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Facilitation and practice in verb acquisition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2006

TAMAR KEREN-PORTNOY
TAMAR KEREN-PORTNOY
Affiliation:
University of Wales Bangor
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Abstract

This paper presents a model of syntax acquisition, whose main points are as follows: Syntax is acquired in an item-based manner; early learning facilitates subsequent learning – as evidenced by the accelerating rate of new verbs entering a given structure; and mastery of syntactic knowledge is typically achieved through practice – as evidenced by intensive use and common word order errors – and this slows down learning during the early stages of acquiring a structure.

The facilitation and practice hypotheses were tested on naturalistic production samples of six Hebrew-acquiring children ranging from ages 1;1 to 2;7 (average ages 1;6 to 2;4 months). Results show that most structures did in fact accelerate; the notion of ‘practice’ is supported by the inverse correlation found between number of verbs and number of errors in the earliest productions in a given structure; and the absence of acceleration in a minority of the structures is due to the fact that they involve relatively less practice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , August 2006 , pp. 487 - 518
Copyright
2006 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This paper is based on the author's PhD dissertation, written under the guidance of Prof. Anat Ninio at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. I would like to thank all the families who took part in the research reported here, Anat Ninio, Marilyn Vihman, Izchak Schlesinger, Michael Keren and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous drafts, Sarit Dag, David Heller, Osnat Yogev, Motti Rimor for help with the data collection, and Ronny Alony, Tamar Parush, Doron Magen and Osnat Yogev for assistance with the transcription and coding. I am also grateful for the discussion and comments to the participants in the Sixth annual Gregynog conference on child language, Nantgwrtheyrn, UK, March 2004. Part of this paper was presented at the Ninth International Congress for the Study of Child Language and the Symposium on Research in Child Language Disorders (IASCL/SRCLD), Madison, Wisconsin, July 2002. The study was supported by a Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship within the 6th European Community Framework Programme, and by grants from the Israel Foundations Trustees (Doctoral grant no. 23), the Martin and Vivian Levin Center for the Normal and Psychopathological Development of the Child and Adolescent, the Sturman Center for Human Development, and the Levi Eshkol Institute for Economic, Social, and Political Research.