The aim of this collection of Noam Chomsky's writings over the past 12 years is to present the main outlines of transformational theory, using as far as possible Chomsky's own words, but arranged in such a way that a non-specialist will have no difficulty in following the text. The topics covered include syntax, phonology, semantics, and language…

The theme of this book is the concept of a sentence and the role which it plays in child language acquisition. The author argues that the concept of a sentence is innately available to children and is the "main guiding principle in a child's attempt to organize and interpret the linguistic evidence that fluent speakers make available to him."…

A report on a study in progress of the acquisition of a syntax rule: inversion in questions beginning with "Wh..". Its purpose is to show how certain modifications of linguistic theory and practice can contribute to this study and to psychology of language in general. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

The (Roger A.) McCaig article appeared in Elementary English," vol. 47, no. 5 (May 1970), pp. 612-18: How Not To Analyze the Syntax of Children"; it was critical of a study in which the author was a co-investigator ( Syntax of Kindergarten and Elementary School Children: A Transformational Analysis," 1967). (RD)

Children's language acquisition is viewed by developmental psycholinguists as a process of change in the organization of language processing operations. Normal children seem to acquire their native language by this process, rather than by eliminating specific mistakes. Preschool language develops in stages, and knowledge of where syntactic change…

The relationships between a child's perceptual space and the acquisition of language are discussed in light of the work of Clark, Fillmore, and Chafe. Early language is analyzed as a semantic structure where linguistic ties are established between semantic features and inherent and relational perceptual features. Of these, it is the relational…

Examines the relationship between language acquisition and current linguistic theory, with specific reference to Chomsky's work. Linguistic areas that should be explored in relation to acquisition are suggested, including regional dialect studies, the place of sociolinguistic factors in acquisition, and syntax. Suggestions as to how to analyze…

A group of three-year-old children was compared to one of four-year-old children in the usage of 26 syntactic transformations on the basis of 60 utterances per child. The older group used significantly more sentence transformations per child and significantly fewer simple active declarative sentences than the younger. Among the older group 10 out…

This chapter, to be included in "Carmichael's Manual of Child Psychology," edited by P.A. Mussen, deals with the connection between the acquisition of language and the growth of intellect, and the connection between both of these and the process of maturation. The author feels that various theories of development cannot account for the child's…

This article reviews and criticizes Fay's particular transformational descriptions as implausible. (Author/NCR)

The present article draws upon some of the data collected by the Birmingham (England) Educational Priority Area (E.P.A.) Action/Research Project in its investigation into the effectiveness of pre-school language intervention programmes. (Author/RY)

Spontaneous full passives and related constructions from 234 children aged 2;0 to 13;11 and elicited passives from 262 college students were analyzed. Full passives were classified as reversible (The dog was chased by the girl), instrumental non-reversible (The lamp was broken by [or with] the ball), or agentive non-reversible (The lamp was broken…

Special issue devoted to research and the teaching of French in the elementary school. (VM)