The Acquisition of Direct Object Scrambling and Clitic Placement

2000-01-01
The Acquisition of Direct Object Scrambling and Clitic Placement
Author: Jeannette C. Schaeffer
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789027224903
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This book offers a new contribution to the debate concerning the “real time acquisition” of grammar in First Language Acquisition Theory. It combines detailed and quantitative observations of object placement in Dutch and Italian child language with an analysis that makes use of the Modularity Hypothesis. Real time development is explained by the interaction between two different modules of language, namely syntax and pragmatics. Children need to build up knowledge of how the world works, which includes learning that in communicating with someone else, one must realize that speaker and hearer knowledge are always independent. Since the syntactic feature referentiality can only be marked if this (pragmatic) distinction is made, and assuming that certain types of object placement (such as scrambling and clitic placement) are motivated by referentiality, it follows that the relevant syntactic mechanism is dependent on the prior acquisition of a pragmatic distinction.

Direct Objects and Language Acquisition

2018-02-08
Direct Objects and Language Acquisition
Author: Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2018-02-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1107018005
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This book explores a much-debated area of language acquisition: the omission by young children of direct objects in a sentence.

Developments in the Acquisition of Clitics

2014-03-17
Developments in the Acquisition of Clitics
Author: Kleanthes K. Grohmann
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2014-03-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1443857408
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The present volume presents new theoretical and empirical findings on the acquisition and development of clitics in and across different languages. It features ten chapters that largely emerged from the CYCL1A Workshop on the Acquisition of Clitics held in Nicosia, Cyprus, in May 2012. These chapters explore issues pertaining to the first (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition of clitic pronouns. There is an emphasis on Greek, with the first four chapters discussing mono- and bilingual acquisition of clitics in Cypriot Greek and the next two chapters on Standard Modern Greek. Three contributions focus on Albanian, Serbo-Croatian, and European Portuguese, respectively. The last chapter of this volume is an invited contribution by Ken Wexler on the Unique Checking Constraint as an explanation of clitic omission in normal and SLI development. This volume will constitute a valuable reference guide for current work on the acquisition of clitic pronouns.

The Acquisition of Word Order

2009
The Acquisition of Word Order
Author: Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2009
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027255288
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Within a new model of language acquisition, this book discusses verb second (V2) word order in situations where there is variation in the input. While traditional generative accounts consider V2 to be a parameter, this study shows that, in many languages, this word order is dependent on fine distinctions in syntax and information structure. Thus, within a split-CP model of clause structure, a number of "micro-cues" are formulated, taking into account the specific context for V2 vs. non-V2 (clause type, subcategory of the elements involved, etc.). The micro-cues are produced in children s I-language grammars on exposure to the relevant input. Focusing on a dialect of Norwegian, the book shows that children generally produce target-consistent V2 and non-V2 from early on, indicating that they are sensitive to the micro-cues. This includes contexts where word order is dependent on information structure. The children s occasional non-target-consistent behavior is accounted for by economy principles."

The Acquisition of Italian

2015-07-15
The Acquisition of Italian
Author: Adriana Belletti
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2015-07-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027268533
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A major contribution to the study of language acquisition and language development inspired by theoretical linguistics has been made by research on the acquisition of Italian syntax. This book offers an updated overview of results from theory-driven experimental and corpus-based research on the acquisition of Italian in different modes (monolingual, early and late L2, SLI, etc.), as well as exploring possible developments for future research. The book focuses on experimental studies which address research questions generated by linguistic theory, providing a detailed illustration of the fruitful interaction between linguistic theorizing and developmental studies. The authors are leading figures in theoretical linguistics and language acquisition; their own work is featured in the research presented here. Students and advanced researchers will benefit from the systematic review offered by this book and the critical assessment of the field that it provides.

The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar

2017-01-12
The Oxford Handbook of Universal Grammar
Author: Ian Roberts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 673
Release: 2017-01-12
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191643688
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This handbook provides a critical guide to the most central proposition in modern linguistics: the notion, generally known as Universal Grammar, that a universal set of structural principles underlies the grammatical diversity of the world's languages. Part I considers the implications of Universal Grammar for philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, and examines the history of the theory. Part II focuses on linguistic theory, looking at topics such as explanatory adequacy and how phonology and semantics fit into Universal Grammar. Parts III and IV look respectively at the insights derived from UG-inspired research on language acquisition, and at comparative syntax and language typology, while part V considers the evidence for Universal Grammar in phenomena such as creoles, language pathology, and sign language. The book will be a vital reference for linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists.

Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXIII

2022-12-15
Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXXIII
Author: Abdel-Khalig Ali
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2022-12-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027256934
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This volume features eight peer-reviewed chapters based on papers presented at the 33rd Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, held at the University of Toronto in 2019. The chapters are divided into four sections: sociolinguistics, phonetics and phonology, syntax, and first language acquisition. They present research on relatively well-studied Arabic varieties such as the Moroccan, Jordanian, and Emirati varieties as well as understudied varieties such as the Palestinian dialects of Gaza and Jaffa, and the Saudi dialects of Al-Ahsa, Ha’il, and Faifi. The chapters address linguistic phenomena that range from language variation and change, the phonemic status and feature composition of rhotics, and the realization patterns of emphatic fricatives to the grammaticalization of aspectual markers, the syntactic and pragmatic aspects of post-wh-questions, and the acquisition trajectory of the definite article. The volume makes valuable descriptive and theoretical contributions to Arabic linguistics.

Production-Comprehension Asymmetries in Child Language

2011-10-27
Production-Comprehension Asymmetries in Child Language
Author: Angela Grimm
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2011-10-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110259176
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The workshop Production-Comprehension Asymmetries in Child Language held in Osnabrück in 2009 is the starting point for this book. The workshop developed from the observation that children's production skills appear to precede their comprehension skills in a number of phenomena, e.g. pronouns or negation. The volume provides cross-linguistic evidence for such asymmetric development and investigates grammatical and methodical explanations of the observed asymmetries.

The Acquisition of French

2009-12-17
The Acquisition of French
Author: Philippe Prévost
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2009-12-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027288852
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This book presents a thorough description of morphosyntactic knowledge developed by learners of French in four different learning situations — first language (L1) acquisition, second (L2) language acquisition, bilingualism, and acquisition by children with Specific Language Impairment — within the theoretical framework of generative grammar. This approach allows for multiple comparisons across acquisition contexts, which provides the reader with invaluable insights into the nature of the acquisition process. The book is divided into four parts each dealing with a major morphosyntactic domain of acquisition: the verbal domain, the pronominal domain, the nominal domain, and the CP domain. Each part contains four chapters, the first one presenting an overview of the basic facts and analyses of the relevant properties of French, and the next three focusing on the different acquisition contexts. This book will be useful to anyone interested in the acquisition of French and in language development in general. It is also meant to stimulate cross-linguistic research from a theoretical perspective.