The acquisition of Hebrew idioms: Stages, internal composition, and implications for storage

What it is about

The study tests 90 Hebrew-speaking children in each of grades 1 to 3 (30 per grade for each experiment) on 20 Hebrew verb-phrase idioms. The idioms cross two factors: whether the idiom has an open slot (an obligatory, non-idiomatic constituent) or is fully fixed, and whether it is decomposable (each part maps onto a part of a literal paraphrase) or not. In comprehension, a three-choice task in short stories, only age mattered: grade means were 47.5%, 70% and 90.6%, against a chance level of one third. In production, a completion task that omits one content word, the non-decomposable idioms did better than the decomposable ones in every grade (first grade 15.6% against 1.6%; second grade 25% against 3.3%; third grade 50.3% against 31%). The open slot interacted with the factor: it helped non-decomposable idioms in grades two and three, and in grade three it hurt decomposable ones (38% for full idioms against 26% for open-slot ones). The authors propose that children store non-decomposable idioms as independent units, while adults store all idioms as subentries of their head verb. Children, they argue, retrieve whole units more easily than they compose phrases.

Ideas

• I1. Two storage modes for the idiom base: non-decomposable idioms as whole-phrase entries matched on the surface sequence, and decomposable ones as subentries of the verb, matched by composing the parts. A matcher could try the whole-phrase match first. Test: the 20 items of the paper, in both conditions, must return the idiom under the right mode.
• I2. Open-slot entries as patterns with a dependency slot: "show X the door" is a verb with an object slot that any filler can occupy, not a fixed string. The pattern must match with a filler, and must not match when the slot is missing.
• I3. Measure recognition and completion separately. Given the phrase, which meaning? Given the meaning, which word is missing? The completion design, with one content word left out and a story giving the meaning, is a ready test for the idiom matcher in the other direction.

For Mova

I1 and I2 belong to the idiom base in prag (the expressions and domains work), with the Hebrew entries noted in 8. Lexicon and register. I3 is a test protocol for prag, using the paper's 20 items as a seed.

Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.5334/gjgl.542

@article{fadlon2018acquisition,
  title = {{The acquisition of Hebrew idioms: Stages, internal composition, and implications for storage}},
  author = {Fadlon, Julie and Horvath, Julia and Siloni, Tal and Wexler, Kenneth},
  journal = {Glossa: a journal of general linguistics},
  year = {2018},
  doi = {10.5334/gjgl.542},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.542}
}

