We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English biling... more We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English bilingual adults to investigate the effects of relative language dominance, operationalized as a continuous, multidimensional variable, on the time course of relative clause processing in the first-learned language, Spanish. We found that participants exhibited two distinct processing preferences: a semantically driven preference to assign agency to referents of lexically animate noun phrases and a syntactically driven preference to interpret relative clauses as subject-extracted. Spanish dominance was found to exert a distinct influence on each of these preferences, gradiently attenuating the semantic preference while gradiently exaggerating the syntactic preference. While these results might be attributable to particular properties of Spanish and English, they also suggest a possible generalization that greater dominance in a language increases reliance on language-specific syntactic process...
ABSTRACT. This study investigated the hypothesis that nouns in article-less languages are not amb... more ABSTRACT. This study investigated the hypothesis that nouns in article-less languages are not ambiguous with respect to definiteness, and that this unambiguity is evident in the interpretation of ungrammatical ‘bare’ (i.e. article-less) singular nouns in L2 English. In order to probe the interpretation of such bare nouns, we administered an acceptability judgment task to intermediate L2 learners of English whose native language was Mandarin, with sentences containing bare singular nouns in different syntactic positions and discourse contexts. We found that bare subjects were most acceptable in contexts that required definites, while bare objects were equivalently acceptable across contexts. We conclude that the interpretation of bare nouns in L2 English is not ambiguous, but rather follows a systematic pattern determined by argument position and discourse context.
Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes... more Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes of phonological categories have internal structure, such that some signals are better cues to phonological category membership than others. Puzzlingly, the best-rated exemplars of peripheral vowel categories have often been observed to be more peripheral than even hyperarticulated signals from natural speech, while non-peripheral vowel categories have often failed to demonstrate clear patterns of internal structure. The present study proposes that these puzzles can be explained by a conception of the phonology-phonetics interface whereby phonetic implementation is primarily driven by the maximization of contrast, rather than by particular targets in acoustic or articulatory space. Two experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, native American English speakers rated the category goodness of exemplars of the peripheral [æ] category, and native Turkish speakers ra...
We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English bi-lin... more We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English bi-lingual adults to investigate the effects of relative language dominance, operationalized as a continuous, multidimensional variable, on the time course of relative clause processing in the first-learned language, Spanish. We found that participants exhibited two distinct processing preferences: a semantically driven preference to assign agency to referents of lexically animate noun phrases and a syntactically driven preference to interpret relative clauses as subject-extracted. Spanish dominance was found to exert a distinct influence on each of these preferences, gradiently attenuating the semantic preference while gradiently exaggerating the syntactic preference. While these results might be attributable to particular properties of Spanish and English, they also suggest a possible generalization that greater dominance in a language increases reliance on language-specific syntactic processing strategies while correspondingly decreasing reliance on more domain-general semantic processing strategies.
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 2021
Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes... more Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes of phonological categories have internal structure, such that some signals are better cues to phonological category membership than others. Puzzlingly, the best-rated exemplars of peripheral vowel categories have often been observed to be more peripheral than even hyperarticulated signals from natural speech, while non-peripheral vowel categories have often failed to demonstrate clear patterns of internal structure. The present study proposes that these puzzles can be explained by a conception of the phonology-phonetics interface whereby phonetic implementation is primarily driven by the maximization of contrast, rather than by particular targets in acoustic or articulatory space. Two experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, native American English speakers rated the category goodness of exemplars of the peripheral [æ] category, and native Turkish speakers rated exemplars of the non-peripheral [y] category. Results confirmed the generalization that peripheral vowels demonstrate clearer patterns of internal structure than non-peripheral vowels. In Experiment 2, native American English speakers rated exemplars of the [æ] category that were extremely peripheral in the F1-F2 space—far more peripheral than even the most hyperarticulated productions from natural speech. Results generally supported an indefinite linear relationship between formants and goodness, consistent with a view of phonetic implementation based primarily on contrast rather than particular targets. I argue that this view is broadly compatible with existing approaches to the phonology-phonetics interface, but would involve certain modifications. I suggest paths for future research to investigate the implications of these modifications.
An eye-tracking experiment in the Visual World Paradigm was conducted to examine the effects of l... more An eye-tracking experiment in the Visual World Paradigm was conducted to examine the effects of language history on the predictive parsing of sentences containing relative clauses in the first-learned language of fluent bilingual adults. We compared heritage speakers of Spanish (HSs)—who had spent most of their lives immersed in an English-dominant society—to Spanish-English late bilinguals (LBs), who did not begin immersion in an English-dominant society until adulthood. Consistent with studies of monolinguals, the LBs demonstrated a subject/object relative clause processing asymmetry, i.e. a processing advantage during subject relative clauses and a processing disadvantage during object relative clauses. This suggests that the LBs actively predicted the syntactic structure of subject relative clauses, consistent with the active filler hypothesis. The HSs, on the other hand, did not exhibit this processing asymmetry, suggesting less active prediction. We conclude, therefore, that decreased exposure to the first-learned language causes less active prediction in first-language processing, which causes both disadvantages, and interestingly, advantages, in processing speed.
