Prediction in bilingual sentence processing

• DOI: 10.1075/lab.22102.mei
• Publication Date: 2024-03-22T17:09:00Z
• Authors: Natalia Meir; Olga Parshina; Irina A. Sekerina
• Keywords: Hebrews; Inflection

Abstract The Unified Competition Model ( MacWhinney, 2012 ) accounts for cross-linguistic differences in thematic role mapping. We investigated production and predictive use of accusative case morphology Russian-Hebrew bilingual children. also the processing testing Prediction-by-Production Account Pickering & Garrod, 2018 vs. Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis Prévost White, 2000 ). Three groups children aged 4–8 participated: Russian-Hebrew-speaking bilinguals, Russian-speaking Hebrew-speaking monolingual controls. All participated Visual-World eye-tracking comprehension experiments. Bilinguals were tested both their languages. results study confirmed predictions showing typological strength case-marking cue its sentence Russian- While monolinguals relied on marking to predict upcoming agent/patient, performance varied. findings bilinguals showed that despite lower accuracy languages, they either indistinguishable from or an advantage morphology. support , which predicts a dissociation between comprehension.