Sawyer, Hannah, Bannard, Colin and Pine, Julian 
ORCID: 0000-0002-7077-9713
(2024)
Toddlers’ Verb‐Marking Errors Are Predicted by the Relative Frequency of Uninflected Sequences in Well‐Formed Child‐Directed Speech: A Preregistered Corpus Analysis.
Language Learning.
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Verb‐marking errors such as <jats:italic>she play football</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>daddy singing</jats:italic> are a hallmark feature of English‐speaking children's speech. We investigated the proposal that these errors are input‐driven errors of commission arising from the high relative frequency of subject + unmarked verb sequences in well‐formed child‐directed speech. We tested this proposal via a preregistered corpus analysis and asked at what level the effects occur: Is it the relative frequency of specific subject + unmarked verb sequences in the input that is important, or is it simply that verbs become entrenched, such that their frequency of appearance with any third person singular subject accounts for errors? We found that the best predictor of children's verb‐marking errors is the relative frequency of unmarked forms of specific subject + verb sequences. Our results supported the proposal that children's apparent omissions of certain grammatical morphemes are in fact input‐driven errors of commission and provided insight into the mechanisms by which this occurs.</jats:p>
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Behavioral and Social Science, Basic Behavioral and Social Science, Pediatric |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Population Health |
| Depositing User: | Symplectic Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jan 2024 11:36 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Mar 2024 03:51 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/lang.12626 |
| Open Access URL: | https://doi.org/10.1111/lang.12626 |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3177983 |
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