More Like this

1. Understanding How Dialect Differences Shape How AAE-Speaking Children Process Sentences in Real-Time

   https://doi.org/10.1055/a-2626-3292  

   Byrd, A; Huang, YT; Edwards, J (July 2025, Seminars in Speech and Language)

   Abstract Dialect differences between African American English (AAE) and Mainstream American English (MAE) impact how children comprehend sentences. However, research on real-time sentence processing has the potential to reveal the underlying causes of these differences. This study used eye tracking, which measures how children interpret linguistic features as a sentence unfolds, and examined how AAE- and MAE-speaking children processed “was” and “were,” a morphology feature produced differently in MAE and AAE. Fifty-nine participants, ages 7;8 to 11;0 years, completed standardized measures of dialect density and receptive vocabulary. In the eye tracking task, participants heard sentences in MAE with either unambiguous (e.g., “Jeremiah”) or ambiguous (e.g., “Carolyn May”), subjects and eye movements were measured to singular (image of one person) or plural referents (image of two people). After the onset of the auxiliary verb, AAE-speaking children were sensitive to “was” and “were” when processing sentences but were less likely than MAE-speaking children to use “was” as a basis for updating initial predictions of plural referents. Among African American children, dialect density was predictive of sensitivity to “was” when processing sentences. Results suggest that linguistic mismatch impacts how contrastive verb morphology is used to update initial interpretations of MAE sentences. 

   more » « less
2. A multidimensional perspective on the acquisition of subject-verb dependencies by Haitian-Creole speaking children: Insights from comprehension and production

   https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.22001.bar  

   Barrière, Isabelle; Joseph, Blandine; Aharodnik, Katsiaryna; Kresh, Sarah; Fleurio, Guetjens Prince; Legendre, Géraldine; Nazzi, Thierry (August 2023, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages)

   Abstract The present multidimensional study investigates the acquisition of pronominal subject-verb dependencies in Standard Haitian Creole (HC). A corpus analysis confirms that HC subject pronouns are phonological clitics in the target grammar and that their reduction is optional and unpredictable. The comprehension and production of dependencies involving these subject pronouns in 20 preschoolers acquiring HC as their first language were investigated. While the production of third person singular and plural subject pronouns l(i) and y(o) reveals early mastery of adult constraints on their phonological reductions, the systematic assignments of l(i) to singular subjects vs. y(o) to plural subjects of the verb in the syntactic dependency emerge later, in both production and comprehension. The few syntactic contexts in which HC-learning children show evidence of comprehension involve full forms, rather than phonological reductions. Possible factors that explain these findings include the relative unpredictability of their forms and the linguistic status of HC pronouns. 

   more » « less
3. Language Use and Development in Third-Person Singular Contexts: Assessment Implications

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-19-00109  

   Newkirk-Turner, Brandi L.; Green, Lisa (January 2021, Language speech hearing services in schools)

   Storkel, Holly L; Mills, Monique M (Ed.)

   Purpose: The purpose of this assessment-focused clinical focus article is to increase familiarity with African American English (AAE)–speaking children’s pattern of language use in third- person singular contexts and to discuss implications for speech- language assessments of developing AAE-speaking children. Method: The clinical focus draws on descriptive case study data from four typically developing child speakers of AAE who are between the ages of 3 and 5 years. The children’s data from three different sources—sentence imitation, story retell, and play-based language samples—were subjected to linguistic analyses. Results: The three sources of linguistic data offered different insights into the children’s production of –s and other linguistic patterns in third-person singular contexts. Conclusions: This study underscores the importance of exploring developing child AAE from a descriptive approach to reveal different types of information about patterns of morphological marking in different linguistic contexts, which is crucial in assessing developing AAE. Implications for language assessment are discussed. 

   more » « less
4. ERP sensitivity to subcategorization violations in L2 learners

   https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231199426  

   Liao, Chia-Hsuan; Lau, Ellen (October 2023, Second Language Research)

   Event concepts of common verbs (e.g. eat, sleep) can be broadly shared across languages, but a given language’s rules for subcategorization are largely arbitrary and vary substantially across languages. When subcategorization information does not match between first language (L1) and second language (L2), how does this mismatch impact L2 speakers in real time? We hypothesized that subcategorization knowledge in L1 is particularly difficult for L2 speakers to override online. Event-related potential (ERP) responses were recorded from English sentences that include verbs that were ambitransitive in Mandarin but intransitive in English (*  My sister listened the music). While L1 English speakers showed a prominent P600 effect to subcategorization violations, L2 English speakers whose L1 was Mandarin showed some sensitivity in offline responses but not in ERPs. This suggests that computing verb–argument relations, although seemingly one of the basic components of sentence comprehension, in fact requires accessing lexical syntax which may be vulnerable to L1 interference in L2. However, our exploratory analysis showed that more native-like behavioral accuracy was associated with a more native-like P600 effect, suggesting that, with enough experience, L2 speakers can ultimately overcome this interference. 

   more » « less
5. It’s hard to coerce: A unified account of raising-past-experiencers and passives in child English.

   Nguyen, Emma; Snyder, William (May 2018, Proceedings of the 42nd Boston University Conference on Language Development)

   This paper is concerned with the relationship between be-passives of certain non-actional verbs such as love in (1) and raising-past-experiencer (RPE) constructions with the verb seem as in (2), both from a theoretical and an acquisition perspective. (1) Alex was loved by Emma. (2) Alex seems to Emma to be nice. There are two questions that we would like to address in this paper. First, why are be-passives of certain non-actional verbs such as (1) dramatically delayed in children acquiring English? And second, why would there be a tight correspondence between any given child’s ability to comprehend some non- actional passives, and the same child’s ability to comprehend a sentence like (2) as found by Orfitelli (2012)? 

   more » « less