This study investigates the neurophysiological and behavioral effects of exposure to grammatical microvariation, focusing on the relationship between individual production patterns and on-line sentence processing. We examine a unique context of ongoing morphosyntactic change in Norwegian participial agreement, which gives rise to widespread, near-continuous variation in agreement marking across dialects and speakers. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 156 participants drawn from two dialect regions with extensive inter- and intra-speaker variability, as they read sentences in standardized Norwegian Bokmål containing either invariant (control) or variable/changing (target) grammatical forms. Results show that both group-level dialect background and individual production frequencies modulate sentence processing. Participants from regions undergoing dialect change exhibit attenuated P600 effects and more gradient acceptability judgments, and neural sensitivity to participial agreement violations is continuously modulated by individual age and spoken agreement rates. These findings provide evidence that language processing is dynamically shaped by fine-grained individual differences in linguistic experience - including community-level exposure, personal production frequencies, and sociolinguistic positioning within ongoing grammatical change - and that even narrow between- and within-individual variation in dialectal grammar influences integration costs during standard language comprehension.

From ambiguity to precision: Digitized traffic rules for autonomous driving.

This study examines synchronic phonological variation in Bol-anon Binisaya across geographic and socio-demographic groups in Bohol, Philippines. Drawing on variationist sociolinguistics, lexical diffusion theory, and geolinguistic approaches to language change, the article investigates the distribution of two major phonological processes: the alternation between the innovative palatal glide [y] and the conservative voiced palatal affricate [dʒ], and the deletion or transformation of intervocalic /l/. Data were collected from 120 native Bol-anon Binisaya speakers using a friend-of-a-friend social network approach designed to reduce the Observer’s Paradox. Participants were stratified by district, age cohort, and socio-economic background. The findings show that the [y]/[dʒ] alternation remains a site of structured heterogeneity, with province-wide distributions close to equilibrium but strong geographic differentiation. District 2, shaped by maritime mobility and regular contact with Metro Cebu, shows the highest preference for the innovative [y] variant, whereas District 3 retains the conservative [dʒ] variant more strongly. By contrast, intervocalic /l/ deletion has largely stabilised as a community norm, with reduced forms such as bay from balay and dagan from dalagan reaching near-categorical use in several speaker groups. The study demonstrates that phonological change in Bol-anon Binisaya is not random but socially and geographically patterned. It also shows how mobility, regional contact, and local identity jointly shape the development of an island dialect under conditions of modernisation and urban influence.

Rhesus macaques show metacognitive sensitivity to artificial grammars.

Can language attrition be reversed: Evidence from speech perception and production.

Development of program requirements for obesity medicine fellowship training in the U.S.

The integrity of scientific literature depends on transparent authorship and authentic communication of research findings. The release of ChatGPT in November 2022 introduced powerful AI writing assistance that may be changing how dental researchers write manuscripts. However, systematic evidence documenting this shift and its implications for research integrity remains limited. Traditional detection tools and self-reported surveys have proven unreliable, requiring alternative approaches to assess AI's influence on published literature. To detect and quantify linguistic changes in dental scientific abstracts by comparing pre-ChatGPT (2021) and post-ChatGPT (2025) periods, providing empirical evidence of AI adoption patterns and their implications for scientific communication integrity. We analyzed 2,770 abstracts from six major dental journals using vocabulary-based linguistic analysis. Following computational linguistics methods validated in biomedical literature, we extracted six AI-associated features and computed composite detection scores. This observational text-based approach avoids reporting bias while providing quantifiable evidence of linguistic shifts. AI detection scores increased significantly across all journals (mean: 12.01 to 14.46; + 20.4%), with individual journal increases ranging from +10.0% to +34.5%. The mean number of AI marker words per abstract rose from 0.69 to 0.97 (+41.1%), while high-suspicion abstracts (score ≥ 20) increased from 18.0% to 25.8% (+43%). Changes were consistent across journal specialty, geography, and impact factor, suggesting field-wide adoption. Dental scientific writing has undergone measurable linguistic changes coinciding with widespread AI availability. The consistency and magnitude of these changes raise questions about transparency in AI use, maintaining authorial voice, and preserving the integrity of scientific communication. These findings provide an empirical foundation for evidence-based policies on AI disclosure and appropriate use in academic publishing, grounded in observed changes to scientific communication rather than speculative concern.

