This volume includes a selection of papers that address a wide range of acquisition phenomena from different Romance languages and all share a common theoretical approach based on the Principles and Parameters theory. They favour, discuss and sometimes challenge traditional explanations of first and second language acquisition in terms of maturation of general principles universal to all languages.

This monograph is written from a specific perspective on the scientific study of language, a position that holds that linguistic theory must be held accountable to the diversity of the world’s languages. In this view, theoretical hypotheses about the nature of language, whether synchronic or diachronic, must be tested against a wide range of languages and language types. This position entails what Ken Hale has called the “the confirmatory function of linguistic diversity” (Hale 2000: 168).

How do infants and young children coordinate information in real time to arrive at sentence meaning from the words and structure of the sentence and from the nonlinguistic context? This volume introduces readers to an emerging field of research, experimental developmental psycholinguistics, and to the four predominant methodologies used to study on-line language processing in children. Authored by key figures in psycholinguistics, neuroscience and developmental psychology, the chapters cover event-related brain potentials, free-viewing eyetracking, looking-while-listening, and reaction-time techniques, also providing a historical backdrop for this line of research.

Connectionist accounts of language acquisition, processing, and dissolution proliferate despite attacks from some linguists, cognitive scientists, and engineers. Although the networks of exquisitely interconnected perceptrons postulated by PDP theorists may not be anatomically homologous with actual brain anatomy, a growing body of research suggests that the posited network functions can support many human behaviors. This volume brings together contributors with a variety of backgrounds and perspectives to explore, for the first time, the clinical implications of whole-language connectionist models. Demonstrating that these models are powerful and have explained many phenomena of language acquisition, language therapy, and speech processing, especially at the engineering level, they focus specifically on applications of connectionist theory to delayed language, aphasia, phonological acquisition, and speech perception. Connectionist models, they conclude, offer a new interpretive framework for the discussion of information processing in humans and other animals that will be of great utility to all those who study language and seek to intervene in language disorders.

This is the second volume of the series "Usage-Based Linguistic Informatics", a product of the 21st century COE program held at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (TUFS). The project has an objective to realize an integration of theoretical and applied linguistics on the basis of computer sciences. With a view to practically applying the results of linguistic analysis to language education, the promotion of individual language research has become a high-priority issue.