The role of iconicity in children's production of adverbial clauses
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 21306474 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Shijie Zhang (0000-0001-5394-3991, University of Manchester, autor de correspondencia), Silke Brandt (0000-0003-3363-8740, Lancaster University), A L Theakston (0000-0002-9483-7893, University of Manchester), Anna Theakston |
| Año | 2025 |
| Volumen | 259 |
| Páginas | 106119 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2025-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sí |
| Open Access | Sí |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | Cognition (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 0010-0277 • E-ISSN: 1873-7838 |
| Editorial | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106119 |
| PMID | 40121820 |
| OpenAlex | W4408744945 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Referencias citadas | 39 |
Young children's comprehension of adverbial clauses is significantly affected by iconicity, which refers to whether the order of information in the sentence reflects the order of events in the real world. In contrast, clause order (main-subordinate vs. subordinate-main) and input frequency of specific adverbial clauses do not seem to play independent roles (De Ruiter et al., 2018). The present study tests children's sentence production across four different connective types (after, before, because, if) to determine whether the factors that underpin the comprehension of adverbial clauses also apply to production, which involves utterance planning and articulation. 42 four-year-old, 42 five-year-old, and 22 eight-year-old monolingual English-speaking children, along with 20 adult controls, completed a sentence completion task. The results showed that both four- and five-year-olds produced all type of sentences in iconic order ("She builds a tower, before she breaks her train"; "After she builds a tower, she breaks her train") more accurately than in non-iconic order. This suggests that while comprehension and production likely impose different demands on children, iconicity as a general semantic strategy benefits children's early processing of adverbial clauses. Moreover, the effect of iconicity persisted in older children's production, but only for their because- and if-sentences, which could be related to their semantic complexity and the pragmatic properties they encode
Adverbial · Dependent clause · Iconicity · Linguistics · Production (economics) · Sentence · Categorization, perception, and language · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Multisensory perception and integration · Philosophy · Psychology
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Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items
From Etymology to Pragmatics
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| Velocidad de citación | historical |
|---|---|
| Altamente citado | No |