Child and adult speakers of English have different ideas of what "or" means in ordinary statements of the form "A or B". Even more far-reaching differences between children and adults are found in other languages. This tells us that young children do not learn what "or" means by watching how adults use "or". An alternative is to suppose that…

Discusses children's comprehension of complex sentences as measured by a picture selection test. Concludes that the interplay of both syntactic factors, such as active vs. passive, and nonsyntactic factors, such as expectation, must be considered in any characterization of children's sentence comprehension ability. (EKN)

Describes the acquisition of a set of nonverbal intentionally communicative behaviors for six preverbal infants followed longitudinally. Results show a trend for a set of communicative intentions to emerge in the following sequence: (1) protesting, (2) request for action, (3) request for object, (4) comment on action, (5) comment on object, and…

Describes a study that examines the pragmatic language functions used by school-age children during a structured dialog consisting of a question-answer paradigm. Develops a 10-category taxonomy to classify subjects' responses and finds the taxonomy to be effective in two ways: (1) the number of categories is sufficient, and (2) the interscorer…

Investigates the extent to which children develop the ability to comprehend and explain literal and idiomatic meanings as a function of age and sex. (EKN)

Reports a study investigating surface structure complexity, transformational sentence type, and sentence length as variables in a sentence imitation task with preschool children. (TO)

Provides evidence that in producing voiceless stops in terms of voice-onset-time values, children first overshoot adult values and then only gradually draw back toward adult values. (Author/RL)

Proposes a model of syntax in which marked structures are conceived as the realization of modes of control that regulate the informational flow of the text at points of threatened discontinuity. Describes two of these modes, found in children's writing, which are concerned with relations of logic and focus. (Author/SED)

Describes a study that examined the organization inherent in children's misarticulations of final consonant sounds. Specifically, it inquired whether, when children with final stop and fricative omissions are taught to produce either stops or fricatives in word-final positions, generalization occurs to untaught items or only to taught items.…

Investigates the nature of threats and their responses as collaborative units in children's discourse. Research indicates that girls prefer withhold-object or action and harm-threats while boys focus exclusively on harm-threats. Younger children produce more threats than older children, and threats occur more frequently in child-directed settings…

Presents the results of a study of attention as a factor in children's natural and experimental acquisition of articulatory behavior. (TO)

Presents a review of various studies on the acquisition, nature, and function of language coding in children's learning. (TO)