Syntactic Adaptation and Word Learning in 3- to 4-Year-Olds

In a recent study, preschoolers adapted their syntactic expectations about a familiar phrase in French; this adaptation affected later word learning. In two experiments, we probed the generality of this finding by replicating the experiment and extending it to a different expression in English. We examined the ambiguous phrase the baby, which can be followed by nouns (the baby monkeys) or verbs (the baby sleeps). In induction trials, the baby consistently preceded either familiar nouns (noun condition) or verbs (verb condition). In later novel-word trials, children in the verb condition were more likely to interpret novel words following the baby (The baby gorps!) as verbs than were children in the noun condition. In Experiment 2, a modified design isolated the effect of experience with the critical phrase from possible effects of task structure, and an added baseline condition showed the adaptation effect to be asymmetrical, suggesting frequency or surprisal effects on adaptation.