On the early learning of formal grammatical systems: evidence from studies of the acquisition of gender and countability

Levy, Yonata

doi:10.1017/s0305000900012125

Cited by 32 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 8 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In cases of animate nouns, in which the linguistic gender is determined by the semantic notion of gender, learning is a more protracted process. These findings hold cross-linguistically for all languages studied so far (Levy, 1988b;Mulford & Morgan, 1983;Smoczynska, 1985).…”

Section: Morphological Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Examples 1 to 4 are of cases of concordant combinations, in which the ending on the noun matches the agreement marker on the adjective, whereas examples 5 to 10 are of discordant cases, in which there is a mismatch between the ending on the noun and the agreement marker on the adjective. These examples are important because they illustrate the paradigm that was used to replicate Karmiloff-Smith et al's (1997) Previous studies of the acquisition of gender in Hebrew have shown that children master the formal-morphological parts of this system relatively early (Berman & Armon-Lotem, 1996;Levy, 1983Levy, , 1988b. Thus, by age 3 years, errors of linguistic gender on inanimate nouns as well as errors of gender agreement across noun phrase and sentence constituents are infrequent.…”

Section: Morphological Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 79%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Morphological Abilities of Hebrew-Speaking Adolescents With Williams Syndrome

Levy¹,

Hermon²

2003

Developmental Neuropsychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years research has focused on the exact nature of the linguistic skills that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) exhibit. This work has resulted in controversial positions, with an increasing number of studies casting doubt on previous claims of superior linguistic competence for individuals with WS. This study investigated morphosyntactic knowledge in Hebrew-speaking adolescents with WS. The participants 'performance was compared to 2 groups of typically developing mental age-matched controls. Participants and controls were tested on experimental tasks designed to investigate knowledge of morphology. The findings suggest that individuals with WS have good control over the basic consonantal root structure of Hebrew words. However, rather poor performance was evident on other morphological paradigms. We conclude that there is little evidence from Hebrew to support a selective preservation of grammatical competence in individuals with WS.

show abstract

Section: Morphological Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 68%

Section: Morphological Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 79%

Morphological Abilities of Hebrew-Speaking Adolescents With Williams Syndrome

Levy¹,

Hermon²

2003

Developmental Neuropsychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These findings are confirmed by Berman (1986) in his study of Hebrew L1 acquisition. Levy (1988) believes that children's initial conception of gender as a formal rather than semantic feature of language can be explained by the fact that, in languages where gender regularities are transparent, the gender system is in large part acquired before natural gender becomes a linguistically salient aspect of the language. Both the Levy (1983) and Berman (1986) studies found that Israeli children manifested a preference for masculine articles.…”

Section: L1 Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Acquisition of Grammatical Gender in Italian as a Foreign Language

Oliphant¹

1998

The Canadian Modern Language Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated the sensitivity to gender cues exhibited by L2 learners of Italian. The participants were 64 students in first-and second-year Italian classes at the university level. Three tests were given to ascertain the students' ability to assign gender based on morphophonological, syntactic, and semantic cues. Results showed that the students were sensitive to cues in the wordfinal phonemes that reliably indicate gender and implicational scaling demonstrated a clear order of difficulty among these endings. The students exhibited a low degree of awareness of the gender associations of certain derivational suffixes. When dealing with more than one cue, the students had no difficulty assigning gender when the cues were in accord, while coping with conflicting cues was more problematic, particularly when there was discord with natural gender. Nonetheless, in the majority of the cases, the students were able to use syntactic cues to override competing cues. While as a group, the students were reliant on a syntactic strategy, the implication scaling performed on the results revealed the presence of subgroups following different strategies, i.e., morphophonological or semantic. Clear scales of difficulty among the various combinations of cue types also emerged. Literature reviewIn languages where it exists, the system of grammatical gender is mastered by native speakers at an early age without the need for explicit rules. However, gender appears to be a difficult obstacle to surmount in an L2 for learners with an English language background (Andersen, 1984;Carroll, 1989;Delisle, 1985; Harley, 1979, in press;Rogers, 1987;Stevens, 1984;Surridge, 1993;Surridge & Lessard, 1984;Tucker, Lambert, & Rigault, 1969, 1977. Research has shown that L1 speakers do not depend on rote memorization in order to correctly assign gender to nouns; rather they have developed a sensitivity to competing cues that facilitate their choices (

show abstract

“…Previous studies of the acquisition of gender in a variety of languages, including Hebrew, show that children master the formal-morphological parts of this system relatively early (Mulford & Morgan, 1983 ;Smoczynska, 1985 ;Levy, 1988). Thus, even under age 3; 0, errors of linguistic gender on inanimate nouns, which mark gender morphologically, are rare.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

A longitudinal study of language development in two children with Williams syndrome

Levy

2004

J. Child Lang.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Williams syndrome (WS) is often cited as the prime example within developmental disorders of the dissociation of language from other cognitive skills, particularly from visuo-motor skills. This claim has been responsible for the challenges posed by this population to cognitive theories and to models of language acquisition. Two Hebrew-speaking children with WS were followed longitudinally for 18 months, from the first occurrences of two word combinations. Y was 3;9–5;3 and BT was 4;2–5;8 during data collection. Both children had an MLU of 1·8–2·8. The children's linguistic profiles were compared to the profiles of typically-developing (TD) children of similar MLU as well as to the profiles of 11 children with a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders (ND), matched on MLU. The profiles exhibited by the children with WS throughout the period of the study differed from the profiles seen in both control groups.

show abstract

On the early learning of formal grammatical systems: evidence from studies of the acquisition of gender and countability

Cited by 32 publications

References 8 publications

Morphological Abilities of Hebrew-Speaking Adolescents With Williams Syndrome

Morphological Abilities of Hebrew-Speaking Adolescents With Williams Syndrome

Acquisition of Grammatical Gender in Italian as a Foreign Language

A longitudinal study of language development in two children with Williams syndrome

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About