213
LINGUISTIC INTUITIONS OF TWELVE YEAR-OLDS
TIMOTHY E. MOORE York University, Toronto
Chomsky has proposed a system whereby degrees of grammaticality can be assigned ungrammatical sentences. In this study, children were required to evaluate the grammaticality of 162 ungrammatical sentences. Their ratings provided little support for Chomsky’s system, nor did the children’s ratings correspond to adults’ judgments of the same types of deviation. A possible strategy which would account for the children’s ratings is proposed, and the implications for syntactic development are briefly discussed. to
Chomsky (1965) has proposed a hierarchy of rules, whereby degrees of grammaticality can be assigned to ungrammatical sentences. Moore (1972) tested the psychological reality of this system. In that study, neither the speed with which subjects could recognize deviations from grammaticality, nor subjects’ judgments concerning the grammaticality of the sentences were directly related to the proposed rule hierarchy. Rather, subjects’ judgments depended upon whether the deviation occurred within the subject-verb-object (S-V-O) sequence of a sentence or a subbordinate part of the sentence. The present study attempted to discover whether children’s judgments of grammaticality are similarly related to the locus of the deviation. It was hypothesized that children’s judgments would reflect those grammatical relations which are considered by them to be most critical for such judgments. z
METHOD ’
Sub jects Subjects were 35 seventh grade children from a white, middle-class Philadelphia public school. Mean age of the sample was 12.5 years.
suburban
Design In a 3 x 3 factorial design, three different kinds (Levels) of violations occurred in the three different deep structure locations of subject, verb, or object. Level 1 consisted of lexical category violations, i.e., the wrong part of speech appeared in place of either the subject, verb, or object. Level 2 violations, in the verb position,
214 ’
’
Examples
’
TABLE 1
°
of the three types of
.
&dquo;’
I.
’ .
violation, occurring in each
of the three
possible
locations
consisted of strict sub-categorization errors, i.e., intransitive verbs were used where transitive verbs would normally belong. In the subject and object position, a Level 2 violation consisted of subject-verb and verb-object disagreement, respectively. A Level 3 violation in the verb position involved subject-verb disagreement, and for subject and object position, noun-adjective disagreement. Table 1 provides examples of each type of violation, in each of the three possible locations. I
Materials
.
Most of the sentences used were taken from Moore (1972). Five twelve year-old who were not included in the subsequent sample, were asked to read over all the sentences, and mark those sentences which contained unfamiliar words. Alternate words were substituted until all 5 subjects agreed that all words in all sentences were familiar and understandable. The subjects pointed out that although all words were understandable, some of the sentences were &dquo; weird &dquo; or &dquo; strange.&dquo; Each Level x Location cell contained 18 different sentences, six active, six passive, and six prepositional. This gave a total of 162 different sentences. Fifty-four correct sentences were mixed in with the above set. Two different random orders of
subjects,
presentation
were
employed.....
:
_
Procedure Each
subject
:
’
was
presented with
the
following
instructions : This is
a
language
game or experiment. You will be given many different sentences to read. Some of these sentences are normal, everyday, acceptable sentences. Others are unacceptable
215 TABLE 2
Effects of level of violation and
position of violation grammaticality
upon children’s
of
judgments
for one reason or another,. We want to know how unacceptable or strange you think these sentences are. Under each sentence is a line with 20 spaces marked off. If you think the sentence is normal and acceptable, put an X in the first space. If it is a strange or ’ funny’ sentence, put an X in one of the other spaces (2-20), Some sentences are stranger you think it is. depending upon how unacceptable &dquo; The foolish chimney fell off the tall building &dquo; is than others. For example, The heavy book char on the table.&dquo; There are no right or strange, and so is, wrong answers. We want to know how strange or unacceptable you think these sentences ,are. Remember, if it is an acceptable normal sentence, give it a 1. If it is strange or funny in some way, give it a number from 2-20, depending upon how strange you think it is. Try to use all the numbers from 1 to 20. Each subject was individually run. When necessary, instructions were repeated and expanded to insure that the subject understood the task. &dquo;
z
RESULTS
’
-.
