The retreat from locative overgeneralisation errors : a novel verb grammaticality judgment study

Bidgood, A; Ambridge, B; Pine, JM; Rowland, CF

Abstract

Whilst some locative verbs alternate between the ground- and figure-locative constructions (e.g. Lisa sprayed the flowers with water/Lisa sprayed water onto the flowers), others are restricted to one construction or the other (e.g. *Lisa filled water into the cup/*Lisa poured the cup with water). The present study investigated two proposals for how learners (aged 5–6, 9–10 and adults) acquire this restriction, using a novel-verb-learning grammaticality-judgment paradigm. In support of the semantic verb class hypothesis, participants in all age groups used the semantic properties of novel verbs to determine the locative constructions (ground/figure/both) in which they could and could not appear. In support of the frequency hypothesis, participants’ tolerance of overgeneralisation errors decreased with each increasing level of verb frequency (novel/low/high). These results underline the need to develop an integrated account of the roles of semantics and frequency in the retreat from argument structure overgeneralisation.

Citation

Bidgood, A., Ambridge, B., Pine, J., & Rowland, C. (2014). The retreat from locative overgeneralisation errors : a novel verb grammaticality judgment study. PLoS ONE, 9(5), e97634. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097634

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 22, 2014
• Online Publication Date: May 15, 2014
• Publication Date: May 15, 2014
• Deposit Date: Oct 8, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 8, 2018
• Journal: PLoS ONE
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 5
• Pages: e97634
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097634
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097634
• Related Public URLs: http://www.plosone.org/
• Additional Information: Grant Number: RPG-158; Grant Number: RES-062-23-0931