Search

The study was designed to investigate whether auxiliary is and copular is belong to a single response class. Two children acted as subjects. The auxiliary verb was trained, then reversed, and later reinstated in one of the subjects, while the copula was similarly trained, reversed, and reinstated in the other child. Both the auxiliary and the copular sentences were tested on probes. The first subject, who was trained only on the auxiliary, was able to produce the untrained copula. When the auxiliary production was reversed, the copular production also was reversed. Finally, when the auxiliary production was reinstated, the copular production also was reinstated. For the second subject, the auxiliary production was generated, reversed, and reinstated by training, reversing, and reinstating only the copula. These results suggest that the copular and auxiliary is belong to a single response class and training either of them is sufficient to generate the production of both.

The study was designed to investigate whether present plural uncontractible forms of auxiliary and copula (are) are members of a single response class. A mentally retarded adult female served as the subject. Within a behavior training, reversal, and reinstatement design, only the uncontractible auxiliary are was trained, reversed, and reinstated using operant training contingencies. On probes, however, sentences involving auxiliary as well as those involving copula were tested. It was found that training the uncontractible auxiliary are was sufficient to induce generalized production of the uncontractible copular are. Subsequently, when the auxiliary production was reversed, the copular production was also reversed. Finally, when the auxiliary production was reinstated, the copular production was automatically reinstated. The results suggest that auxiliary and copula are, although distinct grammatically and developmentally, belong to a single response class. The study also revealed that with the help of operant training and generalization strategies, the subject was able to use the trained features in conversational speech exhibited in her occupational setting.

Two related experiments examined generalization across contexts involving different sentence forms when selected grammatical features were trained within a single syntactic context. Results obtained within a single-subject multiple baseline design showed that training the verbal/auxiliary (contracted with pronoun he) was sufficient to induce its generalization across a variety of verbs, object noun phrases, and a different subjective case pronoun, but not across an objective case pronoun. Similar results were obtained for the uncontractible auxiliary in the past tense. Generalization of the uncontractible auxiliary in the present tense was noted across different verbs; so also was the generalization of contractible copula to different adjectives qualifying the subjective case pronouns he and she (but not in qualifying an objective case pronoun it). Finally, generalization of possessive s inflection across male, female, and animal categories was evident. Trained behavior generalized to home situation in one of the experiments. Some unexpected results also suggest that training on certain forms of either verbal auxiliary or copula may be sufficient to generate correct production of both of them.