Comprehension of the copula: preschoolers (and sometimes adults) ignore subject–verb agreement during sentence processing

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 695-708
Author(s):  
Benjamin DAVIES ◽  
Nan XU RATTANASONE ◽  
Katherine DEMUTH
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Verb Agreement ◽  
The Status ◽  
Forced Choice Task ◽  
Australian English

AbstractSubject–verb (SV) agreement helps listeners interpret the number condition of ambiguous nouns (The sheep is/are fat), yet it remains unclear whether young children use agreement to comprehend newly encountered nouns. Preschoolers and adults completed a forced choice task where sentences contained singular vs. plural copulas (Where is/are the [novel noun(s)]?). Novel nouns were either morphologically unambiguous (tup/tups) or ambiguous (/geks/ = singular: gex / plural: gecks). Preschoolers (and some adults) ignored the singular copula, interpreting /ks/-final words as plural, raising questions about the role of SV agreement in learners’ sentence comprehension and the status of is in Australian English.

Children's epistemic inferences through modal verbs and prosody

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1132-1169
Author(s):  
Meghan ARMSTRONG
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Metalinguistic Awareness ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Epistemic Modal ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Forced Choice Task ◽  
Positive And Negative Valence

AbstractThis study explores how young children infer nuances in epistemic modality through prosody. A forced-choice task was used, testing children's (ages three to seven) comprehension of the might/will distinction (modal condition) as well their ability to modulate the strength of might through two prosodic tunes (prosody condition). Positive and negative valence conditions were included. Younger children were shown to start off performing above chance for the modal condition, and at around chance for the prosody condition, but after age four performance on the prosody condition quickly improved. For both modal verbs and prosody, children performed significantly better when valence was positive. By age seven, children performed at ceiling for all conditions. Qualitative analysis of children's justifications for prosody responses showed metalinguistic awareness of prosodic meaning as early as age four, with the ability to relate prosody to epistemic modal meaning becoming quite common by age seven.

Why we assume it's all good: The role of theory of mind in early inherent feature inferences

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 482-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Bartsch ◽  
David Estes
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Mental Life ◽  
Inherent Feature ◽  
The Status

AbstractCimpian & Salomon's (C&S's) characterization of a domain-general inherence heuristic, available to young children, underplays the importance of our early interest in and recognition of agency, intentionality, and mental life. A consideration of the centrality of desires, goals, and agency in our earliest reasoning suggests an alternative, perhaps complementary, account of our tendency to be satisfied with the status quo.

scholarly journals THE STUDY OF FEMINISM IN THE NOVEL NAYLA BY DJENAR MAESA AYU

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Ni Ketut Veri Kusumaningrum ◽  
I Wayan Rasna ◽  
Gde Artawan
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Public ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
Show Business ◽  
The Status ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
Relationship Of

This research aims to determine (1) the narrative structure of novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu, (2) the role of women figure in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu, (3) the struggle of women figure in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu. This research uses feminism study with qualitative research. The data was collected by using library research. The library method was used at finding out the data in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu and in other literature which supports this research. The analyzed data are narrative structure, the role of women figure and the struggle of women figure in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu. The data were analyzed through the stage of reduction, presentation and data collection. The subject of this research is the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu, the object of this research is the narrative structure, the role of women figure and the struggle of women figure in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu. The result of this research refers to (1) The Narrative structure in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu was include figure, characterization, plot and background. (2) The role of women figure in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu was found in the social domain, domestic and public. (3) The struggle of women figure in the novel Nayla by Djenar Maesa Ayu was manifested by struggling in maintaining in the status as women, the struggle in maintaining the gender. The form of feminism was described in the novel Nayla as never surrender, not dependent to the parents, and behaves deviate. Novel Nayla to present the relationship of gender that leads to a superior. Novel Nayla as the main character show business to make a women who has the dignity of which is equivalent to the men. Based on the results of analysis and advice for women in order to improve the quality of the field of education, domestic, and the public so that gender equality can be achieved.

