Acquiring knowledge of derived nominals and derived adjectives in context.
OBJECTIVE
This research investigated children's ability to acquire semantic and syntactic knowledge of derived nominals and derived adjectives in the context of short passages. The study also investigated the relation of morphological awareness and the ability to acquire knowledge of derived words in context.


METHODS
A total of 106 children in Grade 4 were given an author-created evaluation, the Derivational Acquisition in Context Evaluation (DAICE), which consisted of several short passages. Each passage contained two instances of a target base word followed by one instance of a derived form of the base word. A multiple-choice measure was administered to assess the children's knowledge of 12 derived words (6 nominals and 6 adjectives). A measure of morphological awareness was given to assess the children's relational knowledge between root words and their suffixes.


RESULTS
No significant differences were found for overall performance on derived nominals and derived adjectives. However, the acquisition of semantic and syntactic knowledge was dependent on target word type. A significant relation was found between performance on the measure of morphological awareness and performance on derived nominals.


CONCLUSIONS
This research provided evidence for fast mapping of derived nominals and derived adjectives within the context of short passages. Future directions of related research are suggested.
Ohio University, Athens, USA. marinels@ohio.edu
Sally A
SA
Marinellie
Lynn A
LA
Kneile
D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary