Mirta Vernice - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mirta Vernice

Research paper thumbnail of Relative clauses are not adjuncts: an experimental investigation of a corollary of the raising analyses

Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long deb... more Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long debate in the last forty years, opposing largely diverging syntactic analyses, comparing relevant data and discussing perspectives. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by adding novel experimental data on how these structures are processed in an online reading task. Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the temporal structural ambiguity that can arise between object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that linguists made is a mistake)' and so-called complement clauses of a noun (CCs; 'the claim that linguists made a mistake...') in Italian and English. Although the pattern is complex, the results of both experiments suggest that a reanalysis effect is associated with CCs, showing an initial preference for the object RC structural interpretation. The implications of our results are discussed in relation to competing syntactic analyses for CCs ad RCs.

Research paper thumbnail of Specific disgust processing in the left insula: New evidence from direct electrical stimulation

Neuropsychologia, 2016

Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies yielded controversial results concerning the specific... more Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies yielded controversial results concerning the specific role of the insula in recognizing the facial expression of disgust. To verify whether the insula has a selective role in facial disgust processing, emotion recognition was studied in thirteen patients during intraoperative stimulation of the insula in awake surgery performed for removal of a glioma close to this structure. Direct electrical stimulation of the left insula produced a general decrease in emotion recognition but only in the case of disgust there was a statistically significant detrimental effect (p=0.004). Happiness and anger were the best and the worst recognized emotion, respectively. The worst baseline performance with anger and, partly, fear could be explained with the involvement of the left temporal regions, striatum, and the connection between the striatum and the frontal lobe, as suggested in previous studies. Therefore, upon these intra-operative evidences, we argue for a selective role of the left insula in disgust recognition, although a (non significant) decrease in the recognition of other negative emotions was found. However, additional networks can develop, as demonstrated by the fact that disgust recognition was not impaired after surgery even in patients with insular resection in the current as in previous studies.

Research paper thumbnail of 42. Guasti, M. T., Branchini, C. & Arosio, F., Vernice, M. (2012) A Developmental study of subject and object relative clauses in Italian. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 78, 2:105-116

Revue Roumaine de Linguistique

Research paper thumbnail of Language disorders in children with Developmental Dyslexia

Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Revue roumaine de linguistique

In this paper, we aim at exploring the subject/object asymmetry by comparing the production of re... more In this paper, we aim at exploring the subject/object asymmetry by comparing the production of relative clauses by two groups of Italian children aged 5 and 9 years respectively. By focusing on quite different ages, we aim at providing some additional information about the development of object relative clauses. We will do so by using a different experimental set up than the one used in and this might be the source of different outcomes and be revealing of some additional factor promoting the production of object relative clauses endowed with peculiar features. In most studies, subject and object relatives include reversible verbs with two animate arguments. Animacy has been claimed to play a role in the comprehension of object relative clauses by children . In this study, we examine whether it also plays a role in production.

Research paper thumbnail of Relative clauses are not adjuncts: an experimental investigation of a corollary of the raising analyses

Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long deb... more Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long debate in the last forty years, opposing largely diverging syntactic analyses, comparing relevant data and discussing perspectives. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by adding novel experimental data on how these structures are processed in an online reading task. Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the temporal structural ambiguity that can arise between object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that linguists made is a mistake)' and so-called complement clauses of a noun (CCs; 'the claim that linguists made a mistake...') in Italian and English. Although the pattern is complex, the results of both experiments suggest that a reanalysis effect is associated with CCs, showing an initial preference for the object RC structural interpretation. The implications of our results are discussed in relation to competing syntactic analyses for CCs ad RCs.

Research paper thumbnail of The acquisition of Chinese relative clauses: contrasting two theoretical approaches

Journal of child language, Jan 9, 2015

This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evalu... more This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evaluates the validity of the predictions of the Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 1998, 2000) and the Relativized Minimality approach (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2009). One hundred and twenty children from three to eight years of age were tested by using a character-sentence matching task. We found a preference for subject relative clauses that persists as children grow older. This preference is predicted by the Relativized Minimality approach, but not by the Dependency Locality Theory. In addition, we observed a fine-grained class of errors in comprehension. We discuss it in the light of the head-final status of Chinese relative clauses.

