Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 344437 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli |
| PRENOMES | Ianthi-Maria |
| SOBRENOME | Tsimpli |
| ASSINATURA | TSIMPLI I |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6015-7526 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 66 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 177 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 66 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1991 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
The Acquisition of Verbal Morphology by Child Classroom EFL Learners in Russia and China
We investigate the effects of age and first language (L1) on the acquisition of verb morphology in L2 English by Chinese and Russian children learning English as a foreign language in EFL schools in Shanghai and Moscow. We tested children 5 years after they started their EFL classes and considered two groups in each country: one group started EFL classes at the age of 4 and was tested at the age of 9, while the other group started at 7 and was te…
Challenging existing Raven's norms based on children attending government schools in India
Intelligence measures, such as the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM), rely on norm-referenced scores to interpret individual performance and guide educational or clinical interventions. However, when norm comparisons result in a severely skewed distribution, the validity of the norm sample must be scrutinized rather than accepting implausible interpretations. In this study, we challenge existing norms and improve the suitability of the …
First language attrition and pronominal resolution in Italian
Purpose: Pronominal resolution in Italian-style null-subject languages has played a central role in the discussion of how acquiring a second language later in life may impact the first, a phenomenon known as attrition . Within that literature, previous (offline) work has argued that attrition leads to a weakening of the interpretive bias for overt pronouns. This has been suggested to reflect processing difficulties rather than representational ch…
Attrition as bias strengthening
The acquisition and use of a second language may impact a speaker’s first language, a phenomenon known as attrition . An area of particular interest for research on attrition has been the interpretation of subject pronouns in languages like Italian, which exhibit distinct biases for null and overt pronouns. That body of work has largely focused on overt pronouns, arguing that speakers’ biases for those forms weaken under attrition. However, we ar…
Language assessment in bilingual populations
The aim of the study is to present the standardization of the Gender Assessment tool designed for typically developing Greek-speaking children. The Gender Assessment tool exploits lexical and grammatical gender and taps on two syntactic operations, namely gender assignment and gender agreement in real and novel nouns. We administered it to an extensive pool of 8 to 12 year-old speakers, specifically 110 monolingual Greek-speaking children and 308…
Cross-Codal Bridging Information Processing by L1 Chinese Speakers
Using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm, this study examined how Chinese first language readers process codality switch in reading comprehension. 28 participants read 160 four-segment pictorial or textual stories where the second segment containing the bridging information is manipulated to achieve four conditions, namely, (1) picture-unswitched (stories comprising four pictures), (2) picture-switched (pictorial stories where the…
The influence of L1 typology on the acquisition of the L2 English article
We present a corpus investigation of the influence of first language – second language (L1–L2) typological similarity on the acquisition of the L2 English article. We consider item-level typological similarity in terms of the availability of an article in the L1, but also broader typological similarity in terms of the linguistic distance between L1 and L2 as captured through a variety of lexical, morphosyntactic and phonological measures of lingu…
Effects of Mother Tongue Education and Multilingualism on Reading Skills in the Regional Language and English in India
In a highly multilingual country like India, challenges and opportunities arise in education and language policy. Although multilingualism is often associated with developmental advantages, Indian primary school children generally show low learning outcomes, specifically on literacy. Here we examine the influence of mother tongue education and multilingualism on the reading skills and reading comprehension of 1272 Indian primary school children f…
The influence of text segmentation on garden path processing
Line breaks are ubiquitous in continuous text, as in this article. Despite this prevalence, their effects on parsing and interpretation have been markedly understudied in previous research on written language processing. To shed light on these effects, we conducted a self-paced reading and an eye-tracking study in which participants read multiline texts that contained direct object–subject ambiguity, a type of temporary clause boundary ambiguity.…
Inferential evaluation and revision in L1 and L2 text comprehension
