Silvia Lago
Biographic Data
| ID | 1310318 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Silvia Lago |
| GIVEN NAMES | Silvia |
| FAMILY NAME | Lago |
| SIGNATURE | LAGO S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Goethe University Frankfurt |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4966-1913 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Are heritage speakers one step ahead in ongoing processes of diachronic change
This study investigates whether heritage speakers of European Portuguese (EP) show a diachronically advanced behaviour in their comprehension of null object constructions. Based on a comprehension experiment, we compared heritage speakers to homeland speakers of EP, on the one hand and homeland speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) on the other, the latter representing a variety in which null objects have diachronically spread. Our results confir…
Heritage Grammars and Language Change
Some differences between the grammars of heritage and monolingual speakers have been attributed to grammatical innovation, such that heritage behavior may reflect ongoing patterns of diachronic change. We examined this claim by comparing the acceptability of clitic doubling in three different speaker groups: monolingual and heritage speakers of European Spanish, and Rioplatense Spanish monolinguals. Accusative clitic doubling is grammaticalized i…
Memory retrieval and prediction interact in sentence comprehension
Memory retrieval and prediction are typically studied separately, so little is known about their interaction. To address this gap, we studied a construction known to simultaneously trigger antecedent retrieval and possessee prediction processes: German possessive pronouns. We examined the comprehension of possessive pronouns using eye-tracking and computational modeling. Specifically, we chose an existing cue-based retrieval model that formalized…
The Missing VP Illusion in Spanish
In English, double center-embedded sentences yield a so-called “missing VP illusion”: When they are ungrammatical due to a missing verb, they are judged as equally or even more acceptable than their grammatical counterparts. The illusion is often attributed to working memory limitations. Additionally, it has been suggested that statistical differences across languages—e.g., the lower frequency of consecutive verb clusters in verb-initial language…
The role of word form in gender processing during lexical access
In contrast to language production, there are few comprehension models of the representation and use of grammatical gender in long-term memory. To bridge this gap, we conducted a systematic review of empirical studies on the role of gender-form regularities in the recognition of nouns in isolation and within sentences. The results of a final sample of 40 studies suggest that there are two routes for the retrieval of gender during real-time compre…
Possessive Processing in Bilingual Comprehension
Second language (L2) learners make gender errors with possessive pronouns. In production, these errors are modulated by the gender match between the possessor and possessee noun. We examined whether this so-called match effect extends to L2 comprehension by attempting to replicate a recent study on gender predictions in first language (L1) German speakers (Stone, Veríssimo, et al., 2021). By comparing Spanish and English learners of L2 German who…
The Reading Signatures of Agreement Attraction
The comprehension of subject-verb agreement shows “attraction effects,” which reveal that number computations can be derailed by nouns that are grammatically unlicensed to control agreement with a verb. However, previous results are mixed regarding whether attraction affects the processing of grammatical and ungrammatical sentences alike. In a large-sample eye-tracking replication of Lago et al. (2015), we support this “grammaticality asymmetry” …
Divergence point analyses of visual world data
Much work has shown that differences in the timecourse of language processing are central to comparing native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers. However, estimating the onset of experimental effects in timecourse data presents several statistical problems including multiple comparisons and autocorrelation. We compare several approaches to tackling these problems and illustrate them using an L1-L2 visual world eye-tracking dataset. We then present…
The benefits of preregistration for hypothesis-driven bilingualism research
Preregistration is an open science practice that requires the specification of research hypotheses and analysis plans before the data are inspected. Here, we discuss the benefits of preregistration for hypothesis-driven, confirmatory bilingualism research. Using examples from psycholinguistics and bilingualism, we illustrate how non-peer reviewed preregistrations can serve to implement a clean distinction between hypothesis testing and data explo…
Some challenges of relating wholesale transfer approaches to L3 linguistic behavior
Preview this article: Some challenges of relating wholesale transfer approaches to L3 linguistic behavior, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.20075.lag-1.gif
The Role of Crosslinguistic Influence in Multilingual Processing
Multilingual research could offer a unique perspective on how the languages already acquired by a person affect the online processing of a new language. But it is currently difficult to assess this issue because theoretical accounts of multilingualism have focused on acquisition rather than processing and most empirical research to date has gathered untimed (offline) evidence. To help bridge this gap, we formulate hypotheses that can help derive …
Island effects in Spanish comprehension
A growing body of experimental syntactic research has revealed substantial variation in the magnitude of island effects, not only across languages but also across different grammatical constructions. Adopting a well-established experimental design, the present study examines island effects in Spanish using a speeded acceptability judgment task. To quantify variation across grammatical constructions, we tested extraction from four different types …
Does case marking affect agreement attraction in comprehension
Previous studies have suggested that distinctive case marking on noun phrases reduces attraction effects in production, i.e., the tendency to produce a verb that agrees with a nonsubject noun. An important open question is whether attraction effects are modulated by case information in sentence comprehension. To address this question, we conducted three attraction experiments in Armenian, a language with a rich and productive case system. The exp…
