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In:Syntactic Priming in Language Acquisition: Representations, mechanisms and applications
Edited by Katherine Messenger
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 31] 2022
► pp. 83–106

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Chapter 5
Sticking to what we know

Methodological limitations to generalizability

 | University of Toronto
Published online: 29 September 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.31.05atk
Abstract
The ultimate goal of research is to generate and test broad theories that account for a wide range of scenarios. Conclusions at this level, however, are only valid if they are based on heterogenous data. This chapter reviews the limitations in child syntactic priming methodologies that do not allow generalization. Specifically, the set of structures that has been examined is small and most studies have tested priming effects using production tasks. The chapter concludes with an experiment that addresses both of these issues by using a comprehension methodology to investigate the priming of children’s prepositional phrase attachment preferences.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Lack of structural variability
  • 3.Lack of comprehension priming studies
  • 4.Addressing both concerns: PP-attachment priming study
    • Participants
    • Materials
    • Procedure
    • Results
      • Control group
      • Experimental groups
    • Discussion
  • 5.Additional limitations
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (74)
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Tafuri, Michelle & Katherine Messenger
2025. Syntactic priming as implicit learning in German child language. Journal of Child Language 52:5 ► pp. 1129 ff. DOI logo

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