Abstract
We tested predictive gender agreement processing in adjective–noun phrases by 45 4- to 6-year-old Russian- and Bulgarian-speaking children using the visual world eye-tracking paradigm. Russian and Bulgarian are closely related languages that have three genders but differ in the nature and number of gender cues on adjectives. Analysis of the proportion and time course of looks to the target noun showed that only Bulgarian children used gender cues to predict the upcoming noun. We argue that the cross-linguistic difference in the gender cue strength is revealed through the operation of economy, transparency, and interdependence in a gender complexity matrix. The documented advantage for Bulgarian children in gender agreement processing and acquisition underscores the need for a comparative language acquisition approach to typologically close languages.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 105868 |
| Journal | Journal of Experimental Child Psychology |
| Volume | 242 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 Elsevier Inc.
Funding
Irina A. Sekerina was partially supported by the PSC-CUNY grant #64464-00 52 "Virtual Laboratory: Cross-Linguistic Investigation of Language Grammar". Natalia Meir and Irina A. Sekerina were partially supported by the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Grant Number 2022245, for the project led by the Principal Investigators Natalia Meir and Irina A. Sekerina.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Bloom's Syndrome Foundation | 2022245 |
| Professional Staff Congress and City University of New York | 64464-00 52 |
| United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation |
Keywords
- Adjective–noun gender agreement
- Closely related languages
- Fine-grained cross-linguistic differences
- Gender complexity matrix
- Gender cues
- Visual world paradigm