Interaction between particles and word order in the comprehension and production of simple sentences in Japanese children.

In light of studies that have emphasized the role of word order for children learning English, 4 experiments were conducted in which the comprehension, production, and imitation of simple sentences among 92 2–6 yr old Japanese children were assessed. Japanese is a language that has a dominant subject–object–verb order yet allows flexibility in word order due to postposed particles that signal grammatical role. Results across different tasks suggest that children learning Japanese show neither a strong reliance on word order nor on particles alone. Rather, they possess a bias for a matching between particles and the position in the sentence where they appear. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)