This article analyzes Russian aspectual prefixes from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. First, a general schema is advanced that involves a trajector, a landmark, and a relation connecting the two. Second, it is argued that there are con- ditions on the trajector involving an observer and a domain of accessibility and that the trajector of the prefix is not necessarily the same as the trajector ...

This paper investigates spontaneous production from 50 speakers of Norwegian heritage language in the Corpus of American Nordic Speech and studies the interplay between four linguistic properties: possessives and double definiteness, verb second word order, grammatical gender, and the amount of language mixing. It is shown that speakers cluster in the sense that some speakers produce more Norwegian-like ...

To investigate whether similar control processes are used during single and dual language production, we compared register switching (formal and informal speech in the same language) vs. language switching (French and English). The results across two experiments showed a positive correlation of overall register- and language-switch costs and similar formal French switch costs across the two switching ...

This study investigates the acquisition of articles in L2 English by L1 speakers of Dagbani, a Gur language spoken in Ghana. Dagbani differs from English in that it has two definite articles, no indefinite article, and a zero-article which may express definiteness, indefiniteness as well as genericity. The study consisted of a Forced-choice task (FCT) and an Acceptability judgement task (AJT) which ...

Numerous studies have argued that bilingualism has effects on cognitive functions. Recently, in light of increasingly mixed empirical results, this claim has been challenged. One might ponder if there is enough evidence to justify a cessation to future research on the topic or, alternatively, how the field could proceed to better understand the phantom-like appearance of bilingual effects. Herein, ...

Vocabulary learning occurs throughout the lifespan, often implicitly. For foreign language learners, this is particularly challenging as they must acquire a large number of new words with little exposure. In the present study, we explore the effects of contextual diversity—namely, the number of texts a word appears in—on native and foreign language word learning. Participants read several texts that ...

This paper investigates the variation in and development of a set of morphological variables in a register known to be used by Norwegian children when engaging in role play. In this register they code-switch to something resembling the standard or Oslo variety for their in-character role utterances. The variation across variables, subjects, and age is demonstrated and discussed, and although most ...

The study of linguistic transfer—understood here in terms of the copying of previous linguistic representations—seeks to reveal how domain-relevant prior language knowledge impacts the acquisition and development of new mental representations more generally. Studying sequential multilingualism offers a natural laboratory to observe cognitive-economical mechanisms that avoid redundancy in language ...

Code-switching is highly socially constrained. For instance, code-switching is only felicitous when those present are fluent in both languages. This means that bilinguals need to dynamically adjust their language control and expectation of code-switching to the current social situation or context. The aim of the present EEG study was to investigate how and when language control in the comprehension ...

Looking at the way different linguistic communities speak about a universally shared domain of experience raises questions that are central to the language sciences. How can we compare meaning across languages? What is the interaction between language, thought, and perception? Does linguistic diversity entail linguistic relativism? The literature on the naming systems of the body across languages ...