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Training 2;6-year-olds to produce the transitive construction: the role of frequency, semantic similarity and shared syntactic distribution

Abbot-Smith, Kirsten, Lieven, Elena, Tomasello, Michael (2004) Training 2;6-year-olds to produce the transitive construction: the role of frequency, semantic similarity and shared syntactic distribution. Developmental Science, 7 (1). pp. 48-55. ISSN 1363-755X. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00322.x) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:25332)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00322.x

Abstract

Childers and Tomasello (2001) found that training 21/2-year-olds on the English transitive construction greatly improves their performance on a post-test in which they must use novel verbs in that construction. In the current study, we replicated Childers and Tomasello's finding, but using a much lower frequency of transitive verbs and models in training We also used novel verbs that were of a different semantic class to our training verbs, demonstrating that semantic homogeneity is not crucial for generalization. We also replicated the finding that 4-year-olds are significantly more productive than 21/2-year-olds with the transitive construction, with the new finding that this is also true for verbs of emission. In addition, 'shared syntactic distribution' of novel verb and training verbs was found to have no observable effect on the number of 21/2-year-olds who were productive in the post-test.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00322.x
Additional information: ISI Document Delivery No.: 772LF Times Cited: 15 Cited Reference Count: 25 Blackwell publ ltd Oxford
Uncontrolled keywords: young-children productivity passives verbs
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Kirsten Abbot-Smith
Date Deposited: 14 Dec 2010 15:22 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:03 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/25332 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Abbot-Smith, Kirsten.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8623-0664
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