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Noun-pronoun pleonasms: the role of age and situation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Eleanor G. Cotton
Eleanor G. Cotton
Affiliation:
University of Texas at El Paso
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Abstract

The 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.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , October 1978 , pp. 489 - 499
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

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