bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Children's comprehension of their mothers' question-directives
Authors: Shatz Marilyn 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTMuch of adult communication is carried on at the subtle level of indirect utterance meaning, where the speaker's intent is not literally expressed in his or her utterance. This work investigates the young child's ability to respond appropriately to the intended, as opposed to the literal, meaning of one class of such utterances, requests for action. The data were the responses of five children between 1; 7 and 2; 4 to the direct and indirect requests for action their mothers produced during a natural play session. All the children responded with action to requests for it regardless of how subtly the requests were expressed. The apparent ability of two-year-olds to deal with indirect speech acts is surprising in that the understanding of such utterances by adults is presumed to depend on a combination of sophisticated rule systems. Rather than grant the young child such knowledge, the alternative of an action-based response heuristic is proposed.
Temporal and sequential constraints on six-year-olds' phonological productions: some observations on the ‘ambliance’ phenomenon
Authors: Gilbert John H. V. , Johnson Carolyn E. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper reports the results of a preliminary study dealing with the ways in which children between six and seven years of age organize spoken language. In particular it deals with aspects of the temporal and segmental structure of polysyllabic English words containing the syllable C/jul/ (e.g. pediculous). On the basis of data presented, it is suggested (a) that in order to meet certain phonological conditions it is the relations between syllable (and not segment) durations which must undergo modification towards the adult duration values, and (b) that the achievement of such values is accompanied by some quasi-systematic alterations in phonological rules.
Features of infant sounds: the emergence of cooing
Authors: Stark Rachel E. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTVocalizations of two female infants, recorded over a 5-week period after the first emergence of cooing, were studied. The vocalizations were classified as cry, discomfort, vegetative and cooing (comfort) sounds. Fifty vocalizations of each sound type, distributed across the 5-week period of study, were selected from the output of each infant (400 vocalizations in all). The features of voicing, breath direction and consonant-like versus vowel-like were documented for each sound type. It was found that the features of the more primitive sound types regrouped themselves in comfort sounds. For the first time the feature of consonant-like was found to co-occur with voicing and egressive (outgoing) breath direction. The implications for theories of pre-speech development are discussed.
Strategies in the acquisition of deixis
Authors: Clark Eve V. , Sengul C. J. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTAlthough deictic terms are among the earliest words children acquire, the proximal/non-proximal contrast (the true deictic contrast) between here and there, and between this and that, takes several years to master. As research on spontaneous production shows, children may start, for example, by using here with a deictic meaning, there with a non-deictic meaning, and a gesture to indicate a deictic contrast. On the basis of two experiments on comprehension, we argue that children go through at least three stages in acquiring the deictic contrasts. They start with NO CONTRAST, work out a PARTIAL CONTRAST used only in certain contexts, and finally master a FULL CONTRAST equivalent to the adult's. However, children follow different routes through these stages, depending on their initial choice of (a) the point of reference for the contrast – themselves or the speaker – and (b) the spatial relation to that point of reference – proximity or distance.
Noun-pronoun pleonasms: the role of age and situation
Authors: Cotton Eleanor G. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe process of topicalization occasionally produces pleonasms with nominal-pronominal reduplication (NPR). In these structures the topic nominal is often accompanied by a comment clause containing a pronoun which is co-referential with the topic. This article discusses NPR in the language of children ages seven and nine in four different situations, one of which was child-child in free play, three of which were child-adult in retelling stories, describing pictures, and answering questions. The younger children produced more NPR. Influenced by their attitudes toward their interlocutors, the content of the situations and themselves as communicators, all of the children produced little NPR talking to their peers and increasing amounts talking to adults. Examples are given and analysed.
Early lexical development: comprehension and production
Authors: Benedict Helen 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTLists of the first 50 words comprehended and produced by eight infants between 0; 9 and 1; 8 were compared. Comprehension development began earlier (around 0; 9) and reached the 50-word level (age 1; 1) earlier than production development (ages 1; 0 and 1; 6 respectively) and rate of word acquisition for comprehension was twice that of production, confirming the hypothesis that comprehension precedes production for lexical development. Word-class analysis revealed differences in the proportion and type of action words in comprehension and production vocabularies. It is suggested that action is central to lexical development but is expressed differently in comprehension, where action words are used to initiate actions, and production, where non-action words accompany the child's actions.
