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On the preferred form of the double object construction

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Abstract

Two groups of 15 adults participated in two preference rating tasks for written sentence forms. Pairs of sentences were presented to the subjects which differed only in the grammatical form used to express the double object construction (one which has both a direct and an indirect object). Several hypotheses were formulated regarding the nature of subjects' preferences for various combinations of grammatical form and pronominalization. Results indicated that adults show clear preferences for one grammatical form in most instances and that rules can be formulated for these preferences. The relevance of these results for the examination of current language assessment tests and the development of language training programs is discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Parsons Research Center, Bureau of Child Research, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas

    Carol Waryas & Kathleen Stremel

Authors
  1. Carol Waryas
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  2. Kathleen Stremel
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Additional information

This research was supported in part by grants HD 05088, HD 02528, HD 00870, and SRS 55-P-35075.

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Waryas, C., Stremel, K. On the preferred form of the double object construction. J Psycholinguist Res 3, 271–280 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01069243

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01069243

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