On the Semantics of Pronominal Clitics and some of its Consequences

Recent work on the acquisition of the binding conditions suggests that pronominal clitics (PCs) encode the presence of an unsaturated argument position. In other words, PC-constructions encode functional abstraction: the argument position related to the PC is re-opened. This interpretation represents a radical departure from traditional analyses (in virtually every syntactic framework, including HPSG and Principles&Parameters), which take PCs to reduce the valence of the predicate to which they are linked, either in the lexicon (HPSG) or in syntax (P&P). In this contribution, I will provide conceptual and empirical motivation for this radical reinterpretation of PC-constructions, by claiming that it considerably enhances the prospects of explanatory adequacy in (at least) the following domains: (a) the acquisition data relative to Principle B Effects in Romance languages; (b) the familiar vs. bound-variable interpretation of PCs; (c) the diachronic relationship between clitic left-dislocation constructions (CLLD) and PC-constructions; (d) the properties of Romance CLLD which are still in need of a deep conceptual account, like the (optional) presence of a resumptive clitic and the recursive nature of the topic projections in the left-periphery.Investigacions recents sobre l'adquisició lingüística de les condicions de lligam suggereixen que els clítics pronominals (PCs) codifiquen la presència d'una posició argumental no saturada. És a dir, les construccions amb clític pronominal codifiquen abstracció: la posició argumental relacionada amb el clític es reobre. Aquesta interpretació representa un canvi radical de visió respecte d'anàlisis tradicionals en gairebé tots els models sintàctics (incloent-hi HPSG i Principis i Paràmetres), les quals interpreten la funció dels clítics com una reducció de la valència dels predicats als quals s'adjunten, ja siqui al lèxic (HPSG) o a la sintaxi (P&P). En aquest article donaré arguments empírics i conceptuals a favor d'aquesta reinterpretació de les construccions amb criteri pronominal. En particular, aquesta nova visió dels clítics pot millorar substancialment l'explicació de fenòmens sintàctics com a mínim en les següents àrees: (a) l'adquisició de dades relacionades amb el principi B en llengües romàniques; (b) la interpretació típica dels clítics pronominals i dels lligats a una variable; (c) la relació diacrònica entre les construccions dislocades a l'esquerra amb clític o les construccions amb clític pronominal; (d) les propietats de les construccions dislocades a l'esquerra amb clític de les llengües romàniques: per exemple, propietats com la presència opcional del clítics de represa o la naturalesa recursiva dels constituents topicalitzats a la perifèria esquerra

Наукові історичні школи в Україні: фантоми української історіографії

У статті зроблено спробу узагальнити підсумки вивчення наукових шкіл в українській історіографії. Відзначено здобутки й прорахунки у цій царині, зроблено певні уточнення щодо коректного розуміння цього феномену

Мотив творчості в поезії Галі Мазуренко (на прикладі збірки «Стежка»)

The article presents an analysis of creativity motif in Galya Mazurenko’s poetry. Some verses from the poetry collection «Stezshka» were taken as an example. From this very collection this motif actively penetrates into Galya Mazurenko’s creative work

The effectiveness of reading intervention in adults with developmental dyslexia: A systematic review

Developmental Dyslexia is a lifelong condition characterized by reading and spelling deficits that persist into adulthood, negatively affecting the individual’s academic and professional careers. Although numerous studies have been conducted to assess the effectiveness of reading interventions in children, providing promising results, research on adults is still sparse. The aim of this paper was that of summarizing and extending the current knowledge about the effectiveness of reading intervention programs proposed to adults with dyslexia, providing a systematic review of the available research. The literature search comprised an electronic search in the databases ERIC, PsycINFO, Scopus and ProQuest, and an examination of the references of previous studies. Eight studies met the inclusion criteria and were analyzed in detail, discussing the participants’ profile, the main features of the proposed interventions and their effectiveness on different reading components, also including reading comprehension, spelling and phonological abilities. Results indicate that providing a literacy training can produce significant gains also in adults with dyslexia and that further research in this domain is needed, especially in languages with different orthographic and writing systems, to guarantee to struggling readers a concrete opportunity to enhance their reading skills and enjoy a better quality of life

Recommendations for multilingualism and developmental communicative disorders

This report investigates two topics that are gaining growing interest in bilingual research, concerning on the one side the identification of language and reading disorders in bilingual children and, on the other side, the interaction between bilingualism and these disorders in children who have been officially diagnosed as communicatively impaired. Our research suggests that bilingualism, far from being a disadvantage, can offer linguistic and cognitive benefits that extend also to impaired children. We build on these results to indicate some best practices and recommendations for parents, educators and health professionals that deal with children suffering from specific communicative impairments

