Different interactions of two common phenomena--final consonant omission and vowel lengthening before voiced consonants--are examined with a focus on a case study of two young children with phonological delays in their acquisition of English. Argues that at least some developmental opacity effects support sympathy and that such effects emerge in…

Suggests that the systematic omission of functional material by young children, contrary to current beliefs, argues for the presence of functional structure,because in the absence of such structure what is expected is not a systematic omission of functional material but rather its random use. (Author/VWL)

Examines whether certain reconstruction effects are present in child language. Points out an unexpected restriction on forward anaphora that is argued to be a case in which Principle C of the Binding Theory (Chomsky, 1981; 1986) operates at the reconstructed level. Results suggest that the ability to judge instances of forward anaphora and of…

Investigated children's acquisition of short- and long-distance "whose"-questions to see whether children know that, in English, the entire "whose"-phrase must pied-pipe to the specifier of complementizer. Subjects were English-speaking children, ages 4-6. phrase. (Author/VWL)

This article proposes an explanation for the use of resumptives in child language based on the feature of the nominal system. A cross-linguistic comparison shows no significant difference in resumptive use between child French, child English, and child Spanish. (50 references) (JL)

Argues that to improve the parameter model as a theory of language acquisition it has to be constrained in several ways. Results on the acquisition of subject-verb agreement, verb placement, empty subjects, and negation in German child language are presented. (55 references) (JL)

Extends the study of children's knowledge of Binding Condition B to a construction containing pronouns embedded in conjoined noun phrases. The study included pronouns bound by a quantifier. Results support the argument that anaphoric relations are constrained by more than one module of grammar. (12 references) (Author/CK)

Examined the representation of phrase structure in early child German through the investigation of longitudinal data from seven German-speaking toddlers with respect to verb placement, verb inflection, negation, /wh/ pronouns, and complementizers. It is argued that children construct phrase-structure trees in a gradual fashion, on the basis of…

This article examines the acquisition of wh-questions and relative clauses in Sesotho, a language with no wh-movement in either questions or relatives, and in which wh-questions must be clefted. (10 references) (JL)

Four experiments on the acquisition of binding are compared, two conducted with Italian-speaking children and two with English-speaking children. English-speaking children's mastery of pronominal binding is found to lag behind their mastery of binding for anaphors and R-expressions. (61 references) (Author/LB)

This study investigated four- and six-year-olds' support pursuing the role of positive evidence in the acquisition of the knowledge of lexical features such as the control status of individual verbs. Findings seem to be compatible with a claim that grammatical knowledge is instantaneous. (Contains 24 references.) (Author/LB)

Reports a case study of a British 2-year old that shows a stage in syntactic development without a subject agreement protection but with a tense phrase. A sharp contrast in use of verb forms suggests that the child had left the Optional Infinitive stage and entered a transitional stage, where the major development is that the status of the bare…

Investigates the 10% to 20% null subject stage in 3-year-olds in Germany and shows that this stage, though long, is not final. Findings indicate that children in this phase use structures found neither in the state of early null subjects nor in adult German, namely, postverbal referential null subjects. Further study is proposed. (94 references)…

Presents data that challenge the view that the omission of functional categories by children with specific language impairment is a manifestation of the same immaturity characterizing the grammar of young children without impairment. Data include atypically high omissions or even almost total absence of determiners in the speech productions of a…

Evaluates two developmental models incorporating innovations in prosodic theory using the phonological forms of one child's vocabulary documented for the first nine months of language production. Results indicate the relevance of the prosodic hierarchy in the early grammar as well as considerable early knowledge of prosodic structure below the…