Text comprehension frequently demands the resolution of no longer plausible interpretations to build an accurate situation model, an ability that might be especially challenging during second language comprehension. Twenty-two native English speakers (L1) and twenty-two highly proficient non-native English speakers (L2) were presented with short narratives in English. Each text required the evaluation and revision of an initial prediction. Eye mo…
Pseudorelatives, relatives, and L1 attrition
Aims: While research on syntactic L1 attrition has largely focused on interface phenomena (e.g., overt pronouns in null-subject languages), attrition has also been reported to affect syntactic parsing. This paper extends previous work by looking at the attrition of (pseudo)relative clause parser biases in L1-Italian L2-English speakers. This was done to investigate whether previous findings of attrition in the interpretation of ambiguous relative…
The interplay of lexical and grammatical development in Greek-Albanian bilingual children
The present paper aims to investigate the interplay of lexical and grammatical development in school-aged Greek-Albanian bilingual children by providing evidence both from majority, Greek, and heritage, Albanian. To this end, 47 8 to 10-year-old bilingual children were tested by means of expressive vocabulary tests in Greek and in Albanian, while their grammatical skills were evaluated by means of the LITMUS Sentence Repetition Task administered …
Narrative Retellings of Children with Childhood Apraxia of Speech
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a disorder which affects not only speech-motor planning but also language ability more broadly. The present study attempts to explore the morphosyntactic, socio-cognitive, and prosody comprehension skills of children with CAS. Twenty preschool children with CAS and 20 typically developing children listened to a story, while viewing a wordless PowerPoint, picture presentation on a computer screen. Then, they we…
Linguistic illusions and misconceptions
Prior research on the linguistic abilities of Southern English- (SE) and African-American English-speaking children (SAAE) revealed unexpectedly high rates of risk for a language disorder (Christodoulou & Tsimpli 2021; Moland & Oetting 2021). This study examines the performance of 139 SE-, 46 SAAE-, and 35 Mainstream American English-speaking children (MAE), aged 2-13, and analyzes their performance, through twelve sections, in four key linguisti…
High-level listening comprehension in advanced English as a second language
English is imposed as the language of instruction in multiple linguistically diverse societies where there is more than one official language. This might have negative educational consequences for people whose first language (L1) is not English. To investigate this, 47 South Africans with advanced English proficiency but different L1s (L1-English vs. L1-Zulu) were evaluated in their listening comprehension ability. Specifically, participants list…
Standardization of the Gender Assignment and Agreement Assessment in the Greek Language
1) Background: Given the scarcity of data on the psychometric evaluation of measures used with typically developing Greek-speaking bilinguals, this study aims to present preliminary evidence for the standardization and the psychometric evaluation of a gender assignment and agreement assessment designed for the Greek language (henceforth, GAAGL Assessment) employing real and pseudo-words. This is the first study to standardize the GAAGL Assessment…
How Ready Are Indian Primary School Children for English Medium Instruction? An Analysis of the Relationship between the Reading Skills of Low-SES Children, Their Oral Vocabulary and English Input in …
The aim of the study was to find out to what extent low socio-economic status (SES) children enrolled in government-run primary schools in Hyderabad are ready to receive instruction through the medium of English (English medium instruction [EMI]). To this end we investigated children’s oral vocabulary skills, the lexical complexity of their textbooks, as well as the amount of English input they receive in class. A subsample of 90 children from pr…
Sociolinguistic context matters
Individual reports of language history, use, and proficiency are generally considered sufficient for language profiling. Yet, these variables alone neglect the contribution of contextual linguistic diversity to one’s overall language repertoire. In this study we used the Contextual Linguistic Profile Questionnaire to evaluate whether there is a difference in contextual linguistic diversity between participants across the linguistically dissimilar…
On how linguistically-informed research can further address heterogeneity in bilingualism and autism
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Measuring the multilingual reality
India's linguistic diversity is reflected in classrooms across the country, where multiple languages are used by teachers and learners to negotiate meaning and instructiona multilingual, multicultural student body is the norm, whether in urban or rural contexts. This study documents teaching practices in English language and maths lessons in Delhi and Hyderabad, with a specific focus on language use. The findings from 104 classroom observations a…
