Lexical and grammatical development: a behavioural genetic perspective
Lexical and grammatical development: a behavioural genetic perspective
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DOI：
10.1017/s0305000900004281
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发表时间：
2000-10-01
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Plomin, R
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Dale, PS;Dionne, G;Plomin, R
词汇知识和语法知识的关系是语言学和心理语言学中许多争论的核心。最近的实证研究发现，这两者在早期语言发展中高度相关，进一步激发了理论争论。行为遗传学提供了一个有启发性的新工具来探索这个问题，通过解决以下问题：经验相关性是否仅仅反映了这样一个事实，即促进语言发展的一个方面的环境也促进了另一个方面，或者受相同基因影响的相同潜在习得机制是否对相关性负责。我们在对英格兰和威尔士出生的2898对两岁双胞胎的研究中探讨了这个问题。他们的父母使用麦克阿瑟沟通发展量表的改编版（评估词汇和语法）来评估语言发展。中度遗传被发现两者。在以前的研究中，词汇和句子的复杂性的措施基本上相关（r = 0.66）。词汇和语法的关系的行为-遗传模型产生的遗传相关性，有助于语言发展的两个方面的遗传效应的重叠的措施，估计值为0.61。相比之下，非语言认知发展的措施，PARCA，只有弱相关的表型水平和遗传相关性的水平与语言措施。因此，尽管语言技能和非语言技能之间的区别具有表型分离的遗传基础，但无论是遗传还是表型上，都没有证据表明语言中的词汇和语法之间存在分离。
The relation of lexical and grammatical knowledge is at the core of many controversies in linguistics and psycholinguistics. Recent empirical findings that the two are highly correlated in early language development have further energized the theoretical debate. Behavioural genetics provides an illuminating new tool to explore this question, by addressing the question of whether the empirical correlation simply reflects the fact that environments which facilitate one aspect of language growth also facilitate the other, or whether the same underlying acquisition mechanisms, influenced by the same genes, are responsible for the correlation. We explored this issue in a study of 2898 pairs of two-year-old twins born in England and Wales. Language development was assessed by their parents using an adapted version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory which assesses vocabulary and grammar. Moderate heritabilities were found for both. As in previous studies, measures of vocabulary and sentence complexity were substantially correlated (r = 0 66). Behaviour-genetic modelling of the relation of vocabulary and grammar produced an estimated value of 0.61 for the genetic correlation, a measure of the overlap of the genetic effects that contribute to the two aspects of language development. In contrast, a measure of nonverbal cognitive development, the PARCA, was only weakly correlated at both the phenotypic level and at the level of genetic correlations with the language measures. Thus, although the distinction between verbal and nonverbal skills has a genetic basis underlying the phenotypic dissociation, there is little evidence either genetically or phenotypically for a dissociation between vocabulary and grammar within language.