Research paper thumbnail of La raccolta e l’analisi dei dati linguistici

Research paper thumbnail of CLAD-ITA GAPS: un test di screening delle abilità fonologiche e morfo-sintattiche in bambini con un Disturbo Specifico del Linguaggio

A 19 bambini (5-9 anni) con una storia pregressa di Disturbo Specifico del Linguaggio (DSL), è st... more A 19 bambini (5-9 anni) con una storia pregressa di Disturbo Specifico del Linguaggio (DSL), è stato somministrato un breve test di screening delle abilità morfo-sintattiche e fonologiche per l'età prescolare in corso di standardizzazione per l'italiano. Tale test rappresenta un adattamento di un analogo test inglese già standardizzato (GAPS; Gardner, Froud, McClelland e Van der Lely, 2006) e comprende una prova di ripetizione di frasi ed una di ripetizione di non parole. Entrambe le prove esaminano aspetti del linguaggio che sono particolarmente problematici per i bambini con DSL, cioè dei marcatori clinici del DSL. Oltre a questo aspetto, l'interesse di questo test è dato dal fatto che è breve (10 minuti) e può essere somministrato da chiunque, sia professionisti che non professionisti, compresi i genitori. La prestazione dei DSL nei compiti di ripetizione di frasi e di non-parole è stata confrontata con quella di tre gruppi di controllo PSICoLoGIA CLInICA DeLLo SvILuPPo / a. XVII, n. 2, agosto 2013

Research paper thumbnail of The acquisition of Chinese relative clauses: contrasting two theoretical approaches

Journal of child language, Jan 9, 2015

This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evalu... more This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evaluates the validity of the predictions of the Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 1998, 2000) and the Relativized Minimality approach (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2009). One hundred and twenty children from three to eight years of age were tested by using a character-sentence matching task. We found a preference for subject relative clauses that persists as children grow older. This preference is predicted by the Relativized Minimality approach, but not by the Dependency Locality Theory. In addition, we observed a fine-grained class of errors in comprehension. We discuss it in the light of the head-final status of Chinese relative clauses.

Research paper thumbnail of The process and criteria for diagnosing specific learning disorders: indications from the Consensus Conference promoted by the Italian National Institute of Health

Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanità, 2014

A Consensus Conference on Specific Learning Disorders has been promoted by the Italian National I... more A Consensus Conference on Specific Learning Disorders has been promoted by the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS). The Consensus Conference consisted in a systematic review of the international literature addressing the issues of diagnosis, risk factors and prognosis, treatment, service delivery and organizational models for Specific Learning Disorders (reading, spelling/writing, calculation). Selected papers were examined by a group of Evaluators and then discussed by a Scientific and Technical Committee, whose conclusions were examined and approved by a Jury Panel. The part on diagnostic issues is presented here, encompassing a systematic discussion of the use and appropriateness of diagnostic criteria, parameters, tasks and psychometric indexes as illustrated in the literature, and providing recommendations for clinical practice. Special attention has been devoted to the collection, analysis and discussion of published data concerning languag...

Research paper thumbnail of Phonology without semantics? Good enough for verbal short-term memory. Evidence from a patient with semantic dementia

Phonological representations Immediate serial recall a b s t r a c t Introduction: There is consi... more Phonological representations Immediate serial recall a b s t r a c t Introduction: There is considerable evidence that long-term knowledge has an influence on short-term memory (STM) performance. This reflects the activation of long-term representations involved in perceiving and comprehending spoken language. Still, this type of long-term knowledge might be of two different kinds. STM performance might be facilitated by information about the meaning of the word, or, alternatively, by familiarity with its phonological form.

Research paper thumbnail of Two building blocks of telicity in L2 Italian: What if lexical aspect too is learned?

