Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T07:42:30.834Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On coordination in child language*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Gail Ardery
Affiliation:
University of Iowa

Abstract

This 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.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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

[*]

I am deeply indebted to Andreas Koutsoudas for his comments and suggestions on several drafts of this paper. Address for correspondence: 345 MacBride Road, Iowa City, Iowa 52240.

References

REFERENCES

Ardery, G. (1979). The development of coordinations in child language. JVLVB. 18, 745–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R., Cazden, C. & Bellugi, U. (1973). The child's grammar from I to III. In Ferguson, C. & Slobin, D. (eds), Studies of child language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Harries, H. (1973). Coordination reduction. Working Papers on Language Universals II. 139210. Stanford: Language Universals Project.Google Scholar
Jenkins, L. (1972). Modality in English syntax. Ph.D. dissertation, M.I.T. Reproduced by Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Lust, B. (1977). Conjunction reduction in child language. JChLang. 4. 257–87.Google Scholar
Lust, B. & Mervis, C. (1980). Development of coordination in the natural speech of young children. JChLang. 7. 279304.Google ScholarPubMed
Miller, W. (1973). The acquisition of grammatical rules by children. In Ferguson, C. & Slobin, D. (eds), Studies of child language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Milsark, G. (1976). Existential sentences in English. Ph.D. dissertation, M.I.T. Reproduced by Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Proctor, C. (1970). A probabilistic formulation and statistical analysis of Guttman scaling. Psychometrika 35. 73–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, J. (1970). Gapping and the order of constituents. In Bierwisch, M. & Heidolph, K. (eds), Progress in linguistics. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. & Welsh, C. (1973). Elicited imitation as a research tool in developmental psycholinguistics. In Ferguson, C. & Slobin, D. (eds), Studies of child language development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar