Name
Title | ||
|---|---|---|
Can Infinitival to Omissions and Provisions Be Primed? An Experimental Investigation Into the Role of Constructional Competition in Infinitival to Omission Errors. |
Abstract | ||
|---|---|---|
An experimental study was conducted on children aged 2;6-3;0 and 3;6-4;0 investigating the priming effect of two WANT-constructions to establish whether constructional competition contributes to English-speaking children's infinitival to omission errors (e.g., *I want ___ jump now). In two between-participant groups, children either just heard or heard and repeated WANT-to, WANT-X, and control prime sentences after which to-infinitival constructions were elicited. We found that both age groups were primed, but in different ways. In the 2;6-3;0year olds, WANT-to primes facilitated the provision of to in target utterances relative to the control contexts, but no significant effect was found for WANT-X primes. In the 3;6-4;0year olds, both WANT-to and WANT-X primes showed a priming effect, namely WANT-to primes facilitated and WANT-X primes inhibited provision of to. We argue that these effects reflect developmental differences in the level of proficiency in and preference for the two constructions, and they are broadly consistent with priming as implicit learning accounts. The current study shows that (a) children as young as 2;6-3;0years of age can be primed when they have only heard (not repeated) particular constructions, (b) children are acquiring at least two constructions for the matrix verb WANT, and (c) that these two WANT-constructions compete for production. |
Year | DOI | Venue |
|---|---|---|
2017 | 10.1111/cogs.12407 | COGNITIVE SCIENCE |
Keywords | Field | DocType |
Structural priming,Implicit learning,Constructional competition,To-infinitive,Grammatical errors,First language acquisition | Social psychology,Verb,Developmental psychology,Age groups,Structural priming,Psychology,Cognitive psychology,Priming (psychology),Implicit learning,Language acquisition,Pattern language | Journal |
Volume | Issue | ISSN |
41 | 5.0 | 0364-0213 |
Citations | PageRank | References |
1 | 0.39 | 1 |
Authors | ||
3 | ||
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minna Kirjavainen | 1 | 1 | 0.39 |
| elena lieven | 2 | 3 | 2.59 |
| Anna L Theakston | 3 | 3 | 3.94 |