Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-pn7tm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-13T02:55:01.940Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Effects of frequency and morphosyntactic structure on error detection, correction, and repetition in Swedish-speaking children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2018

ANNA EVA HALLIN Open the ORCID record for ANNA EVA HALLIN [Opens in a new window]  and
CHRISTINA REUTERSKIÖLD
ANNA EVA HALLIN*
Affiliation:
Karolinska Institutet
CHRISTINA REUTERSKIÖLD
Affiliation:
New York University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Anna Eva Hallin, CLINTEC, Division of Speech Language Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, F67, 141 86 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: annaeva.hallin@ki.se
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Grammatical error detection and correction are often used to test explicit language knowledge. This study investigated effects of token frequency and error type in error detection, correction, and repetition, and performance on the three tasks were compared and related to models of metalinguistic awareness and development. Thirty Swedish-speaking 10-year-olds with typical language development participated in the study, which focused on four morphosyntactic errors: the infinitive instead of past tense for regular and irregular verbs, and the omission of the obligatory indefinite article in common and neuter gender noun phrases. Target verbs and nouns were of high or low frequency. Results showed significant effects of verb frequency in all tasks, and effects of noun gender for error detection, but not for correction and repetition. Children detected significantly more past-tense errors than they accurately corrected, but the opposite result was seen for noun phrase errors. The patterns of results both within and across tasks imply that implicit language knowledge affects performance, and that lexical frequency, even of familiar words, needs to be controlled when designing tasks for measuring grammatical knowledge. The particular challenge of the Swedish neuter noun phrase in language development and language processing needs to be further investigated.

Keywords

child normal languagelexicon and word learningmetalinguistic abilitymorphosyntactic processing

