Kirsten Abbot-Smith

Exemplar-learning and schematization in a usage-based account of syntactic acquisition

Abstract The early phases of syntactic acquisition are characterized by many input frequency and item effects, which argue against theories assuming innate access to classical syntactic categories. In formulating an alternative view, we consider both prototype and exemplar-learning models of categorization. We argue for a ‘hybrid’ usage-based view in which acquisition depends on exemplar learning and retention, out of which permanent abstract schemas gradually emerge and are immanent across the summed similarity of exemplar collections. These schemas are graded in strength depending on the number of exemplars and the degree to which semantic similarity is reinforced by phonological, lexical, and distributional similarity.

German Children’s Comprehension of Word Order and Case Marking in Causative Sentences

Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether German children are able to use the grammatical cues of word order and word endings (case markers) to identify agents and patients in a causative sentence and whether they weigh these two cues differently across development. Two-year-olds correctly understood only sentences with both cues supporting each other--the prototypical form. Five-year-olds were able to use word order by itself but not case markers. Only 7-year-olds behaved like adults by relying on case markers over word order when the two cues conflicted. These findings suggest that prototypical instances of linguistic constructions with redundant grammatical marking play a special role in early acquisition, and only later do children isolate and weigh individual grammatical cues appropriately.

What preschool children do and do not do with ungrammatical word orders

Akhtar [J. Child Lang. 26 (1999) 339.] found that when 4-year-old English-speaking children hear novel verbs in transitive utterances with ungrammatical word orders (e.g., Elmo the tree meeked), they correct them to canonical SVO order almost all of the time. However, when 3-year-olds and older 2-year-olds hear these same utterances, they waver between correcting and using the ungrammatical ordering. In the current study, we adapted this task for children at 2;4, using an intransitive construction. The major finding was that children corrected the noncanonical word order less than half as often as Akhtar’s 2-yearold subjects who were approximately 4 months older. At the same time, however, children showed in several ways that they had some implicit understanding of canonical SVorder; for example, they used the novel verb which they heard used in grammatical word order more often than the novel verb which they heard in ungrammatical word order, and they consistently used pronouns and the progressive –s auxiliary in appropriate ways. The current findings thus contribute to a growing body of theory and research suggesting that the ontogenetic emergence of linguistic categories and schemas is a gradual process, as is the emergence of categories in other domains of cognitive development. D 2001 Elsevier

A tale of two theories: Response to Fisher

1. IntroductionThere are currently two theories about how children acquire a language. The first isgenerative grammar, according to which all human children innately possess a universalgrammar, abstract enough to structure any language of the world. Acquisition then consistsof two processes: (1) acquiring all the words, idioms, and quirky constructions of theparticular language being learned (by ‘normal’ processes of learning); and (2) linking theparticular language being learned to the abstract universal grammar. Because it is innate,universal grammar does not develop ontogenetically but is the same throughout the life-span – this is the so-called continuity assumption (Pinker, 1984). This assumption allowsgenerativists to use adult-like formal grammars to describe children’s language and so toassume that the first time a child utters, for example, “I wanna play”, she has an adult-likeunderstanding of infinitival complement sentences and so can generate ‘similar’ infinitivalcomplement sentences ad infinitum.Tomasello (2000) reviewed a number of observational and experimental studies whichshow – contrary to the continuity assumption – that children are not very productive withtheir early language, suggesting that they do not possess the abstract linguistic categoriesand schemas necessary to effortlessly generate infinite numbers of grammatical sentences.He also pointed out that there are no satisfactory explanations in the current literature ofhow a child might possibly link an abstract universal grammar, if there were such a thing,to the particularities of the specific language being learned (the linking problem).The second theory, one version of which was sketched in the final part of Tomasello(2000), simply does away with universal grammar and the theoretical problem of how achild links it to a particular language. The approach advocated is based on theories inCognitive-Functional (usage-based) Linguistics (e.g. Bybee, 1985, 1995; Croft, 2000, inpress; Goldberg, 1995; Langacker, 1987, 1991), and so it is a single process theory.Children acquire the more regular and rule-based constructions of a language in thesame way they acquire the more arbitrary and idiosyncratic constructions: they learnthem. And, as in the learning of all complex cognitive activities, their initial learning is

Young German children's early syntactic competence: a preferential looking study

Using a preferential looking methodology with novel verbs, Gertner, Fisher and Eisengart (2006) found that 21-month-old English children seemed to understand the syntactic marking of transitive word order in an abstract, verb-general way. In the current study we tested whether young German children of this same age have this same understanding. Following Gertner et al. (2006), one group of German children was tested only after they had received a training/practice phase containing transitive sentences with familiar verbs and the exact same nouns as those used at test. A second group was tested after a training/practice phase consisting only of familiar verbs, without the nouns used at test. Only the group of children with the training on full transitive sentences was successful in the test. These findings suggest that for children this young to succeed in this test of syntactic understanding, they must first have some kind of relevant linguistic experience immediately prior to testing--which raises the question of the nature of childrens linguistic representations at this early point in development.

