Can 20- and 24-months-old children detect subject-verb dependency?

dc.contributor.authorWong, Melissa
dc.contributor.examiningcommitteeEaton, Warren (Psychology) MacDonald, Lorna (Linguistics)en_US
dc.contributor.supervisorSoderstrom, Melanie (Psychology)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2011-09-12T17:00:56Z
dc.date.available2011-09-12T17:00:56Z
dc.date.issued2011-09-12
dc.degree.disciplinePsychologyen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts (M.A.)en_US
dc.description.abstractThis study examined English-acquiring 20- and 24-month-olds’ ability to detect subject-verb dependency. Twenty-four-month-olds showed a significant preference for grammatical sentences over ungrammatical sentences in which ungrammaticality was cued by a pairing of a singular subject with the verb “are” but not when it was cued by a pairing of a plural subject with the verb “is”. However, 20-month-olds did not show a preference in either condition. Another group of 20-month-olds were examined on their ability to detect a non-adjacent dependency in which a prepositional phrase was inserted in between the dependent elements. They showed no preference for either the grammatical sentences or the ungrammatical sentences. The result of this study revealed that it is not until about 24-months that children acquire an understanding of the structural properties of the relationship between the subject and the verb “to be” and this knowledge at first is limited to a singular subject.en_US
dc.description.noteOctober 2011en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1993/4896
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsopen accessen_US
dc.subjectlanguageen_US
dc.subjectdevelopmenten_US
dc.subjectdependencyen_US
dc.titleCan 20- and 24-months-old children detect subject-verb dependency?en_US
dc.typemaster thesisen_US
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