Purpose This study aims to examine how high-growth firms (HGFs) adapt their strategic communication as they scale and approach major valuation milestones. Specifically, it investigates how ventures’ public value orientations shift as they near the $1-billion valuation threshold (unicorn status), offering new insight into how linguistic changes signal evolving stakeholder strategies in scaling firms. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from scaling literature, the authors analyze a self-collected data set of 740 LinkedIn posts comprising 49,562 words from seven US-based ventures that achieved unicorn status in 2023. Using computerized text analysis (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) and fixed-effects regression modeling, the authors assess changes in prosocial, bureaucratic, self-transcendence, self-enhancement, openness to change and conservation language as firms approach their valuation milestone. Mean comparison and ANOVA tests supplement the regression analyses to assess differences across pre-, during- and post-valuation phases. Findings Results reveal significant linguistic shifts as firms near unicorn status. HGFs decrease prosocial, self-transcendence and conservation language, while increasing bureaucratic, self-enhancement and openness to change expressions. These trends suggest a realignment from communal and mission-driven discourse toward performance-oriented, adaptive communication, signaling legitimacy and scalability to investors and broader markets. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on a US-based sample of enterprise technology and healthcare ventures, which may constrain generalizability. However, findings provide a replicable framework for analyzing scaling communication using text analytics and inform future work on linguistic indicators of entrepreneurial evolution, legitimacy and pivoting. Practical implications Founders, investors and entrepreneurial marketers can use these insights to anticipate and deliberately manage how value signaling changes as ventures mature. Understanding these communication shifts helps founders balance authenticity and adaptability across stakeholder audiences, enables investors to monitor organizational development through linguistic signals and gives content strategists a framework for channel-specific communication decisions during scale-up. Originality/value This study introduces a linguistic lens to scaling research, providing quantitative evidence of how ventures’ public communication shifts as they approach a major valuation milestone. It bridges entrepreneurship and marketing by demonstrating that the language defining a venture’s identity is not static but shifts systematically under scaling pressure, expanding the behavioral foundations of entrepreneurial marketing and scaling theory.

Childhood dementia is an umbrella term for over 140 genetic disorders that cause devastating neurodegeneration and death. Early diagnosis of these disorders is essential to inform future decision making and provide tailored therapies and supports. Diagnosis may allow access to treatments, such as gene therapy, which are rapidly evolving. Speech and language impairments are often the first signs of childhood dementia. Yet, limited awareness of childhood dementia and poor speech and language characterization results in serious diagnostic delays. This viewpoint seeks to both delineate the early speech and language features in childhood dementia and support timely referral of children to specialists. We reviewed speech and language features reported before, and at genetic diagnosis, across childhood dementia disorders. We identify three key speech and language red flags for childhood dementia: (a) delayed or plateaued speech and language milestones, (b) onset or change in dysarthria, and (c) speech and language regression. We also highlight other medical features that may co-occur with these speech and language impairments. We identified early speech and language impairments in children with dementia that may support referral to specialists. Speech pathologists and other pediatric clinicians should be aware of childhood dementia and the presenting speech and language features. Early access to genetic testing is imperative for best outcomes for children with childhood dementia and their families. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.32336961.

This article examines the trajectories of Kurdish- and Greek-speaking populations in Republican Türkiye through a systematic analysis of population censuses conducted between 1927 and 1965. Drawing on provincial-level data and original spatial mapping, it traces both the distribution and transformation of these linguistic communities over time. The study approaches census data not as neutral representations, but as products of specific classificatory practices, particularly with regard to the definition of ‘mother tongue’ as the language spoken within the household. By taking these methodological limitations into account, the analysis focuses on long-term patterns and regional trends rather than isolated numerical fluctuations. The findings reveal divergent trajectories. Kurdish-speaking populations display a high degree of regional continuity, remaining concentrated in eastern Anatolia despite periods of state intervention and social change. In contrast, Greek-speaking populations experienced a sustained decline and increasing spatial fragmentation, a process that can be associated with demographic interventions and episodes of political tension, including the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey and the Istanbul Pogrom. By comparing these two cases, the article argues that linguistic homogenization in Republican Turkey did not follow a single trajectory, but rather involved distinct processes ranging from gradual assimilation to demographic rupture.

