TY - JOUR
T1 - It Takes Two to Tango
T2 - Understanding and Acquiring Symmetrical Verbs
AU - Miller, Carol A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The research reported here was conducted as part of the author's dissertation research at the University of Pennsylvania. The work was supported in part by a research award from the Association for Women in Science Educational Foundation and by a grant to Lila Gleitman by Steven and Marcia Roth. I am most grateful to my thesis committee: Lila Gleitman, Henry Gleitman, Michael Kelly, and Robert Seyfarth, for their invaluable advice and support. Lila Gleitman and Larry Leonard made very helpful comments on an earlier draft. 1 Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907. 2 Address all correspondence to Carol A. Miller, Department of Audiology and Speech Sciences, Heavilon Hall B-13, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1353.
PY - 1998/5
Y1 - 1998/5
N2 - Children's ability to understand symmetrical verbs was investigated, along with adults' use of linguistic and visual cues to learn novel symmetrical verbs. Symmetrical verbs encode a relationship r between two entities such that X r Y entails Y r X. In Experiment 1, sixteen children (mean age 4;8) acted out two types of sentences with symmetrical and asymmetrical verbs. Eight adult judges viewed videotapes of the children's performance and tried to guess what sentence type was being enacted. Judges' performance was predicted (p < .05) by the verb type, symmetrical or asymmetrical. In Experiment 2, seventy-two adult subjects received visual and linguistic cues to the meanings of novel verbs. Both cue types affected subjects' judgments about whether the new verbs were symmetrical or asymmetrical (p < .05).
AB - Children's ability to understand symmetrical verbs was investigated, along with adults' use of linguistic and visual cues to learn novel symmetrical verbs. Symmetrical verbs encode a relationship r between two entities such that X r Y entails Y r X. In Experiment 1, sixteen children (mean age 4;8) acted out two types of sentences with symmetrical and asymmetrical verbs. Eight adult judges viewed videotapes of the children's performance and tried to guess what sentence type was being enacted. Judges' performance was predicted (p < .05) by the verb type, symmetrical or asymmetrical. In Experiment 2, seventy-two adult subjects received visual and linguistic cues to the meanings of novel verbs. Both cue types affected subjects' judgments about whether the new verbs were symmetrical or asymmetrical (p < .05).
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U2 - 10.1023/A:1023259805938
DO - 10.1023/A:1023259805938
M3 - Article
C2 - 9631562
AN - SCOPUS:0032065341
SN - 0090-6905
VL - 27
SP - 385
EP - 411
JO - Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
JF - Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
IS - 3
ER -