Straight from the horse’s mouth
We investigated the comprehension of subject-verb agreement in Turkish-German bilinguals using two tasks. The first task elicited speeded judgments to verb number violations in sentences that contained plural genitive modifiers. We addressed whether these modifiers elicited attraction errors, which have supported the use of a memory retrieval mechanism in monolingual comprehension studies. The second task examined the comprehension of a language-…
The interpretation of syntactically unconstrained anaphors in Turkish heritage speakers
Previous work has shown that heritage grammars are often simplified compared to their monolingual counterparts, especially in domains in which the societally-dominant language makes fewer distinctions than the heritage language. We investigated whether linguistic simplification extended to the anaphoric system of Turkish heritage speakers living in Germany. Whereas the Turkish monolingual grammar features a three-way distinction between reflexive…
The role of native and non-native grammars in the comprehension of possessive pronouns
Previous studies have shown that multilingual speakers are influenced by their native (L1) and non-native (L2) grammars when learning a new language. But, so far, these studies have mostly used untimed metalinguistic tasks. Here we examine whether multilinguals’ prior grammars also affect their sensitivity to morphosyntactic constraints during processing. We use speeded judgment and self-paced reading tasks to examine the comprehension of German …
The Interaction of Contextual and Syntactic Information in the Processing of Turkish Anaphors
"Aquí, está todo mezclado…" Percepciones de familias ocupantes de inmuebles en Buenos Aires sobre su situación habitacional
Mercedes di Virgilio, , Silvia Lago, Adriana Redondo, , "Aquí, está todo mezclado..." Percepciones de familias ocupantes de inmuebles en Buenos Aires sobre su situación habitacional, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1997), pp. 187-217
The Role of Crosslinguistic Influence in Multilingual Processing
Multilingual research could offer a unique perspective on how the languages already acquired by a person affect the online processing of a new language. But it is currently difficult to assess this issue because theoretical accounts of multilingualism have focused on acquisition rather than processing and most empirical research to date has gathered untimed (offline) evidence. To help bridge this gap, we formulate hypotheses that can help derive …
Possessive Processing in Bilingual Comprehension
Second language (L2) learners make gender errors with possessive pronouns. In production, these errors are modulated by the gender match between the possessor and possessee noun. We examined whether this so-called match effect extends to L2 comprehension by attempting to replicate a recent study on gender predictions in first language (L1) German speakers (Stone, Veríssimo, et al., 2021). By comparing Spanish and English learners of L2 German who…
The role of native and non-native grammars in the comprehension of possessive pronouns
Previous studies have shown that multilingual speakers are influenced by their native (L1) and non-native (L2) grammars when learning a new language. But, so far, these studies have mostly used untimed metalinguistic tasks. Here we examine whether multilinguals’ prior grammars also affect their sensitivity to morphosyntactic constraints during processing. We use speeded judgment and self-paced reading tasks to examine the comprehension of German …
The interpretation of syntactically unconstrained anaphors in Turkish heritage speakers
Previous work has shown that heritage grammars are often simplified compared to their monolingual counterparts, especially in domains in which the societally-dominant language makes fewer distinctions than the heritage language. We investigated whether linguistic simplification extended to the anaphoric system of Turkish heritage speakers living in Germany. Whereas the Turkish monolingual grammar features a three-way distinction between reflexive…
"Aquí, está todo mezclado…" Percepciones de familias ocupantes de inmuebles en Buenos Aires sobre su situación habitacional
Mercedes di Virgilio, , Silvia Lago, Adriana Redondo, , "Aquí, está todo mezclado..." Percepciones de familias ocupantes de inmuebles en Buenos Aires sobre su situación habitacional, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1997), pp. 187-217
The Interaction of Contextual and Syntactic Information in the Processing of Turkish Anaphors
The role of native and non-native grammars in the comprehension of possessive pronouns
Previous studies have shown that multilingual speakers are influenced by their native (L1) and non-native (L2) grammars when learning a new language. But, so far, these studies have mostly used untimed metalinguistic tasks. Here we examine whether multilinguals’ prior grammars also affect their sensitivity to morphosyntactic constraints during processing. We use speeded judgment and self-paced reading tasks to examine the comprehension of German …
Straight from the horse’s mouth
We investigated the comprehension of subject-verb agreement in Turkish-German bilinguals using two tasks. The first task elicited speeded judgments to verb number violations in sentences that contained plural genitive modifiers. We addressed whether these modifiers elicited attraction errors, which have supported the use of a memory retrieval mechanism in monolingual comprehension studies. The second task examined the comprehension of a language-…
The interpretation of syntactically unconstrained anaphors in Turkish heritage speakers
Previous work has shown that heritage grammars are often simplified compared to their monolingual counterparts, especially in domains in which the societally-dominant language makes fewer distinctions than the heritage language. We investigated whether linguistic simplification extended to the anaphoric system of Turkish heritage speakers living in Germany. Whereas the Turkish monolingual grammar features a three-way distinction between reflexive…
Island effects in Spanish comprehension
