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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Syntactic priming as implicit learning in German child language
AU - Tafuri, Michelle
AU - Messenger, Katherine
PY - 2024/10/17
Y1 - 2024/10/17
N2 - We investigated syntactic priming in German children to explore crosslinguistic evidence for implicit learning accounts of language production and acquisition. Adult descriptions confirmed that German speakers (N=27) preferred to spontaneously produce active versus passive transitive and DO versus PO dative forms. We tested whether German-speaking children (N=29, Mage=5.3, 15 girls/14 boys) could be primed to produce these dispreferred forms and whether such priming effects would persist across a target phase. Children first heard a block of priming sentences and then described a block of target pictures. They demonstrated significant priming effects for passive and PO dative structures, and these priming effects did not differ between the first and second halves of the block of target trials. These patterns of German child language production are consistent with implicit learning accounts of syntactic priming.
AB - We investigated syntactic priming in German children to explore crosslinguistic evidence for implicit learning accounts of language production and acquisition. Adult descriptions confirmed that German speakers (N=27) preferred to spontaneously produce active versus passive transitive and DO versus PO dative forms. We tested whether German-speaking children (N=29, Mage=5.3, 15 girls/14 boys) could be primed to produce these dispreferred forms and whether such priming effects would persist across a target phase. Children first heard a block of priming sentences and then described a block of target pictures. They demonstrated significant priming effects for passive and PO dative structures, and these priming effects did not differ between the first and second halves of the block of target trials. These patterns of German child language production are consistent with implicit learning accounts of syntactic priming.
U2 - 10.1017/S0305000924000369
DO - 10.1017/S0305000924000369
M3 - Journal article
JO - Journal of Child Language
JF - Journal of Child Language
SN - 0305-0009
ER -