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Some languages base their article choice on specificity (Samoan), others on definiteness (English: a vs. the). As for L2 article acquisition, Ionin, Zubizaretta, and Maldonado (2008) argue that definiteness-based article choice in the L1 (Spanish) enhances article-acquisition in a definiteness-based L2 (English). However, Deprez, Sleeman, and Guella (2008) show that Dutch learners of L2-French (both definiteness-based) perform poorly on French article choice, suggesting reliance on specificity, and refuting positive L1 influence.The current study is a pilot investigation into L2-English article choice in 104 native Dutch speakers. The results show definite and indefinite article overuse in the primary, but not in the elementary-intermediate-proficiency groups. We propose that lexical-semantic proficiency is a necessary condition for cross-linguistic influence to be visible.

The present study investigates the Dutch comprehension and production of reflexives and pronouns by young Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (4;3-6;8), as compared to young monolingual Dutch children (4;1-6;4), and it explores the Turkish comprehension of reflexives and pronouns by older Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (6;7-9;10). On the one hand, young bilingual children were examined in order to determine whether they performed differently from their older bilingual peers, who were tested in a previous study (van Koert et al., 2013). On the other hand, older Turkish-Dutch bilingual children were investigated on their Turkish comprehension, so that they could be compared to the older Turkish-Dutch bilingual children, who were tested previously in Dutch (van Koert et al., 2013). The Dutch results revealed that the young Turkish-Dutch bilingual children behaved similarly to their monolingual Dutch peers on their comprehension of reflexives and pronouns; however, they produced more omissions than their monolingual peers, which could either suggest a stage of Dutch (cf. Thrift, 2003) or reflect cross-linguistic influence (cf. Müller & Hulk, 2001). The Turkish findings showed that the Turkish-Dutch bilingual children behaved similarly on reflexives and pronouns, which has been found for monolingual Turkish children previously (Aarssen & Bos, 1999), too.

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-y-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 languageand learner-specific factors, such as negative concord and gender, are significant predictors of variation.

This study compared the comprehension of Dutch reflexives (zichzelf 'SE-self') and pronouns (hem 'him') by Turkish-Dutch bilingual children (n=33) to the comprehension of English reflexives (himself) and pronouns (him) by Turkish-English bilingual children (n=39) documented by Marinis and Chondrogianni (2011). The children were administered a Picture Verification Task in which they had to judge whether the sentence matched the picture. Test sentences were of the type [NP says [NP V NP]], where the embedded subject could be a referential NP (the rabbit) or a QP (every rabbit), and the embedded object a pronoun or a reflexive. Differences were found in the QP antecedent conditions: the Turkish-Dutch bilingual children performed target-like on the reflexives but not on the pronouns; the Turkish-English bilingual children performed at chance on the reflexives but scored target-like on the pronouns. When these findings were compared to the Dutch monolingual and English monolingual children's results respectively, it was found that the bilingual children showed similar patterns to the monolingual children. Although language-specific properties of Dutch and English are likely to be at play, the possibility of cross-linguistic influence from Turkish is considered, too.

While languages may vary widely as regards which concepts they encode, learners of most (if not all) languages will be faced with the task of acquiring a basic vocabulary to talk about universal aspects of human experience, such as space, time and quantity. In this paper we focus on quantifying words like ‘all’, ‘none’ and ‘some’ whose meaning and use exhibit cross-linguistic similarities as well as differences. We report an investigation in the acquisition of quantifiers by 592 5-year-old children and 440 adults speaking one of 24 languages. The findings reveal four semantic and pragmatic factors that lead to robust patterns of similarity across languages, as well as lexical factors that lead to language- specific differences. We explore the implications about the interplay of language- wide and language-specific features in the process of acquisition, as well as the relation between linguistic and non-linguistic cognition.

Does the development of conceptual categories depend on syntactic and lexical features of a language? As part of a larger project we studied the comprehension of the (cross-linguistic equivalent of the English) quantifiers ‘all’, ‘none’, ‘some’, ‘some…not’, and ‘most’, by 5-year-old children (n=606) and adult controls (n=441) speaking one of 24 languages, representing eleven Genera. The languages differ in terms of Concord, Lexical class (e.g. noun ‘la mayoría’ vs quantifier ‘most’), use of Partitive (‘of the’), the number of Syllables, and Quantifier-Noun Order, among others. The findings suggest a fundamentally uniform pattern of the acquisition of conceptual categories across languages, which is modulated by specific syntactic and lexical features. We discuss whether the similarities in acquisition are underlined by universal conceptual primitives.

Different temporal forms can be used to describe one temporal relation (IT: camminava vs. camminò, walk-past- imperfective vs. walk-past-perfective) ; one form can be used to describe different temporal relations (D: life, walk-past- imperfective vs. walk-past-perfective) ; these relations concern objects not directly perceivable. This can make their acquisition a complicated task. We tested 355 children, 5 years-old, on tense comprehension in 17 languages. Participants watched movies where a protagonist walks along a road performing the same action at different locations (Wagner 2001). The test-questions were of the form: Where V-past? ; Where V-present? ; Where V-future? We found differences across languages (χ2(16)=100.14, p

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