Presents the Lexical/Semantic Hypothesis, which proposes that early learning is more lexically oriented, and that early word combinations can be explained by more semantically oriented accounts than the Full Competence Hypothesis. The article also replaces the Grammatical Infinitive Hypothesis with the Modal Hypothesis. (32 references) (Author/CK)

Language samples of 15 young normal children actively engaged in learning base syntax were compared with samples of 15 linguistically deviant children of a comparable linguistic level. Mean number of morphemes per utterance was used to determine linguistic level. The two groups were matched according to five linguistic levels previously…

The major purpose of this paper is to initiate discussion on the validity of systematic phonemics in the area of language acquisition. This is not an attempt to write a phonology, but rather an outline of some theoretical and formal devices that may be used for gaining insight into the phonological system of the child. An evaluation procedure…

This paper, based on Rosenbaum's (1967) grammar of adult English, attempts to apply ideas of deep structure and transformations to child grammar. The main rules predicated include phrase structure rules, segment structure rules, contextual features, and transformational rules. In this approach, the role of transformations is to segment and place…