The role of the language production system in shaping grammars.

We argue for an extension of the proposal that grammars are in part shaped by processing systems. Our extension focuses on production, and we use that to explore explanations for certain subject/object asymmetries in extraction structures

Obstacles to the recognition of medical prescriptions issued in one EU country and presented in another

A study involving the presentation of 192 Belgian or Finnish prescriptions in pharmacies in five other member states was undertaken to assess whether, as envisaged by European Union law, prescriptions issued in one member state are recognized by pharmacists in another and to identify factors that influence such decisions. Overall, pharmacists were willing to dispense in 108 cases. Detailed results show important differences depending on the country where prescriptions are presented and whether prescriptions were written by INN and in English, as opposed to prescriptions written by brand in a national language

An exploratory analysis of hospital discharge summaries across Europe

Hospital discharge summaries play a critical role in ensuring safe and efficient continuity of care, particularly through transmission of key information from secondary to primary. This paper aims to explore whether discharge summaries used in European hospitals are adequate to support continuity of care. ..

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Frequency effects in children’s syntactic and morphological development

Chapter 8 in Time and again: Theoretical perspectives on formal linguistics, edited by William D. Lewis, Simin Karimi, Heidi Harley, Scott O. Farrar. Chapter abstract: We have long loved Langendoen (1970) — a paper on the theoretical justification of “transformations, their effects on the structure of sentences, and the conditions under which they are optional or obligatory” (p. 102). In that paper, Langendoen argued that acceptability and grammaticality are “partially independent [and] partially dependent notions” (p. 103). We are struck by the implications of this contrast for language learning. If the learner’s grammar is a set of probabilistic patterns and not (also or instead) a set of grammatical rules, one might expect high frequency elements to be ‘grammatical’ and low frequency elements to be ‘ungrammatical.’ In other words, grammaticality and acceptability should be similar if frequency is the determining factor. But Langendoen (1970) hypothesized that grammatical competence contributes to grammaticality while processing factors contribute to acceptability. Our research shows clearer effects of frequency on the latter than the on former and thus relates to Langendoen’s observation.This chapter explores the role of frequency in children’s syntactic and morphophonological development. One study compares relative clauses involving different extraction sites, which constructions vary considerably in their frequency of occurrence. Children’s production of these relatives suggests that frequency affects sentence planning, but their judgments of the same relatives are out of synchrony with the frequency rates. The other study presented here concerns the a and an forms of the indefinite article, which distinction is acquired relatively late even though the forms occur frequently. These studies show that frequency cannot be the whole story. We conclude that children’s mastery of a system of rules proceeds — at least to some extent — independently of frequency patterns in the input. Book description: This volume is a collection of papers that highlights some recurring themes that have surfaced in the generative tradition in linguistics over the past 40 years. The volume is more than a historical take on a theoretical tradition; rather, it is also a compass pointing to exciting new empirical directions inspired by generative theory. In fact, the papers show a progression from core theoretical concerns to data-driven experimental investigation and can be divided roughly into two categories: those that follow a syntactic and theoretical course, and those that follow an experimental or applied path. Many of the papers revisit long-standing or recurring themes in the generative tradition, some of which seek experimental validation or refutation. The merger of theoretical and experimental concerns makes this volume stand out, but it is also forward looking in that it addresses the recent concerns of the creation and consumption of data across the discipline

Children’s oblique relatives

In A. Stringfellow, D. Cahana-­‐Amitay, E. Hughs, and A. Zukowski (Eds.) Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press

Resumptive Pronouns in English Relative Clauses

We report elicited production & grammaticality judgment data from 3 experiments on the status of resumptive pronouns in English. Taking all the data together, we argue that the children\u27s grammars are nevertheless on target & suggest that their overacceptance reflects parsing considerations. This study thus examined children\u27s acquisition of syntax in light of the development of linguistic processing systems

Multiple influences on children\u27s language performance

Our commentary concerns the Competing Factors Model (CFM). As Drozd says, the CFM is fictitious and without proponents. But we will argue that something like it is necessary to our field

Fluency Markers for Children’s Sentence Planning: Early and Late Stage Processing

Poster presented at the 35th Boston University Conference on Language Development, 2010