Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090183

Authors: Mariko Faster Helen Plado

This study examines reading opportunities and practices in the Võro and Seto languages in the context of ongoing language shift and limited intergenerational transmission. Literacy in local languages is important for language revitalisation. Minority-language literacy, especially where majority-language societies have high literacy, expands the functional domains of the language, enhances its prestige, and provides additional input for language learning, especially where oral transmission is weakening. The aim of the study is to map existing reading opportunities in Võro and Seto (including books, newspapers, magazines, and social media) and to analyse how these resources are used, with particular attention to reading activities involving children and the reasons for non-use. The study is based on a survey conducted via LimeSurvey in 2025 among adults. The questionnaire included 36 questions covering demographics, language use, reading habits, and cultural participation. The results show that reading opportunities in Võro and Seto are primarily based on two newspapers, books and social media content. Respondents who have studied these languages in courses or at school demonstrate better reading skills. Võro and Seto proficiency is present in society, and reading in these languages is gradually improving. In contrast, reading aloud to children emerges as a potentially important but underused practice. Children’s limited reading ability is partly related to insufficient language proficiency. The findings suggest that reading aloud to children and book reading among adults may contribute to language maintenance and function as mechanisms for language revitalisation.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090182

Authors: Zuzanna Cal

This study analyses the production of voiceless and voiced plosives (/p, t, k, b, d, g/) in both read and spontaneous speech produced by L1 Polish, L2 English, L3 Norwegian multilingual learners and native control speakers. The goal is to examine whether L2/L3 learners maintain distinct phonological categories in all their languages or exhibit cross-linguistic influence, as well as to identify which voicing series and places of articulation are most susceptible to the interference. Moreover, the study seeks to integrate acoustic data with extralinguistic factors, such as proficiency, exposure, frequency of use and age of acquisition, to provide a deeper understanding of the dynamic coexistence of three phonological systems both in controlled and more authentic environments. The study reveals significant L1 and L3 influence on L2 stop production, especially in the voiced series of stops, and more target-like L1 and L3 production.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090181

Authors: Liumao Zhong

This paper argues that nominal domains in Mandarin Chinese instantiate phases and exhibit the characteristic asymmetry between edge and complement. Evidence comes from both binding asymmetry and raising asymmetry. A possessor can bind the logophor ziji only when it occupies the highest position within the nominal domain, indicating that only this position is accessible to higher discourse-related structure. In addition, possessor raising is sensitive to the A/A’ status of the nominal edge, and therefore indicates successive-cyclic movement through the nominal edge. These findings reveal a robust asymmetry within the nominal domain: elements at the edge remain visible to higher operations, while those within the complement domain are inaccessible. This pattern supports the conclusion that Mandarin nominals constitute phases.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090180

Authors: Dinara Tlepbergen Assel Akzhigitova Anastassia Zabrodskaja

This study examines children’s language use in spontaneous playground interaction in Kazakhstan, focusing on how language choice varies across play activities and how these practices relate to family language orientations. The study uses non-participant observation and audio recordings of nine playgroup sessions involving 23 children aged 4–9, complemented by caregiver questionnaires. The analysis follows an interactional approach and uses qualitative coding in MAXQDA. The findings show variability in language use across the observed play sessions and communicative functions. In cooperative and structured play, Kazakh accounted for the largest proportion of coded utterances in both observed sessions, whereas competitive and physically oriented play showed a more variable distribution of Kazakh, Russian, and mixed-language utterances. At the utterance level, the strongest co-occurrence patterns for Kazakh were observed with agreement, initiation, and negotiation, whereas Russian showed stronger co-occurrence with accusation, claim, and protest. Comparison with caregiver reports shows partial correspondence between reported family language practices and observed playground language use, suggesting that peer language practices are not simply direct reflections of family language orientations. From a language policy perspective, the study shows that playgrounds constitute an important site where state and family language policy are enacted and negotiated in everyday practice. By focusing on children’s agency in informal peer settings, the study contributes to research on family language policy, language socialization, and language policy “from below”.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090179

Authors: Katharina Korecky-Kröll Anja Wittibschlager Amelie Dorn

Greeting and farewell formulae are highly conventionalized routines that index social relations, regional norms and situational formality. This paper investigates pragmatic variation in greetings and farewells in rural Austria, focusing on age, region, setting and prosodic design. We analyze greeting and farewell formulae and metalinguistic comments produced by 152 adults from 13 rural locations across two project phases. The dataset combines spontaneous interactions with controlled elicitations in two greeting experiments contrasting a formal urban service encounter and an informal local dialect encounter. In spontaneous greetings, the supraregional call formula hallo predominates and is significantly rarer among older speakers. Across age groups, participants strongly preferred grüß Gott in the formal urban store scenario and griaß di in the informal local bakery scenario. Pronominal address is largely avoided, with T forms restricted mainly to western locations and familiar contexts. Prosodically, participants use [ˈhalo] and [haˈloː] at similar rates, whereas interviewers strongly favor the marked variant [haˈloː], suggesting different interactional roles in greeting management. Older speakers produce significantly more metalinguistic comments, revealing a mismatch between politeness ideologies and recorded practice. Overall, the findings reveal age-graded and context-dependent patterns of pragmatic variation in rural Austria.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090178

Authors: Van Hong Nghiem Lan Anh Thi Nguyen Nam Hoang Tran

Technical intern trainees (TITs) preparing to depart for Japan study Japanese within a compressed four- to six-month pre-departure period, during which they must acquire language skills for workplace communication, daily life, and social adaptation. This cross-sectional study examined Japanese-learning challenges and technology use among Vietnam’s Japan-bound TITs, with working adults studying Japanese in Vietnam included as an unmatched descriptive benchmark rather than as a matched control group. Data were collected through an online self-administered questionnaire using snowball sampling. The study relied on self-reported data from 91 Vietnamese Japanese-language learners, including TITs (n = 44) enrolled in preparatory courses at training centers in Hanoi and working adults (n = 47) from diverse professional backgrounds. Overall, 57.1% of respondents reported high technology use, defined as using online tools for Japanese learning daily or multiple times daily. Smartphones were the dominant learning device, while YouTube, Mazii, ChatGPT, and social media were the most frequently used platforms. Technology was used mainly for vocabulary, listening, grammar, and Kanji learning. Major challenges included difficulty with Kanji, complex grammar structures, similar grammar patterns, unclear learning pathways, lack of correction or feedback, and distraction during self-study. Several learning-behavior variables showed associations with high technology use in unadjusted analyses, but these associations did not remain statistically significant after correction for multiple comparisons. Exploratory regression suggested a possible relationship between perceived effectiveness and high technology use, although the estimate was imprecise. The findings suggest that technology-supported Japanese learning for TITs may benefit from moving beyond scattered use of digital tools toward mobile-friendly, structured, feedback-rich learning pathways aligned with practical workplace and daily-life communication needs in Japan.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090177

Authors: Shu Yang Jidong Chen

Discourse-information structure has been found to shape the realization of verb argument structure. This study investigates the effects of grammatical roles, information status, and animacy of verb arguments on verb argument realization in the speech of Mandarin-speaking children, in comparison with that of their caregivers. The data are drawn from two naturalistic longitudinal corpora of two monolingual Mandarin-learning children (ages 1;07–3;09). All verb arguments were coded for core grammatical roles (Agent, Subject, Object), information status (given vs. new), and animacy (animate vs. inanimate). The results indicate that both child and adult speech generally conform to PAS: the preferred quantity of lexical arguments or new information is no more than one, new and lexical arguments tend to often occur in the Object role, and Agents tend to be given and non-lexical. Children’s and caregivers’ speech are thus shaped by similar discourse-pragmatic factors, though adherence to some constraints varies across dyads and constraints, likely reflecting differences in interactional contexts, caregiver input, and children’s developmental status. These findings suggest that Mandarin-acquiring children are sensitive to discourse-pragmatic constraints in argument realization from early on, aligning with discourse-pragmatic probabilistic approaches to language acquisition.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090176

Authors: Margherita Di Salvo

This case study investigates specific language phenomena and dominance patterns among second-generation speakers of Sri Lankan origin in Naples within the framework of the HELLO Campania Project. While second generations are typically assumed to be dominant in the societal majority language, the Sri Lankan community—characterized by exceptionally high rates of heritage language maintenance—offers a critical testing ground for this assumption. Drawing on a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews with first- and second-generation speakers, the analysis focuses on two morphosyntactic variables that function as indicators of acquisitional development in Italian as L2: verbal morphology and the realization of definite and indefinite articles. Verbal forms were classified along a four-stage developmental scale derived from research on Italian interlanguage, while article use was evaluated through a three-level accuracy scale. Descriptive and inferential statistics reveal a clear asymmetry within the second generation specifically in terms of gender variable. Male speakers display near-native competence consistent with the expected dominance shift toward Italian. In contrast, several female speakers exhibit persistent features—such as infinitive overextension, auxiliary omission in perfective constructions, and residual article omission—patterns more typical of first stages of second-language acquisition than of heritage-speaker dominance. These findings suggest that, in contexts of strong heritage language maintenance and dense ethnic social networks, second-generation speakers may experience incomplete acquisition of the majority language rather than incomplete acquisition of the heritage language. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the importance of integrating perceptual self-reports with production data. Theoretically, it challenges universalist assumptions about second-generation dominance and underscores the need for community-specific, migration-scenario-based analyses in heritage language research.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11090175

Authors: Emily Jo Noschese Chao Wang

This quantitative study explores divergent beliefs about word order in American Sign Language (ASL) within the U.S. Deaf community. Although the academic literature commonly characterizes ASL as following a Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) structure, certain Deaf individuals maintain that ASL predominantly uses a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) order. This perception reflects an ideological positioning of ASL as fundamentally distinct from English and may align with community norms that have historically emphasized SOV structures. Data were collected through an acceptability judgment task with 53 varied sentence structures presented via video. Among 86 Deaf participants, distinct preferences emerged based on ASL acquisition background. Participants with early ASL exposure from Deaf parents preferred the SOV structure, while those with early ASL exposure from hearing parents preferred the SVO structure. This finding suggests that variability in beliefs about acceptable ASL word order, along with factors such as early language exposure and parental input, influences judgments of acceptability.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080174

Authors: Mehmet-Ali Akinci

According to recent estimates, France is home to approximately 700,000 individuals of Turkish origin, encompassing first-, second-, and third-generation immigrants. Scholars have extensively investigated the language practices, maintenance, and shift, as well as the cultural practices and identity construction, of Turkish migrant families in France, employing both sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic approaches. However, the majority of these studies have examined family members in isolation, focusing separately on young children, adolescents, or parents. The present study aims to investigate language use, choice, and maintenance, as well as identity construction, across three generations of Turkish immigrants in France. Data were collected from two Turkish families, one in the Rouen region and the other in the Paris region: the first family consists of a father, his daughter, and his granddaughter, while the second family includes a mother, her daughter, and her granddaughter. To do this, we used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews tailored to each of the three generations. The data were subsequently analyzed through content analysis. The paper addresses the following interconnected research questions: (i) What intergenerational differences exist within the same family regarding language use and choice, as well as linguistic competence in L1 (Turkish) and L2 (French)? (ii) How do bilinguals’ language choices and usage relate to the construction of family members’ identities? (iii) Is there evidence of language attrition among third-generation immigrants? (iv) Is there evidence of an ongoing language shift toward L2 within Turkish families? The findings indicate robust maintenance of Turkish, even among the third generation. While the first generation predominantly uses Turkish, both the second and third generations identify themselves as bilingual and exhibit positive attitudes toward both languages.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080173

Authors: Cleo Condoravdi Paul Kiparsky

We propose a new account of the change from -Vsis, -Vzis to -Vi̯s in Modern Lesbian, as well as of related changes in other Northern Greek dialects, arguing that they are special cases of the loss of unstressed high vowels. Our analysis depends on the new understanding of the nature of sound change that nonlinear phonology and Optimality Theory jointly make available.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080172

Authors: Brian D. Joseph

The Greek dialects of Lesvos and Adrianople (present-day Edirne) during the time of the Ottoman Empire have much in common. Both are northern dialects and show considerable influence from Turkish; moreover, both were documented in the early 20th century, before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, by Kretschmer, in 1905, for Lesvos and by Ronzevalle, in 1911, for Adrianople. A comparative look at the two dialects reveals deep penetration of Turkish into their respective lexicons, with consequences for their phonology, and for Adrianople, into aspects of its grammar too. I focus here on a phonological matter, namely the conditions under which voiced stops (D) occur. Kretschmer’s song recordings from Lesvos show D only after full nasals (N), i.e., in ND clusters, while later documentation, Newton 1972, shows no nasality, with only D as the realization, even in words with ND earlier. Adrianople Greek shows intervocalic D but also ND clusters, only in Turkish loans and always matching the consonantism of the Turkish source; such is the case too in ND/D variation in rebetika songs from Istanbul. This suggests that the issue really involves a kind of dialect mixing, and it is argued that this holds even for Lesvos, and even for sociolinguistically coded variation. Thus, bringing Adrianople Greek into consideration clarifies the nature of voiced stop realizations in Lesvos phonology.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080171

Authors: Ana Yara Postigo-Fuentes Jose Bernardo Berna Alvarado

This article analyses how three leading female figures of the European far right—Marine Le Pen (France), Giorgia Meloni (Italy), and Alice Weidel (Germany)—construct populist discourse on X (formerly Twitter) during recent high-stakes election campaigns. The analysis is based on a corpus of 1053 posts published in the month preceding the 2022 French presidential elections, the 2022 Italian general elections, and the 2025 German federal elections. Methodologically, it combines content analysis (operationalised through a codebook developed in Atlas.ti v23), Critical Discourse Analysis, and comparative analysis to identify dominant issues, campaign strategies, and underlying discursive structures. Adopting a corpus-pragmatic perspective, the study undertakes a pragmatic examination of implicit meaning—presupposition, implication, and implicature—to show how meaning is conveyed in authentic, digitally mediated political data. The findings reveal a shared populist communicative matrix centred on polarisation, simplification, and emotional mobilisation, alongside important national variations. Le Pen and Meloni primarily construct an “internal traitor” among political elites, linking economic and social grievances to elite failure. In contrast, Weidel recentres migration and security, portraying migrants as a direct threat and mainstream parties as responsible for citizens’ insecurity. The article highlights the need for further research on gender and leadership in the contemporary European far right.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080170

Authors: Ilaria Fiorentini

This paper focuses on historical and new linguistic minorities in educational contexts in Italy. It argues that, despite increasing multilingualism, the Italian educational system remains shaped by a persistent monolingual ideology. Drawing on data from two research projects, La classe plurilingue (2018–2020) and MinEdu—Supporting Minority Languages in Educational Contexts (2023–2026), it examines how different forms of multilingualism, both of which can be framed within a heritage language profile, are managed across educational settings. The analysis highlights a fundamental asymmetry: while historical minority languages are institutionally recognized but internally contested (particularly with respect to standardization), languages associated with migration are largely marginalized. The paper argues that both phenomena can be understood within a broader ideological framework described as “monolingualism within multilingualism”, and calls for a rethinking of language education policies in Italy.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080169

Authors: Nala H. Lee Chuen-Shin Yong Miguel Escobar Varela

Language vitality scales are commonly used in language documentation, yet assumptions behind labels such as “threatened” and “endangered” are often taken for granted. This study adopts a computational-based approach to disciplinary discourse analysis, examining how linguists deploy “threatened” and “endangered,” terms that appear on vitality scales, across scholarly discourse. We compared vocabulary and thematic content in “threatened” and “endangered” texts using TF-IDF, topic modeling, and similarity metrics, with other linguistic terms providing contextual benchmarks. Keyword analysis shows that “threatened” and “endangered” index related but distinct orientations within linguistic research. Writing on “endangered” languages more frequently centers on documentation, archiving, and institutional research practices, while writing on “threatened” languages places greater emphasis on language vitality and ongoing sociolinguistic change. The magnitude of their difference is contextualized by contrasting “threatened” and “endangered” with other conceptual pairs within linguistics and beyond. The findings suggest that “threatened” and “endangered”, which are consecutive labels on the Language Endangerment Index, are more closely related than distinct theoretical constructs but less related than near-overlapping linguistic terms. Overall, the results demonstrate that these terms, as deployed in disciplinary practice, capture systematic distinctions in how linguistic situations are understood. Methodologically, this paper shows how computational analysis can be used as a reflexive research tool that enables us to better understand disciplinary discourse.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080168

Authors: Oksana Laleko Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan

Research on Russian as a heritage language has played a central role in the development of heritage language studies [...]