Acquiring the transitive construction in English: the role of animacy and pronouns

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 605-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
KELLY DODSON ◽  
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Transitive Action ◽  
Only Children ◽  
The Third

Twenty-four children between 2;5 and 3;1 were taught two nonce verbs. Each verb was used multiple times by an adult experimenter to refer to a highly transitive action involving a mostly animate agent (including the child herself) and a patient of varying animacy. One of the verbs was modelled in the Two-Participants condition in which the experimenter said: ‘Look. Big Bird is dopping the boat’. The other verb was modelled in the No-Participant condition in which the experimenter named the Two-Participants but did not use them as arguments of the novel verb: ‘Look what Big Bird is doing to the boat. It's called keefing’. It was found that whereas many children produced transitive sentences with the Two-Participants verb, only children close to 3;0 produced transitive sentences with the No-Participant verb. This age is somewhat younger than previous studies in which young children were asked to produce transitive sentences with two lexical nouns for the two animate participants. Also, re-analyses of previously published studies in which children learned novel verbs in sentence frames without arguments found that the few transitive sentences produced by children under 2;6 involved either I or me as subject. One hypothesis is thus that as young children in the third year of life begin to construct a more abstract and verb-general transitive construction, this construction initially contains only certain types of participants expressed in only certain kinds of linguistic forms.

scholarly journals The role of timing and prototypical causality on how preschoolers fast-map novel verb meanings

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Abbot-Smith ◽  
Mutsumi Imai ◽  
Samantha Durrant ◽  
Erika Nurmsoo
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Visual Salience ◽  
Verb Learning ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Relative Ease ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Novel Words

In controlled contexts, young children find it more difficult to learn novel words for actions than words for objects: Imai et al. found that English-speaking three-year-olds mistakenly choose a novel object as a referent for a novel verb about 42% of the time despite hearing the verb in a transitive sentence. The current two studies investigated whether English three- and five-year-old children would find resultative actions easier (since they are prototypically causative) than the non-resultative, durative event types used in Imai et al.’s studies. The reverse was true. Furthermore, if the novel verbs were taught on completion of the action, this did not improve performance, which contrasts with previous findings. The resultative actions in the two studies reported here were punctual, change-of-location events which may be less visually salient than the non-resulative, durative actions. Visual salience may play a greater role than does degree of action causality in the relative ease of verb learning even at three years.

scholarly journals An examination of prosody and second language sentence processing through pause insertion

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110187
Author(s):  
Lan Fang ◽  
Yiyang Xie ◽  
Keke Yu ◽  
Ruiming Wang ◽  
John W. Schwieter
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Auditory Comprehension ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Chinese Learners ◽  
Syntactic Boundaries

Objectives: Research on second language (L2) sentence comprehension often has examined reliance on semantic and syntactic information but has left aside for the most part the role of prosodic cues. In the present study, we compare less- and more-proficient L2 learners’ integration of prosody and syntax structure during auditory L2 sentence comprehension. Design: Two group Chinese learners of L2 English learners (A2 and C1 levels) participated in an auditory comprehension task, which included sentences that had artificial pauses inserted either between or within syntactic boundaries. After hearing each sentence, learners were asked to judge the translation as ‘identical’ or ‘not identical’ on the keyboard. Data Analysis: We conducted t-tests and an analysis of variance to examine prosodic effects among the two learner groups. Findings: The results showed that both A2 and C1 learners were sensitive to pauses. However, the direction and magnitude of this sensitivity was significantly different for the two groups. A2 learners were faster to respond to auditory sentences in which a brief pause was placed within syntactic phrases. Contrarily, C1 learners responded faster when the brief pause was placed between syntactic phrases. Originality: Unique to the present study is the inclusion of the pause-insertion paradigm to examine the role of prosody in L2 auditory sentence processing. Implications: The results imply that the two groups of learners do not rely on prosodic and syntactic cues in the same manner when processing L2 sentences. We argue that the processing mechanisms involved in L2 sentence comprehension evolve hand-in-hand with L2 proficiency development. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research.

scholarly journals Artistic image of a modern Japanese woman in the anime film “Paprika” directed by Satoshi Kon

2021 ◽  
pp. 46-57
Author(s):  
Vera Sergeevna Moiseenko
Keyword(s):  
Japanese Society ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Japanese Woman ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Western Influence ◽  
Female Image ◽  
The Status ◽  
Artistic Image

Cross-cultural communications prompted the international popularity of the Japanese original genre of anime. It has become the translator of not only the Japanese mentality and traditional values to the West, but also demonstrates the changes taking place in Japan. The analysis of artistic image of the anime heroine Atsuko Chiba (Paprika) is the goal of this research. Noticeable changes in the status of women in Japanese society are observed only since the middle of the XX century, which immediately found reflection in Japanese cinematography. The use of empirical and comparative methods allow establishing that the changes taking place in Japanese traditional society changes retain the national peculiarities. The anime film “Paprika” directed by Satoshi Kon, which is based on the eponymous novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, reflects the transformation of the role of women in modern society. The novelty of this work lies the fact that this article analyzes the virtually unstudied topic of the artistic imagery in anime and the structure of modern female image therein. The images of Atsuko Chiba and Paprika, translated from the novel to anime, indicate the changes that took place in the Japanese society in the late XX – early XXI century, and namely the female image that gives a better perspective and sense of such changes. Despite the Western influence upon the traditional Japanese society and transition of the country into the new level of development, did not hinder the preservation of national peculiarities that are based on the century-old traditions and Japanese mentality.

