title: Comprehension of infrequent subject-verb agreement forms: evidence from French-learning children.
abstract: Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether young French-learning children (N = 76) are able to use a single number cue in subject-verb agreement contexts and match a visually dynamic scene with a corresponding verbal stimulus. Results from both preferential looking and pointing demonstrated significant comprehension in 30-month-olds with no preference for either singular or plural. These results challenge previous claims made on the basis of English and Spanish that comprehension of subject-verb agreement expressed as a bound morpheme is late, around 5 years of age (V. A. Johnson, J. G. de Villiers, & H. N. Seymour, 2005; A.-T. Pérez-Leroux, 2005). Properties of the adult input were also analyzed. Possible implications for theories of syntactic acquisition are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. legendre@jhu.edu
authors.forename: Géraldine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Legendre
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Barrière
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Goyet
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nazzi
mesh_terms: D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012660:Semantics; D014706:Verbal Learning; D014796:Visual Perception