Abstract
Across a diverse range of languages, children proceed through similar stages in their production of causal language: their initial verbs lack internal causal structure, followed by a period during which they produce causative overgeneralizations, indicating knowledge of a productive causative rule. We asked in this study whether a child not exposed to structured linguistic input could create linguistic devices for encoding causation and, if so, whether the emergence of this causal language would follow a trajectory similar to the one observed for children learning language from linguistic input. We show that the child in our study did develop causation-encoding morphology, but only after initially using verbs that lacked internal causal structure. These results suggest that the ability to encode causation linguistically can emerge in the absence of a language model, and that exposure to linguistic input is not the only factor guiding children from one stage to the next in their production of causal language.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 286-299 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Language Learning and Development |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 3 2017 |
Funding
This research was supported by NIH RO1 DC000491 to Susan Goldin-Meadow, as well as a postdoctoral diversity supplement to Lilia Rissman through this parent grant.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language