Five experiments are carried out to determine the comprehension of passives by children. Results obtained demonstrate that comprehension rests on knowledge of syntactic structure. V - NP were interpreted as verb-object. Passives lacking a preposition were interpreted as actives. Competence in passives may be at a high level before performance is…

A production-based method of investigating children's understanding of deictic verbs is described. Use of "come/go" and "bring/take" by 4-7-year-olds is compared with Clark and Garnica's 1974 study. Data reveal different facts about verb acquisition processes and order. (CHK)

Young children found it difficult to verify negative statements, but found affirmative statements, affirmative questions, and negative questions equally easy to deal with. It is proposed that children acquire the answering system earlier than the verification system, and use answering to verify statements before acquiring the verification system.…

This study was conducted to examine the acquisition of the meaning of the temporal conjunctions "before" and "after." The initial hypothesis was that in the acquisition of a word, the child learns its semantic components one at a time. The subjects were 40 school children attending the Bing Nursery School at Stanford…

A study is reported which examined the acquisition of deictic verbs by asking children to identify the speaker or the addressee of utterances containing "come,""go,""bring," and "take." Analysis showed that children go through several stages in the acquisition of deictic verbs. (Author/RM)

Spontaneous speech samples of 15 children were analyzed for appropriate and inappropriate use and nonuse of the past tense verbal inflection. It was found that: (1) two types of overgeneralization errors have acquisitional relevance; and (2) partial regularity blocks overgeneralization errors. Two hypotheses were not supported. (CHK)

Research is reported in which children were tested for their comprehension of four types of sentences with relative clauses. The Parallel Function Hypothesis is proposed, and implications for adult grammar are discussed. (Author/RM)

Based in part on an Indiana University doctoral dissertation; segments presented to the Midwestern Psychological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1970. Research supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Traineeship, a Public Health Service Predoctoral Research Fellowship to the author, and a Public Health Service Research Grant to Richard…

Preliminary version of this article presented at the meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 1971. Research and preparation of the paper supported in part by an Intramural Grant from the Regents of the University of California to T. Kenney. (VM)

Research supported in part by a National Science Foundation Grant. (VM)

Two investigations of the acquisition of the meaning of "always" and "never," and "always,""never,""usually,""seldom," and "sometimes" are discussed. Results demonstrate that the acquisition sequence of meanings of related words may vary among children at the beginning, but become consistent in later acquisition. (CHK)