Edited by Tania Ionin and Matthew Rispoli
[Language Acquisition and Language Disorders 63] 2019
► pp. 143–157
Japanese verbal compounds (V-V compounds) are known to consist of two verbs where a first verb in the preverbal form is adjoined to a second verb. Theoretical studies have demonstrated that there are two types of V-V compounds in Japanese: lexical and syntactic V-V compounds. Although the two classes of V-V compounds are superficially similar, they are notably distinct in many syntactic and semantic aspects and thus a question arises as to how children come to distinguish these two types of compounds. This study examines whether Japanese-speaking children aged 4–5 can differentiate the two types of Japanese V-V compounds. Our experiment revealed that there is a developmental stage in which children have acquired lexical V-V compounds but not syntactic ones.