CRC 1287 Collaborative Research Centre 1287 Limits of Variability in Language: Cognitive, Computational, and Grammatical Aspects

Project B04

in Phase 2

Bilingual processing ability as a predictor for language learning

PI(s): Prof. Dr. Harald Clahsen & PD Dr. Claudia Felser

This project investigates how inter-individual variability in bilingual language processing can predict learning outcomes in a newly learnt language. Our starting assumption is that successful language learning presupposes efficient processing of the linguistic input. By examining bilingual speakers in both of their languages, we will test the hypothesis that individual language processing profiles yield different outcomes in a person’s learning of a novel language.

in Phase 1

Variability in bilingual language processing

PI(s): Prof. Dr. Harald Clahsen & PD Dr. Claudia Felser

This project examines how the processing of sentences and morphologically complex words in Turkish/German bilingual speakers is influenced by grammatical and non-grammatical factors.

A general conclusion from our studies on morphological processing is that the study of inter-individual variability leads to insights that remain hidden if only measures of central tendencies are evaluated. For example, we found that morphological parsing not only leads to faster processing, relative to control conditions, but also to more homogeneous performance, thus reducing inter-individual variability within a (bilingual) group of otherwise heterogeneous individuals.

In the domain of sentence processing, our experiments on non-categorical cases of subject-verb congruence in German and Turkish revealed some subtle differences between mono- and bilingual speakers. By using constraint-based models to model our results, we were able to gain insights into which of the factors determining monolingual language behaviour are also stable in bilingual language use and which are more variable.

Our experiments have brought us closer to the project’s goal to develop models that can account for both variability and consistency in bilingual language processing.

Papers

Author(s)TitleYearPublished inLinks
Jessen, A., Fleischhauer, E., & Clahsen, H.Morphological encoding in German children's language production: evidence from event-related brain potentials.2017Journal of Child Language, 44(2), 427-456.
Veríssimo, J., Heyer, V., Jacob, G., & Clahsen, H.Selective Effects of Age of Acquisition on Morphological Priming: Evidence for a Sensitive Period.2017Language Acquisition, 25(3), 315-326.
Clahsen, H., & Felser, C.Some notes on the Shallow Structure Hyposthesis.2018Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 40(3), 693-706.
Jessen, A., Veríssimo, J., & Clahsen, H.Variability and consistency in L2 morphology: An EEG production study.2018Mental Lexicon, 13(2): 186-214.
Lago, S., & Felser, C.Agreement attraction in native and non-native speakers of German.2018Applied Psycholinguistics 39: 619-647.
Uygun, S., & Gürel, AProcessing second language inflectional morphology.2018M.-A. Akıncı & K. Yagmur (Eds.), The Rouen Meeting: Studies on Turkic Structures and Language Contacts (pp. 189-204). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Bosch, S., Veríssimo, J., & Clahsen, H.Inflectional morphology in bilingual language processing: An age-of-acquisition study.2019Language Acquisition, 26(3), 339-360.
Felser, C., & Arslan, S.Inappropriate choice of definites in Turkish heritage speakers of German.2019Heritage Language Journal, 16(1), 22-43.
Arslan, S., Lago, S., Yanilmaz, A., Drury, J. E., & Felser, C.The processing of negative polarity items in Turkish-German bilinguals.2019In P. Guijarro-Fuentes & C. Suárez-Gómez (Eds.), Proceedings of GALA 2017: Language Acquisition and Development (pp. 117-133). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Clahsen, H., & Jessen, A.Do bilingual children lag behind? A study of morphological encoding using ERPs.2019Journal of Child Language, 46(5), 955-979.
Felser, C.Structure-sensitive constraints in non-native sentence processing.2019Journal of the European Second Language Association, 3(1), 12-22.
Felser, C.Do processing resource limitations shape heritage language grammars?2019Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1-2.
Lago, S., Gracanin-Yuksek, M., Şafak, D.F., Demir, O., Kırkıcı, B., & Felser, C.Straight from the horse's mouth: Agreement attraction effects with Turkish possessors.2019Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 9(3), 398 - 426.
Clahsen, H., & Jessen, A.Variability and its limits in bilingual word recognition: A morphological priming study.2020The Mental Lexicon, 15(2), 295-329.
Ciaccio, L. A., & Clahsen, H.Variability and Consistency in First and Second Language Processing: A Masked Morphological Priming Study on Prefixation and Suffixation.2020Language Learning, 70(1), 103-136.
Reifegerste, J., Jarvis, R., & Felser, C. Effects of aging on native and nonnative sentence processing: Evidence from subject-verb agreement in German.2020Journal of Memory and Language, 111, 104083.
Uygun, S., & Gürel, A.Does the processing of first language compounds change in late bilinguals?2020M. Schlechtweg (Ed.), The learnability of complex constructions: A cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 63-89). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
Uygun, S., & Clahsen, H.Morphological processing in heritage speakers: A masked priming study on the Turkish aorist.2021Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 24(3), 415-426.
Felser, C., & Jessen, A.Correlative coordination and variable subject–verb agreement in German.2021Languages, 6(2), 67.
Jessen, A., Schwarz, L., & Felser, C.Gradience in subject-verb number agreement: Can bilinguals tune in?2021Applied Psycholinguistics, 42, 1523-1551.
Clahsen, H., & Jessen, A.Morphological generalization in bilingual language production: Age of acquisition determines variability.2021Language Acquisition, 28(4), 370–386.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Pragmatic factors facilitate Condition C violations cross-linguistically.2021A. Botinis (ed.), Proceedings of 12th International Conference of Experimental Linguistics (pp. 125-128). Athens, Greece.
Felser, C., & Uygun, S.Optional Plural Agreement in Heritage Turkish Speakers’ Verb Form Choices.2022Heritage Language Journal, 19(1), 1-30.
Uygun, S.Processing pro-drop features in heritage Turkish.2022Frontiers in Psychology, 13.
Uygun, S., & Felser, C. Constraints on subject-verb agreement marking in Turkish-German bilingual speakers.2023Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 13(2), 190–217.
Uygun, S., Schwarz, L., & Clahsen, H.Morphological generalization in heritage speakers: The Turkish aorist.2023Second Language Research, 39(2), 519–538.
Uygun, S.Vulnerability in processing definiteness: The case of heritage Turkish.2023Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1286407
Reifegerste, J., Garibagaoglu, A., & Felser, C.Conceptual number in bilingual agreement computation: Evidence from German pseudo-partitives.2023Languages, 8(2), 147.
Trifonova, A., & Felser, C.Sensitivity to Filler–Gap Dependency Violations in the L1 vs. L2: Evidence from Speeded Judgement Tasks.2025Languages, 10(2), 21.

