In this paper, we discuss the results of two experiments, one off-line (acceptability judgment) and the other on-line (eye-tracking), targeting Object Cleft (OC) constructions. In both experiments, we used the same materials presenting a manipulation on person features: second person plural pronouns and plural definite determiners alternate in introducing a full NP (“it was [ DP1 the/you [ NP bankers]] i that [ DP2 the/you [ NP lawyers]] have avoided _ i at the party”) in a language, Italian, with overt (...) person (and number) subject-verb agreement. As results, we first observed that the advantage of the bare pronominal forms reported in previous experiments (Gordon et al., 2001 ; Warren and Gibson, 2005, a.o.) is lost when the full NP (the “lexical restriction” in Belletti and Rizzi, 2013 ) is present. Second, an advantage for the mismatch condition, Art 1 -Pro 2, in which the focalized subject is introduced by the determiner and the OC subject by the pronoun, as opposed to the matching Pro 1 -Pro 2 condition, is observed, both off-line (higher acceptability and accuracy in answering comprehension questions after eyetracking) and on-line (e.g., smaller number of regressions from the subject region); third, we found a relevant difference between acceptability and accuracy in comprehension questions: despite similar numerical patterns in both off-line measures, the difference across conditions in accuracy is mostly not significant, while it is significant in acceptability. Moreover, while the matching condition Pro 1 -Pro 2 is perceived as nearly ungrammatical (far below the mean acceptability across-conditions), the accuracy in comprehension is still high (close to 80%). To account for these facts, we compare different formal competence and processing models that predict difficulties in OC constructions: similarity-based (Gordon et al., 2001, a.o.), memory load (Gibson, 1998 ), and intervention-based (Friedmann et al., 2009 ) accounts are compared to processing oriented ACT-R-based predictions (Lewis and Vasishth, 2005 ) and to top-down Minimalist derivations (Chesi, 2015 ). We conclude that most of these approaches fail in making predictions able to reconcile the competence and the performance perspective in a coherent way to the exception of the top-down model that is able to predict correctly both the on-line and the off-line main effects obtained. (shrink)

Epstein, Flynn, and Martohardjono trivialize the question of access to universal grammar in second language acquisition by arguing against a straw-man version of the no-access position and by begging the question of how second language (L2) knowledge is represented in the mind/brain of an adult L2 learner. They compound their errors by employing a research methodology that fails to provide any relevant evidence.

I enlarge on the theme that the brain mechanisms required for languageand other aspects of the human mind evolved through selective changes in the regulatory genes governing growth. Extension of the period of postnatal growth increases the role of the environment in structuring the brain, and spatiotemporal programming (heterochrony) ofgrowth might explain hierarchical representation, hemispheric specialization, and perhaps sex differences.

Müller's goal of bringing neuroscience to bear on controversies in linguistics is laudable. However, some of his specific proposals about innateness and autonomy are misguided. Recent studies on the neurobiology of regular and irregular inflectional morphology indicate that these two linguistic processes are subserved by anatomically and physiologically distinct neural subsystems, whose functional organization is likely to be under direct genetic control rather than assembled by strictly epigenetic factors.

Issues concerning UG access for L2 acquisition as formulated by Epstein et al. are misleading as well as poorly discussed. UG accessibility can only be fully evaluated with respect to the steady state gram mar reached by the learner. The steady state for LI learners is self evidently the adult grammar in the speech community. For L2 learners, however, the steady state is not obvious. Yet, without its clear characterization, debates concerning stages of L2 acquisition and direct and indirect UG (...) accessibility cannot be resolved. (shrink)

In the novel Die Automate (Hoffmann, 1957 ed.), the German writer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776-1822) describes different kinds of musical automatons which play music with expression and musicality. The whole novel is based on the effect of the automatic performances on the feelings of the two personages and on the appearance of musical automatons which simulate, with their musical skill and expressiveness, the structures of the knowledge and feelings of human beings.

