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Acquisition of English comparative adjectives
Janine Graziano-King1, Helen Smith Cairns
1Department of English, Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Oriental Boulevard, Brooklyn, New York 11235, USA. jgking@verizon.net
Journal of Child Language
|July 28, 2005
Summary
Children acquire English comparative adjective forms through a three-stage process. Initially, they show no preference, then adopt a suffixation rule, and finally refine their learning to match adult usage.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Language Acquisition
Background:
- English features two comparative adjective forms: synthetic (Adj + er) and periphrastic (more Adj).
- Understanding the developmental trajectory of acquiring these forms is crucial for linguistic and cognitive development research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the developmental stages children undergo when acquiring English comparative adjective forms.
- To compare children's and adults' preferences and production of synthetic versus periphrastic comparatives.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments utilized forced-choice judgment tasks with children and adults.
- Experiment 2 also included an elicited production task to assess comparative adjective usage.
Main Results:
- Children's acquisition of comparative adjectives follows a three-stage pattern.
- Stage 1: No form preference. Stage 2: Overgeneralization of the suffixation rule (Adj + er). Stage 3: Shift towards conservative learning and adult-like patterns.
Conclusions:
- The findings support a predictable developmental sequence in learning English comparative forms.
- Children's language acquisition involves rule-based stages followed by refinement and regularization.