As widely acknowledged in the bilingualism literature, language experience is multifaceted, complex, and dynamic; it cannot be simply reduced to single dimensions or categories. However, cognitive science research outside of bi/multilingualism does not always take into account this fact. Within a population of Hindi-Urdu speakers, we show that proxy categories based on `native speaker' identification or residential history do not neatly map onto patterns of language experience, despite the common assumption that these bring about sufficient homogeneity. Moreover, compared to variables derived from gradient measures of language experience, these proxies do not robustly predict linguistic behavior in the form of acceptability judgments in Hindi-Urdu. In demonstrating alternative approaches to operationalizing language experience, we argue for all language researchers to move past relying on underspecified and ideologically-linked concepts, in favor of more intentional, nuanced, and rigorous testing of experiential factors underlying language processing.

Previous studies have claimed that language structures tend to minimize the linear distance between syntactic heads and their dependents, a principle known as Dependency Length Minimization (DLM). These studies, however, have largely focused on written modality. In this study we examine the role of dependency length in acceptability ratings of English and Hindi, two typologically distinct languages, using audio stimuli. With double PP constructions as a test case, our results demonstrate no effect of DLM, suggesting the preference for shorter dependencies is different in acceptability and written texts. These findings are further supported with corpus analysis of a total of 10 treebanks for the two languages, which shows additional language-specific differences in the extent of DLM. We discuss the implications of our work and call for more careful consideration of linguistic and modality-specific diversity when it comes to processing-based claims about language typology.

The current work tests the hypothesis that the island status of clausal adjuncts, as determined by judgments on wh-questions, are predicted by the degree of “backgroundedness” of the adjuncts, as determined by a separate negation task. Results of two experiments support the hypothesis that acceptability of extraction from adjuncts in wh-questions is inversely correlated with the degree to which the adjunct is backgrounded in discourse. Taken together, results show that temporal clausal adjuncts (headed by before, after, while) are stronger islands than adjuncts that are causal (here, headed by to or by). This demonstrates that adjuncts differ in degree of island status, depending on their meaning, despite parallel syntactic structure.