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Developmental production of utterances from a series of lexemes*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Michèle Kail  and
Juan Segui
Michèle Kail
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Psychologie expérimentale et comparée associé au C.N.R.S.
Juan Segui
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Psychologie expérimentale et comparée associé au C.N.R.S.
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Abstract

51 children from 4; 11 to 8; 2 were given three words (a triplet made up of two nouns and one verb) and asked to produce an utterance with them. Words in the triplet were presented in every possible order. At all ages, the dominant responses to non-reversible triplets were utterances in which the animate noun served as the subject of the verb and the inanimate noun as its object, whatever the order of words within the triplet. Production of utterances in response to reversible triplets showed a clear differentiation with age (with the exception of responses to symmetrical triplets NVN for which the SVO structure is dominant at all ages). With non-symmetrical triplets (NNV or VNN), the strategy that assigns the function of subject to the first noun becomes progressively established. In the youngest children, a significant number of responses that preserve the order of stimulus elements is observed. This strategy results in attributing an identical grammatical function to the two nouns. As anticipated, isomorphism between stimulus structure and response structure diminishes with age.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , June 1978 , pp. 251 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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Footnotes

[*]

Thanks are due to Madeleine Léveillé for her assistance and to the Directors of the Ecole maternelle et Ecole primaire de Fresnes. Address for correspondence: M. Kail, Laboratoire de Psychologie expérimentale et comparée, 28 rue Serpente, 75006 – Paris, France.

References

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