Phonaesthetics examines why some languages are perceived as more aesthetically appealing than others, independent of meaning. Here we test whether phonetic and phonological properties predict listeners’ evaluations of 24 European languages using studio-quality recordings of native speakers reading the same text. 204 participants rated each recording on four dimensions: beauty, eros, status and order on 0–100 scales and indicated whether the language sounded familiar. Because familiarity reliably boosts evaluations, we first quantified its impact and then focused our main analyses on trials where languages were not recognized. We fitted Bayesian multilevel models with random intercepts for listener and language to examine a broad set of predictors: consonant place and manner distributions, vocalic share, voiced consonants, a sonority index, vowel height and backness and suprasegmental typology (speech rate, syllable structure, stress and rhythm type). Across most model families, effects were small and uncertain, with credible intervals (CrIs) overlapping zero, and variance was dominated by between-listener differences. The clearest and most consistent segmental signal was vowel height: a higher proportion of close vowels predicted lower status and order ratings. Overall, the results suggest that while a few fine-grained segmental cues may shape specific evaluative dimensions, phonaesthetic judgments are strongly shaped by listener-level variability, with only a small number of fixed individual-difference and phonetic predictors showing robust associations.

Numbers have mathematically defined, formal meanings, which afford precision and objectivity. In practice, however, we show that round numbers are frequently used approximately, and this approximate use depends on magnitude. Across three analyses of British and American English, we demonstrate the following: (1) people use round numbers more often, and round to a greater extent, at higher magnitudes; (2) the distributional semantics of larger round numbers resemble those of indefinite hyperbolic numbers such as ‘gazillion’, which lack a precise value; and (3) larger jigsaw puzzles have greater discrepancies between round advertised piece counts and the actual values (e.g., advertising ‘13,200 pieces’ when the actual count is 13,224). We argue that the relationship between roundness, magnitude and approximation derives from the base-10 structure of English numerals, which renders powers of 10 structurally salient, creating hotspots for communicative functions such as approximation. We discuss how these communicative patterns align with the approximate number system, which cognitively represents larger quantities with increasing imprecision, making them harder to estimate and compare.

Listeners flexibly adapt utterance interpretation based on speaker characteristics, but less is known about how this works in multiparty conversations, particularly for pragmatic inferences like Mutual Exclusivity (MEI) – the tendency to map novel terms onto unnamed referents. MEI may reflect a flexible, speaker-sensitive process or a rigid default. This study tested whether listeners modulate MEI based on speaker-specific referential consistency in multiparty conversations. Two eye-tracking experiments were conducted (Exp 1: N = 32, English; Exp 2: N = 44, Spanish), where participants followed instructions from two speakers. In experimental conditions, one speaker was consistent (reused labels), while the other was inconsistent (sometimes relabeled objects). Control conditions featured two consistent speakers. Results showed robust and early MEI across conditions. No speaker-specific adaptation occurred, but Experiment 1 showed context-general adaptation: exposure to an inconsistent speaker within a conversation reduced MEI overall. Findings suggest that in high-demand communicative contexts, MEI operates as a strong default heuristic, largely resistant to speaker-level inconsistency. Evidence for sensitivity to broader contextual reliability was observed in Experiment 1 but did not replicate in Experiment 2, leaving open whether MEI exhibits limited contextual flexibility or whether the initial finding reflected design-specific factors.

Although syntactic priming is often studied in a purely cognitive framework, individual differences in rates of syntactic priming may be related to other social-cognitive and sociolinguistic factors. One such factor may be perspective-taking, in that the ability to take into account the thoughts and feelings of another person may relate to individual differences in the frequency of syntactic priming. To date, however, the limited research investigating this question has used non-interactive measures of perspective-taking in which participants self-report their perspective-taking tendencies or reason about third-party characters. To address this gap, participants in the present study will complete three different perspective-taking tasks, and we will examine whether individual differences in perspective-taking relate to syntactic priming rates during an interactive task. Given some evidence that perspective-taking scores are higher in bilingual versus monolingual individuals, we will also estimate perspective-taking scores and rates of syntactic priming based on participants’ multilingualism scores. Analyzing whether and how perspective-taking and multilingualism relate to variability in rates of structural priming will help inform our understanding of the social-cognitive mechanisms that contribute to linguistic alignment.