References

41 references, 1 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

1. Ackerman, Brian P. 1982. On comprehending idioms: Do children get the picture? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 33(3). 439–454. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0965(82)90058-3 ↗
2. Arnon, Inbal. 2010. Starting big – The role of multi-word phrases in language learning and use. Stanford, CA: Stanford University dissertation. find
3. Arnon, Inbal. 2011. Units of learning in language acquisition. In Inbal Arnon & Eve V. Clark (eds.), Experience, variation and generalization: Learning a first language (Trends in Language Acquisition Research Series), 167–178. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.7.10arn ↗
4. Baker, Mark, Kyle Johnson & Ian Roberts. 1989. Passive arguments raised. Linguistic Inquiry 20(2). 219–251. find
5. Bannard, Colin & Danielle Matthews. 2008. Stored word sequences in language learning: The effect of familiarity on children’s repetition of four-word combinations. Psychological Science 19(3). 241–248. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02075.x ↗
6. Bargmann, Sascha & Manfred Sailer. 2015. The syntactic flexibility of non-decomposable idioms. In Posters presented at the PARSEME 4th general meeting, 19–20. find
7. Bonin, Patrick, Alain Méot & Aurelia Bugaiska. 2013. Norms and comprehension times for 305 French idiomatic expressions. Behavior Research Methods 45(4). 1259–1271. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-013-0331-4 ↗
8. Brysbaert, Marc & Michael J. Cortese. 2010. Do the effects of subjective frequency and age of acquisition survive better word frequency norms? The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 64(3). 545–559. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2010.503374 ↗
9. Cacciari, Cristina & Maria C. Levorato. 1989. How children understand idioms in discourse. Journal of Child Language 16(2). 387–405. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0305000900010473 Caillies, Stéphanie & Sandrine Le Sourn-Bissaoui. 2006. Idiom comprehension in French children: A cock-and-bull story. European Journal of Developmental Psychology 3(2). 189–206. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17405620500412325 ↗
10. Cain, Kate, Andrea S. Towse & Rachael S. Knight. 2008. The development of idiom comprehension: An investigation of semantic and contextual processing skills. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 102(3). 280–298. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j. jecp.2008.08.001 Clark, Eve V. & Barbara F. Hecht. 1983. Comprehension, production, and language acquisition. Annual Review of Psychology 34(1). 325–349. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/ annurev.ps.34.020183.001545 Collins, Chris. 2005. A smuggling approach to the passive in English. Syntax 8(2). 81–120. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9612.2005.00076.x ↗
11. Dubinsky, Stanley & Silvester R. Simango. 1996. Passive and stative in Chichewa: Evidence for modular distinctions in grammar. Language 72(4). 749–781. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.2307/416101 ↗
12. Everaert, Martin. 2010. The lexical encoding of idioms. In Malka Rappaport-Hovav, Edit Doron & Ivy Sichel (eds.), Lexical semantics, syntax, and event structure, 76–98. Oxford: OUP. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544325.003.0005 ↗
13. Fadlon, Julie, Julia Horvath & Tal Siloni. 2014. Decomposability and idiom retrieval: An experimental study. Ms. Tel Aviv University. Fadlon, Julie, Julia Horvath, Tal Siloni & Kenneth Wexler. To appear. Idiom storage and the verbal passive: No unique phrasal idioms. Language Science Press. find
14. Gibbs, Raymond W. 1987. Linguistic factors in children’s understanding of idioms. Journal of Child Language 14(3). 569–586. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900010291 ↗
15. Gibbs, Raymond W. 1991. Semantic analyzability in children’s understanding of idioms. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 34(3). 613–620. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/jshr.3403.613 Gibbs, Raymond W., Nandini P. Nayak & Cooper Cutting. 1989. How to kick the bucket and not decompose: Analyzability and idiom processing. Journal of Memory and L anguage 28(5). 576–593. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-596X(89)90014-4 ↗
16. Horvath, Julia & Tal Siloni. 2008. Active lexicon: Adjectival and verbal passives. In Sharon Armon-Lotem, Gabi Danon & Susan D. Rothstein (eds.), Current issues in generative hebrew linguistics, 105–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. find
17. Horvath, Julia & Tal Siloni. 2009. Hebrew idioms: The organization of the lexical component. Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 1(1). 283–310. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.1163/187666309X12491131130666 Horvath, Julia & Tal Siloni. 2016. Idioms: The type-sensitive storage model. Submitted. ↗
18. Laval, Virginie. 2003. Idiom comprehension and metapragmatic knowledge in French children. Journal of Pragmatics 35(5). 723–739. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(02)00137-6 ↗
19. Levorato, Maria C., Barbara Nesi & Cristina Cacciari. 2004. Reading comprehension and understanding idiomatic expressions: A developmental study. Brain and Language 91(3). 303–314. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2004.04.002 ↗
20. Levorato, Maria C. & Cristina Cacciari. 1992. Children’s comprehension and production of idioms: The role of context and familiarity. Journal of Child Language 19(2). 415–433. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900011478 ↗
