抄録
Two experiments were conducted to e xamine the sentence comprehension of Japanese children under 6 years of age. The stimulus sentences were unusual “Object-Action” ones, such as “Ningyo-o nageru” (throw the doll). To act out the sentences the children were presented with pairs of toys: appropriate animate objects (a doll, etc.), and perplexing ones (a ball). There were some stages of the comprehension of the sentences: At around 2 years of age, the occurrence of the Target Responses (children throwing the ball to the appropriate object) was almost equal to th ose of the Correct Responses ; at around 3 years of age still a few Target Responses were remained ; in 4- and 5- year olds, the Correct Responses were dominant. Although, the stimulus sentences were changed from those with the particle (-o) to th ose with another (-ni), only 5-year-old children were able to react to the change of the sentence meaning. As a conclusion: children under 5 years of age seem to rely on semantic cues and take preference of Object-Action relations in grasping the meaning o f “Object-Action” sentences.
