The role of performance limitations in the acquisition of verb-argument structure: an alternative account
Open accessAbstract
This study investigates the role of performance limitations in children's early acquisition of verb-argument structure. Valian (1991) claims that intransitive frames are easier for children to produce early in development than transitive frames because they do not require a direct object argument. Children who understand this distinction are expected to produce a lower proportion of transitive verb utterances early in development in comparison with later stages of development and to omit direct objects much more frequently with mixed verbs (where direct objects are optional) than with transitive verbs. To test these claims, data from nine children aged between 1;10.7 and 2;0.25 matched with Valian's subjects on MLU were examined. When analysed in terms of abstract syntactic structures Valian's findings are supported. However, a detailed lexical analysis of the data suggests that the children were not selecting argument structure on the basis of syntactic complexity.
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Children's use of grammatical objects with verbs that can occur both transitively and intransitively mirrors the relative use of the two constructions with those same verbs in the input.
“Focusing on arguments, children's use of grammatical objects with verbs that can occur both transitively and intransitively mirrors the relative use of the two constructions with those same verbs in the input (Theakston, Lieven, Pine & Rowland, 2001).”
From The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition (2015) · cites this paper as Theakston, Lieven, Pine & Rowland, 2001
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Self-citationPredicting children's errors with negative questions: Testing a schema-combination account
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- Authors
- THEAKSTON, A. L., LIEVEN, E. V. M., PINE, J. M., & ROWLAND, C. F.
- Affiliations
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE)
- University of Derby (GB)
- Venue
- Journal of Child Language
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2001-02
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 127-152
- ISSN
- 0305-0009 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7602
- OpenAlex
- W2131536386
- Cited by
- 505
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 74 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 63 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 22
- FWCI
- 17.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Child Language (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (publishedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- verb argument structure, performance bounds, transitive and intransitive verbs, syntactic complexity, parental input, lexical analysis, child language acquisition
- MeSH terms
- Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Mother-Child Relations, Speech, Verbal Behavior
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