A B S T R A C TThis study explores ab initio development of syntactic complexity in a longitudinal corpus of learner German writing from a Dynamic Usage-Based perspective. It contributes to the research on L2 writing complexity by focusing on beginning learners of an L2 other than English (German) and on fine-grained measures of syntactic complexity, operationally defined here as syntactic modification.The results show that not only ubiquitous global measures of syntactic complexity but also more specific measures, namely frequencies of syntactic modifiers, can serve as developmental indices at beginning L2 proficiency levels. The learners in this study modified their writing from the very onset of language study and the overall size and range of the modification system did not significantly change over four semesters. However, its composition changed continuously and reflected non-linear waxing and waning of different modifier categories. The study confirmed some results from previous crosssectional research showing that interlanguage development is characterized by a decrease in cognitively easier (e.g., uninflected) categories and an increase in cognitively more difficult (e.g., inflected and clausal) categories. The high variability that was found along with uniform group trends demonstrates the necessity of simultaneous investigations of linguistic development in groups and individuals.

Differential habitat use in sympatric species can provide insight into how behavior relates to morphological differences and as a general model for the study of biological adaptations to different functional demands. In Amazonia, closely related sympatric tamarins of the genera Saguinus and Leontocebus regularly form stable mixed-species groups, but exhibit differences in foraging height and locomotor activity. To test the hypothesis that two closely related species in a mixed-species group prefer different modes of leaping regardless of the substrates available, we quantified leaping behavior in a mixed-species group of Saguinus mystax and Leontocebus nigrifrons. We studied leaping behavior in relation to support substrate type and foraging height in the field for 5 months in the Amazonian forest of north-eastern Peru. Saguinus mystax spent significantly more time above 15 m (79%) and used predominantly horizontal and narrow supports for leaping. Leontocebus nigrifrons was predominantly active below 10 m (87%) and exhibited relatively more trunk-to-trunk leaping. Both species preferred their predominant leaping modes regardless of support type availability in the different forest layers. This indicates that the supports most commonly available in each forest layer do not determine the tamarins’ leaping behavior. This apparent behavioral adaptation provides a baseline for further investigation into how behavioral differences are reflected in the morphology and species-specific biomechanics of leaping behavior and establishes callitrichid primates as a model well-suited to the general study of biological adaptation.

In this paper, we investigate the availability of inverse scope interpretation in doubly-quantified sentences in Greek. A rather coarse and, as we show, inaccurate empirical generalization is that languages with relatively free word order do not have inverse scope readings, since movement is always spelled-out. In Greek there is little experimental work testing inverse scope with DPquantifiers and there is considerable disagreement among linguists regarding its availability. Our goal is twofold: i) to contribute towards a better understanding of the empirical facts and ii) to explore the relation between inverse scope availability and the syntax and semantics of different configurations. As we show, inverse scope is generally acceptable by Greek speakers, with the exception of environments with Clitic Left Dislocation. Our data add up to recent studies in other languages which suggest that the critical factor for the (non)-availability of inverse scope is the properties of each individual construction and not a dichotomy between different types of languages.

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In this Appendix, we report an additional statistical analysis for the results of Experiment 3. The mean amplitudes in both selected time windows were analyzed with a repeated-measures ANOVA, using a subset of 48 electrodes grouped into regions of interest (ROIs).Parametrization and statistical testing A subset of 48 electrodes was selected for the statistical data analysis. Electrodes were assigned to one of twelve regions of interest (ROIs), consisting of four electrodes each.