Recent research suggests that bilinguals flexibly adjust distinct types of cognitive control mechanisms to meet the linguistic demands of their language use and exposure contexts. The present study compared two groups of young, Mexican-born, sequential Spanish L1–English L2 bilinguals who reported either separate or integrated use of both languages. Results showed that greater linguistic diversity across social spheres predicted different patterns of engagement in proactive and reactive control for each group. Among separate-context bilinguals, higher linguistic diversity was associated with faster reaction times in both proactive and reactive control, as well as in overall processing speed. Notably, for integrated-context bilinguals, higher linguistic diversity predicted slower responses in proactive control and processing speed. Additionally, a significant relationship emerged between L2 proficiency and accuracy on proactive control trials for separate-context bilinguals. These findings support perspectives emphasizing the interplay between proactive and reactive control as an outcome of bilinguals’ adaptation to contextual linguistic demands. An important implication is that bilingual groups who share the same language pair and are immersed in their L1 environment may nonetheless differ in cognitive performance, with such differences becoming evident when assessed through fine-grained, nonlinguistic cognitive measures.

Noun bias is the tendency to acquire nouns earlier than other syntactic categories. Whether it is universal or language and culture dependent is debated. We investigated noun bias in the receptive lexicon of Palestinian-Arabic-learning infants and examined whether maternal input and cultural values are related to lexicon composition beyond the language’s structural properties. Thirty-one infants (16–24 months) completed a Computerized Comprehension Task in Palestinian Arabic, and mothers described picture narratives to their children, and completed demographic and cultural values questionnaires. Results showed a noun bias in infants’ receptive lexicon. While no significant correlation was found between maternal noun usage and infants’ noun bias, higher verb usage significantly correlated with reduced noun bias. Neither maternal education nor cultural values significantly predicted maternal input composition. These findings suggest that while noun bias exists in Palestinian Arabic, exposure to verbs may moderate it, highlighting the complex interplay between language structure, input, and early lexical development.

In Paraguayan Guaraní (PG), nasalisation processes affect material to both the left and right of a stressed nasal vowel. While some prior literature has claimed that bidirectional harmony is active in the language, others have noted that progressive nasalisation appears to be morpheme-specific and likely dependent on a different mechanism from regressive nasal harmony. Recent work shows that Spanish-origin lexical items participate in regressive nasal harmony, but the interactions of etymological origin and progressive nasalisation remain unclear. Drawing on a corpus of 26 sociolinguistic interviews as well as elicitation with native speakers of PG, I argue that the mechanisms underlying the two types of nasalisation in the language are in fact different. I propose that PG regressive nasalisation is best analysed as productive nasal harmony, while progressive nasalisation represents a case of morpheme-specific allomorphy. Additionally, though the PG pattern of regressive nasal harmony has been extended to items of Spanish origin, this is not the case for progressive nasalisation. This corpus study provides insight into the specific factors that condition variation in nasalisation processes, contributing to a growing literature investigating variable application of harmony.

While previous studies highlight the role that children’s interest in natural categories predicts their learning of new label-object associations in these categories, the long-term implications of such a relationship – the extent to which children’s interest shapes lexical development – remain unclear. The current study examines whether children’s interests in different natural object categories predict their subsequent interest and the number of words children know in those categories 6 months later. Using data from 67 children tested at 18 and 24 months of age, we found that parents’ estimates of interest in natural object categories at 18 months predicted their reports of their child’s interests at 24 months. Parent interest reports at 18 months also predicted the number of words that children are reported to know in that category at 24 months. Taken together, this study documents the longitudinal relationship between children’s interests, parents’ awareness of their children’s interests, and later vocabulary development.

This article explores the variation surrounding the semi-modals be going to and gonna. While gonna is frequently mentioned alongside be going to, it remains under-described in traditional grammars and academic literature. However, recent studies within Construction Grammar suggest that gonna may represent an independent construction, prompting a reconsideration of other variants within the be going to / gonna paradigm such as gon and imma, which appear to derive directly from gonna and no longer from be going to. In light of recent work, what have traditionally been regarded as mere ‘phonetic realizations’ or ‘orthographic variants’ may in fact play a more significant role in the formation and definition of constructions, raising questions about the structure of constructional networks. This article analyzes the immediate syntactic environment of the variants to account for both the variation of forms and the status of such forms. The study is conducted using two corpora that are particularly prone to showing linguistic innovations and language change: a spontaneous spoken corpus and a web corpus. Findings indicate that shorter variants often involve elision of be and that gonna is more grammaticalized than going to, based on the types of verbs they precede.

