% pubman genre = article
@article{item_1555581,
title = {{Training 2;6-year-olds to produce the transitive construction : the role of frequency, semantic similarity and shared syntactic distribution}},
author = {Abbot-Smith, Kirsten and Lieven, Elena and Tomasello, Michael},
language = {eng},
doi = {10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00322.x},
year = {2004},
date = {2004-02},
abstract = {{Childers and Tomasello (2001) found that training 2 1/2-year-olds on the English transitive construction greatly improves their performance on a post-test in which they must use novel verbs in that construction. In the current study, we replicated Childers and Tomasello{\textquotesingle}s finding, but using a much lower frequency of transitive verbs and models in training. We also used novel verbs that were of a different semantic class to our training verbs, demonstrating that semantic homogeneity is not crucial for generalization. We also replicated the finding that 4-year-olds are significantly more productive than 2 1/2-year-olds with the transitive construction, with the new finding that this is also true for verbs of emission. In addition, {\textquoteleft}shared syntactic distribution{\textquoteright} of novel verb and training verbs was found to have no observable effect on the number of 2 1/2-year-olds who were productive in the post-test.}},
journal = {{Developmental Science}},
volume = {7},
number = {1},
pages = {48--55},
}