Cover not available
Part of
Syntactic Priming in Language Acquisition: Representations, mechanisms and applications
Edited by Katherine Messenger
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 31] 2022
► pp. 15–34

Chapter 2
Syntactic priming and child language competence

A critical review and methodological considerations for future research

| University of Texas at El Paso

Theories of language development differ on how the development of syntax and its mapping to semantics are conceived. An important question in child language research is about the nature and scope of children’s syntactic representations and how they develop over time. In the last sixteen years, there has been a growth in research on syntactic priming in children, testing the abstractness and development of the sentence representations of young and older children to address theories of language acquisition. In the present paper, I review existing research using the syntactic priming technique with children. As the number of researchers employing this experimental technique continues to grow, I highlight the importance to focus on understudied languages, expand the research to a wider range of syntactic structures, uncover the role of individual differences and adopt structural priming in more naturalistic settings, to elucidate further the mechanisms underlying language acquisition and development.

Keywords: syntactic development, syntax-semantics mapping, typically developing children, early syntactic representations, implicit learning, individual differences
Article outline
  • What is structural priming?
  • Theoretical contributions of structural priming in child language acquisition: The nature of early syntactic representations
  • Other theoretical contributions
  • Comprehension vs. production priming
  • Structural priming as implicit learning and the lexical boost
  • Structural priming and individual differences
  • Conclusions and future directions
  • References
Published online: 29 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.31.02con
References
Ambridge, B.
(2020) Against stored abstractions: A radical exemplar model of language acquisition. First Language. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arai, M., van Gompel, R. P. G., Scheepers, C.
(2007) Priming ditransitive structures in comprehension. Cognitive Psychology, 54(3), 218–250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Belletti, A.
(2017) Internal grammar and children’s grammatical creativity against poor inputs. Frontiers, 8, 2074. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bencini, G. M. L., & Valian, V. V.
(2008) Abstract sentence representations in 3-year-olds: Evidence from language production and comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 97–113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, R.
(2014) Cross-linguistic comparisons in child language research. Journal of Child Language, 41(S1), 26–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bock, J. K.
(1986) Syntactic persistence in language production. Cognitive Psychology, 18(3), 355–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1989) Closed-class immanence in sentence production. Cognition, 31, 163–186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bock, K., & Griffin, Z. M.
(2000) The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129(2), 177–192. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brandt, S., Nitschke, S., & Kidd, E.
(2017) Priming the comprehension of German object relative clauses. Language Learning and Development, 13(3), 241–261. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H. P.
(2007) Syntactic priming. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., & Cleland, A. A.
(1999) Syntactic priming in written production: Evidence for rapid decay. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 6, 635–640. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2000) Syntactic co-ordination in dialogue. Cognition, 75, 13–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H. P., McLean, J., & Jones, M.
(2005) A blue cat or a cat that is blue? Evidence for abstract syntax in young children’s noun phrases. In A. Brugos, M. Clark-Cotton, & S. Ha (Eds.), BUCLD29: The proceedings of the twenty-ninth annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (pp. 109–121). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Branigan, H. P., & Messenger, K.
(2016) Consistent and cumulative effects of syntactic experience in children’s sentence production: Evidence for error-based implicit learning. Cognition, 157, 250–256. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H. P., & McLean, J. F.
(2016) What children learn from adults’ utterances: An ephemeral lexical boost and persistent syntactic priming in adult–child dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language, 91, 141–157. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H. P., Tosi, A., & Gillespie-Smith, K.
(2016) Spontaneous lexical alignment in children with an autistic spectrum disorder and their typically developing peers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42(11), 1821–1831. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branigan, H. P., & Pickering, M. J.
(2017) An experimental approach to linguistic representation. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, Article e282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Campbell, A. L., & Tomasello, M.
(2001) The acquisition of English dative constructions. Applied Psycholinguistics, 22(2), 253–267. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chang, F., Dell, G., & Bock, J. K.
