To examine cross-linguistic influences during bilingual lexical processing, a word type frequently used is cognates (i.e., translation equivalents with an overlap in form and meaning, such as English-German tomato-Tomate). Cognates have been found to be processed faster and more accurately than translation equivalents without such overlap (i.e., noncognates, such as English-German potato-Kartoffel). This cognate facilitation effect (CFE) is considered evidence for language co-activation in bilinguals and has been studied mostly in children and adults. The aim of the current study was to examine this effect in a more heterogeneous group of adolescent L2 learners and explore its potential modulation by L2 proficiency and stimulus frequency. For this purpose, 68 L1 German low-intermediate learners of L2 English participated in an English lexical decision task on cognate and noncognate words. Notably, CFEs could not be replicated in this group of learners. However, further analysis revealed that word recognition was modulated by both participants’ L2 English proficiency and target word frequency. The results of the present study add to the literature on modulating factors of the CFE, expand them to a population of early second language learners, and underline the need for future research on factors influencing cross-linguistic activation.

Research on multilingualism often assumes homogeneity within monolingual and multilingual groups, overlooking diversity in language environments, such as differences in language exposure and combinations. This study examines three such diversity indicators – language entropy, context entropy and linguistic distance – and their relationship to vocabulary in 4- to 5-year-old mono- and multilingual children (N = 257). Results reveal significantly greater vocabulary in monolinguals than multilinguals when comparing one language, but multilinguals outperform monolinguals on conceptual vocabulary. Vocabulary size in multilinguals showed a quadratic relationship with language and context entropy, initially increasing but declining at higher entropy levels. Additionally, children with greater linguistic distances generally had larger dominant vocabularies. However, within the group with high linguistic distance, further increased distance was linked to smaller dominant vocabularies. These findings suggest that the applied diversity indicators capture meaningful variation in language environments, offering valuable insights about diversity in environments on vocabulary outcomes in multilingual children.

This study investigated whether differences in executive control exist between bilinguals and monolinguals who share a dual-language context. We compared functional monolingual and bilingual groups’ cognitive performance and the correlation between self-reported and objective linguistic variables and cognitive outcomes. Group comparisons revealed no significant differences between functional monolinguals and bilinguals on inhibition, task switching and updating of information. However, distinct correlational patterns were observed within groups. In functional monolinguals, participants with lower bilingualism scores showed better task-specific inhibition (Color–Word part of the Stroop task) and a better ability to monitor for conflicts (Digits Forward task). In contrast, bilinguals with higher degrees of bilingualism showed better overall inhibition outcomes (Stroop effect). Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of adopting more comprehensive methodological approaches to study bilingualism as a heterogeneous phenomenon, considering the diversity within each group and the cultural and linguistic context in which the bilingual experience takes place.

Mizo (ISO 639-3 code: lus) is a Tibeto-Burman tone language spoken in Mizoram, India. This work provides an acoustic-phonetic description of Mizo tones spoken in Aizawl. The acoustic features of Mizo tones are modelled after the four tones in the language. The patterns of the f0 contours of the four Mizo tones in this study indicate that three have dynamic f0 contours. The analysis also shows that the f0 slope is crucial in distinguishing the four Mizo tones. Discrete Cosine Transform is used to obtain the average f0 and the f0 slope features of the Mizo tone contours represented by the first three Discrete Cosine Transform coefficients. The first three coefficients of the Discrete Cosine Transform, which are associated with the average f0 and the f0 slope of the four Mizo tone f0 contours, along with the tonal duration, can automatically classify the Mizo tones with an average accuracy of 87.12% using a quadratic discriminant analysis.

This study investigates the reading of novel morpho-syntactic forms, specifically gender-inclusive writing in French. Inclusive writing aims to address the generic use of the masculine form, which often encourages male mental representations over female or non-binary ones. The study focuses on contracted forms using the mid-dot, such as étudiant·e·s, which have become widespread in French despite ongoing public debate. Four experiments using eye-tracking and self-paced reading methods compared reading times for inclusive, masculine, and feminine forms. Experiment 1 found no robust difference in reading times between inclusive forms ending in “·e” and their feminine counterparts, suggesting familiarity with this form. Experiment 2 showed that inclusive forms ending in “·ne”, such as comédien·ne·s, were read more slowly than their feminine counterparts, possibly due to phonological effects. Experiment 3 tested highly pronounceable inclusive forms like auteur·rice·s, which were read more slowly initially, but this effect was short-lasting. Experiment 4 compared more or less pronounceable forms, such as chanteur·euse·s and chanteur·se·s, respectively, confirming that the degree of pronounceability affects reading times. Overall, the study concluded that the reading time for contracted inclusive forms depends on familiarity and the degree of pronounceability.

Previous studies on a variety of languages have demonstrated that manual gesture is temporally aligned with prosodic prominence. However, the majority of these studies have been conducted on languages with word-level stress. In this paper, we investigate the alignment of manual beat gestures to speech in local varieties of Standard Indonesian, a language whose word prosodic system has been the subject of conflicting claims. We focus on the varieties of Indonesian spoken in the eastern part of the archipelago and Java. Our findings reveal that there is a strong tendency to align gesture to penultimate syllables in the eastern variety and a tendency to align gesture to final syllables in the Javanese variety. Additionally, while the eastern patterns appear to be word based, the Javanese pattern shows evidence of being phrase based. Surprisingly, the penultimate syllable emerges as a gestural anchor in the eastern variety even for two of the three speakers who showed little to no regular prosodic prominence on this syllable. This suggests that gestural alignment may serve to uncover prosodic anchors even when they are not employed by the phonology proper.

This contribution presents a perceptual dialectology study conducted with 123 Albanian-speaking participants, who rated the correctness and pleasantness of speech around Albania. We investigate how ratings were modulated by three factors: a well-established dialectal division within Albania, relative urbanization across the country, and the participants’ dialect backgrounds. These three factors were found to interact in the correctness and pleasantness ratings given by the participants, which is generally consistent with previous perceptual dialectology studies conducted in other linguistic settings but also highlights some nuances and complexities in this relationship. While heavily urbanized centers in central Albania were rated as highly correct and pleasant independently from prior dialect descriptions or dialect background of the participants, in one dialect area, less urbanized counties were rated more pleasant. We argue that these insights from non-linguists could serve as starting point for future scientific inquiry.

The present study examines how L1-English learners acquire Korean subject honorification – a system that is socio-pragmatic in interpretation but syntactically constrained. Using a multi-method design (corpus analysis, politeness ratings, and self-paced reading), we find that learners show increasing sensitivity to politeness norms yet limited awareness of morphosyntactic constraints. In corpus analysis, learners used subject honorification almost exclusively alongside addressee honorification, indicating limited functional differentiation. In politeness ratings, learners consistently associated the subject honorific suffix with greater politeness, regardless of subject type, diverging from native speakers’ judgments. In self-paced reading, learners were sensitive to semantic anomalies (e.g., inanimate subjects) but not to morphosyntactic violations. Together, these findings suggest that learners interpret the subject honorific suffix as a general politeness marker, likely due to its low cue validity and frequent co-occurrence with pragmatically salient features. Our results highlight how cue reliability and competition shape L2 acquisition pathways under conditions of noisy linguistic representations.

In this article, I analyse the word-prosodic system of Drubea and Numèè, two of the rare tonal Oceanic languages. Building on Rivierre’s (1973) seminal work, I show that the word-prosodic system of these two languages can be analysed as involving only register features: an underlying downstep and a postlexical epenthetic upstep. Drubea and Numèè are thus tonal languages without tones stricto sensu. This new type of word-prosodic system has both theoretical and typological implications: (i) register features, defined as in Snider’s (1999) Register Tier Theory, need not be subordinate to or associated with tones, and may exist in the absence of tone, including in underlying representation; (ii) tonal systems come in two types: tone-based systems in which the tonal contrasts are defined paradigmatically, as in most tone languages, and register-based systems where tonal contrasts are defined syntagmatically, as in Drubea and Numèè.