Expressing location is one of the most common linguistic tasks that we perform in our daily lives. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis into how speakers of English and French use gesture as well as speech when describing where objects are located. It shows that spoken locative expressions are made up of both speech and gesture components, and that the two modalities contribute in a complementary fashion to convey locative meaning.

Expressing location is one of the most common linguistic tasks that we perform in our daily lives. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis into how speakers of English and French use gesture as well as speech when describing where objects are located. It shows that spoken locative expressions are made up of both speech and gesture components, and that the two modalities contribute in a complementary fashion to convey locative meaning.

These two volumes present the methodology and results of an international research project on second language acquisition by adult immigrants. This project went beyond other studies in at least three respects: in the number of languages studied simultaneously; in the organisation of co-ordinated longitudinal studies in different linguistic environments; and in the type and range of linguistic phenomena investigated. It placed the study of second languages and inter-ethnic discourse on a firm empirical footing. Volume 1 explains and evaluates the research design adopted for the project. Volume 2 summarises the cross-linguistic results, under two main headings: native/non-native speaker interaction, and language production. Together they present the reader with a complete research procedure, and in doing so, make explicit the links between research questions, methodology, and results.

This volume comprises 16 chapters – both research papers and theoretical contributions – grouped in three thematic sections. The chapters in the first part, entitled "Discourse Communities: Languages in Contact," adopt a social and/or historical perspective on bi-/multilingualism. The contributions in the second part, entitled "Languages in the Mind: Language Development and Language Use," view issues related to bi- and multilingualism from psycholinguistic and psychological perspectives. The chapters comprising the third part, "Language Education: Supporting Multilingual Development," adopt a broadly understood didactic perspective on bi-/multilingualism.

One of the basic premises of the theory of syntax is that clause structures can be minimally identified as containing a verb phrase, playing the role of predicate, and a noun phrase, playing the role of subject. In this study Andrea Moro identifies a new category of copular sentences, namely inverse copular sentences, where the predicative noun phrase occupies the position which is canonically reserved for subjects. In the process, he sheds new light on such classical issues as the distribution and nature of expletives, locality theory and cliticization phenomena.

How and why do all children learn language? Why do some have difficulties while others are early language learners? What are the consequences of early bilingualism? Is it possible to reach native-like competence in a foreign language? Although we still cannot fully answer these questions, research during the last two decades has begun to solve some pieces of the puzzle. This book proposes an interdisciplinary collection of writings from some of the best specialists across several fields in cognitive science, offering a wide sample of recent advances in the study of first language acquisition, bilingualism, second language acquisition, and disorders of oral language. It is addressed to all researchers and students interested in language acquisition, as well as to teachers, clinicians and parents, who will find therein many new findings and varied methodological approaches, as well as challenging questions that are still debated and in need of further research.