No description available.

No description available.

<p>  </p> <p>The ability to interpret speech as it unfolds in sentences is a complex skill that is essential to successful spoken communication. However, variability in sentence processing skills, such as predictive processing, can impair not only concurrent communication success but also future language development. Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have known deficits in morphosyntax (Leonard, 2014), lexical representation (Sheng & McGregor, 2010b), and speed of processing (Leonard et al., 2007), but less is known about the impact of these impairments on processing sentences in real time during early stages of language development.  The present study examines individual and group differences in online predictive processing skills in 36-month-old children using eye-tracked simple transitive sentences of the structure Article-Agent-Action-Article-Target (e.g., <em>The pirate chases the ship)</em>. Participants listened to the sentences while viewing pictures that corresponded with the sentential input in four different ways (i.e., Target, Agent-related, Action-related, Unrelated). Core Language Index (CLI) scores from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool 2  (CELF-P2) were used to from two sets of groups: 1) “high language” (n=33) and “low language” (n=22) groups using a median split of CLI scores (median = 102) and 2) “not at risk for DLD” (n=50) and “at risk for DLD” (n=6) group based on a CLI cutoff score of 85 used in clinical practice, which falls one standard deviation below the mean and suggests risk for DLD.</p> <p> Using eye movements as an index of online sentence processing, no individual or group differences were found in terms of prediction of the Target or locally-coherent activations of the Action-related item. These results indicate that three-year-old children at risk for language impairment are predicting highly expected items as well as entertaining alternative sentence representations simultaneously, indicating graded activations. These results contradict previous findings that adolescents with DLD do not make graded predictions (Borovsky et al., 2013). However, we found that children of higher language ability (as quantified by scores on the CELF-P2) completed significantly more fixations to the Agent-related picture. This finding suggests one way (i.e., Agent-related prediction) in which 36-month-olds’ online processing of sentences differs based on overall language skill that is inconsistent with accounts of an over-reliance on global interpretations in DLD later in development.</p>

[pt] Esta dissertação aborda um fenômeno pouco estudado do Português Brasileiro (PB): o caso dos verbos meteorológicos (v.g. chover, ventar, nevar, trovejar) flexionados no plural em aparente concordância com um tópico de natureza locativa/temporal, especialmente em contextos sintáticos de orações relativas. Esses verbos são investigados à luz de uma proposta de integração entre a teoria linguística de vertente gerativista e modelos procedimentais de natureza serial, a qual tem caracterizado as pesquisas desenvolvidas no Laboratório de Psicolinguística e Aquisição da Linguagem da PUC-Rio (LAPAL). A concordância entre sujeito e verbo é um processo robusto nas línguas naturais e a não compatibilidade entre as marcas de número desses elementos é comumente associada, nas pesquisas que abordam o assunto, aos chamados lapsos de concordância. A fim de investigar se verbos plurais nessas estruturas não passam de instâncias encontradas ao acaso, foram inicialmente, realizados, em ambiente controlado, dois experimentos: um de produção eliciada e um de compreensão envolvendo leitura automonitorada. Os resultados indicam (i) que verbos meteorológicos no plural, quando em orações relativas cortadoras, são efetivamente produzidos por falantes de PB; e (ii) que os falantes de PB não são sensíveis, na compreensão, a tais marcas plurais, num indicativo de que a concordância entre verbo e um locativo/temporal faria parte da gramática da língua, não se configurando como lapso de concordância. Lapsos, segundo resultados do experimento de produção eliciada, poderiam ser postulados apenas para o caso das sentenças relativas padrão. Propostas gerativistas para a caracterização da gramática do PB são consideradas a fim de se prover, a partir delas, uma análise integrada que possa explicar o fenômeno sob investigação. Essa análise é compatível com os resultados de um terceiro experimento, de julgamento de gramaticalidade em tarefa de leitura automonitorada. Verificou-se a taxa de aceitabilidade para verbos meteorológicos no singular e no plural, contrastada a de outros três tipos de verbos (inergativos, inacusativos monoargumentais e inacusativos biargumentais), sempre em orações relativas cortadoras. Os resultados indicam que os verbos