Children's knowledge of prepositional phrase structure: An experimental test |
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Authors: | Helen Goodluck |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Linguistics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1168 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive, 53706 Madison, Wisconsin |
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Abstract: | A test of prepositional phrase structure in 4- to 6-year-old children's language is reported. Children's productions of PP and verb-particle sequences were elicited. Children produced pronominal and full NP objects of sequences corresponding to PPs and verb-plus-particle in the adult grammar. Prepositions freely took both pronominal and full NP objects ( He's jumping over it. He's jumping over the table ). In particle verb constructions, pronominal objects were placed immediately after the verb in all but a few cases ( He's pushing it over not He's pushing over it ). With full NP objects, the preference was to place the verb after the particle ( He's pushing over the table ). These facts support an analysis in which if the child constructs a PP-over-P—NP structure for prepositional phrases but not for verb-particle sequences, and follows adultlike rules for these structures.This research was supported in its initial stages by NIH grant No. HD90647-03 to T. Roeper and S.J. Keyser and was completed while the author was supported in part by grants from the Graduate School Research Committee of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and from the Spencer Foundation through the University of Wisconsin School of Education. |
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