On the non-incremental processing of negation: A pragmatically licensed sentence-picture verification study with Italian (dyslexic) adults

This paper reports the results of two ERP studies that have been conducted with the following aims: (i) the aim of assessing the evidence for non-incremental models of negation processing (Kaup et al. (2006), (2007)), particularly in the version based on the Two Step Simulation Hypothesis (L\ufcdtke et al. (2008)), and (ii) the aim of assessing possible differences in the processing of negation between normally-developed and dyslexic adults

Syncopation as structure bootstrapping: the role of asymmetry in rhythm and language

Syncopation – the occurrence of a musical event on a metrically weak position preceding a rest on a metrically strong position – represents an important challenge in the study of the mapping between rhythm and meter. In this contribution, we present the hypothesis that syncopation is an effective strategy to elicit the bootstrapping of a multi-layered, hierarchically organized metric structure from a linear rhythmic surface. The hypothesis is inspired by a parallel with the problem of linearization in natural language syntax, which is the problem of how hierarchically organized phrase-structure markers are mapped onto linear sequences of words. The hypothesis has important consequences for the role of meter in music perception and cognition and, more particularly, for its role in the relationship between rhythm and bodily entrainment

Implicit learning, bilingualism, and dyslexia: insights from a study assessing AGL with a modified Simon task

This paper presents an experimental study investigating artificial grammar learning in monolingual and bilingual children, with and without dyslexia, using an original methodology. We administered a serial reaction time task, in the form of a modified Simon task, in which the sequence of the stimuli was manipulated according to the rules of a simple Lindenmayer grammar (more specifically, a Fibonacci grammar). By ensuring that the subjects focused on the correct response execution at the motor stage in presence of congruent or incongruent visual stimuli, we could meet the two fundamental criteria for implicit learning: the absence of an intention to learn and the lack of awareness at the level of resulting knowledge. The participants of our studies were four groups of 10-year-old children: 30 Italian monolingual typically developing children, 30 bilingual typically developing children with Italian L2, 24 Italian monolingual dyslexic children, and 24 bilingual dyslexic children with Italian L2. Participants were administered the modified Simon task developed according to the rules of the Fibonacci grammar and tested with respect to the implicit learning of three regularities: (i) a red is followed by a blue, (ii) a sequence of two blues is followed by a red, and (iii) a blue can be followed either by a red or by a blue. Results clearly support the hypothesis that learning took place, since participants of all groups became increasingly sensitive to the structure of the input, implicitly learning the sequence of the trials and thus appropriately predicting the occurrence of the relevant items, as manifested by faster reaction times in predictable trials. Moreover, group differences were found, with bilinguals being overall faster than monolinguals and dyslexics less accurate than controls. Finally, an advantage of bilingualism in dyslexia was found, with bilingual dyslexics performing consistently better than monolingual dyslexics and, in some conditions, at the level of the two control groups. These results are taken to suggest that bilingualism should be supported also among linguistically impaired individuals

Clitic Production in Bilingual Children: When Exposure Matters

The aim of this work is to investigate how bilingual children perform with respect to monolingual children in a task eliciting direct object clitic pronouns in Italian. Clitic production is considered a good clinical marker for Italian monolingual children suffering from specific language impairment (SLI) (Bortolini et al. 2006). Moreover, this task is reported to be particularly challenging for early second language children (EL2), who are less accurate than their peers in this task (Vender et al. 2016). Even though the typology of errors committed by the two populations (non-impaired bilinguals and SLI children) is generally different, it can be difficult to keep them apart from each other and, as a consequence, to identify a language impairment in bilingual children. However, it has been suggested that the difficulties exhibited by EL2 children in clitic production are related to their competence in their L2 and that they should disappear as soon as their mastery of the L2 increases. To test this prediction, we assessed clitic production in a group of 31 bilingual children having Italian as their L2 (mean age 10;2), comparing their performance to that of a group of 33 Italian monolingual children (mean age 10;2). The bilingual children used their L1 on a daily basis, as assessed by means of a bilingual exposure questionnaire, and had on average eight years of exposure to Italian; moreover, they performed similarly to monolinguals in a receptive vocabulary task, indicating that their competence in Italian was good. Consistently with our predictions, we found that bilingual children performed very accurately in the clitic elicitation task, similarly to monolinguals, confirming that the deficits previously found in EL2 children were not related to bilingualism itself, but more likely to their still incomplete competence in Italian