Talks

Author(s)TitleYearPublished inLinks
Arslan, S., Felser, C., & Uzuntaş, A.Inappropriate use of definites in Turkish-German bilinguals.2017Poster presented at the Conference on Multilingualism (COM 2017), University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. 06 - 08 November.
Arslan, S., Lago, S., Felser, C., Yanılmaz, A., & Drury, J. E.The processing of Negative Polarity Items in Turkish-German bilingual speakers.2017Paper presented at the Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition (GALA 13), Palma de Mallorca, Spain. 07 - 09 September.
Clahsen, H.Multilingualism in the Individual: A psycholinguistic perspective.2017Paper presented at the The Multilingualism and Diversity Lectures, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany. 08 June.
Clahsen, H.What language processing reveals about constraints on word formation.2017Invited talk at the Workshop ''Usage statistics, semantic transparency and segmentability in the selection, access and (de)composition of complex words'', University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. 05 May.
Felser, C.Illusions of grammaticality in non-native language processing.2017Invited workshop plenary talk at the Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition (GALA 13). Palma de Mallorca, Spain. 07 - 09 September.
Felser, C.Structure-sensitive constraints in non-native sentence processing.2018Keynote talk at the 28th Conference of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA 2018), Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Münster, Germany. 05 - 08 September.
Jessen, A.Variabilität in der bilingualen Sprachverarbeitung.2018Paper presented at the 25. Treffen des Berliner Interdisziplinären Verbunds für Mehrsprachigkeit (BIVEM) Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin, Germany. 01 February.
Jessen, A., Veríssimo, J., & Clahsen, H.Variability and consistency in L2 morphology. An EEG production study.2018Poster presented at the 11th International Conference on the Mental Lexicon, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada. 25 - 28 September.
Uygun, S., & Gürel, A.Processing of compounds in native and nonnative speakers of Turkish.2018Paper presented at the 2nd Conference on Interdisciplinary Approaches to Linguistic Theory (CIALT-2), Berlin, Germany. 25 - 27 October.
Uygun, S., & Gürel, A.First language processing of compounds in late bilinguals.2018Poster presented at the 24th Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP 2018), Berlin, Germany. 06 - 08 September.
Clahsen, H.The multilingual individual: Correcting some myths.2019Invited talk at the Conference ''Multilingualism in Ancient and Modern Contexts'', Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa. 25 - 27 September.
Felser, C.The timing of structure-sensitive constraints during native and non-native sentence comprehension.2019Keynote talk at ConSOLE XXVII, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 21 February.
Jessen, A., Schwarz, L., & Clahsen, H.Graded morphological generalization: A study of German inflection.2019Poster presented at the 12th Mediterranean Morphology Meeting, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovene. 27 - 30 June.
Jessen, A., Schwarz, L., & Felser, C. Gradience in subject-verb number agreement: Can bilinguals tune in?2019Paper presented at the 2nd International Conference on Bilingualism, University of Malta, Valetta, Malta. 25 - 27 March.
Uygun, S., & Clahsen, H. Morphological variability in linguistic generalization: The Turkish aorist.2019Paper presented at the International Morphological Processing Conference (MoProc 2019), University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. 4 - 7 November.
Uygun, S., & Felser, C.Subject-verb agreement marking in Turkish heritage speakers.2019Paper presented at the Workshop ''Turkish in Europe'', University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany. 12 July.
Uygun, S., & Felser, C.Constraints on subject-verb agreement in German-Turkish bilingual speakers.2019Paper presented at the 12th International Symposium of Biligualism (ISB 12). Edmonton, AB, Canada. 24 - 28 June.
Jessen, A., & Uygun, S.Variability in subject-verb agreement in Turkish-German bilinguals.2019Paper presented at the 1st CRC Networking Workshop: Language Processing, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. 14-15 February.
Clahsen, H.Morphological constraints in language processing and language acquisition.2020Keynote talk at the Virtual Colloquium Series on Linguistics, The Linguistic Society of Korea, Seoul, Korea. 15 December.
Clahsen, H.Morphology in Child and Adult Learners' Spoken Language Comprehension.2020Keynote talk at the Virtual Psycholinguistics Forum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, HK. 07 October.
