Search Results (6)

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

The present study aimed to elucidate the neural mechanisms underpinning the visual recognition of morphologically complex verbs in Korean, a morphologically rich, agglutinative language with inherent polymorphemic characteristics. In an fMRI experiment with a lexical decision paradigm, we investigated whether verb inflection types (base, regular, and irregular) are processed through separate mechanisms or a single system. Furthermore, we explored the semantic influence in processing inflectional morphology by manipulating the semantic ambiguity (homonymous vs. unambiguous) of inflected verbs. The results showed equivalent activation levels in the left inferior frontal gyrus for both regular and irregular verbs, challenging the dichotomy between the two. Graded effects of verb regularity were observed in the occipitotemporal regions, with regular inflections eliciting increased activation in the fusiform and lingual gyri. In the middle occipital gyrus, homonyms showed decreased activation relative to that of unambiguous words, specifically for base and irregular forms. Furthermore, the angular gyrus exhibited significant modulation with all verb types, indicating a semantic influence during morphological processing. These findings support single-system theories and the connectionist framework, challenging the assumptions of purely orthographic morphological decomposition and dual-mechanism accounts. Furthermore, they provide evidence for a semantic influence during morphological processing, with differential reliance on semantic activation for regular and irregular inflections. Full article

This project explores the synchronic variation of participle forms in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Despite general systematicity, the language maintains many historically irregular participles, which often compete with regularized variants. The language has also developed innovative participles, which tend to exist in variation with regular forms. Adopting a usage-based framework, the study examines how analogical processes affect persistent irregular participles and short-form forms in BP, emphasizing the role of grammatical context and frequency. Data are drawn from the Portuguese Web 2011 corpus, including 12 verbs with long-form Latinate irregulars (n = 4800) and 8 verbs with short-form forms (n = 3200). The results show that long-form Latinate irregulars are more common as adjectives and with the verb estar, while regularized forms are prevalent with ser and in perfect constructions. Conversely, short-form participles occur least frequently in perfect constructions, showing a tendency towards the maintenance of regularity in this context. Additionally, verbs that occur more often in perfect constructions are most resistant to innovation. These findings indicate that perfect constructions play a dual role in promoting and preserving regularity in BP and shed light on how grammar–internal relationships and contexts of occurrence play a role in language variation and change. Full article

The current study investigated overregularization of Spanish irregular past participles (e.g., dicho ‘said’, regularized as decido) among 20 child heritage speakers of Spanish in New Mexico, ages 5;1–11;9. Overregularization occurs when a child produces an irregular form analogously to its regular counterpart (e.g., eated instead of ate). Typically, children first produce the irregular form and then, after they have learned a morphological pattern, they overapply it to the irregular form. Ultimately, children retreat from overregularization and once again produce the target irregular form. While there has been a wealth of studies on monolingual children’s overregularizations, very few have investigated this phenomenon in child heritage speakers, who may develop their grammars diversely due to their exposure to the heritage language. This study analyzed the impact of age, Spanish language experience, Spanish morphosyntax proficiency, and lexical frequency on overregularization among the 13/20 children who produced past participles (n = 233) in response to an elicited production task. Participles were overregularized at high rates (74%), resulting in forms like ponido (‘put’, cf: puesto). Results from a regression analysis indicate that overregularization was more likely among the younger children, the children with lower morphosyntax scores, and with lower-frequency participles. Further, an interaction between morphosyntax score and lexical frequency indicated that children with higher scores overregularized with lower frequency participles, but not higher frequency ones, whereas children with low scores overregularized with both low- and high-frequency forms. In summary, child heritage speakers overregularize Spanish past participles at high rates, and the retreat from overregularization is tied to overall grammatical development and lexical frequency, suggesting that the acquisition of irregular participles is dependent on experiencing multiple instances of the irregular verb form. Full article

In this paper, we investigate zero-derived nouns based on irregular verbs in Greek. This is an under-explored area in Greek morpho-syntax, and in this paper, we will make three main contributions. First, we will discuss the fact that the overwhelming majority of these nouns are feminine, while neuter nouns are considerably less represented and masculine nouns are almost nonexistent. As feminine is taken to be the semantically marked gender in the case of animate nouns, asserting female sex, and neuter is argued to be the default gender in Greek for inanimates, the fact that zero abstract nouns are feminine is surprising. We will argue that feminine is the default in the case of zero derivation by exploiting an analysis of flavors of n. Second, we will show that, contrary to the findings in earlier literature, certain zero-derived nouns do have argument structure, similarly to their affixed counterparts. As not all zero-derived nouns have argument structure, we will appeal to complex head formation to explain the properties of those zero-derived nouns that have an eventive interpretation but do not surface with arguments. Finally, we will turn to an examination of the size of the domain that is nominalized. Since, in our cases, we observe root allomorphy conditioned by a nominal affix in the presence of a zero verbal head, we will suggest that Pruning is the mechanism that allows this. Full article

The aim of this article is to discuss the role of input characteristics in the development of French verb morphology. From a usage-based perspective, several cognitive and linguistic factors contribute to the ease or difficulty of processing input in L2 acquisition. This article concentrates on frequency, salience, and form–function association, factors that might influence what aspects of input are available to the learners’ attention. A presentation of French verb morphology from this perspective shows how these factors can contribute to the use of the regular -er verb paradigm as a default. A review of empirical studies confirms the influence of input characteristics. The results suggest that the dominant pattern of regular verbs and the scarcity of salient clues from irregular verbs contribute to the specificity of L2 French development. The conclusion addresses the question of enriching L2 classroom input with irregular verbs. Such an input could facilitate the perception of form–function association, and thus, contribute to a more efficient development of French verb morphology. The article concludes by suggesting other ways of studying the influence of input as well as avenues for future research. Full article