One of the mechanisms responsible for the fast recognition of spoken language is prediction. This study examined whether 4–5 year old monolingual children differ from bilingual children in predicting the upcoming noun on the basis of the lexical semantics of the verb. In an eye-tracking task, we presented visual displays with two objects (e.g. cake, tree) while presenting semantically constraining (e.g. The boy eats the big cake) or neutral sentences (e.g. The boy sees the big cake). Results showed that both groups are able to predict but that 4-year-old bilinguals are faster than their monolingual peers. Moreover, sentence prediction ability in bilinguals is associated with performance on the forward digit recall task. These results extend views on bilingual sentence processing.

This study investigated whether cross-linguistic differences affect semantic prediction. We assessed this by looking at two languages, Dutch and Turkish, that differ in word order and thus vary in how words come together to create sentence meaning. In an eyetracking task, Dutch and Turkish four-year-olds (N = 40), five-year-olds (N = 58), and adults (N = 40) were presented with a visual display containing two familiar objects (e.g., a cake and a tree). Participants heard semantically constraining (e.g., "The boy eats the big cake") or neutral sentences (e.g., "The boy sees the big cake") in their native language. The Dutch data revealed a prediction effect for children and adults; however, it was larger for the adults. The Turkish data revealed no prediction effect for the children but only for the adults. These findings reveal that experience with word order structures and/or automatization of language processing routines may lead to timecourse differences in semantic prediction. Dutch Turkish Het meisje leest/brengt het mooie boek (raam) The girl reads/brings the nice book (window) Kız okuyor/getiriyor bu güzel kitabı (dolap) The girl reads/brings this nice book (wardrobe) Het meisje gooit/ziet de rode bal (schoen) The girl throws/sees the red ball (shoe) Kız atıyor/görüyor bu beyaz topu (diz) The girl throws/sees this white ball (knee) Het meisje draagt/koopt de blauwe jurk (kaars) The girl wears/buys the blue dress (candle) Kız giyiyor/ kaldırıyor bu mavi ceket (dosya) The girl wears/puts away this blue jacket (folder) Het meisje eet/geeft de koude peer (doos) The girls eats/gives the cold pear (box) Kız yiyor/veriyor bu soğuk eti (dağ) The girls eats/gives this cold meat (mountain) Het meisje opent/ziet de groene deur (lamp) The girl opens/sees the green door (light) Kız açıyor/görüyor bu yeşil kapıyı (lamba) The girl opens/sees this green door (lamp) Het meisje aait/hoort de bruine poes (vis) The girl strokes/hears the brown cat (fish) Kız okşuyor/duyuyor bu siyah kediyi (balık) The girl strokes/hears this black cat (fish) Het meisje melkt/helpt de grote koe (hond) The girl milks/helps the big cow (dog) Kız sağıyor/bakıyor bu büyük ineği/ineğe (köpek) The girl milks/looks at this big cow (dog) De jongen eet/draait de grote kers (hoed) The boy eats/turns the big cherry (hat) Çocuk yiyor/seviyor bu büyük tostu (yay) The boy eats/loves this big toast (bow) De jongen knipt/tekent het bruine haar (dak) The boy cuts/draws the brown hair (roof) Çocuk kesiyor/tutuyor bu siyah saçı (ok) The boy cuts/holds this black hair (arrow) De jongen draagt/krijgt de rode bril (kop) The boy wears/gets the red glasses (cup) Çocuk giyiyor/taşıyor bu beyaz bereyi (kupa) The boy wears/carries this white beret (mug) De jongen draagt/brengt het groene hemd (glas) The boy wears/brings the green shirt (glass) Çocuk giyiyor/getiriyor bu yeşil gömleği (bardak) The boy wears/brings this green shirt (glass) Het meisje drinkt/krijgt de koude thee (muts) The girl drinks/gets the cold tea (woollen hat) Çocuk içiyor/taşıyor bu soğuk çayı (zil)...

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The current study investigated the contribution of multiple verbal and working memory (WM) skills to morphosyntactic prediction in Turkish-speaking 4- to 8-year-old children. In a visual world eye-tracking experiment, 76 children were presented with verb-final sentences with nominative and accusative case markers on the initial noun (e.g., the fast rabbit nominative … the carrot accusative eat future vs. the fast rabbit accusative … the fox nominative eat future ) while they were looking at a visual display with three objects (e.g., rabbit, carrot, and fox). Importantly, the case markers on the initial noun could be used to predict the second noun in these sentences. The results revealed that when children’s early productive vocabulary and language production skills were higher, the better and faster they were in predicting the upcoming noun. The episodic buffer, a component of WM, was also positively associated with children’s morphosyntactic prediction abilities. The implications of these results for the mechanisms of linguistic prediction are discussed.

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