey-based study involved 100 bilingual Polish speakers with a migration background, including both late and early [...] Read more.

This paper investigates transgenerational change in the use of formal address forms among Polish heritage speakers in Germany by analyzing their language attitudes and usage preferences. The survey-based study involved 100 bilingual Polish speakers with a migration background, including both late and early immigrants vs. representatives of the first and second generations, respectively. The survey included two parts: (1) a questionnaire assessing language attitudes toward formal address systems in Polish and German, respectively, and (2) an Acceptability Judgment Task evaluating respondents’ preferences for different address variants, including contact-induced hybrid forms, in simulated communicative situations. By comparing language attitudes and usage preferences among heritage speakers, the study seeks to identify mechanisms of transgenerational change in pragmatics of their heritage language. The findings reveal a discrepancy between language attitudes and actual language use by heritage speakers. While respondents recognize asymmetries between Polish and German formal address systems, their usage preferences align predominantly with the Polish monolingual norm, particularly in perceptually oriented tasks. However, the emergence of hybrid forms of formal address suggests a gradual shift toward increased tolerance and acceptance of contact-induced variations. This finding supports the hypothesis that pragmatics, like other linguistic levels, undergoes a transgenerational shift in migration settings, with language attitudes serving as earlier indicators of change. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Pragmatics in Contemporary Cross-Cultural Contexts)

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17 pages, 572 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dealing with Idioms: An Eye-Tracking Study of Cognitive Processing on L1, L2 and Heritage Speakers of Spanish

by Pilar Valero Fernández, Adriana Cruz, Mathis Teucher, Inés Recio Fernández and Óscar Loureda Lamas

Languages 2025, 10(7), 153; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070153 - 25 Jun 2025

Viewed by 329

Abstract

This study investigates the cognitive processing of Spanish idioms from a pragmatic perspective, with the goal of examining the idiom superiority effect. An eye-tracking experiment was conducted with 77 participants to assess how idiomaticity influences processing and whether heritage speakers align more [...] Read more.

This study investigates the cognitive processing of Spanish idioms from a pragmatic perspective, with the goal of examining the idiom superiority effect. An eye-tracking experiment was conducted with 77 participants to assess how idiomaticity influences processing and whether heritage speakers align more with L1 or L2 patterns. Results show a processing advantage for idioms among L1 speakers, suggesting reduced cognitive load in later stages. Both heritage and L2 speakers showed longer reading times, but only L2 speakers benefited consistently from idiomaticity. Heritage speakers processed idioms more slowly, indicating difficulty with opacity despite early exposure. Findings support hybrid models of idiom processing and highlight the unique strategies of heritage speakers shaped by dual input sources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Processing in Spanish Heritage Speakers)

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15 pages, 1258 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Are Children Sensitive to Ironic Prosody? A Novel Task to Settle the Issue

by Francesca Panzeri and Beatrice Giustolisi

Languages 2025, 10(7), 152; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070152 - 25 Jun 2025

Viewed by 263

Abstract

Ironic remarks are often pronounced with a distinctive intonation. It is not clear whether children rely on acoustic cues to attribute an ironic intent. This question has been only indirectly tackled, with studies that manipulated the intonation with which the final remark is [...] Read more.

Ironic remarks are often pronounced with a distinctive intonation. It is not clear whether children rely on acoustic cues to attribute an ironic intent. This question has been only indirectly tackled, with studies that manipulated the intonation with which the final remark is pronounced within an irony comprehension task. We propose a new task that is meant to assess whether children rely on prosody to infer speakers’ sincere or ironic communicative intentions, without requiring meta-linguistic judgments (since pragmatic awareness is challenging for young children). Children listen to evaluative remarks (e.g., “That house is really beautiful”), pronounced with sincere or ironic intonation, and they are asked to identify what the speaker is referring to by selecting one of two pictures depicting an image corresponding to a literal interpretation (a luxury house) and one to its reverse interpretation (a hovel). We tested eighty children aged 3 to 11 years and found a clear developmental trend, with children consistently responding above the chance level from age seven, and there was no correlation with the recognition of emotions transmitted through the vocal channel. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in the Acquisition of Prosody)

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22 pages, 2202 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Williams Syndrome and Agreement: The Case for Spanish Speakers

by Antònia Llull Febrer, Lluís Barceló-Coblijn and Elga Cremades

Languages 2025, 10(7), 151; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070151 - 25 Jun 2025

Viewed by 292

Abstract

This paper examines morphosyntactic agreement in gender and number within the spontaneous spoken discourse of Spanish-speaking adults with Williams syndrome (WS), compared to that of typically developing (TD) speakers. Data were collected through natural speech transcriptions from both WS and TD groups. The [...] Read more.

