1887
Volume 12, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1879-7865
  • E-ISSN: 1879-7873
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

According to usage-based models of language acquisition, young children’s grammatical knowledge is best described in terms of lexically specific templates rather than abstract constructions. In this study, we tested the usage-based account by examining the acquisition of Italian, a language with relatively free word order and rich inflectional morphology. We exposed two groups of Italian-speaking children (aged 3;01 and 4;05) and adult controls to a nonce verb and to a familiar verb in an imperative construction. We then prompted production of those verbs in a different morphological form (past tense) and a different syntactic construction (transitive). While both child groups showed adult-like productivity with morphology, there were significant group differences in syntactic productivity.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/lia.20004.mio
2022-01-31
2025-02-12
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Abbot-Smith, K., & Behrens, H.
    (2006) How known constructions influence the acquisition of other constructions: The German passive and future constructions. Cognitive Science, 30(6), 995–1026. doi:  10.1207/s15516709cog0000_61
    https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0000_61 [Google Scholar]
  2. Abbot-Smith, K., Lieven, E. V. M., & Tomasello, M.
    (2001) What preschool children do and do not do with ungrammatical word orders. Cognitive Development, 16, 679–692. doi:  10.1016/S0885‑2014(01)00054‑5
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00054-5 [Google Scholar]
  3. Abbot-Smith, K., & Serratrice, L.
    (2015) Word order, referential expression, and case cues to the acquisition of transitive sentences in Italian. Journal of Child Language, 42(1), 1–31. doi:  10.1017/S0305000913000421
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000913000421 [Google Scholar]
  4. Airenti, G.
    (2015) Theory of mind: A new perspective on the puzzle of belief ascription. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1184. doi:  10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01184
    https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01184 [Google Scholar]
  5. Akhtar, N.
    (1999) Acquiring basic word order: Evidence for data-driven learning of syntactic structure. Journal of Child Language, 26, 339–356. 10.1017/S030500099900375X
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S030500099900375X [Google Scholar]
  6. Akhtar, N., & Tomasello, M.
    (1997) Young children’s productivity with word order and verb morphology. Developmental Psychology, 33, 952–965. doi:  10.1037/0012‑1649.33.6.952
    https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.33.6.952 [Google Scholar]
  7. Bates, E., Bretherton, I., & Snyder, L.
    (1988) From first words to grammar: Individual differences and dissociable mechanisms. New York: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bates, E., Dale, P., & Thal, D.
    (1995) Individual differences and their implications for theories of language development. InP. Fletcher & B. MacWhinney (Eds.), The handbook of child language (pp.96–151). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bates, E., & Goodman, J. C.
    (2001) On the inseparability of grammar and the lexicon: Evidence from acquisition. InM. Tomasello & E. Bates (Eds.), Language development: The essential readings (pp.134–162). Malden, MA and Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Booij, G.
    (2010) Construction Morphology. Language and Linguistics Compass, 4(7), 543–555. doi:  10.1111/j.1749‑818X.2010.00213.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2010.00213.x [Google Scholar]
  11. Boyd, J. K., & Goldberg, A.
    (2012) Young children fail to fully generalize a novel argument structure construction when exposed to the same input as older learners. Journal of Child Language, 39, 457–481. 10.1017/S0305000911000079
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000911000079 [Google Scholar]
  12. Caselli, M. C., Casadio, P., & Bates, E.
    (1999) A comparison of the transition from first word to grammar in English and Italian. Journal of Child Language, 26, 69–111. 10.1017/S0305000998003687
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000998003687 [Google Scholar]
  13. Cipriani, P., Chilosi, A. M., Bottari, P., & Pfanner, L.
    (1993) L’acquisizione della morfosintassi in italiano : Fasi e processi. Padua: Unipress.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Dąbrowska, E.
