Chapter 2. Syntactic priming and child language competence
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Carla Contemori
Abstract
Theories of language development differ on how the development of syntax and its mapping to semantics are conceived. An important question in child language research is about the nature and scope of children’s syntactic representations and how they develop over time. In the last sixteen years, there has been a growth in research on syntactic priming in children, testing the abstractness and development of the sentence representations of young and older children to address theories of language acquisition. In the present paper, I review existing research using the syntactic priming technique with children. As the number of researchers employing this experimental technique continues to grow, I highlight the importance to focus on understudied languages, expand the research to a wider range of syntactic structures, uncover the role of individual differences and adopt structural priming in more naturalistic settings, to elucidate further the mechanisms underlying language acquisition and development.
Abstract
Theories of language development differ on how the development of syntax and its mapping to semantics are conceived. An important question in child language research is about the nature and scope of children’s syntactic representations and how they develop over time. In the last sixteen years, there has been a growth in research on syntactic priming in children, testing the abstractness and development of the sentence representations of young and older children to address theories of language acquisition. In the present paper, I review existing research using the syntactic priming technique with children. As the number of researchers employing this experimental technique continues to grow, I highlight the importance to focus on understudied languages, expand the research to a wider range of syntactic structures, uncover the role of individual differences and adopt structural priming in more naturalistic settings, to elucidate further the mechanisms underlying language acquisition and development.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction to syntactic priming in language acquisition 1
- Chapter 2. Syntactic priming and child language competence 15
- Chapter 3. Beyond the English passive 35
- Chapter 4. How does syntactic priming experience support language development? 57
- Chapter 5. Sticking to what we know 83
- Chapter 6. Structural priming in bilingual children 107
- Chapter 7. What can syntactic priming tell us about crosslinguistic influence? 129
- Chapter 8. Syntactic priming and alignment in children with autism spectrum disorder 157
- Chapter 9. Syntactic priming as a window to investigate grammatical learning in non-typical populations 183
- Chapter 10. Syntactic priming and language intervention for children with grammatical deficits 203
- Index 225
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Chapter 1. Introduction to syntactic priming in language acquisition 1
- Chapter 2. Syntactic priming and child language competence 15
- Chapter 3. Beyond the English passive 35
- Chapter 4. How does syntactic priming experience support language development? 57
- Chapter 5. Sticking to what we know 83
- Chapter 6. Structural priming in bilingual children 107
- Chapter 7. What can syntactic priming tell us about crosslinguistic influence? 129
- Chapter 8. Syntactic priming and alignment in children with autism spectrum disorder 157
- Chapter 9. Syntactic priming as a window to investigate grammatical learning in non-typical populations 183
- Chapter 10. Syntactic priming and language intervention for children with grammatical deficits 203
- Index 225
