The study aims to account for the distribution of finite versus non-finite verbs during a developmental period when children use both types of verb forms in contexts requiring finiteness. To meet this goal, longitudinal samples from three Hebrew-acquiring children (aged 1;4-2;6) are examined from the onset of verb production and across the…

The world's languages draw on a common set of event components for their verb systems. Yet, these components are differentially distributed across languages. At what age do children begin to use language-specific patterns to narrow possible verb meanings? English-, Japanese-, and Spanish-speaking adults, toddlers, and preschoolers were shown…

Investigated the first verbs to participate in verb-object and subject-verb-object combinations and the temporal parameters of the spread of these combinations over different verbs, observing longitudinally young children acquiring English and Hebrew. Results indicated that the more verbs children already knew to combine in a certain pattern, the…

Five experiments are carried out to determine the comprehension of passives by children. Results obtained demonstrate that comprehension rests on knowledge of syntactic structure. V - NP were interpreted as verb-object. Passives lacking a preposition were interpreted as actives. Competence in passives may be at a high level before performance is…