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  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Verissimo, Joao Marques
A1  - Heyer, Vera
A1  - Jacob, Gunnar
A1  - Clahsen, Harald
T1  - Selective effects of age of acquisition on morphological priming
BT  - evidence for a sensitive period
JF  - Language acquisition : a journal of developmental linguistics
N2  - Is there an ideal time window for language acquisition after which nativelike representation and processing are unattainable? Although this question has been heavily debated, no consensus has been reached. Here, we present evidence for a sensitive period in language development and show that it is specific to grammar. We conducted a masked priming task with a group of Turkish-German bilinguals and examined age of acquisition (AoA) effects on the processing of complex words. We compared a subtle but meaningful linguistic contrast, that between grammatical inflection and lexical-based derivation. The results showed a highly selective AoA effect on inflectional (but not derivational) priming. In addition, the effect displayed a discontinuity indicative of a sensitive period: Priming from inflected forms was nativelike when acquisition started before the age of 5 but declined with increasing AoA. We conclude that the acquisition of morphological rules expressing morphosyntactic properties is constrained by maturational factors.
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2017.1346104
SN  - 1048-9223
SN  - 1532-7817
VL  - 25
IS  - 3
SP  - 315
EP  - 326
PB  - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY  - Abingdon
ER  -