scholarly journals Błogosławiony widok i architektura pustelni. Stefana Żeromskiego epizod z dziejów szlaku na Kalatówki

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 277-286
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Łoboz
Keyword(s):  
Active Part ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Spiritual Renewal ◽  
Social Activist ◽  
Mountain Landscape ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Evolutionary Continuity

A blessed sight and architecture of a hermitage: Stefan Żeromski’s episode from the history of the Kalatówki trailThe article seeks to interpret the motif of Brother Albert Chmielowski participant in the January Uprising, social activist as well as a Young Poland painter in Stefan Żeromski’s 1913 novel Nawracanie Judasza Converting Judas and to answer the question about the role of the Albertine hermitage on Kalatówki. The Albertine congregation played an active part in the development of infrastructure in Zakopane, with the brothers working, for example, on the construction of the most popular tourist trail in the Tatras — to Giewont — an important thread in Żeromski’s novel. Żeromski sees Brother Albert not only as a spiritual idealist and social activist, but also a fine artist creating works typical of modernism painting in the altar in the Kalatówki chapel featuring the crucifix with the suffering Christ. The crucial motif of “converting Judas” lies in the enhancement of the status of landscape, an example of Żeromski’s typical lyricisation of descriptions of nature. For the author of Converting Judas, the subjectification of landscape as well as numerous metaphorised images of nature are used mostly as means to illustrate the protagonist’s inner landscape. The dominant myth in the novel — of eternal creative nature: changeable but personifying the evolutionary continuity of life — is an optimistically soothing answer to decadent dilemmas. In the mountain landscape, surrounded by nature and accompanied by a friar, the protagonist experiences a real katharsis. The “blessed sight” generates strength needed for the construction of the trail and personal spiritual renewal.

Is One Ear Good Enough? Unilateral Hearing Loss and Preschoolers' Comprehension of the English Plural

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Benjamin Davies ◽  
Nan Xu Rattanasone ◽  
Aleisha Davis ◽  
Katherine Demuth
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Loss ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Normal Hearing ◽  
Forced Choice ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Unilateral Hearing Loss ◽  
Grammatical Morphemes ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Forced Choice Task ◽  
Grammatical Number

Purpose The plural is one of the first grammatical morphemes acquired by English-speaking children with normal hearing (NH). Yet, those with hearing loss show delays in both plural comprehension and production. However, little is known about the effects of unilateral hearing loss (UHL) on children's acquisition of the plural, where children's ability to perceive fricatives (e.g., the /s/ in cat s ) can be compromised. This study therefore tested whether children with UHL were able to identify the grammatical number of newly heard words, both singular and plural. Method Eleven 3- to 5-year-olds with UHL participated in a novel word two-alternative forced choice task presented on an iPad. Their results were compared to those of 129 NH 3- to 5-year-olds. During the task, children had to choose whether an auditorily presented novel word was singular (e.g., tep, koss ) or plural (e.g., teps, kosses ) by touching the appropriate novel picture. Results Like their NH peers, children with UHL demonstrated comprehension of novel singulars. However, they were significantly less accurate at identifying novel plurals, with performance at chance. However, there were signs that their ability to identify novel plurals may improve with age. Conclusion While comparable to their NH peers at identifying novel singulars, these results suggest that young children with UHL do not yet have a robust representation of plural morphology, particularly on words they have not encountered before.

Sarah Scott’s Narrative “No Place”: Gazing and Utopia in Millenium Hall

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-529
Author(s):  
Katherine Nolan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Women Characters ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Status

Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall (1762) is framed by a male narrator for an imagined male reader, and it lacks a substantial critique of slavery, empire, or class; the status of this novel as an example of utopia is therefore an ongoing question. I argue that the utopic vision in the novel happens at the level of fictionality. Millenium Hall is about reforming the sentimental gaze of the male narrator and, by extension, the reader of the novel. Scott critiques sentimentality, particularly the sentimental gaze upon the spectacle of the suffering woman as voyeuristic and inherently sexual. In its stead, she offers a didactic and morally instructive form of looking that avoids titillating scenes of suffering. The novel disrupts and tempers sentimental plots by providing women characters a refuge from sentimentality in the form of the Hall. Renewed attention to Scott’s critique of the sentimental can challenge assumptions about the role of the sentimental mode in eighteenth-century women’s writings.

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