Patterns of mutual exclusivity and retention: A study of monolingual and bilingual 2-year-olds

The role of syntactic cues in monolingual and bilingual two-year-olds’ novel word disambiguation

Although linguistic and nonlinguistic cues help young children infer meaning when presented with unfamiliar words, little is known about how syntactic information and early bilingual experience shape word learning. This study examined how monolingual and bilingual 24- to 30-month-olds' disambiguation of novel words during a mutual exclusivity task differs as a function of syntactic cues, age, and productive vocabulary. English monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals were presented with familiar and novel objects within a syntactic context (e.g., "Give me the blick!") or in isolation (e.g., "Blick!"). Results showed that monolinguals and bilinguals adhered to mutual exclusivity more often when provided with syntactic cues than when those cues were absent. Furthermore, bilinguals' mutually exclusive disambiguation of novel words increased with age, but only when syntactic cues were available. These results provide insight into factors that influence children's disambiguation of novel words. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.