Rosalind Thornton

Navigating negative quantificational space

Abstract This paper reports the findings from an interconnected set of experiments designed to assess childrens knowledge of the semantic interactions between negation and quantified NPs. Our main finding is that young children, unlike adults, systematically interpret these elements on the basis of their position in overt syntax. We argue that this observation can be derived from an interplay between fundamental properties of universal grammar and basic learning principles. We show that even when childrens semantic knowledge appears to differ from that of adults, the observed differences occur within well-defined boundaries, that is, within the limits imposed by the theory of universal grammar. Moreover, we point to the (positive) evidence needed by children in their passage to adulthood. We conclude that children have incomplete rather than inaccurate knowledge, in accordance with the continuity hypothesis. Together, these observations support the conclusion that children draw from an arsenal of innately specified principles in the acquisition of the grammar of quantification.

Measurement of brain function in pre-school children using a custom sized whole-head MEG sensor array

OBJECTIVE Conventional whole-head MEG systems have fixed sensor arrays designed to accommodate most adult heads. However arrays optimised for adult brain measurements are suboptimal for research with the significantly smaller heads of young children. We wished to measure brain activity in children using a novel whole-head MEG system custom sized to fit the heads of pre-school-aged children. METHODS Auditory evoked fields were measured from seven 4-year-old children in a 64-channel KIT whole-head gradiometer MEG system. RESULTS The fit of heads in the MEG helmet dewars, defined as the mean of sensor-to-head centre distances, were substantially better for children in the child helmet dewar than in the adult helmet dewar, and were similar to head fits obtained for adults in a conventional adult MEG system. Auditory evoked fields were successfully measured from all seven children and dipole source locations were computed. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate the feasibility of routinely measuring neuromagnetic brain function in healthy, awake pre-school-aged children. SIGNIFICANCE The advent of child-sized whole-head MEG systems opens new opportunities for the study of cognitive brain development in young children.

Capturing the Evasive Passive.

In the 1980s, researchers in child language devised several new experimental techniques to assess childrens emerging linguistic competence. Innovations in methodology were needed to bridge the apparent gap between the expectation of rapid language acquisition, based on linguistic theory, and the protracted acquisition that was being witnessed using the tools and tasks available at the time. This article discusses the use of elicited production in charting the course of development of verbal passives, a linguistic structure that was thought to be late developing (e.g., Borer & Wexler 1987). We compare the findings from an elicited production study with the findings from other tasks. We conclude that verbal passives emerge earlier in childrens grammar than had been previously recognized, thereby bringing data from experimental studies of child language more in line with the expectations of linguistic theory.

Acquisition of Syntax and Semantics

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses reviews the results from experimental investigations of child language. Chomsky (1971) maintained that children would never adopt structure-independent hypotheses, even if the data available to children were consistent with both structure-independent and structure-dependent rules. In other words, children would not be expected to make certain kinds of mistakes in forming Yes/No questions at any stage in language development. In an elicited production study, Crain and Nakayama (1987) evoked Yes/No questions from 30, 3 to 5year-old children, to see if they ever made such mistakes. Although children made certain kinds of errors, they never produced questions that are consistent with structure-independent rules. It has frequently been claimed by advocates of the experience-dependent approach that nativists assume that “no evidence exists that would enable a three-year-old to unlearn” mistaken structure-independent rules, if children were to initially adopt such rules. But no reasonable nativist would endorse such a strong claim about all possible evidence.

Verb phrase ellipsis in children's answers to questions

The emergence of verb phrase ellipsis is investigated in two 2-year-old English-speaking childrens speech by studying their answers to yes/no questions over the period of about a year. The investigation is framed using a generative linguistics model, the “PF-deletion model,” which assumes that there is syntactic structure in the ellipsis site that is simply not pronounced at the level of Phonological Form (PF). On this model, if a childs use of elliptical verb phrases is delayed, in principle he or she could pronounce the material that would otherwise be elided and produce full sentences instead. Two potential reasons for delay in verb phrase ellipsis are considered: (i) learning of the auxiliary system of English and (ii) the intonation requirements on the auxiliary verb. One child produced sentences with verb phrase ellipsis early in the course of acquisition, although there were gaps in her knowledge of the auxiliary system. The second child did not produce verb phrase ellipsis for several months and, instead, initially produced full sentence answers to yes/no questions a high proportion of the time. This child appeared to refrain from using VP ellipsis until the intonational requirements of its use had been mastered, a finding that is consistent with the PF-deletion model.

The case of the missing generalizations

Abstract This review discusses several kinds of linguistic generalizations that pose a challenge for the constructionist approach to linguistic generalizations advocated by Adele Goldberg. It is difficult to see, for example, how such an account can explain the wide-ranging linguistic phenomena governed by structural properties, such as c-command, or semantic properties, such as downward entailment. We also argue against Goldbergs rejection of formal semantics in favour of an account of meaning based primarily on information structure and discourse function.

