bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Comprehension and production of comparatives and superlatives
Authors: Layton Thomas L. , Stick Sheldon L. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTTen objects were used to assess comprehension, production, and imitation of comparative and superlative suffixes in 100 children ranging in age from 2; 6 to 4; 6. The results indicated that comprehension of both suffix forms was similar at each of five age levels studied; although incrementally better comprehension scores occurred with succeeding ages. Virtually all subjects were successful in imitating forms missed during the comprehension task. Analysis revealed that the -er suffix was produced more often than the -est suffix, at the youngest age (2; 6): at succeeding age levels this difference was reversed. Big was the primary lexical unit selected by the subjects for positive and negative polar forms connoting size; little was the second most frequently used adjective form.
The acquisition of the voicing contrast in Spanish: a phonetic and phonological study of word-initial stop consonants
Authors: Macken Marlys A. , Barton David 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper reports on the acquisition of the voicing contrast in Mexican–Spanish word-initial stops. In Study 1, three monolingual children were recorded every two weeks for seven months, beginning when the children were about 1; 7. In Study 2, four monolingual children about 3; 10 were recorded once or twice. Two analyses were done. Instrumental analysis of the stop productions revealed that not even by age 3; 10 were the children consistently distinguishing between voiced–voiceless stop cognate pairs on the basis of adult-like voice-onset time characteristics. The spirantization analysis, however, more clearly revealed the children's phonological knowledge. Discussion focuses on the implications of the data for phonological development in general and for the phonological description of voicing in Spanish.
The acquisition of some Dutch morphological rules
Authors: Snow Catherine E. , Smith Norval S. H. , Hoefnagel-Höhle Marian 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe acquisition of the morphological rules for plural, agentive, and diminutive suffixes in Dutch was studied. Subjects included 7- and 12-year-old native speakers, and second-language learners in three age groups (5–10 years, 12–18 years, and adult). The first- and second-language learners showed very similar orders of acquisition for the rule systems governing plural and diminutive, but the second-language learners showed a subtle form of interference from their first language in acquiring the agentive. The findings suggest that morphological acquisition proceeds piecemeal, with the learning of specific word ending + allomorph sequences, and that generalizations at the level of morphological rules may not be made even after several years of correct performance with the allomorph in question.
Conversational asymmetry between mothers and children
Authors: Kaye Kenneth , Charney Rosalind 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTTURNABOUTS, which both respond to and require a response from the other (either verbal or nonverbal), were produced more than twice as often by mothers as by their children at 2; 2 and 2; 6, in videotaped dialogues during semi-structured play. The 27 mothers showed stable individual differences in this aspect of their turn-taking, across situations and across time. Children tended to take a reciprocal role rather than an imitative one within the immediate situation: if a mother produced many mands, her child produced few. At 2; 10 the children were tested for language comprehension, puzzle-solving and conversational engagement with an investigator. Mothers' mands at the earlier ages appeared to have a negative effect upon these measures, even when social class differences were controlled; but causal interpretations were complicated by the fact that language production measures also predicted the 2; 10 cognitive measures.
Contingent query sequences within adult–child discourse
Authors: Gallagher Tanya M. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe structure of contingent query sequences within adult–child discourse was examined. The children, aged 1; 11–3; 0 in language stages I–III, demonstrated basic knowledge of the contingent query. Implications for conceptualizations of the young child's communicative competence and for theoretical formulations of the query sequence itself are discussed.
Context-specificity and generalization in the acquisition of pronominal distinctions
Authors: Chiat Shulamuth 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe pronoun system provides a fruitful area for investigating the conditions under which children make linguistic generalizations. Pronouns are defined by a complex of semantic, syntactic, and morphological distinctions whose interaction is only partially consistent. In the course of acquiring them, children often make systematic errors which reflect novel generalizations from the adult input. A distributional analysis was applied to the errors made by 48 children in marking distinctions of person, possession, and case in their spontaneous use of pronouns. The analysis indicated that children do not make maximal generalizations which extend a particular feature to all related contexts. Rather, they acquire specific complexes of features, and are quite conservative in extrapolating from one feature complex to another.
Category development in early language
Authors: Rescorla Leslie A. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTDeveloping knowledge of the vehicle, animal, and fruit categories was traced in six children from 1; 0 to 1; 8. Data from mothers' language diaries and from bi-monthly sessions with the children were pooled to analyse the growth, content, and internal structure of the three categories over time. The children developed some grasp of most of the focal concepts in each category, but they made fewer differentiations than adults do. Overextension of a single concept term to encompass a cluster of related referents was common. The frequent discrepancies between comprehension and production of concept terms highlighted the importance of examining both modes. The data showed marked individual differences in style of category acquisition.
