@article{ClahsenJessen2019, author = {Clahsen, Harald and Jessen, Anna}, title = {Do bilingual children lag behind? A study of morphological encoding using ERPs}, series = {Journal of child language}, volume = {46}, journal = {Journal of child language}, number = {5}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {0305-0009}, doi = {10.1017/S0305000919000321}, pages = {955 -- 979}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The current study investigates how bilingual children encode and produce morphologically complex words. We employed a silent-production-plus-delayed-vocalization paradigm in which event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during silent encoding of inflected words which were subsequently cued to be overtly produced. The bilingual children's spoken responses and their ERPs were compared to previous datasets from monolingual children on the same task. We found an enhanced negativity for regular relative to irregular forms during silent production in both bilingual children's languages, replicating the ERP effect previously obtained from monolingual children. Nevertheless, the bilingual children produced more morphological errors (viz. over-regularizations) than monolingual children. We conclude that mechanisms of morphological encoding (as measured by ERPs) are parallel for bilingual and monolingual children, and that the increased over-regularization rates are due to their reduced exposure to each of the two languages (relative to monolingual children).}, language = {en} } @misc{ClahsenJessen2019, author = {Clahsen, Harald and Jessen, Anna}, title = {Do bilingual children lag behind?}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {682}, issn = {1866-8364}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-46972}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-469727}, pages = {27}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The current study investigates how bilingual children encode and produce morphologically complex words. We employed a silent-production-plus-delayed-vocalization paradigm in which event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during silent encoding of inflected words which were subsequently cued to be overtly produced. The bilingual children's spoken responses and their ERPs were compared to previous datasets from monolingual children on the same task. We found an enhanced negativity for regular relative to irregular forms during silent production in both bilingual children's languages, replicating the ERP effect previously obtained from monolingual children. Nevertheless, the bilingual children produced more morphological errors (viz. over-regularizations) than monolingual children. We conclude that mechanisms of morphological encoding (as measured by ERPs) are parallel for bilingual and monolingual children, and that the increased over-regularization rates are due to their reduced exposure to each of the two languages (relative to monolingual children).}, language = {en} } @article{JessenVerissimoClahsen2019, author = {Jessen, Anna and Verissimo, Jo{\~a}o Marques and Clahsen, Harald}, title = {Variability and consistency in late bilinguals' morphology}, series = {The mental lexicon}, volume = {13}, journal = {The mental lexicon}, number = {2}, publisher = {John Benjamins Publishing Co.}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1871-1340}, doi = {10.1075/ml.18002.jes}, pages = {186 -- 214}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Speaking a late-learned second language (L2) is supposed to yield more variable and less consistent output than speaking one's first language (L1), particularly with respect to reliably adhering to grammatical morphology. The current study investigates both internal processes involved in encoding morphologically complex words - by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during participants' silent productions - and the corresponding overt output. We specifically examined compounds with plural or singular modifiers in English. Thirty-one advanced L2 speakers of English (L1: German) were compared to a control group of 20 L1 English speakers from an earlier study. We found an enhanced (right-frontal) negativity during (silent) morphological encoding for compounds produced from regular plural forms relative to compounds formed from irregular plurals, replicating the ERP effect obtained for the L1 group. The L2 speakers' overt productions, however, were significantly less consistent than those of the L1 speakers on the same task. We suggest that L2 speakers employ the same mechanisms for morphological encoding as L1 speakers, but with less reliance on grammatical constraints than L1 speakers.}, language = {en} }