Research paper thumbnail of Late diagnosis of Klinefelter syndrome (KS): role of learning disabilities (LD) and behavioural disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Narrative skills in Klinefelter syndrome

Research paper thumbnail of Developing actional competence and the building blocks of telicity in L2 Italian

Research paper thumbnail of Referential Choice in the Narratives of Italian Speakers with Klinefelter Syndrome

Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) is a genetic disorder characterized by an uneven neuro-linguistic profi... more Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) is a genetic disorder characterized by an uneven neuro-linguistic profile. Whereas cognitive abilities appear to be within the normal range, KS patients often show poor linguistic abilities and languagebased learning disorders. Although it has been proposed that KS can be considered a genetic model of language impairment, it is not yet well established whether speakers with KS are impaired in specific psycholinguistics aspects, such as reference production. The choice of an adequate referential expression (whether a full noun phrase, a null or overt pronoun, etc.) involves the use of memory mechanisms to represent the characters and actions involved, but also the ability to judge the attention and the knowledge of the hearer.

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of language structure on linguistic strengths and weaknesses in children with cochlear implants: Evidence from Italian

ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has ... more ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has beneficial effects on their expressive and receptive language. However, different ages are identified in different studies, and some studies present contradictory results. Starting from these observations, our study suggests that at least two additional factors play an important role in determining linguistic outcomes. The first is the area of language under investigation: lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The second factor is the typological features of the child's target language. Our study, which involved 33 Italian-speaking children who received a cochlear implant and 33 age and gender matched controls, reveals that lexical, semantic, pragmatic, and phonological knowledge are not particularly vulnerable in these children. By contrast, one area of morphosyntax (production of clitic pronouns) is especially challenging. In addition, an effect of age of implantation was found only in this morphosyntactic area. This is the first study on language development in Italian-speaking children with cochlear implants.

Research paper thumbnail of A developmental study of subject and object relative clauses in Italian

Research paper thumbnail of Repeated names, pronouns and null pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese and Italian

Research paper thumbnail of Relative clauses are not adjuncts: an experimental investigation of a corollary of the raising analyses

Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long deb... more Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long debate in the last forty years, opposing largely diverging syntactic analyses, comparing relevant data and discussing perspectives. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by adding novel experimental data on how these structures are processed in an online reading task. Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the temporal structural ambiguity that can arise between object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that linguists made is a mistake)' and so-called complement clauses of a noun (CCs; 'the claim that linguists made a mistake...') in Italian and English. Although the pattern is complex, the results of both experiments suggest that a reanalysis effect is associated with CCs, showing an initial preference for the object RC structural interpretation. The implications of our results are discussed in relation to competing syntactic analyses for CCs ad RCs.

Research paper thumbnail of Specific disgust processing in the left insula: New evidence from direct electrical stimulation

Neuropsychologia, 2016

Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies yielded controversial results concerning the specific... more Neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies yielded controversial results concerning the specific role of the insula in recognizing the facial expression of disgust. To verify whether the insula has a selective role in facial disgust processing, emotion recognition was studied in thirteen patients during intraoperative stimulation of the insula in awake surgery performed for removal of a glioma close to this structure. Direct electrical stimulation of the left insula produced a general decrease in emotion recognition but only in the case of disgust there was a statistically significant detrimental effect (p=0.004). Happiness and anger were the best and the worst recognized emotion, respectively. The worst baseline performance with anger and, partly, fear could be explained with the involvement of the left temporal regions, striatum, and the connection between the striatum and the frontal lobe, as suggested in previous studies. Therefore, upon these intra-operative evidences, we argue for a selective role of the left insula in disgust recognition, although a (non significant) decrease in the recognition of other negative emotions was found. However, additional networks can develop, as demonstrated by the fact that disgust recognition was not impaired after surgery even in patients with insular resection in the current as in previous studies.