’
For each subject, the mean scale values for all sentences in each Level x Location cell were used in an analysis of variance for a 3 x 3 within-subject design (Level x
Location).
and a Level x There was a main effect of Level [F(2,68) = 14.3, p
LINGUISTIC INTUITIONS OF TWELVE YEAR-OLDS
TIMOTHY E. MOORE York University, Toronto
Chomsky has proposed a system whereby degrees of grammaticality can be assigned ungrammatical sentences. In this study, children were required to evaluate the grammaticality of 162 ungrammatical sentences. Their ratings provided little support for Chomsky’s system, nor did the children’s ratings correspond to adults’ judgments of the same types of deviation. A possible strategy which would account for the children’s ratings is proposed, and the implications for syntactic development are briefly discussed. to
Chomsky (1965) has proposed a hierarchy of rules, whereby degrees of grammaticality can be assigned to ungrammatical sentences. Moore (1972) tested the psychological reality of this system. In that study, neither the speed with which subjects could recognize deviations from grammaticality, nor subjects’ judgments concerning the grammaticality of the sentences were directly related to the proposed rule hierarchy. Rather, subjects’ judgments depended upon whether the deviation occurred within the subject-verb-object (S-V-O) sequence of a sentence or a subbordinate part of the sentence. The present study attempted to discover whether children’s judgments of grammaticality are similarly related to the locus of the deviation. It was hypothesized that children’s judgments would reflect those grammatical relations which are considered by them to be most critical for such judgments. z
METHOD ’
Sub jects Subjects were 35 seventh grade children from a white, middle-class Philadelphia public school. Mean age of the sample was 12.5 years.
suburban
Design In a 3 x 3 factorial design, three different kinds (Levels) of violations occurred in the three different deep structure locations of subject, verb, or object. Level 1 consisted of lexical category violations, i.e., the wrong part of speech appeared in place of either the subject, verb, or object. Level 2 violations, in the verb position,
214 ’
’
Examples
’
TABLE 1
°
of the three types of
.
&dquo;’
I.
’ .
violation, occurring in each
of the three
possible
locations
consisted of strict sub-categorization errors, i.e., intransitive verbs were used where transitive verbs would normally belong. In the subject and object position, a Level 2 violation consisted of subject-verb and verb-object disagreement, respectively. A Level 3 violation in the verb position involved subject-verb disagreement, and for subject and object position, noun-adjective disagreement. Table 1 provides examples of each type of violation, in each of the three possible locations. I
Materials
.
Most of the sentences used were taken from Moore (1972). Five twelve year-old who were not included in the subsequent sample, were asked to read over all the sentences, and mark those sentences which contained unfamiliar words. Alternate words were substituted until all 5 subjects agreed that all words in all sentences were familiar and understandable. The subjects pointed out that although all words were understandable, some of the sentences were &dquo; weird &dquo; or &dquo; strange.&dquo; Each Level x Location cell contained 18 different sentences, six active, six passive, and six prepositional. This gave a total of 162 different sentences. Fifty-four correct sentences were mixed in with the above set. Two different random orders of
subjects,
presentation
were
employed.....
:
_
Procedure Each
subject
:
’
was
presented with
the
following
instructions : This is
a
language
game or experiment. You will be given many different sentences to read. Some of these sentences are normal, everyday, acceptable sentences. Others are unacceptable
215 TABLE 2
Effects of level of violation and
position of violation grammaticality
upon children’s
of
judgments
for one reason or another,. We want to know how unacceptable or strange you think these sentences are. Under each sentence is a line with 20 spaces marked off. If you think the sentence is normal and acceptable, put an X in the first space. If it is a strange or ’ funny’ sentence, put an X in one of the other spaces (2-20), Some sentences are stranger you think it is. depending upon how unacceptable &dquo; The foolish chimney fell off the tall building &dquo; is than others. For example, The heavy book char on the table.&dquo; There are no right or strange, and so is, wrong answers. We want to know how strange or unacceptable you think these sentences ,are. Remember, if it is an acceptable normal sentence, give it a 1. If it is strange or funny in some way, give it a number from 2-20, depending upon how strange you think it is. Try to use all the numbers from 1 to 20. Each subject was individually run. When necessary, instructions were repeated and expanded to insure that the subject understood the task. &dquo;
z
RESULTS
’
-.
’
For each subject, the mean scale values for all sentences in each Level x Location cell were used in an analysis of variance for a 3 x 3 within-subject design (Level x
Location).
and a Level x There was a main effect of Level [F(2,68) = 14.3, p
