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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
The author takes cross-linguistic data from child language as evidence for recent proposals in syntactic theory. Developments in the structure of children's sentences during the first few years of life are traced to changes in the setting of specific grammatical parameters. Some surprising differences between the early child grammars of French and English are uncovered, differences that can only be explained on the basis of subtle distinctions in inflectional structure. This motivates the author's claim that functional or nonthematic categories are represented in the grammars of very young children. The book also explores the relationship between acquisition and diachronic change in French and English. It is argued that findings in acquisition, when viewed from a parameter setting perspective, provide answers to important questions arising in the study of language change.
The book promises to be of interest to all those involved in the formal, psychological or historical study of linguistic knowledge.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Language Acquisition and Syntactic Theory
Book Subtitle: A Comparative Analysis of French and English Child Grammars
Authors: Amy E. Pierce
Series Title: Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2574-1
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
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eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1992
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-1553-7Due: 30 June 1992
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-010-5135-4Published: 03 October 2013
eBook ISBN: 978-94-011-2574-1Published: 06 December 2012
Series ISSN: 1873-0043
Series E-ISSN: 2215-1788
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 175
Topics: Psycholinguistics, Syntax