RESULTS Overall, children are more likely to use -3s marker in sentences that have duration than those that are punctual (p=.03)

•  Aspect score quartile was used as a grouping variable

The effect is driven by children with SLI, who use the -3s marker less on punctual verbs (p<.001).

CONCLUSIONS

•  Verb duration predicts -3s marking in children with SLI in this sample •  Response pattern is similar to the processing disadvantage seen in past-tense

marking in verbs with low phonotactic probability (Leonard, Davis, & Deevy, 2007)

•  This study differs from other studies of lexical aspect in that we used child-generated utterances where verbs and sentences were not controlled

•  The same question should be asked using an elicitation paradigm

copies are available at the first author’s website: people.umass.edu/wordlab

METHODS

Participants An existing database of language samples from monolingual English-learners with inconsistent -3s usage •  20 with typical language development (M age = 3;3, range 2;11-3;11) •  20 with SLI (M age = 4;9, range 4;0-6;1)

Validation 694 complete utterances with -3s contexts were extracted 20 adult monolingual English speakers •  trained on lexical aspect with regards to duration •  each adult validator rated half (347) of the verbs in sentence context

he slides down the slide

RESULTS

Individual verbs are perceived as having different durations in different contexts •  Per verb, number of usages ranged from 1 (wipes) – 140 (goes) •  Range of SDs of duration ratings between sentences: .44 (falls) – 1.01 (goes) •  Range of responses between sentences from 1.2 (falls) to 5.7 (goes)

verb has least duration verb has most duration

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1 2 3 4

prop

ortio

n co

rrec

t

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Falls

Lives

Gets

Comes

Goes

She goes to the bathroom

The shower goes in the bathroom

verb has least duration verb has most duration

Lexical Aspect as a Source of Variability in -3s Marking: Typical Development and SLI Gwyneth C. Rost, Jill R. Hoover, and Mary E. Brennan

Department of Communication Disorders, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

INTRODUCTION

Natural properties of verbs might predict a child’s finiteness marking patterns during the period of inconsistent usage of these forms.

Phonological properties: •  phonotactic probability of uninflected verb (Leonard, Davis, & Deevy, 2007) •  phonotactic probability of verb coda + inflection (Marshall & van der Lely, 2006) •  lexical neighborhood density (Hoover, Storkel, & Rice, 2013)

Lexical aspect: •  telic verbs more likely to be past-tense marked (Leonard et al., 2003) •  perfect/telic marking in non-English languages (Leonard, Lukacs, and Kas, 2012)

We use the -3s marker and a continuum from punctual to stative verbs to ask if duration qualities affect finiteness marking.

Across studies, children with SLI respond differently to these properties than children with typical language development.

Processing Advantage: Dense lexical neighborhood, alignment of aspect and tense •  Children with typical language development more likely to use finiteness

marker •  Children with SLI unaffected

Processing Disadvantage: Low phonotactic probability •  Children with SLI are less likely to use the finiteness marker •  Children with typical language development unaffected

We use data from typically-developing children and those with SLI to ask if duration provides the reported advantage or disadvantage patterns.

REFERENCES Hoover, J. R., Storkel, H. L., & Rice, M. L. (2012). The interface between neighborhood density and optional infinitives:

normal development and Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Child Language, Volume 39, 835-862. DOI: 10.1017/S0305000911000365

Leonard, L. B., Davis, J., & Deevy, P. (2007). Phonotactic probability and past tense use by children with specific language impairment and their typically developing peers. Clinical linguistics & phonetics, 21(10), 747-758.

Leonard, L. B., Deevy, P., Kurtz, R., Krantz Chorev, L., Owen, A., Polite, E., & Finneran, D. (2007). Lexical aspect and the use of verb morphology by children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 50(3), 759.

Leonard, L. B., Lukács, A., & Kas, B. (2012). Tense and aspect in childhood language impairment: Contributions from Hungarian. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33(02), 305-328.

Marshall, C. R., & van der Lely, H. K. (2006). A challenge to current models of past tense inflection: The impact of phonotactics. Cognition, 100(2), 302-320.

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1st quartile 4th quartile

SLI TD

* p=.02

Aspect refers to temporal quality of the verb in context Grammatical aspect = finiteness marking

Lexical aspect = related to meaning

Telicity (telic verbs have endpoints, atelic do not) x

Duration (punctual, activity, accomplishment, state, habitual) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 verb has least duration verb has most duration

prop

ortio

n co

rrec

t

S2 SSounds 2 Syntax