Structure-Building Processes and Functional Categories in Language Acquisition

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Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638220664
Total Pages : 27 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (382 download)

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Book Synopsis Structure-Building Processes and Functional Categories in Language Acquisition by : Sixta Quaßdorf

Download or read book Structure-Building Processes and Functional Categories in Language Acquisition written by Sixta Quaßdorf and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2003-10-07 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: very good, University of Basel (English Seminar Basel), course: Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar, language: English, abstract: Language acquisition seems to be subject to a paradox like probably all matters connected with the human language: every-one acquires his or her first language with relative ease in a few years – it is a matter of course (except if disabilities or social deprivations obstruct this natural process) - but even the most learned scholars cannot offer a satisfactory and all-encompassing explanation about how this process works. A number of different approaches exists which can be subsumed under the headings "behaviourist", "interactionist", "nativist", "cognitivist" or the like1, and each of these major currents bifurcates into sub-theories which often enough seem to be incompatible with each other again. In this essay I am going to present and discuss two hypotheses of language acquisition which follow the generative approach, i.e. which presuppose the existence of an innate language acquisition device (LAD) helping us solve the task of acquiring the complicated linguistic system by providing a "ready-made" underlying fundamental structure, the Universal Grammar (UG). Accordingly Andrew Radford, and Harald Clahsen et al. assume that the rules of UG are with the child from the very beginning, yet that the final build-up of the internal grammatical structure is triggered by lexical learning processes. Radford identifies three major stages of developmental phases with children acquiring English syntax, whereas Clahsen et al., studying children acquiring German, find plausible explanations for the developmental process by a notion of underspecified functional categories. 1 cf. Crystal p. 234 f., Clahsen p. xv

Functional Categories in Language Acquisition

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110923521
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Functional Categories in Language Acquisition by : Annette Hohenberger

Download or read book Functional Categories in Language Acquisition written by Annette Hohenberger and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study investigates the acquisition of Functional Categories (e.g., INFL (AGR, TNS), DET, COMP) from the perspective of self-organization in generative grammar. Language is conceived of as a dynamical system which evolves in time and bifurcates when critical thresholds are reached. The emergence of syntax as evidenced by the acquisition of Functional Categories is the major bifurcation in child language acquisition. Target values of syntactic parameters are attractors which children approach on individual trajectories. A proposed tripartite scenario of change - from a simple stable state A, via symmetry-breaking in a liminal phase B characterized by variation, to a new complex stable state C - accounts for the dynamics in early grammatical development. Traditional generative issues, such as the acquisition of case-marking, finiteness, V2, and wh-questions, are discussed as well as new issues, such as functional neologisms, and sentential blends. Dynamical notions like precursor, oscillation, symmetry-breaking, and trigger are important explanatory tools. The growing child phrase marker is a fractal mental object which represents syntactic information by way of self-similar extended projections. The book addresses researchers in language acquisition from various theoretical camps: generative, functional, connectionist, by giving new answers to old questions in the light of a novel challenging theory: self-organization.

Language Acquisition and the Functional Category System

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110216213
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis Language Acquisition and the Functional Category System by : Peter Jordens

Download or read book Language Acquisition and the Functional Category System written by Peter Jordens and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on spontaneous language acquisition both in children learning their mother tongue and in adults learning a second language has shown that language development proceeds in a stagewise manner. Learner utterances are accounted for in terms of so-called 'learner languages'. Learner languages of both children and adults are language systems that are initially rather simple. The present monograph shows how these learner languages develop both in child L1 and in adult L2 Dutch. At the initial stage of both L1 and L2 Dutch, learner systems are lexical systems. This means that utterance structure is determined by the lexical projection of a predicate-argument structure, while the functional properties of the target language are absent. At some point in acquisition, this lexical-semantic system develops into a target-like system. With this target-like system, learners have reached a stage at which their language system has the morpho-syntactic features to express the functional properties of finiteness and topicality. Evidence of this is word order variation and the use of linguistic elements such as auxiliaries, tense, and agreement markers and determiners. Looking at this process of language acquisition from a functional point of view, the author focuses on questions such as the following. What is the driving force behind the process that causes learners to give up a simple lexical-semantic system in favour of a functional-pragmatic one? What is the added value of linguistic features such as the morpho-syntactic properties of inflection, word order variation, and definiteness?

