Languages, Volume 5, Issue 3 (September 2020) – 8 articles

Even though the mastery of discourse connectives represents an important step toward reaching high language proficiency, it remains highly difficult for L2-learners to master them. We conducted an experiment in which we tested the mastery of 12 monofunctional French connectives conveying six different coherence relations by 151 German-speaking learners of French, as well as a control group of 63 native French speakers. Our results show that the cognitive complexity of the coherence relation and connectives’ frequency, both found to be important factors for native speakers’ connective mastery, play a minor role for the mastery by non-native speakers. Instead, we argue that two specific factors, namely the connectives’ register and meaning transparency, seem to be more predictive variables. In addition, we found that a higher exposure to print in L1, correlates with a better mastery of the connectives in L2. We discuss the implications of our findings in the context of second language acquisition. Full article

Reading comprehension is a fundamental resource for educational and social development. It is a skill that brings into play a diverse and complex set of processes and cognitive functions based on building a mental representation of a given text. We set out to study how different domain-general and linguistic abilities explain text comprehension in a population of secondary school students with low educational opportunities. The sample consisted of 45 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 from two secondary schools in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Each participant was evaluated both in-group and individually for three sessions during school hours. A text comprehension screening test and a battery of tasks that measure different underlying cognitive processes were administered. Using multiple linear regression, we found that vocabulary, non-word reading, and verbal inhibition are the skills that best explain reading comprehension skills. Understanding how much different domain-general and linguistic subprocesses are associated with text comprehension is key to designing effective interventions that are also grounded in theory. Full article

This study provides a usage-based analysis of Spanish Variable Clitic Placement (VCP). A variationist analysis of VCP in spoken Argentine Spanish indicates that VCP grammar is constrained by lexical (finite verb) and semantic (animacy) factors. Considering the finite effect, the study focuses on usage-based accounts for the gradience attested across finite verb constructions. Grammaticalized meaning and increased frequency tend to account for VCP in general. However, one [tener que + infinitive] construction is found exceptional in that it favors enclisis despite its grammaticalized meaning of obligation and its high frequency of use. Data from a larger corpus indicate that the [tener que + infinitive] construction lacks unithood, signaling great analyzability of its component elements. Through an exemplar analysis, the [haber que ‘must’ + infinitive] construction that categorically takes enclisis and which is strongly linked to [tenerque + infinitive] diachronically, semantically, and structurally emerges as a likely analogical model for VCP with tener que, pushing tener que towards enclisis. This study not only illustrates how usage-based linguistics can capture VCP more generally, but also how this framework provides powerful tools to discover the constraints on VCP in naturalistic use in order to account for individual construction behavior. Full article

Smith–Magenis syndrome (SMS) is a rare genetic disease characterized by intellectual disability, serious behavior disorders, neurodevelopment delay, and speech and language disorders. An acoustic and biomechanical analysis of the voice of SMS young adults was carried out due to (a) the close relationship between the laryngeal biomechanics and the clinical and emotional state of a person; (b) the fact that no research on the voice in this syndrome has been conducted previously. The vocal timbre of most people diagnosed with SMS does not seem to be according to the complexion of diagnosed individuals, nor to their gender and age, so it could be interesting to attend the analysis of phonation of people with a rare genetic syndrome such as SMS. We used BioMetPhon, a specific piece of software to analyze the glottal source and biomechanics of vocals folds. Nineteen features related to dysphonia, physiology, and biomechanics of the vocal folds were considered. The adult phonation of 9 individuals with SMS was analyzed and compared to 100 normative male and female adult voices. Results showed that the phonation of the SMS group significantly deviates from the adult normophonic profile in more than one of the 19 features examined, such as stiffness of the thyroarytenoid muscle and dynamic mass of the vocal fold cover, among others. Full article

Motion events are almost absent in the course syllabus of L2 German as a formally addressed structure in the classroom. Learners have merely receptive contact with this type of structure in reading texts or in aural activities. The occurrence of motion events with the so-called “double particles” is even less frequent. These are composed of the deictic morphemes hin- and her- denoting the speaker’s perspective and Path morphemes (-ein-, -aus-, -auf-, etc.). The main goal of the present study is to test a group of Portuguese L3 learners of German regarding their knowledge of double particles, and to apply VanPatten’s Processing Instruction (PI) model (VanPatten 2004; VanPatten and Williams 2015), which rests on an input-based focus-on-form approach for teaching grammar. The theoretical framework is based on Talmy’s typology of motion events (Talmy 2000a, 2000b). The empirical component of this study was divided into three parts: first, I tested the participants by means of a pretest; then, I conducted a pedagogical intervention based on the PI model; finally, a posttest determined the successful effects of PI in the participants’ knowledge of the target forms, both in interpretative and productive contexts. Full article

Humans are intuitively good at providing judgments about what forms part of their native language and what does not. Although such judgments are robust, consistent, and reliable, human cognition is demonstrably fallible to illusions of various types. Language is no exception. In the linguistic domain, several types of sentences have been shown to trick the parser into giving them a high acceptability judgment despite their ill-formedness. One example is the so-called comparative illusion (‘More people have been to Tromsø than I have’). To this day, comparative illusions have been tested mainly with monolingual, neurotypical speakers of English. The present research aims to broaden our understanding of this phenomenon by putting it to test in two populations that differ in one crucial factor: the number of languages they speak. A timed acceptability judgment task was administered to monolingual speakers of Standard Greek and bi(dia)lectal speakers of Standard and Cypriot Greek. The results are not fully in line with any of the semantic re-analyses proposed for the illusion so far, hence a new proposal is offered about what interpretation induces the illusion, appreciating the influence of both grammatical processing and cognitive heuristics. Second, the results reveal an effect of developmental trajectory. This effect may be linked to an enhanced ability to spot the illusion in bi(dia)lectals, but several factors can be identified as possible culprits behind this result. After discussing each of them, it is argued that having two grammars may facilitate the setting of a higher processing threshold, something that would entail decreased fallibility to grammatical illusions. Full article

This paper discusses two negation types (standard negation (SN), negative doubling (ND)) in Chipileño Spanish, a variety that has emerged as a result of contact between Spanish and Veneto (an Italo-Romance language) in Mexico. In Veneto, negation can be formed in two ways: preverbally (SN) and as a negative doubling (ND). Based on sporadic observation, bilingual speakers of Spanish and Veneto transfer a final no while speaking Spanish, a language that does not allow repetition of the same negator in the postverbal position. Using both a spontaneous and a controlled tasks, the results show two possibilities: preverbal negation only (no vino ‘[S/he] did not come’) and sentence final (no me gusta no ‘I do not like’) in both tasks. This study compares the findings from Chipileño Spanish to the other Romance varieties that exhibit similar cases of negation, while discussing its scope and relevance to discourse-pragmatic factors. Full article