NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Showing all 12 results Save | Export
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Demuth, Katherine; Johnson, Mark – First Language, 2020
Exemplar-based learning requires: (1) a segmentation procedure for identifying the units of past experiences that a present experience can be compared to, and (2) a similarity function for comparing these past experiences to the present experience. This article argues that for a learner to learn a language these two mechanisms will require…
Descriptors: Comparative Analysis, Language Acquisition, Linguistic Theory, Grammar
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Zettersten, Martin; Schonberg, Christina; Lupyan, Gary – First Language, 2020
This article reviews two aspects of human learning: (1) people draw inferences that appear to rely on hierarchical conceptual representations; (2) some categories are much easier to learn than others given the same number of exemplars, and some categories remain difficult despite extensive training. Both of these results are difficult to reconcile…
Descriptors: Models, Language Acquisition, Prediction, Language Processing
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
McClelland, James L. – First Language, 2020
Humans are sensitive to the properties of individual items, and exemplar models are useful for capturing this sensitivity. I am a proponent of an extension of exemplar-based architectures that I briefly describe. However, exemplar models are very shallow architectures in which it is necessary to stipulate a set of primitive elements that make up…
Descriptors: Models, Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Language Usage
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Hartshorne, Joshua K. – First Language, 2020
Ambridge argues that the existence of exemplar models for individual phenomena (words, inflection rules, etc.) suggests the feasibility of a unified, exemplars-everywhere model that eschews abstraction. The argument would be strengthened by a description of such a model. However, none is provided. I show that any attempt to do so would immediately…
Descriptors: Models, Language Acquisition, Language Processing, Bayesian Statistics
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Brooks, Patricia J.; Kempe, Vera – First Language, 2020
The radical exemplar model resonates with work on perceptual classification and categorization highlighting the role of exemplars in memory representations. Further development of the model requires acknowledgment of both the fleeting and fragile nature of perceptual representations and the gist-based, good-enough quality of long-term memory…
Descriptors: Models, Language Acquisition, Classification, Memory
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
White, Michelle Jennifer; Southwood, Frenette; Huddlestone, Kate – First Language, 2023
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language that originated in South Africa as a descendent of Dutch. It displays discontinuous sentential negation (SN), where negation is expressed by two phonologically identical negative particles that appear in two different positions in the sentence. The negation system is argued to be an innovation that came about…
Descriptors: Morphemes, Language Acquisition, Indo European Languages, Standard Spoken Usage
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Wall, Jenna L.; Merriman, William E. – First Language, 2020
When taught a label for an object, and later asked whether that object or a novel object is the referent of a novel label, preschoolers favor the novel object. This article examines whether this so-called disambiguation effect may be undermined by an expectation to communicate about a discovery. This expectation may explain why 4-year-olds do not…
Descriptors: Pragmatics, Native Language, Language Acquisition, Preschool Children
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Knabe, Melina L.; Vlach, Haley A. – First Language, 2020
Ambridge argues that there is widespread agreement among child language researchers that learners store linguistic abstractions. In this commentary the authors first argue that this assumption is incorrect; anti-representationalist/exemplar views are pervasive in theories of child language. Next, the authors outline what has been learned from this…
Descriptors: Child Language, Children, Language Acquisition, Models
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Tolins, Jackson; Namiranian, Neda; Akhtar, Nameera; Fox Tree, Jean E. – First Language, 2017
Children successfully learn words through overhearing others engaged in verbal interactions. The current studies investigated the degree to which four-year-old overhearers are influenced by the response behaviors of addressees and by the interactional pattern of the speakers and addressees. It was found that while addressee responses on their own…
Descriptors: Young Children, Language Acquisition, Vocabulary Development, Dialogs (Language)
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Rujas, Irene; Casla, Marta; Mariscal, Sonia; Lázaro López-Villaseñor, Miguel; Murillo Sanz, Eva – First Language, 2019
The purpose of this study was to examine early fast mapping abilities in late talkers (LT) and typically developing (TD) Spanish-speaking children by considering the effect of different variables on fast mapping (age, vocabulary level, grammatical category and number morphology). Thirty-eight Spanish-speaking children were assessed at three times…
Descriptors: Grammar, Toddlers, Language Acquisition, Age Differences
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Zimmer, Elly Jane – First Language, 2017
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…
Descriptors: Preschool Children, Reading Comprehension, Ambiguity (Semantics), Syntax
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Guan, Yao; Farrar, M. Jeffrey – First Language, 2016
Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to identify, reflect upon, and manipulate linguistic units. It plays a critical role in reading development. The present study investigated Chinese- and English-speaking preschoolers' metalinguistic awareness development and the role of cognitive and linguistic abilities in its development. Forty-two…
Descriptors: Metalinguistics, Preschool Children, Chinese, English