Abstract: The acquisition of connective forms and the meaning relations between connected clauses in the development of complex sentences is described for four children from two to three years of age. The major results of the study include the developmental interactions between syntactic connectives and meaning relations, and between these interactions and the discourse environments in which they occurred. The first syntactic connective the children learned, and, was the most general: semantically, and was used to encode conjunction with all of the different conjunction meaning relations in the order Additive < Temporal < Causal < Adversative. Other connectives were semantically more specific, and were learned subsequently with different syntactic structures in the order Conjunction < Complementation < Relativization. These results are discussed in terms of FORM, relative linguistic complexity; CONTENT, the intersection of form with conceptual and semantic factors affecting acquisition; and USE, discourse cohesion.

Abstract: This research explored overextension in the early vocabularies of six children, followed in a language diary study from 1; 0 to 1; 8. Results indicated that only one-third of the first 75 words acquired by each child were ever overextended. A small set of high-frequency, early acquired words accounted for a disproportionate number of overextensions. Overextensions were classified into three types: categorical overinclusions, analogical overextensions and predicate statements. Four types of information served as the bases for word applications: perceptual, action-functional, affective and contextual. The use of words to denote associative complexes of a well-organized, systematic character was discussed as a characteristic form of early word usage.

Abstract: Five French-speaking middle-class couples and their male only-children were tape-recorded separately at home while interacting verbally in a free-play, a story-telling, and in a family meal situation. The children's ages ranged from 1; 6 to 3; 0. The speech of the fathers, mothers, and children was transcribed and analysed for its semantic, syntactic, and language-teaching aspects. The results indicate that paternal speech displays the same simplification processes usually found in maternal speech to young children. Paternal speech, however, also contains some linguistic patterns at variance with those found in maternal speech. It is hypothesised that maternal and paternal speech may be complementary in their influence on language development in the children.

Abstract: A Reichenbach-type theory is proposed that accounts for a child’s early system of temporal reference and relates it directly to the adult system. This theory makes predictions different from those of a competing theory, a strong decentring hypothesis. Experimental results and data from spontaneous speech are examined, and the predictions of the first theory are borne out: young English-speaking children express notions of temporal ordering as well as aspectual notions.

Abstract: This paper reports on the acquisition of the voicing contrast in Mexican–Spanish word-initial stops. In Study 1, three monolingual children were recorded every two weeks for seven months, beginning when the children were about 1; 7. In Study 2, four monolingual children about 3; 10 were recorded once or twice. Two analyses were done. Instrumental analysis of the stop productions revealed that not even by age 3; 10 were the children consistently distinguishing between voiced–voiceless stop cognate pairs on the basis of adult-like voice-onset time characteristics. The spirantization analysis, however, more clearly revealed the children's phonological knowledge. Discussion focuses on the implications of the data for phonological development in general and for the phonological description of voicing in Spanish.

Abstract: To evaluate Brown's assertion that frequency of input is not a significant variable in language acquisition, some of Brown's data were reanalysed. The data pertaining to Adam, Eve, Sarah and their parents were predominantly obtained from Brown's (1973) book and were supplemented from the transcripts. Parental input frequency and the children's age at mastery were highly related for each of the three triads. Then Sarah's input and rate of language acquisition were compared with that of the other two children. The correlation between Sarah's relative input deprivation and her relative linguistic delay was 0·66. Finally, an analysis of Eve's acquisition of specific prepositional phrases involving the preposition in were made. Again it was found that frequency of input was highly related to frequency of production. Detailed analyses of parent-child interactions provided evidence also for short-term effects of input frequency.

Abstract: The speech of 36 mothers to their infants in a face-to-face situation at ages 6, 13 and 26 weeks was compared with unfamiliar adults' speech to the same infants, the mothers' speech to an interviewer, and their conversations with the same children 2 years later. Speech to the infants was quite different from so-called ‘baby talk’, but contrary to other authors the speech to infants was even shorter, more repetitive, and more limited in content than the speech to language-learning children. Differences appear due to the infant's changing status in the relationship, from a potential to an actual conversant.

Abstract: Measures of pragmatic development for children in the second year of life were developed, based on a brief (30 minute) language sample and on structured elicitation conditions. When age is partialled out, number of pragmatic functions expressed is not statistically related to MLU, due to the fact that the number of functions grows steadily during the one-word and very early two-word phases. Performance on the structured imperative tasks also reflects development during this period, though performance on the declarative tasks does not. We conclude that the range of pragmatic functions in the second year is measurable and contributes information not provided by a measure of syntactic development such as MLU. Such information should prove useful for research on language and cognition in normal and language-impaired children.

