La communication en général, et les capacités linguistiques en particulier, constituent de formidables obstacles pour beaucoup d'enfants avec TSA, qui ont du mal à faire connaître leurs idées, sentiments et intentions à autrui. La sémantique lexicale est fondamentale dans le choix des bons mots et la compréhension du monde autour de soi. Dans la recherche sur le Trouble du spectre de l’autisme (TSA), les capacités langagières sont communément mesurées sur la base de la performance sur des tâches qui mesurent les capacités en sémantique lexicale—les connaissances sur la signification des mots. Or, les connaissances scientifiques sur comment les capacités sémantiques lexicales sont liées aux autres aspects du langage dans le TSA sont pauvres. / Communications in general and linguistic abilities in particular, constitute formidable obstacles for many children with ASD, who struggle with making their ideas, feelings and intentions known to others. Lexical semantics is fundamental to choosing the right words, and understanding the surrounding world. In research on ASD, language abilities are very widely measured on the basis of performance on tasks testing lexical semantic abilities—knowledge of the meaning of words. However, very little is known about how lexical semantic abilities are related to other aspects of language in ASD.

Nesta dissertação de mestrado, discuto a aceitabilidade de três construções com relação ao singularngular nu sujeito: sentenças genéricas, sentenças com predicados-de-espécie, e sentenças com predicados-de-estágio. Visto que há uma falta de clareza com relação ao conhecimento de crianças e adultos, conduzi três estudos a fim de investigar a aceitabilidade dessas construções. Em um primeiro momento, realizei um estudo de caráter longitudinal para verificar se esse tipo de construção está em algum momento presente na fala de uma criança ou de seus interlocutores. Os resultados sugerem que antes dos 4 anos de idade as crianças ainda não produzem construções com predicados-de-espécie ou com predicados-de-estágio da mesma maneira que os adultos, e que antes dos 5 anos as crianças produzem poucos singulares nus seja em posição de sujeito. Em um estudo experimental, realizei um experimento com 10 adultos e 9 crianças falantes de PB a fim de investigar a aceitabilidade de construções da língua e se a presença de um contexto é uma condição de licenciamento para predicados-de-estágio. Nos resultados dos adultos, vimos apenas que essa construção não é tão aceita quanto as genéricas ou com predicados-de-espécie, e que essa diferença é significante. Com relação às crianças, foi observado que elas aceitam construções genéricas e com predicados-de-espécie. Por fim, o objetivo do último estudo, conduzido com adultos (N=24) falantes de PB e crianças adquirindo a língua (N = 44), era verificar se o contraste evocado no contexto favorece a aceitabilidade de construções em que o singular nu sujeito satura predicados-de-estágio (SCHMITT & MUNN, 1999, PIRES DE OLIVEIRA 2012). A análise inferencial conduzida de modo a tratar os dados sugere que há uma diferença estatisticamente significativa entre os resultados para construções com predicados-de-estágio, mas testes estatísticos indicaram que a relevância nesse caso está relacionada à idade dos participantes dos grupos. Adultos e crianças não julgam essas construções da mesma maneira. Além disso, os resultados indicam a ausência de significância para os adultos dos dois grupos, ou seja, o contraste não foi significativo no julgamento dessas construções para os participantes adultos. / In this dissertation, I investigate the acceptability of three constructions that might be saturated by a subject bare singular: generic sentences, sentences with kind-predicates, and sentences with stage-level predicates. Considering that there is a lack of clarity when it comes to the knowledge of these structures by children and adult speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, three studies were lead in order to investigate it. Firstly, a longitudinal study was conducted to verify if constructions with subject bare singulars were to be found in a childs speech or in her input. The results suggest that before 4 years old children do not produce constructions with kind-predicates or with stage-level predicates, at least not as adults do. Moreover, before the age of 5 years children produce few bare singulars in subject position. In an experimental study, a research with 10 adult participants and 9 children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese was lead in order to investigate the acceptability of constructions of the language, also verifying if the presence of a context would license constructions with stage-level predicates. The adults\' results suggest that this construction is not accepted as the generic or kind-predicate ones. This difference is statistically significant. When it comes to children, it was observed that they accept generic constructions and sentences with kind-predicates and stage-level predicates as well. The last study, applied to 24 adult native speakers and 44 children acquiring Brazilian Portuguese was to verify if a contrastive reading evoked by the context would improve the acceptability of constructions with stage-level predicates (SCHMITT & MUNN, 1999, PIRES DE OLIVEIRA, 2012). The inferential analysis of the data suggests that there is a significant difference among the judgments for stage-level predicates. However, it seems that it is not the case that this difference is related to the contrastive reading. Age is the significant factor. Therefore, adult speakers and children do not judge the constructions in a similar fashion. Besides that, the results indicate the absence of significance of contrast for the adult groups, i.e., contrastive readings evoked by the context do not improve the acceptability of sentences with stage-level predicates for these participants.

