Teaching the unlearnable: a training study of complex <i>yes/no</i> questions

Ambridge, Ben ORCID: 0000-0003-2389-8477, Rowland, Caroline F ORCID: 0000-0002-8675-8669 and Gummery, Alison (2020) Teaching the unlearnable: a training study of complex <i>yes/no</i> questions. LANGUAGE AND COGNITION, 12 (2). pp. 385-410.

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Abstract

<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>A central question in language acquisition is how children master sentence types that they have seldom, if ever, heard. Here we report the findings of a pre-registered, randomised, single-blind intervention study designed to test the prediction that, for one such sentence type, complex questions (e.g.,<jats:italic>Is the crocodile who’s hot eating?</jats:italic>), children could combine schemas learned, on the basis of the input, for complex noun phrases (<jats:italic>the [THING] who’s [PROPERTY]</jats:italic>) and simple questions (<jats:italic>Is [THING] [ACTION]ing?</jats:italic>) to yield a complex-question schema (<jats:italic>Is [the [THING] who’s [PROPERTY]] ACTIONing?</jats:italic>). Children aged 4;2 to 6;8 (<jats:italic>M</jats:italic>= 5;6,<jats:italic>SD</jats:italic>= 7.7 months) were trained on simple questions (e.g.,<jats:italic>Is the bird cleaning?</jats:italic>) and either (Experimental group,<jats:italic>N</jats:italic>= 61) complex noun phrases (e.g.,<jats:italic>the bird who’s sad</jats:italic>) or (Control group,<jats:italic>N</jats:italic>= 61) matched simple noun phrases (e.g.,<jats:italic>the sad bird</jats:italic>). In general, the two groups did not differ on their ability to produce novel complex questions at test. However, the Experimental group did show (a) some evidence of generalising a particular complex NP schema (<jats:italic>the [THING] who’s [PROPERTY]</jats:italic>as opposed to<jats:italic>the [THING] that’s [PROPERTY]</jats:italic>) from training to test, (b) a lower rate of auxiliary-doubling errors (e.g.,<jats:italic>*Is the crocodile who’s hot is eating?</jats:italic>), and (c) a greater ability to produce complex questions on the first test trial. We end by suggesting some different methods – specifically artificial language learning and syntactic priming – that could potentially be used to better test the present account.</jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	complex syntax, complex questions, structure dependence, yes, no questions, training study, language acquisition
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	07 May 2020 10:22
Last Modified:	14 Oct 2023 11:46
DOI:	10.1017/langcog.2020.5
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3086274