Word-order Strategy Research Articles

Comprehension of active, passive, and causative sentences by Japanese-speaking children with intellectual disabilities and typical development

ABSTRACT This study aimed to identify the comprehension strategies employed for active, passive, and causative sentences and the involvement of phonological memory, which is a subsystem of working memory, in the comprehension skills of Japanese-speaking children with intellectual disability (ID) compared to those with typical development (TD). The participants were 29 children with ID and 18 children with TD who were matched according to mental and vocabulary ages and phonological memory scores. A picture selection method was employed as a sentence comprehension task. The stimulus sentences were grouped into four patterns of word order: subject (S) – object (O) – verb (V), OSV, SV, and OV. For example, in active sentences, the subject and object are assigned to agent and patient, respectively. The results indicated that children in both groups made comprehension errors for sentences that lacked information regarding the agent and sentences in which the two-noun sequence inverts the typical agent – patient or instructor – instructed order. Phonological memory’s involvement in sentence comprehension varied according to the combination of participant groups, sentence types, and patterns. The results suggest that both children with ID and TD relied on agent bias, whereby children consider the first noun to denote the actor and a word order strategy of interpreting a sequence of two noun phrases followed by the transitive verb as agent – patient – act. Furthermore, phonological memory underpins understanding of the relationships among arguments, particularly in the case of sentences for which agent bias or word order strategy may result in misinterpretation.

Nominal Word Order Typology in Signed Languages

Although spoken language nominal typology has been subject to much scrutiny, research on signed language nominal word order typology is still a burgeoning field. Yet, the structure of signed languages has important implications for the understanding of language as a human faculty, in addition to the types of universals that may exist across the world’s languages and the influence of language modality on linguistic structure. This study examines the order of nouns and attributive modifiers (adjectives, numerals, demonstratives, quantifiers, genitives, and relative clauses) in 41 signed languages, which span national and village signed languages from various lineages and geographic regions. Despite previous typological research on clausal phenomena indicating that the clausal structure of signed languages differs systematically from spoken languages (Napoli and Sutton-Spence, 2014, among others), the results of this survey indicate that signed language nominal word order typology is strikingly similar to spoken languages in several ways: 1) the most common word orders in spoken languages are also common in signed languages, 2) the uncommon word orders in spoken languages are also uncommon in signed languages, but are attested, unlike uncommon major constituent orders, and 3) the relative ranking of word order strategies, particularly relative clauses, is similar across signed and spoken languages.

Cue conflicts in context: interplay between morphosyntax and discourse context in Danish preschoolers' semantic role assignment.

When learning their first language, children develop strategies for assigning semantic roles to sentence structures, depending on morphosyntactic cues such as case and word order. Traditionally, comprehension experiments have presented transitive clauses in isolation, and cross-linguistically children have been found to misinterpret object-first constructions by following a word-order strategy (Chan, Lieven & Tomasello, 2009; Dittmar, Abbot-Smith, Lieven & Tomasello, 2008; Hakuta, 1982; McDonald, 1989; Slobin & Bever, 1982). In an act-out study, we replicated this finding with Danish preschoolers. However, object-first clauses may be context-sensitive structures, which are infelicitous in isolation. In a second act-out study we presented OVS clauses in supportive and unsupportive discourse contexts and in isolation and found that five- to six-year-olds' OVS comprehension was enhanced in discourse-pragmatically felicitous contexts. Our results extend previous findings of preschoolers' sensitivity to discourse-contextual cues in sentence comprehension (Hurewitz, 2001; Song & Fisher, 2005) to the basic task of assigning agent and patient roles.

Learning multiple distributed prototypes of semantic categories for named entity recognition.

The scarcity of large labelled datasets comprising clinical text that can be exploited within the paradigm of supervised machine learning creates barriers for the secondary use of data from electronic health records. It is therefore important to develop capabilities to leverage the large amounts of unlabelled data that, indeed, tend to be readily available. One technique utilises distributional semantics to create word representations in a wholly unsupervised manner and uses existing training data to learn prototypical representations of predefined semantic categories. Features describing whether a given word belongs to a certain category are then provided to the learning algorithm. It has been shown that using multiple distributional semantic models, each employing a different word order strategy, can lead to enhanced predictive performance. Here, another hyperparameter is also varied--the size of the context window--and an experimental investigation shows that this leads to further performance gains.