Studies have indicated that separate use of the technique of priming and recasting can increase the use of complex syntax by children with and without specific language impairment (SLI). The current study was devised to examine whether children with SLI differ from children who are typically developing (TD) in the use of relative clauses in response to an intervention composed of a combination of priming and recasting. Twenty-six children (13 with SLI and 13 TD) ranging in age from 6 years, 10 months to 10 years, 11 months participated in the study. Forty pairs of stimulus pictures and sentences for each relative clause type (SR and OR) were created. The examiner presented the picture and read a sentence to the participant. Next, a new picture was shown and the participant created a sentence. The examiner then recasted the participants’ responses into the desired syntactic form. A preliminary ANOVA for the trials to criteria (3 out of 4 consecutive correct responses) for the subject relative and object relative clauses revealed nonsignificant main effects for Order and Group by Order interactions. A two-way mixed ANOVA was conducted to assess differences between the two groups and the two sentence types when compared with the trials to criteria scores. There was a significant effect for group where the SLI group required more trials to reach the criteria for both sentence types than the TD group. Additionally, the subject relative sentences were easier for the participants in both groups (TD and SLI) than the object relative sentences. A regression analysis conducted to predict the trials to criteria scores for both sentence types using the participants’ age, CELF raw score, and UNIT raw score revealed that the CELF raw score was significantly related to the trails to criteria score for the two sentence types. When additional analysis of the group and sentence type interaction was completed with the CELF raw score as a covariate, the group main effect was no longer significant. Analyses of the error patterns observed in the sentences produced by the participants as well as implications of the results are discussed.

The current study examined a method of language sampling (the Dixit Method- Science, Math, Engineering, Arts, and Math) in early adolescents with typically developing language. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the DM-STEAM in eliciting lexically sophisticated spoken language samples in the early adolescent population. To examine lexical sophistication, traditional measures of analysis such as mean length of utterance (MLU) and average type token ratio (AVG TTR) were applied along with a measure of low frequency vocabulary. To compare performance on the DM-STEAM, school standardized assessments were obtained to measure student skill in academic content areas. Twenty-two student participants in the sixth grade (11 years to 12 years 11 months) were recruited from a local elementary school. The data was evaluated using a paired tailed t test and a path analysis test. Although the sample size is small, results from the study indicate the DM-STEAM elicits low frequency academic vocabulary in early adolescent populations.

The effectiveness of any language training program is determined by generalization of the clinically trained behaviors to spontaneous speech (Hedge, Noll and Pecora, 1979). Traditional language programs which employ operant procedures to establish the behavior in the clinic and reinforcement from family, teachers and peers in a variety of settings to obtain generalization, have been successful in establishing the use of grammatical rules in the clinic setting, but reportedly have failed to promote generalization (Rees, 1978). Recent literature in the areas of semantics and pragmatics has produced a trend toward teaching language in natural contexts. The purpose of this study was to investigate: 1) whether a group taught with a traditional syntax program would generalize the trained structure to spontaneous speech, 2) whether a group trained with a traditional syntax program in combination with nontraditional methods (natural context) would evidence generalization, 3) whether one of the above methods would evidence greater, lesser or the same generalization and 4) which method would take fewer, the same or greater number of sessions.

This dissertation argues that an undocumented member of the Defoid language family known as Àhàn should be considered a language in its own right and not a dialect of some other Yoruboid language. This conclusion is based on a comparison of several syntactic categories in Àhàn to those of standard Yoruba. An investigation of the nominal system and functional categories such as markers of tense, aspect, focus, negation and relativization are language internal evidences that support the claims of this thesis. The dissertation has both descriptive and theoretical ambitions. The descriptive part of the dissertation provides basic outline of the grammar of the language and also provides an outline of the various syntactic phenomenon that are language specific to Àhàn. The theoretical side of the dissertation examines aspect of the syntax of the language under the latest theory of generative syntax called the Minimalist Program. The applicability of Àhàn data to the claims of Minimalist syntax (Chomsky 1995, 2001 and Kayne 1994) and the modifications of the theory where necessary are part of the theoretical endeavor of this dissertation. Using the principles of microcomparative syntax (Richard Kayne 1989, 2000 2012), the thesis demonstrate how structural comparison of aspects of the syntax of Àhàn and Yoruba explicate linguistic variation, and how differences that exist between closely related languages provide data for our understanding of the properties of Universal Grammar (Collins 2013). / acase@tulane.edu

The dissertation explores word order phenomena in a 'free' word order language, Russian. It has been proposed in the literature that in simple sentences like 'John sees Mary', six word orders are equally possible in Russian. The dissertation questions the equal acceptability of these word orders and shows that some of the "felicitous" word orders have a degraded status compared to others. The word order findings are based on experimental evidence from elicitation, perception and grammaticality judgment psycholinguistic studies with 237 adult native speakers of Russian. The results of the experiments demonstrate that Russian speakers have a strong preference for producing some word orders over others. For example, Russian native speakers produce transitive SVO, OVS and SOV felicitous word orders, but consistently do not produce VSO, VOS and OSV felicitous word orders, which they still recognize as acceptable, but as having a degraded grammaticality status. On the basis of the experimental evidence and analysis of the various constituent movements within the Minimalist Program approach, a model of grammar is proposed which adds a pragmatic component responsible for word order permutations. According to this model, the syntactic component of grammar generates only SVO sentences (the basic word order) in Russian. All discourse-dependent sentences result from realignment in the post-syntactic pragmatic component. In contrast to the hierarchical structure of syntax, the pragmatic component of grammar has a linear structure and operates with Optimality Theory-type constraints determining the optimal output word order in a particular discourse structure. The underlying assumption of this model is that this pragmatic component is present in all languages. However, the language specific ranking of the constraints in this component results in word order variations. In contrast to the previous structural approaches to word order permutations in Russian, the proposed model has obvious advantages. The model accounts not only for grammaticality and ungrammaticality, but also for the degraded grammaticality of different word order permutations in Russian. In addition, this approach accounts for the variation between 'fixed' word order languages like English and 'free' word order languages like Russian.

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