The processing of number and gender agreement in Spanish: an event related potential investigation of the effects of structural distance

Previous research suggests that the processing of agreement is affected by the distance between the agreeing elements. However, the unique contribution of structural distance (number of intervening syntactic phrases) to the processing of agreement remains an open question, since previous investigations do not tease apart structural and linear distance (number of intervening words). We used event related potentials (ERPs) to examine the extent to which structural distance impacts the processing of Spanish number and gender agreement. Violations were realized both within the phrase and across the phrase. Across both levels of structural distance, linear distance was kept constant, as was the syntactic category of the agreeing elements. Number and gender agreement violations elicited a robust P600 between 400 and 900ms, a component associated with morphosyntactic processing. No amplitude differences were observed between number and gender violations, suggesting that the two features are processed similarly at the brain level. Within-phrase agreement yielded more positive waveforms than across-phrase agreement, both for agreement violations and for grammatical sentences (no agreement by distance interaction). These effects can be interpreted as evidence that structural distance impacts the establishment of agreement overall, consistent with sentence processing models which predict that hierarchical structure impacts the processing of syntactic dependencies. However, due to the lack of an agreement by distance interaction, the possibility cannot be ruled out that these effects are driven by differences in syntactic predictability between the within-phrase and across-phrase configurations, notably the fact that the syntactic category of the critical word was more predictable in the within-phrase conditions.

Activities related with electricity consumption in the Spanish residential sector: variations between days of the week, Autonomous Communities and size of towns

Nowadays the electricity consumption in the residential sector attracts policy and research efforts, in order to propose saving strategies and to attain a better balance between production and consumption, by integrating renewable energy production and proposing suitable demand side management methods. To achieve these objectives it is essential to have real information about household electricity demand profiles in dwellings, highly correlated, among other aspects, with the active occupancy of the homes and to the personal activities carried out in homes by their occupants. Due to the limited information related to these aspects, in this paper, behavioral factors of the Spanish household residents, related to the electricity consumption, have been determined and analyzed, based on data from the Spanish Time Use Surveys, differentiating among the Autonomous Communities and the size of municipalities, or the type of days, weekdays or weekends. Activities involving a larger number of houses are those related to Personal Care, Food Preparation and Washing Dishes. The activity of greater realization at homes is Watching TV, which together with Using PC, results in a high energy demand in an aggregate level. Results obtained enable identify prospective targets for load control and for efficiency energy reduction recommendations to residential consumers.

Volatile profile of Spanish Cistus plants as sources of antimicrobials for industrial applications

Cistus is a plant genus traditionally used in folk medicine as remedy for several microbial disorders and infections. The abundance of Cistus spp. in the Iberian Peninsula together with their ability to renew after wildfire contribute to their profitability as suppliers of functional ingredients. The aim of this study was to provide a comprehensive characterization of the volatile profile of different Cistus plants grown in Spain:Cistus ladanifer L., Cistus albidus L., Cistus salviifolius L., and Cistus clusii Dunal (the latter has not been studied before). A system combining headspace solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC–MS) was implemented; thereby, the volatile compounds were extracted and analyzed in a fast, reliable and environment-friendly way. A total of 111 volatile compounds were identified, 28 of which were reported in Cistus for the first time. The most abundant components of the samples (mono and sesquiterpenes) have been previously reported as potent antimicrobial agents. Therefore, this work reveals the potential use of the Cistus spp. studied as natural sources of antimicrobial compounds for industrial production of cosmeceuticals, among other applications.

Older age of onset in child L2 acquisition can be facilitative: evidence from the acquisition of English passives by Spanish natives

We report a longitudinal comprehension study of (long) passive constructions in two native-Spanish child groups differing by age of initial exposure to L2 English (young group: 3;0-4;0 years; older group: 6;0-7;0 years); where amount of input, L2 exposure environment, and socio-economic status are controlled. Data from a forced-choice task show that both groups comprehend active sentences, not passives, initially (after 3.6 years of exposure). One year later, both groups improve, but only the older group reaches ceiling on both actives and passives. Two years from initial testing, the younger group catches up. Input alone cannot explain why the younger group takes 5 years to accomplish what the older group does in 4. We claim that some properties take longer to acquire at certain ages because language development is partially constrained by general cognitive and linguistic development (e.g. de Villiers, 2007; Long & Rothman, 2014; Paradis, 2008, 2010, 2011; Tsimpli, 2014).

Discourse-sensitive clitic-doubled dislocations in heritage Spanish

This experimental study tests the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis (Sorace, 2011, 2012) using two constructions whose appropriateness depends on monitoring discourse information: Clitic Left Dislocation and Fronted Focus. Clitic Left Dislocation relates a dislocated and clitic-doubled object to an antecedent activated in previous discourse, while Fronted Focus does not relate the fronted constituent to a discourse antecedent. The Interface Hypothesis argues that speakers in language contact situations experience difficulties when they have to integrate syntactic with discourse information. We tested four groups of native speakers on these constructions: Spanish monolinguals, bilinguals with more than 7 years residence in the US, intermediate and advanced proficiency heritage speakers. Our findings suggest that attrition has not set in the adult L2 bilingual speakers, and that the heritage speakers perform similarly to the monolingual and the adult sequential bilingual natives.

A rare structure at the syntax-discourse interface: heritage and Spanish-dominant native speakers weigh in

The present study examines knowledge of the discourse-appropriateness of Clitic Right Dislocation (CLRD) in a population of Heritage (HS) and Spanish-dominant Native Speakers in order to test the predictions of the Interface Hypothesis (IH; Sorace 2011). The IH predicts that speakers in language contact situations will experience difficulties with integrating information involving the interface of syntax and discourse modules. CLRD relates a dislocated constituent to a discourse antecedent, requiring integration of syntax and pragmatics. Results from an acceptability judgment task did not support the predictions of the IH. No statistical differences between the HSs’ performance and that of L1-dominant native speakers were evidenced when participants were presented with an offline task. Thus, our study did not find any evidence of “incomplete acquisition” (Montrul 2008) as it pertains to this specific linguistic structure.

How Pragmatically Odd! Interface Delays and Pronominal Subject Distribution in the L2 Spanish of English Natives

Sorace (2000, 2005) has claimed that while L2 learners can easily acquire properties of L2 narrow syntax they have significant difficulty with regard to interpretation and the discourse distribution of related properties, resulting in so-called residual optionality. However, there is no consensus as to what this difficulty indicates. Is it related to an insurmountable grammatical representational deficit (in the sense of representation deficit approaches; e.g. Beck 1998, Franceschina 2001, Hawkins 2005), is it due to cross-linguistic interference, or is it just a delay due to a greater complexity involved in the acquisition of interface-conditioned properties? In this article, I explore the L2 distribution of null and overt subject pronouns of English speaking learners of L2 Spanish. While intermediate learners clearly have knowledge of the syntax of Spanish null subjects, they do not have target-like pragmatic knowledge of their distribution with overt subjects. The present data demonstrate, however, that this difficulty is overcome at highly advanced stages of L2 development, thus suggesting that properties at the syntax-pragmatics interface are not destined for inevitable fossilization.