[Paper Review] Neurocomputational Mechanisms of Syntactic Transfer in Bilingual Sentence Production

Ahmet Yavuz Uluslu, Elliot Murphy|arXiv (Cornell University)|Jan 26, 2026

Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism0 citations

TL;DR

The paper argues for using oscillatory signatures and the ROSE neural model to explain syntactic transfer in bilingual production, focusing on cross-linguistic influence and L2 planning failures.

ABSTRACT

We discuss the benefits of incorporating into the study of bilingual production errors and their traditionally documented timing signatures (e.g., event-related potentials) certain types of oscillatory signatures, which can offer new implementational-level constraints for theories of bilingualism. We argue that a recent neural model of language, ROSE, can offer a neurocomputational account of syntactic transfer in bilingual production, capturing some of its formal properties and the scope of morphosyntactic sequencing failure modes. We take as a case study cross-linguistic influence (CLI) and attendant theories of functional inhibition/competition, and present these as being driven by specific oscillatory failure modes during L2 sentence planning. We argue that modeling CLI in this way not only offers the kind of linking hypothesis ROSE was built to encourage, but also licenses the exploration of more spatiotemporally complex biomarkers of language dysfunction than more commonly discussed neural signatures.

Motivation & Objective

• Motivate enriching bilingual production studies with oscillatory signatures beyond traditional event-related potentials.
• Propose a neurocomputational account of syntactic transfer grounded in the ROSE language model.
• Investigate cross-linguistic influence (CLI) and its relation to functional inhibition/competition during L2 planning.

Proposed method

• Advocates incorporating oscillatory signatures as implementational-level constraints for bilingualism theories.
• Leverages ROSE, a neural model of language, to capture formal properties of syntactic transfer and its failure modes.
• Uses CLI as a case study to link oscillatory failure modes to L2 sentence planning processes.
• Discusses potential for linking ROSE-driven hypotheses to more complex spatiotemporal biomarkers of language dysfunction.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How can oscillatory signatures complement event-related potentials in understanding bilingual sentence production?
• RQ2 Can the ROSE neurocomputational model account for syntactic transfer and its failure modes in L2 production?
• RQ3 What are the oscillatory failure modes underlying cross-linguistic influence during L2 sentence planning?
• RQ4 Does modeling CLI with ROSE provide new biomarkers and constraints for bilingualism theories?

Key findings

• Proposes that oscillatory signatures offer new implementational-level constraints for theories of bilingualism.
• Argues that ROSE can capture formal properties and scope of morphosyntactic sequencing failure in bilingual transfer.
• Identifies cross-linguistic influence and functional inhibition/competition as being driven by specific oscillatory failure modes during L2 planning.
• Suggests that modeling CLI via ROSE enables exploration of richer spatiotemporal biomarkers of language dysfunction.