Developmental changes in real-time sentence processing

Abstract

This study examines syntactic, semantic and morphologic cues that English-speaking children and young adults use to determine agent roles during sentence interpretation. Processing times associated with these cues are also examined. Both agent choice and reaction times indicate a developmental progression in agent role assignment, with earliest reliance on canonical word order (SVO) followed by later emerging non-canonical strategies (VOS and OSV). Converging information from subject-verb agreement and animacy cues increased use of these non-canonical word orders; however, weaker agreement and animacy cues also appeared to slow down reaction times. Non-canonical VOS, followed by OSV strategies, stabilized between 7-12 years of age, when adult-like patterns of competition and convergence emerged in the interaction between strong and weak cues. Results of this study are considered within the framework of the Competition Model (Bates & MacWhinney 1989).