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080167

Authors: Kexin Zhang João Veloso

Can listeners whose native language lacks contrastive lexical stress identify stress in an unfamiliar language? We addressed this question with native Mandarin Chinese listeners, whose L1 marks lexical contrasts with tone, and European Portuguese (EP), whose stress system relies mainly on vowel-quality and durational cues. Twenty listeners with no knowledge of Portuguese heard 30 trisyllabic EP words and indicated, for each word, which syllable sounded most prominent. Overall accuracy was modestly but reliably above chance (46.9%; chance = 33.3%), but it was carried almost entirely by words with initial (antepenultimate) stress, and responses showed a strong overall preference for the initial syllable. Once this positional bias was modeled explicitly, relative duration was the only reliable acoustic predictor of listeners’ responses, with an additional contribution of syllable weight, whereas F0 and intensity showed no independent effects; the durational effect was robust to controlling for intrinsic vowel duration. These findings indicate partial, but clearly non-native-like, sensitivity to EP prominence: listeners recruited duration, a prominence cue productive in Mandarin and the main lexical cue remaining in EP for listeners who cannot exploit vowel-quality contrasts, while apparently disregarding F0, which their L1 binds to lexical tone. The results bear on the debate about prominence in Mandarin and show, methodologically, that positional response biases must be modeled before cue weighting can be interpreted.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080166

Authors: Alícia Paulet-Prats Lluís Barceló-Coblijn Elga Cremades

This study examines the use of function words in adult individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) compared to typically developing (TD) speakers, focusing on spontaneous speech in Catalan and Spanish. The aim is to assess both quantitative and qualitative aspects of function word production and to explore whether WS is associated with distinct grammatical processing patterns. The corpus consisted of 20 five-minute transcripts, equally divided by language (Catalan/Spanish) and group (WS/TD). Analyses included counts of function word categories, error types, and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLUm). Statistical procedures (t-tests, ANOVA, Mann–Whitney tests, and MANOVA with bootstrapping) were applied depending on distributional assumptions. Results showed significant differences between WS and TD groups in several categories, including prepositions, conjunctions, definite articles, numerals, adverbs, and relative pronouns, with large effect sizes in some cases. MLUm was also significantly lower in the WS group. In contrast, no significant effects of language or interaction between language and group were found. These findings indicate that WS has a robust impact on grammatical usage, particularly affecting function words, independently of language. On the whole, the results support the view that WS is associated with atypical linguistic profiles and contribute cross-linguistic evidence from Romance languages, highlighting the need for further research on language processing in this population.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080165

Authors: Philipp Stöckle Markus Pluschkovits

This paper investigates variation on the level of lexis in Austrian German across registers with an apparent-time approach, drawing on data from a large-scale online survey of lexical variation conducted across Austria between 2021 and 2023, comprising 45 lexical concepts elicited from over 1900 respondents. We utilize Shannon entropy as a proxy to model lexical diversity across different registers in young and old speakers and investigate the influence of area, age group, phenomenon and register. We use ANOVA, multi-dimensional scaling and generalized additive modelling and find that the lexical concept under investigation exerts by far the strongest influence on lexical diversity, followed by a small but significant regional effect—one that, however, disappears when modelled at the level of individual localities rather than aggregated regions. While area influences lexical diversity, we do not find evidence of clearly distinguished lexical isoglosses in our data but rather broad east–west distinctions. While we find more diversity in older speakers in their nonstandard, we observe more pronounced east–west distinctions in younger speakers. We interpret this as a levelling of standard and nonstandard forms in younger speakers but along broader regional lines. This is corroborated by the reduced diversity in younger speakers in nonstandard varieties but slightly higher diversity in standard registers, pointing towards a levelling process.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080164

Authors: Lorraine D. Reggin Janelle M. Wydeven Susan A. Graham Penny M. Pexman

LENA StartTM is a community-based parent education program designed to promote early language development in children from birth to 3 years of age. In this study, the contributions of three intervention components—home recordings, individualized feedback, and parent education—were examined over 10 weeks across three groups: LENA StartTM program (n = 347), Recordings + Feedback (n = 66), and Recordings Only (n = 51). Linear mixed-effects models were used to examine change over time, group differences, and group differences in trajectories while accounting for baseline values and child characteristics. There were improvements in child language, as measured by the parent-reported LENA® Developmental Snapshot, across measurement periods for all groups, whereas parent-reported confidence and knowledge survey scores increased only for families participating in the LENA StartTM program. Families receiving feedback (LENA StartTM and Recordings + Feedback) reported greater increases in reading time than families completing recordings alone. After accounting for baseline values, no overall group differences or differences in trajectories were observed in the number of adult words, conversational turns, or child vocalizations as measured by LENA® recordings. These findings suggest that different components of LENA-based interventions may influence distinct outcomes and underscore the importance of evaluating parent language interventions using multiple measures, extending beyond quantitative indicators of parent–child talk.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080163

Authors: Anna Kohári Uwe D. Reichel Sarolta Murányi Rebeka Dóra Keserű Katalin Pirsel Katalin Mády

Adults, when talking to infants, adjust their communication across several dimensions, including acoustic, linguistic, and gestural characteristics. However, our knowledge of how these dimensions covary in this register adjustment remains limited. Our objective was to analyze the linguistic elements, gestures and acoustic features (speech rate, vowel space, prosody) of storytelling directed to 6-month-old infants in a multidimensional way. The storytelling of 92 mothers to their own children was investigated and compared to their communication with other adults. We analyzed the acoustic features, gestures, and the linguistic construction of their storytelling. Our results have shown that pointing and showing gestures were more common in infant-directed storytelling, just as interactive expressions unrelated to the story were. The correlation tests across dimensions revealed that infant-directed communication is multidimensional. The cross-dimensional analyses demonstrated that infant-directed communication, compared to adult-directed communication, exhibited more systematic multidimensional coordination. Mothers who used more gestures and interactive elements in their infant-directed communication also tended to modify the acoustic characteristics of their speech to a greater extent relative to their adult-directed speech.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080162

Authors: Cristina Li

This article examines heritage language transmission within Chinese migrant families in Italy, focussing on the role of Family Language Policy and the interplay between standard (Putonghua) and non-standard local varieties (fangyan). Drawing on semi-structured interviews with six families and the primary school teachers of their children (aged 6–8), the study adopts a multi-perspective design to explore how reported language practices, beliefs, and attitudes interact across family and school domains. Findings indicate a predominant shift towards Putonghua as the primary heritage language, often at the expense of fangyan, which tends to be marginalised by parents or reported as being retained only as passive competence among children. This shift reflects practical considerations and evaluative orientations related to prestige, usefulness, and standardisation. Variation across families shows that alternative orientations persist, with one family valuing fangyan for intergenerational continuity. Teachers’ perspectives further suggest a limited awareness of internal linguistic diversity within the student population. The convergence of family-driven shifts and school-based perceptions may contribute to processes of increasing standardisation in the representation and transmission of heritage varieties. This article contributes to research on heritage language maintenance by offering contextually situated insights into how the interplay between social actors and contextual factors may shape linguistic diversity within diasporic communities.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080161

Authors: Violetta Cataldo

This study investigates the use of the discourse marker cioè in the Italian speech of first- and second-generation migrants living in Naples, focusing on frequency, phonetic realization, pragmatic functions, and syntactic position. While previous research on discourse markers in Italian as a second language has primarily addressed their functional development, their phonetic realization—especially in contact with regional varieties—remains largely unexplored. The analysis is based on a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews collected within the HELLO Campania! Project and includes Sri Lankan and Filipino speakers, compared with a control group of native Neapolitan speakers. Quantitative analyses reveal clear generational differences: first-generation speakers show low frequencies and limited functional range, whereas second-generation speakers display native-like frequency and distribution. Crucially, results show that migrants not only acquire cioè at a functional level but also reproduce locally salient phonetic variants, including variety-specific patterns of phonetic reduction, i.e., [tʃɛ] and [ʃɛ]. These findings suggest that linguistic integration operates across multiple levels and that discourse markers are sensitive sites of sociophonetic accommodation. The study contributes to research on Italian L2 and language contact by highlighting the role of regional phonetic patterns in shaping the acquisition of high-frequency pragmatic items.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080160

Authors: Toru Ishii Brian Agbayani

This paper is concerned with a peculiar asymmetry between single and multiple argument ellipsis in Japanese: ellipsis of a single argument is sensitive to syntactic constraints and LF interpretive effects, whereas multiple argument ellipsis is not. We point out that argument ellipsis and topicalization are parallel in this respect: while single topicalization obeys syntactic constraints and exhibits LF interpretive effects, multiple topicalization does not. Following Agbayani and Ishii’s (2023) proposal that multiple topicalization involves prosodic topicalization at PF, we argue that while single argument ellipsis involves syntactic topicalization followed by topic deletion (Fujiwara, 2020, 2022; Mizuno, 2025), multiple argument ellipsis involves prosodic topicalization. We then propose the Universal Uniqueness Principle, which enforces “uniqueness” for any application of movement, and demonstrate that this principle, coupled with the Earliness Principle (Pesetsky, 1989), accounts for asymmetries with single and multiple argument ellipsis/topicalization in relation to the levels where topicalization occurs. We argue that cross-linguistic differences in “uniqueness” phenomena result from different properties of the syntax–prosody mapping, not from a “uniqueness” macro-parameter (Fukui, 1999), providing support for the Uniformity Hypothesis (Chomsky, 2001) and the Externalization Parameter (Chomsky, 2010; Berwick & Chomsky, 2011).

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080159

Authors: Marta Maffia

This study explores how adult immigrants represent and position their mother tongue/heritage language (L1/HL) within their linguistic repertoires, adopting a heteroglossic perspective on bilingualism and situating the analysis within the autobiographical approach to language education. The research was conducted within the G.U.L.P. project in Naples and is based on a corpus of 268 language portraits produced by learners of Italian as a second language, complemented by oral presentations. Data were analyzed through an integrated quantitative and qualitative methodology, focusing on the spatial distribution of languages in the portraits and on the thematic content of the accompanying presentations. The results show that the L1/HL is most frequently positioned in cognitively and affectively salient areas, particularly the head and the heart, reflecting both rational and emotional conceptualizations of language. While no substantial differences emerge across biographical variables, some tendencies can be observed, including a greater association of the heart with female participants and variation across national groups. Overall, the findings highlight the central role of the L1/HL in learners’ self-representations and confirm the value of the language portrait as a tool for investigating linguistic repertoires and supporting the recognition of plurilingual identities in education, also with adult immigrants.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080158

Authors: Fouad Ahmed Atallah

Sharia and Law colleges in Saudi universities provide a distinctive educational setting in which classical Islamic jurisprudential discourse and contemporary statutory legal discourse coexist within the same curriculum. Despite this shared institutional context, the pragmatic characteristics of these coexisting normative genres remain largely unexplored from a corpus-based perspective. This study examines how genre differences influence the linguistic formulation of legal definitions and religious rulings across four officially prescribed texts: two classical Hanbali works—Rawḍat al-Nāẓir by Ibn Qudāma and Al-Rawḍ al-Murbiʿ by al-Buhūtī—and two contemporary Saudi statutes—the Civil Transactions Law and the Law of Criminal Procedure. A purpose-built corpus of approximately 480,000 words was analysed using a corpus-assisted discourse analysis design integrating quantitative frequency and keyword analysis with systematic manual pragmatic coding within a triangulated theoretical framework. The findings show that differences in disciplinary genre are systematically reflected in distinct pragmatic profiles. Rawḍat al-Nāẓir is characterised by assertive-definitional speech acts and methodological deontic expressions, whereas Al-Rawḍ al-Murbiʿ is dominated by directive speech acts associated with applied legal rulings. The statutory texts employ standardised legislative constructions, including negative-exceptive formulations, formal prohibition markers, and institution-specific obligation structures. The Civil Transactions Law further exhibits a hybrid pragmatic register through the incorporation of classical jurisprudential maxims into enacted statutory provisions. Based on the systematic literature review undertaken for this study, the findings provide what is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first corpus-based pragmatic comparison of these coexisting curricular genres. The study thereby contributes to Arabic legal linguistics, corpus pragmatics, and the linguistic analysis of legal education, while offering empirically grounded insights for curriculum development in Sharia and Law programmes.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080157

