Rachel Schiff Bar-Ilan University, Israel Dorit Ravid Tel Aviv University, Israel

1. White elephants vs. white walls: Conflicting cues in learning to mark plural adjectives in Hebrew Rachel SchiffBar-Ilan University, IsraelDorit RavidTel Aviv University, Israel

2. Aims • To examine lexical and morphological development in Hebrew-speaking children from two SES backgrounds

3. Or How to produce white elephants?

4. Noun-Adjective agreement in the Hebrew noun phrase pil lavan elephant white pila levana elephant,Fm white,Fm Adjectives agree with nouns in gender and number

5. Noun-Adjective agreement in the Hebrew noun phrase pilim levanim elephants white,Pl pilot levanot elephants,Fm white,Pl,Fm Adjectives agree with nouns in gender and number

6. Task • Given a singular noun phrase consisting of a noun and an adjective, produce the plural noun phrase, that is, the plural noun and the plural adjective • Oral, individual administration • Measures: Accuracy and Latency

7. 360 Participants • 180 children from middle-high SES • 180 children from low SES

8. SESBerliner, 2005; Chiu & McBride-Chang, 2006 • A multidimensional concept that captures family capital • Financial capital (monetary and material resources) • Human capital (educational and cultural resources) • Social capital (social connections linked with career and the like) • Problem with linguistic and other input?

10. First step: Noun pluralization • Plural suffixes on nouns follow singular noun phonology

11. Noun plurals: Feminine • Nouns ending in -a or -tare feminine, and take –otin plural pila pilot elephant,Fmelephants,Fm karit kariyot (throw) pillow,Fmpillows,Fm

12. Noun plurals: Masculine • Nouns ending in consonants (other than –t)are masculine, and take –imin plural pil pilim elephantelephants kar karim pillow pillows

13. Problem # 1Irregular plural suffixes masculine nouns • pil pilim elephantelephants, Masc However • kir kirot wall walls,Masc

14. Problem # 1Irregular plural suffixes feminine nouns • pila pilot elephant,Fmelephants,Fm However • beytsa beytsim egg,Fmeggs,Fm

15. Noun problem #1: Noun suffix • Prediction: irregular noun plural suffixes constitute (more of) a problem for younger children, and for children from low SES • Lexical (and morpho-phonological) knowledge Ravid, 1995; Ravid & Schiff in press, Linguistics; Ravid et al, in press

16. Noun stem • Stems may stay unchanged when inflected • tik  tikim bag bags • sira  sirot boat boats

17. Noun problem #2: Noun stem • But stems may also undergo change when inflected • ish anashim man men • simla smalot dress dresses

18. Combine problems #1 and #2 • Changing stems with irregular suffixes • lev levavot heart,maschearts • Masculine stem with feminine suffix • Changing stem

19. Task structure: 32 N-A pairs

20. Noun plurals in development: Accuracy The role of suffix regularity and stem change

21. Accuracy on noun plurals Gradeschool children from two SES High SES Low SES

22. Accuracy on noun plurals Gradeschool children from two SES • The same factors in the same order affect acquisition • However low SES children achieve lower scores, the difference between noun categories is larger, and the learning curve is slower • Indicating problems in lexical representation and organization

23. Problem #3: Plural adjective agreement pilimlevan-? elephants white

24. Problem #3: Plural adjective agreement pilimlevanim elephants white,Pl

25. Problem #3: Plural adjective agreement pilot levan-? elephants,Fm white

26. Problem #3: Plural adjective agreement pilot levanot elephants,Fm white,Pl,Fm

27. Plural adjective agreement • However, when noun suffix is irregular, there is a clash between surface noun phonology and inherent noun gender

28. Problem: Adjective agreement with irregular plural noun suffixes kirlavan‘white,Mascwall,Masc’ kirotlevan…??? walls white

29. Agreement with irregular noun pluralsPhonology or inherent gender? • Follow plural noun phonology kirotlevanot wallswhite,Pl,Fm This is wrong!

30. Agreement with irregular noun plurals Phonology or inherent gender? 2. Follow singular noun gender kirlavan‘white,Mascwall,Masc’ kirot levanim walls white,Pl Online processing abilities

31. Agreement with irregular noun plurals Phonology or inherent gender? • Follow plural noun phonology beytsimlevanim eggswhite,Pl This is wrong!

32. Agreement with irregular noun plurals Phonology or inherent gender? 2. Follow singular noun gender beytsa levana‘white,Fm egg,Fm’ beytsimlevanot eggswhite,Pl,Fm Online processing abilities

33. Problem #3: Plural adjective suffixas a function of suffix regularity and stem change • Clash between phonology and grammar will result in less accuracy and increased reaction time in producing plural adjective agreement • Especially in combination with changing stems • Most for younger children, and children from low SES

34. Accuracy on plural adjective agreement The role of noun suffix regularity and stem change

35. Accuracy on plural adjective agreement Gradeschool children from two SES High SES Low SES

36. Accuracy on plural adjective agreement Gradeschool children from two SES • The same factors in the same order affect acquisition • However low SES children achieve lower scores, the difference between categories of noun suffixes is larger • No progress on learning to mark adjective agreement to plural nouns with irregular suffixes • Problems with processing grammatical information?

37. Reaction time on forming a plural NP The role of noun suffix regularity and stem change

38. Gradeschoolchildren from two SESRT on plural NP formation Low SES High SES

39. Conclusions: Adjectives • Adjectives constitute a non-robust category in language acquisition and processing • Inflecting adjectives to agree with plural nouns requires the ability to overcome clash between grammatical knowledge and phonological awareness

40. Conclusions: Development • Noun plurals: Lexical and morphophonological knowledge • Suffix assignment • Stem change • Adjective agreement: generalization, processing A long developmental route, though inflection

41. Conclusions: SES • Our results point to differences in language processing abilities between children from different SES

42. תוספות רק אם צריך

43. Accuracy on noun pluralsDevelopmental pattern in K-adults mid-high SES

44. Accuracy on plural adjective agreementDevelopmental pattern in K-adults frommid-hi SES

45. Developmental pattern in K-adults RT on plural NP formation

46. Accuracy on noun plurals Gradeschool children,middle-hi SES

47. Accuracy on noun plurals Gradeschool children, low SES

48. Accuracy on plural adjective agreement Gradeschool children from middle-hi SES

49. Accuracy on plural adjective agreement Children from low SES

50. Gradeschool children from middle-hi SESRT on plural NP formation