Kinds of evidence

1
Kinds of evidence
Positive Evidence example utterances that occur
in the input Which model the grammatical
utterances in the language.
Negative Evidence correction and other behavior
on the part of the adult that explicitly tells
the child what is ungrammatical about their
utterance.
Indirect Negative Evidence utterances and other
behavior on the part of the adult that indirectly
tell the child that something about their
utterance is ungrammatical.
2
Example of Direct Negative Evidence (McNeill,
1966)
Child Nobody dont like me.
Mother No, say nobody likes me.
Child Nobody dont like me.
Eight repetitions of this dialogue follow
Mother No, now listen carefully, say NOBODY
LIKES ME
Child Oh! Nobody dont likes me.
3
Another Example of Direct Negative Evidence
(Braine, 1971)
Child Want other one spoon, Daddy.
Father You mean, you want THE OTHER SPOON.
Child Yes, I want other one spoon, please,
Daddy.
Father Can you say "the other spoon"?
Child Other ... one ... spoon.
Father Say ... "other".
Child Other.
Father "Spoon".
Child Spoon.
Father "Other ... Spoon".
Child Other ... spoon. Now give me other one
spoon?
4
Other kinds of evidence (Marcus, 1993)
Repetition (verbatim)
Child The ball fell down
Parent The ball fell down
Positive evidence ? only tells the child what is
grammatical
Recast (modification)
Child The ball falled down
Parent The ball fell down
Indirect Negative Evidence ? tells the child
something is ungrammatical
5
Topic Extension
Child The ball falled down
Parent Yes it did, and then what happened?
Incorrectly reinforces the childs error
Explicit approval
Child The ball falled down
Parent Yup.
Incorrectly reinforces the childs error
6
Clarification question
Child The ball falled down
Parent What was that?
Ambiguous, not very useful evidence.
Non sequiturs
Child The ball falled down
Parent ?...
Ambiguous, not very useful evidence.