Evidence for (shared) abstract structure underlying children’s short and full passives

Katherine Messenger; Holly P. Branigan; Janet F. McLean

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.07.003

Evidence for (shared) abstract structure underlying children’s short and full passives

Katherine Messenger, Holly P. Branigan, Janet F. McLean

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

70 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In a syntactic priming paradigm, three- and four-year-old children and adults described transitive events after hearing thematically and lexically unrelated active and short passive prime descriptions. Both groups were more likely to produce full passive descriptions (the king is being scratched by the tiger) following short passive primes (the girls are being shocked) than active primes (the sheep is shocking the girl). These results suggest that by four, children have (shared) abstract syntactic representations for both short and full passives, contrary to previous proposals (e.g., Horgan, 1978).

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	268-274
Number of pages	7
Journal	Cognition
Volume	121
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.07.003
Publication status	Published - Nov 2011
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Priming
Syntax
Passives
Children

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10.1016/j.cognition.2011.07.003

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abstract = "In a syntactic priming paradigm, three- and four-year-old children and adults described transitive events after hearing thematically and lexically unrelated active and short passive prime descriptions. Both groups were more likely to produce full passive descriptions (the king is being scratched by the tiger) following short passive primes (the girls are being shocked) than active primes (the sheep is shocking the girl). These results suggest that by four, children have (shared) abstract syntactic representations for both short and full passives, contrary to previous proposals (e.g., Horgan, 1978).",

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AB - In a syntactic priming paradigm, three- and four-year-old children and adults described transitive events after hearing thematically and lexically unrelated active and short passive prime descriptions. Both groups were more likely to produce full passive descriptions (the king is being scratched by the tiger) following short passive primes (the girls are being shocked) than active primes (the sheep is shocking the girl). These results suggest that by four, children have (shared) abstract syntactic representations for both short and full passives, contrary to previous proposals (e.g., Horgan, 1978).

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Evidence for (shared) abstract structure underlying children’s short and full passives

Abstract

Keywords

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