Jessen, A., Schwarz, L., & Felser, C.Resolving number agreement conflicts with pseudopartitives in L2 German.2020Poster presented at the Conference on Multilingualism - COM2020, University of Reading, Reading, UK. 23 - 25 June.
Uygun, S., & Clahsen, H.Morphological priming in Turkish: Evidence from heritage speakers.2020Poster presented at the 26th Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP 2020), University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. 03 - 05 September.
Baltais, M., & Jessen, A.Morphological decomposition by second language learners: A German masked priming study with Russian native speakers.2021Paper presented at the 34th Annual CUNY Conference on Human Sentence Processing, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. 04 - 06 March.
Felser, C.Gradience in subject-verb number agreement in German and Turkish.2021Invited talk at the Experimental Linguistics Seminar, Université Paris-Diderot, 4 June.
Felser, C., & Jessen, A.Correlative coordination and variable subject-verb agreement in German: An experimental study.2021Paper presented at the 43rd Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS): Modell und Evidenz, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany. 23 - 26 February.
Uygun, S., & Clahsen, H.Morphological generalization in heritage Turkish.2021Paper presented at the RUEG Conference - Dynamics of Language Contact: New Perspectives on Emerging Grammars, Variation and Change, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 22 - 23 February.
Uygun, S., & Felser, C.Effects of subject position and animacy in Turkish subject-verb agreement.2021Paper presented at the RUEG Conference - Dynamics of Language Contact: New Perspectives on Emerging Grammars, Variation and Change, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany. 22 - 23 February.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Pragmatic factors facilitate Condition C violations cross-linguistically.2021Talk presented at the 12th International Conference of Experimental Linguistics, 11-13 October 2021, Athens, Greece.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Aspectual backgrounding facilitates Condition C violation in L1 and L2 comprehension.2022Poster presented at the GASLA 16, Trondheim, Norway, 12 - 14 May.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Aspectual backgrounding facilitates Condition C violation in L1 and L2 comprehension.2022Poster presented at the Workshop on L2 sentence and discourse processing, Universität zu Köln, Cologne, Germany. 18 November.
Trifonova, A., & Felser, C.Individual differences in L1 and L2 speakers judgements of filler-gap dependency violations.2024Talk presented at the 26th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Thessaloniki, Greece, 19-21 April 2024.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Bilinguals brain responses to selectional and subcategorization violations during the processing of unbounded dependencies.2024Talk presented at the 26th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, Thessaloniki, Greece, 19-21 April 2024.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Linking offline judgements and ERP responses in the L1 and L2 processing of filler-gap dependencies.2024Paper presented at the 5th International Symposium on Bilingual and L2 Processing in Adults and Children, Swansea University, Swansea, UK. 23 - 24 May.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Constraint interaction in L1 and L2 cataphoric pronoun resolution: c-command and event construal.2024Poster presented at the Conference on Multilingualism (COM 2024), Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France. 10 - 12 June.
Iliopoulos, I., & Felser, C.Individual differences in bilinguals’ brain responses to filler-gap dependency violations.2025Paper presented at the Language Learning roundtable conference: Cognitive neuroscience of individual differences in adult language learning: Future directions (CogNeuroIDALL) University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA. 22-23 May.
Trifonova, A., & Felser, C.Sensitivity to filler-gap dependency violations during bilingual comprehension.2025Poster presented at the Psycholinguistics in Flanders 22, University of Lille, Lille, France. 19-20 May.
Kong, D., Trifonova, A., & Felser, C.Minding the gap: Is L1 Mandarin speakers’ sensitivity to missing resumptives correlated with their sensitivity to filled wh-gaps in L2 English?2025Paper presented at the Pacific Second Language Research Forum 2025, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, 30 May-01 June.
Contact
University of Potsdam
Department Linguistics
Prof. Dr. Doreen Georgi
Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25
House 14, Room 3.33
14476 Potsdam

(+49) 331 977-2968
doreen.georgi@uni-potsdam.de
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