Children's understanding of indirect requests: comparing child and adult comprehension
Authors: Carrell Patricia L. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTBased on Clark & Lucy's (1975) study of adult comprehension of different types of indirect requests, this study addresses the questions: ‘How well are children aged 4 to 7 able to understand these same indirect requests?’ and ‘How does the relation between request type and ease of comprehension compare from children to adults?’ Results showed: (1) these children are able to comprehend a wide variety of indirect requests; (2) there is a general developmental pattern of acquisition; (3) interrogative forms are more difficult than declarative forms; (4) conveyed negative requests are more difficult than corresponding conveyed positive requests; (5) children are heavily influenced by the surface polarity of the conveyed request; and (6) the relationship between request type and ease of comprehension is strikingly similar for both children and adults.
Tag constructions: structure and function in child discourse
Authors: Berninger Ginger , Garvey Catherine 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTA distinction has been drawn between tag questions which occur within the same temporally defined turn and those in a second turn by the same speaker. A TAG CONSTRUCTION has been defined as a MATRIX CLAUSE (any syntax) and a TAG FORM (reduced interrogative in elliptical constructions; or interrogative expression in stereotypical constructions) produced WITHIN THE SAME TURN. The discoursal functions of tag constructions include requests for information, agreement, permission, compliance, responsiveness and attention. Although stereotypical tag constructions emerge earlier in development than elliptical tag constructions, from the beginning stereotypical tag constructions perform the same discoursal functions as the grammatically more complex elliptical constructions as well as additional ones. Tag constructions are less effective than canonical questions in obtaining turn transfers. This relative ineffectiveness may be due to either the post-positioned clearance signal or the fact that the listener feels less compelled to respond when the speaker seems to have an expectation as to what the response to the request should be.
Understanding sentences in varying contexts
Authors: Presson Clark C. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe present study tested Huttenlocher & Weiner's (1971) hypothesis concerning the role of grammatical function in sentence comprehension. Children arranged objects to correspond to descriptions of transitive relations in two tasks. The patterns of object placements provided evidence of how children understood the various sentence forms. Contrary to Huttenlocher & Weiner's hypothesis, grammatical function was not a critical factor in object placements. This was true based on the group data or individual-based analyses. Two factors were important: logical function and order of mention of the items in the sentence. Whether an item was grammatical subject or grammatical object did not affect subjects' choices. The order of mention effects resulted from inattention to sentence meaning prior to the initial choices on certain trials. If the logical relations in a sentence were understood prior to the response, only logical function influenced subjects' responses.
Mother conversational behaviour as a function of interactional intent
Authors: McDonald Lynda , Pien Diana 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTPrevious research has suggested that the syntactic and semantic characteristics of mother speech are determined by the underlying intention of mothers to control (Newport 1977) or to converse with (Snow 1977) the child. The present study attempts to delineate the structure among functionally categorized mother conversational behaviours, especially those which might reflect the mother's intention to control or converse with her child. The utterances of II mothers with their children (aged 2; 5–3; 0) were categorized according to their illocutionary force or function. Conversational parameters, such as topic change rate and talkativeness, were also measured. Intercorrelations among all these mother variables showed a polarized pattern, reflecting two predominant mother intentions for conversational interaction: the control of the child's physical actions, and the elicitation of his conversational participation. Implications of the findings, especially those indicating the incompatibility of controlling and conversation-eliciting intentions, are discussed.
Pragmatic factors in children's phrasal coordination
Authors: Greenfield Patricia M. , Dent Cathy H. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis study of children's conjunction reduction contrasted the syntactic view of forward and backward deletion of base structure elements with the idea that pragmatic factors of situational redundancy and perceptual grouping account for conjunction reduction. Ninety-four children described an action sequence (putting differently coloured beads into a cup) so that a listener positioned behind a screen could repeat them. Half the children communicated as the action was being carried out (SIMULTANEOUS condition), mitigating against perceptual grouping of beads in the cup. Half communicated after the action was completed (POST condition), permitting perceptual grouping. Backward deletion was more frequent in the post than in the simultaneous condition. Also, the overall high frequency of forward deletion reflected encoding of novelty and omission of repetitive elements. These results suggest syntax is pragmatically motivated.
