Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Young children's overgeneralizations with fixed transitivity verbs.

P J Brooks1, M Tomasello, K Dodson

  • 1Department of Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, College of Staten Island, City University of New York 10314, USA. pbrooks@postbox.csi.cuny.edu

Child Development
|January 6, 2000
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Data-driven consideration of genetic disorders for global genomic newborn screening programs.

Genetics in medicine : official journal of the American College of Medical Genetics·2025
Same author

The Bespoke Gene Therapy Consortium: facilitating development of AAV gene therapies for rare diseases.

Nature reviews. Drug discovery·2024
Same author

Gene-targeted therapies: Overview and implications.

American journal of medical genetics. Part C, Seminars in medical genetics·2023
Same author

Moving away from one disease at a time: Screening, trial design, and regulatory implications of novel platform technologies.

American journal of medical genetics. Part C, Seminars in medical genetics·2023
Same author

Redox modulation of stress resilience by Crocus sativus L. for potential neuroprotective and anti-neuroinflammatory applications in brain disorders: From molecular basis to therapy.

Mechanisms of ageing and development·2022
Same author

The NIH Somatic Cell Genome Editing program.

Nature·2021
Same journal

An associative learning account of how saliva becomes a cue for comfort.

Child development·2026
Same journal

If moms do it, it can't be that important: Children's reasoning about gender disparities in domestic work.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Adapting under stress: How sociocultural stress intensity and fluctuation shape youth school engagement and internalizing symptoms.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Children across diverse societies exchange reasons to resolve disagreements.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Beyond resources: Children in India and Germany have a multifaceted concept of fairness.

Child development·2026
Same journal

Situating developmental science in cultural context: Lessons from the study of Asian-heritage children.

Child development·2026
See all related articles

Children are more likely to misuse verbs they are less familiar with, demonstrating how verb usage becomes fixed over time. This research explores argument structure overgeneralization errors in young English speakers.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Child Language Acquisition

Background:

  • Children acquiring language often make argument structure overgeneralization errors.
  • Understanding the factors influencing these errors is crucial for language development theories.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate English-speaking children's tendency for argument structure overgeneralization errors.
  • To examine the role of verb familiarity in overgeneralization patterns.

Main Methods:

  • Seventy-two children aged 3, 4/5, and 8 years participated.
  • Children were exposed to verbs with fixed transitivity and encouraged to overgeneralize.
  • Verb familiarity (common vs. less common) was manipulated.

Main Results:

Related Experiment Videos

  • Children across all age groups overgeneralized less familiar verbs more frequently.
  • This finding supports the hypothesis that verb usage becomes entrenched with learning.

Conclusions:

  • Verb familiarity significantly influences argument structure overgeneralization in children.
  • As children learn verb transitivity, they become less likely to misuse them in novel constructions.