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Posters by Rowena Garcia

Interaction of age {3 yo, 5 yo} and NP order (Est. = 2.64, SE = .70, z = 3.76, p < 0.001)

Posters and slides by Rowena Garcia

We investigated thematic role assignment mechanisms in 5- and 7-year-old children who are L1 lear... more We investigated thematic role assignment mechanisms in 5- and 7-year-old children who are L1 learners of Tagalog, a verb-initial language which has free argument order and voice-marking verbal affixes denoting the subject's (agent/patient) thematic role.

In Experiment 1, children and adult controls were asked to describe events depicted in pictures by producing sentences using voice-marked verb prompts. The agent was mentioned as the first NP irrespective of voice by children, but was modulated by the verb's voice in adults.

Experiment 2 was a combined self-paced listening and picture verification task manipulating agent order and picture-sentence (mis)match. Listening time results for the first NP show that younger children are insensitive to morphosyntactic thematic role cues. Adults' NP1 listening times however, reflect that they detect when these NPs are incorrectly marked compared to the given picture. In detecting picture-sentence (mis)match, adults performed with high accuracy. Younger children on the other hand ignored morphosyntactic cues, always judging sentences as a 'match' when the first-mentioned NP corresponded to the picture-depicted agent. Both listening time and accuracy results were modulated by age.

Our experiments show that children first have an agent-initial bias, which is gradually attenuated as they learn morphosyntactic cues of thematic role assignment.

Papers by Rowena Garcia

This paper briefly presents the current situation of bilingualism in the Philippines, specificall... more This paper briefly presents the current situation of bilingualism in the Philippines, specifically that of Tagalog-English bilingualism. More importantly, it describes the process of adapting the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS- MAIN) to Tagalog, the basis of Filipino, which is the country’s national language. Finally, the results of a pilot study conducted on Tagalog-English bilingual children and adults (N=27) are presented. The results showed that Story Structure is similar across the two languages and that it develops significantly with age.

The COVID-19 pandemic has massively limited how linguists can collect data, and out of necessity,... more The COVID-19 pandemic has massively limited how linguists can collect data, and out of necessity, researchers across several disciplines have moved data collection online. Here we argue that this rising popularity of remote web-based experiments also provides an opportunity for widening the context of linguistic research by facilitating data collection from understudied populations. We discuss collecting production data from adult native speakers of Tagalog using an unsupervised web-based experiment. Compared to equivalent lab experiments, data collection went quicker, and the sample was more diverse, without compromising data quality. However, there were also technical and human issues that come with this method. We discuss these challenges and provide suggestions on how to overcome them.

A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is represen... more A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7,000 or so languages. However, languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in approximately half of them. In the current paper we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition, and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for the following variables: (i) language(s), (ii) topic(s), and (iii) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing only around 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-European languages...

First Language

A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is represen... more A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7000 or so languages. However, languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in many of them. Here, we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for several variables, including (1) participant group (mono vs multilingual), (2) language(s), (3) topic(s) and (4) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing approximately 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-E...

Language Learning and Development, 2020

We report on two experiments that investigated the acquisition of the Tagalog symmetrical voice s... more We report on two experiments that investigated the acquisition of the Tagalog symmetrical voice system, a typologically rare feature of Western Austronesian languages in which there are more than one basic transitive construction and no preference for agents to be syntactic subjects. In the experiments, 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old Tagalog-speaking children and adults completed a structural priming task that manipulated voice and word order, with the uniqueness of Tagalog allowing us to tease apart priming of thematic role order from that of syntactic roles. Participants heard a description of a picture showing a transitive action, and were then asked to complete a sentence of an unrelated picture using a voice-marked verb provided by the experimenter. Our results show that children gradually acquire an agent-before-patient preference, instead of having a default mapping of the agent to the first noun position. We also found an earlier mastery of the patient voice verbal and nominal marker configuration (patient is the subject), suggesting that children do not initially map the agent to the subject. Children were primed by thematic role but not syntactic role order, suggesting that they prioritize mapping of the thematic roles to sentence positions.

Journal of Child Language, 2020

We investigated whether Tagalog-speaking children incrementally interpret the first noun as the a... more We investigated whether Tagalog-speaking children incrementally interpret the first noun as the agent, even if verbal and nominal markers for assigning thematic roles are given early in Tagalog sentences. We asked five- and seven-year-old children and adult controls to select which of two pictures of reversible actions matched the sentence they
heard, while their looks to the pictures were tracked. Accuracy and eye-tracking data showed that agent-initial sentences were easier to comprehend than patient-initial sentences, but the effect of word order was modulated by voice. Moreover, our eyetracking data provided evidence that, by the first noun phrase, seven-year-old children looked more to the target in the agent-initial compared to the patient-initial conditions, but this word order advantage was no longer observed by the second noun phrase. The findings support language processing and acquisition models which emphasize the role of frequency in developing heuristic strategies (e.g., Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006).

First Language, 2018

We investigated the word order preferences of Tagalog-speaking adults and five-and seven-year-old... more We investigated the word order preferences of Tagalog-speaking adults and five-and seven-year-old children. The participants were asked to complete sentences to describe pictures depicting actions between two animate entities. Adults preferred agent-initial constructions in the patient voice but not in the agent voice, while the children produced mainly agent-initial constructions regardless of voice. This agent-initial preference, despite the lack of a close link between the agent and the subject in Tagalog, shows that this word order preference is not merely syntactically-driven (subject-initial preference). Additionally, the children's agent-initial preference in the agent voice, contrary to the adults' lack of preference, shows that children do not respect the subject-last principle of ordering Tagalog full noun phrases. These results suggest that language-specific optional features like a subject-last principle takes longer to be acquired.

Interaction of age {3 yo, 5 yo} and NP order (Est. = 2.64, SE = .70, z = 3.76, p < 0.001)

We investigated thematic role assignment mechanisms in 5- and 7-year-old children who are L1 lear... more We investigated thematic role assignment mechanisms in 5- and 7-year-old children who are L1 learners of Tagalog, a verb-initial language which has free argument order and voice-marking verbal affixes denoting the subject's (agent/patient) thematic role.

In Experiment 1, children and adult controls were asked to describe events depicted in pictures by producing sentences using voice-marked verb prompts. The agent was mentioned as the first NP irrespective of voice by children, but was modulated by the verb's voice in adults.

Experiment 2 was a combined self-paced listening and picture verification task manipulating agent order and picture-sentence (mis)match. Listening time results for the first NP show that younger children are insensitive to morphosyntactic thematic role cues. Adults' NP1 listening times however, reflect that they detect when these NPs are incorrectly marked compared to the given picture. In detecting picture-sentence (mis)match, adults performed with high accuracy. Younger children on the other hand ignored morphosyntactic cues, always judging sentences as a 'match' when the first-mentioned NP corresponded to the picture-depicted agent. Both listening time and accuracy results were modulated by age.

Our experiments show that children first have an agent-initial bias, which is gradually attenuated as they learn morphosyntactic cues of thematic role assignment.

This paper briefly presents the current situation of bilingualism in the Philippines, specificall... more This paper briefly presents the current situation of bilingualism in the Philippines, specifically that of Tagalog-English bilingualism. More importantly, it describes the process of adapting the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS- MAIN) to Tagalog, the basis of Filipino, which is the country’s national language. Finally, the results of a pilot study conducted on Tagalog-English bilingual children and adults (N=27) are presented. The results showed that Story Structure is similar across the two languages and that it develops significantly with age.

The COVID-19 pandemic has massively limited how linguists can collect data, and out of necessity,... more The COVID-19 pandemic has massively limited how linguists can collect data, and out of necessity, researchers across several disciplines have moved data collection online. Here we argue that this rising popularity of remote web-based experiments also provides an opportunity for widening the context of linguistic research by facilitating data collection from understudied populations. We discuss collecting production data from adult native speakers of Tagalog using an unsupervised web-based experiment. Compared to equivalent lab experiments, data collection went quicker, and the sample was more diverse, without compromising data quality. However, there were also technical and human issues that come with this method. We discuss these challenges and provide suggestions on how to overcome them.

A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is represen... more A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7,000 or so languages. However, languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in approximately half of them. In the current paper we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition, and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for the following variables: (i) language(s), (ii) topic(s), and (iii) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing only around 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-European languages...

First Language

A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is represen... more A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7000 or so languages. However, languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in many of them. Here, we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for several variables, including (1) participant group (mono vs multilingual), (2) language(s), (3) topic(s) and (4) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing approximately 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-E...

Language Learning and Development, 2020

We report on two experiments that investigated the acquisition of the Tagalog symmetrical voice s... more We report on two experiments that investigated the acquisition of the Tagalog symmetrical voice system, a typologically rare feature of Western Austronesian languages in which there are more than one basic transitive construction and no preference for agents to be syntactic subjects. In the experiments, 3-, 5-, and 7-year-old Tagalog-speaking children and adults completed a structural priming task that manipulated voice and word order, with the uniqueness of Tagalog allowing us to tease apart priming of thematic role order from that of syntactic roles. Participants heard a description of a picture showing a transitive action, and were then asked to complete a sentence of an unrelated picture using a voice-marked verb provided by the experimenter. Our results show that children gradually acquire an agent-before-patient preference, instead of having a default mapping of the agent to the first noun position. We also found an earlier mastery of the patient voice verbal and nominal marker configuration (patient is the subject), suggesting that children do not initially map the agent to the subject. Children were primed by thematic role but not syntactic role order, suggesting that they prioritize mapping of the thematic roles to sentence positions.

Journal of Child Language, 2020

We investigated whether Tagalog-speaking children incrementally interpret the first noun as the a... more We investigated whether Tagalog-speaking children incrementally interpret the first noun as the agent, even if verbal and nominal markers for assigning thematic roles are given early in Tagalog sentences. We asked five- and seven-year-old children and adult controls to select which of two pictures of reversible actions matched the sentence they
heard, while their looks to the pictures were tracked. Accuracy and eye-tracking data showed that agent-initial sentences were easier to comprehend than patient-initial sentences, but the effect of word order was modulated by voice. Moreover, our eyetracking data provided evidence that, by the first noun phrase, seven-year-old children looked more to the target in the agent-initial compared to the patient-initial conditions, but this word order advantage was no longer observed by the second noun phrase. The findings support language processing and acquisition models which emphasize the role of frequency in developing heuristic strategies (e.g., Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006).

First Language, 2018

We investigated the word order preferences of Tagalog-speaking adults and five-and seven-year-old... more We investigated the word order preferences of Tagalog-speaking adults and five-and seven-year-old children. The participants were asked to complete sentences to describe pictures depicting actions between two animate entities. Adults preferred agent-initial constructions in the patient voice but not in the agent voice, while the children produced mainly agent-initial constructions regardless of voice. This agent-initial preference, despite the lack of a close link between the agent and the subject in Tagalog, shows that this word order preference is not merely syntactically-driven (subject-initial preference). Additionally, the children's agent-initial preference in the agent voice, contrary to the adults' lack of preference, shows that children do not respect the subject-last principle of ordering Tagalog full noun phrases. These results suggest that language-specific optional features like a subject-last principle takes longer to be acquired.