Psychologists at the University of Liverpool have found
that children as young as two years old have an understanding of complex
grammar even before they have learned to speak in full sentences.
Researchers at the University's Child Language Study Centre showed
children, aged two, sentences containing made-up verbs, such as 'the
rabbit is glorping the duck', and asked them to match the sentence with a
cartoon picture. They found that even the youngest two-year-old could
identify the correct image with the correct sentence, more often than
would be expected by chance.
The study suggests that infants know more about language structure
than they can actually articulate, and at a much earlier age than
previously thought. The work also shows that children may use the
structure of sentences to understand new words, which may help explain
the speed at which infants acquire speech.
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