Preschool children’s interpretation of object‐initial sentences: Neural correlates of their behavioral performance

The acquisition of the function of case-marking is a key step in the development of sentence processing for German-speaking children since case-marking reveals the relations between sentential arguments. In this study, we investigated the development of the processing of case-marking and argument structures in children at 3, 4;6 and 6 years of age, as well as its processing in adults. Using EEG, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to object-initial compared to subject-initial German sentences including transitive verbs and case-marked noun phrases referring to animate arguments. We also tested children's behavioral competence in a sentence-picture matching task. Word order and case-marking were manipulated in German main clauses. Adults' behavioral performance was close to perfect and their ERPs revealed a negativity for the processing of the topicalized accusative marked noun phrase (NP1) and no effect for the second NP (NP2) in the object-initial structure. Children's behavioral data showed a significant above-chance outcome in the subject-initial condition for all age groups, but not for the object-initial condition. In contrast to adults, the ERPs of 3-year-olds showed a positivity at NP1, indicating difficulties in processing the non-canonical object-initial structures. Children at the age of 4;6 did not differ in the processing patterns of object-initial vs. subject-initial sentences at NP1 but showed a slight positivity at NP2. This positivity at NP2, which implies syntactic integration difficulties, is more pronounced in 6-year-olds but is absent in adults. At NP1, however, 6-year-olds show the same negativity as adults. In sum, the behavioral and electrophysiological findings demonstrate that children in each age group use different strategies, which are indicative of their developmental stage. While 3-year-olds merely detect differences in the two sentence structures without being able to use this information for sentence comprehension, 4;6-year-olds proceed to use mainly a word-order strategy, processing NP1 in both conditions in the same manner, which leads to processing difficulties upon detecting case-marking cues at NP2. At the age of 6, children are able to use case-marking cues for comprehension but still show enhanced effort for correct thematic-role assignment.

The First Noun Principle and Non-Canonical Structures

Abstract This study investigated how L1 English adults interpret subject-verb-object (SVO), VSO, and VOS sentences in an L2. First- (n = 37), third- (n = 42), and fifthsemester (n = 28) Spanish learners heard 8 sentences of each type and indicated which noun was the subject. A repeated-measures ANOVA revealed significant effects (p < .01) for word order and learner level. Fifth-semester participants consistently responded most correctly, but all levels were more accurate (p < .01) with SVO than both VSO and VOS sentences. First-semester learners also scored higher (p < .01) with VSO than VOS structures. Results suggest early influence of the First Noun Principle, dependence on a verb-centric word-order strategy, and growing awareness of the Spanish object marker.

THE ELICITED PRODUCTION OF KOREAN RELATIVE CLAUSES BY HERITAGE SPEAKERS

In response to new theoretical claims and inconclusive empirical findings regarding relative clauses in East Asian languages, this study examined the factors relevant to relative clause production by Korean heritage speakers. Gap position (subject vs. object), animacy (± animate), and the topicality of head nouns (± topicalization) were manipulated as experimental variables, and factors that appear to have been confounded in previous studies (e.g., context, proficiency) were controlled for or measured. Data were collected from Korean native and heritage speakers using an elicited production task. Group results failed to show a subject advantage, but individual analysis revealed that the effect of gap position varied for speakers at different levels of Korean proficiency. Results from the topicalized lead-in condition as well as error analysis revealed two different sources related to these patterns: Traditional asymmetry (i.e., subject advantage) appears to reflect the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy effect, whereas backward asymmetry (i.e., object advantage) seems to stem from word order strategy. Proficiency scores exhibited a modest correlation with the different individual response patterns. However, an animacy effect was not observed. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of a general learning strategy, language universals based on informational prominence, the role of proficiency, and the effect of task demands.

Competition between word order and case-marking in interpreting grammatical relations: a case study in multilingual acquisition

The study examines strategies multilingual children use to interpret grammatical relations, focusing on their two primary languages, Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri. Both languages use mixed systems for indicating grammatical relations. In both languages ergative-absolutive case-marking indicates core arguments, but to different extents in each language. In Lajamanu Warlpiri, pronominal clitics in a nominative-accusative pattern also indicate core arguments, and in Light Warlpiri word order in a nominative-accusative pattern partially does so. The study asks which sentence interpretation strategies children rely on most, when they learn to rely on them and whether cross-linguistic influences are seen. Children aged 5;0, 7;0 and 9;0 and adults saw paired, animated events simultaneously on video and heard a transitive sentence spoken. The participants pointed to the event depicted by the sentence heard. Adults used a case-marking strategy consistently in both languages. Children initially used both case-marking and word order strategies, but used case-marking more often as age increased.

