Open AccessFast mapping from argument structure alone
Author(s) -
Sudha Arunachalam,
Sandra R. Waxman
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
lsa annual meeting extended abstracts
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2377-3367
DOI - 10.3765/exabs.v0i0.542
Subject(s) - transitive relation , verb , causative , argument (complex analysis) , meaning (existential) , linguistics , event (particle physics) , psychology , mathematics , philosophy , medicine , physics , combinatorics , quantum mechanics , psychotherapist
Parents often utter verbs when their referents are not co-present. We therefore ask whether toddlers can discover a verb’s meaning from its argument structure alone. Toddlers (21-months) heard a novel verb in either transitive or intransitive sentences. They then viewed two test scenes, a causative and a synchronous event, and heard, “Find dacking!” Within 2.5s of the novel verb’s onset, toddlers who had heard transitive sentences reliably preferred the causative scene. The results (1) indicate that 21-month-olds discover verb meaning using argument structure cues, even absent a co-occurring event, and (2) establish the time-course with which 21-month-olds process novel verbs.