Helen Goodluck - Böcker

Using Chomsky's minimalist program as a framework, this volume explores the role of formal (or functional) features in current descriptions and accounts of language acquistion. In engaging, up-to-date articles, distinguished experts examine the role of features in current versions of generative grammar and in learnibility theory as it relates to native, non-native, and impaired acquisition.

This text is an up-to-date introduction to language acquisition, designed to meet the needs of advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in linguistics and cognitive science. It is the first language acquisition text to be written from the perspective of recent theoretical linguistics, and uses Chomskyan generative grammar as a framework for description. Taking models and analyses from generative phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, Professor Goodluck describes children's language acquisition using examples from a variety of languages. Further chapters take up central questions concerning cognitive mechanisms by which children process language and form rules, the nature of the input to the language learner, and the relation between language development and other aspects of cognitive development. The book is extensively illustrated with models and figures, and each chapter is followed by questions for discussion and suggestions for further reading. It also includes a full bibliography.

In recent linguistic theory, there has been an explosion of detailed studies of language variation. This volume applies such recent analyses to the study of child language, developing new approaches to change and variation in child grammars and revealing both early knowledge in several areas of grammar and a period of extended development in others. Topics dealt with include question formation, "subjectless" sentences, object gaps, rules for missing subject interpretation, passive sentences, rules for pronoun interpretation and argument structure. Leading developmental linguists and psycholinguists show how linguistic theory can help define and inform a theory of the dynamics of language development and its biological basis, meeting the growing need for such studies in programs in linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science.

Using Chomsky's minimalist program as a framework, this volume explores the role of formal (or functional) features in current descriptions and accounts of language acquistion. In engaging, up-to-date articles, distinguished experts examine the role of features in current versions of generative grammar and in learnibility theory as it relates to native, non-native, and impaired acquisition.

This textbooks introduces the main arguments for an innate, domain specific capacity to learn human language. It guides you through the growth of language in a typically developing child and also discusses a range of viewpoints, introducing the central controversies in the field of language acquisition.Taking models and analyses from generative phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, the author describes children's language acquisition using examples from a wide variety of languages. She explores the connections between language and other aspects of human cognition, the role of environment in learning, and the role in language development of mechanisms for speech production and speech comprehension. Extensively illustrated with models and figures, each chapter is also followed by a summary box, exercises and questions for discussion. An appendix of research techniques and suggestions for further reading is also included, to provide a Chomskyan introduction to language acquisition for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in linguistics and cognitive science.

This textbooks introduces the main arguments for an innate, domain specific capacity to learn human language. It guides you through the growth of language in a typically developing child and also discusses a range of viewpoints, introducing the central controversies in the field of language acquisition.Taking models and analyses from generative phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, the author describes children's language acquisition using examples from a wide variety of languages. She explores the connections between language and other aspects of human cognition, the role of environment in learning, and the role in language development of mechanisms for speech production and speech comprehension. Extensively illustrated with models and figures, each chapter is also followed by a summary box, exercises and questions for discussion. An appendix of research techniques and suggestions for further reading is also included, to provide a Chomskyan introduction to language acquisition for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in linguistics and cognitive science.