(2006) Becoming syntactic. Psychological Review, 113, 234–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Contemori, C., & Belletti, A.
(2014) Relatives and passive object relatives in Italian speaking children and adults: Intervention in production and comprehension. Applied Psycholinguistics, 35(6), 1021–1053. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Conwell, E., & Demuth, K.
(2007) Early syntactic productivity: Evidence from dative shift. Cognition, 103(2), 163–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Contemori, C., Mossman, S., & Ramos, A. K.
(2022) Acquiring L2 pronoun interpretation biases: implicit learning at the discourse-level in L2 English. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 44(1), 210–227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fisher, C.
(2002) The role of abstract syntactic knowledge in language acquisition: A reply to Tomasello. Cognition, 82, 259–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foltz, A., Knopf, K., Jonas, K., Jaecks, P., & Stenneken, P.
(2020) Evidence for robust abstract syntactic representations in production before age three. First Language, 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fox, D., & Grodzinsky, Y.
(1998) Children’s passive: A view from the by-phrase. Linguistic Inquiry, 29, 311–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gámez, P. B., & Vasilyeva, M.
(2015) Increasing second language learners’ production and comprehension of developmentally-advanced syntactic forms. Language Learning & Development, 11(2), 128–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garraffa, M., Coco, M. I., & Branigan, H. P.
(2015) Effects of immediate and cumulative syntactic experience in language impairment: Evidence from priming of subject relatives in children with SLI. Language Learning & Development, 11(1), 18–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garrod, S., & Pickering, M. J.
(2004) Why is conversation so easy? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(1), 8–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A.
(2006) Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goldwater, M. B., Tomlinson, M. T., Echols, C. H. & Love, B. C.
(2011) Structural priming as structure-mapping: Children use analogies from previous utterances to guide sentence production. Cognitive Science, 35, 156–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gries, S. T., & Kootstra, G. J.
(2017) Structural priming within and across languages: A corpus-based perspective. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20(2), 235–250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hartsuiker, R. J., Bernolet, S., Schoonbaert, S., Speybroeck, S., & Vanderelst, D.
(2008) Syntactic priming persists while the lexical boost decays: Evidence from written and spoken dialogue. Journal of Memory and Language, 58(2), 214–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hesketh, A., Serratrice, L., & Ashworth, R.
(2016) Encouraging use of subordination in children’s narratives: A classroom-based priming study. Language Learning and Development, 12(4), 413–428. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huttenlocher, J., Vasilyeva, M., & Shimpi, P.
(2004) Syntactic priming in young children. Journal of Memory and Language, 50, 182–195. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaeger, T. F., & Snider, N. E.
(2013) Alignment as a consequence of expectation adaptation: Syntactic priming is affected by the prime’s prediction error given both prior and recent experience. Cognition, 127(1), 57–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kidd, E.
(2012a) Implicit statistical learning is directly associated with the acquisition of syntax. Developmental Psychology, 48(1), 171–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012b) Individual differences in syntactic priming in language acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 33(2), 393–418. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Manetti, C., & Belletti, A.
(2015) Causatives and the acquisition of the Italian passive. In C. Hamann & E. Ruigendijk (Eds.), Language acquisition and development. Proceedings of GALA 2013 (pp. 282–298). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Manetti, C., & Contemori, C.
(2019) The production of object relative clauses in Italian-speaking children: A syntactic priming study. In M. M. Brown & B. Daily (Eds.), BUCLD43: The proceedings of the forty-third annual Boston University Conference on Language Development (Vol. 2, pp. 391–403). Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Maratsos, M., Fox, D. E., Becker, J. A., & Chalkley, M. A.
(1985) Semantic restrictions on children’s passives. Cognition, 19(2), 167–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Messenger, K., Branigan, H. P., & McLean, J. F.
(2011) Evidence for (shared) abstract structure underlying children’s short and full passives. Cognition, 121(2), 268–274. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2012a) Is children’s acquisition of the passive a staged process? Evidence from six- and nine-year-olds’ production of passives. Journal of Child Language, 39, 991–1016. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Messenger, K., Branigan, H. P., McLean, J. F., & Sorace, A.
(2012b) Is young children’s passive syntax semantically constrained? Evidence from syntactic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 66, 568–587. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Messenger, K., & Fisher, C.