We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English biling... more We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English bilingual adults to investigate the effects of relative language dominance, operationalized as a continuous, multidimensional variable, on the time course of relative clause processing in the first-learned language, Spanish. We found that participants exhibited two distinct processing preferences: a semantically driven preference to assign agency to referents of lexically animate noun phrases and a syntactically driven preference to interpret relative clauses as subject-extracted. Spanish dominance was found to exert a distinct influence on each of these preferences, gradiently attenuating the semantic preference while gradiently exaggerating the syntactic preference. While these results might be attributable to particular properties of Spanish and English, they also suggest a possible generalization that greater dominance in a language increases reliance on language-specific syntactic process...
ABSTRACT. This study investigated the hypothesis that nouns in article-less languages are not amb... more ABSTRACT. This study investigated the hypothesis that nouns in article-less languages are not ambiguous with respect to definiteness, and that this unambiguity is evident in the interpretation of ungrammatical ‘bare’ (i.e. article-less) singular nouns in L2 English. In order to probe the interpretation of such bare nouns, we administered an acceptability judgment task to intermediate L2 learners of English whose native language was Mandarin, with sentences containing bare singular nouns in different syntactic positions and discourse contexts. We found that bare subjects were most acceptable in contexts that required definites, while bare objects were equivalently acceptable across contexts. We conclude that the interpretation of bare nouns in L2 English is not ambiguous, but rather follows a systematic pattern determined by argument position and discourse context.
Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes... more Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes of phonological categories have internal structure, such that some signals are better cues to phonological category membership than others. Puzzlingly, the best-rated exemplars of peripheral vowel categories have often been observed to be more peripheral than even hyperarticulated signals from natural speech, while non-peripheral vowel categories have often failed to demonstrate clear patterns of internal structure. The present study proposes that these puzzles can be explained by a conception of the phonology-phonetics interface whereby phonetic implementation is primarily driven by the maximization of contrast, rather than by particular targets in acoustic or articulatory space. Two experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, native American English speakers rated the category goodness of exemplars of the peripheral [æ] category, and native Turkish speakers ra...
We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English bi-lin... more We conducted a visual world eye-tracking experiment with highly proficient Spanish-English bi-lingual adults to investigate the effects of relative language dominance, operationalized as a continuous, multidimensional variable, on the time course of relative clause processing in the first-learned language, Spanish. We found that participants exhibited two distinct processing preferences: a semantically driven preference to assign agency to referents of lexically animate noun phrases and a syntactically driven preference to interpret relative clauses as subject-extracted. Spanish dominance was found to exert a distinct influence on each of these preferences, gradiently attenuating the semantic preference while gradiently exaggerating the syntactic preference. While these results might be attributable to particular properties of Spanish and English, they also suggest a possible generalization that greater dominance in a language increases reliance on language-specific syntactic processing strategies while correspondingly decreasing reliance on more domain-general semantic processing strategies.
University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 2021
Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes... more Previous evidence from category goodness rating tasks has demonstrated that the phonetic reflexes of phonological categories have internal structure, such that some signals are better cues to phonological category membership than others. Puzzlingly, the best-rated exemplars of peripheral vowel categories have often been observed to be more peripheral than even hyperarticulated signals from natural speech, while non-peripheral vowel categories have often failed to demonstrate clear patterns of internal structure. The present study proposes that these puzzles can be explained by a conception of the phonology-phonetics interface whereby phonetic implementation is primarily driven by the maximization of contrast, rather than by particular targets in acoustic or articulatory space. Two experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, native American English speakers rated the category goodness of exemplars of the peripheral [æ] category, and native Turkish speakers rated exemplars of the non-peripheral [y] category. Results confirmed the generalization that peripheral vowels demonstrate clearer patterns of internal structure than non-peripheral vowels. In Experiment 2, native American English speakers rated exemplars of the [æ] category that were extremely peripheral in the F1-F2 space—far more peripheral than even the most hyperarticulated productions from natural speech. Results generally supported an indefinite linear relationship between formants and goodness, consistent with a view of phonetic implementation based primarily on contrast rather than particular targets. I argue that this view is broadly compatible with existing approaches to the phonology-phonetics interface, but would involve certain modifications. I suggest paths for future research to investigate the implications of these modifications.
An eye-tracking experiment in the Visual World Paradigm was conducted to examine the effects of l... more An eye-tracking experiment in the Visual World Paradigm was conducted to examine the effects of language history on the predictive parsing of sentences containing relative clauses in the first-learned language of fluent bilingual adults. We compared heritage speakers of Spanish (HSs)—who had spent most of their lives immersed in an English-dominant society—to Spanish-English late bilinguals (LBs), who did not begin immersion in an English-dominant society until adulthood. Consistent with studies of monolinguals, the LBs demonstrated a subject/object relative clause processing asymmetry, i.e. a processing advantage during subject relative clauses and a processing disadvantage during object relative clauses. This suggests that the LBs actively predicted the syntactic structure of subject relative clauses, consistent with the active filler hypothesis. The HSs, on the other hand, did not exhibit this processing asymmetry, suggesting less active prediction. We conclude, therefore, that decreased exposure to the first-learned language causes less active prediction in first-language processing, which causes both disadvantages, and interestingly, advantages, in processing speed.
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Papers by Michael C Stern