Growth in syntactic complexity between 4 years and adulthood: evidence from a narrative task

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dc.contributor.authorFrizelle, Pauline
dc.contributor.authorThompson, Paul A.
dc.contributor.authorMcDonald, David
dc.contributor.authorBishop, Dorothy V. M.
dc.date.accessioned2017-10-18T09:40:12Z
dc.date.available2017-10-18T09:40:12Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.description.abstractStudies examining productive syntax have used varying elicitation methods and have tended to focus on either young children or adolescents/adults, so we lack an account of syntactic development throughout middle childhood. We describe here the results of an analysis of clause complexity in narratives produced by 354 speakers aged from 4 years to adulthood using the Expressive, Receptive and Recall of Narrative Instrument (ERRNI). We show that the number of clauses per utterance increased steadily through this age range. However the distribution of clause types depended on which of two stories was narrated, even though both stories were designed to have a similar story structure. In addition, clausal complexity was remarkably similar regardless of whether the speaker described a narrative from pictures, or whether the same narrative was recalled from memory. Finally, our findings with the youngest children showed that the task of generating a narrative from pictures may underestimate syntactic competence in those aged below 5 years.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationFrizelle, P., Thompson, P. A., McDonald, D. and Bishop, D. V. M. (2017) 'Growth in syntactic complexity between 4 years and adulthood: evidence from a narrative task', Journal of Child Language, 45(5), pp. 1174-1197. doi: 10.1017/S0305000918000144en
dc.identifier.doi10.1017/S0305000918000144
dc.identifier.endpage1197
dc.identifier.issn0305-0009
dc.identifier.issn1469-7602
dc.identifier.issued5
dc.identifier.startpage1174
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/4877
dc.identifier.volume45
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherCambridge University Pressen
dc.relation.urihttps://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/b2k5u
dc.rights© 2018, Cambridge University Press. This article has been published in a revised form in Journal of Child Language: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000918000144. This accepted version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use.en
dc.subjectSyntaxen
dc.subjectClauseen
dc.subjectLanguageen
dc.subjectDevelopmenten
dc.subjectNarrativeen
dc.titleGrowth in syntactic complexity between 4 years and adulthood: evidence from a narrative tasken
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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