To become a native speaker, beyond obligatory rules, children need to learn systematic variation in the language, as it is present at all levels of language structure and is an integral part of linguistic knowledge. To give an example in English, speakers sometimes pronounce words ending in -ing with -in' (e.g., working vs. workin') depending on…

English-speaking children exhibit difficulty in their comprehension of raising patterns, such as (1), in which the NP the boy is semantically linked to the VP in the embedded clause, but is syntactically realized as the subject of the matrix clause. (1) Raising pattern: [s "The boy" seems to the girl [s _ to be happy]]. This dissertation…

This study compared children's (N=96, mean age 4;1, range 2;8-5;3) and adults. (N=96, mean age 21 years) tolerance of word-onset modifications (e.g., "wabbit" and "warabbit") and pseudo affixes (e.g., "kocat" and "catko") in a label extension task. Trials comprised an introductory phase where children saw a picture of an animal and were told its…