[language] Babies grasp grammar early on

[H.M. Hubey]

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Babies grasp grammar early on

By Anne Harding

BOSTON, Feb 19 (Reuters Health) - Babies as young as 14 months of age
are
starting to grasp grammatical concepts, according to new research
presented
here Sunday at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science's
annual
meeting.

Infants of this age are beginning to understand that different types of
words--specifically, nouns and adjectives--highlight different types of
relationships among objects, Dr. Sandra R. Waxman of Northwestern
University in
Evanston, Illinois, explained. She presented her research during a
symposium on
how infants learn words.

By the time children are two-and-a-half to three years old, Waxman said,
they
have figured out how to map different words to objects, and that
different
types of words can apply to the same object. She set out to find out how
"babies gain a toehold" on this understanding.

What she found surprised her. "I have to say I was pretty shocked," she
said.
The findings were published this year in the journal Cognition.

Full text
http://www.4woman.org/nwhic/News/2002/02feb20-3.htm

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