Authors: Xuemei He

Research on dialect contact often frames lexical shifts under pressure from dominant standard or prestige varieties as unidirectional replacement: supra-local forms spread and inherited local vocabulary recedes. This article re-examines that model through Northern Shaanxi Jin, a group of Jin varieties in long-term vertical contact with Standard Mandarin. The analysis draws on structured wordlists, contextual elicitation, an 810 min corpus of spontaneous speech, and a supplementary apparent-time response task with 38 younger speakers. Four domains are examined in detail: weather expressions, the hou (猴) diminutive network, the leng (冷)/liang (凉) temperature contrast, and the generalized classifier ge (个). The corpus and elicited data show that Mandarin-aligned forms have expanded, especially in reportive, institutional, cross-dialectal, and younger-peer settings. These forms, however, do not displace inherited lexical resources along a single trajectory. Local forms remain active in fixed weather and customary expressions, tactile distinctions, address and idiomatic uses, and routine nominal quantification. This pattern is analyzed as lexical stratification supported by semantic reallocation: sustained contact redistributes overlapping forms across semantic ranges, constructional environments, and interactional settings rather than producing uniform lexical replacement.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080156

Authors: Raymond Siebetcheu

This article examines the changing role of Italian among Cameroonian-origin families who experienced onward migration after a prolonged period of residence in Italy. Drawing on qualitative data collected between June 2024 and August 2025 through socio-biographical questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with 15 families, the study investigates how Italian is maintained, reduced, or refunctionalised after relocation to Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, or the United States or return to Cameroon. The findings show that Italian played a central role during the period of residence in Italy, functioning as a language of education, employment, institutional participation, and social integration. After onward migration, however, these functions are largely assumed by the dominant language of the new country, especially among children whose schooling and peer relationships develop in French, English, or German. Nevertheless, Italian rarely disappears completely. It persists in more specialised domains, including couple interaction, transnational networks, professional niches, private communication, lexical routines, naming practices, and emotional attachment to the family’s life in Italy. The article argues that Italian should not be understood only through the binary opposition between language maintenance and language shift. Rather, onward migration produces a functional reconfiguration of Italian, whereby a former language of integration becomes a biographical, relational, and symbolic resource within multilingual family repertoires.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080155

Authors: Nadiezdha Torres-Sánchez Alonso Guerrero-Galván

In Mexico, diverse sociolinguistic realities have given rise to various situations of language contact, primarily between Spanish and indigenous languages. Intense linguistic contact produces changes in the structure of both languages. This research reviews several studies that have focused on describing variation and processes of change at the morphosyntactic level due to linguistic contact in different varieties of Spanish in contact with indigenous languages. On the one hand, the stability of some of these change processes is noted, and on the other, the function served by both the structures of indigenous languages and the diverse contact situations in which they are immersed is evidenced, which demonstrates that despite sharing contact features, the process and the results are not the same across different Mexican bilingual communities.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080154

Authors: Raquel Fernández Fuertes Tamara Gómez Carrero

We explore how Spanish gender features are processed by English–Spanish bilingual children from two contact zones (Sotogrande, Spain, and Gibraltar, United Kingdom), divided into two dominance groups. The children come from two schools in which both languages are spoken, while English is the language of instruction. We present offline and online processing data involving linguistic code-switching between subjects and adjectives (Adj) in copulative constructions (the window es is roja red). Two issues are targeted to explore the mental representation that bilinguals have when their two languages are simultaneously activated. (i) The directionality of the switch provides information as to whether or not having to value gender features should result in a more economical representation. (ii) The gender agreement mechanisms that could be enforced when a Spanish adjective switch is processed provide information as to the importance that gender feature valuation has for bilinguals. Data show that no differences appear across the two child groups, which suggests that dominance does not reflect the similar representation that the two bilingual groups seem to have. The preference for English Adj switches and for gender matching Spanish Adj switches is linked to the properties of the two languages involved in the switch and to the hierarchy of processing difficulties.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080153

Authors: Eeva Sippola Danae Perez Jillian Melchor

This article explores a community-based approach to language documentation in a multilingual, creole-speaking environment. Cavite Chabacano is a highly endangered creole spoken in the Philippines, and its speakers mostly belong to the grandparental generation. In order to ensure its documentation and explore possible new paths to revitalization that go beyond documentation, this study takes as its point of departure the perspectives of community members and locates them in dialog with those of academic researchers. The authors explore large community workshops as a format to identify documentation methods and goals that community members find most accurate, among which a standardized orthography was mentioned. The data are analyzed from a nexus discourse analytical perspective, which helped uncover how community members co-constructed the community and negotiated the past and future of their language.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11080152

Authors: Pasha Koval Sophia A. Malamud Ruth Rosenblum Illia Borzov

The Russian suffix -sja presents a learnability problem: a single morpheme signals five distinct argument-structure alternations (anticausative, reflexive, antipassive, reciprocal, and impersonal). How do monolingual and bilingual children acquire this complex form-function mapping? We report a longitudinal corpus study of 13 Russian-speaking children (five monolinguals and eight bilinguals) examining the emergence, distribution, and productivity of each sja-type. Three main findings emerge. First, children show a productivity hierarchy: anticausative and reflexive occur with many different verbs, whereas reciprocal and impersonal are largely confined to a few high-frequency items. Second, impersonal -sja is uniquely difficult, emerging latest and showing the lowest productivity overall. Third, contrary to predictions from heritage language research, bilingual children in our corpus show no deficit relative to monolinguals (and in fact show earlier emergence across the board). These findings suggest that the bilingual divergence from the monolingual baseline must emerge after early childhood.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070151

Authors: Andreas Nolda Alexander Geyken

This article investigates methodological questions of diatopic lexical variation in Modern German through a comparative study of empirical data sources. We contrast lexical frequency data from three written corpora on the DWDS corpus query platform—the ZDL-Regionalkorpus, the Webmonitor-Korpus, and the Regionalliteratur-Korpus—with linguistic maps from the Atlas zur deutschen Alltagssprache (AdA), a resource that documents speaker attitudes towards spoken German every-day language. Our goal is to determine to what extent regional distributions of lexical variants in the AdA compare to the DWDS corpora, and to analyse where these distributions converge and diverge based on data and text type. This is demonstrated through four empirical case studies examining synonyms for ‘Saturday’ (“Samstag”/“Sonnabend”), ‘comma’ (“Komma”/“Beistrich”), ‘bicycle’ (“Fahrrad”/“Radl”/“Velo”), and ‘lift’ (“Aufzug”/“Fahrstuhl”/“Lift”). The results indicate that the general regional distribution of lexical variants in the AdA is largely replicated in the DWDS corpora. Moreover, the corpus data typically show the co-occurrence of several variants in the same region, while speaker attitudes documented in the AdA tend to be more uniform. Finally, different text types represented in the corpora can yield different frequency ratios in specific regions, a finding explained by presumed differences in target audiences and the variable use of regiolectal or dialectal language.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070150

Authors: Sevgi Çalışır Zenci

This study examines digital lexical resources developed for endangered languages through a qualitative comparative framework grounded in documentary linguistics and digital lexicography. Focusing on four representative cases—the Māori Dictionary, the Ojibwe People’s Dictionary, Talking Dictionaries, and the Endangered Languages Archive—the study analyzes how different models of digital dictionaries are structured and how they support language documentation, pedagogy, and community engagement. Rather than treating these resources as directly comparable entities, the study introduces a typological distinction between stand-alone community-oriented dictionaries and large-scale documentary infrastructures. Based on an operationalized analysis of lexicographic structure, contextualization, technological features, and participation models, the findings demonstrate that digital lexical resources are functionally differentiated rather than hierarchically ordered. The results suggest that these resources operate along a continuum between pedagogical accessibility and documentary depth. Community-based dictionary models tend to emphasize user-oriented design, culturally embedded content, and language learning, while archival platforms prioritize scalability, metadata standardization, and long-term preservation. Importantly, community participation emerges as a variable rather than uniform feature, particularly within large-scale infrastructures. The study contributes to the literature by proposing a functional-typological framework for analyzing digital dictionaries of endangered languages and by highlighting the need to move beyond monolithic and evaluative comparisons. It further emphasizes the importance of integrating community perspectives, contextual richness, and technological adaptability in the design of sustainable digital language resources.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070149

Authors: Fereshteh Modarresi Manfred Krifka

The core of the Persian tense-aspect system revolves around two verbal stem forms and the so-called durative prefix mi-. We argue that Stem II encodes a perfective meaning, requiring that the event time is contained in the topic time, whereas the prefix mi- encodes that a viewpoint is temporally contained in the event time. Temporal operators, in turn, relate the viewpoint time and the topic time to the utterance time, thus relating the event time to the utterance time. At least one of these methods has to be applied in order to make the predication interpretable. These meanings are modeled within a framework of branching time, which captures facts about the completion or non-completion of events, and provides a novel way for modeling the future. We also treat the use of the prefix mi- in generic sentences and the complex tenses that are expressed with auxiliaries: the modal future, the progressive, and the perfect.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070148

Authors: Lars Bülow Philip C. Vergeiner Oliver Schallert

This study provides the first systematic combined real- and apparent-time analysis of onomasiological lexical variation and change in the Bavarian, Franconian, and Swabian dialects of Bavaria (Germany). Drawing on two large-scale indirect surveys—the Maurer questionnaires (collected in 1934), and the DaBay dialect app (2025–ongoing)—we examine five lexical concepts (ant, apple core, rooster, potato, and ladybug) using descriptive mapping and Generalised Additive Mixed Models (GAMMs). The results reveal three main patterns: (i) stability in long-established heteronyms (in apple core), (ii) real-time convergence toward Standard German (in ant, potato, and ladybug), and (iii) concept-specific areal realignments driven by competing dialect-internal and standard-influenced variants (in rooster). Dialect geography consistently conditions lexical choices, while social factors play a comparatively minor role. Together, the findings demonstrate that lexical variation and change in Bavaria is systematic, regionally differentiated, and empirically tractable through large-scale historical and contemporary survey data.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070147

Authors: Lewis Baker E Jamieson

To advance our understanding of the vulnerability of native adult grammars to grammatical attrition, research should further explore the various input contexts in which such attrition may obtain. This article considers contexts where speakers are first exposed in adulthood to a grammatically distinct dialectal variety of their first language (L1), which may result in modifications to the grammar of their native dialect. Within psycholinguistic approaches to L1 attrition, these changes under the influence of a new L1 dialect are often considered part of the same phenomenon as attrition under the influence of a second language (L2). Changes to late-sequential bidialectals’ native dialects have also been investigated within variationist sociolinguistics under the term ‘long-term accommodation’. Despite the fact that both the psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic approaches are essentially studying the same patterns of native grammatical change in the same populations of speakers, communication between the two fields has been scarce. The purpose of this review article is therefore twofold: Firstly, we aim to provide an overview of some key studies evidencing changes in the native grammars of late-sequential bidialectals, bringing together research from the fields of L1 attrition and variationist sociolinguistics. Secondly, building on this review, we explore how drawing upon insights from these two fields can further our understanding of some key issues in the field of L1 grammatical attrition more broadly, and we explore some of the implications for current attempts to model grammatical attrition across a range of input contexts.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070146

Authors: Matteo Greco Veronica D’Alesio Anna Teresa Porrini

This study investigates the processing of Italian verb constructions containing preverbal dative clitics that function either as arguments or as adjuncts, adopting a developmental perspective across Italian-speaking children, adolescents, and adults. In a self-paced reading experiment, adults and fourteen-year-old adolescents read trivalent verbs selecting a dative argument (‘Martina mi ha prestato una bicicletta.’; Eng.: ‘Martina lent me a bicycle.’) faster than bivalent verbs licensing a benefactive dative (‘Martina mi ha riparato una bicicletta.’; Eng.: ‘Martina repaired me a bicycle), in line with the Argument Structure Hypothesis, which predicts lower processing costs for lexically selected arguments than for syntactically computed adjuncts. In contrast, eleven-year-old children showed no processing differences between the two constructions. A second experiment using eye-tracking with ten-year-old children replicated this null effect, indicating that the absence of sensitivity to the argument–adjunct distinction at this age is not due to methodological factors. Instead, the findings suggest a developmental trajectory, with adult-like processing emerging only in early adolescence. Children’s performance appears to be influenced by grammatical competence rather than by verb argument structure per se. Overall, the results highlight the role of grammatical maturation in real-time syntactic processing.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070145

Authors: Nala H. Lee Huiyu Zhang

This paper reports on the pilot implementation of ChakapBot, a generative AI-supported chatbot developed to support both the revitalisation and documentation of Baba Malay, an endangered heritage language in Singapore. A six-week pilot was conducted with 26 participants, the majority of whom were adult learners with limited prior exposure to the language and disrupted intergenerational transmission. Drawing on surveys, the study examines participant engagement, perceived usefulness, and the role of the chatbot within a blended learning model combining in-person instruction and digital practice. ChakapBot was trained on a community-curated corpus comprising a dictionary, a textbook, and a grammatical description of Baba Malay, positioning it as both a learning support tool and a means of operationalising existing documentation resources for community use. Findings indicate that participants valued the chatbot for its flexibility, accessibility, and low-pressure environment for independent practice, and perceived it as a complement to human-led instruction rather than a replacement. Participants also reported using Baba Malay beyond classroom settings, including in the home, workplace, and community events. The study highlights how ethically designed, community-curated AI tools can bridge language documentation and revitalisation by transforming documented linguistic knowledge into accessible, everyday practice for learners.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070144

Authors: Tun Hao

Within the framework of argument realization theory, Semantic Role Lists, Participant Roles, and Predicate–Argument Structures represent competing models of verb semantics, each yielding distinct predictions regarding mental representation and processing complexity. This study formalizes these perspectives into two competing accounts: the Role-Quantity Hypothesis (H1), which posits that processing load is driven by the number of event participants, and the Structure-Quantity Hypothesis (H2), which attributes complexity to the multiplicity of syntactic templates. To evaluate these hypotheses, a lexical decision task was conducted on Chinese verbs. The results revealed a significant main effect of role quantity: two-role verbs elicited longer reaction times and lower accuracy than one-role verbs. Conversely, no significant differences were found between one-structure and two-structure verbs. These findings provide robust empirical support for H1, indicating that role-based representations possess greater psychological reality in the Chinese mental lexicon. We argue that for an isolating language like Chinese, verb processing is primarily event-driven, where role information serves as a predictive heuristic during early lexical access. This study offers new insights into the role-based nature of Chinese verb representation, its psychological reality in real-time processing, and the value of integrating argument realization theory with experimental psycholinguistics.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070143

Authors: John Lipski

In sustained Spanish–Portuguese contact zones, there is often a mismatch between observable linguistic data and speakers’ views on the degree of resulting hybridity. Terms like “Portuñol/Portunhol” are suggestive of a “third” language, but little empirical evidence has been offered in support of such outcomes, and spontaneous speech does not provide the complete envelope of variation. The present study draws on data collected in Misiones province in northeastern Argentina, where vernacular Portuguese is spoken natively in rural households, and Spanish is first acquired informally. To empirically test popular notions of “Portuñol” hybridity, an array of experimental tasks has been employed to present various monolingual and mixed configurations to bilingual participants. In the sociolinguistic free-fall environment of Misiones, the potential for the emergence of a stable hybrid is at its greatest, but the increasingly fine-grained array of experimental techniques designed to force-feed putative “Portuñol” shows that even with priming, lexical borrowing is still the only consistent contact-induced phenomenon.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070142

Authors: Séfora Ene-Gimeno Joel Juarros-Basterretxea Samara Sáez-Martínez Jesús Garza Héctor Morillo-Sarto

Many researchers note that mental disorders can be understood as maladaptive attempts to avoid aversive internal experiences, and propose that a functional approach is required to complement topographical classification. Approaches that are based on the function of behavior can identify basic processes for the development of interventions. From this perspective, communication difficulties can be seen as strategies that are based on avoidance that increase distress. Among these problems are problems understanding metaphors, humor, and irony. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) offers a functional framework from which to analyze these processes. All this is the basis of the interventions that are aimed at promoting more adaptive behavior patterns. Moreover, individuals with Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder (SPCD) often exhibit impairments in perspective-taking, which RFT interventions aim to address by developing relational framing skills and social cognition. This paper proposes a functional approach and a theoretical framework for understanding interventions in SPCD through RFT.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070141

Authors: K. David Harrison Hoài Trần Công Minh Khang Hoàng Nghĩa Đ. Nguyễn Hải Lâm Cao Xơm A Lisa Lim Myles L. Lynch Thuy Bui

Environmental knowledge encoded in Bahnar, an Indigenous language of Vietnam, is vital to the Bahnar community and contributes to broader understandings of biodiversity, climate resilience, and sustainable lifeways. We describe a collaborative approach to documenting Bahnar that integrates computational methods with ethnographic, lexicographic, and linguistic fieldwork. Because Bahnar knowledge is transmitted almost entirely through oral tradition rather than writing, effective documentation cannot rely solely on extractive corpus-based or NLP tools. Although three legacy bilingual Bahnar dictionaries exist, they are partially obsolete, uneven in coverage, and largely inaccessible to the community itself. Our corpus analysis of the Bahnar environmental vocabulary, complemented by intensive community-based fieldwork, reveals semantic patterns that closely link environmental knowledge with Bahnar lifeways, subsistence practices, and material culture. These patterns, we argue, are language-specific and may not emerge from analyses of environmental lexicons in languages such as English or Vietnamese. Bahnar semantic categories attribute aesthetic, medicinal, mythological, and spiritual agency to animals, plants, and landscapes, contrasting with classificatory frameworks common in post-industrial societies that emphasize biophysical, scientific, or economic properties. We propose that community-centered digital lexicography can strengthen Bahnar language vitality, enhance local access to cultural knowledge, and simultaneously advance comparative linguistic and environmental research.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070140

Authors: Xiaoran Chen Shuangshuang Chen

In modern spoken Mandarin, the second-person pronoun nǐ ‘you’ is frequently used beyond its canonical addressee-reference function, including for third-person reference. Although previous studies have documented this phenomenon, little is known about how it is sequentially organized, what interactional work it accomplishes, and how recipients orient to it in naturally occurring conversation. Drawing on conversation analysis, this study examines the use of nǐ for third-person reference in the DIG Mandarin Conversations (DMC) Corpus, focusing on its sequential construction, recipient uptake, and interactional import. The analysis shows that this practice typically follows a recurrent sequential pattern: the referent is first introduced in initial position through an unmarked recognitional form, after which nǐ appears in subsequent position, serving as a marked resource for stance-taking. In response turns, minimal tokens function to provide acknowledgment and possible affiliation, whereas sentential responses enable stance modulation and topic redirection. These findings demonstrate that nǐ used for third-person reference is not an incidental deictic shift, but a recurrent interactional practice for the display and management of stance in Mandarin conversation. This study contributes to broader discussions on person reference, footing, and intersubjectivity in talk-in-interaction.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070139

Authors: Angela Ralli Georgios Chairetakis

In this article, we deal with the word-formation process of compounding in the Modern Greek dialect of the Aegean island of Lesbos, the so-called “Modern Lesbian”, in comparison to relevant information regarding compounding in Standard Modern Greek. In this dialect, compounding is widespread and constitutes a fertile process of the vocabulary expansion, as in the Greek language in general. Numerous compounds are built, belonging to the three major grammatical categories, that is, nouns (e.g., μυρμηγκόγλινα /mirmigóɣlina/ ‘ant’s fat’), adjectives (e.g., καγιρουμάτς /kaʝirumáts/ ‘cross-eyed’) and verbs (e.g., νιρουκάγιουμι /nirukáʝumi/ ‘be thirsty’), while adverbs are mainly secondary formations, with most of them created on the basis of compound adjectives and the adverbial suffix -a (e.g., πισώκουλα /pisókula/ ‘backwards’ < πισώκουλoυς /pisókulus/ ‘somebody with atypical buttocks’ + -α). On the basis of a morpheme-based theoretical framework, where compounds are considered to be built in morphology, we propose to examine: (a) the Modern Lesbian compound structures, consisting of stems and words, the most frequent of which display the patterns [Stem Stem] and [Stem Word], (b) the existence, type and position of a morphological head in the constructions, (c) the relations of compound internal constituents, and (d) the use of borrowed lexemes from Turkish and Italo-Romance in compound structures. As far as language contact is concerned, we provide examples which show the predominantly matter-borrowing instances and discuss two rare cases of pattern-borrowing from Turkish and Italo-Romance, respectively.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070138

Authors: Vladislava Warditz

This paper examines how heritage Russian reflects morphosyntactic dynamics in baseline Russian, drawing on three diachronically spaced corpora collected in 2001, 2010, and 2022 in Germany. It identifies recurrent patterns of variation in heritage Russian and assesses how they correspond to domains of instability already attested in the baseline system. The study assumes that transfer, variation, and convergence in heritage Russian are shaped not only by its reduced use in favor of the societal language but also by internal trigger mechanisms analogous to those operating in baseline Russian, while at the same time exhibiting specific variation patterns arising from multilingual variation typical of communication among heritage speakers. The analysis shows that the most prominent domains that consistently emerge as unstable across the corpora are nominal number and case, shifts in nominal and verbal government, and calquing of syntactic constructions. In this respect, heritage Russian mirrors baseline tendencies while also exhibiting contact-enhanced effects. For instance, GEN/ACC competition and the extension of animate object marking occur in both baseline and heritage Russian, whereas the overgeneralization of inanimate object marking appears predominantly in heritage Russian. Similarly, the loss of an instrumental predicative in favor of the nominative and fluctuations in prepositional government reflect baseline instability amplified by German influence. Syntactic variation—including borrowing of connectors, loss of baseline intonation patterns, and pro-drop in impersonal constructions—further illustrates the interaction of internal instability and contact effects, whereby contact-affected syntactic patterns are not attested in baseline Russian. The calquing of German possessive constructions and the shift from prepositionless to prepositional government patterns can be interpreted as instances of contact-induced leveling of Russian typological features, accompanied by simplification where baseline structures diverge from dominant-language patterns. Interpreted as part of a broader shift from synthetic to analytic government, these developments align with both contact-induced tendencies and historically attested changes in Slavic languages. The identified patterns of variation in heritage Russian correspond to domains of instability in baseline Russian, showing that the loci of variation are largely analogous, while their concrete manifestations are partly different. In comparison with baseline Russian, heritage Russian exhibits both analogous and specific—non-canonical—variants, reflecting unstable areas of the baseline in a multilingual setting and becoming particularly visible in subsequent generations of the migrant community. Within a broader typological context, the documented variation trends align with sensitive language domains observed in other contact situations, confirming their systematic character across diverse minoritized contexts.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070137

Authors: Mar Garachana-Camarero

This article examines the relationship between semantic and syntactic evolution in the development of three Spanish verbal constructions: verbal periphrases, pseudo-coordinative constructions (e.g., va y dice), and auxiliary chains. While theories of grammaticalization and diachronic construction grammar generally predict a parallel decrease in semantic compositionality and syntactic analyzability, the behavior of these constructions suggests a more complex scenario. We argue that semantic compositionality and syntactic analyzability do not always evolve in tandem. Instead, the constructionalization of grammatical patterns may preserve aspects of internal syntax even when constituents undergo functional recategorization. Drawing on previous analyses and a corpus-based examination of Spanish complex predicates, we show that verbal periphrases, pseudo-coordinative constructions, and auxiliary chains maintain analyzable internal structure despite diachronic reduction of compositional meaning. We propose that (complete) loss of analyzability tends to occur only at advanced stages of grammatical change. The study contributes to current debates on the nature of grammaticalization/constructionalization, internal syntax, and the cognitive status of auxiliary constructions, offering a broader perspective on mechanisms of language change.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070136

Authors: Satomi Kawaguchi Bruno Di Biase Thi Thu Huong Ho

This paper examines cross-linguistic evidence towards a universal processing path to the acquisition of argument mapping of verb thematic roles (e.g., agent, patient) onto grammatical functions (e.g., subject, object), in second or additional language (L2) learning. The acquisition of argument mapping in East Asian languages as L2 remains largely under-researched, particularly in terms of development. The data in each language in this study, that is Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Vietnamese, were collected in separate longitudinal studies using tasks targeted to eliciting verbs requiring a variety of argument structures. These are analysed based on the Lexical Mapping Hypothesis. Results indicate that L2 learners initially map the highest available role in the thematic hierarchy (e.g., agent, experiencer) onto a minimally specified SUBJ/TOP (that is, the language-specific ‘default mapping’ of the L2). Furthermore, the development of argument mapping in learners of all three languages turns out to follow the sequence predicted by LMH, i.e., default mapping > default mapping + additional argument > non-default mapping. The study also identified language-specific phenomena within ‘the non-default mapping’ stage, such as causatives appearing comparatively earlier in Mandarin Chinese L2 and Vietnamese L2, and passives appearing earlier in Japanese L2. This study’s theoretical contribution to the field is that the acquisition of argument mapping plausibly follows a universal processing route and, at the same time, is characterised by language-specific features. It also represents an original investigation in the specific area of L2 acquisition of argument mapping cross-linguistically, and it discloses an often ignored, but theoretically important, difference with the acquisition of argument structure.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070135

Authors: Nicola Munaro

The aim of this work is to shed some light on the categorial status and syntactic distribution of the subordinators como and, more specifically, quando as it emerges from some early Venetan texts dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries. The proposed analysis accounts for the semantic ambiguity of these embedding connectors in strictly structural terms. In particular, the pervasive interpretive ambiguity of come/como attested in the old Italo-Romance varieties considered here is traced back to a diachronic process of reanalysis affecting its categorial status from specifier to head, which reflects a well attested crosslinguistic tendency. This diachronic change in turn will be shown to be linked to the syntactic distribution of the temporal subordinator quando, which can be reduced to general underlying principles of phrase structure building, in the sense that the temporal vs hypothetical interpretive import of quando was determined by the particular syntactic configuration involved. The semantic ambiguity of the subordinating connectors analyzed here is explained then in strictly structural terms, adopting a cartographic approach to the functional articulation of the clausal left-periphery.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070134

Authors: María Victoria Pavón Lucero

In contemporary Spanish, there are three types of sequences with consecutive meaning that contain the nouns forma, manera, modo, and suerte: the sequence de tal {forma/modo/manera/suerte} que, which forms part of a prepositional phrase that contains a consecutive construction formed by a quantifying phrase and a subordinate clause headed by que; the phrasal conjunction de {forma/modo/manera/suerte} que, which can introduce a consecutive (resultative) subordinate clause included in the predicate verb phrase of the main clause or a consecutive clause modifying the entire matrix clause; and the phrasal preposition de {forma/modo/manera/suerte} de, which generally has an infinitive clause as its complement. This paper explores the analyzability of these sequences and their evolution towards the current state of Spanish, where all three variants coexist. As will be demonstrated, the latter two variants, which emerged from the first, are the result of a grammaticalization process. This process, operating through reanalysis and analogy, has led to two distinct lexical splits.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070133

Authors: Shaista Rashid Sadia Malik Aleeza Gull

In this paper, L1 phonemic systems are discussed in the context of their impact on the pronunciation and perception of English diphthongs in PE, drawing on World Englishes and phonetic analysis. The study focuses on speakers whose native languages are Punjabi, Seraiki, Pashto, and Urdu, and examines how changes in local vowel inventories and glide processes influence diphthong production. The controlled production and perception tasks were done on eight English diphthongs by 40 adult speakers (10 speakers per L1 group). The formant trajectories (F1, F2), duration, and intensity were recorded by acoustic analyses, which are used to measure the variation that occurs as the articulatory glide occurs between vowel targets. Perception was measured using diphthong identification tasks to assess listeners’ sensitivity to dynamic spectral movement. The results indicate systematic L1-conditioned restructuring. Deviations were the most pronounced in diphthongs with significant vowel gliding, especially centering diphthongs, characterized by a decrease in spectral movement, a constriction in vowel space, and a general tendency toward monophthongization. Closing diphthongs were generally more stable in production; however, they still exhibited systematic L1-conditioned variation, particularly in glide magnitude, spectral direction, and temporal realization. These patterns of production were highly consistent with the results of perceptual production: the diphthongs with lesser acoustic movement were also found to be less accurately recognized, and diphthongs in their L1s and speakers of phonemically richer vowel systems had partial glide contrasts. The findings demonstrate that the variation in diphthongs in PE is systematic, reflecting predictable relationships between the L1 phonemic system, perceptual assimilation, and sociolinguistic experience. The findings highlight the pedagogical value of L1-sensitive pronunciation instruction and contribute to the phonetic description of Pakistani English as a systematic contact variety.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070132