I examine the target articles hypothesis in light of pidginization and creolization (P/C) phenomena. L1-to-L2transfer has been argued to be the “central process” in P/C via relexification. This seems incompatible with the view that UC sans Li plays the central role in L2A. I sketch a proposal that reconciles the hypothesis in the target article with, inter alia, the effects of transfer in P/C.

This paper refers to a subjective approach to Ecosystems, referred to as Impure Systems to capture a set of fundamental properties. There are four main phenomenological components: directionality, intensity, connection energy and volume. A fundamental question in this approach to Impure Systems is the intensity or forces of a relation. Concepts as the system volume, and propose a system thermodynamic theory based in the Law of Zipf and the temperature of information are introduced. It hints at the possibility of adapting (...) the fractal theory by introducing the fractal dimension of the system. (shrink)

Epstein et al.'s “full access to Universal Grammar” position is conceptually and empirically problematic. Its shortcomings are illustrated through a brief discussion of the following issues: (1) initial versus final states of grammatical knowledge in a second language, (2) knowledge of gradience of grainmaticality, (3) optionality and retention in non-native grammars, and (4) the empirical measurement of syntactic knowledge.

Although theFull-accesshypothesis accounts for a range of empirical generalizations of L2A, it underrepresents the role of language transfer in the construction of the L2 grammar. We suggest the possibility that linguistic principles which constrain the L2 grammar are available both directly from UG and via the L1, a logical hypothesis which Epstein et al. do not consider.

Natural language involves both speaking and listening. Recent models claim that production and comprehension share aspects of processing and are linked within individuals (Dell & Chang, 2014; MacDonald, 2013; Pickering & Garrod, 2004; 2013a). Evidence for this claim has come from studies of cross-modality structural priming, mainly examining processing in the direction of comprehension to production. The current study replicated these comprehension to production findings and developed a novel cross-modal structural priming paradigm from production to comprehension using a temporally-sensitive online (...) measure of comprehension, Event-Related Potentials. For Comprehension-to-Production priming, participants first listened to active or passive sentences and then described target pictures using either structure. In Production-to-Comprehension priming, participants first described a picture using either structure and then listened to target passive sentences while EEG was recorded. Comprehension-to-Production priming showed the expected passive sentence priming for syntactic choice, but not response time or average syllable duration. In Production-to-Comprehension priming, primed, versus unprimed, passive sentences elicited a reduced N400. These effects support the notion that production and comprehension share aspects of processing and are linked within the individual. Moreover, this paradigm can be used for the exploration priming at different linguistic levels as well as the influence of extra-linguistic factors on natural language use. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is, from a semiotic perspective, arguing for the recognizing of a semantic role of the imagination as a necessary condition to our linguistic experience, regarded as an essential feature of the relations of our thought with the world through signification processes ; processes centered in but not reducible to discourse. The text is divided into three parts. The first part presents the traditional position in philosophy and cognitive sciences that had barred until recent times (...) the possibility to investigate the semantic function performed by imagination, mainly due to the anti-psychologist arguments on which it is based. After that, I situate my perspective inside of the recent research panorama in philosophy and cognitive science. The second part presents the semiotic framework on the relation between thought, language, and world, conceived through the concepts of signification processes and sense-conditions. Within this framework, I introduce the concept of linguistic experience, characterizing semantic imagination as one of its sense-conditions. In the third part, several pieces of evidence for corroborating the semantic function of imagination are discussed. These pieces come from the fields of phenomena denoted as diagrammatic thought and counterfactual thought. Diagrammatic thought, briefly discussed, points out the semantic work of imagination in the semi-discursive sign systems constructed in mathematics, logic, and natural science. After defending a widening of the concept of counterfactual thought, and its intrinsic relation with semantic imagination, the role of semantic imagination is briefly discussed in some types of counterfactual thought found in our conceptions of modal concepts, in thought experiments, in apagogical arguments, and in the creative discursive devices. (shrink)