ERIC Number: EJ1079619
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Apr
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0142-7237
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Lexical Retrieval for Nouns and Verbs in Typically Developing Bilectal Children
Kambanaros, Maria; Grohmann, Kleanthes K.; Michaelides, Michalis
First Language, v33 n2 p182-199 Apr 2013
Previous evidence shows that nouns are easier for many language users to retrieve than verbs, but scant research has been conducted with children in bilectal environments (where both standard and non-standard forms of a language are spoken). This study investigates object and action naming in children who are native speakers of a non-standard variety, Cypriot Greek (CG), but instructed scholastically in the official variety, Standard Modern Greek (SMG). Participants were typically developing Greek Cypriot preschoolers and early school-aged children who completed the Cypriot Object and Action Test (COAT). Results revealed a significant grammatical word class effect favoring nouns over verbs in Modern Greek, with a developmental change in the size of the noun-verb gap. Both age groups showed similar error patterns for both object and action targets. For action names, children produced more semantic descriptions or circumlocutions (e.g., "hitting the nail" for "hammering"), whereas omissions were the prominent error type for object names. The findings are discussed in relation to cross-linguistic evidence of grammatical word class differences using the picture naming paradigm for monolingual (pre)school-aged children.
Descriptors: Nouns, Verbs, Nonstandard Dialects, Preschool Children, Greek, Foreign Countries, Native Speakers, Naming, Error Patterns, Grammar, Semantics, Language Usage, Bilingualism, Task Analysis, Pictorial Stimuli, Contrastive Linguistics, Accuracy, Tests, Qualitative Research, Prediction, Elementary School Students, Error Analysis (Language), Multiple Regression Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Cyprus
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A