meteorológicos se distinguem dos verbos inergativos (que não aceitam concordância com o tópico locativo/temporal) e se aproximam dos verbos inacusativos (que efetivamente licenciam a concordância com tópico). Os lapsos associados a relativas padrão e a concordância com verbos meteorológicos em relativas cortadoras sao explicados à luz do Modelo Integrado da Computação On-Line (MINC), desenvolvido no âmbito das pesquisas do LAPAL. Considera-se que a concordância dos verbos meteorológicos com tópico faria parte da gramática inovadora do PB, podendo-se explicar os resultados experimentais segundo a noção de uma gramática nuclear na qual haveria uma periferia marcada. / [en] This dissertation addresses a recently attested phenomenon in Brazilian Portuguese (BP): plural agreement between climate verbs (v.g. chover, ventar, nevar, trovejar) and locative/temporal topics within relative clauses. This phenomenon is investigated in the light of a proposal that aims at integrating generative linguistics and psycholinguistics procedural models, a line of investigation that has characterized the research developed at the Laboratory of Psycholinguistics and Language Acquisition at PUC-Rio (LAPAL). Subject-verb agreement is a robust process in natural languages and failures in the implementation of agreement have been treated in the psycholinguistics literature in terms of speech errors, not related to grammar knowledge. In order to investigate if agreement with climate verbs is occasional or licensed by the rules of BP, two experiments were initially conducted: an elicited production study and a self-paced reading test. The results indicate that (i) speakers really produce plural climate verbs in the context of relative clauses and (ii) the BP speakers accept the occurrence of these verbs in the plural within relative clauses (specially within non-standard relatives), what favors analysing it as a grammar option and not a mere speech error. Generative proposals are considered in order to provide an integrated analysis that can explain the phenomenon under investigation. This analysis seems to be consistent with the results of a grammaticality judgment task realized as part of a self-paced reading experiment. The rate of acceptability for climate verbs in the singular and plural has been contrasted to the rate of other three types of verbs (unergative, monoargumental and biargumental unaccusative verbs), always in the context of relative clauses. The results indicate that climate verbs differ from unergative ones (which will not allow agreement with locative / temporal topics) and are similar to unaccusative verbs (which effectively license agreement with a topic). The results are explained in the light of an Integrated Model of On- Line Computation (MINC). It is considered that plural agreement of climate verbs with a topic would be compatible to the notion of a core grammar with a marked periphery, characterizing an innovative BP grammar.

[pt] A presente dissertação aborda o processamento dos traços de gênero e número no Português Brasileiro (PB) no estabelecimento da concordância em estruturas predicativas com um DP complexo na posição de sujeito. São investigadas estruturas tais como O telhado das casas estava quebrado na lateral e A bilheteria dos teatros ficava inundada no temporal, nas quais há concordância em número entre o sujeito e o verbo e concordância em gênero e número entre o sujeito e a forma participial. A fim de investigar se os traços de gênero e número são processados ao mesmo tempo e se o fenômeno semântico da distributividade interfere nesse processamento, dois experimentos foram propostos: um de produção induzida de erros e outro de leitura automonitorada, ambos realizados com falantes universitários. Os resultados indicam que: (i) os falantes universitários, conhecedores da norma culta do PB, de fato produzem lapsos de concordância em gênero e número; (ii) na leitura, universitários também são sensíveis a sentenças com erros de concordância em gênero e número; (iii) a distributividade é um fator interferente no processamento da concordância, em particular no âmbito da produção e (iv) a marca morfofonológica de gênero do núcleo do sujeito afeta o processamento da concordância na produção e na compreensão. A influência de distributividade é explicada com base no modelo de produção monitorada por parser(PMP), de Rodrigues (2006), compatível com a ideia de um processador sintático autônomo, não sujeito a interferências semânticas. A influência de fatores semânticos é atribuída, no modelo de Rodrigues (2006), à forma como, no curso do processamento, DPs complexos são representados e mantidos na memória de trabalho e analisados pelo parser. Propostas sobre a representação dos traços de gênero e número (Picallo, 1991, 2008; Ritter, 1993; Di Domenico, 1995) são consideradas na discussão sobre dissociação de traços