Information

Type
Original Article
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 39 , Issue 6 , November 2018 , pp. 1189 - 1220
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Ambridge, B., Kidd, E., Rowland, C. F., & Theakston, A. L. (2015). The ubiquity of frequency effects in first language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 42, 239–273. doi: 10.1017/S030500091400049X.Google Scholar
Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., Rowland, C. F., & Chang, F. (2012). The roles of verb semantics, entrenchment, and morphophonology in the retreat from dative argument-structure overgeneralization errors. Language, 88, 45–81. doi: 10.1353/lan.2012.0000.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2001). Metalinguistic aspects of bilingual processing. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 21, 169–181.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Ryan, E. B. (1985). Toward a definition of metalinguistic skill. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 31, 229–251.Google Scholar
Blackwell, A., Bates, E. A., & Fisher, D. (1996). The time course of grammaticality judgment. Language and Cognitive Processes, 11, 337–406.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2012. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.3.13). Retrieved from http://www.praat.org.Google Scholar
Bohnacker, U. (2003). Nominal phrases. In G. Josefsson, C. Platzack & G. Håkansson (Eds.), The acquisition of Swedish grammar (pp. 195–260). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Borin, L., Forsberg, M., & Roxendal, J. (2012). Korp—The corpus infrastructure of Språkbanken. Istanbul: ELRA. Retrieved from http://www.lrec-conf.org/proceedings/lrec2012/pdf/248_Paper.pdf.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. (1985). Morphology: A Study of the relation between meaning and form. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Bybee, J. L. (2010). Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cain, K. (2007). Syntactic awareness and reading ability: Is there any evidence for a special relationship? Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 679–694. doi: 10.1017/s0142716407070361.Google Scholar
Cairns, H. S., Schlisselberg, G., Waltzman, D., & McDaniel, D. (2006). Development of a metalinguistic skill: Judging the grammaticality of sentences. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 27, 213–220.Google Scholar
Clahsen, H. (2008). Behavioral methods for investigating morphological and syntactic processing in children. In I. A. Fernandez, E. M. Clahsen & H. Clahsen (Eds.), Developmental psycholinguistics: On-line methods in children’s langauge processing (pp. 1–27). Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Coady, J. A., Evans, J. L., & Kluender, K. R. (2010). The role of phonotactic frequency in sentence repetition by children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 53, 1401–1415.Google Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G., & Durkin, K. (2012). Language development and assessment in the preschool period. Neuropsychology Review, 22, 384–401. doi: 10.1007/s11065-012-9208-z.Google Scholar
Dunn, D. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1959–2007). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition. San Antonio, TX: Pearson.Google Scholar
Friesen, D. C., & Bialystok, E. (2012). Metalinguistic ability in bilingual children: The role of executive control. Rivista di Psicolinguistica Applicata, 12, 47–56.Google Scholar
Gombert, J. E. (1992). Metalinguistic development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Grier, J. B. (1971). Nonparametric indexes for sensitivity and bias: Computing formulas. Psychological Bulletin, 75, 424–429.Google Scholar
Hallin, A. E., & Reuterskiöld, C. (2017). Error type and lexical frequency effects: Error detection in Swedish children with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 60, 2924–2934.Google Scholar
Hansson, K., & Leonard, L. B. (2003). The use and productivity of verb morphology in specific language impairment: An examination of Swedish. Linguistics, 41, 351–380.Google Scholar
Hansson, K., Nettelbladt, U., & Leonard, L. B. (2000). Specific language impairment in Swedish: The status of verb morphology and word order. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 43, 848–864.Google Scholar
Hansson, K., Nettelbladt, U., & Leonard, L. B. (2003). Indefinite articles and definite forms in Swedish children with specific language impairment. First Language, 23, 343–362.Google Scholar
Hedberg, L., & Kellén Nilsson, L. (2003). Normering av Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test III för svenskspråkiga barn i förskoleklass och årskurs 4 Magisteruppsats i logopedi. Stockholm: Karolinska Institutet.Google Scholar
Høien, T. (2005). Logos [software]. Bryne, Norway: Logometrica AS.Google Scholar
Holmes, P., & Hinchliffe, I. (2003). Swedish: A comprehensive grammar. London: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Kail, M., Kihlstedt, M., & Bonnet, P. (2012). On-line sentence processing in Swedish: Cross-linguistic developmental comparisons with French. Journal of Child Language, 39, 28–60.Google Scholar
Kamhi, A. G., & Koenig, L. A. (1985). Metalinguistic awareness in normal and language-disordered children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 16, 199–210.Google Scholar
Kidd, E., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Examining the role of lexical frequency in the acquisition and processing of sentential complements. Cognitive Development, 21, 93–107. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2006.01.006.Google Scholar
Kuo, L., & Anderson, R. C. (2008). Conceptual and methodological issues in comparing metalinguistic awareness across langauges. In K. Koda & A. M. Zehler (Eds.), Learning to read across languages. Cross-linguistic relationships in first- and second-language literacy development. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Leonard, L. B., Salameh, E. K., & Hansson, K. (2001). Noun phrase morphology in Swedish-speaking children with specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22, 619–639.Google Scholar
Lewis, R. L., Vasishth, S., & Van Dyke, J. A. (2006). Computational principles of working memory in sentence comprehension. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 447–454.Google Scholar
