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Fine-grained differences in gender-cue strength affect predictive processing in children: Cross-linguistic evidence
Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan1, Natalia Meir2, Irina A Sekerina3
1Department of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|February 17, 2024
Summary
Bulgarian children, unlike Russian children, used adjective gender cues to predict upcoming nouns. This highlights cross-linguistic differences in language acquisition and gender processing.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psycholinguistics
- Comparative linguistics
- Child language acquisition
Background:
- Russian and Bulgarian languages possess three grammatical genders.
- These closely related Slavic languages differ in adjective gender cue characteristics.
- Understanding how children process grammatical gender is key to language acquisition research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate predictive gender agreement processing in young children acquiring Russian and Bulgarian.
- To compare how children use adjective-based gender cues to anticipate nouns.
- To explore the impact of linguistic properties on early gender agreement acquisition.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the visual world eye-tracking paradigm with 45 children aged 4–6 years.
- Monitored eye movements to assess noun anticipation based on preceding adjective gender cues.
- Compared processing patterns between Russian-speaking and Bulgarian-speaking children.
Main Results:
- Bulgarian children demonstrated predictive processing of upcoming nouns using gender cues.
- Russian children did not show the same predictive behavior based on adjective gender.
- Eye-tracking data revealed differences in the timing and extent of noun anticipation.
Conclusions:
- The strength and type of gender cues in a language influence predictive processing in children.
- Cross-linguistic differences in gender systems impact language acquisition strategies.
- A comparative approach is crucial for understanding language acquisition in typologically similar languages.
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