de gênero e número no processamento da concordância nas estruturas predicativas investigadas. Os resultados dos experimentos conduzidos com falantes de PB são comparados aos obtidos com falantes de espanhol em experimentos envolvendo, no caso da produção, tarefa de produção induzida de erros (Antón-Méndez et al., 2002) e, no caso da compreensão, experimentos de ERP (Barber e Carreiras, 2005) e de rastreamento ocular(Acuna et al., 2014). Discute-se, na comparação entre os resultados das duas línguas, além da influência da distributividade, como se daria a computação dos traços de número no verbo e no particípio - se corresponderia a um processo único ou dissociado -, e também a influência de marcação, em particular o favorecimento de formas participiais no masculino, que no PB correspondem à forma não-marcada (default). / [en] This thesis deals with the processing of gender and number features in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) when establishing agreement in predicative structures containing a complex DP in the subject position. It investigates structures such as O telhado das casas estava quebrado na lateral (The roof of the houses was broken on the side) and A bilheteria dos teatros ficou inundada no temporal (The box office of the theater was flooded in the storm), where There is number agreement between the subject and the auxiliary verb, and gender and number agreement between the subject and the participle. To determine whether gender and number features are processed at the same time, whether the semantic phenomenon of distributivity can interfere in the processing of these features, two experiments were conducted: a sentence production task designed to elicit speech errors and a self-paced reading experiment, both with university students who are native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. The results indicate that: (i) the university student participants, who are users of a formal variant of BP and are therefore aware of the rules of agreement, in fact produce number and gender agreement errors; (ii) the participants are sensitive to sentences with agreement errors in gender and number in reading comprehension; (iii) distributivity is an interfering factor in agreement processing, particularly in production and (iv) the morphophonological gender mark, in the head of the subject, affects agreement processing both in speech production and reading comprehension. The influence of distributivity is explained using Rodrigues (2006) model of a monitored parser in production, which is compatible with the idea of an autonomous syntactic processor that is not subject to semantic interference. According to Rodrigues model, the influence of semantic factors can be accounted for by how complex subject DPs are represented and maintained in working memory and analyzed by the parser during language production. Proposals on gender and number representation (Picallo, 1991/2008; Ritter, 1993; Di Domenico, 1995) are considered in the discussion on dissociation of gender and number features in agreement processing of the predicative structures investigated in this thesis.The results of the production and the comprehension experiments conducted with speakers of BP are compared to the results of studies conducted with Spanish speakers involving an induced error experiment (Antón-Mendez et al., 2002), in the case of production and, in the case of comprehension, ERP (Barber and Carreiras, 2005) and eye-tracking (Acuna et al., 2014) experiments. Comparison and discussion of the experimental results in the two languages covers not only the influence of distributivity on agreement, but also the question of how the number features on the auxiliary verb and the participle are computed (whether it is a single or dissociated process) and the influence of gender marking, particularly participants tendency to produce participles in the masculine form, which in BP is the default, unmarked form.

Fourteen young adults participated in a cross-modal picture priming study. Perspective shift processing, in four types of relative clause sentences and in control sentences, was assessed using reaction times. Predictions were: 1) the easier the perspective shifts, the faster the reaction times and 2) subject relative clauses would reveal a priming effect versus attenuated or no priming in object relative clauses due to difficulty following perspective. A priming effect was observed for 1- switch relative clause sentences and for control sentences, while no priming effect was observed for 0 switch, 1+ switch, or 2 switch sentences. Results suggest that variations in local syntactic constructions and word order facilitated relative clause processing. Violations of semantic expectations and noun-noun-verb distance in following perspective can both contribute to the complexity of relative clause processing.

