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Specifying event reference in verb learning

To identify the meaning of a verb, young language learners benefit from the linguistic context in which it appears. For example, verb argument structure (i.e., the structural relations between a verb and its arguments, and more specifically the NPs or DPs appearing with it) can be a powerful cue to meaning, even for very young children, allowing them to discern a verb’s broad semantic category (e.g., Arunachalam & Waxman, 2010; Arunachalam et al., 2013; Fisher, 1996, 2002; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 1996; Landau & Gleitman, 1988; Naigles, 1990; Naigles & Kako, 1993; Noble, Rowland, & Pine, 2011; Yuan & Fisher, 2009). In a now well-established paradigm, Naigles (1990) and Naigles & Kako (1993) presented children with novel verbs (e.g., gorp) in either a Transitive frame (e.g., John is gorping Mary), Intransitive frame (e.g., John and Mary are gorping), or a Frameless condition (Naigles & Kako only) (Look! Gorping!), accompanied by a scene in which two event participants simultaneously interacted with each other (for example, one forces the other to bend over), and also engaged in an individual event (each makes arm gestures). During the test phase, participants were presented with a forced choice between the two previously-conflated events: a scene representing a Causative event (participant 1 forcing participant 2 to bend over) and a Synchronous event (participant and participant 2 both making arm gestures), and asked to Find gorping! These studies demonstrated that the transitive frame exerts a special influence on children’s mapping of verb form to meaning – pulling children’s attention towards a causative scene – and more generally that young children use syntactic information to constrain verb meaning. This pattern in turn reveals that young children are aware of the semantics associated with syntactic structures: specifically, that the transitive frame corresponds to a causative scene, because the noun (or DP) preceding the verb in subject position should be mapped to an agentive role (the participant performing the causative action), and the noun