Most bilingual lexical models assume that L1 and L2 either share the same semantic system, or are distinguished at the semantic level but connected through lexical associations. For example, the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) assumes the stronger access from L2 to concepts via the L1 lexical representation at the early stage of L2 acquisition and direct access to concepts after L2 proficiency is achieved. However, the model is not well supported by subsequent empirical evidence, and encounters difficulty in explaining cross-language priming data. The recently developed Sense Model (Finkbeiner, M., Forster, K., Nicol, J., & Nakamura, K., 2004) assumes a direct access from the L2 form to its related meaning and argues for the representational asymmetry in lexical semantics between L1 and L2. This model was designed to account for the translation asymmetry and task effect in the masked priming literature: L2-L1 priming is not observed in lexical decision due to the small proportion of L1 senses activated by the L2 prime; however, the category provides a context which restricts L1 sense activation and thus enhances the effectiveness of the L2 prime in semantic categorization. This dissertation reports the results of several semantic categorization experiments designed to test several assumptions of the Sense Model. Experiments 1-4 investigated whether the Category Restriction Hypothesis assumed by the Sense Model was empirically supported when congruence effects are minimized. The results showed that translation priming could be obtained for exemplars when congruence effects were controlled, but that there were no effects for non-exemplars, as predicted by the Sense Model. Subsequent experiments showed that category size is an important variable, since L2-L1 priming was not obtained with large categories (e.g., living thing), which was taken to indicate that a large category is ineffective as a 'focusing' device to enhance the activation of L2 semantic senses. Finally, it was shown that the priming asymmetry in lexical decision was not due to differential degrees of semantic activation of the prime in L1 and L2.

Diese Dissertation betrachtet die Beziehung zwischen Parser und Grammatik bei Muttersprachlern (Native Speakers, NS) und Heritage- (Erb-) Sprechern (HS) des Griechischen, indem sie die Mechanismen untersucht, die einer pseudo-Lizenzierung bei Verletzungen der Kongruenz des grammatischen Geschlechts zugrunde liegen. Diese Verletzungen sind Fehler, die auftreten, wenn eine intervenierende Phrase (Attraktor) nicht mit den Genusmerkmalen des Kopfnomens übereinstimmt, ein Phänomen, das in der Literatur (Gender-)Agreement Attraktion, hier Attraktion von Genuskongruenz, genannt wird. Die Dissertation testet, ob eine solche Attraktion von Genuskongruenz im Griechischen vorhanden ist und ob ein- und zweisprachige Muttersprachler gleichermaßen anfällig für Fehler bei der Attraktion sind. Die Dissertation untersucht für die Gruppe der HS außerdem die Genuskongruenz beim Echtzeit-Sprachverstehen und -produzieren. In der Arbeit zeige ich, dass sowohl NS als auch HS anfällig für Attraktionsfehler bei der Genuskongruenz sind. Das zeigen die Reaktionszeitmuster und die Urteile. Gleichzeitig zeigten bei mündlichen Erzählungen beide Sprechergruppen die gleichen Übergeneralisierungsmuster für maskulines Genus bei belebten Nomen sowie bei mündlichen Erzählungen und beschleunigten Grammatikalitätsurteilen für Neutrum bei unbelebten Nomen. Zusammengenommen deuten diese Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass NS und HS anfällig für die Attraktion von Genuskongruenz sind und dass beide Gruppen ähnliche Hinweise zum Abruf des Genus verwenden und somit ähnliche Attraktionsmuster aufweisen. HS unterscheiden sich jedoch von NS in der Verarbeitung der Genuskongruenz an sich, insbesondere bei femininen Kopfnomen (markiertes Genus) in Objekt-Klitika, was darauf hindeutet, dass sowohl Markiertheit als auch Kongruenz an den Schnittstellen die Leistung von HS beeinflusst. Wenn Fehler auftreten, folgen beide Gruppen den gleichen Mustern der Übergeneralisierung. / This dissertation explores the relationship between the parser and the grammar in Native Speakers (NSs) and Heritage Speakers (HSs) of Greek by examining the mechanisms underpinning the illusory licensing of gender agreement violations: errors occurring when an intervening phrase (attractor) mismatches the gender cues of the head noun, a phenomenon which is usually called (gender) agreement attraction. In this work, I show that both NSs and HSs are prone to gender agreement attraction errors in the nominal domain of Greek, as their reaction time patterns and (speeded or scaled) judgements revealed. At the same time, both groups showed the same overgeneralization patterns of the masculine value in agreement errors with animate nouns in their oral narrations, and of the neuter value with inanimate nouns in their oral narrations and their online speeded judgements. Taken together, these results suggest that NSs and HSs are prone to gender agreement attraction in Greek and that both groups employ retrieval cues similarly showing similar attraction patterns. However, HSs differ from NSs in the processing of gender agreement per se, particularly with feminine head nouns (marked gender value) on object-clitics, suggesting that markedness as well as agreement at Interfaces influence HSs’ performance. Finally, when errors occur, both groups follow the same overegeneralization patterns.