Local ecological knowledge is an essential element of the Alpine biocultural diversity and is often linked to minority languages. However, its continuity does not necessarily correspond to the persistence of these languages. This study investigates how knowledge of wild plants (and mushrooms) is transmitted and transformed among three minority-language communities in the Italian Alps: Cimbrian, Mòcheno, and Ladin speakers. Ethnobotanical data were collected through structured interviews between 2022 and 2025 and compared with historical records from the 1980s documenting the use of wild plants for food, medicinal purposes, and herbal teas. The results reveal a marked decline in traditional plant-related practices despite the continued use and institutional support of minority languages. Plants once central to household herbal repertoires, such as Achillea millefolium L., Artemisia absinthium L., and Sambucus nigra L. which are now marginal or abandoned. However, a limited set of herbal teas remains culturally significant. Conversely, mushroom foraging and the gathering of wild fruits remain comparatively resilient, supported mainly by communal land-use institutions (usi civici) that foster ecological engagement and intergenerational learning. Overall, the study highlights a paradox of biocultural resilience: linguistic vitality alone does not safeguard embodied ecological knowledge. Sustaining Alpine cultural and environmental heritage, therefore, requires integrated approaches that address language, environment, governance, and socio-economic change together.

Abstract Our understanding of language change has been shown to benefit from considering prominent cognitive processes investigated in usage-based language research. Specifically, robust processes observed in formulaic language studies can be evaluated in terms of the predictions they make about language change. We consider one of its manifestations, the loss of reflexivity marking. While this study focuses primarily on eroding reflexivity in Portuguese, the factors involved play a role in this evolution more generally. We assume that it is a potential scenario in other languages that mark reflexivity overtly, of which English is one example. One factor investigated here is semantic autonomy, which is associated with chunking. Based on corpus data, we identify conspicuous pockets of resistance to change. Despite the pervasive degree of the erosion attested across all types of reflexive verbs, some exceptional verbs resist the trend of omission of the reflexive marker. This is a demonstration of the impact that formulaic processing has on the maintenance of reflexivity and, more generally, on the speakers’ cognitive representations of language knowledge. The observed variability of reflexive marking calls for an account of how formulaic language is processed in the mind. The hypothesis being proposed here is that fixed phrases undergo both analytic and holistic processing simultaneously.

Abstract Usage-based approaches to language variation and change can explain how token and type frequencies interact such that lower token frequency word-forms might be regularized and adapted to higher type frequency patterns. This quantitative variationist study explores the regularization of the preterit andar ‘walk’ in Spain, a phenomenon that has received little empirical attention except for one recent analysis of bogotano Spanish in a controlled production task. We advance research on this understudied topic by considering more open-ended production data, a different set of regional varieties (i.e., European Spanish), and five independent linguistic variables, the latter four of which are new to this topic: person/number, meaning/function of andar , polarity, formality, and structural priming. Data were analyzed from two corpora which offered comparable written data (e.g., websites, newspapers, blogs), with a focus on European subsets of data: El Corpus del Español (ECDE) and Sketch Engine. Mixed-effects regression revealed that numerous predictors favored andar regularization: negation, informality, regularized primed tokens, 2PL and 3SG subjects, and the meaning/function of ‘walk’. We provide a rare systematic analysis of andar regularization in European Spanish in written data and reveal that regularization is indeed constrained by a range of linguistic predictors.

Managing patients with respiratory failure increasingly involves non-invasive respiratory support (NIRS) strategies to support respiration, often preventing the need for invasive mechanical ventilation. However, despite the rapidly expanding use of NIRS, there remains a significant challenge to its optimal use across all medical circumstances. It lacks a unified ontological structure, complicating guidance on NIRS modalities across healthcare systems. In this study, we introduced NIRS ontology to support knowledge representation in acute care settings by providing a unified framework that enhances data clarity and interoperability, laying the groundwork for future clinical decision-making research. We developed NIRS ontology using the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Protégé to organize clinical concepts and relationships. To enable rule-based clinical reasoning beyond hierarchical structures, we added Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) rules. We evaluated logical reasoning using a sample of 6 patient scenarios and used SPARQL queries to retrieve and test targeted inferences. The ontology has 145 classes, 11 object properties, and 18 data properties across 949 axioms that establish concept relationships. To standardize clinical concepts, we added 392 annotations, including descriptive definitions based on controlled vocabularies. SPARQL queries successfully validated all test cases (rules) by retrieving appropriate patients' outcomes: for instance, a patient treated with HFNC (high-flow nasal cannula) for 2 hours due to acute respiratory failure may avoid endotracheal intubation. This NIRS ontology formally represents domain-specific concepts, including ventilation modalities, patient characteristics, therapy parameters, and outcomes. SPARQL query evaluations across clinical scenarios confirmed the ontology's ability to support rule‑based reasoning and therapy recommendations, providing a foundation for consistent documentation practices, integration into clinical data models, and advanced analysis of NIRS outcomes. In conclusion, this proof-of-concept NIRS ontology demonstrates how clinical concepts can be formally represented and queried, offering a foundation for future validation, EHR integration, and evidence-based refinement of NIRS practices.