    (2004) Language, mind and brain: Some psychological and neurological constraints on theories of grammar. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. (2009) Words as constructions. InV. Evans & S. Pourcel (Eds.), New directions in cognitive linguistics (pp.201–223). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:  10.1075/hcp.24.16dab
    https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.24.16dab [Google Scholar]
  16. Devescovi, A., Caselli, M. C., Marchione, D., Pasqualetti, P., Reilly, J., & Bates, E.
    (2005) A cross-linguistic study of the relationship between grammar and lexical development. Journal of Child Language, 32(4), 759–786. doi:  10.1017/S0305000905007105
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000905007105 [Google Scholar]
  17. D’Odorico, L., Fasolo, M., Cassibba, R., & Costantini, A.
    (2011) Lexical, morphological, and syntactic characteristics of verbs in the spontaneous production of Italian children. Child Development Research, 17, 1–17. doi:  10.1155/2011/498039
    https://doi.org/10.1155/2011/498039 [Google Scholar]
  18. Fisher, C.
    (2002) The role of abstract syntactic knowledge in language acquisition: A reply to Tomasello (2000). Cognition, 82(3), 259–278. doi:  10.1016/S0010‑0277(01)00159‑7
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(01)00159-7 [Google Scholar]
  19. Galazka, M. A., & Ganea, P. A.
    (2014) The role of representational strength in verbal updating: Evidence from 19- and 24-month-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 121, 156–168. doi:  10.1016/j.jecp.2013.12.002
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.12.002 [Google Scholar]
  20. Goldberg, A. E.
    (1999) The emergence of the semantics of argument structure constructions. InB. MacWhinney (Ed.), The emergence of language (pp.197–212). Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. (2006) Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. New York: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Harris, P. L.
    (2006) Social cognition. InD. Kuhn & R. S. Siegler (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology. Vol 2: Cognition, perception, and language (pp.811–858). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Hothorn, T., Hornik, K., & Zeileis, A.
    (2006) Unbiased recursive partitioning: A conditional inference framework. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 15(3), 651–674. www.jstor.org/stable/27594202. 10.1198/106186006X133933
    https://doi.org/10.1198/106186006X133933 [Google Scholar]
  24. Langacker, R. W.
    (1991) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. II: Descriptive applications. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. (2008) Cognitive Grammar: A basic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331967.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331967.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  26. Lewis, L. B.
    (2009) Novel verb productivity in young English and Spanish speakers. Journal of Psychological Arts and Sciences, 1, 1–5.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Lieven, E. V. M., & Tomasello, M.
    (2008) Children’s first language acquisition from a usage-based perspective. InP. Robinson & N. C. Ellis (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition (pp.168–196). New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Marchman, V. A., & Bates, E.
    (1994) Continuity in lexical and morphological development: A test of the critical mass hypothesis. Journal of Child Language, 21(2), 339–366. doi:  10.1017/S0305000900009302
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900009302 [Google Scholar]
  29. Munakata, Y., McClelland, J. L., Johnson, M. H., & Siegler, R. S.
    (1997) Rethinking infant knowledge: Toward an adaptive process account of successes and failures in object permanence tasks. Psychological Review, 104(4), 686–713. doi:  10.1037/0033‑295X.104.4.686
    https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.104.4.686 [Google Scholar]
  30. Noble, C., Rowland, C., & Pine, J.
    (2011) Comprehension of argument structure and semantic roles: Evidence from English-learning children and the forced-choice pointing paradigm. Cognitive Science, 35, 963–982. doi:  10.1111/j.1551‑6709.2011.01175.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01175.x [Google Scholar]
  31. Pizzuto, E., & Caselli, M. C.
    (1994) The acquisition of Italian verb morphology in a cross-linguistic perspective. InY. Levy (Ed.), Other children, other languages: Issues in the theory of language acquisition (pp.137–188). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. doi:  10.4324/9780203773208
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203773208 [Google Scholar]
  32. Sannio Fancello, G. & Cianchetti, C.
    (2010) Test di valutazione del linguaggio. Livello prescolare. Trento: Edizioni Erickson.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Strobl, C., Malley, J., & Tutz, G.
    (2009) An introduction to recursive partitioning: Rationale, application, and characteristics of classification and regression trees, bagging, and random forests. Psychological Methods, 14(4), 323–348. doi:  10.1037/a0016973
    https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016973 [Google Scholar]
  34. Tomasello, M.
    (2003) Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Tomasello, M., & Abbot-Smith, K.
    (2002) A tale of two theories: Response to Fisher. Cognition, 83(2), 207–214. doi:  10.1016/S0010‑0277(01)00172‑X
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(01)00172-X [Google Scholar]
  36. Yoo, W., Ference, B. A., Cote, M. L., & Schwartz, A.
    (2012) A comparison of logistic regression, logic regression, classification tree, and random forests to identify effective gene-gene and gene-environmental interactions. International Journal of Applied Science and Technology, 2(7), 268–268.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/lia.20004.mio
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/lia.20004.mio
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): first language acquisition; Italian; morphology; syntax; usage-based models

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error