TY - JOUR
T1 - Uncovering knowledge of core syntactic and semantic principles in individuals with Williams Syndrome
AU - Musolino, Julien
AU - Chunyo, Gitana
AU - Landau, Barbara
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by grants from the March of Dimes Foundation (# 04–46), and NINDS R01 NS 050876 to Barbara Landau and by grant NSF BCS # 0545067 to Julien Musolino. Correspondence should be addressed to Julien Musolino, Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854. E-mail: julienm@ruccs.rutgers.edu
PY - 2010/4
Y1 - 2010/4
N2 - We investigate knowledge of core syntactic and semantic principles in individuals with Williams Syndrome (WS). Our study focuses on the logico-syntactic properties of negation and disjunction (or) and tests knowledge of (a) core syntactic relations (scope and c-command), (b) core semantic relations (entailment relations and DeMorgan's laws of propositional logic), and (c) the relationship between (a) and (b). We examine the performance of individuals with WS, children matched for mental age (MA), and typical adult native speakers of English. Performance on all conditions suggests that knowledge of (a-c) is present and engaged in all three groups. Results also indicate slightly depressed performance on (c) for the WS group, compared to MA, consistent with limitation in processing resources. Implications of these results for competing accounts of language development in WS, as well as for the relevance of WS to the study of cognitive architecture and development are discussed.
AB - We investigate knowledge of core syntactic and semantic principles in individuals with Williams Syndrome (WS). Our study focuses on the logico-syntactic properties of negation and disjunction (or) and tests knowledge of (a) core syntactic relations (scope and c-command), (b) core semantic relations (entailment relations and DeMorgan's laws of propositional logic), and (c) the relationship between (a) and (b). We examine the performance of individuals with WS, children matched for mental age (MA), and typical adult native speakers of English. Performance on all conditions suggests that knowledge of (a-c) is present and engaged in all three groups. Results also indicate slightly depressed performance on (c) for the WS group, compared to MA, consistent with limitation in processing resources. Implications of these results for competing accounts of language development in WS, as well as for the relevance of WS to the study of cognitive architecture and development are discussed.
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U2 - 10.1080/15475440903507772
DO - 10.1080/15475440903507772
M3 - Article
C2 - 21866219
AN - SCOPUS:79952895968
SN - 1547-5441
VL - 6
SP - 126
EP - 161
JO - Language Learning and Development
JF - Language Learning and Development
IS - 2
ER -