21. Levorato, Maria C. & Cristina Cacciari. 1995. The effects of different tasks on the comprehension and production of idioms in children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 60(2). 261–283. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1006/jecp.1995.1041 ↗
22. Levorato, Maria C. & Cristina Cacciari. 1999. Idiom comprehension in children: Are the effects of semantic analysability and context separable? European Journal of Cognitive Psychology 11(1). 51–66. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/713752299 ↗
23. Libben, Maya R. & Debra A. Titone. 2008. The multidetermined nature of idiom processing. Memory & Cognition 36. 1103–1121. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/MC.36.6.1103 ↗
24. Marantz, Alec. 1997. No escape from syntax: Don’t try morphological analysis in the privacy of your own lexicon. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 4(2). 14–25. find
25. Meltzer-Asscher, Aya. 2012. Verbal passives in English and Hebrew: A comparative study. In Martin Everaert, Marijana Marelj & Tal Siloni (eds.), The Theta System: Argument structure at the interface, 279–307. Oxford: OUP. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof: oso/9780199602513.003.0011 Mishani-Uval, Yael & Tal Siloni. 2016. Ditransitive Idioms in Hebrew. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 35(3). 715–749. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-016-9354-8 ↗
26. Nippold, Marilyn A. & Catherine L. Taylor. 1995. Idiom understanding in youth: Further examination of familiarity and transparency. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 38(2). 426–433. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/jshr.3802.426 ↗
27. Nippold, Marilyn A. & Catherine L. Taylor. 2002. Judgments of idiom familiarity and transparency: A comparison of children and adolescents. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 45(2). 384–391. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2002/030) ↗
28. Nippold, Marilyn A. & Mishelle Rudzinski. 1993. Familiarity and transparency in idiom explanation: A developmental study of children and adolescents. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 36(4). 728–737. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/ jshr.3604.728 Nippold, Marilyn A. & Stephanie T. Martin. 1989. Idiom interpretation in isolation versus context: A developmental study with adolescents. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 32(1). 59–66. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/jshr.3201.59 ↗
29. Nordmann, Emily & Antonia A. Jambazova. 2017. Normative data for idiomatic expressions. Behavior Research Methods 49(1). 198–215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/ s13428-016-0705-5 Nunberg, Geoffrey, Ivan A. Sag & Thomas Wasow. 1994. Idioms. Language. 491–538. ↗
30. Riehemann, Susanne Z. A. 2001. A constructional approach to idioms and word formation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University dissertation. find
31. Ruwet, Nicolas. 1991. Syntax and human experience. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. find
32. Schenk, Andre. 1995. The syntactic behavior of idioms. In Martin Everaert, Erik-Jan van der Linden, Andre Schenk & Rob Schreuder (eds.), Idioms: Structural and psychological perspectives, 253–272. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. find
33. Titone, Debra A. & Cynthia M. Connine. 1994. Comprehension of idiomatic expressions: Effects of predictability and literality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20(5). 1126–1138. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.20.5.1126 ↗
34. Tomasello, Michael. 2003. Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. van de Voort, Marlies E. & Wietske Vonk. 1994. You don’t die immediately when you kick an empty bucket: A processing view on semantic and syntactic characteristics of idioms. In Martin Everaert, Erik-Jan van der Linden, Andre Schenk & Rob Schreuder (eds.), Idioms: Structural and psychological perspectives, 283–300. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. find
35. Vosniadou, Stella. 1987. Children and metaphors. Child Development 58(3). 870–885. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1130223 ↗
36. Webelhuth, Gert & Farrell Ackerman. 1999. A lexical-functional analysis of predicate topicalization in German. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 11(1). 1–61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1040820700002456 Winner, Ellen. 1988. The point of words: Children’s understanding of metaphor and irony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ↗
37. Wulff, Stefanie. 2010. Marrying cognitive-linguistic theory and corpus-based methods: On the compositionality of English V NP-idioms. In Dylan Glynn & Kerstin Fischer (eds.), Quantitative methods in cognitive semantics: Corpus-driven approaches, 223–238. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. find
38. How to cite this article: Fadlon, Julie, Julia Horvath, Tal Siloni and Kenneth Wexler. 2018. The acquisition of Hebrew idioms: Stages, internal composition, and implications for storage. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3(1): 99. 1–25, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.542 ↗ our card
39. Submitted: 08 October 2017 find
40. Published: 11 September 2018 find
41. Copyright: © 2018 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by Ubiquity Press. OPEN ACCESS ↗

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/lingbulk-2018-fadlon-acquisition-hebrew-idioms-stages-internal/