A growing body of experimental syntactic research has revealed substantial variation in the magnitude of island effects, not only across languages but also across different grammatical constructions. Adopting a well-established experimental design, the present study examines island effects in Spanish using a speeded acceptability judgment task. To quantify variation across grammatical constructions, we tested extraction from four different types …
Does case marking affect agreement attraction in comprehension
Previous studies have suggested that distinctive case marking on noun phrases reduces attraction effects in production, i.e., the tendency to produce a verb that agrees with a nonsubject noun. An important open question is whether attraction effects are modulated by case information in sentence comprehension. To address this question, we conducted three attraction experiments in Armenian, a language with a rich and productive case system. The exp…
The Reading Signatures of Agreement Attraction
The comprehension of subject-verb agreement shows “attraction effects,” which reveal that number computations can be derailed by nouns that are grammatically unlicensed to control agreement with a verb. However, previous results are mixed regarding whether attraction affects the processing of grammatical and ungrammatical sentences alike. In a large-sample eye-tracking replication of Lago et al. (2015), we support this “grammaticality asymmetry” …
Divergence point analyses of visual world data
Much work has shown that differences in the timecourse of language processing are central to comparing native (L1) and non-native (L2) speakers. However, estimating the onset of experimental effects in timecourse data presents several statistical problems including multiple comparisons and autocorrelation. We compare several approaches to tackling these problems and illustrate them using an L1-L2 visual world eye-tracking dataset. We then present…
The benefits of preregistration for hypothesis-driven bilingualism research
Preregistration is an open science practice that requires the specification of research hypotheses and analysis plans before the data are inspected. Here, we discuss the benefits of preregistration for hypothesis-driven, confirmatory bilingualism research. Using examples from psycholinguistics and bilingualism, we illustrate how non-peer reviewed preregistrations can serve to implement a clean distinction between hypothesis testing and data explo…
Some challenges of relating wholesale transfer approaches to L3 linguistic behavior
Preview this article: Some challenges of relating wholesale transfer approaches to L3 linguistic behavior, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/lab.20075.lag-1.gif
The Role of Crosslinguistic Influence in Multilingual Processing
Multilingual research could offer a unique perspective on how the languages already acquired by a person affect the online processing of a new language. But it is currently difficult to assess this issue because theoretical accounts of multilingualism have focused on acquisition rather than processing and most empirical research to date has gathered untimed (offline) evidence. To help bridge this gap, we formulate hypotheses that can help derive …
Possessive Processing in Bilingual Comprehension
Second language (L2) learners make gender errors with possessive pronouns. In production, these errors are modulated by the gender match between the possessor and possessee noun. We examined whether this so-called match effect extends to L2 comprehension by attempting to replicate a recent study on gender predictions in first language (L1) German speakers (Stone, Veríssimo, et al., 2021). By comparing Spanish and English learners of L2 German who…
The Missing VP Illusion in Spanish
In English, double center-embedded sentences yield a so-called “missing VP illusion”: When they are ungrammatical due to a missing verb, they are judged as equally or even more acceptable than their grammatical counterparts. The illusion is often attributed to working memory limitations. Additionally, it has been suggested that statistical differences across languages—e.g., the lower frequency of consecutive verb clusters in verb-initial language…
The role of word form in gender processing during lexical access
In contrast to language production, there are few comprehension models of the representation and use of grammatical gender in long-term memory. To bridge this gap, we conducted a systematic review of empirical studies on the role of gender-form regularities in the recognition of nouns in isolation and within sentences. The results of a final sample of 40 studies suggest that there are two routes for the retrieval of gender during real-time compre…
Heritage Grammars and Language Change
Some differences between the grammars of heritage and monolingual speakers have been attributed to grammatical innovation, such that heritage behavior may reflect ongoing patterns of diachronic change. We examined this claim by comparing the acceptability of clitic doubling in three different speaker groups: monolingual and heritage speakers of European Spanish, and Rioplatense Spanish monolinguals. Accusative clitic doubling is grammaticalized i…
Memory retrieval and prediction interact in sentence comprehension
Memory retrieval and prediction are typically studied separately, so little is known about their interaction. To address this gap, we studied a construction known to simultaneously trigger antecedent retrieval and possessee prediction processes: German possessive pronouns. We examined the comprehension of possessive pronouns using eye-tracking and computational modeling. Specifically, we chose an existing cue-based retrieval model that formalized…
Are heritage speakers one step ahead in ongoing processes of diachronic change
This study investigates whether heritage speakers of European Portuguese (EP) show a diachronically advanced behaviour in their comprehension of null object constructions. Based on a comprehension experiment, we compared heritage speakers to homeland speakers of EP, on the one hand and homeland speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) on the other, the latter representing a variety in which null objects have diachronically spread. Our results confir…
Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism (15 works) · Linguistics (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (10 works) · Artificial Intelligence (9 works) · Cognitive psychology (9 works) · Comprehension (7 works) · Natural language processing (7 works) · Second Language Acquisition and Learning (7 works)