Program in Linguistics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Dev Sci. 2021 Jul;24(4):e13089. doi: 10.1111/desc.13089. Epub 2021 Mar 2.
Each language has its unique way to mark grammatical information such as gender, number and tense. For example, English marks number and tense/aspect information with morphological suffixes (e.g., -s or -ed). These morphological suffixes are crucial for language acquisition as they are the basic building blocks of syntax, encode relationships, and convey meaning. Previous research shows that English-learning infants recognize morphological suffixes attached to nonce words by the end of the first year, although even 8-month-olds recognize them when they are attached to known words. These results support an acquisition trajectory where discovery of meaning guides infants' acquisition of morphological suffixes. In this paper, we re-evaluated English-learning infants' knowledge of morphological suffixes in the first year of life. We found that 6-month-olds successfully segmented nonce words suffixed with -s, -ing, -ed and a pseudo-morpheme -sh. Additionally, they related nonce words suffixed with -s, but not -ing, -ed or a pseudo-morpheme -sh and stems. By 8-months, infants were also able to relate nonce words suffixed with -ing and stems. Our results show that infants demonstrate knowledge of morphological relatedness from the earliest stages of acquisition. They do so even in the absence of access to meaning. Based on these results, we argue for a developmental timeline where the acquisition of morphology is, at least, concurrent with the acquisition of phonology and meaning.
每种语言都有其独特的方式来标记语法信息，如性别、数和时态。例如，英语用词形后缀（如-s 或-ed）来标记数和时态/体信息。这些词形后缀对于语言习得至关重要，因为它们是句法的基本构建块，编码关系，并传达意义。先前的研究表明，英语学习的婴儿在一岁末就能识别附加在非词上的词形后缀，尽管即使是 8 个月大的婴儿在这些后缀附加在已知单词上时也能识别它们。这些结果支持了一种习得轨迹，即意义的发现指导婴儿习得词形后缀。在本文中，我们重新评估了英语学习的婴儿在生命的第一年对词形后缀的知识。我们发现，6 个月大的婴儿成功地分割了附加了-s、-ing、-ed 和伪词素-sh 的非词。此外，他们将附加了-s 的非词与附加了-s 的词相关联，但不能将附加了-ing、-ed 或伪词素-sh 的非词与词干相关联。到 8 个月大时，婴儿也能将附加了-ing 的非词与词干相关联。我们的结果表明，婴儿在习得的最早阶段就表现出对词形相关性的认识。即使在无法获得意义的情况下，他们也能做到这一点。基于这些结果，我们认为形态学的习得至少与音系学和意义的习得同时发生。