This article re-examines the literature on the evidential uses of French tenses, and evaluates what distinguishes French from languages that are said to possess fully grammaticalized evidential systems. Based on corpus analyses, semantic testing, and crosslinguistic comparisons, this study argues that the French passé composé and imparfait do not carry any inherent evidential meaning, unlike the futur and conditionnel. The evidential interpretations of the former two tenses are simply conveyed by the context, while those of the latter two are indeed due to their intrinsic semantic make-up. We conclude that although French encodes evidentiality with verbal inflections only infrequently, it is no different from languages usually cited to illustrate advanced evidential paradigms from a formal and semantic standpoint.

Lorsque des locuteurs produisent des néologismes à l’écrit, ils peuvent utiliser des marqueurs typographiques ou linguistiques pour mettre en saillance ces derniers. Cette étude, centrée sur des néologismes dénominaux suffixés en -ien, -ique et -esque, combine une analyse de corpus et une étude expérimentale de type questionnaire en ligne afin d’examiner, d’une part, le type et la proportion de ces marqueurs et, d’autre part, leur influence sur les jugements de néologicité. En production, les locuteurs marquent environ 23 % des néologismes, principalement avec des guillemets, puis avec des motifs syntaxiques et enfin avec des commentaires. En réception, la présence de ces marqueurs (guillemets et commentaires) augmente les taux de détection des néologismes. L’identification des néologismes est influencée par le cotexte. De plus, d’autres éléments semblent expliquer les variations des jugements de néologicité, tels que le suffixe du néologisme lorsque ce dernier est morphologiquement dérivé, et l’âge des locuteurs.

This study investigates second language (L2) phonetic categorization and phonological encoding of L2 words (hereafter, phonolexical encoding1) with phonemic and allophonic cross-linguistic mismatches. We focus on the acquisition of Spanish /ɾ/-/l/ and /ɾ/-/t/ contrasts among Spanish learners with American English (AE) and Mandarin Chinese (hereafter, Chinese) as first languages (L1s). [ɾ] and [t] are positional allophones in AE but separate phonemes in Spanish. The phoneme /ɾ/ is absent in Chinese. AE learners showed nativelike phonetic categorization and little between-contrast difference in phonolexical encoding, suggesting that L1 positional allophony does not necessarily impede L2 contrast acquisition. Chinese learners showed persistent perceptual difficulties with both contrasts due to perceptual similarity. Phonetic categorization significantly predicted phonolexical encoding for /ɾ/-/t/ contrasts for Chinese learners bidirectionally, while AE learners showed this relationship only when /t/ was incorrectly replaced by /ɾ/ in Spanish words. This asymmetry can be driven by the fact that [t] is the dominant allophone of /t/ in AE, while [ɾ] is a positional allophone. It suggests L1 allophonic knowledge heightens perceptual monitoring when evaluating substitutions that conflict with L1 phonological expectations. This study calls for more nuanced treatment of L1 influence in L2 phonological acquisition models, especially at the allophonic level.

Approximately half of the world’s population is multilingual, and many read in a second language. Thus, an open question is whether and how people’s multilingual knowledge impacts their second language reading processes. To this end, we investigated whether competing influences from people’s first language (L1) writing system (i.e., alphabetic, logographic, or alphasyllabic) impact second language (L2) reading of English (alphabetic). Based on models of L1 and L2 reading, we hypothesized that matches/mismatches in people’s L1 and L2 writing scripts would modulate the expected relationship between L2-English reading proficiency and how often people use their L2 in daily life. Using a subsample of 1073 adults from Siegelman et al. (2023), we found that readers with mismatching L1 writing scripts varied on both English Single Word Accuracy and Speed Measures, and English Extended Word Measures, over and above the expected effects of L2 reading usage. L1-alphabetic and alphasyllabic readers were faster and more accurate than L1-logographic speakers on Single Word Speed and Accuracy Measures. L1-logographic readers were also faster but lower in accuracy on Extended Word Measures vs. L1-alphabetic and alphasyllabic readers. These findings indicate that multilingual knowledge and experience mutually constrain L2 reading and suggest future avenues of theoretical and empirical inquiry.

