Deep Structure in the Noun-Pair Learning of Children and Adults

Children learn noun pairs more readily when they are presented in a noun-verb-noun (NVN) sequence than in a noun-conjunction-noun (NCN) sequence. This effect of connective form class holds even when such sequences are constituents of more complex sentences: Noun-verb-noun-conjunction-pronoun versus noun-conjunction-noun-verb-pronoun (NVNCP vs. NCNVP). The purpose of the present study was to replicate the latter phenomenon with children, while controlling for the sentence position of the conjunctions (compound subject vs. compound object) and to assess its generality to college students. For children, the relative superiority of NVN sequences survived replication in all conditions; for college Ss, the effect appeared in none of the conditions. Conjunction position was irrelevant in both samples.