This study investigated the noun definitions given by Cantonese speakers at different ages. Definitional responses on six concrete nouns from 1075 children aged 4;10 to 12;01 and 15 adults were analyzed with reference to the semantic content and the syntactic form. Results showed that conventional definitions produced by Cantonese adult speakers…

The theory of syntactic bootstrapping proposes that children can use syntax to infer the meanings of words. This paper presents experimental evidence that children are also able to use word inflections to infer word reference. Twenty-four- and 30-month-olds were tested in a preferential looking experiment. Children were shown a pair of novel…

Focuses on the interaction of phonology with syntax, and to some extent, with meaning in a natural sign language. Adopts a theory of prosodic phonology, testing both its assumptions, which had been based on data from spoken language, and its predictions on the language of the Deaf community in Israel. (Author/VWL)

Reports on two experiments comparing the adequacy of naturalistic procedures in emotion-display research with standard procedures. The first experiment explored samples of naturally-occurring emotional speech with free-choice emotion labels, and later with labels from a standard set. The second compared valency ratings of words presented…

Three experiments are reported that showed effects of "structure priming," the tendency to repeat syntactic structure across successive sentences. These effects were demonstrated in Dutch, a previously untested language. All experiments studied spoken sentence production. (Author/JL)

This study looks at the syllable onset interval (SOI) patterning in Taiwan Mandarin spontaneous speech and its relationship to discourse and syntactic units. Monologs were elicited by asking readers to tell stories depicted in comic strips and were transcribed and segmented into Discourse Segment Units (Grosz & Sidner, 1986), clauses, and…