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Viau, Joshua; Lidz, Jeffrey – Language, 2011
In this article we offer up a particular linguistic phenomenon, quantifier-variable binding in Kannada ditransitives, as a proving ground upon which competing claims about learnability can be evaluated with respect to the relative abstractness of children's grammatical knowledge. We first identify one aspect of syntactic representation that…
Descriptors: Semantics, Verbs, Grammar, Language Acquisition
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Ryan, Kevin M. – Language, 2010
While affix ordering often reflects general syntactic or semantic principles, it can also be arbitrary or variable. This article develops a theory of morpheme ordering based on local morphotactic restrictions encoded as weighted bigram constraints. I examine the formal properties of morphotactic systems, including arbitrariness, nontransitivity,…
Descriptors: Semantics, Morphemes, Tagalog, Grammar
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Tagliamonte, Sali A.; D'Arcy, Alexandra – Language, 2009
What is the mechanism by which a linguistic change advances across successive generations of speakers? We explore this question by using the model of incrementation provided in Labov 2001 and analyzing six current changes in English. Extending Labov's focus on recent and vigorous phonological changes, we target ongoing morphosyntactic(-semantic)…
Descriptors: Language Variation, Phonology, Semantics, Grammar
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Ingram, David; Thompson, William – Language, 1996
Presents the Lexical/Semantic Hypothesis, which proposes that early learning is more lexically oriented, and that early word combinations can be explained by more semantically oriented accounts than the Full Competence Hypothesis. The article also replaces the Grammatical Infinitive Hypothesis with the Modal Hypothesis. (32 references) (Author/CK)
Descriptors: Child Language, Foreign Countries, German, Hypothesis Testing
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Bloom, Lois; And Others – Language, 1980
Describes the longitudinal emergence of verb inflections as observed in the speech of four American English-speaking children emphasizing occurrence of inflections, their linguistic/non-linguistic contexts, and their conditional use. Discusses results in terms of sentence relations between verbs and other constituents and the semantics of verb…
Descriptors: Child Development, Child Language, Context Clues, Descriptive Linguistics
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Goldin-Meadow, Susan; Mylander, Carolyn – Language, 1990
This paper reviews research findings on the structural properties of deaf childrens' gestural communication systems and evaluates those properties in the context of data gained from other approaches to the question of the young child's language-making capacity. (over 100 references) (JL)
Descriptors: Deafness, Language Acquisition, Language Research, Linguistic Input
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Shirai, Yasuhiro; Andersen, Roger W. – Language, 1995
Examines the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology in children acquiring English. The article found that children start using past inflections with achievement verbs and progressive inflections with activity verbs. Results indicate that early development of tense-aspect morphology is influenced by the inherent aspect of the verbs. (56 references)…
Descriptors: Child Language, Comparative Analysis, Elementary School Students, English
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Shatz, Marilyn – Language, 1994
Jeni Yamada's "Laura" and Michael Tomasello's "First Verbs" continue a tradition of providing useful information on the language ability of individuals in a depth rarely found in multisubject studies; however, these efforts are unusual for case studies in that both take strong theoretical positions on the essence of language and language learning.…
Descriptors: Book Reviews, Case Studies, Cognitive Processes, Communicative Competence (Languages)