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This paper addresses the grammatical challenges associated with the development of clause complexity, focusing on the performance of a group of monolingual Spanish-speaking schoolchildren with Specific Language Impairment/Developmental Language Disorder (SLI/DLD) in a longitudinal corpus of oral narrative samples. The study examines the presence of interclause relations of subordination and equivalence (hypotaxis and parataxis) in language samples of two groups: an experimental group made up of 24 schoolchildren with SLI/DLD and a control group made up of 24 schoolchildren with typical development (TD). The results show that while both groups use parataxis as the most common relation between clauses in all school grades, there is a significant decrease in paratactic relations and a significant increase in hypotactic relations from first to fourth grade of primary education. Although the development patterns are highly similar, the SLI/DLD group shows greater difficulties in mastering more complex (hypotactic) relations in fourth grade compared to the control group, indicating that it is less sophisticated in the use of these types of complex relations. These findings suggest that focused support on the most complex structures is needed towards the fourth grade of primary education, given the demands of the school academic register from 6 and 7 years of age and the potential problems that the development of clause complexity can cause in school-age children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Foreign Languages / Revista Internacional de Lenguas Extranjeras is the property of Universitat Rovira I Virgili and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This document provides an introduction to new approaches in Spanish dialectal grammar. It discusses linguistic variation and how it is accounted for in different frameworks, as well as the different varieties of the Spanish language based on acquisition and contact with other languages. The concept of vernacular universals is introduced, which are common features found in vernacular varieties of languages. The document also examines dialectal variation in Spanish and highlights specific linguistic features that are diagnostic of different types. It discusses the concept of late insertion in syntactic models, specifically the Distributed Morphology model, which explains how syntax builds structures by combining abstract features and then interpreting and pronouncing them. The importance of studying dialectal grammar and variation in language is emphasized, and a special issue is presented that explores various dialectal grammatical phenomena in Spanish. The contributions in the special issue cover topics such as pronoun distribution, morphological and syntactical phenomena, emphatic use of adjectives, variation in discursive structures, and syntactic constructions with verbs. The document concludes by emphasizing the need to include vernacular usages in grammatical analysis and understanding. [Extracted from the article]

The aims of this paper are twofold. First, following Halliday's 1998 paper 'On the grammar of pain', this study maps the lexicogrammatical resources available to Spanish speakers in the register of hard news to construe death and killing. Based primarily on a 250,000+ corpus of news reports of violent actions by illegal armed groups in the internal conflict from four major Colombian newspapers, it distinguishes between congruent and metaphorical construals of death, accounting for the different roles of the participants involved in these different types of constructions. In addition, it offers a topological perspective of the intersection of the more delicate distinction of process types and the system of Agency. The second objective is to apply these findings to contrast the construal of violence by the actors in the conflict, Marxist guerrillas and right wing paramilitaries. The results of the analysis show how the deployment of lexicogrammatical resources construes different semiotic spaces, highlighting the role of one group while diminishing the responsibility of the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics is the property of Universidade de Vigo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this article is to focus on the arrangement of words in phrase, clause and sentence structures in English discourse and its importance in achieving successful communication, for example, when doing inverse translation. Positioning syntax is considered as a contributing factor in the construction of expression of meaning in coherent and unified pieces of translated discourse. After several years of teaching inverse translation (Spanish-English) to proficient English L2 students, I have observed that for them mastering word order in Spanish L1-English L2 translated texts is extremely challenging and more complex than is often presumed; bringing awareness of this into the classroom is worthwhile. One of the main obstacles students must overcome when producing discourse in English is that of L1 interference; misapplication of the descriptive rules of word order in their own, or any other, language, will lead to stumbling blocks in the process of communication. By providing carefully selected samples of language for analysis, together with clear explanations, this article attempts to offer a practical approach to dealing with this aspect of grammar. For the purposes of illustration, Spanish, the source language in the examples included in the study, has been used for comparative reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics is the property of Nordic Council for Reindeer Husbandry Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

At the end of the three centuries of Spanish presence in the archipelago, Spanish missionaries had written at least 120 grammars of the native languages spoken in the Philippines. With the wide linguistic diversity they found and the need to transmit the faith in all its purity, the missionary grammarians began analyzing the languages and wrote pedagogical grammars for their confreres to learn them. Initially, only the major languages were studied and learned, using Spanish and Latin models, but eventually minor languages were also added. This study examines eleven representative grammars to determine their general characteristics and, in the process, bring to light some of their authors' contributions to the history of grammar writing and linguistics in the Philippines. A significant finding is that the linguistic pursuits undertaken in describing the languages and preparing their grammars throughout the entire Spanish colonial period, while being in synch and continuous with the development of modern linguistics in the 17th to the 19th centuries, advanced the scientific study of languages in the country as well as grammar writing involving the native languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used event-related potentials to investigate morphosyntactic development in 78 adult English-speaking learners of Spanish as a second language (L2) across the proficiency spectrum. We examined how development is modulated by the similarity between the native language (L1) and the L2, by comparing number (a feature present in English) and gender agreement (novel feature). We also investigated how development is impacted by structural distance, manipulating the distance between the agreeing elements by probing both within-phrase ( muy “fruit-FEM-SG very juicy-FEM-SG”) and across-phrase agreement ( es “strawberry-FEM-SG is tart-FEM-SG”). Regression analyses revealed that the learners’ overall proficiency, as measured by a standardized test, predicted their accuracy with the target properties in the grammaticality judgment task (GJT), but did not predict P600 magnitude to the violations. However, a relationship emerged between immersion in Spanish-speaking countries and P600 magnitude for gender. Our results also revealed a correlation between accuracy in the GJT and P600 magnitude, suggesting that behavioral sensitivity to the target property predicts neurophysiological sensitivity. Subsequent group analyses revealed that the highest-proficiency learners showed equally robust P600 effects for number and gender. This group also elicited more positive waveforms for within- than across-phrase agreement overall, similar to the native controls. The lowest-proficiency learners showed a P600 for number overall, but no effects for gender. Unlike the highest-proficiency learners, they also showed no sensitivity to structural distance, suggesting that sensitivity to such linguistic factors develops over time. Overall, these results suggest an important role for proficiency in morphosyntactic development, although differences emerged between behavioral and electrophysiological measures. While L2 proficiency predicted behavioral sensitivity to agreement, development with respect to the neurocognitive mechanisms recruited in processing only emerged when comparing the two extremes of the proficiency spectrum. Importantly, while both L1-L2 similarity and hierarchical structure impact development, they do not constrain it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]