The acquisition of Hebrew Differential Object Marking: Between production and comprehension

Abstract

This study experimentally investigates the acquisition of Differential Object Marking (DOM) among a group of 34 Hebrew-speaking children aged 3;6-7;10. Previous research on the development of DOM crosslinguistically has largely reported early emergence, along with virtually errorless use, and adultlike performance approximately age 3;6. However, the data in these studies come almost exclusively from spontaneous speech analysis. Using a gradable acceptability judgment task, our findings reveal a very different picture. Specifically, we find that only the oldest children tested (7;0-7;10) begin to demonstrate sensitivity to the adult Hebrew DOM paradigm, but even their judgments are not yet fully adultlike. We discuss this striking mismatch between children's non-adultlike performance in comprehension and the early convergence demonstrated for production, as reported in the literature. Hence, in addition to the novel empirical findings that enrich DOM acquisition research, our study also highlights a fundamental methodological issue. It underscores the importance of assessing children's comprehension via their acceptability judgments, particularly gradable judgments, and demonstrates that relying solely on production data may lead to the wrong conclusions regarding children's true competence.