The Acquisition of Finiteness
The Acquisition of Finiteness

Author: Elma Blom

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2008-12-10

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 3110211432

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The book provides a theoretical and empirical evaluation of a field that has been the focus of generative theories on language acquisition: the acquisition of finiteness and related properties such as root infinitives, verb movement and null subjects. It contains a critical empirical assessment of the various hypotheses, lists the implications for linguistic theory and provides alternative analyses. Issues covered are: (i) the semantics of children’s root infinitives (tense, modality and aspect), (ii) the relation between lexical, morphological and syntactic development in the domain of finiteness, (iii) the role of the input, and (iv) the interference of cognitive development. Typological focus is on Germanic languages.

The Acquisition of Spanish
The Acquisition of Spanish

Author: Silvina Montrul

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2004-01-01

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9789027252975

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This is the first book on the acquisition of Spanish that provides a state-of-the-art comprehensive overview of Spanish morphosyntactic development in monolingual and bilingual situations. Its content is organized around key grammatical themes that form the empirical base of research in generative grammar: nominal and verbal inflectional morphology, subject and object pronouns, complex structures involving movement (topicalizations, questions, relative clauses), and aspects of verb meaning that have consequences for syntax. The book argues that Universal Grammar constrains all instances of language acquisition and that there is a fundamental continuity between monolingual, bilingual, child and adult early grammatical systems. While stressing their similarities with respect to linguistic representations and processes, the book also considers important differences between these three acquisition situations with respect to the outcome of acquisition. It is also shown that many linguistic properties of Spanish are acquired earlier than in English and other languages. This book is a must read for those interested in the acquisition of Spanish from different theoretical perspectives as well as those working on the acquisition of other languages in different contexts.

The Acquisition of Scrambling and Cliticization
The Acquisition of Scrambling and Cliticization

Author: S.M. Powers

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2000-05-31

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 9780792362494

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This collection of papers investigates two specific linguistic phenomena from the point of view of first- and second-language acquisition. While observations on the acquisition of scrambling or pronominal clitics can be found in the literature, up until the recent past they were sparse and often buried in other issues. This volume fills a long-existing gap in providing a collection of articles which focus on language acquisition but at the same time address the overarching syntactic issues involved (for example, the X-bar status of clitics, base-generation vs. movement accounts of scrambling). This volume contains an overview of L1 (and, in one case, L2) acquisition data from a number of different languages including Bernese, Swiss, German, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish, as well as from several theoretical points of view with these two clause-internal processes at its center. These language acquisition data are considered to be crucial in the validation of analyses of these specific linguistic phenomena in adult grammars. The contributions in this volume include the earliest thoughts in this vein and, for this reason, should be viewed as a starting point for discussions within theoretical linguistics and language acquisition alike.

Language Development and Developmental Language Disorder
Language Development and Developmental Language Disorder

Author: Peter Jordens

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2022-06-06

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 3110712105

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Acquisition of the native language proceeds in a stage-wise manner for both typically developing (TD) children and children with developmental language disorder (DLD). As shown in TD children learning Dutch and German, the ability to establish contextual cohesion serves as the driving force to proceed from a simple, lexical system to a more complex, functional system. It is argued that precisely this ability is challenged in children with DLD. The present book offers an account of the functional linguistic features fit to achieve contextual cohesion in language production. It provides a rationale for practitioners to develop linguistically founded tools to be used in speech therapy.

Finiteness
Finiteness

Author: Irina Nikolaeva

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2007-04-06

Total Pages: 552

ISBN-13: 019152672X

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This book explores the nature of finiteness, one of most commonly used notions in descriptive and theoretical linguistics but possibly one of the least understood. Scholars representing a variety of theoretical positions seek to clarify what it is and to establish its usefulness and limitations. In doing so they reveal cross-linguistically valid correlations between subject licensing, subject agreement, tense, syntactic opacity, and independent clausehood; show how these properties are associated with finiteness; and discuss what this means for the content of the category. The issues explored include how different grammatical theories represent finiteness; whether the finite/nonfinite distinction is universal; whether there are degrees of finiteness; whether the syntactic notion of finiteness has a semantic corollary; whether and how finiteness is subject to change; and how finiteness features in language acquisition. Irina Nikolaeva opens the book by describing the history of finiteness and its place in current thinking and research. She then introduces the chapters of the book, comparing the authors' perspectives and showing what they have in common. The book is then divided into four parts. Part I considers the role finiteness plays in formal syntactic theories and Part II its deployment in functional theories and as the subject of research in typology. Parts III and IV look respectively at the finite/nonfinite opposition in individual languages and at the role finiteness plays in linguistic change and linguistic development. The book is written and structured to appeal to scholars and students of syntax and general linguistics at graduate level and above.

Dummy Auxiliaries in First and Second Language Acquisition
Dummy Auxiliaries in First and Second Language Acquisition

Author: Elma Blom

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-08-28

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 1614513473

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Dummy auxiliaries are seemingly superfluous words that appear in learner varieties across languages. This volume is an up-to-date overview of research on dummy auxiliaries with contributions covering English, Dutch, German, French, Cypriot-Greek, first and second language acquisition, and specific language impairment as well as dialectal variation.

Finiteness Matters
Finiteness Matters

Author: Kristin Melum Eide

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2016-08-25

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9027266972

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"Although standardly recognized by linguists of many diverse theoretical persuasions, finiteness continues to figure among [...] the most poorly understood concepts of linguistic theory”. This was eloquently stated by Ledgeway (2000, 2007) and remains true even today. The present volume thus aims to shed some much needed light on this area of linguistic theorizing, with eleven chapters approaching finiteness phenomena from the fields of syntax, semantics, language acquisition, and Creole studies, and providing data from a range of different languages. Traditionally, approaches to finiteness within the Principles and Parameters framework have seen as their main aim to understand the relation between the morphological exponents of finiteness and the syntactic operations seemingly depending on these exponents. The papers in this volume mostly take their point of departure from this more traditional view on finiteness, before elaborating on, modifying and diverging from this tradition in novel and interesting ways.

Functional Categories in Learner Language
Functional Categories in Learner Language

Author: Christine Dimroth

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 3110216167

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Research on spontaneous processes of language acquisition has shown that early learner systems are based on lexical structures. At some point in acquisition this lexical-semantic system is given up in favour of a target-like functional category system. This work deals with the driving forces behind the acquisition of the functional properties of inflection, word-order variation, definiteness and agreement.

Second Language Acquisition
Second Language Acquisition

Author: Neal Snape

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-09-16

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1137367075

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Exploring the canonical topics in second language acquisition, this book introduces different theoretical perspectives and explores the types of research carried out in the field. Individual chapters have been written so that they can stand alone, giving instructors and students total control over the pace and order of study, and the book is written in an accessible conversational style, inviting engagement with this dynamic topic. Second Language Acquisition: - Surveys key studies in the acquisition of morphology, syntax and phonology - Features a whole chapter dedicated to bilingualism, tying together two closely-linked fields - Examines the role and implications of pedagogy in language teaching contexts - Employs end-of-chapter questions, concept practice and suggestions for further reading to encourage deeper engagement with topic

The Acquisition of French
The Acquisition of French

Author: Philippe Prévost

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 481

ISBN-13: 9027253129

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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."