In German written language, demonstrative expressions like diese or die play an important part in connecting discourse referents and making larger stretches of discourse coherent. But what makes a writer decide to use a proximal (diese-dieser-dieses, hier) or a distal (die-der-das, da) demonstrative variant? Using a free writing production experiment, we investigated the role of two types of factors suggested to drive demonstrative variance in German written text: the higher-order variable of discourse genre and a number of local structural variables reflecting the prominence of discourse referents, such as the distance between demonstrative and antecedent and the syntactic function or clause position of the demonstrative clause. We asked 100 participants to write emails to a friend (a narrative type of text) and a local authority (an expository text) about an event on the basis of a given scenario. The results indicate that discourse genre by far exceeds the effect of local variables as driver of demonstrative variance. As such, this study complements earlier work on German demonstrative use and corroborates existing findings in other languages through offering an explanatory framework for the understanding of the discourse conditions responsible for the majority of demonstrative choices in German written text.

Models of visual word recognition in Latin script assume rapid abstraction of letter identities from perceptual features, reflected in the absence of visual similarity effects for pseudowords (e.g., viotin and viocin yield similar response times in lexical decision). Whether this principle extends to Arabic-derived scripts remains unclear because visual similarity in Arabic can be confounded with preservation of consonantal root structure in a Semitic language. We examined this issue in Persian, an Indo-European language written in an Arabic-derived script that preserves dot-based letter contrasts but lacks Semitic root-based morphology. In two lexical decision experiments, pseudowords were formed by replacing one internal letter in words with (1) a visually similar letter (e.g., موسیفی /musifi/ [base word: موسیقی /musiqi/, music]), (2) a visually dissimilar letter preserving ligation (موسیلی /musili/) or (3) a visually dissimilar letter altering ligation (موسیزی /musizi/). Experiment 1 presented the stimulus until response, whereas Experiment 2 limited presentation to 200 ms. Response times were slower for visually similar pseudowords than for visually dissimilar pseudowords preserving ligation, and the two visually dissimilar conditions did not differ reliably. These findings support the view that lexical access in Arabic-derived scripts operates over abstract letter identities, while dot-based visual similarity can produce a processing cost.

This study investigates the diachronic evolution of four object-involving syntactic structures formed with the Mandarin complex directional complement (CDC) qǐlái ‘get up’ from the 12th to early 20th centuries, using data from the Center for Chinese Linguistics (CCL) corpus. Frequency distributions and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) show that these structures did not undergo simple replacement but instead developed through gradual functional differentiation. Mid-object (mid-O) emerged earliest and remained the most frequent pattern, developing as a relatively neutral and processual structure more strongly associated with event unfolding and with new, indefinite and non-patient objects. Pre-object (pre-O) appeared later, peaked in the 17th century and was increasingly restricted to state-change events, a development related to its verb–object (V–O) adjacency and subsequent competition from ba-O. Ba object (ba-O) became increasingly prominent over time and reached its highest proportion in the 19th century, becoming specialized for foregrounding cognitively accessible and highly affected objects. Although post-O remained rare, qualitative evidence suggests a degree of specialization in evaluative uses, where the postverbal object serves as an anchor for subsequent judgment or description. These findings contribute to a usage-based understanding of syntactic change by showing how formally related variants come to be differentiated through the interaction of structural, cognitive and language-specific factors.

Interlocutors use prosodic cues to package information – highlight or background certain units – to achieve communicative goals such as prompting responses or stating facts. This study investigates how whistlers transpose the prosodic strategies of Spoken Turkish into the reduced acoustic system of Whistled Turkish, in which the narrow band of frequency primarily transposes segmental features. We conducted an experimental study focusing on polar questions and focus constructions, measuring and comparing frequency, intensity and duration values of focused and non-focused constituents. In polar questions, the prosodic cues of Spoken Turkish were transposed into the whistled modality in that a constituent preceding the question particle had higher frequency values compared to its non-focused counterparts. However, this strategy was obscured by frequency modulations caused by vowel-consonant transitions. In focus constructions, only the immediate preverbal position was marked by frequency modulations, which is suggested to be the unmarked focus position in Spoken Turkish. The results indicate that the frequency channel is used in Whistled Turkish to convey both segmental features, which carry the lexical information necessary for intelligibility, and prosodic information. There are modality-specific trade-offs, and whistlers exert more effort to transpose the prosodic cues that convey high benefits to achieve communicative efficiency without a breakdown.

Despite longstanding assertions that first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition rely on fundamentally different processes, recent research increasingly questions this dichotomy by exploring the cognitive mechanisms underlying them. The present study investigates the contribution of two explicit learning abilities, language analytic ability and non-verbal abstract reasoning, traditionally deemed irrelevant for L1 acquisition, in accounting for individual differences in grammatical comprehension in both L1 and L2 contexts. Adult native speakers of English were tested on their ability to comprehend various syntactic structures in their L1 as well as in a newly acquired artificial language. Our findings revealed that language analytic ability and non-verbal reasoning contribute to variance in grammatical comprehension in both languages. Additionally, considerable interindividual variation was observed in the L1 task, challenging the prevailing view of uniformity in native grammar acquisition. These results underscore the role of explicit learning mechanisms in both native and non-native language acquisition and suggest that the cognitive factors influencing them are more similar than previously recognized.

