Comprehension of Infrequent Subject–Verb Agreement Forms: Evidence From French-Learning Children

Géraldine Legendre A · Isabelle Barrière B · Louise Goyet · Thierry Nazzi

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Language Development and Disorders Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation Child and Animal Learning Development

Abstract

Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether young French-learning children (N = 76) are able to use a single number cue in subject-verb agreement contexts and match a visually dynamic scene with a corresponding verbal stimulus. Results from both preferential looking and pointing demonstrated significant comprehension in 30-month-olds with no preference for either singular or plural. These results challenge previous claims made on the basis of English and Spanish that comprehension of subject-verb agreement expressed as a bound morpheme is late, around 5 years of age (V. A. Johnson, J. G. de Villiers, & H. N. Seymour, 2005; A.-T. Pérez-Leroux, 2005). Properties of the adult input were also analyzed. Possible implications for theories of syntactic acquisition are discussed.

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