The Role of Word Order in the Interpretation of Canonical and Non-Canonical Graphic Symbol Utterances: A Developmental Study

Graphic symbols are often used to represent words in Augmentative and Alternative Communication systems. Previous findings suggest that different processes operate when using graphic symbols and when using speech. This study assessed the ability of native speakers of French with no communication disorders from four age groups to interpret graphic-symbol sequences of varying length and canonicity. Results reveal that, as they get older, participants show an increase in their capacity to interpret graphic-symbol sequences. Constituent order played an important role in the interpretation of the sequences. However, the specific word-order strategies used varied depending on the age group and the type of sequence presented.

Effects of Accelerated Reading Rate on Processing Words' Syntactic Functions by Normal and Dyslexic Readers: Event Related Potentials Evidence

In the present study, the authors examined differences in brain activity, as measured by amplitudes and latencies of event related potentials (ERP) components, in Hebrew-speaking adult dyslexic and normal readers when processing sentence components with different grammatical functions. Participants were 20 dyslexic and 20 normally reading male college students aged 18–27 years. The authors examined the processing of normal word strings in word–by-word reading of sentences having subject-verb-object (SVO) syntactic structure in self- and fast-paced conditions. Data revealed that in both reading conditions, the N100 and P300 ERP components were sensitive to internal processes such as recognition of words' grammatical functions. However, the results revealed that fast-paced reading rate might affect this process, as was reflected in the systematic changes of amplitudes and latencies of both ERP components. In accelerated reading, a significant decrease of latencies and increase of amplitudes in dyslexics were shown. It was also found that influence of fast-paced reading rate was realized in the full usage of the word-order strategy in sentence processing. In turn, this fact confirmed the hypothesis concerning a syntactic processing “weakness” in dyslexia.

Syntactic Processing of Hebrew Sentences in Normal and Dyslexic Readers: Electrophysiological Evidence

The authors examined differences in brain activity as measured by amplitudes and latencies of event-related potential (ERP) components in Hebrew-speaking adult dyslexic and normal readers. The participants were measured while processing words' syntactic functions during reading of sentences with subject-verb-object syntactic order. The results suggested that among dyslexic and normal readers, N100 and P300 ERP components were sensitive to certain constituents of syntactic analysis for target words in accordance with their grammatical roles. The findings further demonstrated significant differences in ERP measures between dyslexic and normal readers. Compared with normal readers, dyslexic readers exhibited consistently higher amplitudes and longer latencies in both ERP components for the subject of the sentence. Significant, though less consistent, ERP variations were observed for other sentence elements. In addition, dyslexic readers differed from normal readers in their processing strategies. For normal readers, the verb-oriented, morphologically based strategy was found to be the most efficient for sentence processing in Hebrew, whereas the dyslexic readers demonstrated a more primitive mode of identification of words' grammatical roles, namely, the word-order strategy. The results support the hypothesis that there is a syntactic processing “weakness” in dyslexics.

Aphasia, prefrontal dysfunction, and the use of word-order strategies

Caplan & Waters's neuropsychological evidence for two types of verbal working memory rests entirely on a very restricted definition of “syntactic complexity,” one in terms of word order. This opens the possibility that the dissociation they observe relates to the differential use of word-order strategies rather than to the structure of verbal working memory.

Processing Strategies in L2 Learners of French: The Role of Transfer

This study compared the comprehension processing strategies of 15 monolingual English native speakers and 8 bilingual French native speakers to 112 second language (L2) learners of French, using stimuli containing word order and clitic pronoun (type and agreement) cues in French. Results indicated differential dependence on cue use by the two native speaker groups, with English native speakers depending more on word order for interpretation and French native speaker depending more on clitic pronoun agreement. Interpretations produced by L2 learners of French indicated an immediate abandonment of LI word order strategies with a much later onset of clitic pronoun agreement strategies. Results are discussed within the framework of the Competition Model.

