Spracherwerb und Grammatik

Spracherwerb und Grammatik
Author: Monika Rothweiler
Publisher: Linguistische Berichte Sonderhefte
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1991
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

Ich m6chte Anne Vainikka und Harald Clahsen fUr Diskussion und Kritik und Giinther Grewendorf fUr die Anregung zu diesem Sonderheft danken. Ein besonderes DankeschOn gilt den Autoren, die es ermOglicht haben, daB innerhalb von zwOlf Monaten aus der Idee zu diesem Band eine Druckfassung entstehen konnte. Monika Rothweiler 7 Vorwort Der vorliegende Band tragt Arbeiten zum Grammatikerwerb, speziell zu Syntax und Morphologie, zusammen. Neben der Darstellung von empirischen Ergebnissen geht es den Autoren vor allem urn theoretische Fragestellungen und Voraussagen zum Grammatikerwerb, urn die Angemessenheit von Erwerbs-und Grammatiktheorien und urn die Interpretation von Daten auf dem Hintergrund dieser Theorien. In den letzten zehn Jahren wurden die mit der Government and Binding (GB) Theorie von Chomsky in die Diskussion geriickten Begriffe Universalgrammatik, Prinzipien und Parameter fOr die Untersuchungen zum Grammatikerwerb immer zentraler. Auch wenn die zur Zeit verfiigbaren theoretischen Ansatze oft nicht explizit genug sind, urn die em­ pirischen Daten befriedigend zu erkUiren, so bieten doch Grammatiktheorien, die wie GB einen ErkUirungsanspruch haben, aber auch Erwerbstheorien wie der funktionale Ansatz von BateslMacWhinney oder der kognitive Ansatz von Slobin einen Hintergrund fOr die Interpretation von Erwerbsdaten, die uber reine Deskription hinausgeht.

Functional Categories in Language Acquisition

Functional Categories in Language Acquisition
Author: Annette Hohenberger
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2011-04-20
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110923521

This study investigates the acquisition of Functional Categories (e.g., INFL (AGR, TNS), DET, COMP) from the perspective of self-organization in generative grammar. Language is conceived of as a dynamical system which evolves in time and bifurcates when critical thresholds are reached. The emergence of syntax as evidenced by the acquisition of Functional Categories is the major bifurcation in child language acquisition. Target values of syntactic parameters are attractors which children approach on individual trajectories. A proposed tripartite scenario of change - from a simple stable state A, via symmetry-breaking in a liminal phase B characterized by variation, to a new complex stable state C - accounts for the dynamics in early grammatical development. Traditional generative issues, such as the acquisition of case-marking, finiteness, V2, and wh-questions, are discussed as well as new issues, such as functional neologisms, and sentential blends. Dynamical notions like precursor, oscillation, symmetry-breaking, and trigger are important explanatory tools. The growing child phrase marker is a fractal mental object which represents syntactic information by way of self-similar extended projections. The book addresses researchers in language acquisition from various theoretical camps: generative, functional, connectionist, by giving new answers to old questions in the light of a novel challenging theory: self-organization.

Language Acquisition Studies in Generative Grammar

Language Acquisition Studies in Generative Grammar
Author: Teun Hoekstra
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 415
Release: 1994-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027281750

This is a collection of essays on the native and non-native acquisition of syntax within the Principles and Parameters framework. In line with current methodology in the study of adult grammars, language acquisition is studied here from a comparative perspective. The unifying theme is the issue of the 'initial state' of grammatical knowledge: For native language, the important controversy is that between the Continuity approach, which holds that Universal Grammar is essentially constant throughout development, and the Maturation approach, which maintains that portions of UG are subject to maturation. For non-native language, the theme of initial states concerns the extent of native-grammar influence. Different views regarding the continuity question are defended in the papers on first language acquisition. Evidence from the acquisition of, inter alia, Bernese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian and Japanese, is brought to bear on issues pertaining to clause structure, null subjects, verb position, negation, Case marking, modality, non-finite sentences, root questions, long-distance questions and scrambling. The views defended on the initial state of (adult) second language acquisition also differ: from complete L1 influence to different versions of partial L1 influence. While the target language is German in these studies, the native language varies: Korean, Spanish and Turkish. Analyses invoke UG principles to account for verb placement, null subjects, verbal morphology and Case marking. Though many issues remain, the volume highlights the growing ties between formal linguistics and language acquisition research. Such an approach provides the foundation for asking the right questions and putting them to empirical test.