Research paper thumbnail of 42. Guasti, M. T., Branchini, C. & Arosio, F., Vernice, M. (2012) A Developmental study of subject and object relative clauses in Italian. Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, 78, 2:105-116

Revue Roumaine de Linguistique

Research paper thumbnail of Language disorders in children with Developmental Dyslexia

Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 2015

Research paper thumbnail of Revue roumaine de linguistique

In this paper, we aim at exploring the subject/object asymmetry by comparing the production of re... more In this paper, we aim at exploring the subject/object asymmetry by comparing the production of relative clauses by two groups of Italian children aged 5 and 9 years respectively. By focusing on quite different ages, we aim at providing some additional information about the development of object relative clauses. We will do so by using a different experimental set up than the one used in and this might be the source of different outcomes and be revealing of some additional factor promoting the production of object relative clauses endowed with peculiar features. In most studies, subject and object relatives include reversible verbs with two animate arguments. Animacy has been claimed to play a role in the comprehension of object relative clauses by children . In this study, we examine whether it also plays a role in production.

Research paper thumbnail of Relative clauses are not adjuncts: an experimental investigation of a corollary of the raising analyses

Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long deb... more Relative clauses and more generally clauses modifying nouns have been at the center of a long debate in the last forty years, opposing largely diverging syntactic analyses, comparing relevant data and discussing perspectives. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by adding novel experimental data on how these structures are processed in an online reading task. Two eye-tracking experiments were designed to investigate the temporal structural ambiguity that can arise between object relative clauses (object RCs; 'the claim that linguists made is a mistake)' and so-called complement clauses of a noun (CCs; 'the claim that linguists made a mistake...') in Italian and English. Although the pattern is complex, the results of both experiments suggest that a reanalysis effect is associated with CCs, showing an initial preference for the object RC structural interpretation. The implications of our results are discussed in relation to competing syntactic analyses for CCs ad RCs.

Research paper thumbnail of The acquisition of Chinese relative clauses: contrasting two theoretical approaches

Journal of child language, Jan 9, 2015

This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evalu... more This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evaluates the validity of the predictions of the Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 1998, 2000) and the Relativized Minimality approach (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2009). One hundred and twenty children from three to eight years of age were tested by using a character-sentence matching task. We found a preference for subject relative clauses that persists as children grow older. This preference is predicted by the Relativized Minimality approach, but not by the Dependency Locality Theory. In addition, we observed a fine-grained class of errors in comprehension. We discuss it in the light of the head-final status of Chinese relative clauses.

Research paper thumbnail of La raccolta e l’analisi dei dati linguistici

Research paper thumbnail of CLAD-ITA GAPS: un test di screening delle abilità fonologiche e morfo-sintattiche in bambini con un Disturbo Specifico del Linguaggio

A 19 bambini (5-9 anni) con una storia pregressa di Disturbo Specifico del Linguaggio (DSL), è st... more A 19 bambini (5-9 anni) con una storia pregressa di Disturbo Specifico del Linguaggio (DSL), è stato somministrato un breve test di screening delle abilità morfo-sintattiche e fonologiche per l'età prescolare in corso di standardizzazione per l'italiano. Tale test rappresenta un adattamento di un analogo test inglese già standardizzato (GAPS; Gardner, Froud, McClelland e Van der Lely, 2006) e comprende una prova di ripetizione di frasi ed una di ripetizione di non parole. Entrambe le prove esaminano aspetti del linguaggio che sono particolarmente problematici per i bambini con DSL, cioè dei marcatori clinici del DSL. Oltre a questo aspetto, l'interesse di questo test è dato dal fatto che è breve (10 minuti) e può essere somministrato da chiunque, sia professionisti che non professionisti, compresi i genitori. La prestazione dei DSL nei compiti di ripetizione di frasi e di non-parole è stata confrontata con quella di tre gruppi di controllo PSICoLoGIA CLInICA DeLLo SvILuPPo / a. XVII, n. 2, agosto 2013

Research paper thumbnail of The acquisition of Chinese relative clauses: contrasting two theoretical approaches

Journal of child language, Jan 9, 2015

This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evalu... more This study examines the comprehension of relative clauses by Chinese-speaking children, and evaluates the validity of the predictions of the Dependency Locality Theory (Gibson, 1998, 2000) and the Relativized Minimality approach (Friedmann, Belletti & Rizzi, 2009). One hundred and twenty children from three to eight years of age were tested by using a character-sentence matching task. We found a preference for subject relative clauses that persists as children grow older. This preference is predicted by the Relativized Minimality approach, but not by the Dependency Locality Theory. In addition, we observed a fine-grained class of errors in comprehension. We discuss it in the light of the head-final status of Chinese relative clauses.

