This paper investigated children's ability to use syntactic structures to infer semantic information. The particular syntax-semantics link examined was the one between transitivity (transitive/intransitive structures) and telicity (telic/atelic perspectives; that is, boundedness). Although transitivity is an important syntactic reflex of telicity,…

I examine some of the issues connected with the internalist/externalist distinction in work on the ontology of language. I note that Chomskyan radical internalism necessarily leads to a passive conception of child language acquisition. I reject that passive conception, and support current versions of constructivism [Tomasello, M., 2001. "The…

In our recent paper, "Semantic generality, input frequency and the acquisition of syntax" ("Journal of Child Language" 31, 61-99), we presented data from two-year-old children to examine the question of whether the semantic generality of verbs contributed to their ease and stage of acquisition over and above the effects of their typically high…

Examines mealtimes of preschoolers' families to determine whether rare words are used in informative ways so that a child could learn their meanings. Each use was coded for whether it was informative or uninformative; each informative exchange was coded for type of strategy used to provide support. Frequency of use was positively correlated with…