Teasing apart Syntactic Category vs. Argument Structure Information in Deverbal Word Formation: a comparative psycholinguistic study.

Deverbal word formation is subject to two distinct types of constraints, those concerning the syntactic category of the base (categorial constraints) and those relating to the thematic properties of the verb (thematic constraints). For instance, -able suffixation involves a transitive verb with argument structure >, as in to train > trainable. Violation of these constraints results in the creation of pseudo-words with categorial (e.g. riverable) or thematic violations (e.g. arrivable). The study discusses psycholinguistic experiments involving these types of deverbal pseudo-words, in Greek and English, two languages with morphologically distinct properties. Greek has a rich derivational system with a variety of deverbal formations, which follow strong constraints, in the sense that most suffixes that participate in deverbal word formation lack the polysemy that allows them to attach to other-than-verbal bases. English, on the other hand, demonstrates an equally rich derivational system, but it differs in two crucial ways: (a) there is significant affix homophony (e.g. -er is a nominalizer if attached to verbal stems, or forms the comparative if attached to adjectives), (b) it is extremely permissive in allowing zero-derived verbs (to fax). In an off-line and two on-line lexical decision tasks we investigated whether categorial and thematic constraints are treated in the same way by speakers of both languages. Results showed that speakers of both languages differentiated between pseudo-words that violate these two types of constraints both when it comes to acceptance rates and processing time. Taking together results from both languages, we make claims about the structured mental representation of deverbal derivatives and the fact that their various properties can be accessed via distinct operations and at distinct points of time. Implications for the psycholinguistic theory of lexical access and the morphological theory of word formation are also discussed

Word-Formation Rules in Slovenian Agentive Deverbal Nominalization: A Psycholinguistic Study Based on Pseudo-Words

In this paper we investigate the status of various word-formation rules relating to the derivation of the agentive deverbal nominalization in Slovenian by examining the speakers' perception of pseudo-words that violate these rules. The experiment, based on Manouilidou's (2007) investigation of Modern Greek, includes 20 native speakers of Slovenian. The results show that, contrary to Greek speakers, native speakers of Slovenian make a clear line between pseudo-words that violate word-formation rules of Slovenian and words that do not, but that they do not differentiate between pseudo-words with different types of violations, equally rejecting all pseudo words with violations

Διαδικτυακός εκφοβισμός και αντίκτυπο στις φιλικές σχέσεις των εφήβων

Είναι γνωστό το γεγονός, πως το διαδίκτυο αποτελεί σήμερα ένα εργαλείο το οποίο διευκολύνει την καθημερινότητα μας σε πληθώρα εργασιών που σχετίζονται με την επικοινωνία , την ενημέρωση και την εκπαίδευση. Σαν εργαλείο, μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί με ποικίλους τρόπους που θα διευκολύνουν τους χρήστες στην καθημερινότητά τους. Ωστόσο, η λανθασμένη χρήση του είναι δυνατό να δημιουργήσει και αρνητικές επιπτώσεις στους ίδιους τους χρήστες αλλά και στο ευρύτερο περιβάλλον τους. Σήμερα, γίνεται συχνά αναφορά στην χρήση του διαδικτύου, η οποία λαμβάνει παθολογικές διαστάσεις, ιδιαίτερα από τους έφηβους. Μάλιστα, οι συνέπειες της χρήσης αυτής είναι πολυδιάστατες όσον αφορά την σωματική, κοινωνική αλλά και την ψυχική τους υγεία. Συνδεδεμένο, με την παθολογική χρήση του διαδικτύου είναι και το φαινόμενο του διαδικτυακού εκφοβισμού. Αφορμή της παρούσας έρευνας αποτελεί η έξαρση περιστατικών βίας μέσω του διαδικτύου σε άτομα νεαρής ηλικίας. Για την υλοποίηση της έρευνας, χρησιμοποιήθηκε ως εργαλείο συλλογής δεδομένων το ερωτηματολόγιο και χορηγήθηκε σε μαθητές ηλικίας 12 έως 15 ετών. Το δείγμα της έρευνας αποτελείται από 107 μαθητές που φοιτούν στα σχολεία Δευτεροβάθμιας Εκπαίδευσης ΑττικήςIt is known that the internet nowadays is a tool that helps our everyday lives in plenty occupations that are related to communication, information and education. As a tool, it can be used in multiple ways to facilitate its users in their everyday lives. Nevertheless, the internet can have a negative impact to the user and his environment if used wrong. Today, the internet is often referred to as a tool that can have pathological dimensions, especially in the hands of teen-agers. Furthermore, its consequences are multidimensional and concern the physical, social and mental health of teen users. Cyber bullying is connected to this pathological use of the internet. The reason for this research is the augmentation of cyber bullying cases among young people. For the implementation of this research, the tool of collecting information through questionnaires was used and it was provided to students aged 12 to 15. The sample of the research consists 108 students attending school of Secondary Education in Attica

