Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Search research articles

Related Experiment Videos

Lexical and grammatical development: a behavioural genetic perspective.

P S Dale¹, G Dionne, T C Eley

¹Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Missouri, Columbia 65211, USA. dalep@health.missouri.edu

Journal of Child Language

|November 23, 2000

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

Introducing the Fear Learning and Anxiety Response (FLARe) app and web portal for the remote delivery of fear conditioning experiments.

Behavior research methods·2022

Same author

Depression, anxiety and PTSD symptoms before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.

Psychological medicine·2022

Same author

Abstracts of presentations to the Annual Meetings of the Canadian Association of General Surgeons Canadian Association of Thoracic Surgeons Canadian Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Society Canadian Society of Surgical Oncology Canadian Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons: Victoria, BC Sept. 10-13, 2009.

Canadian journal of surgery. Journal canadien de chirurgie·2022

Same author

Evidence for distinct genetic and environmental influences on fear acquisition and extinction.

Psychological medicine·2021

Same author

Role of age, gender and marital status in prognosis for adults with depression: An individual patient data meta-analysis.

Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences·2021

Same author

Predicting prognosis for adults with depression using individual symptom data: a comparison of modelling approaches.

Psychological medicine·2021

Same journal

Perceptual asymmetries in the development of lexical tone perception in Thai-learning children.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

To bind or not to bind: Individual differences in pronominal processing among adolescent Mandarin-English heritage speakers.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

Influence of Visual Context Stability on Word Learning in Fourteen- and Nineteen-Month-Old Children.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

Revisiting the Acquisition of Conditionals: Children's and Adults' Expression of Hypothetical Thought.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

The effect of distributional information on the categorization of unaccusativity.

Journal of child language·2026

Same journal

Examining the Robustness and Generalizability of the Shape Bias: A Meta-Analysis.

Journal of child language·2026

See all related articles

Genetic factors significantly influence both vocabulary and grammar in early language development, suggesting shared underlying mechanisms rather than separate environmental influences. This research clarifies the genetic basis of language acquisition in young children.

Area of Science:

Psycholinguistics
Behavioral Genetics
Developmental Linguistics

Background:

The relationship between lexical (vocabulary) and grammatical knowledge is a central debate in linguistics.
Recent findings show a strong correlation between vocabulary and grammar in early language acquisition, intensifying theoretical discussions.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the genetic and environmental influences on the correlation between vocabulary and grammar in young children.
To determine if shared genetic mechanisms or common environmental factors underlie the observed language development correlation.

Main Methods:

A behavior-genetic study involving 2898 pairs of two-year-old twins.
Parental assessment of language development using an adapted MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory.

Related Experiment Videos

Behavior-genetic modeling to estimate genetic correlations between language measures.

Main Results:

Moderate heritability was found for both vocabulary and grammar.
A substantial genetic correlation (0.61) was observed between vocabulary and grammar, indicating shared genetic influences.
Nonverbal cognitive development showed weak correlations with language measures, suggesting a genetic distinction between verbal and nonverbal skills.

Conclusions:

The strong genetic correlation suggests that shared genetic factors significantly contribute to both vocabulary and grammatical development.
There is little evidence for a genetic or phenotypic dissociation between vocabulary and grammar within language itself.
While verbal and nonverbal skills have distinct genetic underpinnings, vocabulary and grammar appear to develop through overlapping genetic mechanisms.