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Franck, Julie; Millotte, Severine; Posada, Andres; Rizzi, Luigi – Applied Psycholinguistics, 2013
Word order is one of the earliest aspects of grammar that the child acquires, because her early utterances already respect the basic word order of the target language. However, the question of the nature of early syntactic representations is subject to debate. Approaches inspired by formal syntax assume that the head-complement order,…
Descriptors: Language Patterns, Models, Constructivism (Learning), Word Order
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Family, Neiloufar; Allen, Shanley E. M. – Journal of Child Language, 2015
The acquisition of systematic patterns and exceptions in different languages can be readily examined using the causative construction. Persian allows four types of causative structures, including one productive multiword structure (i.e. the light verb construction). In this study, we examine the development of all four structures in Persian child…
Descriptors: Child Language, Language Acquisition, Indo European Languages, Form Classes (Languages)
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de Hoop, Helen; Kramer, Irene – Language Acquisition, 2006
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…
Descriptors: Word Order, Nouns, Child Language, Language Acquisition
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O'Grady, William; And Others – Journal of Child Language, 1986
Tests the prediction that children acquiring left-branching languages will exhibit a preference for backward patterns of anaphora by presenting data from Japanese and Korean which show the prediction to be false. Findings support the view that any directionality preference for anaphora is the same for all languages. (Author/SED)
Descriptors: Child Language, Children, Generative Grammar, Interviews
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Hickey, Tina – Journal of Child Language, 1990
Examined the development of Irish word order patterns. It was found that the 1.5- to 3-year-olds (N=3) studied used subject-initial utterances more frequently than adults in input, and that for both adults and children the elision of the verb "to be" had a significant role in the placement of subjects in the utterances. (42 references)…
Descriptors: Child Language, Language Acquisition, Language Patterns, Language Research
Adamson, H. D. – 1987
This paper attempts to show the relationship between variable rules and more widely used psycholinguistic constructs such as amalgams and schemas, and to point out how variationists' methods can be useful in the study of language acquisition. The traditional rule, the rule for forming the past tense of regular verbs in English, is discussed as it…
Descriptors: Child Language, Comparative Analysis, Developmental Stages, English
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Jordens, Peter – Second Language Research, 1988
Argues that children's OV utterances cannot be related transformationally to VO utterances because children initially acquire OV and VO with different sets of verbs, and also argues that L2 acquisition data can be accounted for within a model of L1 structural transfer, without requiring adult learner access to Universal Grammar. (Author/LMO)
Descriptors: Afrikaans, Dutch, Error Analysis (Language), German