What does the child mean? A critique of the ‘functional’ approach to language acquisition
Authors: Francis Hazel 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe attribution of function of various kinds to elements of child speech is discussed, and the question of the validity of the interpretations on which such attribution rests is explored with reference to Halliday's work on the development of meaning. Work in the philosophy of language is used to explore the kind of evidence needed for valid interpretation, and its systematic nature within a framework of the structure of linguistic behaviour. It is argued that theoretical clarity in this area would aid the study of both language use and language acquisition.
The development of young children's capacity to judge anomalous sentences
Authors: Carr Diane B. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTJudgements about the acceptability of anomalous and non-anomalous sentences were elicited from children between the ages of 2; 0 and 5; 0. Generally such judgements have been assumed to be a direct reflection of linguistic competence. Longitudinal study of individual children indicated that developmental changes in children's judgemental capacities were erratic, with sudden regressions in performance as well as sudden improvements. This was especially true of the youngest children, aged between 2; 0 and 3; 6. It appeared that, despite irregularity, certain general developmental patterns could be discerned. It is difficult to reconcile these findings with a view of sentence judgements which assumes that they directly represent linguistic competence. It is suggested that the most satisfactory explanation of the developmental data must rest on the assumption that not simply linguistic factors, but also cognitive/experiential factors are involved in sentence judgements.
Adjective ordering in the language of young children: an experimental investigation
Authors: Richards Meredith Martin 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTYoung children described objects which differed on three simultaneous dimensions, using adjective combinations appropriate to the dimensions. Three- and 6-year-olds displayed significant ordering preferences for these adjectives, which agreed with the ordering preferences of adults in the same task. Four- and 5-year-olds were less constrained in their adjective ordering, although descriptive competence with the adjectives improved greatly at age five. In a comprehension task, the children located the objects from verbal descriptions which used the same adjectives. Neither latency nor accuracy of comprehension was affected by the order of adjectives in the description at any age. The children also reproduced the adjectives in different orders; the few errors which occurred were unrelated to adjective order.
Children's comprehension of ‘because’ in reversible and non-reversible sentences
Authors: Emerson Harriet F. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTComprehension of event order was compared for reversible ‘X because Y’ (‘Y because X’ is also logical) and non-reversible ‘X because Y’ sentences. Children aged 5; 8–10; 11 chose one of two picture sequences, differing in event order, and put two pictures in first/last order to match a sentence ‘X because Y’ (order of mention violates temporal order) or ‘Because Y, X’ (order of mention preserves temporal order). Reversibility and clause order effects reflected the use of semantic probability cues and order-of-mention strategies for comprehension. Judgements were also made of grammatical acceptability for correct and reversed ‘X because Y’ sentences. Response strategies used in the two experiments suggest that development of comprehension of the role of because reflects acquired independence from contextual support and acquisition of a meaning component: ORDER.
Observations on the role of logically constrained sentences in the comprehension of ‘before’ and ‘after’
Authors: Kavanaugh Robert D. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTSentences were constructed in which the terms before and after were embedded in logically constrained and logically reversible sequences. As in French & Brown (1977), pre-school children found the constrained sentences easier to comprehend. These findings add a new dimension to Clark's (1971) original before and after study in which the effect of logically constrained sentences was not considered. The results of the two studies are consistent with a growing literature (including current formulations of semantic feature theory) which implicates contextual cues and child strategies in the comprehension process, and raises questions about the role of parental speech in the child's comprehension of temporal terms.
Some reasons why successive single word utterances are not
Authors: Branigan George 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTTwo suprasegmental characteristics of three children's single-word, successive single-word and multiple-word utterances were examined spectrographically. The location of terminal pitch contour and the duration of words were compared across the three utterance types. It was found that successive single-word utterances shared suprasegmental patterns, on these dimensions, with multiple-word forms but not with single words. It is argued that successive single-word utterances are not simply single words uttered in close temporal proximity. Further, an account of the underlying organization of successive utterances is proposed.
Mothers' speech to children and syntactic development: some simple relationships
Authors: Furrow David , Nelson Katherine , Benedict Helen 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the relationships between children's linguistic environments and their language acquisition. Speech samples taken from seven firstborn children and their mothers when the children were 1; 6 and 2; 3 were analysed within a number of semantic and syntactic categories to determine correlations between mothers' speech and subsequent language development. Several characteristics of mothers' speech (e.g. utterance length, use of pronouns) significantly predicted later child speech. The significant correlations suggested that mothers' choice of simple constructions facilitated language growth. Further, they showed that the motherese code differed from adult-adult speech in ways which aided language development. Differences between our study and previous investigations of environmental effects on language development probably resulted from the failure of earlier investigations to take into account children's level of language competence at the time when environmental effects were assessed.