Authors: Beatrice Bernasconi Eugenio Goria

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of multilingual past-tense constructions produced by Italian–Peruvian speakers in Turin (Italy). Drawing on data from the Stra-ParlaTO corpus, the study aims both to describe the multilingual practices of this community and to assess the explanatory potential of Diasystematic Construction Grammar for language-contact phenomena. After reviewing code-mixing, translanguaging, and second-language acquisition approaches, the paper argues that these frameworks converge in recognising the role of structural similarity in the emergence of hybrid productions, but leave underspecified the nature of the abstract linguistic knowledge that makes them possible. The analysis shows that speakers generalise across Italian passato prossimo and Spanish pretérito perfecto compuesto, developing an abstract language-unspecific construction that licenses both monolingual and mixed realisations. These findings suggest that Diasystematic Construction Grammar provides a cognitively plausible account of multilingual constructions and can be fruitfully extended to recent migration settings.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11070131

Authors: María Sánchez Paraíso

Word order in Andean Spanish has attracted considerable scholarly attention, particularly regarding the extent to which sustained contact with Quechua has shaped its syntactic and pragmatic patterns. However, there are no recent studies investigating whether this variation in contemporary Andean Spanish has become consolidated or remains a minor phenomenon. This study was conducted to describe the frequency of verb-final constructions in a corpus of 25 bilingual Spanish–Quechua speakers and Spanish monolinguals from the city of Juliaca (Perú). The central objective of this study is to identify patterns in constituent order as they emerge from the narratives of speakers in Juliaca, examining how the verb position relates to the degree of new and given information, pragmatic function, and discourse situation. The variation in verb placement is analyzed from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, considering informational, pragmatic, and syntactic factors. This research was conducted within the framework of Contact Linguistics, employing a dynamic approach to language interaction. It is based on the principle that speakers employ available grammatical constructions to incorporate distinctions or semantic nuances that might not exist in non-contact Spanish but are present in the Amerindian language. In this way, speakers draw on their linguistic background to develop innovative expressive tools or diverse communicative alternatives, incorporating them into their daily communication.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060130

Authors: Rea Delveroudi

This study examines the linguistic landscape of northern Lesbos at the turn of the 20th century through the lens of historical sociolinguistics. The research focuses on the scientific intersection and subsequent controversy between the native scholar Spyridon Anagnostou and the renowned German linguist Paul Kretschmer. Methodologically, the study employs archival research, biographical analysis, and a comparative study of Anagnostou’s original manuscripts held at the Research Center for Modern Greek Dialects (KENDI) against published editions. The results include the identification of 36 unpublished fairy tales and an analysis of phonetic and morphological phenomena, such as kappacism and rare feminine endings, which are largely absent from contemporary records. Comparative analysis further reveals significant “dialectal normalization” and ideological interventions in both scholars’ transcriptions. We conclude that Anagnostou’s manuscripts serve as a vital “linguistic fossil” and a proxy for unrecorded spontaneous speech, recovering diachronic depth lost to dialect leveling. Ultimately, the study highlights the importance of marginal local scholarship in reconstructing a “language history from below” and addressing epistemic injustice and the ideology of transcriptions in the history of dialectology.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060129

Authors: Hongdi Ding Hui Zhang

This study uses linguistic evidence to examine the cultural dimensions of the term “matchmaker” within Liangshan Yi society, Sichuan, China. The present linguistic analysis reveals that two distinct Chinese words related to marriage were borrowed into the Liangshan Yi language, based on morphological analyzability, cognate comparison within Sino-Tibetan languages, and phonological and semantic adaptation. Specifically, (i) the Chinese word 伐 (fá), meaning ‘to hew, chop, or matchmake’ was borrowed as a standalone verb, phonologically adapted as ho33/fu33 depending on dialect into Liangshan Yi with the meaning ‘to marry (generally)’; and (ii) the term 伐柯 (fákē), originally meaning ‘to cut wood for an axe handle’ and later to ‘matchmaking, matchmaker,’ was borrowed into Liangshan Yi as a noun meaning ‘matchmaker’ (hɔ44ka33/fu44ka33, depending on dialect). Phonological evidence suggests these borrowings occurred during the Late Middle Chinese period, prior to the completion of labiodentalization, but after the shift of labial consonants to labiodental sounds, between the late Tang and Song dynasties (ca. 9th to 13th centuries). The lower limit is 1324 CE, when Zhōngyuán Yīnyùn was compiled. The dating of these borrowings is corroborated by our further corpus analysis of the usage of 伐柯 fákē and 伐 fá in ancient Chinese texts. This analysis reveals that while the two Chinese words originated in Shījīng (Book of Odes, 11th–7th centuries BCE), their usage frequency was extremely low in Early Middle Chinese; a resurgence subsequently occurred in Late Middle Chinese, with the highest frequency attested in the Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE). Moreover, a survey of additional Loloish communities shows that 伐柯 fákē serves as the common source of the borrowing for the term “matchmaker” in many Northern Loloish and some Central Loloish varieties, reflecting the influence of Chinese marital customs across a broad range of Yi communities. Although the borrowing derives from a common source, given the similar phonetic forms, the terms for “matchmaker” in these Loloish languages lack sound correspondences. This indicates that the Loloish languages had already diverged from one another by the time the borrowing took place. Finally, the linguistic evidence from the present study illuminates the historical processes that shaped marital customs among Yi ethnic societies, demonstrating that the concept of matchmaker is a recent innovation within Yi cultural practice, linguistically and culturally borrowed from Han Chinese—probably during 9th century to early 14th century—rather than being an indigenous tradition.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060128

Authors: Chloé Diskin-Holdaway Paola Escudero

Little is known about parents’ attitudes towards their children’s accent and the role they play in transmitting an accent (and attitudes about accents) to their children. Even less is known about how these perceptions and attitudes emerge and are transmitted in multilingual families. We draw on an online survey of parental language attitudes in Australia (n = 267), where 45% of respondents were born overseas, and 61% reported speaking a language other than English. Parents were asked whether they think their children speak with an Australian or another accent; whether they change their accent when they speak to their children, and whether their children’s accents change when they speak to their parents as compared to other people. A total of 14% of parents reported that one or more of their children had an accent that was not Australian, with about half of these children having reportedly hybrid or mixed accents, and the other half no accent at all. Over 11% of parents reported frequently or occasionally changing their accent with their children. Of those parents, several disclosed specific strategies in changing their accents around their children, such as making a conscious effort to sound ‘clear’ or deliberately exposing their children to different accents. A total of 15% of parents reported that their children’s accents frequently or occasionally change when speaking to them. These findings have implications for the complex influences on children’s language and dialect repertoires as they relate to language attitudes, language ecology, and linguistic identity.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060127

Authors: Vasiliki Zarokanellou Maria Andreou Katerina Papanikolaou

Internal state terms (ISTs) include words describing emotions, thoughts, volitions, obligations, desires, and perceptions. This scoping review aimed to map and synthesize evidence regarding the production of ISTs in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) without intellectual disability and to investigate the effects of age, gender, Theory of Mind (ToM) skills, and elicitation tasks on their production. A literature search was conducted manually and electronically in Scopus, ScienceDirect, ERIC, and PubMed, identifying 29 peer-reviewed empirical studies published between 2006 and 2025. Findings were heterogeneous. Some studies reported lower IST production in individuals with ASD compared to neurotypical controls, whereas others found differences only in specific IST categories, mainly cognition and emotion terms, or reported no significant group differences. Findings regarding gender, ToM skills, and elicitation tasks were mixed. In both groups, older participants produced more ISTs than younger participants; however, developmental trajectories suggested that emotion and cognition terms were particularly challenging for individuals with ASD, who required more time to acquire them than their typically developing (TD) peers. Furthermore, TD participants produced significantly more ISTs when narrating people’s everyday interactions, whereas communication context did not appear to influence IST production in individuals with ASD. Research examining IST production in preschoolers and adults with ASD remains limited, and little is known about the developmental trajectories of ISTs in this population.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060126

Authors: Shaohua Fang Yue Li Yan Cong

This study investigates the real-time processing of quantifier scope ambiguity using self-paced reading, comparing surface and inverse interpretations of a–every sentences. Reaction time data revealed greater processing difficulty for inverse scope, supporting an account grounded in semantic computation rather than purely heuristic-based parsing. Offline interpretation results further indicate that abstract structural operations are engaged during scope computation. Surprisal estimates derived from a pre-trained autoregressive language model GPT-2 small successfully predicted both the locus and direction of scope effects observed in the human data, with partial convergence in effect magnitude. When surprisal was not considered, language experience, but not working memory, more robustly accounted for variability in complex scope interpretations. Crucially, incorporating individual differences into surprisal-based analyses showed that both language experience and working memory capacity modulate surprisal effects in scope processing: higher proficiency and greater working memory are associated with increased sensitivity to surprisal, whereas lower levels show reduced or even reversed effects, suggesting weaker engagement in expectation-based processing. Together, these findings highlight the interplay among structural complexity, cognitive resources, language experience, and expectation-based mechanisms in shaping real-time semantic processing.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060125

Authors: Annick Comblain

Orthographic depth varies across alphabetic writing systems and plays a central role in spelling acquisition. In immersion education, a second language (L2) is used as a language of instruction for part of the curriculum, such that learners are primarily confronted with its writing system during the initial stages of literacy development. This early exposure may shape the spelling strategies subsequently deployed in the first language (L1), which also corresponds to the dominant language of the surrounding community. This article provides a structured review of key mechanisms involved in spelling acquisition, orthographic depth, and cross-linguistic influence in bilingual and immersion contexts. On this basis, it proposes a conceptual and predictive framework specifying how the orthographic depth of the instructional language modulates spelling strategies and spelling error profiles in L1. Focusing on French-speaking pupils enrolled in immersion programmes with L2s characterised by either predominantly phonemic or opaque orthographies, the framework integrates strategy-based models of orthographic development. The model distinguishes phonological, lexical, and morphographic components of orthographic knowledge and predicts that immersion in phonemic-dominant orthographies favours phonographic dominance and regularisation patterns, whereas immersion in opaque orthographies promotes greater reliance on lexical–orthographic strategies, resulting in distinct and systematic spelling error profiles in French.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060124

Authors: Ayumi Matsuo Tamiko Ogura Letitia R. Naigles

This paper examines whether noun bias serves as an early default mechanism in lexical acquisition among Japanese toddlers, despite Japanese being categorized as a “verb-friendly” language. In Experiment 1, using two complementary methods—the Japanese MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventory and an Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL) study—we investigated developmental changes in word-mapping tendencies among two age groups of Japanese toddlers (18 months and 26 months). Specifically, we explored whether younger toddlers (1- and 2-year-olds) exhibit a strong preference for mapping nonce words to objects rather than actions and whether individual differences in noun dominance influence word learning in the IPL task. In Experiment 2, we explored older children (3- and 4-year-olds) to examine whether an early verb shift takes place during that age group and compared whether there is any correlation between matured syntax and verb bias. Our findings reveal a robust noun bias as early as 18 months, with older toddlers displaying a shift that suggests an emerging sensitivity to verbs, aligning with the typological characteristics of Japanese. These results provide new insights into the developmental trajectory of verb acquisition and the interaction between lexical and syntactic learning in early childhood.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060123

Authors: Maria Rita Manzini Anna Roussou

Under the Markovian property of derivations the history of the derivation is not preserved in the current state, hence chains cannot be read off it. Instead, a Copy relation applies between identical inscriptions at the phase level, before Transfer. Consequently, Copy can take place between two identical theta-marked arguments, each separately introduced by External Merge, yielding control. In this article, we apply the Copy Theory of Control (CTC) to finite control in Greek. In finite control, the lower member of a Copy relation is interpreted as a bound variable (i.e., a ‘PRO’). At the same time its deletion is licensed in a null subject configuration, defined by Agree with rich I (like a ‘pro’). Since by hypothesis under the CTC there are no empty categories but only copies, the potential contradiction between PRO and pro properties can be avoided, under appropriate assumptions about the modular organization of the interfaces. We further predict that the same (subjunctive) structure in Greek can be ambiguous between control and pronominal null subject readings, and that non-null subject languages like English cannot have finite control.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060122

Authors: Costas Canakis Irene Kouniarelli

We focus on the use of the Modern Lesbian dialect in the linguistic landscape (LL), highlighting its diverse forms and functions. Since LL research primarily investigates written language in public space, emphasizing the dynamic relationship between language, place, and historicity, the growing visibility of the dialect in both physical and digital contexts (cf. the online–offline nexus) is particularly noteworthy. The presence of non-standard varieties in public discourse has been widely studied, revealing that aspects of language choice and use are related to the sustainability of minority languages, the shaping of linguistic attitudes and stereotypes, and the commodification of language as a cultural and economic resource. Within this framework, the data analyzed here illustrate positive attitudes toward Modern Lesbian, expressions of pride and comfort among its speakers, efforts to destigmatize dialectal speech, and indications of broader acceptance of Modern Lesbian. Meanwhile, the increasing commodification of the dialect is evident in its use for the promotion of products and services, capitalizing on its distinctiveness, despite its historical stigmatization vis-à-vis the standard. This development does not dissolve entrenched beliefs on the incompatibility of dialects with written discourse; rather, it capitalizes on the surprise (and humor) generated by their written presence in promotional contexts without resorting to humorous stereotyping.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060121

Authors: Sara Gómez Seibane

This study focuses on the Spanish spoken in the Basque Autonomous Community, where Spanish and Basque, two typologically distant languages, have coexisted for centuries. The research explores how specific morphosyntactic features result from pattern replication, i.e., changes in the target language (Spanish) inspired by structures of the source language (Basque) and triggered by the communicative needs of bilingual speakers. The analysis focuses on three key features: object-verb word order, non-standard gender agreement constructions, and the use of le/s for human female direct objects. Data from previous studies support these features as contact-induced changes, as they are either absent in non-contact varieties or follow different constraints. Specifically, in the Basque-Spanish variety, these phenomena exhibit higher frequency, a simplification of a paradigm, and the relaxation of grammatical restrictions, frequently aligning with Basque structures. Beyond internal factors, other empirical evidence supports contact as the primary driver. The paper explains how linguistic convergence leads to a shifting of constraints on these phenomena to reduce the cognitive load of processing two languages. Ultimately, these contact-induced changes went beyond individual bilingual strategies to become established features of the wider community, eventually reaching even monolingual Spanish speakers.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060120