Functional Categories in Learner Language

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110216175
Total Pages : 361 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (12 download)

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Book Synopsis Functional Categories in Learner Language by : Christine Dimroth

Download or read book Functional Categories in Learner Language written by Christine Dimroth and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2009-12-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language acquisition is a developmental process. Research on spontaneous processes of both children learning their mother tongue and adults learning a second language has shown that particular stages of acquisition can be discriminated. Initially, learner utterances can be accounted for in terms of a language system that is relatively simple. In studies on second language acquisition this learner system is called the Basic Variety (Klein and Perdue 1997). Utterance structure of the Basic Variety is determined by a grammar which consists of lexical structures that are constrained, for example, by semantic principles such as "The NP-referent with highest control comes first" and a pragmatic principle such as "Focus expression last". At some point in acquisition this lexical-semantic system is given up in favour of a target-like system with morpho-syntactic features to express the functional properties of finiteness, topicality, the determiner system, etc. Insights into how this process evolves may also provide an answer to the question of why it takes place. Within this functional perspective on language acquisition research focuses on questions such as the following. 1. What is the driving force behind the process that causes learners to give up a simple lexical-semantic system in favour of a morpho-syntactic functional category system? 2. What is the added value of morpho-syntactic properties of inflection, word-order variation, definiteness and agreement? 3. Why is it that in cases of specific language impairment it is mainly morpho-syntactic properties of the target language that are affected?

The Prefunctional Stage of First Language Acquisition

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 9780815325611
Total Pages : 266 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (256 download)

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Book Synopsis The Prefunctional Stage of First Language Acquisition by : Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli

Download or read book The Prefunctional Stage of First Language Acquisition written by Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1996 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Multilingual Mind

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107729602
Total Pages : 429 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis The Multilingual Mind by : Michael Sharwood Smith

Download or read book The Multilingual Mind written by Michael Sharwood Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-06 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language lies at the heart of the way we think, communicate and view the world. Most people on this planet are in some sense multilingual. The Multilingual Mind explores, within a processing perspective, how languages share space and interact in our minds. The mental architecture proposed in this volume permits research across many domains in cognitive science to be integrated and explored within one explanatory framework, recasting compatible insights and findings in terms of a common set of terms and concepts. The MOGUL framework has already proven effective for shedding light on the relationship between processing and learning, metalinguistic knowledge, consciousness, optionality, crosslinguistic influence, the initial state, 'UG access', ultimate attainment, input enhancement, and even language instruction. This groundbreaking work will be essential reading for linguists working in language acquisition, multilingualism, and language processing, as well as for those working in related areas of psychology, neurology and cognitive science.

The Prefunctional Stage of First Language Acquistion (RLE Linguistics C: Applied Linguistics)

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317932986
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis The Prefunctional Stage of First Language Acquistion (RLE Linguistics C: Applied Linguistics) by : Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli

Download or read book The Prefunctional Stage of First Language Acquistion (RLE Linguistics C: Applied Linguistics) written by Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a theory of first language acquisition in the syntactic framework of the theory of Universal Grammar. It addresses issues related to the earliest stage of development which ends roughly around the child’s second birthday. The theory put forward capitalises on the traditional observation that early child grammars characteristically lack lexical and morphological elements which belong to the ‘closed-class’ system. This book provides an account of the grammatical differences between the set of functional categories and the substantive categories.

Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136158324
Total Pages : 15061 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (361 download)

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Book Synopsis Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics by : Various

Download or read book Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics written by Various and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-02 with total page 15061 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Routledge Library Editions: Linguistics brings together as one set, mini-sets, or individual volumes, a series of previously out-of-print classics from a variety of academic imprints. With titles ranging from Applied Linguistics and Language Learning to Experimental Psycholinguistics and Sociolinguistics Today: International Perspectives, this set provides in one place a wealth of important reference sources from a wide range of authors expert in the field.

Syntactic Structures

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3112316002
Total Pages : 120 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (123 download)

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Book Synopsis Syntactic Structures by : Noam Chomsky

Download or read book Syntactic Structures written by Noam Chomsky and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2020-05-18 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No detailed description available for "Syntactic Structures".

