syntax at 7 months

[Brian MacWhinney]

Here is an interesting AP press release from January 1:

*****

Headline:  Language learning starts in the crib, researchers find

Babies may not know a verb from a noun, but researchers have found that
even 7-month-olds can learn how sentences are organized, a discovery that
may lead to early diagnosis of infants with language disorders.

"Our study tells us that infants are constantly looking around the world
trying to find .. all kinds of patterns that describe that world"," said
Gary Marcus, a New York University psychologist.  "It shows that they are
very active learners even at seven months of age."

Marcus is lead author of a study appearing today in the journal Science.

In their study, the researchers created a series of three-word sentences
with specific word structures and then tested the infants to see if they
could recognize changes in the sentence structure.

The words, said Marcus, were actually an artificial language that conveyed
no meaning.  The study was to determine if the babies could recognize a
pattern inthe way the words were arranged.

Steven Pinker, a Massachusettts Insitute of Technology cognitive
researcher, said the study suggest that recognizing symbolic patterns or
rules of structure "may be a basic mechanism of the human brain."

Marcus and his co-authors, Pinker wrote, "Have now shown that ifnants as
young as 7 months can abstract simple rules form langauge-like sounds,
suggesting that rule formation is not a late add-on, but is there from the
start."

Earlier studies by a number of researchers, said Marcus, have shown that
babies are able to recognize the difference between a two-syllable word and
one with three syllables.

*********  End of article

Perhaps I need to read the Science article.  However, it would seem to me
at first glance that there is a fairly huge difference between tracking
patterns of syllable repetition in auditory memory and "understanding
sentences." If the claim is that babies have syntax at 7 months, that is
definitely real news.

--Brian MacWhinney