Authors: Jocelyn Wright Robert J. Dickey Kara Mac Donald

We, the reviewers, explore Alex Baratta’s The Societal Codification of Korean English, highlighting Korean English (KE), since expanding circle English varieties are often overlooked despite their significant global role. Baratta argues that codification should be reconceptualized as a societal process driven by users themselves, where socially-used innovations become legitimate conventions, rather than having to be officially recognized as per tradition. Building on and moving beyond other works, he insists the field cannot wait for formal codification, even while acknowledging that some may find his framing of KE unconvincing or premature. We summarize such arguments around the legitimization of KE, offer insights into what Baratta’s work effectively addresses and leaves less explored. We then offer a conceptual matrix and metaphor to depict the complexity of KE and its codification. Finally, we introduce a new term, “K-English(es)”. The review aims to help readers better grasp the nuanced dynamics of KE that Baratta and the field engage with and to situate readers’ own interests (e.g., as English language teachers or Hallyu fans) around KE, while supporting the expanding scholarship on the topic.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060119

Authors: Ling Zhang

Previous research on Mandarin Chinese tones and intonation has focused primarily on universal sentence pitch patterns (declination) and sentence types (declarative and interrogative). The specific impact of internal syntactic structures remains under-explored. This study presents two acoustic experiments using controlled Tone 1 (high-level) stimuli to isolate intonational “big waves” from lexical “small ripples”. Experiment 1 investigates how syntactic position (subject vs. object), relative clause type (subject-relative vs. object-relative), and word class (verb vs. noun) influence pitch contours. Experiment 2 resolves conflicting findings regarding word-class pitch by testing nouns and verbs across four sentential contexts. The results indicate that subject positions carry significantly higher pitch than object positions, reflecting an interaction between SVO word order and declination. Crucially, subject-relative (SR) clauses exhibit a falling pitch tendency, while object-relative (OR) clauses show a rising trend. These results suggest that pitch realization is a complex “algebraic sum” of universal phonological trends, syntactic hierarchy, and semantic information structure.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060118

Authors: Andreas Baumann

To measure the emotional meaning of words, numerical sentiment scores are ascribed to them. However, within individual words these scores show variation: within and across annotation surveys, across linguistic contexts, and across semantic neighbors. While such variation could be set aside as undesirable noise, this study examines to what extent variation in lexical sentiment scores is in fact informative of the degree of the emotional ambiguity of words. Four different ways of estimating emotional polysemy and ambivalence are employed to analyze a set of 117 German words. Data from 16 sentiment dictionaries, an additional sentiment survey conducted for this study, automatically annotated contexts drawn from a contemporary German corpus, and pre-trained word embeddings were used for this purpose. These estimates are compared against subjectively rated ambivalence collected through crowdsourcing. It is shown that only variation within and across surveys robustly relates to subjective ambivalence. Context and neighborhood-based estimates, both of which are inherently sensitive to lexical frequency, cannot be shown to be related to ambivalence. This suggests, (i) that variation in lexical sentiment scores across dictionaries and annotators, but not across semantic neighbors and contexts, carries information about emotional meaning, and is hence valuable for cognitive-variationist research, and (ii) that speakers’ retrieval of positive and negative senses of words, in judging the degree of ambivalence, is not strongly affected by frequency, which is fundamental to NLP methods that build on distributional semantics. This implicitly challenges usage-based approaches to semantics that consider frequency as a predominant factor.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060117

Authors: Maria Karali

This study poses the question of whether certain linguistic features are not subject to dialectal variation, a question that requires thorough examination in the corpus of Ancient Greek dialects. To this end, the semantics and the pragmatic function of the injunctive/existential future is examined in the dialectal inscriptions of Ancient Mytilene, in the framework of cognitive semantics, deontic modality, and STIT, a semantic model of agency and control. The first line of enquiry regards the distribution of the semantic functions of the form: is it the case that all semantic nuances of ‘FUTURE TENSE’ are attested in the entirety of Ancient Greek dialects? A second line of enquiry regards the semantics of the form, and more particularly the fact that it expressed extreme deontic force, as if it were a type of injunctive. The form was detached from a specific deontic source, i.e., it merely represented a moral principle in a rather abstract, general form. Its meaning approximated that of infinitive pro imperativo, in that both types indicated what was morally right as a general legal requirement. Particular attention is given to the semantic/pragmatic distinction of the form from the imperative mood. It is claimed that a scale of an agent’s involvement in the verbal action distinguishes imperatival infinitives, injunctive futures and imperatives and that a shift from an objective to a more subjective expression of deontic necessity affects injunctive futures in the history of Greek. The existential future had no performative, directive force, this pragmatic task was performed by imperatives and imperatival infinitives. The existential future denoted absolute certainty in the realization of a prospective fact and presented a projected reality as if it were real in the present of the utterance, hence the characterization as existential. As such it lends support to the view that temporality is tightly connected to modality. The existential meaning of the future seems to be an innovation within Greek and became more frequent in (post)classical times. It appears as a panhellenic feature, but further verification is needed.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060116

Authors: Dan Roger Pozza Nuria Presencia Alapont Carmen Moret-Tatay Irani de Lima Argimon

Serious games represent a promising pedagogical approach by combining therapeutic and educational goals through play. This study examined the potential of a culturally adapted version of Érase una vez, a narrative-based card game originally developed in Brazil, to foster and assess narrative competence in school-aged children. Twenty typically developing children (ages 8–9 and 11–12) participated in both individual written and group oral storytelling tasks. Usability perceptions were assessed through questionnaires and the System Usability Scale, while linguistic performance was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative approaches. Statistical methods and computational linguistic tools were applied to measure lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic features. Results indicated high engagement and satisfaction, with over 95% of participants reporting positive experiences. Narrative productions revealed significant age-related differences: older children generated longer and syntactically more complex stories, while younger groups produced simpler structures with lower lexical variety. Group narratives reflected classroom-level effects, with sixth graders achieving greater cohesion and creativity. Findings support the integration of Érase una vez as both a pedagogical and therapeutic tool. Its playful and flexible format promotes motivation, reduces performance anxiety, and elicits rich, naturalistic language samples. Despite limitations of sample size and design, results encourage further exploration of serious games in educational and clinical contexts.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060115

Authors: Robert Marcelo Sevilla

The region today corresponding to modern Hunan province has been a site of stable language contact for over 2500 years, with the intensification of that contact occurring in particular between the 17th and 21st centuries. Major political developments during this time led to massive population movements which reshaped the demographics and linguistic ecology of Hunan. The region has considerable language and phylogenetic diversity, being home to three top-level groupings (Sino-Tibetan, Kra-Dai, and Hmong-Mien) and representing at least 17 different language varieties within a condensed area of around 211,800 km2; it is therefore the ideal setting to explore long-term language contact as mediated by degrees of relatedness. Structural diversity, in terms of morphological and phonological typology, is relatively low, owing to convergence over several thousand years. All language varieties in the province converge towards the MSEA typological profile; however, those that entered the region latest, such as varieties of Tujia, still retain features from outside the region (SOV, multisyllabic roots, etc.). In this paper the case is made that Hunan, with its geography, history of settlement, and contact between related and unrelated language families, represents a microcosm of linguistic contact situations which have taken place in other periods and regions of China. This is attributed to a combination of geographic and demographic patterns, historical patterns of settlement and ethnic conflict, and a complex sociolinguistic situation. Taken together, these lead to the formation of a unique linguistic niche where stable near-relative contact, distant-relative contact, and non-relative contact take place. The case is made that instances of near-relative contact between Xiang varieties and Mandarin (Standard and Southwestern) represent instances of koineization. This is evidenced by the formation of regional koines, such as Plastic Mandarin in Changsha, which present a degree of local prestige and show evidence of regional standard formation. Meanwhile distant- and non-relative contact between Southwestern/Standard Mandarin and Tujia and Waxiang, and Xiangxi Miao and Kam-Dong, respectively, are seen to result in extensive grammatical hybridization.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060114

Authors: Cristina Buenafuentes De La Mata

Every new phrasal preposition results from a process of grammaticalization, through which elements originally considered lexical acquire grammatical functions. At the same time, their complex status also entails a process of lexicalization, given that these constructions lose their syntactic analyzability. To address this apparent contradiction, the aim of this article is to provide a theoretical account within the theories of grammaticalization and lexicalization. Based on new empirical evidence taken from the historical analysis of the Spanish complex preposition por vía de ‘by way of’, as documented in the Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), this research demonstrates the relationship between grammaticalization and lexicalization. The diachronic data show that the locative noun vía undergoes grammaticalization. This process involves semantic bleaching (locative-perlative, perlative-figurative intermediation, perlative-figurative mediation, cause, purpose; e.g., por vía de Francia ‘by way of France’, por vía de intérprete ‘through an interpreter’, por vía de matrimonio ‘by means of marriage’, por vía de padre ‘on my father’s side’), recategorization, loss of morphological properties, external fixation, and condensation. However, this development is conditioned by lexicalization, as the noun is grammaticalized only when it becomes fixed in combination with the two prepositions (por and de). Nonetheless, the diachronic evidence also shows that the degree of syntactic analyzability varies according to meaning, indicating that analyzability does not necessarily entail semantic compositionality.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060113

Authors: Pablo E. Requena

Spanish Differential Object Marking (DOM) is conditioned by well-known local properties of the direct object, but also by clause- and discourse-level factors. In this study, we examine whether these factors are also available as potential learning cues in child-directed speech (CDS). We analyzed longitudinal naturalistic CDS from two monolingual and three bilingual (heritage) Spanish-learning children, manually extracting transitive clauses and coding DOM presence alongside discourse specificity, verb class, coreferential pronoun (clitic doubling), relative animacy, and DO placement, plus two local cues for comparison. Regression analyses revealed that a wider range of local and global factors conditioned DOM in monolingual than in bilingual CDS. The potential informativeness of these factors as learning cues was quantified using Competition Model measures of availability, reliability, and validity. In monolingual CDS, local cues (+human, pronominal/proper name DOs) were highly reliable, and two global cues (clitic doubling and relative animacy) showed moderate reliability. Whereas discourse specificity and verb class were highly available, they were comparatively unreliable. Validity values were uniformly low; although several global cues matched or exceeded local cues in validity, this pattern largely reflected their greater availability rather than higher reliability. In bilingual CDS, reliability and validity were reduced across nearly all cues, with little differentiation among cues. These findings suggest that Spanish-learning children encounter potentially usable utterance- and discourse-level evidence for DOM in CDS, but that the robustness of this evidence is markedly weaker in bilingual input.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060112

Authors: Serkan Uygun Leyla Zidani-Eroğlu

In Turkish, definiteness is marked through accusative case marking -(y)I and the presence or absence of the prenominal determiner bir (one). Crucially the latter may function as an indefinite determiner depending on the context. Previous studies have shown that definiteness is a vulnerable phenomenon for Turkish heritage speakers, as they have to integrate different language modules (e.g., morphosyntax and discourse/pragmatics). This study tested 49 monolingual Turkish speakers from Türkiye and 32 heritage speakers from the USA via an acceptability judgment task. Twenty-three of the heritage speakers were first-generation, and nine were second-generation heritage speakers. The experimental stimuli were created by manipulating both the grammatical number of the object (singular bir kitap ‘one/a book’ vs. plural kitap-lar ‘books’) and whether the object was preceded by a numeric determiner (bare kitap ‘a book’ vs. non-bare beş kitap ‘five books’) to test the acceptability of the nominal’s correct definiteness marking in a subsequent sentence. The results indicate significant discrepancies between the first- and second-generation heritage speakers, indicating crucial transgenerational variation in the use of the correct form of Turkish definiteness, while the first-generation and monolingual speakers do not differ from each other. These findings suggest that the integration of morphosyntax and discourse/pragmatics in definiteness marking, a particular aspect of linguistic competence within theorizing in generative grammar, does not seem to be fully acquired by second-generation heritage speakers as a result of acquiring Turkish under heritage language conditions.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060111

Authors: Flavia Pompeo

In studies on the polysemy of tactile verbs, there is a semantic field that has hitherto received scant attention: the expression of “chance events”. In an effort to partially fill this gap and lay the foundations for future research, this paper has two interrelated aims: (a) to clarify what constitutes a chance event when Latin contingo, obtingo, and, in particular, Italian toccare convey this type of meaning; and (b) to identify the semantic motivation and the conceptual mechanisms that underlie such use. To this end, using a corpus-based, largely qualitative analysis, occurrences of the Latin and Italian verbs will be examined, focusing on their constructions and the semantics of their arguments. Data will be collected from dictionaries, other lexicographical sources, and digital corpora. The theoretical approach adopted is that of Cognitive Linguistics. In conclusion, the analysis will evidence that verbs related to the meaning ‘to touch’, when used to express chance events in Latin and Italian, involve similar constructions that are explicable from a cognitive perspective. Ultimately, it will be suggested that the “bipolarity of touch” and other related characteristics help explain why tactile verbs can express chance events. This is consistent with Fernández Jaén’s 2014 classification.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060110

Authors: Seunggon Jeong Eun Young Bae

Traditional grammatical theories, particularly those rooted in Indo-European languages, conceptualize the clause as a fundamental syntactic unit consisting of a verb and its overt arguments. However, studies of spontaneous conversation across diverse languages reveal that interactants often organize utterances around predicates, omitting explicit subjects and objects when referents are recoverable from context. By combining Conversation Analysis with frequency analysis, the present study illustrates that the preference for predicate-centered utterances in Korean conversation is robust, even in sequential environments where interactants have addressed understanding problems arising from argument omission through repair sequences. Specifically, interactants tend to maintain predicate-centered utterances after repair, showing little inclination to shift toward using overt arguments. These findings support the view that predicates serve as the central unit of utterance construction and underscore the need to re-examine the nature of grammar to fully account for the context-sensitive and interactional dynamics of language use.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060109

Authors: Marjolein Poortvliet

This article traces the syntactic and semantic development of the Descriptive Perception Verb Construction from Early Middle Dutch to present-day Dutch. The Dutch Descriptive Perception Verb Construction takes the simplified form [SUBJSTIM V PRED], e.g., Hij klinkt moe ‘He sounds tired’, where the subject is the stimulus of the perceptual event and the verb is followed by a predicative complement, e.g., an adjective. In its verb slot, this construction has one of the five Dutch descriptive perception verbs: eruitzien ‘look’, klinken ‘sound’, voelen ‘feel’, ruiken ‘smell’, and smaken ‘taste’. In this article, I show that while there are two attested initial stages (i.e., the transitive construction and the intransitive construction) with two distinct bridging contexts enabling the emergence of this construction, the endpoint is the same: the constructionalization of the new Descriptive Perception Verb Construction. This new construction allows for the coercion of an implicit proposition, which expresses factivity, subjectivity and whose verb marks direct evidence. I hypothesize that over time the requirement to mark factivity is loosened for all verbs, and the marking of direct evidence is lost for eruitzien and klinken, indicating that these two verbs are further ahead in the semantic development of the Descriptive Perception Verb Construction.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11060108