Abstract: Ostensive definitions of words are ambiguous as to their referent. In a study of 40 mother–infant dyads engaged in looking at picture-books, it was found that 95% of ostensive definitions referred to the whole object depicted, rather than to its parts, attributes or actions. On the rare occasions when mothers named parts of objects, they avoided misunderstanding of the level of reference either by naming the part immediately after naming the whole, or by including a reference to the whole in the definition of the part. What's that? questions are not used to request labelling of the part.

Abstract: The role of a strategy of reduplication in phonological acquisition and behaviour was examined in terms of: (1) the relationship between adoption of this strategy and children's failure to produce nonreduplicated multisyllabic forms and final consonants when attempting corresponding adult models; and (2) the role of the process of reduplication in production constraints. Comparisons of the phonologies of six children (1; 3–1; 9) classified as reduplicators and six children (1; 5–2; 0) classified as non-reduplicators revealed that the adoption/nonadoption of this strategy was closely related to the extent of production of nonreduplicated multisyllabic forms. Analyses of attempted words produced as reduplications revealed that this process served primarily to constrain multisyllabic productions. To a lesser degree, reduplication appeared to serve in conspiracies to constrain final consonant production.

Abstract: A psycholinguistic experiment elicits highly reliable judgements from young English-speaking children aged 2; 6–3; 0 about illocutionary force of utterances presented in controlled contexts. Puppet play simulated extralinguistic features judged capable of constituting felicity conditions upon the illocutionary acts Request and Offer. The experimental data bear upon two questions: (1) What set of features, linguistic and pragmatic, constitute cues for the discrimination of illocutionary force by young children? (2) What is the lower developmental bound of the emergence of discrimination of illocutionary force for Requests and Offers? While grasp of illocutionary force for Offers was well-established by 2; 6, discrimination skills for Requests probably continues to develop between 2; 6 and 3; 0. Relevant pragmatic features are explicated, and a model of the comprehension of illocutionary force proposed in the light of the results.

Abstract: The present study explored children's perceptual capabilities with regard to the temporal acoustic cue of differential vowel duration, comparing children's perceptual identifications to those of adults. Three-year-old children, six-year-old children, and adults participated in two experiments, in which they were asked to identify (as voiced or voiceless) CVC words with uniformly voiceless final obstruents, but in which vowel duration was systematically varied. Children were also asked to identify a set of CONTROL stimuli, in which both closure voicing and vowel duration differences were present. Results indicate that both subject age and vowel duration of the TEST stimuli significantly affect identification responses. Adults and six-year olds evidence perceptual cross-over in their judgements for the TEST stimuli, while three-year-olds do not seem to change their identifications, regardless of variations in vowel duration. However, for both groups of children, the accuracy of identifications was greater for originally voiced stimuli on the CONTROL set of words, in which more than one potential cue to the voicing distinction was present. These results suggest that there is a complex and somewhat paradoxical relationship between developing production and perception which deserves further research. Children may consistently produce a phonetic difference (vowel duration) which they are unable to use as the SOLE perceptual cue for a phonological contrast.

Abstract: This paper presents a study of children's ability to recognize the presuppositions of sentences with factive and nonfactive verbs, and a review of recent research on the acquisition of factive presuppositions. In the present study, subjects in grades K, 2, 5 and 8, and adults, were asked to judge the truth of the complement clauses of sentences of the form ‘Doctor Fact (verb) that the ball is (is not) blue.’ The task was presented in the context of a television quiz show, with subjects as putative contestants. A tendency was found among younger subjects to overgeneralize the scope of negation of complement verbs into the main clauses of factive sentences. A gradual increase in comprehension of factive and nonfactive verbs was found, extending into adolescence. In a comparison of the present results with those of several recent studies, marked differences were found in the age of acquisition of factivity. These differences are discussed in terms of variations in task requirements and assessment techniques. It is concluded that acquisition proceeds on a verb-by-verb basis, rather than as a unitary process.

Abstract: Judgements of grammatical acceptability were made for correct and reversed ‘Y if X’ and ‘If X, Y’ sentences. Children aged 4; 10–8; 7 judged sentences ‘sensible’ or ‘silly’ and modified the sentences to make them ‘silly’ or ‘sensible’. Children failed to differentiate correct and reversed-order sentences prior to age 7 or 8. There was no evidence of an order-of-mention response strategy, but ‘If X, Y’ and ‘If Y, X’ sentences were easier to judge than ‘Y if X’ and ‘X if Y’, suggesting that children prefer sentences in which stated order parallels temporal order. The strategies used to modify the sentences changed with age from content changes to order reversals. The modifications suggested that contingency becomes a component of the meaning of if before the child assigns unidirectional event order as a component of if.

