scholarly journals Stable brain loci for the processing of complex syntax: a review of the current neuroimaging evidence

Cortex ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yosef Grodzinsky ◽  
Peter Pieperhoff ◽  
Cynthia Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Complex Syntax

Complex Syntax Production of African American Preschoolers

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 1083-1096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra C. Jackson ◽  
Joanne E. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Home Environment ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
Environment Factors ◽  
Complex Syntax ◽  
The Mean ◽  
American Children ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

This study examined changes in the complex syntax production of 85 3- and 4-year-old African American children and the role of child (i.e., gender, age, African American English) and family (i.e., home environment) factors. The mean percentage of utterances containing one or more complex syntax forms was 6.2% at 3 years and 11.7% at 4 years. Girls produced more complex syntax forms than did boys. Complex syntax production increased significantly between age 3 and age 4 and correlated positively with mean length of utterance in words. Children from more responsive and stimulating home environments produced more complex syntax at 4 years. African American English was not related to the amount of complex syntax used.

scholarly journals Relations between intensionality, theory of mind and complex syntax in autism spectrum conditions and typical development

2021 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 101071
Author(s):  
Kristen Schroeder ◽  
Stephanie Durrleman ◽  
Derya Çokal ◽  
Annabel Sanfeliu Delgado ◽  
Adela Masana Marin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽  
Typical Development ◽  
Complex Syntax

Materials Matter: An Exploration of Text Complexity and Its Effects on Middle School Readers' Comprehension Processing

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Amanda C. Dahl ◽  
Sarah E. Carlson ◽  
Maggie Renken ◽  
Kathryn S. McCarthy ◽  
Erin Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Science Classroom ◽  
Deep Level ◽  
Informational Text ◽  
Think Aloud ◽  
Text Complexity ◽  
Science Texts ◽  
Complex Syntax ◽  
Abstract Words ◽  
Complex Features

Purpose Complex features of science texts present idiosyncratic challenges for middle grade readers, especially in a post–Common Core educational world where students' learning is dependent on understanding informational text. The primary aim of this study was to explore how middle school readers process science texts and whether such comprehension processes differed due to features of complexity in two science texts. Method Thirty 7th grade students read two science texts with different profiles of text complexity in a think-aloud task. Think-aloud protocols were coded for six comprehension processes: connecting inferences, elaborative inferences, evaluative comments, metacognitive comments, and associations. We analyzed the quantity and type of comprehension processes generated across both texts in order to explore how features of text complexity contributed to the comprehension processes students produced while reading. Results Students made significantly more elaborative and connecting inferences when reading a text with deep cohesion, simple syntax, and concrete words, while students made more evaluative comments, paraphrases, and metacognitive comments when reading a text with referential cohesion, complex syntax, and abstract words. Conclusions The current study provides exploratory evidence for features of text complexity affecting the type of comprehension processes middle school readers generate while reading science texts. Accordingly, science classroom texts and materials can be evaluated for word, sentence, and passage features of text complexity in order to encourage deep level comprehension of middle school readers.

scholarly journals The understanding of complex syntax in children with Down syndrome

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pauline Frizelle ◽  
Paul A. Thompson ◽  
Mihaela Duta ◽  
Dorothy V. M. Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Complex Syntax ◽  
Complement Clauses ◽  
Adverbial Clauses ◽  
Digit Recall

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is associated with poor language skills that seem disproportionate to general nonverbal ability, but the nature and causes of this deficit are unclear. We assessed how individuals with DS understand complex linguistic constructions, and considered how cognitive ability and memory and impact the ability of those with DS to process these sentence types. Methods: There were three groups participating in the study: children with DS (n = 33) and two control groups composed of children with cognitive impairment of unknown aetiology (CI) (n = 32) and children with typical development (n = 33). The three groups did not differ on raw scores on a test of non-verbal cognitive ability. Using a newly devised animation task, we examined how well individuals with DS (n = 33) could understand relative clauses, complement clauses and adverbial clauses compared to children with CI and typically developing controls. Participants also completed the Test for the Reception of Grammar-2, three measures of memory (forward and backward digit recall, visuo-spatial memory) and a hearing screen. Results: Results indicated that (1) with the exception of intransitive subject relative clauses, children with DS performed at floor on all other complex sentences, (2) they performed at a significantly lower level than both control groups, and (3) DS status accounted for a significant proportion of the variance over and above memory skills. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that children with DS have a disproportionate difficulty understanding complex sentences compared to two control groups matched on mental age. Furthermore, their understanding of syntax is not completely explained by poor cognitive or memory skills, rather it appears to be a specific deficit that may distinguish children with DS from other neurodevelopmental disorders.

scholarly journals On the fractal nature of complex syntax and the timescale problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 697-721
Author(s):  
D. Reid Evans
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Dynamic Systems Theory ◽  
Self Similarity ◽  
Scale Invariant ◽  
Complex Dynamic Systems ◽  
Complex Syntax ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Self Similar ◽  
Multiple Component ◽  
Dynamic Relationships

Fundamental to complex dynamic systems theory is the assumption that the recursive behavior of complex systems results in the generation of physical forms and dynamic processes that are self-similar and scale-invariant. Such fractal-like structures and the organismic benefit that they engender has been widely noted in physiology, biology, and medicine, yet discussions of the fractal-like nature of language have remained at the level of metaphor in applied linguistics. Motivated by the lack of empirical evidence supporting this assumption, the present study examines the extent to which the use and development of complex syntax in a learner of English as a second language demonstrate the characteristics of self-similarity and scale invariance at nested timescales. Findings suggest that the use and development of syntactic complexity are governed by fractal scaling as the dynamic relationship among the subconstructs of syntax maintain their complexity and variability across multiple temporal scales. Overall, fractal analysis appears to be a fruitful analytic tool when attempting to discern the dynamic relationships among the multiple component parts of complex systems as they interact over time.

Linguistic Structure, Stylistic Value, and Translation Strategy: Introducing Thomas Mann's Aschenbach in English

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-71
Author(s):  
David Horton
Keyword(s):  
Literary Texts ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Translation Strategy ◽  
Complex Syntax ◽  
Literary Meaning ◽  
Information Focus

By analysing closely two English versions of the opening passage of Der Tod in Venedig, this discussion addresses implications arising from the interlingual transfer of syntactic structures in literary texts. Even the most cursory glance at a translation corpus shows that prose translators - subject to language-typological constraints in syntactic possibilities - are generally concerned to mirror the sentence structures of the SLT in the syntactic composition of their TL versions. Here the contention is that, on the contrary, translation solutions cannot be ‘equivalent’ to the original at the level of complex syntax. Rather, translators inevitably make changes which significantly alter the information focus, agency patterns, and cohesion of the original, impacting on the literary meaning in subtle ways.

Complex Syntax

2010 ◽  
pp. 268-308
Author(s):  
Koenraad Kuiper ◽  
W. Scott Allan
Keyword(s):  
Complex Syntax
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