This paper focuses on the acquisition of locative prepositional phrases in L1 Norwegian. We report on two production experiments with children acquiring Norwegian as their first language and compare the results to similar experiments conducted with Russian children. The results of the experiments show that Norwegian children at age 2 regularly…

This study examines the word order phenomenon of optional scrambling in Ukrainian. It aims to test factors such as semantic features and object type that have been shown to affect scrambling in other languages. Forty-one children between 2 ; 7 and 6 ; 0, and twenty adult speakers participated in an elicited production experiment. The picture…

An eye-tracking study explored Korean-speaking adults' and 4- and 5-year-olds' ability to recover from misinterpretations of temporarily ambiguous phrases during spoken language comprehension. Eye movement and action data indicated that children, but not adults, had difficulty in recovering from these misinterpretations despite strong…

Challenges the position of Clark (1988) that no two forms in a language can mean the same thing. An alternative is offered that draws on the drive towards the adult system, development of nonlinguistic concepts, acquisition of language in context, and use of a cooperative principle in conversational exchanges. (64 references) (Author/CB)

An overview of the babbling stage in child language acquisition, which occurs normally at age six months to one year, looks at research on this period. The babbling stage is preceded by arbitrary infant vocalization and is succeeded by production of simple but recognizable words. Babbling represents a period of increasing pattern and articulatory…

A study analyzed three episodes of self-repetition in a 1-year-old's utterances and examined the child's use of self-repetition for exploiting and elaborating on his phonological system in the context of discourse. The subject was a first-born monolingual child in the Stanford Child Phonology project. The analysis provides clues about how the…

Explores the process of language acquisition, including such aspects as pre-language, speaking and signing, and cultural influences, focusing on the resulting language acquisition differences and needs of children whose language ability and medium do not correspond with those of their family. (CB)

Varying definitions of formulas, or apparently nonproductive utterances in children's speech, are compared, and criteria for formula recognition are reviewed. A preference rule system is proposed, which distinguishes conditions for formula recognition. Formulas found in the data of one child acquiring Irish are examined. (29 references) (KM)

Distinctive feature specification and representation in phonological acquisition are examined in 30 children in the context of underspecification theory. Three questions were addressed: which features do children use to categorize segmental information; do the defining features of a category shift as the phonological system advances; and which…

Analysis of mothers' pragmatic language use and children's language levels during free play sessions suggested that a mother-driven, direct influence model may be inappropriate for many mother speech-child language development relationships and points to the feasibility of child- and mother-driven explanatory models for indirect relationships.…

Analysis of speech samples from four-year-old monozygotic and dizygotic twins revealed that the monozygotic twins were significantly more likely to misproduce the same sound on an articulation test than were dizygotic twins. The dizygotic twins were no more likely to share errors than were children who were both genetically and environmentally…

Responds to Bowey's comments on an earlier article--"Rhyme, Language, and Children's Reading." Here, the statistical model used in the earlier analysis is clarified, and it is asserted that the new analysis presented by Bowey supports the hypothesis that children's sensitivity to rhyme/alliteration and reading is independent of general…

Re-examines research literature supporting the idea that infants and young children simultaneously learning two languages mix elements from the two languages. It is argued that, contrary to most extant interpretations, bilingual children develop differentiated language systems from the beginning and are able to use their developing languages in…

Proposes that the optional subject phenomenon in early child language arises because children have not yet acquired the morphological elements (primarily modal and tense) necessary to distinguish subject-taking verbs (e.g., finite verbs) from their non-subject-taking counterparts (e.g., infinitives). (Author/CB)

A study examined the consistency of consonant use in the infant's transition period from babbling to early words. Phonetic data were collected from the speech of 10 infants aged 9 to 15 months. Analysis of consonant distribution patterns indicate striking segmental preferences in all 10 children, with some segments more prominent for the sample as…