Abstract
The syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis was developed to explain how children learn verbs whose meanings are opaque, e.g. attitude verbs, which refer to the mental state of the subject of the sentence. Belief verbs (like think) take finite complements, while desire verbs (like want) take non-finite complements. Children differentiate these subclasses by three: they are lured by reality when there is a mismatch between the subject’s belief and reality when interpreting think, but not with want. Previous work also shows that when interpreting a less common attitude verb, hope, children are influenced by syntactic frame, supporting view that syntax guides children’s acquisition of attitude verbs. The current study investigates when syntax becomes useful to the learner. Children are presented with sentences including a novel verb with either a finite or a non-finite complement. Children are not influenced by syntax when interpreting a novel attitude verb, suggesting that syntactic complements only become useful for hypothesizing meaning once the learner has some experience with a specific attitude verb.
Highlights
Word learning is a massively challenging task for the human language learner
This paper explores the boundaries of syntactic bootstrapping for attitude verbs, expanding on the findings from Harrigan et al (2019), testing the role of syntax in interpreting a truly novel attitude verb
It is not a completely novel verb, either, as it does appear with some regularity in child-directed input. This leaves open questions about when syntax becomes useful to the learner. Is it useful immediately? Or does the child need some exposure to a verb before being able to utilize syntactic information for attitude verb subclass categorization? Building on Harrigan et al 2019, the current study presents children with sentences with a truly novel verb, kertunks, using either a finite or a nonfinite complement (7)-(8)
Summary
Word learning is a massively challenging task for the human language learner. Words refer to concepts, not individual objects, but children are never exposed directly to concepts. The difficulty escalates when we consider words with no obvious physical correlates One such class is attitude verbs, such as think and want, which refer to the mental state of the subject of the sentence (1)-(2). Harrigan, Hacquard & Lidz (2019) investigate syntactic bootstrapping for attitude verbs, and find evidence that children are sensitive to syntactic structure when interpreting a lesser-known attitude verb, hope. In order for syntactic bootstrapping to be a viable learning strategy, it must both be true that semantic properties are predictable from syntactic distribution, and that children are sensitive to this connection at the relevant point in development.
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