(2018) Mistakes weren’t made: Three-year-olds’ comprehension of novel-verb passives provides evidence for early abstract syntax. Cognition, 178, 118–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peter, M., Chang, F., Pine, J. M., Blything, R., & Rowland, C. F.
(2015) When and how do children develop knowledge of verb argument structure? Evidence from verb bias effects in a structural priming task. Journal of Memory and Language, 81, 1–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pickering, M. J. & Branigan, H. P.
(1999) Syntactic priming in language production. Trends in Cognitive Science, 3(4). 136–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pickering, M. J., Branigan, H. P.
(2019) Introduction. Special issue on Structural priming in less-studied languages and dialects. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science, 3, 1–4. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pickering, M. J., & Ferreira, V. S.
(2008) Structural priming: A critical review. Psychological Bulletin, 134(3), 427–459. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S.
(2004) Toward a mechanistic psychology of dialogue. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 2, 169–226. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinker, S.
(1989) Learnability and cognition: The acquisition of argument structure. The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Reitter, D., Keller, F., Moore, J. D.
(2011) A computational cognitive model of syntactic priming. Cognitive Science, 35(4), 587–637. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rowland, C. F., Chang, F., Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M., & Lieven, E. V. M.
(2012) The development of abstract syntax: Evidence from structural priming and the lexical boost. Cognition, 125, 49–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Savage, C., Lieven, E., Theakston, A., & Tomasello, M.
(2003) Testing the abstractness of children’s linguistics representations: Lexical and structural priming of syntactic constructions in young children. Developmental Science, 6, 557–567. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006) Structural priming as implicit learning in language acquisition: The persistence of lexical and structural priming in 4-year-olds. Language Learning and Development, 2(1), 27–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Serratrice, L., Hesketh, A., & Ashworth, R.
(2015) The use of reported speech in children’s narratives: A priming study. First Language, 35(1), 68–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shimpi, P., Gamez, P., Huttenlocher, J., & Vasilyeva, M.
(2007) Syntactic priming in 3- and 4-year-old children: Evidence for abstract representations of transitive and dative forms. Developmental Psychology, 43, 1334–1346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Song, H., & Fisher, C.
(2004) Structural priming in three-year-old children. Paper presented at the 29th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
Thothathiri, M., & Snedeker, J.
(2008a) Syntactic priming during language comprehension in three- and four-year-old children. Journal of Memory and Language, 58, 188–213. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2008b) Give and take: Syntactic priming during spoken language comprehension. Cognition, 108(1), 51–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M.
(1992) The social bases of language acquisition. Social Development, 1(1), 67–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tooley, K. M., & Traxler, M. J.
(2010) Syntactic priming effects in comprehension: A critical review. Language and Linguistics Compass, 4(10), 925–937. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2018) Implicit learning of structure occurs in parallel with lexically-mediated syntactic priming effects in sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 98, 59–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tooley, K. M., & Bock, K.
(2014) On the parity of structural persistence in language production and comprehension. Cognition, 132, 101–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tooley, K. M.
(2020) Contrasting mechanistic accounts of the lexical boost. Memory & Cognition, 48(5), 815–838. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Travis, C., Torres Cacoullos, R., & Kidd, E.
(2017) Cross-language priming: A view from bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 20(2), 283–298. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vasilyeva, M., Huttenlocher, J., & Waterfall, H.
(2006) Effects of language intervention on syntactic skill levels in preschoolers. Developmental Psychology, 42(1), 164–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vasilyeva, M., & Waterfall, H.
(2012) Beyond syntactic priming: Evidence for activation of alternative syntactic structures. Journal of Child Language, 39(2), 258–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Viau, J., Lidz, J. & Musolino, J.
(2010) Priming of abstract logical representations in 4-year-olds. Language Acquisition, 17, 26–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Volpato, F., Verin, L., & Cardinaletti, A.
(2016) The comprehension and production of verbal passives by Italian preschool-age children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(4), 901–931. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ziegler, J., Bencini, G., Goldenberg, A., & Snedeker, J.
(2019) How abstract is syntax? Evidence from structural priming. Cognition, 193, 104045. DOI logoGoogle Scholar