In line with the principle of isomorphism, formally reduced expressions such as clippings or abbreviations develop distinct social and/or semantic functions. This article argues that such differentiation follows the principles of communicative efficiency, with accessibility playing a central role. The claim is supported by a corpus-based comparison of the full form artificial intelligence and the abbreviated form AI in online news and Reddit comments. The short form is used far more frequently in the informal Reddit comments, which rely on a rich common ground, than in the news data. The two forms also display distinct semantic and grammatical profiles. Using distributional semantics (word and sentence embeddings) and Universal Dependencies, I show that the division of semantic and grammatical ‘labor’ between the forms is efficient. The abbreviated form tends to express more accessible meanings related to individual user experience, whereas the full form is more strongly linked to less accessible, abstract meanings of AI as a scientific field, industrial sector, technology or machine capability. In addition, the abbreviated form more often serves as the first element of compounds, whereas the full form often functions as a prepositional modifier, in line with principles of efficient word order.

Iconicity refers to a resemblance relationship between aspects of a form and aspects of its meaning. The perception of iconicity, measured, for instance, by degrees using iconicity ratings, is not objectively defined, however, but dependent on an individual’s language experience. This study investigates the perception of iconicity in the Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) lexicon by participants of different linguistic backgrounds: HKSL signers, German Sign Language (DGS) signers and sign-naïve Cantonese non-signers. Fifty-nine HKSL signs from three semantic categories (animal, human and tool) were selected for an iconicity rating task. Overall, HKSL signers rated the degree of iconicity the highest on average, followed by non-signers and DGS signers. Regardless of the differences, certain couplings of semantic category and mapping strategies of signs are preferred by all groups, which is in line with findings of previous studies. Interestingly, when signs are compared based on lexicon type (native vs. non-native), non-native signs (i.e., signs with borrowed elements via loan translation and/or with character signs) are found to have different effects on the overall rating for non-signers and DGS signers. The results further exemplify and support the notion that the perception of iconicity is subjective, mediated by one’s language- and modality-specific experiences with the spoken, signed and written modality.

This study investigated whether Chinese-English bilinguals show forward/backward action compatibility effects when processing environmental concepts in their first language (Chinese) and second language (English). Fifty-two unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals categorized environmental protection and environmental pollution words while making forward or backward joystick movements in compatible and incompatible conditions. The results showed a significant overall compatibility advantage, with faster responses in compatible than incompatible conditions. Chinese words were processed faster overall than English words, reflecting an L1 processing advantage. However, the compatibility effect did not significantly differ between Chinese and English, suggesting a similar action compatibility pattern across the two languages. Additional analyses showed that the overall compatibility advantage remained after controlling for emotional valence and arousal, although both affective variables also predicted response latencies. A corpus-based co-occurrence analysis further suggested that distributional language experience may partly contribute to environmental-spatial associations. These findings indicate that bilinguals’ processing of environmental concepts is sensitive to forward/backward spatial compatibility, but this sensitivity likely reflects the joint contribution of spatial association, affective evaluation, and distributional language experience rather than a purely metaphorical mapping.

Conversion exemplifies one of the most productive word-formation processes in English. Yet how this phenomenon has evolved over time and what factors drive its development remain underexplored. This study investigates changes in noun-to-verb conversion degree and the semantic, morpho-phonological, stylistic and frequency-based factors shaping this process. Using data from the Corpus of Historical American English, we analyzed 637 noun-to-verb conversion pairs from the 1920s to the 2010s and modeled their trajectories with generalized linear mixed effects models. Results reveal a significant increase in conversion degree over time. This reflects a reconfiguration of how efficient communication is achieved, whereby categorical information is increasingly conveyed by context rather than overt morphological marking. We further found that nouns with higher semantic diversity, lower concreteness, lower frequency and shorter phonological forms display stronger tendencies toward verbal expansion. These lexical properties jointly determine how firmly a noun is anchored at the nominal pole of the noun–verb continuum. Overall, the findings portray the dynamics of conversion as a product of communicative pressures, allowing the English lexicon to achieve greater expressivity with fewer but more flexible forms.

Research on text readability has traditionally focused on structural indicators of linguistic complexity, while less attention has been given to how lexical properties influence readers’ subjective perceptions of text quality, particularly during development. This study investigates the role of conceptual concreteness and lexical specificity in shaping children’s perceptions of textual clarity and informativeness. Children aged 9–12 read short texts manipulated along these two dimensions and evaluated them on 5-point Likert scales measuring clarity (ease of understanding and absence of confusion) and informativeness (perceived quantity and relevance of information). Mixed-effects models reveal that concreteness strongly predicts perceived clarity, regardless of age. In contrast, specificity primarily affected perceived informativeness, increasing judgments of informational richness and relevance, with stronger effects among older children.

