@article{HaendlerKlieglAdani2015, author = {Haendler, Yair and Kliegl, Reinhold and Adani, Flavia}, title = {Discourse accessibility constraints in children's processing of object relative clauses}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {6}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00360}, pages = {17}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Children's poor performance on object relative clauses has been explained in terms of intervention locality. This approach predicts that object relatives with a full DP head and an embedded pronominal subject are easier than object relatives in which both the head noun and the embedded subject are full DPs. This prediction is shared by other accounts formulated to explain processing mechanisms. We conducted a visual-world study designed to test the off-line comprehension and on-line processing of object relatives in German-speaking 5-year-olds. Children were tested on three types of object relatives, all having a full DP head noun and differing with respect to the type of nominal phrase that appeared in the embedded subject position: another full DP, a 1st- or a 3rd-person pronoun. Grammatical skills and memory capacity were also assessed in order to see whether and how they affect children's performance. Most accurately processed were object relatives with 1st-person pronoun, independently of children's language and memory skills. Performance on object relatives with two full DPs was overall more accurate than on object relatives with 3rd-person pronoun. In the former condition, children with stronger grammatical skills accurately processed the structure and their memory abilities determined how fast they were; in the latter condition, children only processed accurately the structure if they were strong both in their grammatical skills and in their memory capacity. The results are discussed in the light of accounts that predict different pronoun effects like the ones we find, which depend on the referential properties of the pronouns. We then discuss which role language and memory abilities might have in processing object relatives with various embedded nominal phrases.}, language = {en} } @article{HaendlerKlieglAdani2015, author = {Haendler, Yair and Kliegl, Reinhold and Adani, Flavia}, title = {Discourse accessibility constraints in children´s processing of object relative clauses}, series = {Frontiers in psychology}, volume = {6}, journal = {Frontiers in psychology}, number = {860}, publisher = {Frontiers Research Foundation}, address = {Lausanne}, issn = {1664-1078}, doi = {10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00860}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Children's poor performance on object relative clauses has been explained in terms of intervention locality. This approach predicts that object relatives with a full DP head and an embedded pronominal subject are easier than object relatives in which both the head noun and the embedded subject are full DPs. This prediction is shared by other accounts formulated to explain processing mechanisms. We conducted a visual-world study designed to test the off-line comprehension and on-line processing of object relatives in German-speaking 5-year-olds. Children were tested on three types of object relatives, all having a full DP head noun and differing with respect to the type of nominal phrase that appeared in the embedded subject position: another full DP, a 1st- or a 3rd-person pronoun. Grammatical skills and memory capacity were also assessed in order to see whether and how they affect children's performance. Most accurately processed were object relatives with 1st-person pronoun, independently of children's language and memory skills. Performance on object relatives with two full DPs was overall more accurate than on object relatives with 3rd-person pronoun. In the former condition, children with stronger grammatical skills accurately processed the structure and their memory abilities determined how fast they were; in the latter condition, children only processed accurately the structure if they were strong both in their grammatical skills and in their memory capacity. The results are discussed in the light of accounts that predict different pronoun effects like the ones we find, which depend on the referential properties of the pronouns. We then discuss which role language and memory abilities might have in processing object relatives with various embedded nominal phrases.}, language = {en} } @article{SkerraAdaniGagarina2013, author = {Skerra, Antje and Adani, Flavia and Gagarina, Natalʹja Vladimirovna}, title = {Diskurskoh{\"a}sive Mittel in Erz{\"a}hlungen als diagnostischer Marker f{\"u}r Sprachentwicklungsst{\"o}rungen}, series = {Spektrum Patholinguistik}, journal = {Spektrum Patholinguistik}, number = {6}, editor = {Fritzsche, Tom and Meyer, Corinna B. and Adelt, Anne and Roß, Jennifer}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, issn = {1866-9085}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-68515}, pages = {127 -- 158}, year = {2013}, abstract = {1 Einleitung 2 Geschichten - eine linguistische Betrachtung 3 Aktuelle Studie und Stand der Forschung 4 Diskussion 5 Literatur}, language = {de} } @article{AdaniStegenwallnerSchuetzHaendleretal.2016, author = {Adani, Flavia and Stegenwallner-Sch{\"u}tz, Maja Henny Katherine and H{\"a}ndler, Yair and Zukowski, Andrea}, title = {Elicited production of relative clauses in German: Evidence from typically developing children and children with specific language impairment}, series = {First language}, volume = {36}, journal = {First language}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {London}, issn = {0142-7237}, doi = {10.1177/0142723716648842}, pages = {203 -- 227}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We elicited the production of various types of relative clauses in a group of German-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI) and typically developing controls in order to test the movement optionality account of grammatical difficulty in SLI. The results show that German-speaking children with SLI are impaired in relative clause production compared to typically developing children. The alternative structures that they produce consist of simple main clauses, as well as nominal and prepositional phrases produced in isolation, sometimes contextually appropriate, and sometimes not. Crucially for evaluating the movement optionality account, children with SLI produce very few instances of embedded clauses where the relative clause head noun is pronounced in situ; in fact, such responses are more common among the typically developing child controls. These results underscore the difficulty German-speaking children with SLI have with structures involving movement, but provide no specific support for the movement optionality account.}, language = {en} } @article{AdeltStadieLassottaetal.2017, author = {Adelt, Anne and Stadie, Nicole and Lassotta, Romy and Adani, Flavia and Burchert, Frank}, title = {Feature dissimilarities in the processing of German relative clauses in aphasia}, series = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience}, volume = {44}, journal = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0911-6044}, doi = {10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.01.002}, pages = {17 -- 37}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The cross-linguistic finding of greater demands in processing object relatives as compared to subject relatives in individuals with aphasia and non-brain-damaged speakers has been explained within the Relativized Minimality approach. Based on this account, the asymmetry is attributed to an element intervening between the moved element and its extraction site in object relatives, but not in subject relatives. Moreover, it has been proposed that processing of object relatives is facilitated if the intervening and the moved elements differ in their internal feature structure. The present study investigates these predictions in German-speaking individuals with aphasia and a group of control participants by combining the visual world eye-tracking methodology with an auditory referent identification task. Our results provide support for the Relativized Minimality approach. Particularly, the degree of featural distinctness was shown to modulate the occurrence of the effects in aphasia. We claim that, due to reduced processing capacities, individuals with aphasia need a higher degree of featural dissimilarity to distinguish the moved from the intervening element in object relatives to overcome their syntactic deficit. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{AdanivanderLelyForgiarinietal.2010, author = {Adani, Flavia and van der Lely, Heather K. J. and Forgiarini, Matteo and Guasti, Maria Teresa}, title = {Grammatical feature dissimilarities make relative clauses easier : a comprehension study with Italian children}, issn = {0024-3841}, doi = {10.1016/j.lingua.2010.03.018}, year = {2010}, abstract = {The Relativized Minimality approach to A'-dependencies (Friedmann et al., 2009) predicts that headed object relative clauses (RCs) and which questions are the most difficult, due to the presence of a lexical restriction on both the subject and the object DP which creates intervention. We investigated comprehension of center-embedded headed object RCs with Italian children, where Number and Gender feature values on subject and object DPs are manipulated. We found that. Number conditions are always more accurate than Gender ones, showing that intervention is sensitive to DP-internal structure. We propose a finer definition of the lexical restriction where external and syntactically active features (such as Number) reduce intervention whereas internal and (possibly) lexicalized features (such as Gender) do so to a lesser extent. Our results are also compatible with a memory interference approach in which the human parser is sensitive to highly specific properties of the linguistic input, such as the cue-based model (Van Dyke, 2007).}, language = {en} } @article{AdaniForgiariniGuastietal.2014, author = {Adani, Flavia and Forgiarini, Matteo and Guasti, Maria Teresa and Van der Lely, Heather K. J.}, title = {Number dissimilarities facilitate the comprehension of relative clauses in children with (Grammatical) Specific Language Impairment}, series = {Journal of child language}, volume = {41}, journal = {Journal of child language}, number = {4}, publisher = {Cambridge Univ. Press}, address = {New York}, issn = {0305-0009}, doi = {10.1017/S0305000913000184}, pages = {811 -- 841}, year = {2014}, abstract = {This study investigates whether number dissimilarities on subject and object DPs facilitate the comprehension of subject-and object-extracted centre-embedded relative clauses in children with Grammatical Specific Language Impairment (G-SLI). We compared the performance of a group of English-speaking children with G-SLI (mean age: 12; 11) with that of two groups of younger typically developing (TD) children, matched on grammar and receptive vocabulary, respectively. All groups were more accurate on subject-extracted relative clauses than object-extracted ones and, crucially, they all showed greater accuracy for sentences with dissimilar number features (i.e., one singular, one plural) on the head noun and the embedded DP. These findings are interpreted in the light of current psycholinguistic models of sentence comprehension in TD children and provide further insight into the linguistic nature of G-SLI.