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Carla L. Hudson Kam – Language Learning and Development, 2024
Based on findings from a variety of research, Shin and Miller (2022) propose a 4-step process that children go through as they learn sociolinguistic variation. Their proposal raises many interesting questions that should inspire future research. Here, I discuss their Step 1 -- the stage in which, according to their proposal, children produce only…
Descriptors: Language Research, Language Acquisition, Language Variation, Child Language
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Kristen Syrett – Language Learning and Development, 2024
I argue that the variation within and across contexts detailed by Shin & Miller is indicative of a broader phenomenon in which morphosyntax and the discourse context are intertwined, including elements like perspective, discourse relations, information structure, and common ground. Appealing to independent evidence highlighting the role of…
Descriptors: Language Variation, Language Research, Language Acquisition, Learning Processes
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Janna B. Oetting – Language Learning and Development, 2024
Shin and Mill (2021) propose four steps children go through when learning "variable form use." Although I applaud Shin and Miller's focus on morphosyntactic variation, their accrual of evidence is post hoc and selective. Fortunately, Shin and Miller recognize this and encourage tests of their ideas. In support of their work, I share data…
Descriptors: Language Impairments, Language Research, Contrastive Linguistics, Comparative Analysis
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Benjamin Luke Davies; Katherine Demuth – Language Learning and Development, 2024
When acquiring the English plural, children correctly produce plural words long before they develop an understanding of morphological structure. When acquiring Sesotho noun prefixes, children are aware of the multiple constraints governing variation from a young age. Both of these cases raise questions about the Shin and Miller (2022) account of…
Descriptors: African Languages, Morphology (Languages), Syntax, Second Language Learning
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Virginia Valian – Language Learning and Development, 2024
The first stage of combinatorial speech is better described as variable than uniform. Talk of variants obscures two different aspects of language (knowledge and use) and two different aspects of language development -- acquisition of the grammar (competence) and deployment of the grammar in speaking and listening (performance). Null subjects and…
Descriptors: Phrase Structure, Language Acquisition, Language Variation, Grammar
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Davies, Benjamin; Xu Rattanasone, Nan; Demuth, Katherine – Language Learning and Development, 2017
Many English-speaking children use plural nominal forms in spontaneous speech before the age of two, and display some understanding of plural inflection in production tasks. However, results from an intermodal preferential study suggested a lack of "comprehension" of nominal plural morphology at 24 months of age (Kouider, Halberda, Wood,…
Descriptors: Infants, Language Acquisition, English, Morphology (Languages)
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Rissman, Lilia; Goldin-Meadow, Susan – Language Learning and Development, 2017
Across a diverse range of languages, children proceed through similar stages in their production of causal language: their initial verbs lack internal causal structure, followed by a period during which they produce causative overgeneralizations, indicating knowledge of a productive causative rule. We asked in this study whether a child not…
Descriptors: Verbs, Language Acquisition, Linguistic Input, Child Language
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Lukyanenko, Cynthia; Conroy, Anastasia; Lidz, Jeffrey – Language Learning and Development, 2014
In this study we investigate young children's knowledge of syntactic constraints on Noun Phrase reference by testing 30-month-olds' interpretation of two types of transitive sentences. In a preferential looking task, we find that children prefer different interpretations for transitive sentences whose object NP is a name (e.g., "She's patting…
Descriptors: Language Acquisition, Form Classes (Languages), Preferences, Syntax
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Moscati, Vincenzo; Crain, Stephen – Language Learning and Development, 2014
Negative sentences with epistemic modals (e.g., John "might" not come/John "can" not come) contain two logical operators, negation and the modal, which yields a potential semantic ambiguity depending on scope assignment. The two possible readings are in a subset/superset relation, such that the strong reading ("can…
Descriptors: Morphemes, Epistemology, Semantics, Linguistic Theory