Abstract: The acquisition of the morphological rules for plural, agentive, and diminutive suffixes in Dutch was studied. Subjects included 7- and 12-year-old native speakers, and second-language learners in three age groups (5–10 years, 12–18 years, and adult). The first- and second-language learners showed very similar orders of acquisition for the rule systems governing plural and diminutive, but the second-language learners showed a subtle form of interference from their first language in acquiring the agentive. The findings suggest that morphological acquisition proceeds piecemeal, with the learning of specific word ending + allomorph sequences, and that generalizations at the level of morphological rules may not be made even after several years of correct performance with the allomorph in question.

Abstract: The ‘fis phenomenon’ and similar anecdotal evidence, which appears to give insight into child phonology, and also certain experiments designed to reveal the nature of homonymy in child language, are discussed with reference to an approach which distinguishes between eight different types of possible phonetic episode. It is concluded that the anecdotes and experiments are less instructive than is often supposed.

Abstract: This paper presents a hypothesis-testing theory of syntax acquisition. The first section presents our model. We claim that: (1) children learn a transformational grammar, including a set of phrase structure and transformational rules; (2) linguistic universals and Occam's razor constrain the initial hypothesis space available to the device; (3) hypotheses tested by the device consist of candidate phrase structure and transformational rules; (4) linguistic evidence confirms or disconfirms hypotheses. Specific examples of incorrect phrase structure and transformational hypotheses are presented. The second section briefly surveys other approaches to language acquisition – both syntactic and non-syntactic – and compares them to our model. In the third section, we address several methodological issues: (1) the relevance of linguistic theory to the model; (2) how the model is tested; (3) the domain of the theory.

Abstract: Several researchers (e.g. Bever 1970, Strohner & Nelson 1974) have suggested that young children commonly employ a word-order strategy of the form: ‘the first mentioned participant is agent’ when interpreting active and passive sentences. Pre-school children (aged 2; 6–5; 0) were presented with reversible active and passive sentences in four comprehension test settings (two acting-out tasks, a selection task and a verification task). Their responses were analysed not in terms of the percentage correct responses for each group of subjects, as has been the usual practice, but in terms of each individual child's pattern of responses. The results revealed age-related changes in the type of response patterns found. The response pattern associated with the word-order strategy was not a frequent occurrence. The most common patterns were those accounted for by extralinguistic cues such as the relative proximity, mobility or position of the referents. The significance of early interpretation rules of this sort for any characterization of young children's language comprehension processes is discussed.

Abstract: Thirty children with a mean length of utterance ranging from 1·00 to 4 and an age range of 1; 7 to 5; 5 were tested by their own mothers for comprehension of two-noun possessive phrases such as mommy's shoe. Three types of possessive relationships (alienable, intrinsic and reciprocal) in addition to anomalous possessive phrases were used to uncover children's knowledge of the semantics and syntax of English possession. Results indicated, first, that even young children may have detailed notions of which objects are likely to serve as possessors and which as possessions, and second, that word order may not be used to comprehepossessive phrases until considerable linguistic development has occurred.

Abstract: This paper evaluates Lust's (1977) study of coordination in child language, both on its own merits and in the light of my own research. First, particular design weaknesses in Lust's study are noted which render her results questionable. In addition, it is argued that the hypotheses proposed by Lust fail to make any substantive predictions about the types of errors which children make with coordinate structures. Finally, it is shown that Lust's hypotheses cannot account for the results of my own comprehension and non-imitative production experiments. It is concluded that Lust cannot account for a wide range of phenomena concerning coordination in child language, and consequently an alternative set of hypotheses is proposed.

Abstract: Two experiments were devised in order to better understand the relationship between temporal before and after and their spatial counterparts. In Experiment I, sixty adults were probed for their spatial metaphoric understanding of temporal before and after. Although H. Clark proposed that temporal before and after were derived from their spatial counterparts, Experiment I did not support that notion. In fact, the subjects overwhelmingly reported that temporal before was more related to spatial after and that temporal after was more related to spatial before. Since it has been shown by numerous investigators that temporal before is acquired before temporal after by children, the evidence from Experiment I suggested that their spatial relatives may be acquired similarly. Experiment II presents evidence that indeed spatial after is understood better by three-year-old children than spatial before. This evidence is coincident with the adult reports in Experiment I.

Abstract: It is argued that previous assessments of children's knowledge of the hard to see type of construction were confounded by a variety of extra-linguistic factors. Therefore, the relatively delayed age of comprehension previously reported (6½–8 years) may have been due to younger children's deficiencies in extralinguistic skills. In the present study, with these extralinguistic complications eliminated, the passing age was found to be 5 years, and even 4-year-olds evidenced considerable knowledge of the target structure. Other findings were: variation in sentence difficulty as a function of the syntactic and/or aspectual character of the verb; high test–retest reliability at all levels of performance; and a necessary-but-not-sufficient empirical relation between comprehension of the target construction and the passive. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the acquisition of this particular structure and for the general problem of detecting linguistic competence from performance.