Brooks Patricia J, Zizak Otto
Department of Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, 4S-223, College of Staten Island of the City University of New York, Staten Island, NY 10314, USA.
J Child Lang. 2002 Nov;29(4):759-81. doi: 10.1017/s0305000902005287.
Children's acquisition of the transitivity status of novel verbs was examined to test whether preemption helps children learn to avoid nonconventional uses of verbs. Given that many English verbs alternate between transitive and intransitive usage (e.g., break, roll), how do children learn the fixed transitive status of verbs such as hit or the fixed intransitive status of verbs such as fall? 48 four-year-olds and 48 six- and seven-year-olds learned two novel verbs, with one verb modelled as transitive and the other as intransitive. Exposure conditions varied the occurrence and type of preemptive evidence potentially facilitating learning of the verbs' transitivity status. In comparison to a No Preemption group, only six- to seven-year-olds exposed to novel verbs in alternative construction (that allowed them to talk about the actions from the perspective of the agent or patient without changing the verbs' assigned transitivity) produced fewer utterances violating the verbs' fixed transitivity. The results identify limits in children's usage of indirect negative evidence in acquiring verb argument structure constructions.
研究了儿童对新动词及物性状态的习得情况，以测试优先效应是否有助于儿童学会避免对动词的非常规使用。鉴于许多英语动词在及物和不及物用法之间交替（例如，break、roll），儿童是如何学习hit等动词的固定及物状态或fall等动词的固定不及物状态的呢？48名4岁儿童以及48名6、7岁儿童学习了两个新动词，其中一个动词被示范为及物动词，另一个为不及物动词。接触条件改变了可能促进动词及物性状态学习的优先证据的出现情况和类型。与无优先效应组相比，只有那些在替代结构中接触新动词（这使他们能够从施事或受事的角度谈论动作而不改变动词指定的及物性）的6至7岁儿童产生的违反动词固定及物性的话语较少。研究结果确定了儿童在习得动词论元结构时使用间接否定证据的局限性。
