Among the seven (not counting /er/) single vowels in standard Chinese [i, y z , , u, ɤ where z , ] stand for the high vowels following dentialveolars and retroflexes), previous studies have analyzed the surface forms of er-suffixed /u, ɤ, a/ as the original vowel followed by either [ɹ] (Chao, 1968; Cheng, 1973; Pulleyblank, 1984; Lin, 1989; among others) or [ʅ] (i.e. [ ], Li, 1986), while the e...

Vocabulary is one of the essential components of language and learning phrasal verbs as part of vocabulary is quite challenging for foreign language learners. The present study aimed at investigating the effects of visual and auditory input enhancement on learning non-congruent phrasal verbs. The participants of the study were 90 intermediate English language learners who were divided into two ...

Penultimate stress in monomorphemic forms is invariant (1a-c). In suffixed forms (1d-f), by contrast, stress falls on the antepenultimate syllable. These deviations from penultimate stress serve a function: by retaining stress on the antepenult, stress of the suffixed stems matches stress of the stems in isolation. In this paper I show that an analysis of accentual faithfulness using base-deriv...

Abstract Task-based language teaching is considered an effective way to achieve a harmony between grammar and communication. The present study investigates two different ways of teaching modal verbs: task-based versus traditional approaches. To this purpose, an Oxford Placement Test was administered to select 40 homogeneous participants out of a larger population who took this test. The selecte...

In many areas of language acquisition, researchers have suggested that semantic generality plays an important role in determining the order of acquisition of particular lexical forms. However, generality is typically confounded with the effects of input frequency and it is therefore unclear to what extent semantic generality or input frequency determines the early acquisition of particular lexi...

Compared to humans, non-human primates have very little control over their vocal production. Nonetheless, some primates produce various call combinations, which may partially offset their lack of acoustic flexibility. A relevant example is male Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli), which give one call type ('Krak') to leopards, while the suffixed version of the same call stem ('Krak-oo'...

This study examined the role of the native language (L1) transfer in a non-native language (L2) acquisition of the there-insertion construction at the syntax-semantics interface. Specifically, the study investigated if Mandarin EFL learners would make overgeneralization errors in the situation where an L1 argument structure constitutes a superset of its L2 counterpart. Verbs of existence and ap...