A developmental shift from similar to language-specific strategies in verb acquisition: a comparison of English, Spanish, and Japanese.
The world's languages draw on a common set of event components for their verb systems. Yet, these components are differentially distributed across languages. At what age do children begin to use language-specific patterns to narrow possible verb meanings? English-, Japanese-, and Spanish-speaking adults, toddlers, and preschoolers were shown videos of an animated star performing a novel manner along a novel path paired with a language-appropriate nonsense verb. They were then asked to extend that verb to either the same manner or the same path as in training. Across languages, toddlers (2- and 2.5-year-olds) revealed a significant preference for interpreting the verb as a path verb. In preschool (3- and 5-year-olds) and adulthood, the participants displayed language-specific patterns of verb construal. These findings illuminate the way in which verb construal comes to reflect the properties of the input language.
Maguire
Mandy J
MJ
University of Texas at Dallas, Callier Center for Communication Disorders, 1966 Inwood Rd., Dallas, TX 75235, USA. mandy.maguire@utdallas.edu
Hirsh-Pasek
Kathy
K
Golinkoff
Roberta Michnick
RM
Imai
Mutsumi
M
Haryu
Etsuko
E
Vanegas
Sandra
S
Okada
Hiroyuki
H
Pulverman
Rachel
R
Sanchez-Davis
Brenda
B
D000367:Age Factors; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D013030:Spain; D014481:United States; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014825:Vocabulary