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Updated: Dec 29, 2025
08:32
Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
Published on: September 5, 2019
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Interactions between givenness and clause order in children's processing of complex sentences
Laura E de Ruiter1, Elena V M Lieven2, Silke Brandt3
1Tufts University, USA; University of Manchester, United Kingdom.
Cognition
|February 8, 2020
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Children's ability to understand complex sentences is crucial for language acquisition.
- Theoretical accounts suggest syntactic structure, iconicity, and givenness influence comprehension.
- Previous research has not fully explored the interplay of these factors in children's processing of adverbial clauses.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how syntactic structure, iconicity, and information order (givenness) affect British English-speaking children's comprehension of complex sentences with adverbial clauses.
- To examine the influence of temporal versus causal adverbials on sentence processing.
- To identify developmental differences in children's understanding of complex sentence structures.
Main Methods:
- A picture selection task was administered to 92 children aged 4, 5, and 8 years, and 17 adults.
- Participants processed sentences with varying clause order, information order (given-before-new), and clause position of given information.
- Performance was assessed by accuracy and response times, with language level, working memory, and inhibitory control as covariates.
Main Results:
- The given-before-new information structure enhanced comprehension for 4- and 5-year-olds when given information appeared in the initial subordinate clause.
- Temporal adverbials (after, before) were processed more quickly than causal adverbials (because, if).
- These effects diminished in 8-year-olds, whose performance resembled adults; providing context also improved comprehension.
Conclusions:
- Neither ease of processing nor information structure alone fully explains children's complex sentence comprehension.
- An integrated explanation is needed, considering children's developing language and literacy skills.
- Developmental changes in processing strategies are evident in children's understanding of complex sentence structures.
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