Chapter 8. Analogical structure mapping and the formation of abstract constructions

Ambridge, Ben ORCID: 0000-0003-2389-8477, Goldwater, Micah B and Lieven, Elena ORCID: 0000-0002-2270-8910 (2018) Chapter 8. Analogical structure mapping and the formation of abstract constructions. In: Semantics in Language Acquisition. John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 178-196. ISBN 9789027201379

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Abstract

This chapter reports an experimental study in which children aged 4;9–6;1 were taught two novel constructions with meanings of enabling/helping and preventing/stopping with OSV and VOS word order. The aim was to test Tomasello’s (2003) proposal that children form abstract constructions by performing analogical structure mapping across lexically-specific slot-and-frame patterns (e.g., He’s [X]ing it) and/or particular sentences that instantiate them. All surface cues were minimized, such that successful learning of the construction required children to align the relational structure (i.e., helperactionhelpee or preventeractionpreventee, as appropriate) of the training sentences. A forced-choice pointing test revealed that children did not successfully learn either the constructions’ global meanings or argument linking patterns (though a control group of adults succeeded at the latter task).

Item Type:	Book Section
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2019 15:31
Last Modified:	04 Sep 2023 18:09
DOI:	10.1075/tilar.24.08amb
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3067242