Children's online use of word order and morphosyntactic markers in Tagalog thematic role assignment
- We investigated whether Tagalog-speaking children incrementally interpret the first noun as the agent, even if verbal and nominal markers for assigning thematic roles are given early in Tagalog sentences. We asked five- and seven-year-old children and adult controls to select which of two pictures of reversible actions matched the sentence they heard, while their looks to the pictures were tracked. Accuracy and eye-tracking data showed that agent-initial sentences were easier to comprehend than patient-initial sentences, but the effect of word order was modulated by voice. Moreover, our eye-tracking data provided evidence that, by the first noun phrase, seven-year-old children looked more to the target in the agent-initial compared to the patient-initial conditions, but this word order advantage was no longer observed by the second noun phrase. The findings support language processing and acquisition models which emphasize the role of frequency in developing heuristic strategies (e.g., Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006).
Author details: | Rowena GarciaORCiDGND, Jens Roeser, Barbara HöhleORCiDGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-469678 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.25932/publishup-46967 |
ISSN: | 1866-8364 |
Title of parent work (German): | Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe |
Subtitle (English): | an eye-tracking study |
Publication series (Volume number): | Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe (673) |
Publication type: | Postprint |
Language: | English |
Date of first publication: | 2020/12/10 |
Publication year: | 2019 |
Publishing institution: | Universität Potsdam |
Release date: | 2020/12/10 |
Tag: | Tagalog acquisition; morphosyntax; sentence comprehension; thematic role assignment; word order |
Issue: | 673 |
Number of pages: | 25 |
First page: | 533 |
Last Page: | 555 |
Source: | Journal of Child Language 47 (2020) 533–555 DOI: 10.1017/S0305000919000618 |
Organizational units: | Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Strukturbereich Kognitionswissenschaften / Department Linguistik |
DDC classification: | 4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache |
Peer review: | Referiert |
Grantor: | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
Publishing method: | Open Access / Green Open-Access |
License (German): | CC-BY - Namensnennung 4.0 International |