Investigations in Universal Grammar : A Guide to Experiments on the Acquisition of Syntax and Semantics

by Stephen Crain and Rosalind Thornton

• ISBN13: 9780262531801
• ISBN10: 0262531801
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-31
• Publisher: Bradford Books

Summary

This introductory guide to language acquisition research is presented within the framework of Universal Grammar, a theory of the human faculty for language. The authors focus on two experimental techniques for assessing childrens linguistic competence: the Elicited Production task, a production task, and the Truth Value Judgment task, a comprehension task. Their methodologies are designed to overcome the numerous obstacles to empirical investigation of childrens language competence. They produce research results that are more reproducible and less likely to be dismissed as an artifact of improper experimental procedure. In the first section of the book, the authors examine the fundamental assumptions that guide research in this area; they present both a theory of linguistic competence and a model of language processing. In the following two sections, they discuss in detail their two experimental techniques.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

The Modularity Matching Model

Introduction

Constraints and Universal Grammar

The Poverty of the Stimulus

Models of Language Development

Continuity versus Input Matching

The Competing Factors Model

Competing Tasks: Reaction Time Studies

Competing Tasks: The Act-Out Task

Competing Tasks: Imitation

Judgment Tasks and Competing Factors

Context and Competing Factors

Language Processing

Extralinguistic Knowledge

When Principles and Preferences Collide

Performance Errors

Methodological Preliminaries

The Elicited Production Task

Elicited Production

Eliciting Relative Clauses

Asking Questions: The Ask/Tell Problem

Structure-Dependence

Wanna Contraction

Long-Distance Questions and the Medial-Wh

Why Children Make Good Subjects

Summary of Designs

The Truth Value Judgment Task

Truth Value Judgments

Backward Anaphora

Fundamentals of Design: Principle C

What's Wrong with This Picture?

Strong Crossover

Strongest Crossover

Principle B

Following Up on Principle B

Sets and Circumstances

Discourse Binding

Universal Quantification

Donkey Sentences

A Potential Drawback of the Task

Resolving the Dilemma: Control Sentences

Resolving the Dilemma: Varying the Context

Conclusion

Notes

References

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.