Huttenlocher Janellen, Vasilyeva Marina, Cymerman Elina, Levine Susan
Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5848 S University Ave, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Cogn Psychol. 2002 Nov;45(3):337-74. doi: 10.1016/s0010-0285(02)00500-5.
Existing work on the acquisition of syntax has been concerned mainly with the early stages of syntactic development. In the present study we examine later syntactic development in children. Also, existing work has focused on commonalities in the emergence of syntax. Here we explore individual differences among children and their relation to variations in language input. In Study 1 we find substantial individual differences in children's mastery of multiclause sentences and a significant relation between those differences and the proportion of multiclause sentences in parent speech. We also find individual differences in the number of noun phrases in children's utterances and a significant relation between those differences and the number of noun phrases in parent speech. In Study 2 we find greater syntactic growth over a year of preschool in classes where teachers' speech is more syntactically complex. The implications of our findings for the understanding of the sources of syntactic development are discussed.
现有的关于句法习得的研究主要关注句法发展的早期阶段。在本研究中，我们考察儿童后期的句法发展。此外，现有研究聚焦于句法出现过程中的共性。在此，我们探究儿童之间的个体差异及其与语言输入变化的关系。在研究1中，我们发现儿童在掌握多子句句子方面存在显著的个体差异，且这些差异与家长言语中多子句句子的比例之间存在显著关系。我们还发现儿童话语中名词短语数量的个体差异，以及这些差异与家长言语中名词短语数量的显著关系。在研究2中，我们发现在教师言语句法更复杂的学前班班级中，经过一年的学前教育，儿童的句法有更大的发展。我们讨论了研究结果对于理解句法发展来源的意义。
