Join us for our first LuCiD seminar of the new academic term, featuring an in-person talk on Tuesday, 8th October 2024 (11 am UK time - in-person & via Zoom). Dr. Hannah Sawyer (University of Liverpool) will talk about "Testing the Competing Sources of Input Account of English-Speaking Children’s Verb-Marking Errors".
Abstract: The Competing Sources of Input (CSI) account argues that verb-marking errors (e.g., ‘She play’) reflect the extraction of unmarked subject+verb sequences from longer structures in the input (e.g., ‘Does she play?’). In this talk, I present two corpus analyses which investigate whether there are input (subject+verb-sequence or verb) effects on children’s (2- to 4-year-olds) errors and how these different input predictors change over development. These analyses find that the best predictor was the relative frequency of specific unmarked subject+verb sequences in the input, which persisted but weakened across development, but that the effect of the relative frequency of unmarked verbs was only predictive early on. Overall, these studies provide evidence for the CSI account and are consistent with the assumption that children recover from making errors by becoming progressively more sensitive to context, at first just immediately preceding lexical contexts (e.g., ‘she’) and eventually more distant lexical contexts (e.g., ‘does’).
How to join the seminar: This seminar will take place in person at the University of Manchester, but we will provide a blended approach for anyone who is unable to attend in person. As always the seminar is free to attend & booking isn't required, just get in touch to request the zoom link and don't forget to join the seminar mailing list
Where to find us on the day: The seminar will be held at the University of Manchester, McFarlane building (G306). The Jean McFarlane building is 92 on the campus map (just behind the University Place building). The room is on the ground floor.