We report a longitudinal comprehension study of (long) passive constructions in two native-Spanish child groups differing by age of initial exposure to L2 English (young group: 3;0–4;0; older group: 6;0–7;0), where amount of input, L2 exposure environment, and socioeconomic status are controlled. Data from a forced-choice task show that both groups comprehend active sentences, not passives, initially ...

Augment-less NPs in Xhosa and de NPs like <i>de chevaux</i> ‘of horses’ have strikingly similar properties. It seems that the properties of <i>de</i> NPs reflect the absence of the definite article <i>les</i> which combines with <i>de</i> to form the so-called partitive article <i>des chevaux</i> ‘some horses’. Taking the Xhosa augment to be similar (though not identical) to the French definite ...

The existence of negative descriptions denoting events is controversial in the literature, since it implies enriching the semantic ontology with negative events. The goal of this article is to argue that the readings that have been called ‘negative events’—in contrast to sentential negation reading—should be analysed as inhibited eventualities. We will argue that the inhibited eventuality reading ...

The syllabification of word- or morpheme-internal consonants, especially those preceded by short vowels, in Germanic languages has been subject to various analyses and there is generally not much consensus on the analysis of single string-internal consonants in these languages. This paper presents the results of a study based on a word game, carried out with German and Norwegian subjects, ...

The thesis discusses Kate McCafferty’s novel Testimony of an Irish Slave Girl from 2003, in which the Irish heroine is Cot Daley, an indentured servant, who lives in Barbados in the seventeenth century. The thesis focuses upon how the novel negotiates the relationship between the historical contexts and the novel’s plot, theme and norm, and – moreover – how McCafferty’s Testimony negotiates the ...

Abstract Motivated by the fact that the English alternation that/Ø does not yet have a principled account, in spite of more than five decades of research, this thesis will explore the implications of a series of historical linguistic aspects of its development in subordinate structures. Thus, by introducing a new approach to this topic, this study attempts to trace and chart the development of the ...

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, ...