TY - GEN A1 - Ruberg, Tobias A1 - Rothweiler, Monika A1 - Veríssimo, João Marques A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Childhood bilingualism and Specific Language Impairment BT - A study of the CP-domain in German SLI T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - This study addresses the question of whether and how growing up with more than one language shapes a child's language impairment. Our focus is on Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in bilingual (Turkish-German) children. We specifically investigated a range of phenomena related to the so-called CP (Complementizer Phrase) in German, the hierarchically highest layer of syntactic clause structure, which has been argued to be particularly affected in children with SLI. Spontaneous speech data were examined from bilingual children with SLI in comparison to two comparison groups: (i) typically-developing bilingual children, (ii) monolingual children with SLI. We found that despite persistent difficulty with subject-verb agreement, the two groups of children with SLI did not show any impairment of the CP-domain. We conclude that while subject-verb agreement is a suitable linguistic marker of SLI in German-speaking children, for both monolingual and bilingual ones, 'vulnerability of the CP-domain' is not. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 870 KW - developmental language impairment KW - specific language impairment KW - child second language acquisition KW - syntax KW - agreement Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-518095 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 3 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ruberg, Tobias A1 - Rothweiler, Monika A1 - Veríssimo, João Marques A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Childhood bilingualism and Specific Language Impairment BT - A study of the CP-domain in German SLI JF - Bilingualism: Language and Cognition N2 - This study addresses the question of whether and how growing up with more than one language shapes a child's language impairment. Our focus is on Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in bilingual (Turkish-German) children. We specifically investigated a range of phenomena related to the so-called CP (Complementizer Phrase) in German, the hierarchically highest layer of syntactic clause structure, which has been argued to be particularly affected in children with SLI. Spontaneous speech data were examined from bilingual children with SLI in comparison to two comparison groups: (i) typically-developing bilingual children, (ii) monolingual children with SLI. We found that despite persistent difficulty with subject-verb agreement, the two groups of children with SLI did not show any impairment of the CP-domain. We conclude that while subject-verb agreement is a suitable linguistic marker of SLI in German-speaking children, for both monolingual and bilingual ones, 'vulnerability of the CP-domain' is not. KW - developmental language impairment KW - specific language impairment KW - child second language acquisition KW - syntax KW - agreement Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728919000580 SN - 1366-7289 SN - 1469-1841 VL - 23 IS - 3 SP - 668 EP - 680 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - Cambridge ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jessen, Anna A1 - Verissimo, João Marques A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Variability and consistency in late bilinguals’ morphology BT - an ERP production study JF - The mental lexicon N2 - 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. KW - event-related potentials (ERP) KW - plurals in compounds KW - morphological constraints KW - harmonic grammars KW - morphological processing Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.18002.jes SN - 1871-1340 SN - 1871-1375 VL - 13 IS - 2 SP - 186 EP - 214 PB - John Benjamins Publishing Co. CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Clahsen, Harald A1 - Jessen, Anna T1 - Do bilingual children lag behind? A study of morphological encoding using ERPs JF - Journal of child language N2 - 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). KW - morphology KW - event-related brain potentials KW - bilingualism Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000919000321 SN - 0305-0009 SN - 1469-7602 VL - 46 IS - 5 SP - 955 EP - 979 PB - Cambridge Univ. Press CY - New York ER - TY - GEN A1 - Clahsen, Harald A1 - Jessen, Anna T1 - Do bilingual children lag behind? BT - A study of morphological encoding using ERPs T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - 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). T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 682 KW - morphology KW - event-related brain potentials KW - bilingualism Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-469727 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 682 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Variability and consistency in first and second language processing BT - A masked morphological priming study on prefixation and suffixation JF - Language Learning N2 - Word forms such as walked or walker are decomposed into their morphological constituents (walk + -ed/-er) during language comprehension. Yet, the efficiency of morphological decomposition seems to vary for different languages and morphological types, as well as for first and second language speakers. The current study reports results from a visual masked priming experiment focusing on different types of derived word forms (specifically prefixed vs. suffixed) in first and second language speakers of German. We compared the present findings with results from previous studies on inflection and compounding and proposed an account of morphological decomposition that captures both the variability and the consistency of morphological decomposition for different morphological types and for first and second language speakers. Open Practices This article has been awarded an Open Materials badge. Study materials are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at . Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: . KW - prefixed words KW - derivation KW - second language processing KW - masked priming KW - morphology Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12370 SN - 0023-8333 SN - 1467-9922 VL - 70 IS - 1 SP - 103 EP - 136 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ciaccio, Laura Anna A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Variability and consistency in first and second language processing BT - A masked morphological priming study on prefixation and suffixation T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Word forms such as walked or walker are decomposed into their morphological constituents (walk + -ed/-er) during language comprehension. Yet, the efficiency of morphological decomposition seems to vary for different languages and morphological types, as well as for first and second language speakers. The current study reports results from a visual masked priming experiment focusing on different types of derived word forms (specifically prefixed vs. suffixed) in first and second language speakers of German. We compared the present findings with results from previous studies on inflection and compounding and proposed an account of morphological decomposition that captures both the variability and the consistency of morphological decomposition for different morphological types and for first and second language speakers. Open Practices This article has been awarded an Open Materials badge. Study materials are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at . Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 869 KW - prefixed words KW - derivation KW - second language processing KW - masked priming KW - morphology Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-517727 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 1 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bosch, Sina A1 - Veríssimo, Joao Marques A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Inflectional morphology in bilingual language processing BT - an age-of-acquisition study T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - This study addresses the question of how age of acquisition (AoA) affects grammatical processing, specifically with respect to inflectional morphology, in bilinguals. We examined experimental data of more than 100 participants from the Russian/German community in Berlin, all of whom acquired Russian from birth and German at different ages. Using the cross-modal lexical priming technique, we investigated stem allomorphs of German verbs that encode multiple morphosyntactic features. The results revealed a striking AoA modulation of observed priming patterns, indicating efficient access to morphosyntactic features for early AoAs and a gradual decline with increasing AoAs. In addition, we found a discontinuity in the function relating AoA to morphosyntactic feature access, suggesting a sensitive period for the development of morphosyntax. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 569 KW - critical-period KW - 2nd-language grammar KW - adjectives KW - lexicon KW - L1 KW - L2 Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-433371 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 569 SP - 339 EP - 360 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bosch, Sina A1 - Verissimo, Joao Marques A1 - Clahsen, Harald T1 - Inflectional morphology in bilingual language processing BT - An age-of-acquisition study JF - Language acquisition : a journal of developmental linguistics N2 - This study addresses the question of how age of acquisition (AoA) affects grammatical processing, specifically with respect to inflectional morphology, in bilinguals. We examined experimental data of more than 100 participants from the Russian/German community in Berlin, all of whom acquired Russian from birth and German at different ages. Using the cross-modal lexical priming technique, we investigated stem allomorphs of German verbs that encode multiple morphosyntactic features. The results revealed a striking AoA modulation of observed priming patterns, indicating efficient access to morphosyntactic features for early AoAs and a gradual decline with increasing AoAs. In addition, we found a discontinuity in the function relating AoA to morphosyntactic feature access, suggesting a sensitive period for the development of morphosyntax. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2019.1570204 SN - 1048-9223 SN - 1532-7817 VL - 26 IS - 3 SP - 339 EP - 360 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER -