This chapter introduces syntax, i.e. sentence structure. It distinguishes between clauses and sentences and discusses sentence constituents and constituency tests. This chapter also discusses sentence structure and word order, which can be fixed or flexible, and considers how some word orders tend to correlate with other linguistic characteristics in a language. In addition, this chapter provides conlanging practice, a set of guided questions to develop the basic structure of sentences in a conlang, and outlines the sentence structure of the Salt language.

In this chapter, I will provide a brief outline of the structure of the mental grammar, referring for a more extensive treatment to ML, Chapter 6. This chapter then offers a conversation about what Noam Chomsky considers to be the most central linguistic argument for his Innateness Hypothesis (IH), the poverty of the stimulus argument. We then discuss some different ways in which the mental grammar could be organized. Finally, I will raise questions about what kinds of evidence could falsify the IH and whether such evidence can actually be found. In this connection, we will also ask how rich the alleged innate system needs to be.

How we find a voice to tell our story. Variations in first-person narrators; reflecting background and personality in speech. Engaging with the challenges presented by dialogue in historical fiction; accommodating regional accent and dialect.

Advances in natural language processing (NLP) and Big Data techniques have allowed us to learn about the human mind through one of its richest outputs – language. In this chapter, we introduce the field of computational linguistics and go through examples of how to find natural language and how to interpret the complexities that are present within it. The chapter discusses the major state-of-the-art methods being applied in NLP and how they can be applied to psychological questions, including statistical learning, N-gram models, word embedding models, large language models, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis. The chapter concludes with ethical discussions on the proliferation of chat “bots” that pervade our social networks, and the importance of balanced training sets for NLP models.

This chapter surveys the field of recent grammatical change in English. We focus on the period since 1900 but also discuss how certain recent changes relate to longer-term trends. Many of our examples involve the verb phrase or verbal complementation, but changes in other areas such as the noun phrase are also noted. We address methodological issues that arise in researching recent change, considering the various kinds of corpora available and the complexities involved in tracking grammatical change over time. We then discuss how patterns of change vary between spoken and written language and across different genres. Finally, we consider a range of possible explanations or motivations for change, including grammaticalisation, economy and social influences.

Even after many decades of incessant research, the system of negation in English still has a story to tell, especially as concerns its diachronic development. This chapter will try to tell this story by reviewing a few of the main strands and occasionally delving into details. The chapter will follow a thematic, rather than a chronological, progression, and will mostly focus on sentential negation, which is still being discussed in its diachronic development more than a century after Jespersen’s hypothesised ‘negative cycle’. Formal approaches will be mentioned, but the chapter will give greater prominence to sociolinguistic and socio-pragmatic angles of research on English negation from a diachronic point of view. Some space is devoted to recent research on phenomena such as multiple negation, as well as to the influence of pragmatic factors on negation patterns and to lexicalised forms of negation.

This chapter summarizes the complex nature of bilingual academic communication, highlighting the gradual and non-binary process of language acquisition. It emphasizes the importance of academic language, which is structured with regular patterns that facilitate learning in subjects like math, history, and science. It advocates for a deeper understanding of how academic language proficiency is developed through the systematic practice of lexis, syntax, and discourse.

In an era of globalization, multilingualism is vital for social mobility and equity. Educational institutions must adapt to the multilingual reality of today’s classrooms, where proficiency in a global language can open doors to social rights and international participation. The chapter stresses that multilingualism should be seen as an asset, not a transitional quirk, and highlights the benefits of bilingual education in fostering cognitive flexibility and critical thinking. Finally, it explores the need for proper resources, including qualified bilingual teachers, to make bilingual education effective and accessible to all students.

This chapter explores the role of syntax in language development, showing how sentence structure evolves in bilinguals. Early L2 learners rely on L1 syntax or imitation, gradually forming independent L2 structures. Over time, L1 and L2 syntax merge, creating shared language nodes. Research confirms that both grammar systems remain active during language use.

