23-MONTH-OLD CHILDREN HAVE A GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF NOUN

This study investigated experimentally the nature and development of c hildren's early productivity with nouns, both in verb-argument structu re and with plural morphology. Eight 20- to 26-month-old boys and girl s were, in the context of playing a game over a several week period, e xposed to four novel nouns, modeled in experimentally controlled ways. The question was whether, when, and in what ways the children would b ecome productive with these nouns in their spontaneous speech, going b eyond the particular linguistic forms they had heard. In terms of verb -argument structure, 7 of the 8 children used their nouns in productiv e argument roles, that is, in semantic roles they had not heard them u sed in. Five of the 8 children used the plural morpheme productively w ith the novel nouns as well. Implications for theories of grammatical category formation are discussed.