On language production principles and the form of language: a más cómo, menos por qué

Researchfunding from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness CSD2007- 00012, FFI2012-31360 and the Basque Government IT665-13

More than one language in the brain

Boeckx C., M.C. Horno & J.L. Mendívil (Eds.)[EN] What difference does it make to have one language in the brain or to have more than one? This is an intriguing and currently much inquired question, which can help us unravel more than one mystery concerning language and the brain. At present, we only know bits and pieces of the answer. As research progresses and more pieces of this large and complex puzzle fit together, we discover some general outlines of the answer, and realize the intricacies of the detail. In this chapter, I will attempt to keep our eyes set in that general outline, occasionally dwelling into a detail or two, in the hope of giving you a glimpse of how research is conducted in this field of inquiry.Spanish Ministry of Education and Science within the program CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 (BRAINGLOT CSD2007-00012), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (FFI2009-09695), and the Basque Council for Education, Universities and Research (IT414-10

Hitzak sarean. Pello Salabururi esker onez

168 p.Hona hemen, irakurle, Pello Salaburu maisu handiari eskaintzen diogun esker on liburua. Hamaika lan bildu ditugu, hainbat alorretakoak: euskararen lexikografia, terminologia, historia, gramatika, corpus ikerketa eta baita euskara eta gaztelaniaren prozesamenduari buruzkoak ere. Askotarikoa izan baita, zalantza gabe, Salaburuk utzi digun uzta oparoa; hizkuntzalaritzan, euskararen fonologian, gramatikan, lexikografian aitzindari izan dugu, gramatika sortzailearen esparruan lehenik, gero corpus eta hiztegi digitalak sortuaz, gure hizkuntza hobeto ezagutzeko, zaintzeko eta erabiltzeko behar ditugun xxi. mendeko lanabesak eraikiaz eta gizartean zabalduaz. Salabururen uzta ikerketaz eta akademiaz harago zabaltzen da, gure gizarteak ezagutu dituen hainbat erronkatara. Pello ez da inoiz uzkurtu gogoeta egin behar izan denean, bakegintzaren bideari dagokiola edo unibertsitatearen etorkizunari, beldur gabe agertu izan zaigu beti plazan, argi mintzatuaz, zuzen, hitzen kiribiletan sekula bere burua ezkutatu gabe

Ergatiboa definitzen: lehengo saioa gramatika sortzailean

Xabier Artiagoitia Beaskoetxea (coord.), Patxi Goenaga Mendizabal (coord.) , Joseba Andoni Lakarra Andrinua (coord.). Anejo del Anuario del Seminario de Filología Vasca "Julio de Urquijo", 44.Lan hau, Eusko Jaurlaritzaren Hezkuntza eta Ikerkuntza eta Unibertsitate Sailaren PI-1999-18 eta Euskal Herriko Unibertsitateko 9/UPV 00027.130-13587/2001 ikerkuntza laguntzei zor zaie

Negative Transfer Effects on L2 Word Order Processing

Does first language (L1) word order affect the processing of non-canonical but grammatical syntactic structures in second language (L2) comprehension? In the present study, we test whether L1-Spanish speakers of L2-Basque process subject-verb-object (SVO) and object-verb-subject (OVS) non-canonical word order sentences of Basque in the same way as Basque native speakers. Crucially, while OVS orders are non-canonical in both Spanish and Basque, SVO is non-canonical in Basque but is the canonical word order in Spanish. Our electrophysiological results showed that the characteristics of L1 affect the processing of the L2 even at highly proficient and early-acquired bilingual populations. Specifically, in the non-native group, we observed a left anterior negativity-like component when comparing S and O at sentence initial position and a P600 when comparing those elements at sentence final position. Those results are similar of those reported by Casado et al. (2005) for native speakers of Spanish indicating that L2-Basque speakers rely in their L1-Spanish when processing SVO-OVS word order sentences. Our results favored the competition model (MacWhinney, 1997).This research has been supported by grants from the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitivad and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (FFI2015-64183-P and RYC-2010-06520) and the Basque Government (IT665-13)

Negation in syntax--on the nature of functional categories and projections

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1990.Title as it appears in the Sept. 1990 M.I.T. Graduate List: On the nature of functional categories and projections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 260-270).by Miren Itziar Laka Mugarza.Ph.D

Sentence comprehension before and after 1970: Topics, debates and techniques

[EN] Language Down the Garden Path traces the lines of research that grew out of Bever's classic paper. Leading scientists review over 40 years of debates on the factors at play in language comprehension, production, and acquisition (the role of prediction, grammar, working memory, prosody, abstractness, syntax and semantics mapping); the current status of universals and narrow syntax; and virtually every topic relevant in psycholinguistics since 1970. Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book will appeal to all those interested in understanding the questions that shaped, and are still shaping, this field and the ways in which linguists, cognitive scientists, psychologists, and neuroscientists are seeking to answer them

Cross-linguistic differences in the use of durational cues for the segmentation of a novel language

Published online: 13 March 2017It is widely accepted that duration can be exploited as phonological phrase final lengthening in the segmentation of a novel language, i.e., in extracting discrete constituents from continuous speech. The use of final lengthening for segmentation and its facilitatory effect has been claimed to be universal. However, lengthening in the world languages can also mark lexically stressed syllables. Stress-induced lengthening can potentially be in conflict with right edge phonological phrase boundary lengthening. Thus the processing of durational cues in segmentation can be dependent on the listener's linguistic background, e.g., on the specific correlates and unmarked location of lexical stress in the native language of the listener. We tested this prediction and found that segmentation by both German and Basque speakers is facilitated when lengthening is aligned with the word final syllable and is not affected by lengthening on either the penultimate or the antepenultimate syllables. Lengthening ofthe word final syllable, however, does not help Italian and Spanish speakers to segment continuous speech, and lengthening of the antepenultimate syllable impedes their performance. We have also found a facilitatory effect of penultimate lengthening on segmentation by Italians. These results confirm our hypothesis that processing of lengthening cues is not universal, and interpretation of lengthening as a phonological phrase final boundary marker in a novel language of exposure can be overridden by the phonology of lexical stress in the native language of the listener.The research leading to these results was supported by IKERBASQUE - Basque Foundation for Science, European Research Council (grant agreement 269502, PASCAL), the Language Learning Research Club (small research grants programme), and the Basque Government (grant number IT665-13)

Agents Strongly Preferred: ERP Evidence from Natives and Non-Natives Processing Intransitive Sentences in Spanish

Are non-native speakers able to process their second language in a native-like way? The present study used the Event-Related Potentials’ (ERPs) method to address this issue by focusing (1) on agent vs. agentless intransitive sentences and (2) on person vs. number agreement morphology. For that purpose, native and high proficiency and early non-native speakers of Spanish were tested while processing intransitive sentences containing grammatical and ungrammatical subject–verb agreement. Results reveal greater accuracy in the agent (unergative) condition as compared with the agentless (unaccusative) condition and different ERP patterns for both types of verbs in all participants, suggesting a larger processing cost for the agentless sentences than for the agentive ones. These effects were more pronounced in the native group as compared with the non-native one in the early time window (300–500 ms). Differences between person and number agreement processing were also found at both behavioral and electrophysiological levels, indicating that those morphological features are distinctively processed. Importantly, this pattern of results held for both native and non-native speakers, thus suggesting that native-like competence is attainable given early Age of Acquisition (AoA), frequent use and high proficiency.This research was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (FPI-2017-BES-2016-076456) (G.M.d.l.H.), Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (PID2019-104016GB-I00), and the Basque Government (IT1169-19)