This study examined children's performance on a decontextualization task requiring the ability to deduce the meaning of unknown words from verbal context and their ontological knowledge structure as indicated by their judgments about both anomalous and sensible statements containing the unknown words. A comparison was made between performance on the decontextualization task and verbal and nonverbal ability and between the subjects' ontological knowledge structures and verbal and nonverbal ability. It was hypothesized that performance on the decontextualization tasks would be positively correlated with both ability measures, but ontological knowledge structure would remain constant across ability levels. First, third and fifth grade subjects' participated in the study. Performance on the decontextualization task correlated positively with verbal ability for all three grade level and with nonverbal ability for grade one. Presence of the M-constraint (Keil, 1979) was evident across ability levels as well as grade levels. Greater differentiation in ontological knowledge was indicated across grade levels but not across ability levels within a grade level. Results supported previous research of Keil (1979, 1983a, 1983b).

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This thesis investigates the role of implicit knowledge in second language acquisition, presenting five experiments and related simulations based on artificial grammar learning. It examines whether second language learners can acquire implicit knowledge of noun–verb agreement. In addition it tests whether their ability to do so is influenced by the number of words that intervene between the relevant noun and the finite verb in the input sentences, as this affects performance in artificial grammar learning, the serial response time task and the statistical learning paradigm. Experimental participants were exposed to a modified version of Persian or Basque while performing a memory task. Next, two grammaticality judgement tests (one timed and one untimed) and a sentence correction task assessed whether the participants had acquired either the target noun–verb agreement or pairs of adjacent words that appeared frequently in the learning items. Performance reflecting implicit and explicit knowledge was distinguished according to three criteria based on R. Ellis (2005) and according to the assumption that the former is not under conscious control. Participants’ performance suggested that they had implicit knowledge of the adjacent word pairs. Similarly, the results indicated that they had implicit knowledge of subject–verb agreement when a single word intervened between the subject and the verb, but not with two intervening words. Connectionist simulations supported the results and indicated that performance was unlikely to improve if more exposure were given. Although the influence of additional factors is discussed, the results generally supported the view that an increase in the number of intervening words reduces learning outcome. The intriguing similarity between the results of this thesis iv and previous research in artificial grammar learning, the serial response time task and statistical learning experiments suggests that future research should directly compare the paradigms to ascertain whether similar learning processes are engaged in each case.

In the first six months of life, infants systematically explore the laryngeal parameters of phonation and pitch. In existing research, laryngeal vocalizations, defined as "vegetative" or "reflexive", are characterized by the presence of "strained" and "rough" phonation with "high degrees of vocal tension" and dynamic pitch variations. Previous studies have focused exclusively on the development of linguistic precursors, including only "speech-like" sounds with "normal" or modal phonation. These studies have excluded laryngeal vocalizations (i.e. grunts, squeals and growls) from their experimental analyses and therefore have not provided an accurate description of early phonetic development. This thesis attempts to fill the gap in the phonetic and articulatory description of the infant vocal capacity by investigating the exploration and development of the laryngeal mechanisms involved in the production of laryngeal phonation and laryngeal pitch. In order to account for the productive capability of infants, it is necessary to consider the vital role of the primary articulator in the adult and infant larynx, the aryepiglottic laryngeal sphincter. The mechanism of the laryngeal sphincter is actively engaged in early infancy to protect the tracheal airway from inundation. In this study, two quantitative analyses of one English-speaking infant's vocalizations in the first six months of life were conducted. In analysis one, auditorily based analysis of 824 vocalizations was performed using the phonetic taxonomy of laryngeal modalities developed by Esling and colleagues (Esling, Benner & Bettany, 2004a; Esling, 2002). The incidence of five phonatory settings (i.e. harsh voice, creaky voice, whisper, modal voice and falsetto) and three pitch levels (low, mid and high) was reported. In analysis two, the laryngeal parameters involved in "range exploration", defined in this study as the instance of within-vocalization phonatory altemations, were quantified by means of acoustic analysis. 120 randomly selected vocalizations (20 from each of the six months) were used in this analysis component. The durations of the vocalizations and of individual phonatory settings within each vocalization were calculated using spectrographic analysis and compared statistically. The present study was able to accurately identify the phonetic range and productive repertoire of infant vocalizations produced in the first six months of life. Four main findings were reported in this study: (1) the default setting in early infancy is laryngeally constricted and low-pitched, (2) the infant's phonetic repertoire of phonation and pitch expands at four months (3) the incidence of within-vocalization phonatory altemations increases at four months and, (4) the productive integration of phonation and pitch is acquired by the sixth month of life.

Fung, Hiu Man Cat. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-264). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in Chinese.

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Traditional studies in syntactic complexity consider increased clausal complexity to be characteristic of development, proficiency and growth in written language production. However, this stereotypical view ignores two important facts. First, complexity differs by register (i.e. daily speech versus formal writing). Second, as the proficiency of writers increases, their complexity in formal writing changes from clausal complexity to phrasal complexity (i.e. lower-proficiency writers have more subordinate clauses whereas higher-proficiency writers tend to have more noun phrases). Therefore, in this study, I argue for the need to consider not just clausal complexity but also phrasal complexity measures when assessing development and performance in second language (L2) writing production. In addition, this study addresses two important gaps that remain understudied in the literature of syntactic complexity. First, there are few studies that analyze changes in syntactic complexity of first-language (L1) Spanish English Language Learners (ELL)'s writing. A few studies have analyzed writers' L1 background as an influential factor in complexity, but an important language such as Spanish has been ignored. Additionally, most studies focus on general academic writing (i.e. argumentative essays), but there are no studies that investigate syntactic complexity in other registers and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) areas. For instance, there are no studies in syntactic complexity that focus on civil engineering, which is an area where writing plays a vital role. Hence, this study intends to fill these gaps by looking at the syntactic complexity of civil engineering student writing, including Spanish L1 writers. The present study investigated syntactic complexity in the writing of English-as- their-first-language (EL1) and English-language-learner (ELL) civil engineering student writing. Taking a contrastive corpus-based approach, I used the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA) (Lu, 2010) to analyze measures of clausal and phrasal complexity. In particular, I used two measures of clausal complexity (clauses per sentence and dependent clauses per clause) and three measures of phrasal complexity (mean length of clause, coordinate phrases per clause, and complex nominals per clause). The analysis was focused on a total of 74 samples of student writing: 30 ELL low-level texts, 14 ELL high-level texts, and 30 EL1 texts. The quantitative analysis consisted of non-parametric statistical tests applied between groups (i.e. ELL-low vs ELL-high, ELL-low vs EL1, and ELL-high vs EL1). The statistical analysis indicated that the writing of both ELL student groups was significantly more clausally complex than the writing of EL1 students on both clausal complexity measures. No differences were found in phrasal complexity, and no developmental trends were found in relation to levels of proficiency among writers. All groups exhibited high levels of internal diversity and lack of within-group consistency. The pedagogical implications of this study include familiarizing ELL students with the characteristics of professional engineering writing as a way to break the stereotype that more clausally complex sentences entail more advanced and more proficient writing. ESP instructors should try to identify characteristics of the syntactic complexity particular to their field so that they can provide appropriate feedback to their students. Moreover, ESP programs with Spanish-speaking students should pay attention to clausal complexity as potential linguistic transfer from students' L1 into the writing production in the L2.