Characteristics of adult speech which predict children's language development
Authors: Barnes Sally , Gutfreund Mary , Satterly David , Wells Gordon 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTSamples of the speech addressed by adults to a socially representative sample of 2-year-olds in naturally occurring contexts of interaction were analysed with respect to syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse features to determine which features were most strongly associated with gain by the children on a variety of measures of language development over the ensuing 9 months. Following a principal components analysis of the adult speech variables, the most highly loading variables on the first six components were correlated with children's gain scores. Polar interrogatives, directives and extending utterances were all found to be associated with at least one measure of development. The results are if interpreted as evidence of reciprocal, rather than one-way facilitation.
Noun phrases and coherence in child narratives
Authors: Bennett-Kastor Tina 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTAn analysis was undertaken to determine the grammatical and semantic means by which children achieve textual coherence, in narratives in particular and discourse in general. Twenty-one stories from twelve children aged two to five were analysed, with particular attention given to noun phrases (NPs) which were introduced and reiterated at least once in subsequent story clauses. In recognition of the agent-oriented nature of narrative and its sense of the succession of events, children introduced and reiterated primarily + animate NPs in their stories, expressing them predominantly as agents. With respect to discourse coherence in general, most reiterated NPs appeared in subject position both with introduction and subsequent mention, suggesting they were elements of focus. The given-new distinction was well preserved, too. Though at age five stories became considerably longer and denser with reiterated NPs, features of textual coherence held for all the age groups considered.
The effects of intonation on infant attention: the role of the rising intonation contour
Authors: Sullivan Joseph W. , Horowitz Frances Degen 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe study was designed to investigate 2-month-old infant preferential attention to a feature found to be characteristic of mothers' speech to their infants. A modified infant-control auditory preference paradigm was employed to assess infants' differential attention to synthetically generated and naturally produced rising and falling intonation contours. Analysis of these data revealed that the infants attended more to the rising naturally produced intonation contour. A reverse pattern of greater attention to the falling contour was found with the synthetically generated stimuli. In addition, inspection of the results permitted the conclusion that the infant-control preference paradigm was a viable method for assessing the 2-month-old infant's preferential attention to auditory stimuli. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to the study of the infant's developing language reception abilities.
The emergence of communicative competence: detection of conversational topics
Authors: Luszcz Mary A. , Bacharach Verne R. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe use of linguistic and extralinguistic information in identifying conversational topics was studied in 3- and 5-year-old children. Pictures portraying an actor–action–object relation were used to guide conversations. Both active pictures, emphasizing an action relating actor and object via postural cues, and static pictures, which did not, were used. Linguistic topics were implied by prefacing each picture with comments topicalizing actor, action or object. In neutral control groups no topic was implied and, in an explicit control group of 3-year-Olds the actor's action on the object was directly topicalized. While implicit topic definition was sufficient for 5-year-olds' production of contingent replies, explicit definition of a topic was necessary to evoke a similar pattern of replies from 3-year-olds. These findings are discussed in terms of different modes of topic definition and their order of acquisition.
Patterns of early lexical and phonological development
Authors: Stoel-Gammon Carol , Cooper Judith A. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a detailed analysis of early lexical and phonological development in three children. The study covers the period from late babbling through the acquisition of 50 conventional words and focuses on: (1) the relationship between prelinguistic and linguistic vocalizations; (2) phonological development after the onset of speech; (3) patterns of lexical selection; (4) rate of lexical acquisition; and (5) use of invented words. The findings reveal that while the prelinguistic utterances of the children were similar, there was extensive inter-subject variation after the onset of meaningful speech, particularly in the segmental and syllabic forms of word productions, patterns of lexical selection, rate of lexical acquisition, and use of invented words.
Non-linguistic responses to verbal instructions
Authors: Bernstein Mark E. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTChildren's responses to verbal instructions to place objects in, on, or under other objects were examined according to the paradigm developed by Clark (1973). In the present study, however, all objects were unfamiliar to the children, and were completely neutral and context-free. An additional task assessed children's comprehension of the spatial terms by asking them simply to point to objects in particular relationships without actually manipulating them. The results supported Clark's hypothesis of the influence of non-linguistic strategies on younger children's responses, in contradistinction to other studies critical of Clark's findings. However, when not required to manipulate the objects, children indicated greater comprehension than otherwise expected. The results are discussed in relation to the influence of task context on comprehension studies of this type.
