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ERIC Number: EJ850500
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2004-Feb
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1363-755X
EISSN: N/A
Training 2;6-Year-Olds to Produce the Transitive Construction: The Role of Frequency, Semantic Similarity and Shared Syntactic Distribution
Abbot-Smith, Kirsten; Lieven, Elena; Tomasello, Michael
Developmental Science, v7 n1 p48-55 Feb 2004
Childers and Tomasello (2001) found that training 2 1/2-year-olds on the English transitive construction greatly improves their performance on a post-test in which they must use novel verbs in that construction. In the current study, we replicated Childers and Tomasello's finding, but using a much lower frequency of transitive verbs and models in training. We also used novel verbs that were of a different semantic class to our training verbs, demonstrating that semantic homogeneity is not crucial for generalization. We also replicated the finding that 4-year-olds are significantly more productive than 2 1/2-year-olds with the transitive construction, with the new finding that this is also true for verbs of emission. In addition, "shared syntactic distribution" of novel verb and training verbs was found to have no observable effect on the number of 2 1/2-year-olds who were productive in the post-test.
Wiley-Blackwell. 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148. Tel: 800-835-6770; Tel: 781-388-8598; Fax: 781-388-8232; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A