International Centre for Language and Communicative Development: Language-general and Language-specific Phenomena in the Acquisition of Inflectional Noun Morphology: A Cross-linguistic Elicited-production Study of Polish, Finnish and Estonian, 2014-2020

The aim of this large-scale, preregistered, cross-linguistic study was to mediate between theories of the acquisition of inflectional morphology, which lie along a continuum from rule-based to analogy-based. Across three morphologically rich languages (Polish, Finnish and Estonian), 120 children (mean age 48.32 months, SD = 7.0 months) completed an experimental, elicited-production study of noun case marking. Confirmatory analyses found effects of surface-form (whole-word, token) frequency for Polish and Estonian, and phonological neighbourhood density (PND) for all three languages (using either our preregistered class-based or an exploratory form-based measure). An exploratory all-languages analysis yielded both main effects, and a predicted interaction, such that the effect of PND was greater for forms with lower surface-form frequency, which are less available for direct retrieval from memory. Cross-linguistic differences were investigated with exploratory analyses of case variance, affix syncretism and stem changes. We conclude that these findings are difficult to reconcile with accounts that posit rules or linguistic abstractions and are most naturally explained by analogy-based connectionist or exemplar accounts.<p>The International Centre for Language and Communicative Development (LuCiD) will bring about a transformation in our understanding of how children learn to communicate, and deliver the crucial information needed to design effective interventions in child healthcare, communicative development and early years education.
Learning to use language to communicate is hugely important for society. Failure to develop language and communication skills at the right age is a major predictor of educational and social inequality in later life. To tackle this problem, we need to know the answers to a number of questions: How do children learn language from what they see and hear? What do measures of children's brain activity tell us about what they know? and How do differences between children and differences in their environments affect how children learn to talk? Answering these questions is a major challenge for researchers. LuCiD will bring together researchers from a wide range of different backgrounds to address this challenge.
The LuCiD Centre will be based in the North West of England and will coordinate five streams of research in the UK and abroad. It will use multiple methods to address central issues, create new technology products, and communicate evidence-based information directly to other researchers and to parents, practitioners and policy-makers.
LuCiD's RESEARCH AGENDA will address four key questions in language and communicative development: 1) ENVIRONMENT: How do children combine the different kinds of information that they see and hear to learn language? 2) KNOWLEDGE: How do children learn the word meanings and grammatical categories of their language? 3) COMMUNICATION: How do children learn to use their language to communicate effectively? 4) VARIATION: How do children learn languages with different structures and in different cultural environments?
The fifth stream, the LANGUAGE 0-5 PROJECT, will connect the other four streams. It will follow 80 English learning children from 6 months to 5 years, studying how and why some children's language development is different from others. A key feature of this project is that the children will take part in studies within the other four streams. This will enable us to build a complete picture of language development from the very beginning through to school readiness.
Applying different methods to study children's language development will constrain the types of explanations that can be proposed, helping us create much more accurate theories of language development. We will observe and record children in natural interaction as well as studying their language in more controlled experiments, using behavioural measures and correlations with brain activity (EEG). Transcripts of children's language and interaction will be analysed and used to model how these two are related using powerful computer algorithms.</p>

本项大规模、预注册的跨语言研究旨在调和屈折形态习得理论——这些理论沿规则基到类比基的连续谱分布。在三种形态丰富的语言（波兰语、芬兰语和爱沙尼亚语）中，120名儿童（平均年龄48.32个月，标准差=7.0个月）完成了一项名词格标记的实验性诱发产出研究。验证性分析发现，波兰语和爱沙尼亚语存在表层形式（整词、Token）频率效应，而三种语言均存在语音邻域密度（PND）效应（使用预注册的基于类别的测量或探索性的基于形式的测量）。探索性的跨语言分析显示了两种主效应及预测的交互作用：对于表层形式频率较低（更难从记忆中直接提取）的形式，PND效应更为显著。跨语言差异通过格变异、词缀融合及词干变化的探索性分析进行了考察。研究结论表明，这些发现难以用规则或语言抽象化理论解释，而更符合类比基的联结主义或样例理论。

国际语言与沟通发展中心（The International Centre for Language and Communicative Development，LuCiD）将推动我们对儿童沟通学习机制的认知变革，并提供关键信息以助力儿童健康、沟通发展及早期教育领域的有效干预设计。
掌握语言沟通能力对社会至关重要。若未能在适龄阶段发展语言与沟通技能，将成为后续教育及社会不平等的重要预测因素。为解决这一问题，我们需解答以下关键问题：儿童如何通过所见所闻学习语言？儿童脑活动测量结果能揭示其认知状态吗？儿童个体差异及环境差异如何影响语言学习进程？解答这些问题对研究者而言是重大挑战。LuCiD将汇聚多领域背景的研究者共同应对这一挑战。
LuCiD中心总部位于英格兰西北部，将协调英国及海外的五大研究流。中心将采用多元方法解决核心问题、研发新技术产品，并向研究者、家长、从业者及政策制定者直接传递循证信息。
LuCiD的研究议程将聚焦语言与沟通发展领域的四大核心问题：1）环境：儿童如何整合所见所闻的各类信息以学习语言？2）知识：儿童如何掌握母语的词汇意义与语法范畴？3）沟通：儿童如何学会运用语言进行有效沟通？4）变异：儿童如何在不同语言结构及文化环境中学习语言？
第五研究流为“语言0-5项目”（LANGUAGE 0-5 PROJECT），将串联其他四大研究流。该项目将跟踪80名英语学习儿童从6个月至5岁的发展历程，探究语言发展差异的成因与机制。项目核心特征在于，参与儿童将同时加入其他四大研究流的实验，从而构建从语言发展初期到入学准备阶段的完整图景。
采用多元方法研究儿童语言发展将限制可能提出的解释类型，助力构建更精准的语言发展理论。我们将通过自然互动观察记录儿童语言，同时在受控实验中结合行为测量及脑活动（脑电图，EEG）相关性分析其语言能力。儿童语言与互动的转录文本将通过强大的计算机算法进行分析，以建模二者间的关联机制。