Language Acquisition Across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems

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Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027253145
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

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Book Synopsis Language Acquisition Across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems by : Michèle Kail

Download or read book Language Acquisition Across Linguistic and Cognitive Systems written by Michèle Kail and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How and why do all children learn language? Why do some have difficulties while others are early language learners? What are the consequences of early bilingualism? Is it possible to reach native-like competence in a foreign language? Although we still cannot fully answer these questions, research during the last two decades has begun to solve some pieces of the puzzle. This book proposes an interdisciplinary collection of writings from some of the best specialists across several fields in cognitive science, offering a wide sample of recent advances in the study of first language acquisition, bilingualism, second language acquisition, and disorders of oral language. It is addressed to all researchers and students interested in language acquisition, as well as to teachers, clinicians and parents, who will find therein many new findings and varied methodological approaches, as well as challenging questions that are still debated and in need of further research.

First and Second Language Acquisition

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139496379
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis First and Second Language Acquisition by : Jürgen M. Meisel

Download or read book First and Second Language Acquisition written by Jürgen M. Meisel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Infants and very young children develop almost miraculously the ability of speech, without apparent effort, without even being taught - as opposed to the teenager or the adult struggling without, it seems, ever being able to reach the same level of proficiency as five year olds in their first language. This useful textbook serves as a guide to different types of language acquisition: monolingual and bilingual first language development and child and adult second language acquisition. Unlike other books, it systematically compares first and second language acquisition, drawing on data from several languages. Research questions and findings from various subfields are helpfully summarized to show students how they are related and how they often complement each other. The essential guide to studying first and second language acquisition, it will be used on courses in linguistics, modern languages and developmental psychology.

Focus on French as a Foreign Language

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Publisher : Multilingual Matters
ISBN 13 : 9781853597664
Total Pages : 262 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis Focus on French as a Foreign Language by : Jean-Marc Dewaele

Download or read book Focus on French as a Foreign Language written by Jean-Marc Dewaele and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 2005 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers sharp new insights into the acquisition and use of French as a foreign language. The authors are specialists in their particular theoretical paradigms and focus on morphology, morpho-syntax, syntax, discourse, as well as fluency in the French interlanguage from beginners to advanced learners with different first languages.

The Acquisition of Verb Placement

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401128030
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis The Acquisition of Verb Placement by : J. Meisel

Download or read book The Acquisition of Verb Placement written by J. Meisel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: other aspects of developing grammars. And this is, indeed, what the contributions to this volume do. Parameterization of functional categories may, however, be understood in different ways, even if one shares the dual assumptions that substantive elements (verbs, nouns, etc. ) are present in all grammars and that X-bar principles are part of the grammatical knowledge available to the child prior to language-specific learning processes. From these assumptions it follows that the child should, from early on, be able to construct projections on the basis of these elements. The role of functional categories, however, may still be interpreted differently. One possibility, first suggested by Radford (1986, 1990) and by Guilfoyle and Noonan (1988), is that children must discover which functional categories (FC) need to be implemented in the grammar of the language they are acquiring. Another possibility, first explored by Hyams (1986), is that a specific category is present in developing grammars but that parameter values are set in a way deviating from the target adult grammar, corresponding, however, to options realized in other adult systems. A third option would be that these categories might be specified differently in developing as opposed to mature grammars. All three are explored in the papers collected in this volume. Before outlining the various hypotheses in more detail, however, I would like briefly to sketch the grammatical context in which the following debate is situated. 2.

