Research article summary (published 30 Jul 2006):

Facilitation and practice in verb acquisition.

Full 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.

Author information

Author/s: Keren-Portnoy, Tamar (T);

Affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Wales Bangor, Gwynedd, UK. t.keren-portnoy(-atsign-)bangor.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of child language (J Child Lang), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Aug; vol 33 (issue 3) : pp 487-518

Dates: Created 2006/10/03; Completed 2006/11/06; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 17017277, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Child Language Child, Preschool Female Humans Infant Language Tests

Language Tests Linguistics Male Neurolinguistic Programming Verbal Behavior Verbal Learning

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