Previous studies revealed structural differences in cerebellar regions between monolinguals and bilinguals. However, the effect of bilingual experiences on cerebellar functional neuroplasticity remains unclear. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, we compared cerebellar functional connectivity (FC) between monolinguals and bilinguals, and then examined how age of second language acquisition (AoA-L2), immersion of L2 (Immersion-L2), proficiency level of L2 (PL-L2) and usage of L2 (Usage-L2) influence cerebellar FC in bilinguals. We found monolinguals exhibited increased FC between lobules VI, VIIIa and superior temporal gyrus. Increased AoA-L2 was related to decreased cerebello-cortical FC involving lobules VI, CrusI and precentral gyrus. Increased Immersion-L2 was associated with decreased cerebello-orbitofrontal FC. Higher PL-L2 corresponded to stronger cerebellar FC with posterior cingulate gyrus. Bilinguals who used L2 more frequently at home exhibited decreased cerebellar FC, while increased social Usage-L2 was associated with increased FC. These findings highlight bilingualism’s impact on cerebellar functional neuroplasticity, shaped by different bilingual experiences.

The present study investigates whether L1 Spanish-L2 English instructed and immersed adult sequential bilinguals show L1 attrition effects in the oral production of subject referring expressions in topic continuity. We tested the predictions from the Pragmatic Principles Violation Hypothesis and controlled for two factors that modulate rates of overproduction, namely antecedent distance and the number of potential antecedents. The results from two oral retelling tasks showed that instructed and immersed bilinguals significantly employ more overt material where functional monolinguals resort to the use of null pronouns. Moreover, factors such as antecedent distance and the number of potential antecedents arguably influence the production of the bilingual groups more strongly. Overall, L1 attrition effects are observed in both L2-immersed and L2-instructed bilinguals. However, attrition effects appear to be milder in instructed bilinguals, who sometimes pattern with functional monolinguals. These results call for new avenues within L1 attrition.

Sound symbolism refers to a non-arbitrary relationship between speech and non-speech sounds and their meaning. We investigated whether bilingual individuals, due to their exposure to diverse linguistic systems, exhibit an advantage in this domain compared to monolinguals, or whether this ability relies on universal mechanisms independent of linguistic background. Ninety-four bilingual (spoken languages: Italian and at least another language; age ranging from 22 to 66 years, M = 35.31, SE = 1.26) and 101 monolingual participants (all Italian speakers; age ranging from 22 to 64 years, M = 36.05, SE = 1.16) were presented with 120 words from four unknown languages and asked to infer their meaning from three alternatives. Results confirmed the presence of sound symbolism, as overall performance was significantly higher than chance, but no significant differences emerged between monolinguals and bilinguals, suggesting that sound symbolism is an automatic cognitive mechanism, independent of prior linguistic experience.

This article theorizes the concept ‘ethnolinguistic infusion’ as a language socialization and language management practice. Infusion involves community members incorporating fragments of their group language, in which most members have little or no competence, in the context of a different dominant language, with the potential effect of fostering ideological links among the individual, group, and language. I explain the metaphor, enumerate several characteristics, and offer a categorization of different types of infusion. I contextualize ethnolinguistic infusion among related constructs in language contact, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, including translanguaging, postvernacularity, and metalinguistic communities, I explain its relationship to ethnolinguistic repertoire, and I distinguish it from out-group-initiated phenomena like crossing and mock language. I demonstrate how ethnolinguistic infusion plays out in my research on American Jewish summer camps. I offer empirical questions for future research, and I conclude by arguing for the utility of ethnolinguistic infusion, both for academic analysis and for language activism. (Language and ethnicity, heritage language, symbolic language, emblematic language, language and group identity, Hebrew, infusion, loanwords, language contact, translanguaging, metalinguistic community, postvernacularity, endangered languages, language reclamation, language revitalization)