This study examines the link between distributional patterns in the input and infants’ acquisition of non-adjacent dependencies. In two Headturn Preference experiments, Dutch-learning 24-month-olds (but not 17-month-olds) were found to track the remote dependency between the definite article het and the diminutive suffix -je while no such evidence was obtained for the remote dependency between ...

background: the most frequently used spermicide nonoxynol-9 (n-9) in the clinic alters the vaginal flora, which will result in an increased risk of opportunistic infection. so development of a novel spermicidal and microbicidal drug appears to be inevitable. vaginal local immune is an important part of vaginal flora. secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (slpi), surfactant proteins d (sp-d), a...

The variety of interpretations exhibited by sentences with reciprocals is a longstanding challenge for semantic and pragmatic theories. This puzzle is related to some hard questions about the interpretation of plural predicates in general. In this paper we study the implications of relations between reciprocity and plurality for the account of reciprocals in Dalrymple et al. (1994). It will be ...

Coordinate, plural and predicative constructions of noun phrases are common and highly productive in natural languages. They are also related in intricate ways: conjunctive coordination is one of the simple means to form plural NP’s from singular ones; many coordinate and plural NP’s appear naturally in predicative positions. Any theory of grammar and semantic interpretation should account for ...

We report a new pattern of usage in current, spoken Italian that has implications for both psycholinguistic models of language production and linguistic theories of language change. In Italian, gender agreement is mandatory for both singular and plural nouns. However, when two or more nouns of different grammatical gender appear in a conjoined noun phrase (NP), masculine plural agreement is req...

For maintenance microrobots for small diameter pipes in power plants and so on, a novel microgripper using divided-electrode type flexible electro-rheological valves (DE-FERVs) was proposed and developed. Each bendable finger consisted of the DE-FERV and a hydraulic rubber actuator and was several millimeters long. The DE-FERV had an axially divided parallel plate electrode pairs in a flexible ...