Authors: Kyoko Masuda Amy Snyder Ohta

L1 transfer is well-attested in SLA; negative transfer is common when learners encounter a typologically distinct language. English-speaking learners often struggle with Japanese passives, which differ significantly from English passives both conceptually and grammatically. While English passives primarily defocus the agent, Japanese passives serve multiple semantic and discourse functions, often maintaining a focus on (and empathy toward) the experiencer. This small study examines how conceptual understandings drawn from usage-based (UB) analyses influence the acquisition of Japanese passives. Using corpus studies and acquisition research as a foundation, we developed concept-based language instruction (C-BLI) integrating UB-focused concepts. Our analysis of students’ oral languaging, gesture, and story-writing data from an immediate post-test and two delayed (3 weeks and 6 months post-instruction) post-tests show individual differences and demonstrate how a UB-based C-BLI approach facilitated developmental processes in Japanese over time; students improved their grasp of concepts taught via multi-modal materials, including visual materializations of concepts and ocean wave gestures. Conceptual and linguistic development were evidenced via oral languaging and story-writing. The most frequently used passive verb was iu ‘say,’ which has been found to be often passivized in L1 speakers’ production and previous SLA research. Findings contribute to broader discussions of how conceptual restructuring may affect L2 acquisition of complex grammatical constructions.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050107

Authors: Stavros Assimakopoulos Anna Piata

This paper aims to offer a state-of-the-art overview of the ways in which research on Modern Greek has informed—and been informed by—theorizing in the field of pragmatics. In charting this (rather uncharted) territory, our aim is to demonstrate that Modern Greek pragmatics does not only reflect the evolution of pragmatic enquiry from a narrow conceptualization to a much broader one that encompasses interactional, social and cultural specifications, but has also contributed new insights into pragmatic theory that surpass the purview of Modern Greek linguistics. While acknowledging that delimiting the remit of pragmatics is far from evident or even unanimously agreed, our overview envisages to provide the reader with a roadmap of past and ongoing research with a view to highlighting how general pragmatic principles interact with the language- and culture-specific parameters that are available to speakers of Modern Greek.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050106

Authors: Elena Casadei Adriana Belletti

This study presents a newly developed Sentence Repetition Task/SRT as a tool designed to investigate the acquisition of different syntactic structures in children with typical development (TD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). The tool is grounded in the Growing Trees (GT, henceforth) approach, which assumes that developmental progression reflects the hierarchical growth of the syntactic tree, as described in cartographic analyses of clause structure. The SRT Protocol was constructed following the three developmental stages identified by GT: VP/TP, lower zone of the Left Periphery (LP henceforth), and higher LP zone. A preliminary pilot version was administered to 27 TD and 28 DLD children, followed by a revised second version with improved item design and broader syntactic coverage, administered to 28 TD and 21 DLD children. Descriptive and inferential analyses demonstrate a clear hierarchy in the acquisition of Italian morphosyntax, fully consistent with the three-stage developmental progression predicted by the model. Children with DLD follow the same path but with delayed acquisition and slower consolidation of certain structures. These findings provide developmentally grounded benchmarks for identifying morphosyntactic delays and show that the SRT Protocol is a reliable tool for profiling early syntactic development. Crucially, the protocol supports diagnosis and clinical practice by helping clinicians ensuring interventions that are both theoretically informed and aligned with syntactic growth.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050105

Authors: Laura Cabré Lunas Esther Artigas Álvarez

This article examines the Latin construction i nunc et Vimp from the perspective of diachronic analyzability. The expression consists of two imperative forms with identical morphological marking—the first a motion verb (V1), the second a lexical verb—linked by the conjunction et. Rather than encoding a literal directive sequence, the construction conveys a rhetorical exhortative value that systematically guides discourse interpretation in a direction different from that suggested by its surface form. Although attested from the Imperial period onward, the construction is analyzed against the background of serial imperatives with a motion verb in initial position and verbal pseudocoordination, patterns documented not only in Archaic Latin but also in other historical Indo-European languages. On the basis of an exhaustive corpus, the study assesses the contribution of each constituent in order to account for the construction’s global value. The analysis shows that i nunc et Vimp displays an uneven degree of analyzability: while its components remain formally and syntactically transparent, its semantic and pragmatic analyzability is reduced, as the elements do not contribute compositionally to propositional content but function as a pragmatically unitized block. Overall, the article highlights the central role of analyzability in diachronic change, including processes of unitization and constructional de/recategorization.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050104

Authors: Alexander Angsongna Samuel Alhassan Issah Hasiyatu Abubakari Darius Adjong Abraham Kwesi Bisilki Samuel Awinkene Atintono Adams Bodomo

The Mabia languages belong to the Niger–Congo family and are spoken primarily across the savannah and Sahelian regions of West Africa, including northern Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali. Tone plays a crucial role in these languages, shaping both lexical meaning and grammatical structure. This study is a synthesis or an overview of previously described facts about the tonal phenomena in six Mabia languages, Dagaare, Dagbani, Gurenɛ, Kusaal, Likpakpaln, and Buli—highlighting their tonal inventories, structures, and distinctive tonal processes. Dagaare and Dagbani exhibit a two-tone system (high and low), with an additional down-stepped high tone. Kusaal, Likpakpaln, and Buli employ a three-tone system (high, mid, and low), while the tonal status of Gurenɛ remains contested: some scholars describe it as a two-tone language, whereas others provide evidence for a three-tone system. The mid tone, though relatively less productive, appears to represent a later innovation within the group. The mid tone performs both lexical and grammatical functions. Notable tonal phenomena across these languages include tonal polarity, low tone spreading, and restrictions on contour tones, with Buli exhibiting particularly productive low tone spread. In all six languages, tone plays both lexical and grammatical functions. This paper explores these features and offers basic theoretical explanations for their occurrence. Overall, tone is a defining characteristic of the Mabia languages, intricately shaping their phonological and morphological structures.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050103

Authors: Margarita N. Borreguero Zuloaga

This study examines the historical and functional divergence between two Spanish general extenders, y todo eso and y todo, in order to determine whether the loss of syntactic analyzability can serve as a criterion for distinguishing stages of grammaticalization and identifying pragmatic shifts. Drawing on extensive diachronic and synchronic corpus data, the analysis compares the formal evolution, semantic properties and pragmatic functions of both constructions. The results show that y todo eso follows a prototypical grammaticalization path marked by a progressive reduction in its internal structure, the weakening of referential meaning, and increasing freedom from syntactic constraints, while preserving analyzability through alternation with the simpler form y eso. In contrast, y todo displays an earlier and more advanced process of grammaticalization, dating back to medieval Spanish, in which the construction undergoes semantic bleaching, loss of additive value, and reanalysis as a scalar focus marker. These findings support the view that y todo no longer functions as a general extender in contemporary Spanish, whereas y todo eso retains this status, illustrating how syntactic analyzability correlates with shifts between pragmatic categories.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050102

Authors: Alexandra N. Lenz Andreas Baumann Wolfgang Koppensteiner Claudia Mattes Theresa Ziegler Amelie Dorn

The focus of our contribution is on lexical Austriacisms, i.e., lexical features of the Austrian standard language. Whereas in previous studies, only a small set of Austriacisms has been examined, with food terms being particularly popular, this contribution considers 76 lexical variables with 205 variants (Austriacisms and their co-variants), which are examined through complex variationist corpus analyses. The data is provided by the Austrian Media Corpus (amc), which represents the language use of the Austrian print media landscape in the 21st century. The analyses are both (short-term) diachronic and synchronic, taking into account the variation in vivo. Irrespective of the frequency-based “starting point” of a variant at the beginning of the 21st century, its relative frequency remains at comparable levels in the course of the observation period. Contrary to the threat scenarios of previous studies, our corpus analyses indicate the relative stability of the majority of Austriacisms over the 23 years studied (2001–2023).

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050101

Authors: Elena García-Guerrero Cristóbal Lozano

This study investigates first language attrition in the interpretation and processing of relative clause attachment ambiguities among instructed late sequential L1 Spanish–L2 English bilinguals. Traditionally, L1 attrition has been associated with limited L1 use and exposure, along with extensive naturalistic immersion. This study questions these conditions as prerequisites of attrition, examining bilinguals who live in an L1 environment but are extensively exposed to their second language in an instructed, classroom-based university setting. Bilinguals were compared with two native control groups of Spanish and English monolinguals. Results from a picture selection task reveal L1 attrition effects in instructed bilinguals, as they rely less frequently on their L1-preferred disambiguation strategy, i.e., high attachment, when resolving ambiguous relative clauses, particularly in comparison to Spanish monolinguals. Instructed bilinguals also exhibit higher processing when processing ambiguous sentences. Additionally, the study explores whether language dominance modulates attrition effects. We consider the implications of these findings for our understanding of grammatical attrition across different input contexts.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050100

Authors: Dimitra Melissaropoulou

This paper investigates evaluative morphology in the modern dialect of Lesbos, focusing on the morphological strategies used for nominal evaluation, the range of meanings they express, and the characteristics that distinguish Modern Lesbian from other varieties. Special attention is given to borrowing and the integration of markers serving evaluative functions in the dialect. Dialectal data are drawn from available primary and secondary written sources. The analysis shows that Modern Greek dialects, Lesbian in particular, which have largely escaped the effects of diglossia and standardization, constitute an especially valuable resource for linguistic research, as they reveal prototypical tendencies of linguistic systems. These tendencies include the preference for specific gender values as defaults in the expression of diminution and augmentation, the overwhelming productivity of specific markers, closely linked to the local dialectal identity, the symmetrical distribution of suffixes and prefixoids in the realization of positive and negative evaluative meanings, and the creative adaptation of borrowed evaluative elements.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050099

Authors: Arash Ashrafzadeh Julian Hough Arash Eshghi

Recent research in grounded language learning has seen remarkable success due to advances in large vision and language models (VLMs). However, these models (i) are extremely costly to train and update; (ii) struggle with generalisation; and (iii) do not support continual learning. In this paper, we introduce baby-ds integrating the Dynamic Syntax (DS) framework with automated planning within the multimodal BabyAI platform as a testbed. We provide methods whereby DS lexicons are induced continually from teacher demonstrations within BabyAI. We study (i–iii) by experimenting with the compositional complexity of natural language instructions in the data to compare data efficiency, generalisation, and continual learning properties of baby-ds with a simple neural model. The results show that the baby-ds model: (i) needs much less data than the neural model to reach threshold performance; (ii) generalises much faster to more complex instructions; and (iii) is a more effective continual learner. We argue that it is the attendant linguistic bias within DS and the rich inferential power of TTR that enables (i–iii), highlighting the importance of further research on hybrid grammar–neural approaches. Finally, we discuss several important limitations of baby-ds and sketch a path forward for further DS research.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050098

Authors: Olga Maxwell Elinor Payne Debbie Loakes Mitko Sabev

Increased global mobility has intensified contact between regional English varieties, creating new opportunities for large-scale second dialect acquisition. Australia, with its rapidly growing population due to migration, offers a particularly dynamic context for exploring such contact. This study investigates how first-generation Indian migrants in the Australian city of Melbourne perceive Australian English vowels in the lexical items dress and trap, a contrast chosen because of sound changes that are well-documented for this location. Listeners completed a vowel categorization task involving target words in non-lateral and lateral contexts. To assess contact-induced adaptation, their responses were compared with those of Australian English speakers in Australia and those of Indian English speakers in India. The results reveal that perceptual adaptation among first-generation Indian migrants in Australia is context-dependent. In the non‑lateral coda context, migrant Indian English listeners (in Australia) showed intermediate responses, between those of Australian English listeners (in Australia) and Indian English listeners (in India), indicative of a relatively ‘linear’ adaptation towards Australian English. Responses to stimuli in the lateral coda context, however, revealed a more complex picture. Australian English listeners (in Australia) and Indian English listeners (in India) responded more closely to one another than migrant Indian English listeners (in Australia), with the latter instead exhibiting a substantial degree of perceptual confusion toward the endpoint of the continuum for hell–Hal and, to a lesser extent, for shell–shall and pell–pal. These findings suggest that in the perceptual adaptation to a second dialect, the acquisition of a wider pool of phonetic variants is mediated by the acquisition of structural knowledge.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050097

Authors: Theodora Papastefanou Theodoros Marinis

The present study aimed to investigate the performance of bilingual/biliterate children on expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills and the extent to which home literacy activities (HLA) contribute to primary school Greek–English bilingual children’s performance on reading comprehension. Forty children attending Years 1 and 3 at an English primary school in the UK were assessed in language and decoding skills. After one school year, they were assessed in oral language skills, decoding, and reading comprehension in Years 2 and 4. The children performed better on all tasks at Time 2 than at Time 1, and the older children performed better than the younger ones. Their performance was better in the English tasks than in the Greek tasks. Greek morpho-syntactic skills and HLA were significant predictors of Greek reading comprehension, suggesting that children may use their morpho-syntactic knowledge to support their reading comprehension in their heritage language. Moreover, heritage language exposure through HLA can benefit literacy of the heritage language.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050096

Authors: Liz Smeets

A major question in L1 attrition research is whether cross-linguistic influence from a speaker’s second language onto their first constitutes only a temporary, superficial effect or whether it can also lead to a structural change, often discussed as a distinction between effects on language processing as opposed to changes to the mental representation of grammatical properties. Some have argued that L1 grammars of adult L2 speakers are entirely impervious to change, while others stated that some of the available findings can be interpreted as grammatical representations themselves being vulnerable. This paper contributes to the question of how we can distinguish between these two types of attrition. I argue that it is challenging to use behavioral differences across tasks as well as experimental results showing optionality between L1 and L2 options to distinguish between a superficial and a structural change. Instead, situations where properties of an attriter’s L1 grammar converge on the L2 constitute the clearest case of structural change as these cannot be explained as temporary effects of L2 influence. Using data from an earlier study on attrition found in Romanian native speakers living in Italy, I furthermore challenge the claim that L2 convergence only occurs in rare situations where attriters lose contact with the L1. To better understand the contexts in which attrition at the level of representation may be possible, I suggest that future studies focus on (1) a variety of linguistic properties where the L1 allows a grammatical construction or interpretation also in situations where it is not used in the L2, (2) properties where options from both the L1 and the L2 are less likely to co-exist in an attritred grammar and (3) consistently include analyses of individual response patterns.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050095

