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Published on: October 25, 2019
Syntactic frames in fast mapping verbs: effect of age, dialect, and clinical status
Valerie E Johnson1, Jill G de Villiers
1University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA. johnsonv@mail.montclair.edu
Summary
Children with specific language impairment struggle with fast mapping novel verbs, regardless of dialect. Syntactic frames, especially complement structures, present particular challenges for these children.
Area of Science:
- Developmental linguistics
- Child language acquisition
- Clinical linguistics
Background:
- Fast mapping is crucial for vocabulary acquisition in children.
- Syntactic frames provide contextual cues for verb meaning.
- Understanding language development in diverse linguistic communities is essential.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how children aged 4-9 perform on a fast mapping task.
- To explore the influence of age, dialect, and clinical status on verb fast mapping.
- To investigate the role of syntactic frames in children's verb meaning inference.
Main Methods:
- Children (N=529) aged 4-9 were presented with novel verbs in various syntactic frames (intransitive, transitive, dative, complement).
- Participants answered questions to reveal inferred verb meanings.
- Data were collected from typically developing children and those with specific language impairment from mainstream American English and African American English backgrounds.
Main Results:
- Age and clinical status significantly impacted fast mapping abilities based on argument structure.
- Dialect did not show a significant effect on verb fast mapping.
- Children with specific language impairment demonstrated difficulties inferring verb meanings from syntactic frames.
Conclusions:
- Children with specific language impairment face challenges utilizing syntactic frames for novel verb meaning identification, irrespective of dialect.
- Syntactic frames pose varying levels of difficulty, with complement structures being the most challenging.
- Findings highlight the importance of syntactic context in language development for children with and without language impairments.
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