Reference maintenance in the narratives of Albanian–Greek and Russian–Greek children with Developmental Language Disorder
Although a considerable number of studies have shown D(eterminer) elements, i.e. determiners and pronominal clitics, to be particularly vulnerable to impairment in monolingual children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), little is known about the use of appropriate or/and grammatically correct referring expressions in the children’s narrative production. Grammars of languages that differ in the way they encode and realize their D system m…
Bidirectional Language Contact Effects at the DP Domain
We investigate the effects of the historical language contact of Modern Greek (MG) with Vlach Aromanian (VA) in bilingual speakers of three generations living in Epirus, Greece. We focus on a VA variety spoken in a specific language community, with our study constituting one of the early attempts in this field of research. (1) Background: Given that bilingualism is a dynamic process in which language domains are not uniformly affected by external…
How Cognitive Abilities May Support Children's Bilingual Literacy Development in a Multilingual Society
Underprivileged but highly multilingual Indian children often show low literacy performance. As a complicating factor, these children are often expected to develop literacy not just in the regionally dominant language but also in English. As good literacy skills are crucial for later academic development, it is important to identify factors that could support these children's literacy development. We, therefore, investigated whether cognitive abi…
Validation of a Greek Sentence Repetition Task with Typically Developing Monolingual and Bilingual Children
Bilingual acquisition of reference
The present study aims to understand which factors contribute to different patterns of use of referring expressions by bilingual children, by considering the triangulation between language experience and proficiency, executive functions and cross-linguistic effects. We analyze reference use in Greek in the context of a narrative elicitation task as performed by 125 children of different language combinations, including Greek–Albanian, Greek–Engli…
The Interpretability Hypothesis
The second language acquisition (SLA) literature reports numerous studies of proficient second language (L2) speakers who diverge significantly from native speakers despite the evidence offered by the L2 input. Recent SLA theories have attempted to account for native speaker/non-native speaker (NS/NNS) divergence by arguing for the dissociation between syntactic knowledge and morpho(pho)nology. In particular, Lardiere (1998), Prévost and White (2…
The effects of a morphosyntactic deficit in the determiner system
Pronoun ambiguity resolution in Greek
Aspect and argument realization
Exploring the source of differences and similarities in L1 attrition and heritage speaker competence
On Greek VSO again
In the present paper we provide an account of VSO in Greek and its (relative) absence in Italian, despite the fact that both languages allow for postverbal subjects. We argue that this parametric difference reduces to different lexicalisation options regarding the D-system of the two grammars. We assume that the clause structure divides into three basic domains (V, T, and C), and that nominal (clitic) positions are available in each of these doma…
Linguistic modularity? A case study of a 'Savant' linguist
Grammatical gender and the notion of default
Learning the impossible
A holistic measure of contextual and individual linguistic diversity
The sociolinguistic context of language use contributes to individuals’ linguistic knowledge. However, how it does so has yet to be fully conceptualised or quantitatively investigated within the language sciences. To meet this goal, a psychometrically sound evidence-based measure that captures important aspects of contextually influenced linguistic experience is necessary. In this paper we describe the development and validation of the Contextual…
Linguistic Diversity, Multilingualism, and Cognitive Skills
Multilingualism and linguistic diversity are the norm in India. Although studies have shown a relation between bilingualism and cognitive gains, linguistic diversity has so far been ignored as a potential factor affecting cognitive skills. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how cognitive skills-as measured by the n-back and Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices tasks-are affected by multilingualism and/or sociolinguistic diversity in a …
The Role of Suffixes in Grammatical Gender Assignment in Modern Greek
Tlie aim of this study is to investigate how native speakers of Greek assign gender to nouns. The main question concerns the role that the morphophonological information encoded on noun suffixes plays in the assignment of gender values by native speakers. To that end, novel nouns were created combined with the different nominal suffixes so that the role of the suffix could be investigated independently of any lexical and/or semantic effects. Mono…
