In this article, I argue that first language (L1), second language (L2) and third language (L3) acquisition are fundamentally the same process, based on learning by parsing. Both child and adult learners are sensitive to fine linguistic distinctions, and language development takes place in small steps. While the bulk of the article focuses on…

Research supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Public Health Service Research Center, and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (DS)

Provides an experimental validation of Landau and Gleitman's (1985) syntactic bootstrapping procedure on how children may use syntactic information to learn new verbs. The children's choice of the correct referent for a given verb versus a nonsense verb in two syntactic structures is explained. (37 references) (GLR)

Discusses prevailing ideas of how children learn language and addresses the argument of rules versus analogies in learning to form the past tense of verbs. Cites cases involving connectionist models. (ML)

Research supported by grants to the University of Minnesota, Center for Research in Human Learning, from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, and the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota. (DD)

Parts of this paper were presented at the Psychonomic Society Convention, 1969. (VM)

Research supported in part by a research grant from the United States Office of Education to Cornell University. (DS)

Discusses H. Zobl's paper, "Configurationality and the Subset Principle: The Acquisition of V' by Japanese Learners of English," and asserts that the subset principle, with certain adaptations, can apply to second language learning. In the context of Universal Grammar theory, first and second language acquisition are clearly different.…

This article describes a series of experiments concerning the relationship between cognitive processes and learning a second language. Similarities and differences between first language acquisition and second language learning by children and adults are discussed. (CFM)

Discusses the theoretical foundation for Ferguson's correlation between speed in detecting syntactic errors in written English and acquisition of the listening comprehension skill. A detailed analysis of Ferguson's procedure is given along with references to other pertinent literature. The original conclusions are questioned. (AMH)

Reports on a study investigating the relationship between children's linguistic environment and language acquisition. In particular, the study examined the effect of mothers' speech on subsequent child speech. (Author/AM)

The monograph under review is a study of the acquisition of certain complex linguistic structures by children over the age of five. After a short introduction, Chomsky describes in chapter 2 the linguistic properties of four types of constructions: (1) John is eager to see; John is easy to see; (2) John promised Bill to shovel the driveway; John…