Compound naming in Greek-speaking individuals with the agrammatic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia

The paper reports findings obtained from a naming by definition task in two Greek-speaking individuals with the agrammatic variant of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA-G). One of the patients was at an early stage of the disease while the other was at a more advanced stage. The patient who was at a later stage produced a greater number of errors that differed significantly from healthy controls. This suggests that PPA-G affects compound naming albeit at a later stage. Qualitative error analysis highlights morphological impairment behind these difficulties in contrast to stroke induced aphasia

Past tense in children with focal brain lesions

In this study, 22 children with early left hemisphere (LHD) or right hemisphere (RHD) focal brain lesions (FL, n ¼ 14 LHD, n ¼ 8 RHD) were administered an English past tense elicitation test (M ¼ 6:5 years). Proportion correct and frequency of overregularization and zero-marking errors were compared to age-matched samples of children with specific language impairment (SLI, n ¼ 27) and with typical language development (TD, n ¼ 27). Similar rates of correct production and error patterns were observed for the children with TD and FL; whereas, children with SLI produced more zero-marking errors than either their FL or TD peers. Performance was predicted by vocabulary level (PPVT-R) for children in all groups, and errors did not differ as a function of lesion side (LHD vs. RHD). Findings are discussed in terms of the nature of brain–language relations and how those relationships develop over the course of language learning

Lexical and grammatical aspect in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s disease

This study aims at investigating the ability of Greek-speaking individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to comprehend and produce verbs that vary with respect to their lexical and grammatical aspect. Lexical aspect concerns situation types with different temporal and semantic features, such as activity (run), state (know), achievement (break), semelfactive (hit), accomplishment (build) verbs (Smith 1997). Grammatical aspect is divided into perfective (I untied) and imperfective (I was untying) (Comrie 1976). The interaction of lexical and grammatical aspect and how that might be affected by patients’ linguistic impairment is also examined

Mild Cognitive Impairment: On-line and Off-line Processing of Slovenian Pseudo-words

Results of the Iowa Com Yield Test are published to aid Iowa farmers in selecting com varieties. This is the sixty-second consecutive year for the test

Rethinking First Language–Second Language Similarities and Differences in English Proficiency: Insights From the ENglish Reading Online (ENRO) Project

This article presents the ENglish Reading Online (ENRO) project that offers data on English reading and listening comprehension from 7,338 university-level advanced learners and native speakers of English representing 19 countries. The database also includes estimates of reading rate and seven component skills of English, including vocabulary, spelling, and grammar, as well as rich demographic and language background data. We first demonstrate high reliability for ENRO tests and their convergent validity with existing meta-analyses.We then provide a bird’s-eye view of first (L1) and second (L2) language comparisons and examine the relative role of various predictors of reading and listening comprehension and reading speed. Across analyses, we found substantially more overlap than differences between L1 and L2 speakers, suggesting that English reading proficiency is best considered across a continuum of skill, ability, and experiences spanning L1 and L2 speakers alike. We end by providing pointers for how researchers can mine ENRO data for future studies