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Two experiments and a corpus study tested whether Brazilian Portuguese (BP), which has been argued to be shifting from null subjects toward overt subjects indeed shows a comprehension preference for reduced over fuller anaphors for salient antecedents, and whether comprehension is better explained as an imbalance between processing cost and discourse function (pragmatics account), or simply the frequency of different constructions (usage-based account). Sentences with overt pronouns were read slower (Experiment 1) but rated more acceptable (Experiment 2) than sentences with null pronouns when the antecedents were salient. Sentences with repeated names showed weaker effects than overt pronouns. The corpus analysis confirmed that BP is changing, but that null subjects are not yet infrequent, especially in academic writings. We argue that these results reflect a “pronoun avoidance strategy” in BP related to its transitory state, and propose a new view that integrates elements from both the pragmatics and usage-based accounts.

This research was funded by European Cooperation in Science and Technology Action A33 “Cross-Linguistically Robust Stages of Children’s Linguistic Performance.” In addition, N.K., C.C., and I.N. were supported by the European Science Foundation Euro-XPrag Network; N.K., C.C., and N.S. were supported by the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council XPrag-UK Network; N.K. was supported by United Kingdom British Academy Grant SG090676; A.G. was supported by Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Project FFI2014-56968-C4-1; A.G. and K.K.G. were supported by University of Cyprus Project 8037-61017; K.J.d.L. and L.S. were supported by Danish Council for Independent Research (Humanities) Grant 09-063957; M. Vija and S.Z. were supported by Estonian Science Foundation Grant ETF7492 and Estonian Research Council Grant SF0180056s08; K.Y. and U.S. were supported by European Commission for Education and Culture Grant 135295-LLP-2007-UK-KA1SCR and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research Grant 01UG0711; A.A. and J.v.K.T. were supported by a grant from the L. Meltzers Høyskolefond; E.H. and A.M. were supported by Grant 809/N-COST/2010/0 from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and National Science Centre; and D.A., M.S., and S.J. were supported by Grant ON179033 (2011-2014) from the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Development., Learners of most languages are faced with the task of acquiring words to talk about number and quantity. Much is known about the order of acquisition of number words as well as the cognitive and perceptual systems and cultural practices that shape it. Substantially less is known about the acquisition of quantifiers. Here we consider the extent to which systems and practices that support number word acquisition can be applied to quantifier acquisition and conclude that the two domains are largely distinct in this respect. Consequently, we hypothesize that the acquisition of quantifiers is constrained by a set of factors related to each quantifier’s specific meaning. We investigate competence with the expressions for ‘all’, ‘none’, ‘some’, ‘some ... not’ and ‘most’ in 31 languages, representing 11 language types, by testing 768 5-year-old children and 536 adults. We found a cross-linguistically similar order of acquisition of quantifiers, explicable in terms of four factors relating to their meaning and use. In addition, exploratory analyses reveal that language- and learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation., peer-reviewed

This study presents a web-based sentence comprehension test aimed at identifying high school students who are at risk for a language delay. By assessing linguistic skills on a sample of high school students with Italian as an L2 and their monolingual peers, attending a vocational school, we were able to identify a subgroup of L2 students with consistent difficulties in sentence comprehension, though their reading skills were within the average range. The same subgroup revealed to experience a lack of support within the school context, suggesting that poor L2 skills might be a critical variable to consider in order to identify students at risk for school exclusion. Regarding the test, accuracy to the on-line sentence comprehension task was significantly predicted by reading abilities and vocabulary skills, thus indicating that this test might represent a rapid but efficient way to assess linguistic abilities at school. We recommend that establishing a valid and practical procedure for the evaluation of linguistic skills in bilingual students who struggle with their L2 is the first step toward promoting social inclusion in the multilingual classroom, in order to increase their ability to actively participate in school and social activities.

The aim of this work is to contribute to the identification of the factors which can promote students’ engagement at school and support flourishing in young people. According to the Positive Education (Seligman, 2011), there is a strong relationship between school environment and student’s well-being. Fatou and Kubiszewski (2018) found that the quality of the school climate perceived by the students influences engagement in school activities. In this study, 153 students (M = 67) attending 10th grade were presented with tests and questionnaires to assess individual assets (personality traits, literacy skills), emerging appraisals (school-climate, well-being experience) and emerging actions (school engagement), according to the Student Well-Being Model proposed by Soutter et al., (2014). Path analysis showed that the best model includes neither individual assets nor direct effect of school climate on engagement, as the effect of school climate on engagement is mediated by well-being experience. In other words, school climate has been confirmed as an important factor to be considered to improve engagement in school activities, but it is effective only when its influence can modify the well-being experience of the students. These results support the perspective of Positive Education, as intervention on school environment is expected to exert positive effects not only on students’ well-being, but also on their engagement in school activities and learning, irrespective to students’ assets. Therefore, improving school climate means to support well-being experience and to reduce dropout risk also in students with learning difficulties and with personality traits, which might lead to dysfunctional behaviors. This work encourages working in/with schools to implement positive education programs that support and sustain a positive school climate and culture for school-community well-being.

