A MDL-based Model of Gender Knowledge Acquisition

This paper presents an iterative model of\ud knowledge acquisition of gender information\ud associated with word endings in\ud French. Gender knowledge is represented\ud as a set of rules containing exceptions.\ud Our model takes noun-gender pairs as input\ud and constantly maintains a list of\ud rules and exceptions which is both coherent\ud with the input data and minimal with\ud respect to a minimum description length\ud criterion. This model was compared to\ud human data at various ages and showed a\ud good fit. We also compared the kind of\ud rules discovered by the model with rules\ud usually extracted by linguists and found\ud interesting discrepancies

The acquisition of french grammatical gender in first ant second language for children aged from 5 to 11 : didactic and computational applications

Cette recherche porte sur l’acquisition du genre grammatical français langue maternelle et langue seconde. Dans une perspective développementale, nous cherchons à décrire la manière dont de jeunes enfants, scolarisés en France et au Luxembourg, déterminent le genre des noms en se fondant sur les indices infra-lexicaux portés par les noms. Notre préoccupation consiste à examiner le type de connaissances acquises et les mécanismes sous-jacents à cette acquisition en langue maternelle, mais aussi lors de l’apprentissage du français langue seconde au niveau de l’école primaire au Luxembourg. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que l’extraction des connaissances de genre n’est pas fondée uniquement sur la valeur prédictive des terminaisons mais que les informations morphologiques portées par certaines terminaisons, les suffixes, interviennent aussi dans le processus d’acquisition du genre. En effet, la diversité d’informations portées par cette unité (sémantiques, lexicales et de genre) peut rendre cette unité plus « saillante » parmi l’ensemble des régularités pouvant être extraites. Trois expériences ont permis de mettre en évidence que la détermination du genre fondée sur les indices formels dépend effectivement d’autres facteurs, tels que la nature des terminaisons. Par ailleurs, une série de simulations informatiques a été conduite apportant des données complémentaires aux résultats expérimentaux. L’ensemble de ces données apportent des informations utiles pour l’apprentissage et l’enseignement précoce du française langue seconde au niveau de l’école primaire.This research concerns the acquisition of the French grammatical gender in first and second language. From a developmental perspective, we tempt to describe the way of young children being sent to school in France and Luxembourg determine the gender of names, by using the infra-lexical cues carried by these. Our concern consists in examining the kind of knowledge acquired and the mechanisms underlying this acquisition for the mother tongue and also during the learning of French as a second language at the primary school in Luxembourg. We hypothesize that the extraction of gender knowledge is not only dependent on the predictive value of endings but that morphological information carried by certain endings, suffixes, also intervenes in the process of gender acquisition. Indeed, the range of information carried by this unit (semantic, lexical and of gender) can make this unit more "striking" among all the regularities being able to be extracted. Three experiments allowed to bring to light that the determination of gender based on formal cues depends effectively on other factors, such as the nature of endings. Besides, a series of computational simulations was driven, bringing additional data to the experimental results. All these data brings useful information to the learning and the early teaching of French as a second language at the primary school

The Development of Lexical Knowledge: Toward a Model of the Acquisition of Lexical Gender in French

This paper attempts to answer a threefold question: from what kind of cues gender can reliably be assigned to French nouns? How the usage of these sublexical cues is acquired by children? What kind of computational models could account for the human data? We conducted an experiment with 73 1 st and 2 nd grade children to assess their knowledge about gender information associated with suffixes using a gender decision task. Children had to assign gender to pseudo-words whose endings correspond to French suffixes (-ture,-ment…). Results show that French children implicitly acquire this knowledge, even before learning to read. Simulation results fit experimental data and show that the word ending represented by suffixes is one of the main cues to assign gender to French words

The Development of Lexical Knowledge: Toward a Model of the Acquisition of Lexical Gender in French

International audienceThis paper attempts to answer a threefold question: from what kind of cues gender can reliably be assigned to French nouns? How the usage of these sublexical cues is acquired by children? What kind of computational models could account for the human data? We conducted an experiment with 74 1st and 2nd grade children to assess their knowledge about gender information associated with suffixes. Results show that French children implicitly acquire this knowledge, even before learning to read. Simulation results fit experimental data and show that the word ending represented by suffixes is one of the main cues to assign gender to French words

The acquisition of the grammatical gender in French as a second language: How Luxembourgish pupils from second to fifth grade deal with it?

International audienceTwo experiments designed to explore the acquisition of grammatical gender in French as a foreign language are reported. A sample of 270 children belonging to schools in Luxembourg realized a gender assignment task with pseudo-words which endings were either marked as feminine (-elle) or masculine (-oir) in French. Children differed in their native tongue because they were from two nationalities: Luxembourgish or Portuguese. This factor has a great interest as the similarity between L1 and L2 grammatical gender systems is a matter of debate in theoretical explanation of the ease or difficulties of a foreign language. The main results show that from third grade onward children use morpho-phonological cues to assign a gender to a pseudo-word independently of their native tongue. The didactical implications of these results are discussed. We support the idea that a better understanding of the acquisition of grammatical gender has also some broader implications for foreign-language acquisition. Apart from gender, suffixes also contain semantic information. With a focus on suffixes it is thus possible to gain a rich information about the lexical properties of a foreign language and represents thereby a way to expand the vocabulary of the learner