This paper examines morphosyntactic agreement in gender and number within the spontaneous spoken discourse of Spanish-speaking adults with Williams syndrome (WS), compared to that of typically developing (TD) speakers. Data were collected through natural speech transcriptions from both WS and TD groups. The analysis was conducted using Netlang 1.0.0—a piece of corpus annotation software—based on Dependency Grammar, to capture agreement patterns among determiners, nouns, and adjectives. The findings reveal that WS speakers’ gender and number agreement patterns are closely aligned with those observed in TD speakers, with only minor variations, such as a slight tendency toward unmarked gender forms among TD participants. Additionally, error rates are low in both groups, suggesting that observed discrepancies might be due to individual variation rather than condition-specific deficits, even though the statistical power of the study is limited. These results contribute to the ongoing debate on language abilities in WS, indicating that individuals with WS produce morphosyntactic agreement similarly to individuals with TD. Further research with larger datasets is recommended to validate these results, as individual variability within the WS group underscores the need for a more nuanced approach to analysis. Full article

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14 pages, 386 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On Similative Reduplication in Vietnamese

by Tue Trinh

Languages 2025, 10(7), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070150 - 24 Jun 2025

Viewed by 227

Abstract

Vietnamese has a productive reduplication strategy where the reduplicant appears to the right of the base and is segmentally identical to the base except that its last rime is iếc (pronounced [ɪək]). In this note, I attempt to account for some observations about [...] Read more.

Vietnamese has a productive reduplication strategy where the reduplicant appears to the right of the base and is segmentally identical to the base except that its last rime is iếc (pronounced [ɪək]). In this note, I attempt to account for some observations about iếc, including the fact that it gives rise to ignorance inferences and is incompatible with classifiers. I propose that the semantics of iếc parallel the pragmatics of disjunctions and that the notion of similarity underlying the interpretation of iếc is contextual while that underlying the interpretation of classifiers is grammatical. The proposal makes use of some tools of predicate logic and formal semantics. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current Issues in Vietnamese Linguistics)

29 pages, 474 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Categorial Status of Adverbs

by Sascha Alexeyenko

Languages 2025, 10(7), 149; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070149 - 24 Jun 2025

Viewed by 288

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the question of what adverbs in English are as a category. It argues that English adverbs are not positional variants of a single category together with adjectives but also do not constitute a separate lexical category on their [...] Read more.

This paper is concerned with the question of what adverbs in English are as a category. It argues that English adverbs are not positional variants of a single category together with adjectives but also do not constitute a separate lexical category on their own, as is commonly assumed. Instead, this paper advocates the position that adverbs can and should be assimilated with PPs and offers a comprehensive presentation of this view. In particular, it provides evidence that the morpheme -ly is not a suffix but a nominal root, which forms the basis of the analysis of adverbs as PPs. Furthermore, it shows that the PP analysis of adverbs is able to account for a variety of facts, including those that have been previously used as arguments for alternative analyses. Finally, this paper demonstrates that the PP analysis allows for a straightforward compositional semantics, using manner and degree adverbs as case studies, and provides an outlook into the cross-linguistic situation in the domain of adverbs from the perspective of their morphological structure. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mind Your Manner Adverbials!)

17 pages, 666 KiB

Open AccessArticle

English-Learning Infants’ Developing Sensitivity to Intonation Contours

by Megha Sundara and Sónia Frota

Languages 2025, 10(7), 148; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070148 - 20 Jun 2025

Viewed by 214

Abstract

In four experiments, we investigated when and how English-learning infants perceive intonation contours that signal prosodic units. Using visual habituation, we probed infants’ ability to discriminate disyllabic sequences with a fall versus a rise in pitch on the final syllable, a salient cue [...] Read more.

In four experiments, we investigated when and how English-learning infants perceive intonation contours that signal prosodic units. Using visual habituation, we probed infants’ ability to discriminate disyllabic sequences with a fall versus a rise in pitch on the final syllable, a salient cue used to distinguish statements from questions. First, we showed that at 8 months, English-learning infants can distinguish statement falls from question rises, as has been reported previously for their European Portuguese-learning peers who have extensive experience with minimal pairs that differ just in pitch rises and falls. Next, we conducted three experiments involving 4-month-olds to determine the developmental roots of how English-learning infants begin to tune into these intonation contours. In Experiment 2, we showed that unlike 8-month-olds, monolingual English-learning 4-month-olds are unable to distinguish statement and question intonation when they are presented with segmentally varied disyllabic sequences. Monolingual English-learning 4-month-olds only partially succeeded even when tested without segmental variability and a sensitive testing procedure (Experiment 3). When tested with stimuli that had been resynthesized to remove correlated duration cues as well, 4-month-olds demonstrated only partial success (Experiment 4). We discuss our results in the context of extant developmental research on how infants tune into linguistically relevant pitch cues in their first year of life. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in the Acquisition of Prosody)

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Languages, Volume 10, Issue 7 (July 2025) – 21 articles

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