Acquisition of locative meanings: behind and in front of
Authors: Johnston Judith R. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTStudies of locatives suggest regularities in order and age of acquisition, including systematic changes in context of use for behind and in front of. The present investigation extends earlier work by utilizing more naturalistic elicitation procedures and exploring an early use of behind and in front of with large reference objects. Thirty-three children, ages 2; 7 to 4; 7, told puppets where to look for missing objects. Results indicate an order of acquisition for English locatives which is consistent with prior reports. However, the puppet story method elicited given locatives at younger ages, and the first uses of behind occurred with large, non-featured reference objects. The patterns of use for behind and in front of suggest an acquisition process in which new conceptual resources lead to the re-analysis of object configurations and thus to new aspects of meaning.
The comprehension of semantic relations by two-year-olds: an exploratory study
Authors: Corrigan Roberta , Odya-Weis Cyndie 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTA token-placement technique was used to investigate the influence of actor and patient animacy in determining which sentences 48 2-year-olds viewed as prototypical. After training on one of three sentence types that varied in the animacy/inanimacy of actors and patients, all children were tested for generalization on pictures with different animacy/inanimacy patterns. While most children placed actor tokens on generalization sentences correctly, regardless of animacy, half responded randomly in patient token placement. Type of training only affected children who, overall, were random responders. The results suggest that the actor category is usually acquired first for prototypical sentences with animate actors and inanimate patients.
The development of locative comprehension in Spanish
Authors: Conner Peggy S. , Chapman Robin S. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTForty monolingual Spanish-speaking Peruvian children ages 3; 6–5; 5 were given a search task to test comprehension of six locative phrases depicting the four spatial relations in front of, in back of, beside and under. Performance improved with age and was best for under (debajo de) and poorest on beside (al costado de, al lado de). There was no evidence that locatives lacking object part terms (delante de for in front of and al costado de for beside) resulted in poorer performance than locatives that included the object part labels (enfrente de, al lado de). Nor was there evidence to support the positive pole hypothesis that in front of items would be easier than behind. Performance was best when the children themselves were the reference object, next best with a fronted object, and poorest with a nonfronted object, suggesting that preschoolers may understand projective locatives with respect to the reference object's intrinsic orientation, rather than imposing their own point of view.
Implicit contrast in adjectives vs. nouns: implications for word-learning in preschoolers
Authors: Gelman Susan A. , Markman Ellen M. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTOn some views of language, when one uses a term to describe or label an object, a contrast is always implied. However, there is an important difference between nouns and adjectives in their contrastive use: adjectives imply a contrast between members of a single noun category, whereas nouns do not imply a contrast between members of a single adjective category. For example, describing a car as new suggests a contrast with other cars. However, labelling it as a car does not as clearly imply a contrast with other new objects. There is no logical necessity for this distinction – it is not captured by the literal meanings of words. Yet it is a conceptual distinction implicit in the use of these terms. In two studies, we tested preschool children's appreciation for this conceptual distinction, using both familiar and unfamiliar words. In Study I, 4-year-olds (but not 3-year-olds) were able to disambiguate the meanings of simple nouns and adjectives by assuming that the adjectives, unlike the nouns, implied a contrast between category members. In Study II, children selected pictures to match totally novel adjectives and nouns (e.g. the fep one, the skub). Relying on part of speech alone, they interpreted these unfamiliar nouns and adjectives differently. Implications for children's use of referential language and word-learning strategies are discussed.
The relation between grammatical development and mean length of utterance in morphemes
Authors: Klee Thomas , Fitzgerald Martha Deitz 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTA widely held practice in many studies of child language development and disorders has been to employ an easily calculated numerical metric, mean length of utterance measured in morphemes (MLU), as a ‘general index of grammatical development’. While this practice seems to have found acceptance among many students of child language, the usefulness of MLU past Stage II has been assumed but never empirically tested. This study evaluated the grammatical performance and MLU of 18 normally developing 2- and 3-year-old children and found that MLU did not correlate significantly with age (r = 0·26), nor did it discriminate children's profiles of grammatical development.
A tip-of-the-tongue experience at age two?
Authors: Elbers Loekie 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTSome word-finding problems (recorded on tape) of a Dutch two-year-old are reported. The child's attempts at retrieving a certain target form show many characteristics which are typical for ‘tip-of-the-tongue’ experiences. During his lexical search the child produces malapropisms and a blend. The speech errors are analysed, and implications for the character of early lexical organization and the order of lexical form/meaning acquisition are discussed.