Theory of Mind, Executive Functions, and Syntax in Bilingual Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Impairments in Theory of Mind (ToM) are a core feature of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ToM may be enhanced by various factors, including bilingualism, executive functions (EF), and complex syntax. This work investigates the language-cognition interface in ASD by exploring whether ToM can be enhanced by bilingualism, whether such ToM boosts would be due to EF or syntax, and whether routes to mentalizing would differ between bilinguals and monol…
Validation of a Greek Sentence Repetition Task with Typically Developing Monolingual and Bilingual Children
The Interpretability of Features in Second Language Acquisition
We examine the microparameters of null and postverbal subjects in the Greek L1/English L2 interlanguage, exploring the role of interpretability in interlanguage representations. Our results suggest that while uninterpretable features are inaccessible in L2 acquisition, interpretable features are available and play a compensatory role. Although the abstract L1 properties of subject-verb agreement seem to transfer to the L2 representation, the effe…
Complementizers and subordination in typical language acquisition and SLI
Temporal modification in Greek adverbial clauses
Standardization of the Gender Assignment and Agreement Assessment in the Greek Language
1) Background: Given the scarcity of data on the psychometric evaluation of measures used with typically developing Greek-speaking bilinguals, this study aims to present preliminary evidence for the standardization and the psychometric evaluation of a gender assignment and agreement assessment designed for the Greek language (henceforth, GAAGL Assessment) employing real and pseudo-words. This is the first study to standardize the GAAGL Assessment…
Object Omission in Contact
We examine spontaneous production data from the dialect of Modern West Thracian Greek ( mwtg ) (the local dialect of Evros) with regard to a hypothesis of syntactic borrowing of verbal transitivity. We argue that mwtg allows omission of the direct object with specific reference, in contrast to Standard Modern Greek ( smg ) and other Modern Greek ( mg ) dialects (spoken in Greece), but similar to Turkish. Object omission in mwtg is possible only i…
The acquisition of transitivity alternations in Greek
Real’ and apparent optionality in second language grammars
The existence of optionality in acquisitional data presents a problem to the view that developing grammars do not include more than one grammatical system at any stage. In this article data from Greek and Spanish, on the one hand, and English, on the other, constitute the background for the discussion of the existence of ‘true’ optionality in second language (L2) grammars and its potential persistence at advanced proficiency levels. We also discu…
Language against the odds
In this paper we report on our attempt to teach the polyglot savant Christopher (‘C’ hereinafter) British Sign Language (BSL). BSL presents C with a novel challenge in the use of hand-eye coordination, while at the same time offering him the linguistic ingredients he is obsessed with. Despite his deficits in key areas of intellectual ability, communication skills and visuo-spatial cognition, C has developed a working knowledge of BSL through proc…
Gerunds in Greek
This paper discusses the properties of Greek V-ondas forms, referred to as gerunds in Holton et al. (1997). It is argued that the clauses in which they occur are adjuncts with a reduced functional structure. Their temporal interpretation will be shown to illustrate the underspecified status of the features of the V-ondas complex as well as the truncated structure of the clause in which it occurs. The position and interpretation of subjects of ger…
Linguistic modularity? A case study of a 'Savant' linguist
Learning the impossible
Negation and polarity items in Modern Greek
Cet article traite des proprietes syntaxiques et semantiques des items de polarite en grec moderne afin de presenter les conditions d'autorisation dans leur distribution, et leurs possibilites d'interpretation dans differents contextes syntaxiques. Les As. montrent que les items de polarite sont des elements quantificationnels dont la lecture universelle ou existentielle depend de la tete fonctionnelle qui les autorise et de leur specification de…
Reply to Bates
The Mind of a Savant
List of Figures. Foreward. Preface. 1. Language and Intelligence:. Introducing Christopher. Theoretical Background. Hypotheses. 2. The First Language:. Introduction. Syntax. Semantics. Pragmatics. Conclusion. 3. a Seconda Languages:. Introduction. Background Information. The lexicon. Syntax. Conclusion. 4. New Languages: . Rationale. Controlled input: Berber. Learning an Impossible Language: Epun. Conclusions. 5. Language and Mind:. Christophera …
The effects of a morphosyntactic deficit in the determiner system
Gerunds in Greek
This paper discusses the properties of Greek V-ondas forms, referred to as gerunds in Holton et al. (1997). It is argued that the clauses in which they occur are adjuncts with a reduced functional structure. Their temporal interpretation will be shown to illustrate the underspecified status of the features of the V-ondas complex as well as the truncated structure of the clause in which it occurs. The position and interpretation of subjects of ger…
Language against the odds
