Learning words and rules: abstract knowledge of word order in early sentence comprehension.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Graded by design analogy (non-clinical developmental psychology laboratory experiment).
PubMed 16913951 · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01767.x
What was done
Across four laboratory experiments, researchers tested whether 21- and 25-month-old toddlers generalize native English word order to unfamiliar verbs. Toddlers were presented with transitive sentences featuring novel verbs to determine whether early sentence comprehension relies on verb-specific lexical memory or abstract syntactic rules.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values, exact sample sizes, or test statistics. It qualitatively reports that in all four experiments, children aged 21 and 25 months appropriately used word order to interpret transitive sentences containing novel verbs.
Why it matters
The findings challenge lexical-only models of language acquisition by demonstrating that children possess abstract mental representations of syntax and can apply general word-order rules to new vocabulary before age two.
Limits
The abstract reports no quantitative data, effect sizes, confidence intervals, or sample sizes. The experiments evaluated only English transitive sentence structures, meaning results cannot be generalized to other syntactic constructions or typologically distinct languages without further evidence.
Cited by
- partial Language learning research shows that children can construct novel sentences and use words they have not previously heard in ways accurate to their meaning using innate brain machinery for language.