Authors: Angeliki Efthymiou

This paper investigates two derivational suffixes of the Lesbian dialect -ˈaδa and -iˈa, focusing on their shared characteristics, historical development, and semantic range. Both suffixes display dual etymological origins, form feminine nouns, and exhibit notable polysemy. The study focuses on assessing the degree and patterns of polysemy associated with these suffixes in the Modern Lesbian dialect, with particular emphasis on their comparison to Standard Modern Greek and on cases of morphological competition. It is argued that both suffixes are closely linked to a subjectively delimited reality, as shaped by direct perception and observation in everyday life, and at the same time they function within a complex morphological ecosystem, where they display areas of both competition and functional differentiation. The suffix -ˈaδa typically refers to a property or state directly observable by the speaker, and thus to an entity defined by a dominantly noticeable characteristic. In contrast, the suffix -iˈa is considerably more polysemous than ˈaδa, conveying individualization, and forming nouns that reflect the speaker’s viewpoint while denoting entities perceived as bounded.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050094

Authors: Debbie Loakes Kirsty McDougall Adele Gregory

A sociophonetic study of coda /t/ in Australian Englishes spoken in Warrnambool and Mildura, Victoria, Australia, is described. A total of 2112 coda /t/ tokens produced by 61 adult L1 speakers was analyzed using auditory and acoustic profiling, focusing on four social factors (location, dialect, age and gender). The corpus included 33 Aboriginal English and 28 Mainstream Australian English speakers (24 male, 37 female) who fell into roughly equal age groups of <40 and >40 years. Overall, the “canonical” (aspirated) variant [th] was most frequently observed, followed by affricate [ts] and pre-glottalized [ˀt]; these variants accounted for 79% of all tokens. As for sociophonetic patterning, the best-fitting model included all four predictors (location, dialect, age and gender), with random intercepts for speaker and word. Dialect (Aboriginal or Mainstream Australian English) and age showed the strongest sociophonetic patterning, followed by limited effects for location. Variants were subsequently grouped into three superordinate categories—“breathy”, “canonical” (aspirated) and “glottal”—and a model was created including all four predictors and all two-way interactions between them, with random intercepts for speaker and word. This model showed that linking variants with broad voice qualities highlights even stronger sociophonetic patterning in some cases and is a promising direction for future research. The study contributes findings to three under-explored areas: consonant variability in Australian Englishes, fine-grained phonetic variation in Australian Aboriginal English, and analysis of speech from non-urban locations.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050093

Authors: Sofia Kouvava Katerina Antonopoulou Aglaia Stampoltzis Sofia Mavropoulou Eirini Patroumpa Aggelos Tzoumailis Eleni Peristeri

Background/Objectives: Narrative skills play an important role in children’s overall development from a very young age, and they are linked to social behavior, as well as several emotional and cognitive outcomes. Young autistic children often experience difficulties in their narrative skills and these difficulties may impact their social interactions. The present study reviews recent findings to detect factors influencing narrative development in autistic and non-autistic preschool children, and to identify trends or gaps in the existing literature. Following screening and eligibility assessment, 39 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Methods: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines were followed. Results: Non-autistic children show a clear, age-related progression in narrative skill development, moving from simple to complex structures at the level of microstructure and advanced inferential abilities at the level of macrostructure, which are strongly linked to core language and cognitive development. Conversely, autistic children primarily face challenges in narrative macrostructure and coherence, demonstrating deficits in integrating information and making inferences, which is consistent with weak central coherence in autism. Conclusions: The evidence suggests that narrative development in autism reflects qualitative differences rather than mere delay, particularly in the organization and integration of macrostructural story elements. These findings underscore the importance of interventions that move beyond surface-level linguistic skills to explicitly target global coherence, causal structuring, and inferential reasoning. Future research should further clarify developmental trajectories and the mechanisms linking narrative competence with broader social and cognitive outcomes.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050092

Authors: Paul Roger Bassong Edmond Ossoko Luigi Rizzi

In many African languages, there exists a type of subject–object asymmetry by which subject focus must be expressed by A-bar movement to a morphologically marked left peripheral position whereas object focalisation can be expressed by movement and morphological marking in the left periphery, or in situ. In this article, we discuss and analyse this structural asymmetry in the Bantu languages Basaá and Mmaala. We argue that overt and covert movement of the focused object to Spec-FocP in the left periphery is allowed while covert movement of the subject is blocked, so that overt movement is the only possible option. Contrary to previous analyses, which attribute the obligatoriness of subject focus movement and marking to an interpretive conflict, we propose a formal characterisation of this phenomenon by which the blocking of subject focalisation in situ is deduced from criterial freezing, so that overt movement to the left periphery is the only option, through a familiar strategy of overt subject extraction.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050091

Authors: Georgia Katsouda

Scientific etymological analysis, applicable to both standard and dialectal vocabulary/lexicon, is predicated on core methodological principles that necessitate a word’s cross-regional and diachronic examination. A fundamental principle of etymological research is that successfully identifying a word’s origin requires systematic examination and comparison of all available sources and dialectal data. The aim of this article is to address lacunae in the etymological record of the Lesbian dialect by presenting new data that either resolves longstanding uncertainties or necessitates a scholarly revision of specific word origins. The dialectal words of Lesbos and the etymologies under examination were extracted from dictionaries of the dialect of Lesbos. More specifically, fresh etymological data and new etymological proposals are presented for words from the dialectal vocabulary of Lesbos, such as ɣraɣúða ‘a kind of pot’, karnokáftis ‘stingy’, kumsú/kumpsú ‘gossiper, mocker’, lulúða ‘silly woman’, malastúfa ‘oakum’, tsiróɲ ‘fork’, fáirop ‘order to do something immediately’, psirúts ‘a traditional crème’, xaxóʎs ‘rowdy, noisy person’, and xʎimídza ‘purslane’.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050090

Authors: Carlos I. Echeverría

The concept of verbal periphrasis has historically been a controversial one in Romance linguistics, especially in the Hispanic context, where there has been disagreement as to what multiverbal constructions should be considered periphrastic. One of the points of contention has been the class of infinitive causatives. This article revisits the controversy by focusing on Spanish “enviar/mandar a + infinitive” structures and drawing on historical corpus data. The analysis of various examples leads to the conclusion that strictly periphrastic instances of this constructional class are present across all main stages of the history of Spanish. Additionally, a series of quantitative analyses reveals what appear to be two distinct grammaticalization processes and a degrammaticalization process. These findings are discussed in connection with broader themes in the field, such as syntactic ambiguity and the concept of analyzability.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050088

Authors: Jill C. Murray

Throughout the English-speaking world, there are numerous Greek-speaking diaspora communities whose language is simultaneously influenced by English and local varieties of Greek. This study builds on the body of knowledge in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics to explore a case of pragmatic acquisition in a study abroad context by one member of such a community. Data were collected from a third-generation young adult Greek Australian student prior to commencement of a 6-week Greek language programme in Athens, and on three other occasions. She described her experiences and responded to a set of scenarios involving Greek requests, refusals and apologies. The responses were analysed using established frameworks and subjectively evaluated for appropriateness by a matched Greek native speaker. The student showed evidence of a shift towards documented Standard Modern Greek pragmatic norms in some but not all speech acts, and change appeared to be loosely linked to opportunities for use. There was also some evidence of reversion to diaspora variants after her return. This study contributes to our understanding of the interaction between learning outcomes, individual learner variables, prior exposure, the nature of communicative events and levels of pragmatic awareness. It is argued that Greek and diaspora contexts involve subtly distinct pragmatic varieties of Greek and that learners can benefit from explicit awareness-raising regarding the nature of these differences.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050089

Authors: Ruben Roberto Peralta-Rivera Rafael Saldívar-Arreola

Loanword Research on Anglicisms has largely centered on lexical borrowing and phonological adaptation with comparatively limited attention to morphosyntactic integration in recipient grammars. This study examines the morphosyntactic behavior of 74 single-word Anglicisms—monosyllabic structures with monophthongal vowels—drawn from phonetically classified corpora of spontaneous Mexican Spanish produced by Spanish–English bilinguals in the Tijuana–San Diego border region. Building on prior acoustic analyses based on F1 and F2 vowel measurements, the study investigates the relationship between phonological adaptation and morphosyntactic integration. Results reveal a gradient pattern of incorporation. Anglicisms exhibiting Spanish-like phonetic properties tend to occupy canonical syntactic positions and show greater compatibility with Spanish functional morphology, whereas phonetically non-adapted forms more frequently resist morphological marking and display island-like behavior within otherwise Spanish clauses. The analysis examines distribution across nominal, adjectival, and prepositional domains and object positions to assess morphosyntactic integration degrees. The former is illustrated as follows: (1) guardo cash ([kaʃ]) por si acaso; (2) si hacen match ([mæʧ]), puede funcionar. Adopting a usage-based and contact-oriented perspective for syntactic borrowing, the study is situated within the Matrix Language Frame model and recent approaches to insertional borrowing. A central contribution lies in establishing a principled link between morphosyntactic behavior and an independently motivated phonetic classification, offering convergent evidence for the systematic integration of Anglicisms into Spanish grammar. At a broader analytical level, the study advances debates on syntactic borrowing and contact-induced change by demonstrating that Anglicisms are subject to Spanish morphosyntactic constraints rather than functioning as unconstrained lexical insertions, and by developing an interface-based account of borrowing that captures the gradient nature of grammatical incorporation in contact settings and contributes a corpus-based, empirically grounded perspective to typologies of borrowing in Spanish contact linguistics.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050087

Authors: Chiara Meluzzi Nicholas Nese

This study investigates the phonetic variation in Italian dental affricates, focusing on the role of lexical frequency, phonological context, geographical origin, and speech style (read speech vs. collaborative dialogue). Previous research on lexically based phonetics has emphasised the link between item frequency and phonetic realisation; in this paper, we test these premises on a class of rare and marked sounds—dental affricates. A corpus of read sentences and map-task dialogues produced by northern and southern Italian speakers was analysed acoustically with respect to voicing and duration. Results show that phonological context and geographical origin are the primary determinants of voicing, with southern speakers favouring voiced realisations and word-initial position strongly conditioning voicing patterns. Lexical frequency does not significantly predict voicing category once between-speaker and between-item variability are appropriately modelled, but it does exert a positive effect on affricate duration: higher-frequency words contain relatively longer affricates, reflecting compensatory preservation of segmental identity within otherwise reduced words. Speech style significantly affects duration, with reading favouring longer realisations. These findings reveal a dissociation between categorical and gradient levels of phonetic variation, supporting usage-based models in which lexical frequency modulates fine-grained phonetic implementation rather than determining phonological categorisation.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050086

Authors: Abdelrahim Fathy Ismail Rabha Adnan Alqudah Rawan Abdul Mahdi Neyef Al-Saliti Alaaeldin Ahmed Hamid

Despite significant advances in AI language models, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) remains a linguistically complex domain in which apparent fluency often masks deeper grammatical instability. This study investigates recurrent grammatical error patterns in ChatGPT-generated Arabic texts, focusing on how these patterns reflect underlying morpho-syntactic challenges and the constraints of probabilistic language generation. Adopting a qualitative, pattern-oriented analytical framework, the study draws on online focus group discussions with secondary-level Arabic teachers, who served as expert linguistic evaluators. Participants collaboratively examined a set of AI-generated texts to identify and interpret systematic grammatical deviations across five key domains: agreement, inflection and case marking, sentence structure, prepositions and transitivity, and cross-linguistic influence. The findings indicate that grammatical errors in AI-generated Arabic are not random but occur as recurring, structured patterns, particularly in contexts involving long-distance dependencies and morphologically complex constructions. These patterns suggest a reliance on surface-level fluency at the expense of deeper grammatical coherence, reflecting limitations in maintaining consistent morpho-syntactic relationships. This study contributes by identifying and characterizing systematic grammatical patterns in AI-generated MSA as interpreted through expert linguistic judgment, offering a qualitative perspective that complements existing quantitative approaches and advances understanding of how large language models engage with morphologically rich languages.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050084

Authors: Haiyan Zhu

This study investigates how Chinese learners of English express manners of motion, examining systematic features, cognitive motivations, and compensatory strategies. While Talmy’s motion events typology and Levin’s verb classification system provide important foundations, both have limitations in capturing the internal semantic granularity of manner verbs and the complexity of learner acquisition. To address this, we construct a 10-level verb typology establishing a “semantic granularity” continuum from concrete to abstract, physical to metaphorical, and lexical to grammatical. Using experimental data (N = 600) and corpus comparisons (COCA vs. learner corpus), we analyze Chinese learners’ manner expression patterns. Results reveal the following: (1) Chinese learners prioritize Path over Manner, overusing lower-level verbs (go, walk, run) while underusing higher-level and fine-grained manner verbs (stroll, scramble), which are preferred by native speakers. (2) Learners favor semi-tight or loose syntactic structures and show a preference for describing Manner precisely by adding other modifiers such as adverbials, prepositions, complements, or subordinate clauses. When it comes to precisely describing specific manners of motion, Chinese learners of English tend to use four strategies—analytic manner externalization, path salience, image-schematic transfer, and semantic simplification—whereas native English speakers typically rely on single verbs with high semantic density. These findings suggest learners’ expression of manner involves both L1 syntactic transfer and target language conceptual adaptation. The 10-level classification continuum advances the theoretical understanding of motion event lexicalization patterns, provides new perspectives for conceptual transfer research, and offer pedagogical implications for Chinese English learners’ accuracy of their expression of manner.

Languages doi: 10.3390/languages11050085

Authors: Rosangela Lai

This paper investigates ongoing phonological changes in Campidanese Sardinian and its morphosyntactic repercussions, focusing on the weakening of word-final codas under increasing pressure from Italian. Sardinian preserves the Latin nominal and verbal endings -s and -t, whose interaction with external sandhi processes traditionally sustains crucial distinctions of person and number. Through a comparison between a conservative variety (Tertenia) and an innovative one (Pula), the study shows that total regressive assimilation of -s and -t is becoming generalized in innovative areas, neutralizing the contrast between second- and third-person singulars. The decline of vowel epenthesis in contexts involving heterosyllabic clusters further destabilizes the system, occasionally generating ambiguity in clitic number and verbal person marking. A Strict CV analysis demonstrates that epenthesis-less outputs are structurally well-formed only if final codas are assumed to be absent at the underlying level, pointing to a deeper restructuring of phonological representations. Overall, the data document a shift from a morphologically transparent system toward one increasingly aligned with Italian phonotactics, with significant consequences for morphosyntactic disambiguation.