In this paper we report on our attempt to teach the polyglot savant Christopher (‘C’ hereinafter) British Sign Language (BSL). BSL presents C with a novel challenge in the use of hand-eye coordination, while at the same time offering him the linguistic ingredients he is obsessed with. Despite his deficits in key areas of intellectual ability, communication skills and visuo-spatial cognition, C has developed a working knowledge of BSL through proc…
First language attrition and syntactic subjects
In this paper we present some results from an experimental study that we have been conducting into the effects of syntactic attrition on the L1 of Greek and Italian speakers who have achieved near-native proficiency in their L2 (English) but still use their L1 on a regular basis. In particular, we test the hypothesis, developed on the basis of assumptions regarding syntactic modularity, that the changes in L1 syntax will be restricted to the inte…
Real’ and apparent optionality in second language grammars
The existence of optionality in acquisitional data presents a problem to the view that developing grammars do not include more than one grammatical system at any stage. In this article data from Greek and Spanish, on the one hand, and English, on the other, constitute the background for the discussion of the existence of ‘true’ optionality in second language (L2) grammars and its potential persistence at advanced proficiency levels. We also discu…
On Greek VSO again
In the present paper we provide an account of VSO in Greek and its (relative) absence in Italian, despite the fact that both languages allow for postverbal subjects. We argue that this parametric difference reduces to different lexicalisation options regarding the D-system of the two grammars. We assume that the clause structure divides into three basic domains (V, T, and C), and that nominal (clitic) positions are available in each of these doma…
Aspect and argument realization
The Interpretability Hypothesis
The second language acquisition (SLA) literature reports numerous studies of proficient second language (L2) speakers who diverge significantly from native speakers despite the evidence offered by the L2 input. Recent SLA theories have attempted to account for native speaker/non-native speaker (NS/NNS) divergence by arguing for the dissociation between syntactic knowledge and morpho(pho)nology. In particular, Lardiere (1998), Prévost and White (2…
‘Critical’ aspects of language
Temporal modification in Greek adverbial clauses
The acquisition of transitivity alternations in Greek
External interfaces and the notion of ‘default’
The Role of Suffixes in Grammatical Gender Assignment in Modern Greek
Tlie aim of this study is to investigate how native speakers of Greek assign gender to nouns. The main question concerns the role that the morphophonological information encoded on noun suffixes plays in the assignment of gender values by native speakers. To that end, novel nouns were created combined with the different nominal suffixes so that the role of the suffix could be investigated independently of any lexical and/or semantic effects. Mono…
Complementizers and subordination in typical language acquisition and SLI
The Interpretability of Features in Second Language Acquisition
We examine the microparameters of null and postverbal subjects in the Greek L1/English L2 interlanguage, exploring the role of interpretability in interlanguage representations. Our results suggest that while uninterpretable features are inaccessible in L2 acquisition, interpretable features are available and play a compensatory role. Although the abstract L1 properties of subject-verb agreement seem to transfer to the L2 representation, the effe…
Grammatical gender and the notion of default
The role of age of onset and input in early child bilingualism in Greek and Dutch
The focus of this study is the acquisition of grammatical gender in Greek and Dutch by bilingual children whose other language is English. Although grammatical gender languages share the property of noun classification in terms of grammatical gender, there are important differences between the languages under investigation here in terms of both the morphological cues for gender marking available to the child and the developmental path followed by…
Early, late or very late
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Early, late or very late
Research on child bilingualism accounts for differences in the course and the outcomes of monolingual and different types of bilingual language acquisition primarily from two perspectives: age of onset of exposure to the language(s) and the role of the input ( Genesee, Paradis, & Crago, 2004 ; Meisel, 2009 ; Unsworth et al., 2014 ). Some findings suggest that early successive bilingual children may pattern similarly to simultaneous bilingual chil…
Reference and referentiality in native and learner grammars
Linguistics (57 obras) · Psychology (55 obras) · Computer Science (34 obras) · Language Development and Disorders (33 obras) · Reading and Literacy Development (27 obras) · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism (25 obras) · Philosophy (25 obras) · Neuroscience of multilingualism (19 obras) · Artificial Intelligence (17 obras) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (17 obras)