Syntactic complexity is key to proficiency, measured through indices like clause structure and subordination. Advances in computational tools, such as Coh-Metrix and L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer, allow automated analysis of syntax. Studies show that bilinguals develop longer sentences, longer and more complex noun phrases, and more subordinate clauses over time.

Children worldwide follow a natural syntax progression – juxtaposition first, subordination later, and nominalization at higher levels. Bilinguals display unique patterns, with advanced L2 learners favouring longer sentences, relative clauses, and passive structures. This chapter highlights syntax’s role in bilingual growth and its impact on proficiency assessment.

Music & spoken language share many features by combining smaller units (e.g., words, notes) into larger structures (e.g., sentences, musical phrases). This hierarchical organization of sound is culturally contingent & communicates meaning to listeners. Comparisons of music & language from a cognitive neuroscience perspective provide several insights into commonalities & differences between these systems, how they are represented in the brain. The cognitive neuroscience research of music & language, emphasizes the pitfalls & promises identified, including (1) the apparent acoustic & structural similarities between these systems, (2) how both systems convey meaning to listeners, (3) how these systems are learned over the course of development, & (4) the ways in which experience in one domain influences processing in the other domain. We conclude that searching for similarities in how these complex systems are structured (e.g., comparing musical syntax to linguistic syntax) represents a pitfall that researchers should approach with caution. A promising approach in this area of research is to examine how general cognitive mechanisms underlie the learning & maintenance of both systems

After acquiring sufficient vocabulary in a foreign language, learners start understanding parts of conversations in that language. Speaking, in contrast, is a harder task. Forming grammatical sentences requires choosing the right tenses and following syntax rules. Every beginner EFL speaker makes grammar errors – and the type of grammar errors can reveal hints about their native language. For instance, Russian speakers tend to omit the determiner “the” because Russian doesn’t use such modifying words. One linguistic phenomenon that is actually easier in English than in many other languages is grammatical gender. English doesn’t assign gender to inanimate nouns such as “table” or “cup.” A few years ago, the differences in grammatical gender between languages helped reveal societal gender bias in automatic translation: translation systems that were shown gender-neutral statements in Turkish about doctors and nurses assumed that the doctor was male while the nurse was female.

Syntactic phrases can be used as the base in word-formation, and can be used attributively in a construction which is usually taken to be a compound. While the syntactic phrases are often familiar or citations, neither is necessary. The syntax appears to be subject to some restrictions, which suggest that word-formation is involved rather than pure syntax.

The acquisition of a minority language undergoing revitalisation through education poses unique questions about the individual and environmental factors that modulate language development. Unlike monolingual acquisition, the acquisition of a minority heritage language such as Scottish Gaelic (Gaelic hereafter) always occurs in a bilingual, if not multilingual, context. Gaelic speakers are bilingual speakers whose proficiency in the two languages may differ as a function of exposure to the minority language, the languages spoken in the home and in early childhood, as well as the opportunity to use Gaelic outside the school context. This leads to great variability in the Gaelic language outcomes observed in the acquisition of Gaelic. In this chapter, we provide an overview of existing studies on the acquisition of Gaelic morphosyntax in children. We highlight the gaps in the literature and we identify the areas where research is yet to be carried out. We conclude by reviewing reasons why the study of Gaelic can inform us about (bilingual) language development more broadly.

This chapter covers how the human brain combines meaning across words (compositional semantics), beginning with pairs of words and working up to sentence processing. Concepts that are easy to combine – such as a “red apple” – appear to rely on the lateral anterior temporal lobe and the angular gyrus. Understanding sentences introduces additional demands during comprehension and is often associated with recruitment of left inferior frontal cortex. Additional regions come in to play for specific types of language challenge. When words are associated with multiple meanings, the correct interpretation must be selected based on the surrounding context. This process of semantic disambiguation is associated with additional activity in posterior temporal cortex and left prefrontal cortex. Compared to simpler sentences, understanding sentences with complex syntactic constructions also engages additional regions of posterior superior temporal gyrus and inferior frontal cortex. Finally, ongoing oscillatory activity, especially in the theta range, has been suggested to play key roles in parsing and understanding connected speech.