Spatial complexity in children's language

The purpose of this research was to explore the properties of locative scen es which influence the sequence of the acquisition of spatial prepositions in English. Children ranging in age from about 2;8 to 5;6 were tested with a comprehension test involving a sentence-picture matching task. The compre hension test contained six kinds of spatial contrasts which were judged to vary in the geometric complexity of the scene. The order of acquisition was as follows: (1) into/out of & onto/off of,(2) in /on, (3) into/onto & out of/off of and through/over (around), (4) between X & Y/Y & Z, and (5) acros s/along. Complexity depends on a number of factors such as the number of re ferent objects and the nature of the relationship between the object to be located and the critical feature of the referent object. Prepositions which involve a more complex spatial geometry are more difficult for young child ren to comprehend. It was argued that the sequence of acquisition is partia lly determined by the course of conceptual development.