Comprehension of Infrequent Subject-Verb Agreement Forms: Evidence From French-Learning Children (original) (raw)
Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether young Frenchlearning children are able to use a single number cue in subject-verb agreement contexts and match a visually dynamic scene with a corresponding verbal stimulus. Results from both preferential looking and pointing demonstrated significant comprehension in 30-month-olds with no preference for either singular or plural. These results challenge previous claims made on the basis of English and Spanish that comprehension of subject-verb agreement expressed as a bound morpheme is late, around 5 years of age . Properties of the adult input were also analyzed. Possible implications for theories of syntactic acquisition are discussed.
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