Chomsky has proposed a system whereby degrees of grammaticality can be assigned to ungrammatical sentences. In this study, children were required to evaluate the grammaticality of 162 ungrammatical sentences. Their ratings provided little support for Chomsky's system, nor did the children's ratings correspond to adults' judgments of the same types of deviation. A possible strategy which would account for the children's ratings is proposed, and the implications for syntactic development are briefly discussed.
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References
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Chomsky, C.S. ( 1969). The Acquisition of Syntax in Children from 5 to 10. (Cambridge, Mass.)
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Chomsky, N. ( 1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass.) .
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