Handbook of Bilingualism

Handbook of Bilingualism
Author: Judith F. Kroll
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 603
Release: 2009-02-16
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0190288124

How is language acquired when infants are exposed to multiple language input from birth and when adults are required to learn a second language after early childhood? How do adult bilinguals comprehend and produce words and sentences when their two languages are potentially always active and in competition with one another? What are the neural mechanisms that underlie proficient bilingualism? What are the general consequences of bilingualism for cognition and for language and thought? This handbook will be essential reading for cognitive psychologists, linguists, applied linguists, and educators who wish to better understand the cognitive basis of bilingualism and the logic of experimental and formal approaches to language science.

How tolerant is universal grammar?

How tolerant is universal grammar?
Author: Rosemarie Tracy
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2011-08-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3111634779

Over the past few decades, the book series Linguistische Arbeiten [Linguistic Studies], comprising over 500 volumes, has made a significant contribution to the development of linguistic theory both in Germany and internationally. The series will continue to deliver new impulses for research and maintain the central insight of linguistics that progress can only be made in acquiring new knowledge about human languages both synchronically and diachronically by closely combining empirical and theoretical analyses. To this end, we invite submission of high-quality linguistic studies from all the central areas of general linguistics and the linguistics of individual languages which address topical questions, discuss new data and advance the development of linguistic theory.

WLG

WLG
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 630
Release: 1998
Genre: German language
ISBN:

The Acquisition of Verb Placement

The Acquisition of Verb Placement
Author: J. Meisel
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9401128030

other aspects of developing grammars. And this is, indeed, what the contributions to this volume do. Parameterization of functional categories may, however, be understood in different ways, even if one shares the dual assumptions that substantive elements (verbs, nouns, etc. ) are present in all grammars and that X-bar principles are part of the grammatical knowledge available to the child prior to language-specific learning processes. From these assumptions it follows that the child should, from early on, be able to construct projections on the basis of these elements. The role of functional categories, however, may still be interpreted differently. One possibility, first suggested by Radford (1986, 1990) and by Guilfoyle and Noonan (1988), is that children must discover which functional categories (FC) need to be implemented in the grammar of the language they are acquiring. Another possibility, first explored by Hyams (1986), is that a specific category is present in developing grammars but that parameter values are set in a way deviating from the target adult grammar, corresponding, however, to options realized in other adult systems. A third option would be that these categories might be specified differently in developing as opposed to mature grammars. All three are explored in the papers collected in this volume. Before outlining the various hypotheses in more detail, however, I would like briefly to sketch the grammatical context in which the following debate is situated. 2.

The Acquisition of Scrambling and Cliticization

The Acquisition of Scrambling and Cliticization
Author: S.M. Powers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9401732329

This collection of papers investigates two specific linguistic phenomena from the point of view of first- and second-language acquisition. While observations on the acquisition of scrambling or pronominal clitics can be found in the literature, up until the recent past they were sparse and often buried in other issues. This volume fills a long-existing gap in providing a collection of articles which focus on language acquisition but at the same time address the overarching syntactic issues involved (for example, the X-bar status of clitics, base-generation vs. movement accounts of scrambling). This volume contains an overview of L1 (and, in one case, L2) acquisition data from a number of different languages including Bernese, Swiss, German, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Swedish, as well as from several theoretical points of view with these two clause-internal processes at its center. These language acquisition data are considered to be crucial in the validation of analyses of these specific linguistic phenomena in adult grammars. The contributions in this volume include the earliest thoughts in this vein and, for this reason, should be viewed as a starting point for discussions within theoretical linguistics and language acquisition alike.

Bilingual First Language Acquisition

Bilingual First Language Acquisition
Author: Jürgen M. Meisel
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 290
Release: 1994-09-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027284970

The contributions in this volume are based on an analysis of data from bilingual children acquiring French and German simultaneously. The longitudinal studies started at approximately age one year and six months and continued till age six. The papers focus on the development of specific grammatical phenomena; explanations are given within the framework of the Principle and Parameter approach. The study is primarily concerned with the acquisition of so-called 'functional categories' and the consequences of their acquisition for the development of grammar. Specific points dealt with in these papers include: gender, number and case and their internal structure (DP vs NP); inflection and its consequences for agreement marking; and word order phenomena (subject-raising constructions (incl. passives), word order in subordinate clauses). The basic hypothesis underlying this study is that early child grammars consist only of lexical categories and that functional categories are implemented later in the child's grammar. How this happens exactly is the central issue explored in this book.