Learning Words and Rules

Abstract Knowledge of Word Order in Early Sentence Comprehension

Yael Gertner, Cynthia Fisher, and Julie Einsengart

Daniela Sofia Argel Mangones - 201785573

Hyejin Kim - 201301009
Ji In Jeong - 201303195
Sabrina binte Hardy - 201785615
Seongwook Kang - 201100034
 Strengths &
Intro Exp 2 Exp 4 weaknesses

Exp 1 Exp 3 Summary & Q&A

discussion
introduction
 introduction

This article probes the abstractness of young

childrens knowledge of syntax by testing
whether 25- and 21-months old extend their
knowledge of English word order to new verbs.
 introduction

Language vary greatly, their combinatory rules have similarities

(Croft, 1990).

(1) Mary kissed Bill.

(2) Mary kicked Bill.

The formal marking of grammatical roles differs

cross-linguistically; thus, children must learn how to identify
subjects and objects in their native language.
 introduction

Children are quick to acquire fundamental links between

sentence form and meaning.
Also children learn to mark correctly the grammatical
relations.

What kind of knowledge underline these achievements?

 introduction
Lexical account
Children first learn to interpret sentences
by acquiring verb-specific knowledge.
A key assumption of syntax acquisition is
that children approach language without a
priori constraints on possible relation
between sentence form and meaning.
Early abstraction account
Children acquire facts about particular
words, but are also constrained to
represent knowledge of sentence
structure in terms of a more abstract
mental vocabulary.
A key assumption is that a priori
constraints between sentence form and
meaning prevent irrelevant features from
interfering with the detection of general
patterns.
 introduction

Lexical account Early abstraction account

Rule formation is predicted to be slow. Some proponent describe this as an

Abstractions such as subject/object innate universal grammar. That
agent/patient are not primitive to includes elements like subject, object,
the language-acquisition system but agent and patient as primitive.
must be learn via comparison.
 introduction

(1) Mary kissed Bill

(2) Mary kicked Bill
 introduction > example
Lexical account
Would represent the positions
of Mary and Bill relative to kiss
in (1) and to kick in (2).
Semantic roles of Mary and Bill
might be represented as:
kisser and kissee in (1)
kicker and kickee in (2)
Early abstraction account
Would represent the positions
of Mary and Bill in (1) and (2)
relative to a category such as
transitive verbs.
Kissers and kickers are agents
and kissees and kickees are
patients.
 introduction > evidence for lexical account

Akhtar and Tomasello (1997):

Children under age 3 failed to use word order to comprehend

who acted on whom in sentences containing novel verbs.
But
These experiment assessed comprehension using an act-out
task, these task is difficult and may underestimate young
childrens knowledge.
 introduction > evidence for lexical account

Finding from experiments on novel-verb production have

also been taken as evidence for lexical account.
Young children tend to use each verb in structures in which
they have heard it use it.
Innovative uses of verbs in new structures provide
compelling evidence that children possess an abstract
representation of these structures.
However, such an extension also requires the inference that a
verb can occurs in new sentence structure.
 introduction > these experiments

The experiment studied in these articles uses

looking-preference comprehension task (instead of the
act-out comprehension task and the extension task) in the
presence of a novel verb.
The looking-preference comprehension task relies on the
tendency of children and adults to look at scene related to
the sentences they hear.
 introduction > these experiments

If lexical account is true, 2-year-olds should have no idea

how to interpret word order in the presence of a novel verb.
If early abstraction account is true, 2-year-olds have already
learned where agents and patients belong in sentences, and
they should readily apply this knowledge to sentences
containing a novel verb.
experiment 1
 experiment 1 > method > participants

Twenty four 2-year-olds

Native learners of English.

Productive vocabularies ranged from a score of 27 to 99.
experiment 1 > method > participants
 experiment 1 > method > procedure

Three phases of experiment:

1. Character identification
2. Practice
3. Test
experiment 1 > method > procedure
 experiment 1 > method > procedure > character identification

4s (blank) 4s 4s
Theres a
duck! x3 Find the duck! Find the duck!

2s (blank) 2s (blank) 2s (blank)

4s (blank) 4s 4s
Theres a Find the Find the
bunny! x3 bunny! bunny!
 experiment 1 > method > procedure > practice 1
(blank) (blank)
5s
The bunnys gonna hug the duck!

Correct video - bunny hugging duck Wrong video - bunny washing duck
8s
The bunnys hugging the duck! The bunnys hugging the duck!

(blank) (blank)
4s
The bunny hugged the duck!

Correct video - bunny hugging duck Wrong video - bunny washing duck
8s
The bunnys hugging the duck!
 experiment 1 > method > procedure > practice 2
(blank) (blank)
5s
The ducks gonna feed the bunny!

Correct video - duck feeding bunny Wrong video - duck tickling bunny
8s
The ducks feeding the bunny! The ducks feeding the bunny!

(blank) (blank)
4s
The duck fed the bunny!

Correct video - duck feeding bunny Wrong video - duck tickling bunny
8s
The ducks feeding the bunny!
 experiment 1 > method > procedure > test
(blank) (blank)
5s
The ducks gonna gorp the bunny!

Bunny wheeling duck in a wagon Duck tipping bunny in rocking chair

8s
The duck is gorping the bunny! The duck is gorping the bunny!

(blank) (blank)
4s
The duck gorped the bunny!