Lieven, E. (2010). Input and first language acquisition: Evaluating the role of frequency. Lingua, 120, 2546–2556. doi: 10.1016/j.lingua.2010.06.005.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A. (1997). Children’s productivity in the English past tense: The role of frequency, phonology, and neighborhood structure. Cognitive Science, 21, 283–304.Google Scholar
Matthews, D., Lieven, E., Theakston, A., & Tomasello, M. (2005). The role of frequency in the acquisition of English word order. Cognitive Development, 20, 121–136. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2004.08.001.Google Scholar
Matthews, D., Lieven, E., Theakston, A., & Tomasello, M. (2007). French children’s use and correction of weird word orders: A constructivist account. Journal of Child Language, 34, 381–409. doi: 10.1017/s030500090600794x.Google Scholar
McDonald, J. L. (2008). Grammaticality judgments in children: The role of age, working memory and phonological ability. Journal of Child Language, 35, 247–268.Google Scholar
Miller, C. A., Leonard, L. B., & Finneran, D. (2008). Grammaticality judgements in adolescents with and without language impairment. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 43, 346–360. doi: 10.1080/13682820701546813.Google Scholar
Montgomery, J. W., & Leonard, L. B. (1998). Real-time inflectional processing by children with specific language impairment: Effects of phonetic substance. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 1432–1443.Google Scholar
Mühlenbock, K. (2008). Readable, legible or plain words—Presentation of an easy-to-read Swedish corpus. In A. Saxena & Å. Viberg (Eds.), Multilingualism: Proceedings of the 23rd Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics (Studia Linguistica Upsaliensia ed., pp. 325–327). Uppsala, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Nation, K., & Snowling, M. J. (2000). Factors influencing syntactic awareness skills in normal readers and poor comprehenders. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 229–241.Google Scholar
Noonan, N. B., Redmond, S. M., & Archibald, L. M. D. (2014). Contributions of children’s linguistic and working memory proficiencies to their judgments of grammaticality. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 57, 979–989.Google Scholar
Plaza, M., & Cohen, H. (2003). The interaction between phonological processing, syntactic awareness, and naming speed in the reading and spelling performance of first-grade children. Brain and Cognition, 53, 287–292.Google Scholar
Purdy, J. D., Leonard, L. B., Weber-Fox, C., & Kaganovich, N. (2014). Decreased sensitivity to long-distance dependencies in children with a history of specific langauge impairment: Electrophysiological evidence. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 57, 1040–1059.Google Scholar
Ragnarsdottir, H., Gram Simonsen, H., & Plunkett, K. (1999). The acqiusition of past tense morphology in Icelandic and Norwegian children: An experimental study. Journal of Child Language, 26, 577–618.Google Scholar
Raven, J. C., Court, J. H., & Raven, J. (1990). Raven’s Standardized Progressive Matrices. Oxford: Oxford Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Ricciardelli, L. A. (1993). Two components of metalinguistic awareness: Control of linguistic processing and analysis of linguistic knowledge. Applied Psycholinguistics, 14, 349–349.Google Scholar
Rice, M. L., Wexler, K., & Redmond, S. M. (1999). Grammaticality judgments of an extended optional infinitive grammar: Evidence from English-speaking children with specific language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 943–961.Google Scholar
Riches, N. G. (2012). Sentence repetition in children with specific language impairment: An investigation of underlying mechanisms. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 47, 499–510. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-6984.2012.00158.x.Google Scholar
Rispens, J. E., & De Bree, E. H. (2014). Past tense productivity in Dutch children with and without SLI: The role of morphophonology and frequency. Journal of Child Language, 41, 200–225. doi: 10.1017/S0305000912000542.Google Scholar
Rubin, H., Kantor, M., & Macnab, J. (1990). Grammatical awareness in the spoken and written language of langauge-disabled children. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 44, 483–500.Google Scholar
Sabisch, B., Hahne, C. A., Glass, E., von Suchodoletz, W., & Friederici, A. D. (2009). Children with specific language impairment: The role of prosodic processes in explaining difficulties in processing syntactic information. Brain Research, 1261, 37–44. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2009.01.012.Google Scholar
Semel, E. M., Wiig, E. H., & Secord, W. (2013). CELF-4, Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Swedish version. Stockholm: Pearson Assessment.Google Scholar
Smith-Lock, K. M. (1995). Morphological usage and awareness in children with and without specific language impairment. Annals of Dyslexia, 45, 163–185.Google Scholar
Sokal, R. R., & Rohlf, F. J. (1981). Biometry: The principles and practice of statistics in biological reserach. San Fransisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Tan, Y., Martin, R. C., & Van Dyke, J. A. (2017). Semantic and syntactic interference in sentence comprehension: A comparison of working memory models. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1–19. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00198.Google Scholar
Tong, X., Deacon, S. H., & Cain, K. (2014). Morphological and syntactic awareness in poor comprehenders: Another piece of the puzzle. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 47, 22–33. doi: 10.1177/0022219413509971.Google Scholar
Van Dyke, J. A., & Johns, C. L. (2012). Memory interference as determinant of language comprehension. Language and Linguistics Compass, 6, 193–211.Google Scholar
Van Dyke, J. A., Johns, C. L., & Kukona, A. (2014). Low working memory capacity is only spuriously related to poor reading comprehension. Cognition, 131, 373–403. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.01.007.Google Scholar
van Kleeck, A. (1994). Metalinguistic development. In G. P. Wallach & K. G. Butler (Eds.), Language learning disabilities in school-age children (pp. 53–98). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Wulfeck, B., Bates, E. A., Krupa-Wiatkowski, M., & Saltzman, D. (2004). Grammaticality sensitivity in children with early focal brain injury and children with specific language impairment. Brain and Language, 88, 215–228. doi: 10.1016/s0093-934×(03)00100-7.Google Scholar