Mandarin relative clauses (RCs) are head-final constructions that form gap-filler dependencies, whose resolution may differ from filler-gap dependencies. We conducted two eye-tracking experiments investigating native speakers’ reading patterns of Mandarin adjunct relative clauses (ARCs) and possessive relative clauses (PRCs). Experiment 1 compared ARCs with PRCs, revealing that readers found PRCs easier to process, indicating that the explicitly identifiable position of the presumed gap in PRCs facilitates processing. Experiment 2 focused on subtypes of PRCs with alienable versus inalienable possessive relations. The results suggest that inalienability helps resolve gap-filler dependency. Notably, these effects appeared only in late eye-tracking measures, implying that when processing PRCs with a possessum–possessor word order, readers do not predict the possessor for the possessum but wait until they encounter the head noun. Integrating the findings from Experiments 1 and 2, we conclude that in both gapped and gapless RCs, the challenges of semantic resolution significantly affect sentence comprehension.

This study investigates the factors conditioning the that/zero alternation in four varieties of political discourse: translated and interpreted English as constrained varieties, and original written and spoken English as unconstrained varieties. Distinctive collexeme analysis and multivariate analysis were employed. The results show that constrained varieties use the complementizer that significantly more often than unconstrained varieties, with a significantly higher rate in translated than interpreted English. Distinctive collexeme analysis reveals subtle yet systematic differences in the matrix verbs associated with that-complement clauses, suggesting that distinct semantic and constructional profiles contribute to variation in the use of that. Multivariate analysis shows that all four varieties are largely conditioned by the same conventionality- and complexity-related factors, although production mode interacts with specific linguistic constraints. Translated English favors that even in contexts where omission is favored, a pattern consistent with pragmatic risk avoidance. Its broader preference for that may also reflect a tendency toward analyticity associated with cognitively demanding bilingual activation. In interpreted English, however, explicit marking is more plausibly attributable to analyticity than to heightened risk avoidance. Taken together, these findings provide intermodal empirical evidence of increased explicitness in constrained language based on Chinese–English language pair, extending previous findings derived primarily from European language pairs.

Communication involves commitment to one’s words. These words often carry multiple layers of meaning. The explicit meaning may commit the speaker to one proposition, and the implicit to another. This raises the question: to which meaning are speakers seen as committed? This study examined whether listeners process commitment to utterances’ explicit and implicit meaning independently or integratively. Across three experiments, participants were presented with communicative scenarios and corresponding outcomes (each meaning’s truth-value). Participants’ perceived commitment to each meaning (explicit or implicit) was measured through a direct commitment probe and overall trust. All three experiments demonstrated that the truth-value of the implicit content influenced perceived commitment not only to the implicit meaning, but also to the explicit, despite the latter being independently true/false. The effect was asymmetrical: the explicit truth-value influenced commitment almost exclusively to the explicit meaning. Thus, we observed an ‘implicit dominance’ that was present despite variation in presentation and stimuli. Compared to direct commitment, trust was shaped by all truth-values, indicating that trust reflects a global evaluation of the speaker, while commitment is aligned with specific communicative intentions. These findings suggest that listeners integrate different meanings when evaluating a speaker’s commitment to their words.

L2 learners’ difficulty with English third-person singular (3SG) -s has been attributed either to processing limitations or to representational deficits, but evidence bearing directly on this distinction in real-time comprehension remains limited. Sundara et al. (2011, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 54(1), 55–71) showed that 3SG -s is harder for L1-English children to perceive in sentence-medial than in sentence-final position, a pattern suggesting greater phonetic prominence of the morpheme sentence-finally, but comparable L2 evidence is lacking. The present study examined sentence-position effects and online – offline dissociation in L2 English 3SG -s by combining a visual-world eye-tracking task and an offline fill-in-the-blank task. Eye-tracking data from 24 L1-English controls and 23 L1-Korean L2-English learners revealed that, in the singular conditions, both groups processed 3SG -s more slowly in sentence-medial than in sentence-final position. Relative to native speakers, L2 learners also showed delayed target fixations and lower picture-selection accuracy. Crucially, the same learners performed at near-ceiling levels in the fill-in-the-blank task, revealing a clear online – offline dissociation. These results suggest that sensitivity to 3SG -s is less stable under real-time auditory processing demands than in offline written tasks. Overall, the findings are more consistent with processing-based accounts than with strong representational-deficit accounts.