New names for old things: the emergence of metaphoric language
Authors: Winner Ellen 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTCriteria were devised to distinguish between literal and metaphoric word usage in early language. These criteria were applied to the spontaneous speech transcripts of one child between 2; 3 and 4; 10.15. All unconventional word uses were identified and were then scored as overextensions, anomalies, or metaphors. The majority of unconventional word uses proved to be metaphors. Moreover, a developmental sequence of types of metaphors produced was found: those metaphors predominant during year 2 were based on the pretend actions of symbolic play; those predominant at year 4 were based on perceptual grounds alone, without the support of action.
The development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish
Authors: Johnston Judith R. , Slobin Dan I. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe ability of children between the ages of 2; 0 and 4; 8 to produce locative pre- or postpositions was investigated in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish. Across languages, there was a general order of development: (1) ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘under’, and ‘beside’, (2) ‘between’, ‘back’ and ‘front’ with featured objects, (3) ‘back’ and ‘front’ with non-featured objects. This order of development is discussed in terms of nonlinguistic growth in conceptual ability. Language-specific differences in the general pattern of development are discussed in terms of a number of linguistic factors which may facilitate or retard the child's discovery of the linguistic means for encoding concepts.
Complex sentences: acquisition of syntactic connectives and the semantic relations they encode
Authors: Bloom Lois , Lahey Margaret , Hood Lois , Lifter Karin , Fiess Kathleen 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe acquisition of connective forms and the meaning relations between connected clauses in the development of complex sentences is described for four children from two to three years of age. The major results of the study include the developmental interactions between syntactic connectives and meaning relations, and between these interactions and the discourse environments in which they occurred. The first syntactic connective the children learned,and, was the most general: semantically,andwas used to encode conjunction with all of the different conjunction meaning relations in the order Additive < Temporal < Causal < Adversative. Other connectives were semantically more specific, and were learned subsequently with different syntactic structures in the order Conjunction < Complementation < Relativization. These results are discussed in terms of FORM, relative linguistic complexity; CONTENT, the intersection of form with conceptual and semantic factors affecting acquisition; and USE, discourse cohesion.
On coordination in child language
Authors: Ardery Gail 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper evaluates Lust's (1977) study of coordination in child language, both on its own merits and in the light of my own research. First, particular design weaknesses in Lust's study are noted which render her results questionable. In addition, it is argued that the hypotheses proposed by Lust fail to make any substantive predictions about the types of errors which children make with coordinate structures. Finally, it is shown that Lust's hypotheses cannot account for the results of my own comprehension and non-imitative production experiments. It is concluded that Lust cannot account for a wide range of phenomena concerning coordination in child language, and consequently an alternative set of hypotheses is proposed.
Overextension in early language development
Authors: Rescorla Leslie A. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis research explored overextension in the early vocabularies of six children, followed in a language diary study from 1; 0 to 1; 8. Results indicated that only one-third of the first 75 words acquired by each child were ever overextended. A small set of high-frequency, early acquired words accounted for a disproportionate number of overextensions. Overextensions were classified into three types: categorical overinclusions, analogical overextensions and predicate statements. Four types of information served as the bases for word applications: perceptual, action-functional, affective and contextual. The use of words to denote associative complexes of a well-organized, systematic character was discussed as a characteristic form of early word usage.
Fathers' and mothers' speech in early language development
Authors: Rondal J. A. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTFive French-speaking middle-class couples and their male only-children were tape-recorded separately at home while interacting verbally in a free-play, a story-telling, and in a family meal situation. The children's ages ranged from 1; 6 to 3; 0. The speech of the fathers, mothers, and children was transcribed and analysed for its semantic, syntactic, and language-teaching aspects. The results indicate that paternal speech displays the same simplification processes usually found in maternal speech to young children. Paternal speech, however, also contains some linguistic patterns at variance with those found in maternal speech. It is hypothesised that maternal and paternal speech may be complementary in their influence on language development in the children.
