Asymmetries in language use reveal assymetries in the grammar

Abstract

According to the classical view, the nature of the grammar is independent of its use. A puzzle for this view is the observation that in language acquisition production sometimes precedes comprehension. Children who use subject-object status to determine word order in production not necessarily use word order to determine subject-object status in comprehension. On the basis of results from first language acquisition as well as adult sentence processing, we show that the role of grammar in production can be different from the role of the same grammar in comprehension.