Abstract
How do children learn to restrict their productivity and avoid ungrammatical utterances? The present study addresses this question by examining why some verbs are used with un- prefixation (e.g., unwrap) and others are not (e.g., *unsqueeze). Experiment 1 used a priming methodology to examine children's (3–4; 5–6) grammatical restrictions on verbal un- prefixation. To elicit production of un-prefixed verbs, test trials were preceded by a prime sentence, which described reversal actions with grammatical un- prefixed verbs (e.g., Marge folded her arms and then she unfolded them). Children then completed target sentences by describing cartoon reversal actions corresponding to (potentially) un- prefixed verbs. The younger age-group's production probability of verbs in un- form was negatively related to the frequency of the target verb in bare form (e.g., squeez/e/ed/es/ing), while the production probability of verbs in un- form for both age groups was negatively predicted by the frequency of synonyms to a verb's un- form (e.g., release/*unsqueeze). In Experiment 2, the same children rated the grammaticality of all verbs in un- form. The older age-group's grammaticality judgments were (a) positively predicted by the extent to which each verb was semantically consistent with a semantic “cryptotype” of meanings - where “cryptotype” refers to a covert category of overlapping, probabilistic meanings that are difficult to access - hypothesised to be shared by verbs which take un-, and (b) negatively predicted by the frequency of synonyms to a verb's un- form. Taken together, these experiments demonstrate that children as young as 4;0 employ pre-emption and entrenchment to restrict generalizations, and that use of a semantic cryptotype to guide judgments of overgeneralizations is also evident by age 6;0. Thus, even early developmental accounts of children's restriction of productivity must encompass a mechanism in which a verb's semantic and statistical properties interact.
Highlights
An essential component of language acquisition is a speaker’s ability to move beyond the linguistic input and use words in novel ways
Collapsing across all verbs, responses were coded as ‘‘Other’’ for 9.79% of 3–4 year olds’ trials and 4.38% of 5–6 year olds’ trials
As well as an exploration of the relationship between production and judgment data more generally, it served as an investigation of whether the graded grammaticality judgment paradigm could be extended to children aged 3–4
Summary
An essential component of language acquisition is a speaker’s ability to move beyond the linguistic input and use words in novel ways. The retreat from overgeneralization cannot be explained in its entirety by negative-evidence [3] which holds that these errors cease as a consequence of a caregiver’s corrective feedback (e.g., if a child says The man laughed the woman the caregiver may offer a correction such as The man made the woman laugh) It is not feasible for every possible overgeneralization to be corrected and this position is supported by findings that overgeneralizations containing novel verbs are recognised as ungrammatical by children and adults (e.g., [4]). Examination of whether mechanisms of pre-emption, entrenchment and verb-construction semantics are employed by younger children is crucial to our understanding of children’s retreat from overgeneralization and of language acquisition as a whole. It is necessary to outline the specific factors that each of these mechanisms is assumed to involve
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