How much exposure to English is necessary for a bilingual toddler to perform like a monolingual peer in language tests

BACKGROUND Bilingual children are under-referred due to an ostensible expectation that they lag behind their monolingual peers in their English acquisition. The recommendations of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) state that bilingual children should be assessed in both the languages known by the children. However, despite these recommendations, a majority of speech and language professionals report that they assess bilingual children only in English as bilingual children come from a wide array of language backgrounds and standardized language measures are not available for the majority of these. Moreover, even when such measures do exist, they are not tailored for bilingual children. AIMS It was asked whether a cut-off exists in the proportion of exposure to English at which one should expect a bilingual toddler to perform as well as a monolingual on a test standardized for monolingual English-speaking children. METHODS & PROCEDURES Thirty-five bilingual 2;6-year-olds exposed to British English plus an additional language and 36 British monolingual toddlers were assessed on the auditory component of the Preschool Language Scale, British Picture Vocabulary Scale and an object-naming measure. All parents completed the Oxford Communicative Development Inventory (Oxford CDI) and an exposure questionnaire that assessed the proportion of English in the language input. Where the CDI existed in the bilinguals additional language, these data were also collected. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Hierarchical regression analyses found the proportion of exposure to English to be the main predictor of the performance of bilingual toddlers. Bilingual toddlers who received 60% exposure to English or more performed like their monolingual peers on all measures. K-means cluster analyses and Levene variance tests confirmed the estimated English exposure cut-off at 60% for all language measures. Finally, for one additional language for which we had multiple participants, additional language CDI production scores were significantly inversely related to the amount of exposure to English. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS Typically developing 2;6-year-olds who are bilingual in English and an additional language and who hear English 60% of the time or more, perform equivalently to their typically developing monolingual peers.

Lexically restricted utterances in Russian, german, and english child-directed speech.

This study investigates the child-directed speech (CDS) of four Russian-, six German, and six English-speaking mothers to their 2-year-old children. Typologically Russian has considerably less restricted word order than either German or English, with German showing more word-order variants than English. This could lead to the prediction that the lexical restrictiveness previously found in the initial strings of English CDS by Cameron-Faulkner, Lieven, and Tomasello (2003) would not be found in Russian or German CDS. However, despite differences between the three corpora that clearly derive from typological differences between the languages, the most significant finding of this study is a high degree of lexical restrictiveness at the beginnings of CDS utterances in all three languages.

Word order, referential expression, and case cues to the acquisition of transitive sentences in Italian

In Study 1 we analyzed Italian child-directed-speech (CDS) and selected the three most frequent active transitive sentence frames used with overt subjects. In Study 2 we experimentally investigated how Italian-speaking children aged 2;6, 3;6, and 4;6 comprehended these orders with novel verbs when the cues of animacy, gender, and subject-verb agreement were neutralized. For each trial, children chose between two videos (e.g., horse acting on cat versus cat acting on horse), both involving the same action. The children aged 2;6 comprehended S + object-pronoun + V (soprov) significantly better than S + V + object-noun (svonoun ). We explain this in terms of cue collaboration between a low cost cue (case) and the first argument = agent cue which we found to be reliable 76% of the time. The most difficult word order for all age groups was the object-pronoun + V + S (oprovs). We ascribe this difficulty to cue conflict between the two most frequent transitive frames found in CDS, namely V + object-noun and object-pronoun + V.

The Influence of Frequency and Semantic Similarity on How Children Learn Grammar

Lexically based learning and semantic analogy may both play a role in the learning of grammar. To investigate this, 5-year-old German children were trained on a miniature language (nominally English) involving two grammatical constructions, each of which was associated with a different semantic verb class.Training was followed by elicited production and grammaticality judgement tests with ‘trained verbs’ and a ‘generalization’ test, involving untrained verbs. In the ‘trained verbs’ judgement test the children were above chance at associating particular verbs with the constructions in which they had heard them. They did this significantly more often with verbs which they had heard especially frequently in particular constructions, indicating lexically based learning. There was also an interaction between frequency and semantic class (or the particular verbs). In the generalization judgement test the children were at chance overall. In the elicited production generalization test 75% of the children used the same construction for all items.

Children aged 2 ; 1 use transitive syntax to make a semantic-role interpretation in a pointing task*

The current study used a forced choice pointing paradigm to examine whether English children aged 2 ; 1 can use abstract knowledge of the relationship between word order position and semantic roles to make an active behavioural decision when interpreting active transitive sentences with novel verbs, when the actions are identical in the target and foil video clips. The children pointed significantly above chance with novel verbs but only if the final trial was excluded. With familiar verbs the children pointed consistently above chance. Children aged 2 ; 7 did not show these tiring effects and their performance in the familiar and novel verb conditions was always equivalent.