Asymmetry between Production and Comprehension: The Case of Subject-Verb Agreement in the Acquisition of Persian Language

Abstract

This study is a linguistic investigation of subject-verb agreement in comprehension and production with the aim of analyzing performance of 60 Persian kindergarten children aged between 4-6. To conduct the study, series of pictures in the form of elicitation and selection tasks with a focus on animate subjects were used to examine the degree to which comprehension and production overlap in the use of language. The results of t-test indicated that almost all children's comprehension lagged behind their production. In fact, in spite of their earlier command in production, some degrees of sensitivity were spotted in their comprehension of subject-verb agreement as well. Additionally, 6 year olds were more successful in elicitation tasks with an accurate analysis of subject-verb agreement compared with the four and five year olds. The analysis of the comprehension and production patterns in typically developing children shows an asymmetry according to which it can be claimed that the relationship between these two processes is not perfectly straightforward