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German Children's Use of Word Order and Case Marking to Interpret Simple and Complex Sentences: Testing Differences between Constructions and Lexical Items
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Brandt, Silke; Lieven, Elena; Tomasello, Michael – Language Learning and Development, 2016
Children and adults follow cues such as case marking and word order in their assignment of semantic roles in simple transitives (e.g., "the dog chased the cat"). It has been suggested that the same cues are used for the interpretation of complex sentences, such as transitive relative clauses (RCs) (e.g., "that's the dog that chased…
Descriptors: Word Order, Cues, German, Language Acquisition
Differences in the Ability of Apes and Children to Instruct Others Using Gestures
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Grosse, Katja; Call, Josep; Carpenter, Malinda; Tomasello, Michael – Language Learning and Development, 2015
In all human cultures, people gesture iconically. However, the evolutionary basis of iconic gestures is unknown. In this study, chimpanzees and bonobos, and 2- and 3-year-old children, learned how to operate two apparatuses to get rewards. Then, at test, only a human adult had access to the apparatuses, and participants could instruct her about…
Descriptors: Animals, Animal Behavior, Child Behavior, Nonverbal Communication