The Syntax-PF Interface in Children’s Negative Sentences

Thornton, Rosalind; Rombough, Kelly

doi:10.1080/10489223.2014.943901

Cited by 6 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The difference between the SLI group and the 2-to 3-year-old group is that the 2-to 3-year-old children in the Thornton and Rombough (2015) study produced a higher mean proportion of adult-like negative sentences with doesn't (58%) as compared to the majority of children with SLI (23%). This difference is simply because 13 of the 25 2-to 3-year-old children had already progressed to negating with doesn't, and would be placed in an Advanced group by the criterion we have established.…”

Section: Profile Of Delaymentioning

confidence: 75%

“…17 (16) If children with SLI generate complete syntactic representations for their null subject productions with 3SGS morphology, then why is the subject NP frequently omitted in their output? A comparison of the frequency of null subjects in the SLI group and in the 2-to 3-year-olds that participated in the Thornton and Rombough (2015) study shows that although both groups of children reveal a similar breakdown of negative sentence forms (both producing non-target 3SGS negative sentences), the proportion of null subject negative sentences differs across the two groups. Of the total number of negative sentences produced by the SLI group of children, 48.7% (420/863) had null subjects.…”

Section: Negative Sentences With Null Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…These 12 children did not show the pattern expected by Harris and Wexler (1996) because they produced many examples like (12c) and they did not produce any adult-like sentences with the negative auxiliary verb doesn't. (12) a. Ernie not/don't fit in the bus b. Ernie's not fit in the bus c. Ernie not/don't fits in the bus d. Ernie's not/don't fits Thornton and Rombough (2015) assumed productions like (12a) are typical of the Optional Infinitive stage in which children frequently omit the 3SGS morpheme that carries tense. They assume that children sometimes produce 'high' inflection, as in (12b), because they have not yet acquired do to support the 3SGS morpheme.…”

Section: Children's Negative Sentencesmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The grammatical profile with respect to use of the 3SGS morpheme and form of negative marker is similar to the younger 2-to 3-year-old children (mean age: 2;11) who participated in the Thornton and Rombough (2015) study using the same methodology, however. These children produced similar sentence types.…”

Section: Profile Of Delaymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…On the account for the non-adult negative sentences produced by the 2-year-olds reported in Thornton and Rombough (2015) and proposed for the children with SLI in the present experiment, children's non-adult productions are given a grammatical explanation. However, there are potential alternative input-based explanations for both the 'high' inflection and the 'low' inflection that are worthy of consideration.…”

Section: Input Effectsmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Negative sentences in children with specific language impairment

et al. 2016

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This study used elicited production methodology to investigate the negative sentences that are produced by English-speaking children with specific language impairment (SLI). Negative sentences were elicited in contexts in which adults use the negative auxiliary verb doesn't (e.g., It doesn't fit). This form was targeted to see how negative markers (not, n't) interact with the 3rd person singular -s in the grammars of children with SLI. A robust sample of negative sentences was collected from 63 children: 21 5-yearold children with SLI, 21 language-matched typically-developing children and 21 agematched typically-developing children. The negative sentences produced by children in the two control groups were consistently adult-like. In contrast, only 5 of the 21 children in the SLI group produced adult-like negative sentences with doesn't. The other 16 children with SLI produced a variety of non-adult negative sentences (e.g., It not fit, It's not fit, It not fits, It's not fits). The study concludes that children with SLI undergo an extended period in the development of sentential negation during which they produce

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Section: Profile Of Delaymentioning

confidence: 75%

Section: Negative Sentences With Null Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Children's Negative Sentencesmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Profile Of Delaymentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Input Effectsmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Negative sentences in children with specific language impairment

et al. 2016

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Maltreated Children Use More Grammatical Negations

2017

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Many studies reveal a strong impact of childhood maltreatment on language development, mainly resulting in shorter utterances, less rich vocabulary, or a delay in grammatical complexity. However, different theories suggest the possibility for resilience—a positive adaptation to an otherwise adverse environment—in children who experienced childhood maltreatment. Here, we investigated different measures for language development in spontaneous speech, examining whether childhood maltreatment leads to a language deficit only or whether it can also result in differences in language use due to a possible adaptation to a toxic environment. We compared spontaneous speech during therapeutic peer-play sessions of 32 maltreated and 32 non-maltreated children from the same preschool and equivalent in gender, age (2 to 5 years), home neighborhood, ethnicity, and family income. Maltreatment status was reported by formal child protection reports, and corroborated by independent social service reports. We investigated general language sophistication (i.e., vocabulary, talkativeness, mean length of utterance), as well as grammatical development (i.e., use of plurals, tense, grammatical negations). We found that maltreated and non-maltreated children showed similar sophistication across all linguistic measures, except for the use of grammatical negations. Maltreated children used twice as many grammatical negations as non-maltreated children. The use of this highly complex grammatical structure shows an advanced linguistic skill, which shows that childhood maltreatment does not necessarily lead to a language deficit. The result might indicate the development of a negativity bias in the structure of spontaneous language due to an adaptation to their experiences.

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