Code-switching, the switching of two languages in the same conversation, is a very common occurrence in bilingual societies. The available pieces of research findings indicate that there are pragmatic and social grounds for code switching. Pragmatically, speakers have a way of switching languages that has the potential of filling the lexical gaps that prevail in languages, to expound something or be more emphatic. Change in language at the social level may imply belongingness, unity, or differentiation. English too brings with it connotations of modernization, openness to the outside world, and educational competency amongst the Sindhi-English bilinguals, and this is conjoined with the Sindhi that has its own connotation of belonging to their culture, being close, and being local. This was the duality that brought about the strategic nature of the code-switching as communicative prowess and maneuverability in social realities. Data were gathered using a mixed-method, involving 100 participants who were interviewed using structured questions, filled out questionnaires, and observed directly. Results show that educational background, work environment, interaction with peers, and social prestige affect code-switching. Modern ideas, technical languages, or to show prestige are frequently expressed in English. This paper has pointed out the notion of code-switching as a strategic communicative process and not a language weakness, and how the process is used in identity construction, communication in education, and social life. The study has implications for bilingual education, language policy, and sociolinguistic knowledge of urban Sindhi-English speakers.

Dietary choline and betaine may protect against cognitive decline. To examine longitudinal associations between dietary choline and betaine intake and 2-y cognitive changes in older adults. This prospective cohort study is a secondary analysis nested within the PREDIMED-Plus trial. Participants included 6610 older adults aged 55-75 y with metabolic syndrome. Dietary choline and betaine intake were estimated at baseline, 1, and 2 y using a validated 143-item food frequency questionnaire. Cumulative averages were calculated. Cognitive function was assessed at baseline and 2 y using 5 composite scores based on 8 neuropsychological tests covering global cognition, general cognition, attention, executive function, and language. Multivariable-adjusted linear regression models evaluated associations between energy-adjusted cumulative average intakes and 2-y cognitive changes. Over a median follow-up of 2 y (interquartile range: 1.95-2.05), each 1 mg/d higher energy-adjusted cumulative average dietary choline intake was associated with slower decline in attention [β = 5.20 × 10-4; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.61 × 10-4, 8.79 × 10-4; P = 0.005] and beneficial changes in language (β = 3.79 × 10-4; 95% CI: 0.62 × 10-4, 6.95 × 10-4; P = 0.019). Participants in the highest choline tertile showed greater 2-y improvements in attention (β = 7.50 × 10-2; 95% CI: 2.12 × 10-2, 12.88 × 10-2; P-trend = 0.006) and language (β = 5.82 × 10-2; 95% CI: 1.04 × 10-2, 10.59 × 10-2; P-trend = 0.016) compared with the lowest tertile. Similarly, each 1 mg/d higher betaine intake was associated with more favorable changes in executive function (β = 7.48 × 10-4; 95% CI: 1.71 × 10-4, 13.20 × 10-4; P = 0.011) and language (β = 9.13 × 10-4; 95% CI: 2.96 × 10-4, 15.31 × 10-4; P = 0.004). Participants in the highest betaine tertile also exhibited greater 2-y improvements in language (β = 4.71 × 10-2; 95% CI: 0.25 × 10-2, 9.17 × 10-2; P-trend = 0.036) compared with the lowest tertile. Higher dietary choline and betaine intake were associated with modest short-term improvements in cognitive performance over 2 y in older adults. Longer-term studies are warranted. This trial was registered at www.isrctn.com as ISRCTN89898870.

To determine whether extending home-based rehabilitation beyond the mother-only model to include fathers and siblings is associated with improved developmental outcomes in infants with neuro-developmental delay (NDD) and maternal wellbeing in an urban low-resource setting. A prospective observational cohort study was conducted at two public neuro-developmental clinics in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Infants aged 3-6 months (N = 481) and their mothers were followed for 3 months across three naturally occurring caregiver participation groups: mother-only, mother-father and mother-father-sibling. Developmental outcomes were assessed using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (BSID-III), and maternal wellbeing was measured using Global Quality of Life (QoL) and Mental Health Check-In Visual Analogue Scales. Group differences were analysed using ANCOVA, repeated-measures ANCOVA and multiple linear regression adjusting for baseline scores. Infants in the mother-father-sibling group demonstrated significantly higher baseline-adjusted BSID-III cognitive scores at 3 months than the mother-only group (p < 0.05), with the largest effect observed in this group. Changes in language, motor, socioemotional, and adaptive domains followed the same direction but showed smaller and less consistent effects, with limited pairwise significance after adjustment. Maternal mental health improved significantly over time across groups, while QoL showed small but statistically significant gains only on repeated-measures analysis. Involving fathers and siblings in home-based rehabilitation was associated with selective cognitive gains in infants and better maternal mental health over 3 months. These findings provide preliminary support for the integration of father- and sibling-inclusive, family-centred rehabilitation models for paediatric neurorehabilitation in similar low- and middle-income settings.

Suicide remains a leading cause of death in Western countries. As social media becomes central to daily life, digital footprints offer valuable insight into suicidal behavior. Focusing on individuals who attempted suicide while uploading videos to their channels, we investigate: How do linguistic patterns on YouTube reflect suicidal behavior, and how do these patterns align with or differ from expert knowledge? We examined linguistic changes around suicide attempts and compared individuals who attempted suicide while actively uploading to their channel with three control groups: those with prior attempts, those experiencing major life events, and matched individuals from the broader cohort. Applying complementary bottom-up, hybrid, and expert-driven approaches, we analyzed a novel longitudinal dataset of 181 suicide-attempt channels and 134 controls.1 In the bottom-up analysis, LLM-based topic-modeling identified 166 topics; five were linked to suicide attempts, two also showed attempt-related temporal changes (Mental Health Struggles, OR = 1.74; YouTube Engagement, OR = 1.67; p< .01).2 In the hybrid approach, clinical experts reviewed LLM-derived topics and flagged 19 as suicide-related. However, none showed significant effects beyond those identified bottom-up. YouTube Engagement, a platform-specific indicator, was not flagged, underscoring the value of bottom-up discovery. A top-down psychological assessment of suicide narratives revealed differing motivations: individuals describing prior attempts aimed to help others (β = 1.69, p< .01), whereas those attempted during the uploading period emphasized personal recovery (β = 1.08, p< .01). By integrating these approaches, we offer a nuanced understanding of suicidality, bridging digital behavior and clinical insights.

This study scrutinized Morphological drift from the newly borrowed loanword in English language .By the complete analyzation for the Corpus of historical American English (COHA). we investigate how the loanword or the borrowed lexical items (loanword) undergo inflectional adjustment with focusing on the interplay between analogical leveling and morphological regularization, utilizing data spanning from 1900-2019 .This research trace the development of the inflectional pattern or the paradigmatic behavior of 150 borrowed lexical items (loanword ) from different parent(etymological ) languages . The evidence suggested that regularization process prevalent in high frequency context or one could say more dominant, while morphological variability exhibit a low frequency borrowing. This research offering a valuable insight to our understanding for the cognitive mechanism, language contact, and morphological productivity driving language change.

This study examined the morphological shifts present in the slang used by Generation Z and Generation Alpha content creators in digital communication. Employing a descriptive quantitative design supported by morphological word-formation theory and sociolinguistic concepts of language change, the corpora consisted of fifty (50) manually transcribed videos from ten (10) Filipino content creators across TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, representing five creators from each generation. Results revealed that both generations actively use slang as a marker of identity, creativity, and social belonging, with conversion emerging as the most dominant morphological process. Findings further showed that Generation Z frequently employed clipping and acronyms typical of text-based interaction, while Generation Alpha preferred compounding, coinage, and audiovisual-influenced expressions shaped by fast-paced meme and gaming culture. The study concludes that differences in slang formation reflect the technological environments that shaped each generation's communication style. Based on the findings, educators, linguists, and parents are recommended to incorporate awareness of digital language trends into instruction, and future research should expand to larger datasets and additional platforms to deepen understanding of generational language evolution.