Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-fv566 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T10:29:26.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Syntactic categories in the speech of young children: the case of the determiner*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Julian M. Pine  and
Helen Martindale
Julian M. Pine*
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Helen Martindale
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
*
Address for correspondence: Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There has been a growing trend in recent years towards the attribution of adult-like syntactic categories to young language-learning children. This is based, at least in part, on studies which claim to have found positive evidence for syntactic phrase structure categories in young children's speech. However, these claims contradict the findings of previous research which suggest that the categories underlying children's early multi-word speech are much more limited in scope. The present study represents an attempt to reconcile the findings of these different lines of research by focusing specifically on Valian's (1986) criteria for attributing the syntactic category of determiner to young children. The aim is, firstly, to replicate Valian's results regarding her determiner criteria on a new sample of seven children between the ages of 1;20 and 2;6; secondly, to investigate the extent to which children show overlap in the contexts in which they use different determiner types; and, thirdly, to compare this with a controlled measure of the overlap shown by competent adult speakers. The results suggest that Valian's criteria for attributing a syntactic determiner category are too generous and could be passed by children with a relatively small amount of limited scope knowledge. They also provide at least some evidence that a limited scope formula account of children's early determiner use may fit the data better than an adult-like syntactic account.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 369 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

We would like to thank all the families which took part in the research reported here. Thanks are also due to Joan Martindale for her help in collecting the data.

References

REFERENCES

Abney, S. P. (1987). The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Bloom, L. (1970). Language development: form and function in emerging grammars. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1973). Structural relationships in children's utterances: syntactic or semantic? In Moore, T. E. (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1985). What shapes children's grammars? In Slobin, D. I. (ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 2: Theoretical issues. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1976). Children's first word combinations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 41 (1, Serial No. 164).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1987). What is learned in acquiring word classes - a step towards an acquisition theory. In MacWhinney, B. (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1988 a). Review of ‘Language learnability and language development’ by S. Pinker. Journal of Child Language 15, 189–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1988 b). Modeling the acquisition of linguistic structure. In Levy, Y., Schlesinger, I. M. & Braine, M. D. S. (eds) Categories and processes in language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1988 c). Introduction to Levy, Y., Schlesinger, I. M. & Braine, M. D. S. (eds), Categories and processes in language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1992). How much innate structure is needed to bootstrap into syntax. Cognition 45, 77–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braine, M. D. S. (1994). Is nativism sufficient? Journal of Child Language 21, 9–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, R. (1973). A first language: the early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, V. (1985). ‘He has too much hard questions’: the acquisition of the linguistic mass-count distinction in much and many. Journal of Child Language 12, 395–415.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gordon, P. (1985). Evaluating the semantic categories hypothesis: the case of the count/mass distinction. Cognition 20, 209–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ihns, M. & Leonard, L. B. (1988). Syntactic categories in early child language: some additional data. Journal of Child Language 15, 673–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1979). A functional approach to child language: a study of determiners and reference. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Levy, Y. (1983). It's frogs all the way down. Cognition 15, 75–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levy, Y. (1988). The nature of early language: evidence from the development of Hebrew morphology. In Levy, Y., Schlesinger, I. M. & Braine, M. D. S. (eds), Categories and processes in language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Longobardi, G. (1994). Reference and proper names – a theory of N-movement in syntax and logical form. Linguistic Inquiry 25, 609–65.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (1991). The CHILDES project. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. (1985). The Child Language Data Exchange System. Journal of Child Language 12, 271–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. (1990). The Child Language Data Exchange System: an update. Journal of Child Language 17, 457–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maratsos, M. P. (1982). The child's construction of grammatical categories. In Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. (eds), Language acquisition: the state of the art. Cambridge: C.U.P.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B. & Snow, C. (1988). The acquisition of formal word classes. In Levy, Y., Schlesinger, I. M. & Braine, M. D. S. (eds), Categories and processes in language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maratsos, M. P. & Chalkley, M. A. (1980). The internal language of children's syntax: the ontogenesis and representation of syntactic categories. In Nelson, K. E. (ed.), Children's language, Vol. 2. New York: Gardner Press.Google Scholar
Ninio, A. (1988). On formal grammatical categories in early child language. In Levy, Y., Schlesinger, I. M. & Braine, M. D. S. (eds), Categories and processes in language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Olguin, R. & Tomasello, M. (1993). Twenty-five-month-old children do not have a grammatical category of verb. Cognitive Development 8, 245–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pine, J. M. & Lieven, E. V. M. (1993). Reanalysing rote-learned phrases: individual differences in the transition to multi-word speech. Journal of Child Language 20, 551–71.Google ScholarPubMed
Pinker, S. (1984). Language learnability and language development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1989). Learnability and cognition: the acquisition of verb-argument structure. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rispoli, M. (1991). The mosaic acquisition of grammatical relations. Journal of Child Language 18, 517–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schlesinger, I. M. (1982). Steps to language: toward a theory of native language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, I. M. (1988). The origin of relational categories. In Y, Levy, Schlesinger, I. M. & Braine, M. D. S. (eds), Categories and processes in language acquisition. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. (1992). First verbs: a case study of early grammatical development. Cambridge: C.U.P.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valian, V. (1986). Syntactic categories in the speech of young children. Developmental Psychology 22, 562–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valian, V. (1991). Syntactic subjects in the early speech of American and Italian children. Cognition 40, 21–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Van Valin, R. (1991). Functionalist linguistic theory and language acquisition. First Language 31, 7–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Valin, R. (1993). A synopsis of role and reference grammar. In Van Valin, R. (ed), Advances in role and reference grammar. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar