Children's Comprehension of Two Types of Syntactic Ambiguity

Autor/in	Zimmer, Elly Jane
Titel	Children's Comprehension of Two Types of Syntactic Ambiguity
Quelle	In: First Language, 37 (2017) 1, S.7-23 (17 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0142-7237
DOI	10.1177/0142723716673952
Schlagwörter	Preschool Children; Reading Comprehension; Ambiguity (Semantics); Syntax; Experimental Groups; Control Groups; Adults; Comparative Analysis; Age Differences; English; Form Classes (Languages); Phrase Structure; Learning Processes; Sentences; Hypothesis Testing; Interpretive Skills; Task Analysis; Value Judgment; Arizona + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Leseverstehen; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; English language; Englisch; Analytischer Sprachbau; Phrasenstruktur; Learning process; Lernprozess; Sentence analysis; Satzanalyse; Hypothesenprüfung; Hypothesentest; Interpretationsmethode; Aufgabenanalyse; Werturteil
Abstract	This study asks whether children accept both interpretations of ambiguous sentences with contexts supporting each option. Twenty-six 3- to 5-year-old English-speaking children and a control group of 30 English-speaking adults participated in a truth value judgment task. As a step towards evaluating the complexity of syntactic ambiguity, the materials included prepositional phrase ambiguities (e.g., The boy saw the girl with binoculars.) and reduced relative clause ambiguities (e.g., The boy saw the girl using a magnifying glass.). Children generally accepted both interpretations of such ambiguities. This suggests that children this age have not only mastered the syntactic configurations associated with these ambiguities, but they can appropriately assign multiple possible structural analyses to an individual expression. Children did reject more interpretations than adults. This may be due to differences in the developing parser and the adult parser. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01