User:Coffeekoala/neg evidence sandbox

copied from Negative evidence in language acquisition

Usage
Assuming that implicit direct negative evidence is usable, there are some studies which demonstrate that children do use implicit direct negative evidence to correct their grammatical mistakes. For example, experiments show that children produce a greater number of grammatical sentences when parents provide them with any type of immediate implicit direct negative evidence, including recasts. This evidence supports claims that direct negative evidence assists a child in their language learning. Chouinard also found that children are highly attentive to parental responses and that children respond to implicit correction in predictable ways. Children tend to directly respond to these reformulations by either affirming the reformulation or disagreeing with their parent if the parent misunderstood the child's intended meaning, revealing that children can discern when parental feedback is meant to correct their grammatical errors. Additionally, children have been shown correct their initial errors when a parent recasts a child's morphological error.

However, other researchers have conducted studies that demonstrate that children do not need negative feedback in order to learn language. This is evidenced in a case study in which a mute child was tested to see whether he could comprehend a grammar even though he had received no corrective feedback (since corrective feedback occurs as a response to ungrammatical sentences that children produce). Though the child did not produce any speech and therefore did not receive any negative feedback, researchers found that he was able to learn grammatical rules. Although this study does not answer whether negative evidence can be helpful for learning language, it does suggest that direct negative evidence is not needed to learn grammar. Another study also demonstrates that implicit negative evidence is a negative predictor of the rate at which children eliminated ungrammatical utterances from their speech.

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Let's rewrite these paragraphs to make them clearer and more evidence-based.

Usage
Some studies demonstrate that children use implicit direct negative evidence to correct their grammatical mistakes. For example, experiments show that children produce a greater number of grammatical sentences when parents provide them with any type of immediate implicit direct negative evidence, including recasts[cite some studies]. This evidence supports claims that direct negative evidence assists a child in their language learning. Chouinard also found that children are highly attentive to parental responses and that children respond to implicit correction in predictable ways. What are the predictable ways? Children tend to directly respond to these reformulations by either affirming the reformulation or disagreeing with their parent if the parent misunderstood the child's intended meaning, revealing that children can discern when parental feedback is meant to correct their grammatical errors. Additionally, children have been shown correct their initial errors when a parent recasts a child's morphological error. copied from Negative evidence in language acquisition

Indirect negative evidence and syntax[edit]
It has been argued that children use indirect negative evidence to make probabilistic inferences about the syntax of the language they are acquiring. A 2004 study by Regier & Gahl produced a computational model which provides support for this argument. They assert that children can use the absence of particular patterns in the input in order to conclude that such patterns are illicit. According to Regier and Gahl, young language learners form hypotheses about what is and isn't correct based on probabilistic inferences. As children are exposed to more and more examples of a certain phenomenon, their hypothesis space narrows. Notably, Regier and Gahl assert that this ability for probabilistic inference can be used in all sorts of general learning tasks, and not just linguistic ones. Regier and Gahl also present their model as evidence against an argument from the poverty of the stimulus, because their model illustrates that syntactic learning is possible from using the input alone, and does not necessarily require some innate linguistic knowledge of syntax.

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Let's add another citation

It has been argued that children use indirect negative evidence to make probabilistic inferences about the syntax of the language they are acquiring. A 2004 study by Regier & Gahl produced a computational model which provides support for this argument. They assert that children can use the absence of particular patterns in the input in order to conclude that such patterns are illicit. According to Regier and Gahl, young language learners form hypotheses about what is and isn't correct based on probabilistic inferences. As children are exposed to more and more examples of a certain phenomenon, their hypothesis space narrows. Notably, Regier and Gahl assert that this ability for probabilistic inference can be used in all sorts of general learning tasks, and not just linguistic ones. Regier and Gahl also present their model as evidence against an argument from the poverty of the stimulus, because their model illustrates that syntactic learning is possible from using the input alone, and does not necessarily require some innate linguistic knowledge of syntax. A later model by Rhode and Plaut supports the findings of Regier and Gahl.

Hi, Lucy!

I really like your rewriting of the two parts. I think you have made them clearer. I particularly like it that you added some crucial references, which really increase the reliability of this article.

Here are some minor suggestions:


 * 1) In the second paragraph, I found the sentence "Notably, Regier and Gahl assert that this ability for probabilistic inference can be used in all sorts of general learning tasks, and not just linguistic ones" somewhat distracting. As this paragraph only focusses on using the indirect negative evidence in learning syntax, I do not understand why mentioning general learning here without relating it to the main issue discussed here.
 * 2) For Regier & Gahl's study, would it be more precise to say that their model only demonstrates that some syntactic knowledge can be learned using indirect negative evidence?
 * 3) Last, I found the original sentence 'Additionally, children have been shown correct their initial errors when a parent recasts a child's morphological error' a little bit hard to process. Should it be 'children have been shown to correct their initial errors....'? Would it be better to use an active voice?

I hope this would help!

Zhujialei (talk) 12:23, 26 September 2019 (UTC) ~