BackgroundOnline assessment of narrative production and comprehension became an important component of language assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to establish quantitative measures of narrative macrostructure in the production and comprehension of adult Irish-English bilinguals in an online assessment.MethodsA total of 30 Irish-English bilingual adults participated in an online assessment of oral narrative production and comprehension. Narratives were elicited using LITMUS-MAIN for Irish and English. Story-tell elicitation method was used for all stories. Twenty participants produced Baby Birds and (...) Baby Goats story pairs while 10 participants produced Cat and Dog story pairs. Quantitative measures of story structure, comprehension score, and the overall number of Internal State Terms in production and comprehension were compared across the story pairs, languages, and the output type.ResultsA general linear model indicated no differences in either story structure or story comprehension scores across languages for both sets of stories. Combined analysis for all participants and stories indicated no difference in the story structure scores or comprehension scores across the languages or the story pairs. While the overall number of ISTs was the same across languages, a higher number of ISTs was observed in comprehension relative to production in both languages for Cat and Dog story pair only, but not for Baby birds and Baby goats' stories. The major benefit of using online assessment was the accessibility of participants. The major drawback was the inability to control the environment and the quality of the internet connection.Conclusion and implicationsWhile online assessment increased the availability of participants, which is a significant factor in rural Ireland characterized by low population density and the high percentage of Irish speakers, the availability of stable internet connection limited the applicability of online assessment. Measures of narrative macrostructure were stable across the languages and the story pairs. This is important because of high variability in exposure to Irish, frequent code-switching, and a high number of morphosyntactic errors due to rapid language change that characterizes Irish-English bilinguals. Identifying reliable measures of language performance for Irish-English adult speakers is an important step toward establishing developmental norms for Irish-English bilinguals. (shrink)

Schwarzschild (Nat Lang Semant 7:141–177, 1999)’s account of givenness elaborates a notion of complementarity of givenness and focus in an intricate way: while givenness is semantically interpreted, focus is grammatically marked. It has been noticed, however, that under certain circumstances givenness in English is grammatically marked as well. Movement plays a role in this process. This paper provides further evidence for givenness marking. I present a case study of three Slavic languages (Czech, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian) in which givenness is always (...) grammatically marked. In these languages, given elements must linearly precede new elements. If this relative ordering cannot be achieved by base generation, the ordering can be achieved by movement. I offer an account of the data in terms of givenness and the Maximize Presupposition principle of Heim (1991). In particular, I argue for an operator that marks elements in its scope as given. The operator divides the structure between a given and a new part. The role of Maximize Presupposition is to enforce that every given element is in the scope of the operator. The operator and Maximize Presupposition work in tandem with an economy condition on movement that licenses movement only if it yields an otherwise unavailable semantic interpretation. The proposal thus provides independent evidence for competition in grammar and for the role of Maximize Presupposition in the process. (shrink)

This study investigated person perception in respect of variables associated with affect in music following motor synchronization to music. Participants were tested in a task involving stepping with a researcher to the beat of slow or fast music in major or minor mode, following which measures concerning the synchronised partner were collected. Significant effects were found only for the ‘likeability’ measure, modulated by gender, suggesting that variables associated with affect perception in music, such as mode and tempo appear relevant for (...) person perception in a synchronization task in ways that differ for men and women. The results of this ‘proof of concept’ study indicate the need for further research on the effect of motor synchronization based on ecologically valid musical interaction tasks. (shrink)

A Riposte to Stanislav Sousedík’s View of Historical Facts.