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)

Describes the longitudinal emergence of verb inflections as observed in the speech of four American English-speaking children emphasizing occurrence of inflections, their linguistic/non-linguistic contexts, and their conditional use. Discusses results in terms of sentence relations between verbs and other constituents and the semantics of verb…

Examines the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology in children acquiring English. The article found that children start using past inflections with achievement verbs and progressive inflections with activity verbs. Results indicate that early development of tense-aspect morphology is influenced by the inherent aspect of the verbs. (56 references)…