{"title":"The relationship between working memory, production, and comprehension: evidence from children’s errors in complex wh questions","authors":"C. Jane Lutken, Geraldine Legendre","doi":"10.1017/s0305000924000564","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>English-speaking children sometimes make errors in production and comprehension of biclausal questions, known as “Scope-Marking Errors”. In production, these errors surface as medial wh questions (e.g., What do you think who the cat chased? (Thornton, 1990)). In comprehension, children respond to questions like How did the boy say what he caught? by answering what was caught (de Villiers & Roeper, 1995). These errors resemble wh-scope marking questions, attested in languages like German. Together, these errors suggest temporary adoption of multiple UG-licensed grammars (e.g., Yang, 2002). However, Lutken et al. (2020) found that children who make these errors in production do not necessarily make errors in comprehension and vice versa. They suggest these errors stem from children’s immature processing mechanisms. This article examines children’s production, comprehension, and processing capabilities, specifically working memory (WM). We find a correlation between WM and error rate and suggest separate causes for production and comprehension errors.</p>","PeriodicalId":48132,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Child Language","volume":"128 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Child Language","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000924000564","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
摘要
以英语为母语的儿童有时会在双关语问题的产生和理解上犯错误,这被称为“范围标记错误”。在生产中,这些错误会以中间问题的形式出现(例如,你认为猫追的是谁?(桑顿,1990))。在理解能力方面,孩子们会回答这样的问题:这个男孩是怎么说他抓到的东西的?通过回答所捕捉到的东西(德维利尔&;鲁普,1995)。这些错误类似于在德语等语言中出现的wh范围标记问题。总之,这些错误表明暂时采用了多个ug许可的语法(例如,Yang, 2002)。然而,Lutken et al.(2020)发现,在生产中犯这些错误的儿童并不一定在理解上犯错误,反之亦然。他们认为这些错误源于儿童不成熟的处理机制。本文考察了儿童的生产、理解和加工能力,特别是工作记忆(WM)。我们发现了WM和错误率之间的相关性,并提出了产生和理解错误的不同原因。
The relationship between working memory, production, and comprehension: evidence from children’s errors in complex wh questions
English-speaking children sometimes make errors in production and comprehension of biclausal questions, known as “Scope-Marking Errors”. In production, these errors surface as medial wh questions (e.g., What do you think who the cat chased? (Thornton, 1990)). In comprehension, children respond to questions like How did the boy say what he caught? by answering what was caught (de Villiers & Roeper, 1995). These errors resemble wh-scope marking questions, attested in languages like German. Together, these errors suggest temporary adoption of multiple UG-licensed grammars (e.g., Yang, 2002). However, Lutken et al. (2020) found that children who make these errors in production do not necessarily make errors in comprehension and vice versa. They suggest these errors stem from children’s immature processing mechanisms. This article examines children’s production, comprehension, and processing capabilities, specifically working memory (WM). We find a correlation between WM and error rate and suggest separate causes for production and comprehension errors.
期刊介绍:
A key publication in the field, Journal of Child Language publishes articles on all aspects of the scientific study of language behaviour in children, the principles which underlie it, and the theories which may account for it. The international range of authors and breadth of coverage allow the journal to forge links between many different areas of research including psychology, linguistics, cognitive science and anthropology. This interdisciplinary approach spans a wide range of interests: phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, or any other recognised facet of language study.