Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-x4r87 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T02:58:48.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The acquisition of temporal terms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Rosemary J. Stevenson  and
Caroline Pollitt
Rosemary J. Stevenson*
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Caroline Pollitt
Affiliation:
University of Durham
*
Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An experiment is described which investigates preschool children's understanding of temporal terms. Children aged 2;11 to 4;5 were required to act out situations described by sentences containing before and after. One set of sentences used both a simplified task and simplified materials. These sentences were simple commands, and they only required the children to act out the situation described by the main clause in order to demonstrate comprehension. Performance with these sentences was superior to performance with sentences like those of Clark (1971) and Grain (1982). In addition, children only used an order-of-mention strategy with the Clark sentences. With both the Clark and the Grain sentences, there were more omissions of the subordinate clause in before sentences than in after sentences. There was also a tendency, with these two types of sentence, for children to act out only the first clause in before sentences.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , October 1987 , pp. 533 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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.)

References

REFERENCES

Amidon, A. & Carey, P. (1972). Why four year olds cannot understand before and after. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 11. 417–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1971). On the acquisition of the meaning of before and after. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 10. 266–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crain, S. (1982). Temporal terms: mastery by age five. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 21. 33–8.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. & Lucariello, J. (1985). The development of meaning in first words. In Barrett, M. D. (ed.), Children's single-word speech. Chichester: Wiley.Google Scholar
Palermo, D. S. (1978). The psychology of language. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.Google Scholar
Partee, B. H. (1984). Temporal and nominal anaphora. Linguistics and Philosophy 7. 243–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1947). Symbolic logic. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar