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Related Concept Videos

Language Development01:22

Language Development

Children master language quickly and with relative ease, supported by both biological predisposition and reinforcement. B. F. Skinner (1957) proposed that language is learned through reinforcement, while Noam Chomsky (1965) argued that language acquisition mechanisms are biologically determined.
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
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Detection of Gross Error: The Q Test

When one or more data points appear far from the rest of the data, there is a need to determine whether they are outliers and whether they should be eliminated from the data set to ensure an accurate representation of the measured value. In many cases, outliers arise from gross errors (or human errors) and do not accurately reflect the underlying phenomenon. In some cases, however, these apparent outliers reflect true phenomenological differences. In these cases, we can use statistical methods...
Complementation Tests00:49

Complementation Tests

A complementation test is a simple cross to identify whether the two mutations are located on the same gene or different genes. It was first performed by Edward Lewis in the 1940s while working on fruit flies. He developed the test to identify the location and arrangement of different mutations on chromosomes.
Organisms heterozygous for different mutations are crossed pairwise in all combinations. If present on different genes, the mutations can complement each other by providing the missing...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 22, 2026

Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism
10:11

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Published on: December 14, 2012

Error patterns in young German children's wh-questions.

Daniel Schmerse1, Elena Lieven, Michael Tomasello

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. daniel_schmerse@eva.mpg.de

Journal of Child Language
|May 29, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

German-learning children often omit initial wh-words, especially "what," in questions. This omission correlates with reduced sentence stress on these words, impacting early language acquisition.

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Published on: October 3, 2018

Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Phonetics

Background:

  • Childhood language acquisition involves mastering question formation.
  • Wh-questions are crucial for developing complex sentence structures.
  • Previous research indicates variations in early wh-question development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To analyze longitudinal wh-question errors in German-learning children.
  • To investigate prosodic features of wh-questions in German child-directed speech.
  • To explore the relationship between wh-word omission and prosody.

Main Methods:

  • Longitudinal analysis of wh-question errors in six German-learning children (2-3 years old).
  • Lexical analysis of omitted wh-words.
  • Acoustic analysis of prosodic characteristics in mother-directed speech.

Main Results:

  • German-learning children frequently omit initial wh-words.
  • The wh-word 'was' (what) is omitted more often than 'wo' (where).
  • The wh-word 'was' receives less accent than 'wo' in child-directed speech.

Conclusions:

  • Wh-word omission in early German questions is linked to prosodic patterns.
  • Findings support discourse-pragmatic and metrical explanations for omission errors.
  • Prosodic salience influences the acquisition of wh-question structures.