title: Early comprehension of the Spanish plural.
abstract: Understanding how linguistic cues map to the environment is crucial for early language comprehension and may provide a way for bootstrapping and learning words. Research has suggested that learning how plural syntax maps to the perceptual environment may show a trajectory in which children first learn surrounding cues (verbs, modifiers) before a full mastery of the noun morpheme alone. The Spanish plural system of simple codas, dominated by one allomorph -s, and with redundant agreement markers, may facilitate early understanding of how plural linguistic cues map to novel referents. Two-year-old Mexican children correctly identified multiple novel object referents when multiple verbal cues in a phrase indicated plurality as well as in instances when the noun morphology in novel nouns was the only indicator of plurality. These results demonstrate Spanish-speaking children's ability to use plural noun inflectional morphology to infer novel word referents which may have implications for their word learning.
authors.affiliation: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,Facultad de Psicología.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Arias-Trejo
authors.affiliation: Indiana University,Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Cantrell
authors.affiliation: Indiana University,Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
authors.forename: Linda B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,Facultad de Psicología.
authors.forename: Elda A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Alva Canto
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception; D014706:Verbal Learning