Learning novel intransitive verbs from input cues: Experiments with Mandarin-learning toddlers
Abstract
In two novel verb experiments using the visual fixation paradigm, we investigated how Mandarin-learning toddlers employ distributional cues and semantic cues to categorize novel unaccusative and unergative verbs. In Experiment 1, 31-month-old (but not 19-month-old) participants were found to use the word-order cue to categorize two novel verbs VUA and VUE: after hearing "VUA-le NP" and "NP VUE-le" in the training phase, they categorized VUA as unaccusative and VUE as unergative, showing discrimination in looking times between grammatical trials "NP VUA-le" and ungrammatical trials "VUE-le NP" in the test phase. In Experiment 2, 31-month-olds used the semantic cue of telicity provided via novel events to make categorizations: watching a telic event paired with "VUA-le" and an atelic event paired with "VUE-le" led to differentiation between grammatical trials "VUA-le NP" and ungrammatical trials "VUE-le NP". The findings provide evidence for toddlers' ability to extract information from the input and make generalizations in verb learning.