Bilingualism and Deafness

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Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 1501504991
Total Pages : 522 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis Bilingualism and Deafness by : Carolina Plaza-Pust

Download or read book Bilingualism and Deafness written by Carolina Plaza-Pust and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines sociolinguistic, educational and psycholinguistic factors that shape the path to sign bilingualism in deaf individuals and contributes to a better understanding of the specific characteristics of a type of bilingualism that is neither territorial nor commonly the result of parent-to-child transmission. The evolution of sign bilingualism at the individual level is discussed from a developmental linguistics perspective on the basis of a longitudinal investigation of deaf learners' bilingual acquisition of German sign language (DGS) and German. The case studies included in this volume offer unique insights into bilingual deaf learners’ sign language and written language productions, and the sophisticated nature of the bilingual competence they attain. Commonalities and differences between sign bilingual language development in deaf learners and language development in other language acquisition scenarios are identified on the basis of a dynamic model of change in the evolution of (learner) language, with a focus on the role of language contact in the organisation of multilingual knowledge and the scope of inter- and intra-individual variation in learner grammars. In many respects, as becomes apparent throughout the chapters of this work, sign bilingualism represents not only a challenge but also a resource. Given this cross-disciplinary perspective, the insights on bilingualism and deafness in this volume will be of interest to a wide range of researchers and professionals.

Morphology and its Interfaces in Second Language Knowledge

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Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9027281696
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (272 download)

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Book Synopsis Morphology and its Interfaces in Second Language Knowledge by : Maria-Luise Beck

Download or read book Morphology and its Interfaces in Second Language Knowledge written by Maria-Luise Beck and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1998-12-15 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume treats the connection between syntax and morphology with a focus on L2 acquisition. This interface has been a matter of considerable interest in theoretical circles ever since Chomsky (1994) and others argued that morphological parameters form the primary locus of cross-linguistic variation. As might be expected, generative theorists working in the area of language acquisition have responded to this argument with various analyses. L2 research is no exception: A variety of researchers have begun serious explorations on the ways in which morphology may (or may not) trigger variation not only in syntax, but also in argument structure. The volume thus brings together a concentrated research effort on the topic from an L2 perspective. The volume starts off with a comprehensive introduction to the various sub-topics and ends with an extensive index.

A Feature-Based Syntax of Functional Categories

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Author :
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter
ISBN 13 : 3110895404
Total Pages : 365 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis A Feature-Based Syntax of Functional Categories by : Michael Hegarty

Download or read book A Feature-Based Syntax of Functional Categories written by Michael Hegarty and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2011-12-22 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops ideas of Minimalist syntax to derive functional categories from the partially-ordered features expressed by functional elements, thereby dispensing with functional categories as primitives of the theory. It generalizes attempts to do this in the literature, while drawing significant empirical consequences from general constraints formulated to block overgeneration. The resulting theory of the construction of functional categories is applied to various problems in syntactic analysis and comparative and historical syntax, including variation across Germanic languages in patterns of verb-second and in the occurrence of expletive subjects in existential constructions, verb positions in Old and Middle English, problems regarding the placement of clitic pronouns in Romance languages and Modern Greek, and some previously unexamined structures of reduced clause coordination in colloquial English. Facts from early stages of the acquisition of syntax are shown to follow from the mechanisms for the projection of functional features as functional categories, exercised before all of the features for a language, along with their ordering and feature co-occurrence restrictions, have been acquired. It is observed that child acquisition of functional elements exhibits successive developmental stages, each characterized by the number of clausal functional elements which can be represented together within a clause. This, and facts regarding the lag in development of functional categories by children with specific language impairment, are shown to be not entirely reducible to limitations in working memory or processing capacity, but to depend in part on the growth of representational resources for the projection of functional categories.

The Second Time Around

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Publisher : John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9789027224897
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (248 download)

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Book Synopsis The Second Time Around by : Julia Rogers Herschensohn

Download or read book The Second Time Around written by Julia Rogers Herschensohn and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linking recent advances in theoretical syntax and empirical research in language development, the book claims that second language acquisition is not totally distinct from first language acquisition, but rather is a replay, a relearning of language. It argues that Universal Grammar is a template guiding acquisition of L1 while constraining acquisition of L2. Assuming that a syntactic distinction crucial for language and its acquisition is the division between lexical and functional categories, it argues that the key to L2 as well as L1 acquisition of syntax is the mastery of morphological features and their linking to functional categories. It thus supports the availability of UG to the second language learner and the minimalist claim that cross-linguistic variation is morpholexical. Constructionism, the hypothesis of L2A proposed in this account, argues for a period of feature underspecification after loss of the L1 value, followed by a progressive building of the L2 value through specific constructions.