<p>This work presents two studies of language processing and development in children. The first study focuses on passive sentence comprehension in 4-5-year-old children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and same-age peers with typical development (TD). We explore the effect of animacy, morphosyntactic, vocabulary, and event probability cues on children’s offline comprehension and online processing of passive sentences using an eye-tracked looking-while-listening design. The children were first exposed to short videos of agents doing characteristic actions (e.g., hard physical activities or passively observant activities). The children then engaged in an eye-tracked online processing task in which they heard reversible and nonreversible passive sentences describing events that matched or did not match the characteristics set up in the exposure videos. During these sentences, images on-screen were displayed that corresponded to the potential interpretations of the sentence. Online processing data was collected using eye tracking. After each sentence, the children were asked to point to the image corresponding to their interpretation to measure their offline comprehension. The offline comprehension data indicated that compared to the children with TD, the children with DLD were less likely to correctly interpret the passive sentences and made comprehension errors that suggested poorer attention to and integration of potentially informative sentence cues. The eye-tracked online processing data was examined in two ways. First, we analyzed the online processing data to determine to what extent the children’s processing was consistent with the use of the sentence cues. We found that the children in the two groups were just as likely to demonstrate looking patterns consistent with the use animacy cues but children with DLD were less likely to use morphosyntactic, vocabulary, and event probability cues. We then analyzed the online processing data in correctly interpreted sentences only to examine how the sentence cues were integrated over the course of the sentence. We found that in correctly interpreted sentences, children with DLD demonstrated a slower, less robust response to most of the informative cues in the sentences but quicker and less linguistically mediated use of event probability cues. Finally, we examined the relationship between the children’s use of event probability cues and their stimuli-specific vocabulary knowledge but found no strong associations. </p><p><br></p><p> The second study focuses on the semantic network structure of the vocabularies of young 18-30-month-old children and its influence on noun and verb learning. Prior work had examined how noun semantic network structure affects noun learning. Here, we extended that work to ask how noun and verb semantic network structures differ in their influence on noun and verb learning. We examined vocabulary network structure at the word, semantic neighborhood, and lexicon levels in a large sample of child vocabulary checklist data using semantic features. We analyzed the data in three ways. First, we charted the relationship between verb and noun semantic network structure and vocabulary size across children. We found that early-learned nouns tended to have strong network relationships with other nouns and other verbs across network levels. We also found that early-learned verbs tended to have strong network relationships with other nouns but, in contrast, were unlikely to have strong relationships with other verbs. Next, we examined patterns of normative vocabulary development, asking whether the cross-sectional patterns seen in the first analysis influenced the time at which nouns and verbs tended to be learned. We found similar patterns. Nouns with strong semantic connections to other nouns and other verbs tended to be learned early. Verbs with strong semantic connections to other nouns tended to be learned early but verbs with strong semantic connections to other verbs tended to be learned later. Finally, in an effort to determine how the very earliest vocabulary knowledge sets the stage for later word learning, we examined how word knowledge gaps formed and were filled by nouns and verbs in normative vocabulary development. These gaps corresponded to structured “cavities” in the semantic networks. We found that nouns tended to form semantic cavities that were later filled by nouns and verbs, reinforcing the findings from the first analyses that early noun knowledge is a prerequisite for later verb learning. </p>