Research paper thumbnail of The process and criteria for diagnosing specific learning disorders: indications from the Consensus Conference promoted by the Italian National Institute of Health

Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanità, 2014

A Consensus Conference on Specific Learning Disorders has been promoted by the Italian National I... more A Consensus Conference on Specific Learning Disorders has been promoted by the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS). The Consensus Conference consisted in a systematic review of the international literature addressing the issues of diagnosis, risk factors and prognosis, treatment, service delivery and organizational models for Specific Learning Disorders (reading, spelling/writing, calculation). Selected papers were examined by a group of Evaluators and then discussed by a Scientific and Technical Committee, whose conclusions were examined and approved by a Jury Panel. The part on diagnostic issues is presented here, encompassing a systematic discussion of the use and appropriateness of diagnostic criteria, parameters, tasks and psychometric indexes as illustrated in the literature, and providing recommendations for clinical practice. Special attention has been devoted to the collection, analysis and discussion of published data concerning languag...

Research paper thumbnail of Phonology without semantics? Good enough for verbal short-term memory. Evidence from a patient with semantic dementia

Phonological representations Immediate serial recall a b s t r a c t Introduction: There is consi... more Phonological representations Immediate serial recall a b s t r a c t Introduction: There is considerable evidence that long-term knowledge has an influence on short-term memory (STM) performance. This reflects the activation of long-term representations involved in perceiving and comprehending spoken language. Still, this type of long-term knowledge might be of two different kinds. STM performance might be facilitated by information about the meaning of the word, or, alternatively, by familiarity with its phonological form.

Research paper thumbnail of Two building blocks of telicity in L2 Italian: What if lexical aspect too is learned?

Research paper thumbnail of Late diagnosis of Klinefelter syndrome (KS): role of learning disabilities (LD) and behavioural disorders

Research paper thumbnail of Narrative skills in Klinefelter syndrome

Research paper thumbnail of Developing actional competence and the building blocks of telicity in L2 Italian

Research paper thumbnail of Referential Choice in the Narratives of Italian Speakers with Klinefelter Syndrome

Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) is a genetic disorder characterized by an uneven neuro-linguistic profi... more Klinefelter Syndrome (KS) is a genetic disorder characterized by an uneven neuro-linguistic profile. Whereas cognitive abilities appear to be within the normal range, KS patients often show poor linguistic abilities and languagebased learning disorders. Although it has been proposed that KS can be considered a genetic model of language impairment, it is not yet well established whether speakers with KS are impaired in specific psycholinguistics aspects, such as reference production. The choice of an adequate referential expression (whether a full noun phrase, a null or overt pronoun, etc.) involves the use of memory mechanisms to represent the characters and actions involved, but also the ability to judge the attention and the knowledge of the hearer.

Research paper thumbnail of The effect of language structure on linguistic strengths and weaknesses in children with cochlear implants: Evidence from Italian

ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has ... more ABSTRACT Previous studies have found that the early fitting of cochlear implants in children has beneficial effects on their expressive and receptive language. However, different ages are identified in different studies, and some studies present contradictory results. Starting from these observations, our study suggests that at least two additional factors play an important role in determining linguistic outcomes. The first is the area of language under investigation: lexicon, phonology, morphosyntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The second factor is the typological features of the child's target language. Our study, which involved 33 Italian-speaking children who received a cochlear implant and 33 age and gender matched controls, reveals that lexical, semantic, pragmatic, and phonological knowledge are not particularly vulnerable in these children. By contrast, one area of morphosyntax (production of clitic pronouns) is especially challenging. In addition, an effect of age of implantation was found only in this morphosyntactic area. This is the first study on language development in Italian-speaking children with cochlear implants.

Research paper thumbnail of A developmental study of subject and object relative clauses in Italian

Research paper thumbnail of Repeated names, pronouns and null pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese and Italian