Children's understanding of the grammatical categories of "determiner" and "adjective" was examined using 2 different methodologies. In Experiment 1, children heard novel nouns combined with either a or the. Few 2-year-olds, but nearly all 3- and 4-year-olds, subsequently produced the novel nouns with a different determiner from the modeled combination. Experiment 2 used a priming methodology. Children age 2, 3, 4, and 6 years repeated descriptions of pictures, before describing target pictures themselves. When the primes consisted of a varied determiner + noun, all age groups produced more determiner + noun descriptions. When the primes consisted of a determiner + adjective + noun, 2-year-olds showed no priming. Three- to 6-year-olds showed item-specific priming, but only 6-year-olds (and to a limited extent 4-year-olds) showed both item-specific and structural priming. These results suggest that children build an understanding of determiners and adjectives gradually, perhaps from individual lexical items, over a number of years, and that pragmatic correctness may be attained particularly late. ©American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Psychology
Research Group:	Applied and developmental psychology
Research Field:	Educational psychology
Objective Division:	Education and Training
Objective Group:	Other education and training
Objective Field:	Other education and training not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Kemp, NM (Associate Professor Nenagh Kemp)
ID Code:	34404
Year Published:	2005
Web of Science® Times Cited:	20
Deposited By:	Psychology
Deposited On:	2006-03-08
Last Modified:	2006-03-08
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