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Journal of child language
05, 2019;46 (3): 409-432.

The syntactic and semantic features of two-year-olds' verb vocabularies: a comparison of typically developing children and late talkers.

Sabrina Horvath, Leslie Rescorla, Sudha Arunachalam
Author Information
  1. Sabrina Horvath: Boston University,USA.
  2. Leslie Rescorla: Bryn Mawr College,USA.
  3. Sudha Arunachalam: New York University,USA.
PMID: 30632475 DOI: 10.1017/S0305000918000508

Abstract

Children with language disorders have particular difficulty with verbs, but when this difficulty emerges is unknown. We examined syntactic (transitive, intransitive, ditransitive) and semantic (manner, result) features of two-year-olds' verb vocabularies, contrasting late talkers and typically developing children to look for early differences in verb vocabulary. We conducted a retrospective analysis of parent-reported expressive vocabulary from the Language Development Survey (N = 564, N(LT) = 62) (Rescorla, 1989). Verbs were coded for the presence or absence of each syntactic and semantic feature. Binomial mixed-effects regressions revealed the effect of feature on children's knowledge and whether feature interacted with group classification. Our results revealed mostly similarities between late talkers and typically developing children. All children's vocabularies showed a bias against verbs that occur in ditransitive frames. One feature showed a difference between groups: late talkers showed a bias against manner verbs that typically developing children did not.

Keywords

late talkers verbs vocabulary

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Grants

  1. K01 DC013306/NIDCD NIH HHS

MeSH Term

Case-Control Studies
Child Development
Child, Preschool
Female
Humans
Language Development
Language Development Disorders
Male
Retrospective Studies
Semantics
Vocabulary
Journal Article Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Article has an altmetric score of 3

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