Semantic generality, input frequency and the acquisition of syntax
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In many areas of language acquisition, researchers have suggested that semantic generality plays an important role in determining the order of acquisition of particular lexical forms. However, generality is typically confounded with the effects of input frequency and it is therefore unclear to what extent semantic generality or input frequency determines the early acquisition of particular lexical items. The present study evaluates the relative influence of semantic status and properties of the input on the acquisition of verbs and their argument structures in the early speech of 9 English-speaking children from 2;0 to 3;0. The children's early verb utterances are examined with respect to (1) the order of acquisition of particular verbs in three different constructions, (2) the syntactic diversity of use of individual verbs, (3) the relative proportional use of semantically general verbs as a function of total verb use, and (4) their grammatical accuracy. The data suggest that although measures of semantic generality correlate with various measures of early verb use, once the effects of verb use in the input are removed, semantic generality is not a significant predictor of early verb use. The implications of these results for semantic-based theories of verb argument structure acquisition are discussed.
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The order in which children acquire verbs within the transitive and intransitive constructions is predicted by both the overall frequency of the verbs and the frequency of those verbs in those same constructions in the input.
“For example, with regard to verb+argument combinations, the order in which children acquire verbs within the transitive and intransitive constructions is predicted by both the overall frequency of the verbs and the frequency of those verbs in those same constructions in the input (Ninio, 1999; Theakston, Lieven, Pine & Rowland, 2004), consistent with our AoA Thesis.”
From The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition (2015) · cites this paper as Theakston, Lieven, Pine & Rowland, 2004
The Procedure section (page unavailable) measures both total verb frequency in mothers’ speech and frequency in VO, SVO, and intransitive constructions. The Results (page unavailable) link input frequency to acquisition age both overall and within those constructions. However, the paper reports the overall and construction-specific analyses separately; it does not establish that both frequency measures independently predict acquisition order within each construction. (LLM, conf=0.82)
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Cites
Children's First Word Combinations
Braine, M. D. S., & Bowerman, M. (1976) · Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development · doi:10.2307/1165959 · Cited by 538 · cited 2× · see citing works
“They suggested that high frequency lexical items used in fixed sentence positions provide an organizational focus for children’s developing knowledge of argument structure (see also Braine, 1976 ; Lieven, Pine & Baldwin, 1997).”
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The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition
AMBRIDGE, B., KIDD, E., ROWLAND, C. F., & THEAKSTON, A. L. (2015) · Journal of Child Language · doi:10.1017/s030500091400049x · Cited by 589 · see citing works
Self-citationImplicit statistical learning is directly associated with the acquisition of syntax
Kidd, E. (2012) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0025405 · Cited by 310 · see citing works
- Authors
- THEAKSTON, A. L., LIEVEN, E. V. M., PINE, J. M., & ROWLAND, C. F.
- Affiliations
- University of Manchester (GB)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- University of Liverpool (GB)
- Venue
- Journal of Child Language
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2004-02
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 61-99
- ISSN
- 0305-0009 (ISSN-L)
- 1469-7602
- OpenAlex
- W2129068111
- Cited by
- 165
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 32 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 5.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Child Language (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council
- 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
- input frequency, verb acquisition, syntax acquisition, verb order, syntactic diversity, grammatical accuracy, child language acquisition
- MeSH terms
- Child Language, Child, Preschool, Female, Generalization, Psychological, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Male, Models, Theoretical, Semantics, Vocabulary
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