[pt] Este estudo investiga os comportamentos de processamento de um grupo de Brasileiros bilíngues instrucionados de português L1 e inglês L2, (n igual a 21), e um grupo de monolíngues de inglês norte-americano (n igual a 11) durante a sua compreensão de sentenças no present perfect (vs. simple past) em uma tarefa on-line de leitura auto-monitorada (Self-Paced Reading - SPR). Uma medida off-line, Tarefa de Julgamento de Aceitabilidade (Acceptability Judgment Task - AJT) foi utilizado como uma linha de base de conhcimento explícito da estrutura. Os resultados são comparados, qualitativamente, entre o grupo do monolíngue e bilíngue para investigar a sensibilidade, de cada grupo, às manipulações experimentais em tempo/aspecto, correspondência adverbial, e telicidade. O present perfect foi usado para os estímulos, pois é um tempo verbal do inglês adquirido mais tardiamente o que permite estudar as estratégias de processamento de bilíngues de nível mais avançado. Ambos os grupos foram capazes de reconhecer incongruências na atividade off-line. No entanto, o grupo monolíngue não foi sensível à condição de incongruência adverbial em tempo real, na atividade SPR. Por outro lado, o grupo bilíngue mostrou-se mais sensível a variável da incongruência adverbial, apresentando um comportamento que indica uma facilitação (automatização) de processamento da condição. O grupo monolíngue mostrou sensibilidade significativo às manipulações de telicidade em várias regiões do sintagma verbal. Diferenças entre os dois grupos foram observadas nas suas distribuições de tempos de leitura entre as condições em várias regiões da frase e elas são discutidas em termos de estratégias de processamento. Os monolíngues apresentaram efeitos de processamento integrativo no final da frase, os quais não são observados no grupo bilíngue. Atualmente, não há estudos com condições experimentais semelhantes que investiguem como os brasileiros bilíngues, avançados em inglês comportam na compreensão on-line de sentenças em inglês no present perfect. / [en] This study investigates the processing behaviors of a group of Brazilian bilingual students, instructed, advanced English students (n equal 21), and an English monolingual control group (n equal 11) during their comprehension of Present Perfect and Simple Past sentences in an on-line, self-paced reading (SPR) task. An off-line Acceptability Judgment Task (AJT) provides a baseline measure of explicit knowledge in order to validate the on-line results. The results are compared, qualitatively, between the bilingual and monolingual groups in order to investigate their sensitivity to experimental manipulations in Tense/Aspect, adverbial (Mis)match, and Telicity. The Present Perfect was used for the stimuli as it is a late-acquired feature of English which allows for the study of processing strategy of advanced level students. While both groups were able to recognize Mismatches off-line, monolinguals were not sensitive to the Mismatch condition in the on-line experiment. Surprisingly, the bilingual group showed more sensitivity to the adverbial Match variable, showing a processing facilitation in the Match condition as well as some mismatch sensitivity as well. The monolingual group showed significant effects for Telicity at multiple sentence regions. Some qualitative differences were seen between the two groups in their reading-time contours across the verb phrase. The monolinguals show within-group consistency across multiple conditions and signs of integrative processing (wrap-up) effects in their processing patterns which are not seen among the bilingual group. There are currently no studies with similar experimental conditions which investigate the on-line comprehension of the English Present Perfect with Brazilian Portuguese-English bilinguals in comparison to American English monolinguals.

No description available.

[pt] O processamento da concordância de número sujeito-verbo na produção de sentenças por falantes do dialeto culto do português brasileiro é investigado. A dissertação focaliza os chamados erros de atração e seu principal objetivo é identificar os fatores que interferem no processamento da concordância e prover uma explicação psicolingüística que seja compatível com pressupostos do Programa Minimalista da Lingüística Gerativa. Mais especificamente, busca-se examinar: i) as condições que favorecem os erros e as propriedades sintáticas que levam um núcleo interveniente a ser tomado como o controlador da concordância; ii) a interferência de informação morfofonológica de número dos elementos que integram os modificadores do DP sujeito; iii) a interferência de informação semântica de número no estabelecimento da concordância. Ainda como objetivo específico busca-se distinguir em termos estruturais os DPs responsáveis pelos erros de atração daqueles que licenciam uma forma singular ou plural do verbo - as chamadas construções partitivas. Aplica-se uma tarefa psicolingüística envolvendo julgamento de gramaticalidade a fim de investigar diferenças de processamento da concordância entre as construções partitivas e os DPs complexos. A relevância dos tópicos investigados se deve ao fato de estes permitirem uma discussão mais ampla acerca da autonomia do formulador sintático. Parte-se de vasta revisão da literatura, na qual se reportam interferências sintáticas, semânticas e morfofonológicas no processamento da concordância em