How does parental causal input relate to children’s later comprehension of causal verbs? Causal constructions in verbs differ across languages. Turkish has both lexical and morphological causatives. We asked whether (1) parental causal language input varied for different types of play (guided vs. free play), (2) early parental causal language input predicted children’s causal verb understanding. Twenty-nine infants participated at three timepoints. Parents used lexical causatives more than morphological ones for guided-play for both timepoints, but for free-play, the same difference was only found at Time 2. For Time 3, children were tested on a verb comprehension and a vocabulary task. Morphological causative input, but not lexical causative input, during free-play predicted children’s causal verb comprehension. For guided-play, the same relation did not hold. Findings suggest a role of specific types of causal input on children’s understanding of causal verbs that are received in certain play contexts.

父母的因果输入与孩子后来对因果动词的理解有何关系？动词的因果结构因语言而异。土耳其语有词汇和形态致使。我们询问 (1) 父母因果语言输入是否因不同类型的游戏（引导游戏与自由游戏）而异，(2) 早期父母因果语言输入是否预测儿童对因果动词的理解。二十九名婴儿在三个时间点参加。父母在两个时间点的引导游戏中更多地使用词汇使役而不是形态使役，但对于自由游戏，仅在时间 2 中发现了相同的差异。对于时间 3，孩子们接受了动词理解和词汇任务的测试。词法使役输入，但不是词汇使役输入，在自由游戏期间预测儿童的因果动词理解。对于引导游戏，同样的关系不成立。研究结果表明特定类型的因果输入对儿童理解在特定游戏环境中收到的因果动词的作用。