A Semantics-Based Approach to the ‘‘No Negative Evidence’’ Problem  

Oleh:

Ambridge, Ben ; Pine, Julian M. ; Rowland, Caroline F. ; Jones, Rebecca L. ; Clark, Victoria

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Cognitive Science vol. 33 no. 7 (Sep. 2009), page 1301–1316.
Topik: Child language acquisition; Syntax; Semantics; Verb argument structure; Over generalization errors; No negative evidence problem; Construction semantics; ILVACS
Fulltext: 07. A Semantics-Based Approach to the 'No Negative Evidence' Problem.pdf (355.47KB)

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Previous studies have shown that children retreat from argument-structure overgeneralization errors (e.g., *Don’t giggle me) by inferring that frequently encountered verbs are unlikely to be grammatical in unattested constructions, and by making use of syntax-semantics correspondences (e.g., verbs denoting internally caused actions such as giggling cannot normally be used causatively). The present study tested a new account based on a unitary learning mechanism that combines both of these processes. Seventy-two participants (ages 5–6, 9–10, and adults) rated overgeneralization errors with higher (*the funny man’s joke giggled Bart) and lower (*the funny man giggled Bart) degrees of direct external causation. The errors with more-direct causation were rated as less unacceptable than those with less-direct causation. This finding is consistent with the new account, under which children acquire—in an incremental and probabilistic fashion—the meaning of particular constructions (e.g., transitive causative = direct external causation) and particular verbs, rejecting generalizations where the incompatibility between the two is too great.

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