diferentes línguas. Explicações apresentadas por modelos de produção interativos e não-interativos são discutidas. Inclui-se ainda uma caracterização da concepção minimalista de língua, com o tratamento da concordância como processo de valoração de traços formais, e um modelo de produção de natureza serial, não-interativo, que incorpora um parser- monitorador funcionando paralelamente à formulação dos enunciados - modelo PMP (produção monitorada por parser). Em seguida, reportam-se 5 experimentos com falantes de português. Os resultados indicaram efeito de marcação e de distância linear entre o núcleo do sujeito e o verbo, com mais erros para núcleo do sujeito não-marcado (singular) e linearmente distante do verbo, e efeito de posição estrutural do núcleo interveniente, com maior incidência de erros para os núcleos hierarquicamente próximos do nó mais alto do DP sujeito e núcleos inseridos em PPs argumentos. Um efeito semântico de distributividade associado a efeito de marcação também foi obtido. Quanto a fatores morfofonológicos, a informação de número no determinante (e não no nome) mostrou-se crucial para a identificação do número do DP sujeito. É proposta uma versão ampliada e revista do modelo PMP que unifica explicações para os erros de concordância em termos de uma escala de acessibilidade da representação do DP sujeito pela memória de trabalho e que leva em consideração as expectativas do parser como possível fator de interferência em erros de atração. Essa interferência ocorreria após o parsing do primeiro DP e afetaria a codificação morfofonológica do verbo. Em suma, a tese aqui veiculada é a de que os erros de concordância não ocorrem na computação sintática e que o formulador sintático atua de forma autônoma. / [en] The processing of subject-verb number agreement in sentence production by speakers of the standard dialect of the Brazilian Portuguese is investigated. The dissertation focuses on attraction errors and its main aim is to identify the factors that interfere in agreement processing and to provide a psycholinguistic account, which is compatible with assumptions of the Minimalist Program of Generative Linguistics. This work examines, in particular: i) the conditions that favor attraction errors and the syntactic properties which make an intervenient head to be considered as the agreement controller; ii) the role of morphophonological information on number provided by the DP subject modifiers; iii) the interference of conceptual number in agreement. Additionally, the work intends to distinguish, in structural terms, the DPs responsible for attraction errors from those DPs that allow a singular and a plural form of the verb - the so-called partitive constructions. A psycholinguistic procedure of grammaticality judgment is conducted in order to verify agreement processing differences between partitive constructions and complex DPS. The relevance of these topics is due to the fact that they enable a more comprehensive discussion on the autonomy of the syntactic formulator in language production. An extensive review of the existing literature was carried out and results are reported, concerning the interference from syntactic, semantic and morphophonological factors on agreement processing in different languages. Explanations provided by interactive and non-interactive models are discussed in this work. The minimalist conception of language is presented according to which agreement is described as a feature valuation process and a serial non-interactive production model is characterized, which incorporates a monitoring-parser that works in parallel with speech formulation - PMP model (parser monitored production). A total of 5 experiments with Portuguese speakers are reported. The results show an effect of markedness and linear distance between the subject and the verb, with more errors caused by non-marked (singular) subject heads that are linearly distant from the verb, and an effect of the structural position of the intervenient head, with a large number of errors for intervenient heads that are near to the upper phrasal marker of the DP and for heads which are inserted in PP arguments. A semantic effect of distributivity associated with an effect of markedness was also obtained. As far as morphphonological factors, number information of the determiner (and not of the noun) has shown to be critical to subject number identification. A revised and improved version of the PMP model is proposed that unifies possible explanations for agreement in terms of on an accessibility scale of the DP subject representation in the working memory and that takes into account parser predictions as a possible factor of interference in attraction errors. This interference would occur after the parsing of the DP and would affect the morphophonological encoding of the verb. In sum, the main argument of the thesis is that agreement errors do not occur in the syntactic computation and that the syntactic formulator works autonomously.