Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-lqqdg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-30T01:35:32.066Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Preschool children's sentence comprehension: strategies with respect to animacy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Henrietta Lempert
Henrietta Lempert
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In a between-subjects design, 105 children aged 2; 5–5; 5 enacted their interpretation of passive and inverted cleft (IC) sentences in which animacy was systematically varied. Two agent strategies were found at 3;0: dynamic agent and word order. For ICs, the word order strategy persisted at 4;0, but the dynamic agent approach was replaced by an animate agent strategy. For passives, 4-year-olds mostly used structural relations, either regardless of agent and patient animacy (50 % of children), or only for animate patients (30% of children). The latter finding is discussed in terms of topicalization priorities.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , February 1985 , pp. 79 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Angiolillo, C. J. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1982). Experimental evidence for agent–patient categories in child language. JChLang 9. 627–43.Google ScholarPubMed
Bates, E., McNew, S., MacWhinney, B., Devescovi, A. & Smith, A. (1982). Functional constraints on sentence processing: a cross linguistic study. Cognition 11. 245–99.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bates, E. & MacWhinney, B. (1982). Functionalist approaches to grammar. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Bloom, L. (1970). Language development: form and function in emerging grammars. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T.Google Scholar
Bloom, L., Hood, B. & Lightbown, P. (1975). Structure and variation in child language. Monogr.Soc.Res.Ch.Devel. 40. No. 160.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1973). Structural relations in children's utterances: semantic or syntactic. In Moore, T. E. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1982). Reorganizational processes in lexical and syntactic development. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. R. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. & Wells, R. S. (1978). Case-like categories in children: the actor and some related categories. CogPsychol 10. 100–22.Google Scholar
Bridges, A. (1980). SVO comprehension strategies reconsidered: the evidence of individual patterns of response. JChLang 7. 89–104.Google ScholarPubMed
Chapman, R. S. & Miller, J. F. (1975). Word order in early two and three word utterances: does production precede comprehension? JSHR 18. 355–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, R. S. & Kohn, L. L. (1977). Comprehension strategies in two- and three-year-olds: animate agents or probable events? Paper presented at Stanford Child Language Forum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Villiers, J. G. (1980). The process of rule learning in child speech: a new look. In Nelson, K. E. (ed.), Children's language, Vol. 2. New York: Gardner.Google Scholar
Dewart, M. H. (1979). Role of animate and inanimate nouns in determining sentence voice. BJPsychol 70. 135–41.Google Scholar
Harris, M. (1978). Noun animacy and the passive: a developmental approach. JExpPsychol 39. 435–50.Google Scholar
Horgan, D. (1978). The development of the full passive. JChhang 5. 65–80.Google Scholar
Lempert, H. (1978). Extrasyntactic factors affecting passive sentence comprehension by young children. ChDev 49. 694–9.Google Scholar
Lempert, H. & Kinsbourne, M. (1978). Children's comprehension of word order: a developmental investigation. ChDev 49. 1235–8.Google Scholar
Lempert, H. (1980). Preschool children's sentence comprehension strategies with respect to word order. JChLang 7. 371–9.Google ScholarPubMed
Li, C. X. & Thompson, S. (1976). Subject and topic: a new typology of language. In Li, C. N. (ed.), Subject and topic. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Mallinson, G. & Blake, B. J. (1981). Language typology. Amsterdam: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Palermo, D. & Molfese, D. L. (1972). Language acquisition from age five onward. PsychBull 78. 409–28.Google Scholar