The dynamics of syntax acquisition: facilitation between syntactic structures

Journal of Child Language
Tamar Keren-Portnoy, Michael Keren

Abstract

This paper sets out to show how facilitation between different clause structures operates over time in syntax acquisition. The phenomenon of facilitation within given structures has been widely documented, yet inter-structure facilitation has rarely been reported so far. Our findings are based on the naturalistic production corpora of six toddlers learning Hebrew as their first language. We use regression analysis, a method that has not been used to study this phenomenon. We find that the proportion of errors among the earliest produced clauses in a structure is related to the degree of acceleration of that structure's learning curve; that with the accretion of structures the proportion of errors among the first clauses of new structures declines, as does the acceleration of their learning curves. We interpret our findings as showing that learning new syntactic structures is made easier, or facilitated, by previously acquired ones.

References

Jun 1, 1986·Journal of Child Language·E Dromi, R A Berman
Mar 31, 2000·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·M Tomasello
Mar 1, 2003·Journal of Experimental Child Psychology·Kristina MurphyJudith Slee
Jul 9, 2003·Journal of Child Language·Elena LievenMichael Tomasello
Mar 23, 2005·Journal of Child Language·Anat Ninio
Oct 5, 2006·Journal of Child Language·Tamar Keren-Portnoy

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