Measurement Of Neuromagnetic Brain Function In Pre-school Children With Custom Sized MEG

Magnetoencephalography is a technique that detects magnetic fields associated with cortical activity [1]. The electrophysiological activity of the brain generates electric fields - that can be recorded using electroencephalography (EEG)- and their concomitant magnetic fields - detected by MEG. MEG signals are detected by specialized sensors known as superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). Superconducting sensors require cooling with liquid helium at -270 °C. They are contained inside a vacumm-insulated helmet called a dewar, which is filled with liquid. SQUIDS are placed in fixed positions inside the helmet dewar in the helium coolant, and a subjects head is placed inside the helmet dewar for MEG measurements. The helmet dewar must be sized to satisfy opposing constraints. Clearly, it must be large enough to fit most or all of the heads in the population that will be studied. However, the helmet must also be small enough to keep most of the SQUID sensors within range of the tiny cerebral fields that they are to measure. Conventional whole-head MEG systems are designed to accommodate more than 90% of adult heads. However adult systems are not well suited for measuring brain function in pre-school chidren whose heads have a radius several cm smaller than adults. The KIT-Macquarie Brain Research Laboratory at Macquarie University uses a MEG system custom sized to fit the heads of pre-school children. This child system has 64 first-order axial gradiometers with a 50 mm baseline[2] and is contained inside a magnetically-shielded room (MSR) together with a conventional adult-sized MEG system [3,4]. There are three main advantages of the customized helmet dewar for studying children. First, the smaller radius of the sensor configuration brings the SQUID sensors into range of the neuromagnetic signals of childrens heads. Second, the smaller helmet allows full insertion of a childs head into the dewar. Full insertion is prevented in adult dewar helmets because of the smaller crown to shoulder distance in children. These two factors are fundamental in recording brain activity using MEG because neuromagnetic signals attenuate rapidly with distance. Third, the customized child helmet aids in the symmetric positioning of the head and limits the freedom of movement of the childs head within the dewar. When used with a protocol that aligns the requirements of data collection with the motivational and behavioral capacities of children, these features significantly facilitate setup, positioning, and measurement of MEG signals.

Children's Interpretation of Focus Expressions in English and Mandarin

Children often produce nonadult responses to sentences with the focus operator only, such as Only the cat is holding a flag. For example, children often accept this sentence as a description of a situation in which a cat holds a flag and a duck holds both a flag and a balloon. One proposed analysis, by Paterson, Liversedge, Rowland & Filik (2003), contends that children disregard only in such sentences, yielding The cat is holding a flag. An alternative proposal by Crain, Ni & Conway (1994) maintains that children misassign only to the VP, yielding The cat is only holding a flag. The findings of experimental studies with two typologically distinct languages, English and Mandarin Chinese, support Crain et al.s (1994) analysis. We propose, further, that children pass through a stage at which only is analyzed as a sentential adverb taking scope over both the subject NP and the VP. We address the questions of why children initially adopt this analysis, and how they converge on the adult grammars of these languages.

Language acquisition from a biolinguistic perspective

HighlightsThis paper compares a biolinguistic approach to language acquisition and a usage‐based approach.We demonstrate that the biolinguistic approach is both descriptively and explanatorily more adequate.The experimental findings show that children amalgamate superficially different linguistic phenomena.These findings are predicted on the biolinguistic approach, but resist explanation on the usage‐based approach. Abstract This paper describes the biolinguistic approach to language acquisition. We contrast the biolinguistic approach with a usage‐based approach. We argue that the biolinguistic approach is superior because it provides more accurate and more extensive generalizations about the properties of human languages, as well as a better account of how children acquire human languages. To distinguish between these accounts, we focus on how child and adult language differ both in sentence production and in sentence understanding. We argue that the observed differences resist explanation using the cognitive mechanisms that are invoked by the usage‐based approach. In contrast, the biolinguistic approach explains the qualitative parametric differences between child and adult language. Explaining how child and adult language differ and demonstrating that children perceive unity despite apparent diversity are two of the hallmarks of the biolinguistic approach to language acquisition.

The Syntax-PF Interface in Children’s Negative Sentences

To test between two recent accounts of the early stages in the acquisition of negation, we conducted an elicited production study with 25 children, between 2;05 and 3;04 (mean 2;11). The experimental study produced a robust set of negative sentences, with considerable individual variation. Although 13 of the child participants mainly produced adultlike negative sentences with doesn’t, 12 children produced nontarget forms. The nonadult productions included medial negation structures, both with bare verbs (It not fit) and with inflected main verbs (It not fits, It don’t fits), as well as negative sentences with “high” inflection (It’s not fit) and doubling (It’s not fits). Although some of the findings are consistent with the account advanced by Harris & Wexler (1996), their prediction that negative sentences with do-support (It don’t/doesn’t fit) co-occur with medial negation and a bare verb (It not fit) was not borne out. The findings are amenable to the account advanced by Thornton & Tesan (2013), who contend that children’s grammars are initially restricted to adverbial negation. Children’s nontarget productions with the 3SGS morpheme positioned on the main verb or in Infl are attributed to a nonadult mapping between syntax and phonological form (PF). The steps children take to converge on the adult mapping are explained by invoking the theory proposed by Adger (2003).