Sentence interpretation in bilingual speakers of English and Chinese

ABSTRACTThis study examines patterns of transfer in the sentence processing strategies displayed by Chinese-English and English–Chinese bilinguals. Our results indicate that late bilinguals display strong evidence for forward transfer: late Chinese–English bilinguals transfer animacybased strategies to English sentences; late English–Chinese bilinguals transfer English-like word order strategies to Chinese. Early bilinguals display a variety of transfer patterns, including differentiation (use of animacy strategies in Chinese and word order strategies in English) and backward transfer (use of L2 processing strategies in L1, a possible symptom of language loss). These unusual transfer patterns reflect a complex interaction of variables, including age of exposure to L2 and patterns of daily language use. Implications of these findings for the critical period hypothesis are discussed, together with some new hypotheses concerning the interaction between acquisition of L2 and maintenance of L1.

Determinants of cue strength in adult first and second language speakers of French

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the determinants of adult usage of various syntactic and semantic cues in sentence interpretation. Native French speakers and advanced English/French bilinguals were tested for the strength of usage of word order, clitic pronoun agreement, verb agreement, and noun animacy cues in the assignment of the actor role in French sentences. Native speakers showed strong use of clitic pronoun agreement, followed by much weaker use of verb agreement, an even weaker use of noun animacy, and negligible use of word order. This ranking reflects the importance of these cues in naturally occurring French sentences involving conflicts among cues in conjunction with a learning-on-error model. The English/French bilinguals did not manifest English-like strategies of word order preference on the French sentences; rather, they showed a cue ranking very similar to that of native speakers, although detectability may have played a role in their use of verb agreement. The failure of English word order strategies to correctly interpret many naturally occurring French sentences may be responsible for the adaptation of strategies appropriate to the second language.

Japanese Learners' Strategy of English Sentence Processing : On Word Order Strategy

Japanese Learners' Strategy of English Sentence Processing : On Word Order Strategy

Culture and language development: language acquisition and language socialization in a Samoan village

List of photographs Foreword by Shirley Brice Heath Acknowledgements 1. To know a language 2. Methodology 3. Introduction to Samoan language usage: grammar and register 4. The social contexts of childhood: village and household organisation 5. Ergative case marking: variation and acquisition 6. Word-order strategies: the two-constituent bias 7. Clarification 8. Affect, social control and the Samoan child 9. The linguistic expression of affect 10. Literacy instruction in a Samoan village 11. Language as a symbol and tool Appendix I. Transcription conventions Appendix II. Canonical transitive verb types in children's speech References Index.

Sentence comprehension strategies in children with autism and specific language disorders.

Two groups of children with language disorders--one group with autism and one with relatively specific language impairment (LI)--and two groups of normal children matched to the disordered groups for mental and receptive language age were asked to act out a series of sentences. Half the experimental sentences were in active voice, and half were the same sentences given in passive voice. Within each set, events described in the sentences were probable, neutral, or improbable. Results revealed that the autistic group made little use of a semantically based probable event strategy for acting out sentences, but were likely to use a syntactically based word order strategy. The LI group was no more likely than the autistic group to use the semantic strategy, and was equally likely to use word order. Both groups resembled normals matched for receptive language age.

Word order and inflectional strategies in syntactic processing

Abstract Three lexical decision experiments are reported that test the use of inflectional and word-order strategies by adult readers of Serbo-Croatian to assign syntactic roles of subject and object. No word-order effects are observed when both syntactic roles are specified unambiguously by inflection (Experiment 1) or when the object's inflection only is unambiguous (Experiment 3). Word-order influences on lexical decision are obtained when neither syntactic role is specified (Experiment 3) and when the subject's inflection only is unambiguous (Experiment 2). Results are discussed in terms of word-byword vs clausal processing and, more generally, in terms of Forster's model of the language processor.

Preschool children's sentence comprehension: strategies with respect to animacy.

ABSTRACTIn a between-subjects design, 105 children aged 2; 5–5; 5 enacted their interpretation of passive and inverted cleft (IC) sentences in which animacy was systematically varied. Two agent strategies were found at 3;0: dynamic agent and word order. For ICs, the word order strategy persisted at 4;0, but the dynamic agent approach was replaced by an animate agent strategy. For passives, 4-year-olds mostly used structural relations, either regardless of agent and patient animacy (50 % of children), or only for animate patients (30% of children). The latter finding is discussed in terms of topicalization priorities.