Structural Dependencies

Infants: Interpreting questions with heuristics

• Preferential looking (ongoing): 15-month-olds comprehend instrument questions (what did she break the stick with __?) before representing dependencies between the filler (what) and the gap ("__"). They link the gap to an unmentioned event participant (hammer). [abstract]

Figure 1. Stimuli of an event: A girl (played by Luisa Seguin) broke the stick with a hammer.

Figure 2. Proportion looking to instrument in Wh vs. Control condition across three time windows of interest (same Baseline audio: what happened?; Test1 audio: what did she break the stick with? for Wh, and did you see that? for Con; Test2 audio repeats Test1). (N=16)

Applying Dependencies

Toddlers: Verbs in object questions are transitive

• Violation of expectations: 20-month-olds treat an unknown verb (gorp) in an object question (What is the girl gonna gorp _?) as transitive when assessing their fit to events. [abstract]