}, language = {en} } @article{StegenwallnerSchuetzAdani2021, author = {Stegenwallner-Sch{\"u}tz, Maja and Adani, Flavia}, title = {Number dissimilarity effects in object-initial sentence comprehension by German-speaking children with specific language impairment}, series = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR / American Speech Language Hearing Association}, volume = {64}, journal = {Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR / American Speech Language Hearing Association}, number = {3}, publisher = {American Speech-Language-Hearing Assoc.}, address = {Rockville}, issn = {1092-4388}, doi = {10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00305}, pages = {870 -- 888}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Purpose: This study examines the contribution of number morphology to language comprehension abilities among children with specific language impairment (SLI) and age-matched controls. It addresses the question of whether number agreement facilitates the comprehension accuracy of object-initial declarative sentences. According to the predictions of the structural intervention account for German, number agreement should assist the correct interpretation of object-initial sentences. Method: This study examines German-speaking children with SLI and a control group of age-matched typically developing children on their sentence comprehension skills for auditory presented subject-verb-object and object-verb-subject (OVS) sentences. The sentences were manipulated with respect to the number properties of the noun phrases (e.g., one plural and one singular, or both singular) and the number agreement of the verb. Results: The group of children with SLI demonstrated poorer comprehension accuracy in comparison to controls. Comprehension difficulty was limited to OVS sentences among children with SLI. In addition, children with SLI comprehended OVS sentences in which number agreement (with plural subject and verb inflection) indicated the noncanonical word order more accurately than OVS sentences with two singular noun phrases and therein did not differ from controls. Conclusion: The study suggests that number agreement helps alleviate the difficulty with OVS sentences and enhances comprehension accuracy, despite the finding that children with SLI exhibit lower comprehension accuracy and more heterogeneous interindividual differences, relative to controls.}, language = {en} } @article{StegenwallnerSchuetzLassottaFerchlandetal.2016, author = {Stegenwallner-Sch{\"u}tz, Maja Henny Katherine and Lassotta, Romy and Ferchland, Lisa and Adani, Flavia}, title = {Numerus erleichtert das Verst{\"a}ndnis nicht-kanonischer S{\"a}tze}, series = {Spektrum Patholinguistik Band 9. Schwerpunktthema: Lauter Laute: Phonologische Verarbeitung und Lautwahrnehmung in der Sprachtherapie}, journal = {Spektrum Patholinguistik Band 9. Schwerpunktthema: Lauter Laute: Phonologische Verarbeitung und Lautwahrnehmung in der Sprachtherapie}, number = {9}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, issn = {1866-9085}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-99075}, pages = {187 -- 194}, year = {2016}, abstract = {1. Einleitung und Fragestellungen, 2. Experimentelle Studien, 3. Diskussion, 4. Literatur}, language = {de} } @article{StegenwallnerSchuetzAdani2020, author = {Stegenwallner-Sch{\"u}tz, Maja and Adani, Flavia}, title = {Production of referring expressions by children with ASD}, series = {Language acquisition : a journal of developmental linguistics}, volume = {27}, journal = {Language acquisition : a journal of developmental linguistics}, number = {3}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1048-9223}, doi = {10.1080/10489223.2020.1769625}, pages = {276 -- 305}, year = {2020}, abstract = {This study examines the discourse basis for referent accessibility and its relation to the choice of referring expressions by children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and typically developing children. The aim is to delineate how the linguistic and extra-linguistic context affects referent accessibility to the speaker. The study also examines the degree to which accessibility effects are modulated by cognitive factors such as working memory capacity. In the study, the contrast levels between the referent and a competitor (one contrast/two contrasts) and the syntactic prominence of the referent (subject/object position in the preceding question) were manipulated in an elicited production task. The results provide evidence that the referring expressions of children with ASD correlate with the discourse status of referents to a similar extent as in typically developing controls. All children were more likely to refer with lexical NPs to referents that contrasted on two levels with a highly prominent competitor, compared to referents that contrasted on one level. They were also more likely to produce pronouns for referents previously mentioned in the subject than the object position. The effect of both discourse factors was modulated by the age and working memory capacity of the children with and without ASD. Accordingly, the study suggests that children with ASD do not generally differ from children with typical development in their referential choices when the discourse status of a referent allows them to model the referent's accessibility from their own discourse perspective in a way that is modulated by working memory capacity.}, language = {en} }