Research with young Hebrew-speaking children revealed a development in linguistic control of the system of verb-pattern alternation from nonalternation to near mastery, with the concepts of causativity and distinctions in transitivity being lexicalized earlier than others. (Author)

The acquisition of morpheme-structure constraints by children is discussed. The focus is a subset of verbs in modern Hebrew and the language-specific knowledge that children acquire of what constitutes a possible verb in their language, from the point of view of both internal form and of categorical appropriateness for naming a certain semantic…