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Abstract:
The paper reports on an off-line study investigating
ambiguity resolution in children aged 5 to 9 years. The study
tested predictions of structural and constraint-based approaches to
adult sentence processing. It specifically investigated
whether proposed constraints override structural attachment
preferences for prepositional phrases (PP), predicted by
structurally-oriented processing theories. Children (N = 90)
aged 5-, 7-, and 9-years were tested on fully ambiguous VP-NP-PP
structures. There was manipulation of verb semantics (action
verbs versus psychological predicates --- strong constraint), the
definiteness of the object NP (weak constraint), and the kind of
preposition used ('with' or locative 'on'). A
picture-pointing task was used. Two pictures were included
for each test item; both could be illustrative of the
sentence. Results showed that verb semantics affected
children's attachment preferences, with PPs in structures
containing psychological predicates more likely to be interpreted
as NP-attached than PPs in structures containing action
verbs. PPs in structures containing indefinite object NPs
were more likely to be interpreted as NP-attached for 5- and
7-year-olds, but not for 9-year-olds, suggesting that children's
understanding of the function of the definite article in discourse
develops gradually, so supporting research on the development of
anaphora. Attachment preferences also differed according to
the preposition used. The comprehension data are supplemented
by data from an elicited production task using the same test
materials. Children were asked to describe each of the two
pictures for each test item. The results suggest that the
relative strength of constraints on ambiguity resolution, as
outlined in the literature on adult sentence processing, may
predict the development of interpretation strategies in the 5-9
year age range. Thus developmental data can be used to inform
sentence processing theory.
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