Bunny wheeling duck in a wagon Duck tipping bunny in rocking chair

8s
The duck is gorping the bunny!
experiment 1 > method > procedure > test
 experiment 1 > method > coding

Coded the childrens visual fixations to each screen, frame by

frame from silent videos.
Calculated the proportion of time spent looking at the correct
screen that matched the audio.
An individual trial was treated as missing if the child looked
away for more than half of the trial.
 experiment 1 > method > results and discussion

The children looked longer than expected at the correct video, even with a
novel verb
suggests that the children used knowledge of English word order

Strong preference for the matching screen during the first 2-s segment
2-year-olds made rapid use of word order
experiment 2
 experiment 2

Do 2-year-olds know the fact that the object of transitive verb

names the patient as well as the subject names the agent?
 experiment 2

Do 2-year-olds know the fact that the object of transitive verb

names the patient as well as the subject names the agent?

Children heard the test sentences with pronoun subjects:

He is gorping the bunny and He is gorping the duck
 experiment 2

Children heard the test sentences with pronoun subjects:

He is gorping the bunny
RESULT: they look longer at the video where the patient was
the direct object
 experiment 2
Do 2-year-olds know the fact that the object of transitive verb
names the patient as well as the subject names the agent?

Children heard the test sentences with pronoun subjects:

He is gorping the bunny
 experiment 2
Children heard the test sentences with pronoun subjects:
He is gorping the bunny

object

patient
 experiment 2

Children heard the test sentences with pronoun subjects:

He is gorping the bunny
RESULT: they look longer at the video where the patient was
the direct object.

They knew the direct object referent played a patient role.

2 year olds used word order to comprehend transitive
sentences with novel verbs.
experiment 3
 experiment 3
Do 21-month-olds (younger children) use word order to understand
transitive sentences containing novel verbs?
21-month-olds have very small vocabularies containing very few verbs.
 experiment 3
Do 21-month-olds (younger children) use word order to understand
transitive sentences containing novel verbs?
21-month-olds have very small vocabularies containing very few verbs.

Early abstraction account: predict success

Two classes Same opinion (experiment 1, 2, 3, 4) but through this

of theory experiment, we can more strongly contradict lexical
account, and support early abstraction account

Lexical account: predict failure For stronger evidence,

experiments 3 and 4 were
conducted
 experiment 3
Video 1 Video 2

the girl bent forward and back by the boy rotate the girl on a chair by
pushing and pulling his shoulder pulling on a band around her waist

Look longer
TEST sentence: The girl is gorping the boy
 experiment 3

RESULT: they also looked longer at the video where the agent was
the subject of the test sentence

21-month-olds also used word order to comprehend transitive

sentences with novel verbs
 experiment 3
Video 1 Video 2
agent

the girl bent forward and back by the boy rotate the girl on a chair by
pushing and pulling his shoulder pulling on a band around her waist

Look longer
TEST sentence: The girl is gorping the boy
subject
 experiment 3
Do 21-month-olds (younger children) use word order to understand
transitive sentences containing novel verbs?
21-month-olds have very small vocabularies containing very few verbs.

Early abstraction account: predict success

Two classes Same opinion (experiment 1, 2, 3, 4) but through this

of theory experiment, we can more strongly contradict lexical
account, and support early abstraction account

Lexical account: predict failure For stronger evidence,

experiments 3 and 4 were
conducted
experiment 4
 experiment 4

Do 21-month-olds know the fact that the object of transitive

verb names the patient as well as the subject names the
agent?

Children heard the test sentences with pronoun subject:

Whos gorping the boy Whos gorping the girl
 experiment 4
Video 1 Video 2

Agent Patient Agent Patient

the girl bent forward and back by the boy rotate the girl on a chair by
pushing and pulling his shoulder pulling on a band around her waist

TEST sentence: Whos gorping the boy

 experiment 4
Look longer Video 1 Video 2

Agent Patient Agent Patient

the girl bent forward and back by the boy rotate the girl on a chair by
pushing and pulling his shoulder pulling on a band around her waist

TEST sentence: Whos gorping the boy

 experiment 4
Video 1 Video 2

Agent Patient Agent Patient

the girl bent forward and back by the boy rotate the girl on a chair by
pushing and pulling his shoulder pulling on a band around her waist

TEST sentence: Whos gorping the boy

object
 experiment 4

RESULT: they looked longer at the video where the patient was the
direct object of test sentence

Like 2-year olds, 21-month olds also knew that the object was the one
undergoing an action, not causing one.
21-month-olds also used word order to comprehend transitive sentences
with novel verbs.
summary & discussion
 summary & discussion

In four experiments, young children (25- and 21-month-olds)

used word order to interpret transitive sentences containing
novel verbs:

Subject/agent Object/patient
 summary & discussion

Early abstraction account: predict success

Two classes
of theory

Lexical account: predict failure

 summary & discussion

Conceptual semantic-abstractions such as agent and patient

appear in infancy.
The absence of linguistic exposure: deaf children
strengths & weaknesses
 strengths

EXP1, EXP2 EXP3, EXP4

24-month 21-month
 strengths

It was a good idea to test the childrens vocabularies

beforehand, as it showed that no matter how small or big
their vocabularies were, the results were still the same
(therefore results were not due to lexicon).
Experiments were well thought out, down to the point
where the parents wore opaque glasses, possibly so that it
cannot be argued that the parents influenced the childrens
preference for a screen.
 strengths

Contrary to the previous experiments on novel-verb

comprehension and production which used act-out tasks,
these experiments used a looking-preference
comprehension task instead, which is easier and more
established.
 weaknesses

11 children dropped out of experiments 3 and 4. Evidence

would have been stronger if there were more 21 month olds.
The experimenters did not explain the reasons behind the
more technical aspects of their experiment, such as why the
videos played for 8 seconds specifically, or why they changed
the characters to a boy and a girl instead of a duck and a
bunny for experiments 3 and 4.
Thank you!!
Questions?