Structural characteristics of clause-containing sentences and imitation by children and adults

Children of ages 4, 6, and 8 years and college students attempted to imitate sentences containing combinations of nested and self-embedded relative clauses. Asymmetries in performance predicted from extensions of previous research were obtained at all ages. The hypothesis that these differences might be attributable to two structural characteristics of clause-containing sentences was supported by correlational analyses.This report is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Washington.