Lexical categories in early child English
Lexical categories in early child English

Author: Helga Mebus

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2008-06-19

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 363806560X

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Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: In terms of Universal Grammar, our language is made up out of grammatical categories, namely lexical categories and functional categories (compare 1997 Radford: 29-60). What are grammatical categories? When little babies enter our world – do they carry categories within them? What are their first words? Do they belong to a certain category and is the child aware of that? How do children’s first word-combinations look like? Are there similarities to the adults’ language? This paper suggests answers to these questions. Since every language has a more or less different grammar, the focus stays on the English language. This makes it possible to go into detail. Moreover, the concern lies in early child English up to the age of about two years. The overall claim is that children up to that age only produce words and word combinations belonging to thematic or lexical classes. This is also Radford’s thesis presented in his book Syntactic Theory and the Acquisition of Syntax (1990). To be able to understand what lexical categories are, the following chapter provides a definition of grammatical categories. Afterwards, Radford’s theory will be described. In the next section, examples of children up to the age of about two years are given and analyzed concerning the occurrence of lexical categories. Other opinions will be presented and discussed in the following section. The paper closes with a conclusion.

Children's Language
Children's Language

Author: Carolyn E. Johnson

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2013-01-11

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 1134797303

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This volume brings together the work of 32 scholars from 13 countries -- investigations of children learning 15 different languages, in some instances more than one at a time. The scope of this work -- as broad as it is -- only partially represents the research interests and approaches of the more than 350 scholars from 34 countries who contributed papers or posters to the Sixth International Congress for the Study of Child Language. This investigative power and diversity are, for the most part, focused on topics and issues of modern day child language research that have been under discussion for the last 30 years or so. Some even go beyond that in early diary studies and philosophers' speculations. While the issues are mainly familiar ones, the 17 chapters contribute to the advancement of child language study in several specific ways. They: * represent current theoretical frameworks, both bringing the insights of the theories to the interpretation of language development and testing tenets or implications of the theories with child language data; * contribute substantively to the crosslinguistic study of child language, reflecting both the linguistic diversity of the authors themselves and a recent major shift in the approach to child language study; * build on the now considerable body of knowledge about children's language, both adding to information about the basic systems of phonology, syntax, and semantics, and extending beyond to explore aspects of narrative and literacy development, language acquisition by bilingual and atypical children, and language processing; and * contain hints of new directions in child language study, such as increased attention to the impact of phonology on other language systems. Taken as a whole, this volume reflects the current strength of crosslinguistic research, the application and testing of new theoretical developments, a new legitimacy of language disorder data, and a new appeal to the descriptive possibilities of language processing models. In addition, there is a theme that runs through many of the chapters and points the way for important research in the future: the role of prosody in the acquisition of various language structures and systems.

Child Language
Child Language

Author: Jean Stilwell Peccei

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 0415281032

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Child Language: provides a comprehensive overview of language acquisition in children introduces students to key theories and concerns such as innateness, the role of input and the relation of language to other cognitive functions teaches students the skills needed to analyze children's language includes sections on the bilingual child and atypical language development provides classic readings by key names in the field, such as Brian MacWhinney, Richard Cromer, Jean Aitchison, and Eve Clark. The accompanying website to this book can be found at http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/0415281032

Lexical Categories and Root Classes in Amerindian Languages
Lexical Categories and Root Classes in Amerindian Languages

Author: Ximena Lois

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 9783039108312

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The problem of lexical categories and root class determination is fundamental in linguistic description and theory. Research on this topic has been particularly stimulated by studies of Amerindian languages. The essays in this collection, written by specialists in languages from South, Middle and North America, provide new insights into processes, levels, functions, and the aquisition of lexical categories, from various recent theoretical perspectives. The volume also addresses recent debates about root indeterminacy. Focusing on morphosyntax, phonology, and semantics, the contributions offer invaluable material for typological generalizations and for comprehension of the nature of the mental lexicon.

Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism
Language Mixing in Infant Bilingualism

Author: Elizabeth Lanza

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 9780199265060

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This book addresses the issue of language contact in the context of child language acquisition. Elizabeth Lanza examines in detail the simultaneous acquisition of Norwegian and English by two first-born children in families living in Norway in which the mother is American and the father Norwegian. She connects psycholinguistic arguments with sociolinguistic evidence, adding a much-needed dimension of real language-use in context to the psycholinguistic studies which have dominated the field. She draws upon evidence from other studies to support her claims concerning language dominance and the child's differentiation between the two languages in relation to the situation, interlocutor, and the communicative demands of the context. She also addresses the question of whether or not the language mixing of infant bilingualism is conceptually different from the codeswitching of older bilinguals, thus helping to bridge the gap between these two fields of study.

Lexical Categories
Lexical Categories

Author: Mark C. Baker

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-03-13

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 9780521001106

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How Children Learn the Meanings of Words
How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

Author: Paul Bloom

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2002-01-25

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780262523295

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How do children learn that the word "dog" refers not to all four-legged animals, and not just to Ralph, but to all members of a particular species? How do they learn the meanings of verbs like "think," adjectives like "good," and words for abstract entities such as "mortgage" and "story"? The acquisition of word meaning is one of the fundamental issues in the study of mind. According to Paul Bloom, children learn words through sophisticated cognitive abilities that exist for other purposes. These include the ability to infer others' intentions, the ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic structure, and certain general learning and memory abilities. Although other researchers have associated word learning with some of these capacities, Bloom is the first to show how a complete explanation requires all of them. The acquisition of even simple nouns requires rich conceptual, social, and linguistic capacities interacting in complex ways. This book requires no background in psychology or linguistics and is written in a clear, engaging style. Topics include the effects of language on spatial reasoning, the origin of essentialist beliefs, and the young child's understanding of representational art. The book should appeal to general readers interested in language and cognition as well as to researchers in the field.

Encyclopedia of Language Development
Encyclopedia of Language Development

Author: Patricia J. Brooks

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2014-03-28

Total Pages: 1471

ISBN-13: 1483389774

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The progression from newborn to sophisticated language user in just a few short years is often described as wonderful and miraculous. What are the biological, cognitive, and social underpinnings of this miracle? What major language development milestones occur in infancy? What methodologies do researchers employ in studying this progression? Why do some become adept at multiple languages while others face a lifelong struggle with just one? What accounts for declines in language proficiency, and how might such declines be moderated? Despite an abundance of textbooks, specialized monographs, and a couple of academic handbooks, there has been no encyclopedic reference work in this area--until now. The Encyclopedia of Language Development covers the breadth of theory and research on language development from birth through adulthood, as well as their practical application. Features: This affordable A-to-Z reference includes 200 articles that address such topic areas as theories and research tradition; biological perspectives; cognitive perspectives; family, peer, and social influences; bilingualism; special populations and disorders; and more. All articles (signed and authored by key figures in the field) conclude with cross reference links and suggestions for further reading. Appendices include a Resource Guide with annotated lists of classic books and articles, journals, associations, and web sites; a Glossary of specialized terms; and a Chronology offering an overview and history of the field. A thematic Reader’s Guide groups related articles by broad topic areas as one handy search feature on the e-Reference platform, which includes a comprehensive index of search terms. Available in both print and electronic formats, Encyclopedia of Language Development is a must-have reference for researchers and is ideal for library reference or circulating collections. Key Themes: Categories Effects of language on cognitive development Fundamentals, theories and models of language development Impairments of language development Language development in special populations Literacy and language development Mechanisms of language development Methods in language development research Prelinguistic communicative development Social effects in language acquisition Specific aspects of language development