{"pk":28803,"title":"Do learners’ word order preferences reflect hierarchical language structure?","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Previous research has argued that learners infer word order pat-terns when learning a new language based on knowledge aboutunderlying structure, rather than linear order (Culbertson &Adger, 2014). Specifically, learners prefer typologically com-mon noun phrase word order patterns that transparently reflecthow elements like nouns, adjectives, numerals, and demon-stratives combine hierarchically. We test whether this resultstill holds after removing a potentially confounding strategypresent in the original study design. We find that when learn-ers are taught a naturalistic “foreign” language, a clear prefer-ence for noun phrase word order is replicated but for a subsetof modifier types originally tested. Specifically, participantspreferred noun phrases with the order N-Adj-Dem (as in “mugred this”) over the order N-Dem-Adj (as in “mug this red”).However, they showed no preference between orders N-Adj-Num (as in “mugs red two”) and N-Num-Adj (as in “mugstwo red”). We interpret this sensitivity as potentially reflectingan asymmetry among modifier types in the underlying hierar-chical structure.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"language; learning; syntax; typology"}],"section":"Papers with Poster Presentations","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6dt0b9fn","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Alexander","middle_name":"","last_name":"Martin","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Edinburgh","department":""},{"first_name":"Klaus","middle_name":"","last_name":"Abels","name_suffix":"","institution":"University College London","department":""},{"first_name":"David","middle_name":"","last_name":"Adger","name_suffix":"","institution":"Queen Mary University of London","department":""},{"first_name":"Jennifer","middle_name":"","last_name":"Culbertson","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Edinburgh","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2019-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/28803/galley/18674/download/"}]}