Languages, Volume 7, Issue 4

Noun–noun concatenations can differ along two parameters. They can be compounds, i.e., single words, or constructs, i.e., constituents, and they can have modificational non-heads or referential non-heads. Of the four logical possibilities, one...

Several studies in philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience have tried to define the nature and functions of language. Cybernetics and the mathematical theory of communication have clarified the role and functions of signals, symbols and codes involv...

This work tests the effect of heritage language background on imitation and discrimination of prevoicing in word-initial stops. English speakers with heritage languages of Spanish (where prevoicing is obligatorily present) or Cantonese (where prevoic...

This paper aims to study the meanings of passive auditory perception verbs in Catalan (sentir) and French (entendre) with regards to diachronic semantic change and from the point of view of cognitive semantics. These verbs do not originally encode th...

In this overview paper, I discuss data from child languages available in the literature that instantiate errors of commission. I focus on three constructions involving movement to the left periphery of the clause: the production of aux-doubling (wher...

Bilingual speakers often engage in code-switching, that is the use of lexical items and grammatical features from two languages in one sentence. Malaysia is a particularly interesting context for the study of code-switching because Malay-English code...

A large body of research has indicated that young second language (L2) learners often have problems with spelling, such as letter omission and mis-ordering. To give due attention to this issue, a duoethnographic study was undertaken by two researcher...

This article is set in the framework of typological and functional studies on interrogativity, and focuses on the study of Guaraní, based on primary data collected in Formosa (Argentina). Interrogative constructions encode the speaker’s...

According to Chomsky’s Labeling Algorithm the merger of two phrases, i.e., {XP, YP}, is labeled either via feature sharing between the two elements or by ignoring the lower copies of movement chains. It is not immediately clear, within this app...

Dynamic Assessment (DA) is recommended for testing bilinguals as it tests the child’s learning potential and not her or his previously acquired language knowledge. Thus, it allows language difficulties to be distinguished from difficulties rela...