Overview
- Editors:
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Jürgen M. Meisel
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Romanisches Seminar, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
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Table of contents (14 chapters)
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- Jürgen M. Meisel, Natascha Müller
Pages 109-138
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- L. Gawlitzek-Maiwald, R. Tracy, A. Fritzenschaft
Pages 139-179
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- Harald Clahsen, Martina Penke
Pages 181-223
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- Maaike Verrips, Jürgen Weissenborn
Pages 283-331
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Back Matter
Pages 445-455
About this book
other aspects of developing grammars. And this is, indeed, what the contributions to this volume do. Parameterization of functional categories may, however, be understood in different ways, even if one shares the dual assumptions that substantive elements (verbs, nouns, etc. ) are present in all grammars and that X-bar principles are part of the grammatical knowledge available to the child prior to language-specific learning processes. From these assumptions it follows that the child should, from early on, be able to construct projections on the basis of these elements. The role of functional categories, however, may still be interpreted differently. One possibility, first suggested by Radford (1986, 1990) and by Guilfoyle and Noonan (1988), is that children must discover which functional categories (FC) need to be implemented in the grammar of the language they are acquiring. Another possibility, first explored by Hyams (1986), is that a specific category is present in developing grammars but that parameter values are set in a way deviating from the target adult grammar, corresponding, however, to options realized in other adult systems. A third option would be that these categories might be specified differently in developing as opposed to mature grammars. All three are explored in the papers collected in this volume. Before outlining the various hypotheses in more detail, however, I would like briefly to sketch the grammatical context in which the following debate is situated. 2.
Reviews
'In sum, the book is an important contribution to the field of language acquisition and is a must for anyone with a serious interest in the role of Universal Grammar in language development.' Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16:3 1994
Editors and Affiliations
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Romanisches Seminar, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Jürgen M. Meisel
