Word Order Rules: Parsing Sentences in a “Free” Word Order Language

In fixed word order languages like English, word order is highly predictive of a noun\u27s thematic and grammatical role, and a large body of research has shown that speakers of fixed word order languages tend to rely on word order when they parse and interpret sentences. In flexible word order languages like Turkish, word order is less predictive of nouns\u27 thematic and grammatical roles, and less is known about the types of cues adult speakers use to determine the meaning of sentences. How do speakers of free word order languages determine the grammatical role of nouns? To answer this question, we presented 28 adult speakers of Turkish 48 stimuli sentences where the word order was varied between SOV and OVS. The cues to aid the grammatical roles were word order, casemarking on the object noun, and when a casemarker was not present an indefinite determiner. The results suggest that, of the three morphosyntactic cues (word order, overt-casemarking, and determiner), word order is the primary cue that Turkish speakers use to assign grammatical and thematic roles, overt object casemarking is a strong secondary cue, and the indefinite determiner is a weaker tertiary cue

The Relationship between Phoneme Production and Perception in Speech-Impaired and Typically-Developing Children

One of the central questions that Eric Lenneberg raised in his seminal book, Biological Foundations of Language is: What is the relationship between language comprehension and language production? This paper reviews Lenneberg’s case study of a child with congenital anarthria and then presents the results of two studies that investigate the relationship between phoneme perception and production. The first study investigates the phoneme identification skills of a child with developmental apraxia who, like the anarthric child studied by Lenneberg, had essentially no speech yet had no difficulty understanding speech. The second study investigates the extent to which 28 typically-developing children’s ability to identify phonemes is related to their ability to produce phonemes. The results of both studies support Lenneberg’s conclusion that children’s ability to perceive speech is not dependent on their ability to produce speech. Thus, Lenneberg’s original case study and the two studies presented in this paper argue against gestural theories of speech perception such as the Motor Theory

Comprehending Turkish sentences using word order, thematic roles, and case

A core aspect of sentence comprehension is assigning thematic roles such as agents and patients to nouns. Turkish, a flexible word order language with accusative case-marking, allows us to compare the relative effect of word order, case-marking, and thematic reversibility in sentence comprehension. We conducted two spoken language comprehension experiments to investigate the relationships among these factors. Native Turkish-speaking adults were faster and more accurate in comprehending sentences with default word order than those with scrambled word order; case-marked sentences than non-casemarked sentences; and sentences with thematically irreversible nouns than those with reversible nouns. The effect of word order depended on the reversibility of the nouns, and case-marking had little-to-no effect on comprehension when the nouns were thematically irreversible. Our results suggest that while Turkish speakers use multiple cues to map thematic roles onto nouns, there are diminishing returns of facilitation with each additional source of information. These results give support to race-based models of sentence comprehension

The Relationship between Phoneme Production and Perception in Speech-Impaired and Typically-Developing Children

One of the central questions that Eric Lenneberg raised in his seminal book, Biological Foundations of Language is: What is the relationship between language comprehension and language production? This paper reviews Lenneberg’s case study of a child with congenital anarthria and then presents the results of two studies that investigate the relationship between phoneme perception and production. The first study investigates the phoneme identification skills of a child with developmental apraxia who, like the anarthric child studied by Lenneberg, had essentially no speech yet had no difficulty understanding speech. The second study investigates the extent to which 28 typically-developing children’s ability to identify phonemes is related to their ability to produce phonemes. The results of both studies support Lenneberg’s conclusion that children’s ability to perceive speech is not dependent on their ability to produce speech. Thus, Lenneberg’s original case study and the two studies presented in this paper argue against gestural theories of speech perception such as the Motor Theory

On-line processing of English which-questions by children and adults: a visual world paradigm study

Previous research has shown that children demonstrate similar sentence processing reflexes to those observed in adults, but they have difficulties revising an erroneous initial interpretation when they process garden-path sentences, passives, and wh -questions. We used the visual-world paradigm to examine children's use of syntactic and non-syntactic information to resolve syntactic ambiguity by extending our understanding of number features as a cue for interpretation to which -subject and which -object questions. We compared children's and adults’ eye-movements to understand how this information shapes children's commitment to and revision of possible interpretations of these questions. The results showed that English-speaking adults and children both exhibit an initial preference to interpret an object- which question as a subject question. While adults quickly override this preference, children take significantly longer, showing an overall processing difficulty for object questions. Crucially, their recovery from an initially erroneous interpretation is speeded when disambiguating number agreement features are present

Long-Range Neutron Detection

A neutron detector designed for detecting neutron sources at distances of 50 to 100 m has been constructed and tested. This detector has a large surface area (1 m{sup 2}) to enhance detection efficiency, and it contains a collimator and shielding to achieve direction sensitivity and reduce background. An unusual feature of the detector is that it contains no added moderator, such as polyethylene, to moderate fast neutrons before they reach the {sup 3}He detector. As a result, the detector is sensitive mainly to thermal neutrons. The moderator-free design reduces the weight of the detector, making it more portable, and it also aids in achieving directional sensitivity and background reduction. Test results show that moderated fission-neutron sources of strength about 3 x 10{sup 5} n/s can be detected at a distance out to 70 m in a counting time of 1000 s. The best angular resolution of the detector is obtained at distances of 30 m or less. As the separation .distance between the source and detector increases, the contribution of scattered neutrons to the measured signal increases with a resultant decrease in the ability to detect the direction to a distant source. Applications for which the long-range detector appears to be suitable include detecting remote neutron sources (including sources in moving vehicles) and monitoring neutron storage vaults for the intrusion of humans and the effects they make on the detected neutron signal. Also, the detector can be used to measure waste for the presence of transuranic material in the presence of high gamma-ray background. A test with a neutron source (3 x 10{sup 5} n/s) in a vehicle showed that the detector could readily measure an increase in count rate at a distance of 10 m for vehicle speeds up to 35 mph (the highest speed tested). These results. indicate that the source should be detectable at this distance at speeds up to 55 mph

Genetic architecture of verbal abilities in children and adolescents

The etiology of individual differences in general verbal ability, verbal learning and letter and category fluency were examined in two independent samples of 9- and 18-year-old twin pairs and their siblings. In both age groups, we observed strong familial resemblance for general verbal ability and moderate familial resemblance for verbal learning, letter and category fluency. All familial resemblance was explained by genetic factors. There was significant covariance among the tests, which was stronger in magnitude in the adolescent cohort. The covariance was mainly explained by genetic effects shared by subtests, both in middle childhood and in late adolescence. In addition to a shared set of genes that influenced all phenotypes, there were also genetic influences specific to the different verbal phenotypes