We find a general, language-independent pattern in child language acquisition in which there is a clear difference between subject and object noun phrases. On one hand, indefinite objects tend to be interpreted nonreferentially, independently of word order and across experiments and languages. On the other hand, indefinite subjects tend to be…

Reports a case study of a British 2-year old that shows a stage in syntactic development without a subject agreement protection but with a tense phrase. A sharp contrast in use of verb forms suggests that the child had left the Optional Infinitive stage and entered a transitional stage, where the major development is that the status of the bare…

Presents the results of an investigation into the acquisition of syllable structure and stress by a preschool Dutch child. Shows how the structure of the child's output approaches the adult models in stages and discusses a phenomenon called "mutation," in which all continuants are consistently replaced with "n-" in onsets. (51…