Preschool children's sentence comprehension: strategies with respect to word order
Authors: Lempert Henrietta , Kinsbourne Marcel 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTFifty-two children aged 2; 5 to 6; 3 acted out the meaning of reversible passive and inverted cleft sentences. The younger children overgeneralized two strategies that led to passive sentence reversal. In order of frequency, they are: (1)‘agent + action’ (the noun preceding the verb being interpreted as agent even when it is the second noun), and (2) ‘order-of-mention’ (the first noun being treated as agent). Whereas younger children tended to use an individually consistent approach to both structures, older children were more likely to vary their approaches when they did not comprehend a structure.
Consistency in the pattern of change in mothers' speech: some discriminant analyses
Authors: Bellinger David 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis study demonstrates a striking absence of variability in the speech which mothers address to children of the same age within the 1- to 5-year range. Speech to children of 1; 0, 1; 8, 2; 3 and 5; 0 years was analysed for aspects of syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and discourse structure. Discriminant function analyses showed that the age of the child to whom a mother was speaking could be predicted very accurately from her speech. The rate at which mothers' speech changed was greatest when the children were 1; 8–2; 3, and least when they were 2; 3–5; 0. These trends in the evolution of the maternal speech register are interpreted as responses to concurrent changes in children's language behaviour.
Speech roles and the development of personal pronouns
Authors: Charney Rosalind 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTPronoun mastery demands a knowledge of speech roles and an ability to identify oneself and others in those roles. Twenty-one girls' (age 1; 6–2; 6) knowledge of my, your, and her was assessed when they were speakers, addressees and non-addressed listeners. My and your were at first understood correctly only when referring to the child's own speech role: your was comprehended when the child was addressed, though not produced correctly by the child; my was used by the child as speaker, while still not comprehended correctly when used by others. The first consistent production of her referred to dolls. Children thus were initially aware of speech roles, but only when they themselves occupied those roles.
Ostensive definition in vocabulary teaching
Authors: Ninio Anat 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTOstensive definitions of words are ambiguous as to their referent. In a study of 40 mother–infant dyads engaged in looking at picture-books, it was found that 95% of ostensive definitions referred to the whole object depicted, rather than to its parts, attributes or actions. On the rare occasions when mothers named parts of objects, they avoided misunderstanding of the level of reference either by naming the part immediately after naming the whole, or by including a reference to the whole in the definition of the part. What's that? questions are not used to request labelling of the part.
Description and explanation in the acquisition of verb-forms
Authors: Fletcher Paul 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTResearch on the learning of verb-forms in English has consistently reported the late acquisition of the PRESENT PERFECT. Explanations for this have been in terms of children's cognitive abilities. Difficulties are presented for such explanations by an apparent discrepancy between American English (AE) and British English (BE) acquisition data. This paper examines in detail the forms included in the PRESENT PERFECT paradigm, and the use of these and related forms by a sample of BE children aged 3; 3. While there is considerable variability across the sample, the results indicate that BE children at this age have not in any sense mastered the present perfect. The implications of this are discussed.
The development of noun definition
Authors: Wehren Aileen , Lisi Richard De , Arnold Marjorie 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the development of noun definition by grade school children and adults (N = 100). Subjects were asked to define 15 common nouns in one of two conditions: with objects present or without objects present. Definitions were classified on the basis of perceptual attributes (CONCRETE), everyday usage (FUNCTIONAL) or a combination of these (COMBINATORIAL). Results were analysed with a 5 (Grade) × 2 (Condition × 3 (Category) Analysis of Variance which indicated no effects for condition, but a Grade × Category interaction. With increasing age, there was a shift from FUNCTIONAL to COMBINATORIAL definitions; CONCRETE definitions were infrequent for all grades. In addition, age changes were found in the forms of the definitions subjects produced. In contrast to the children, adults formulated definitions in a more complex Aristotelian form. It was concluded that noun definition is a metalinguistic ability which follows a course of development similar to that for the acquisition of word meaning.
Regularity vs anomaly: the acquisition of Hebrew inflectional morphology
Authors: Berman Ruth A. 
Published: September 2008

ABSTRACTThe paper examines the acquisition of selected aspects of the inflectional system of Modern Hebrew, a language rich in bound morphology. By age three, children acquire the major inflectionally marked categories of the system, in the sense that they make semantically relevant distinctions of tense, person, number, and gender. Certain morphologically complex forms are simplified by neutralization or reformulation or by analytic paraphrases of bound constructions. Various anomalous forms are handled by regularization of lexical exceptions or by conflating forms belonging to different lexical patterns, while forms which are opaque due to neutralization of historically distinct root consonants or to inaccessibility of rules governing their alternations are processed by reference to certain ‘paradigms’ taken as basic.