This paper tested an assumption of the gradient model of split intransitivity put forward by Sorace (‘Split Intransitivity Hierarchy’ (SIH), 2000, 2004), namely that agentivity is a fundamental feature for unergatives but not for unaccusatives. According to this hypothesis, the animacy of the verb’s argument should affect the processing of unergative verbs to a greater extent than unaccusative verbs. By using eye-tracking methodology we monitored the on-line processing and integration costs of the animacy of the verb’s argument in intransitive verbs. We observed that inanimate subjects caused longer reading times only for unergative verbs, whereas the animacy of the verb’s argument did not influence the pattern of results for unaccusatives. In addition, the unergative verb data directly support the existence of gradient effects on the processing of the subject argument.

Several neuroimaging studies point to a key role of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) in the formation of socially relevant impressions. In 3 different experiments, participants were required to form socially relevant impressions about other individuals on the basis of text descriptions of their social ehaviors, and to decide whether a face alone, a trait adjective (e.g.,“ selfish”), or a face presented with a trait adjective was consistent or inconsistent with the impression they had formed. Before deciding whether the target stimulus matched the impression they had previously formed, participants received transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the dmPFC, the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, also implicated in social impression formation), or over a control site (vertex). Results from the 3 experiments converged in showing that interfering with dmPFC activity significantly delayed participants in responding whether a face-adjective pair was consistent with the impression they had formed.No effects of TMS were observed following stimulation of the IFG or when evaluations had to be made on faces or trait adjectives presented alone. Ourfindings critically extend previous neuroimaging evidence by indicating a causal role of the dmPFC in creating coherent impressions based on the integration of face and verbal description of social behaviors.

In this study, we investigate whether co-referential processing across sentence boundaries is driven by universal properties of the general architecture of memory systems and whether cross-linguistic differences concerning the number of anaphoric forms available in a language’s referential inventory can impact the process of inter-sentential co-reference resolution. As a window into these questions, we test whether the repeated-name penalty (RNP) and the overt-pronoun penalty (OPP)—comprehension delays associated with repeated names and overt pronouns, respectively, in comparison to more reduced anaphoric forms in reference to salient antecedents—occur in Italian, examining the extent to which Italian resembles other null-subject languages, with focus on Spanish. Our self-paced reading experiment with factors Antecedent (Subject, Object) and Anaphor (Null Pronoun, Overt Pronoun, Repeated Name) found that Italian exhibits both an OPP and a (weaker) RNP, extending previous research that showed these effects in Spanish and strengthening the claim that co-reference resolution might be subject to universal principles.

Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies yielded controversial results concerning the specific role of the insula in recognizing the facial expression of disgust. To verify whether the insula has a selective role in facial disgust processing, emotion recognition was studied in thirteen patients during intraoperative stimulation of the insula in awake surgery performed for removal of a glioma close to this structure. Direct electrical stimulation of the left insula produced a general decrease in emotion recognition but only in the case of disgust there was a statistically significant detrimental effect (p=0.004). Happiness and anger were the best and the worst recognized emotion, respectively. The worst baseline performance with anger and, partly, fear could be explained with the involvement of the left temporal regions, striatum, and the connection between the striatum and the frontal lobe, as suggested in previous studies. Therefore, upon these intra-operative evidences, we argue for a selective role of the left insula in disgust recognition, although a (non significant) decrease in the recognition of other negative emotions was found. However, additional networks can develop, as demonstrated by the fact that disgust recognition was not impaired after surgery even in patients with insular resection in the current as in previous studies.

This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evaluates the validity of the predictions of the Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 1998, 2000) and the Relativized Minimality approach (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2009). One hundred and twenty children from three to eight years of age were tested by using a character–sentence matching task. We found a preference for subject relative clauses that persists as children grow older. This preference is predicted by the Relativized Minimality approach, but not by the Dependency Locality Theory. In addition, we observed a fine-grained class of errors in comprehension. We discuss it in the light of the head-final status of Chinese relative clauses.

Although much research has been concerned with the development of kinematic aspects of handwriting, little is known about the development along with age of two principles that govern its rhythmic organization: Homothety and Isochrony. Homothety states that the ratio between the durations of the single motor events composing a motor act remains invariant and independent from the total duration of the movement. Isochrony refers to the proportional relationship between the speed of movement execution and the length of its trajectory. The current study shows that children comply with both principles since their first grade of primary school. The precocious adherence to these principles suggests that an internal representation of the rhythm of handwriting is available before the age in which handwriting is performed automatically. Overall, these findings suggest that despite being a cultural acquisition, handwriting appears to be shaped by more general constraints on the timing planning of the movements.