Displaying 1 - 6 of 6
-
Kidd, E. (2006). [Review of the book Syntactic carpentry: An emergentist approach to syntax by William O'Grady]. Journal of Child Language, 33(4), 905-910. doi:10.1017/S030500090622782X.
-
Kidd, E., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Examining the role of lexical frequency in children's acquisition of sentential complements. Cognitive Development, 21(2), 93-107. doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2006.01.006.
Abstract
We present empirical data showing that the relative frequency with which a verb normally appears in a syntactic construction predicts young children's ability to remember and repeat sentences instantiating that construction. Children aged 2;10–5;8 years were asked to repeat grammatical and ungrammatical sentential complement sentences (e.g., ‘I think + S’). The sentences contained complement-taking verbs (CTVs) used with differing frequencies in children's natural speech. All children repeated sentences containing high frequency CTVs (e.g., think) more accurately than those containing low frequency CTVs (e.g., hear), and made more sophisticated corrections to ungrammatical sentences containing high frequency CTVs. The data suggest that, like adults, children are sensitive to lexico-constructional collocations. The implications for language acquisition are discussed. -
Kidd, E. (2006). The acquisition of complement clause constructions. In E. V. Clark, & B. F. Kelly (
Eds. ), Constructions in acquisition (pp. 311-332). Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information. -
Kidd, E. (2003). An investigation of children’s sentence processing: A developmental perspective. PhD Thesis, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia.
-
Kidd, E. (2003). Relative clause comprehension revisited: Commentary on Eisenberg (2002). Journal of Child Language, 30(3), 671-679. doi:10.1017/S0305000903005683.
Abstract
Eisenberg (2002) presents data from an experiment investigating three- and four-year-old children's comprehension of restrictive relative clauses (RC). From the results she argues, contrary to Hamburger & Crain (1982), that children do not have discourse knowledge of the felicity conditions of RCs before acquiring the syntax of relativization. This note evaluates this conclusion on the basis of the methodology used, and proposes that an account of syntactic development needs to be sensitive to the real-time processing requirements acquisition places on the learner. -
Kidd, E., & Bavin, E. L. (2002). English-speaking children's comprehension of relative clauses: Evidence for general-cognitive and language-specific constraints on development. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31(6), 599-617. doi:10.1023/A:1021265021141.
Abstract
Children must possess some ability to process input in a meaningful manner to acquire language. The present study reports on data from an experiment investigating 3- to 5-year-old English-speaking children's understanding of restrictive relative clauses manipulated for embeddedness and focus. The results of the study showed that English-speaking children acquire right-branching before center-embedded structures. Comparisons made with data from Portuguese-speaking children suggest general-cognitive and language-specific constraints on development, and with respect to English, a “clause expansion” approach to processing in development
Share this page