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The syntactic and semantic features of two-year-olds’ verb vocabularies: a comparison of typically developing children and late talkers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2019

Sabrina HORVATH ,
Leslie RESCORLA  and
Sudha ARUNACHALAM
Sabrina HORVATH*
Affiliation:
Boston University, USA
Leslie RESCORLA
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College, USA
Sudha ARUNACHALAM
Affiliation:
New York University, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences; Boston, MA 02215, USA. E-mail: shorvath@bu.edu
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Abstract

Children with language disorders have particular difficulty with verbs, but when this difficulty emerges is unknown. We examined syntactic (transitive, intransitive, ditransitive) and semantic (manner, result) features of two-year-olds’ verb vocabularies, contrasting late talkers and typically developing children to look for early differences in verb vocabulary. We conducted a retrospective analysis of parent-reported expressive vocabulary from the Language Development Survey (N = 564, N(LT) = 62) (Rescorla, 1989). Verbs were coded for the presence or absence of each syntactic and semantic feature. Binomial mixed-effects regressions revealed the effect of feature on children's knowledge and whether feature interacted with group classification. Our results revealed mostly similarities between late talkers and typically developing children. All children's vocabularies showed a bias against verbs that occur in ditransitive frames. One feature showed a difference between groups: late talkers showed a bias against manner verbs that typically developing children did not.

Keywords

late talkersverbsvocabulary
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , May 2019 , pp. 409 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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