Early verb learning in 20-month-old Japanese-speaking children.
J Child Lang
; 38(3): 455-84, 2011 Jun.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-20807456
ABSTRACT
The present study investigated whether children's representations of morphosyntactic information are abstract enough to guide early verb learning. Using an infant-controlled habituation paradigm with a switch design, Japanese-speaking children aged 1 ; 8 were habituated to two different events in which an object was engaging in an action. Each event was paired with a novel word embedded in a single intransitive verb sentence frame. The results indicated that only 40% of the children were able to map a novel verb onto the action when the mapping task was complex. However, by simplifying the mapping task, 88% of the children succeeded in verb-action mapping. There were no differences in perceptual salience between the agent and action switches in the task. These results provide strong evidence that Japanese-speaking children aged 1 ; 8 are able to use an intransitive verb sentence frame to guide early verb learning unless the mapping task consumes too much of their cognitive resources.
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pattern Recognition, Visual
/
Semantics
/
Verbal Learning
/
Language Development
/
Motion Perception
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
/
Infant
/
Male
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
En
Year:
2011
Type:
Article