Can children use a verb without exposure to its argument structure?

We hypothesize that canonical sentence schemas (e.g. Agent-verb-Patient) can sometimes assign argument structure to verbs. In particular, they provide a default argument structure early in learning when a verb's lexical entry may record the nature of the action but lack a specific argument structure. To test the theory and its application to causative verb errors (e.g. stay it there), novel action verbs were modelled, some as causative, some as intransitive, and some unmarked for transitivity. Spontaneous usage was recorded, along with responses to agent-questions ('What is the [Agent] doing?') and patient-questions ('What is the [Patient] doing?'). Comparable data were obtained for familiar English verbs, some of fixed and some of optional transitivity. Subjects were willing to use all novel verbs both transitively and intransitively, although adults respected assigned transitivity more than children. All subjects largely respected the transitivity of familiar verbs. The discourse pressure of the agent- and patient-questions greatly affected observed transitivity. No evidence was found for the intransitive-to-causative derivational process postulated by Bowerman. We propose that the kind of causativity error observed by Bowerman is due to assignment of argument structure from canonical sentence schemas, especially under pressure of a need to make a sentence with a particular argument (Agent or Patient) as subject. The theory has the advantage of explaining errors without postulating the acquisition of erroneous lexical entries that have to be unlearned, and it can be extended to other kinds of errors in the choice and placement of arguments.

Reasoning about conditional sentences: development of understanding of cues to quantification.

The previous literature has reported that when children are asked to judge the truth or falsity of universally quantified conditional sentences of the form If a thing is P then it is Q they typically give responses, e.g., responding "true" whenever there is a case of P and Q even if there are also cases of P and not-Q. Three experiments are reported that address possible sources of this error. Experiment 1 shows that the error survives on sentences that refer to particular things as well as to things of a particular kind, and further shows that articulating the necessity of the consequent (... then it has to be Q) eliminates the error for adults and reduces it for fifth graders, although it does not affect second grade performance. Experiment 2 shows that for second and fifth graders the error survives to problems that are not universally quantified and for second graders to problems that are not conditionals although are otherwise structurally similar. Experiment 3 compares various verbal formulations of such universally quantified conditionals: Second and fifth graders do not make the error when the quantification is expressed with the surface structure that makes its universality most explicit (all things ...); the error tendency is greatest when the indefinite article is used (if a thing ...); and formulations using any fall in between. We argue that such erroneous evaluations of universally quantified conditionals have more to do with the quantificational aspect than the conditional aspect of the problems; children interpret the indefinite article as existential, although they resist the error when the cue to universal quantification is completely clear. The error appears to result more from the surface-structure form of the stimuli than from an inability of children to appreciate the logic of universally quantified conditionals.