Language samples were gathered from two children, from several weeks after the first birthday of each child to the beginning of the child's two-word period (approximately 10 months). The children were observed and videotaped every two weeks, to obtain 33 continuous minutes of tape. Analyses focused on the question of whether or not the child uses…

A set of six conditions for critically analyzing proposals in the various areas of language acquisition is developed and justified. These conditions are then applied to theoretical proposals in language acquisition literature. Proposals in the following areas are discussed and evaluated: (1) phonological development, (2) early lexical development,…

One hundred short test items representing the style and grammatical usage of ten preschool age children were selected from large samples of their narrative and directive speech. Three groups of adults predicted successive words in an effort to reconstruct the actual vocabularies and grammatical forms of the utterances. The predictors' correct…

A distinction is drawn between pragmatic and semantic meaning and a supporting discussion is presented. The hypothesis is then stated, that there are cases where semantic meaning of an utterance is learned as an abstraction from pragmatic meaning. Data from two experiments on a group of 63 preschool children are presented which provide empirical…

Describes a study that examines the ability of children to identify given/new elements in passive and cleft forms in order to ascertain the relationship between syntactic and pragmatic acquisition. Results indicate that complete competence with these marked sentence forms does not occur universally until some time in adolescence. (SED)

Reports on research that sought to clarify Brown's (1973) research on acquisition order, syntactic complexity, semantic complexity, and the relationship among the three. (Author/AM)

Reports on a study which explored the intonational differences between constant plus variable utterances and variable plus variable utterances, and which sought to use intonation to resolve the lexical additive vs syntactic representation of beginning productions. (AM)

This paper reports an investigation into the acquisition of indirect object constructions by English children aged 5-10. Sentences having a prepositional "to" phrase containing the indirect object, and following the direct object, were acquired before sentences where the indirect object preceded the direct object. (CHK)

Investigates whether patient animacy affected the acquisition of the passive construction of syntax of 32 children aged two-five years. Results indicate that children who were taught the passive with animate patients produced more passives in the teaching phase than did comparable children who received inanimate patients. (RJC)

Presents examples of how children acquire language through the principles-and-parameters model, a highly modular system in which different theories interact so that only permissible sequences arise, and highlights research on Spanish syntax and semantics. (136 references) (CB)

This study of early word learning focused on the status of object words in early vocabularies. Fourteen children were followed from nine months to two years of age, and monthly vocabulary growth was analyzed. Results indicated that object words represented approximately one-third, on average, of the different words the children learned. (TJQ)

A set of predictions based on Reinhart's (1986) Theory of Relevance are evaluated against published results of tests of Binding Theory. Relevance Theory provides a means of understanding constraints on testing syntactic knowledge. Pragmatic factors must be systematically controlled in any evaluation of syntactic knowledge. (Contains 22…

A case study on bilingual child language development used the systemic functional (SF) model to analyze data. Other studies have used the generative transformational or pragmatic models. The SF framework recognizes language as a tristratal system composed of semantics, lexicogrammar, and phonology. (49 references) (LET)

Aims to give a thorough analysis of the morphosyntax produced at the outset of multi-word speech, with a classification of free language produced at 2 years by 27 French-speaking children. A classification performed with word sequences reveals surprisingly adult-like sequences of syntactic categories of words. (Author/VWL)

Describes the cornerstone of traditional descriptive grammars as the construction (a recurrent patterns of linguistic elements that serves a communicative function), examining argument structure constructions, verbs and constructions, and implications for studying language development. Discusses Adele Goldberg's recent book, which develops the…