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)

Tests and confirms hypothesis that a four-stage process exists in the understanding and use of synonyms, antonyms, and tautologies in children ages three to six. The results of this study challenge widely held theories on cognitive development. (45 references) (LET)

This study examines the distribution of nouns and verbs in maternal speech to one year olds. Mothers and children were videotaped. Nouns and verbs in maternal speech were coded for frequency, sentence position, and occurrence with grammatical inflections. Frequency of nouns and verbs varied with context. (33 references) (KM)

Study used two experiments to examine the development of children's comprehension of the use of intonation and belief verbs to mark the relative certainty with which a speaker makes a statement. It is argued that children's understanding of prosody will be best revealed in contexts in which they are required to respond to the pragmatic function of…

Do infants and young children possess implicit theory of mind that is revealed through their communicative interactions, or are they simply treating their interlocutors as objects to manipulate in service to their own material ends? Paper reviews additional evidence indicating infants in second year of life are capable of communicating for sake of…

Argues that the data used to claim that morphosyntactic development of Italian-speaking children are inconsistent with nativist, parameter-setting models of language development is irrelevant to the specific hypothesis being evaluated. (25 references) (JL)

Describes an unusual phonological pattern exhibited by a child aged two years that involves the production of word-final strident continuants in words whose adult forms contain these features in initial, rather than final, position (e.g., ops for soap). (13 references) (GLR)

Examines verb learning in children in their second year of life learning verbs in various pragmatic contexts. Results are discussed in terms of the different learning processes involved in acquiring nouns and verbs and in terms of a social-pragmatic view of language acquisition. (34 references) (GLR)

An experimental elicitation task with children between the ages of 20 and 27 months shows that children learning Thai numeral classifiers begin with purely distributional information: specifically (1) that classifiers must appear in the postnumeral position, and (2) that classifiers comprise a conventional, closed set of words. (35 references) (JL)

An investigation focuses on the portion of preschool verbal action that could be considered successful dialogue. Ten dyads of four-year olds were videotaped during freeplay, where segments of talk were identified as dialogue or nondialogue. (35 References) (JL)

Two experiments examined young children's sensitivity to linguistic contexts in which particular function morphemes occur. Results showed that children who did not produce articles in spontaneous speech were able to distinguish between sentences, verbally presented in picture identification tasks, that contained grammatical articles and those that…

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)

Discusses the strategies that a child might employ during the one-word stage in constructing an early lexicon. An attempt is made to shed light on some strategies by analyzing the lexical and phonological development of two children who seem to take opposite approaches. (Author/JL)

Discusses how a child's language development is facilitated through the child's active involvement in a variety of play, talk, and reading time experiences. States that the natural processes of child development encompassing space, movement, vision, audition, and sensory integration form the backdrop for knowing the world and for the evolution of…

Vocabulary growth from age 2 to 3 years was studied in 28 late talkers, using expressive vocabulary inventories reported bimonthly on the Language Development Survey (LDS). (Author/VWL)