Use of Speaker's Gaze and Syntax in Verb Learning

• Published in: Language learning and development Vol. 5; no. 4; pp. 203 - 234
• Main Authors: Nappa, Rebecca, Wessel, Allison, McEldoon, Katherine L., Gleitman, Lila R., Trueswell, John C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Taylor & Francis Group 01.01.2009; Psychology Press
• Subjects: Children & youth; Information; Learning; Nouns; Syntax; Test Items; Verbs

Speaker eye gaze and gesture are known to help child and adult listeners establish communicative alignment and learn object labels. Here we consider how learners use these cues, along with linguistic information, to acquire abstract relational verbs. Test items were perspective verb pairs (e.g., cha...