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18 - Functional Acquisition Processes in Child Language

Links to Role and Reference Grammar

from Part Four - Applications of RRG

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2023

By
Richard M. Weist
Edited by
Delia Bentley ,
Ricardo Mairal Usón ,
Wataru Nakamura  and
Robert D. Van Valin, Jr
Delia Bentley
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Ricardo Mairal Usón
Affiliation:
Universidad National de Educación a Distancia, Madrid
Wataru Nakamura
Affiliation:
Tohoku University, Japan
Robert D. Van Valin, Jr
Affiliation:
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
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Summary

This chapter proposes a functional theory of language acquisition based on the idea that children utilize their understanding of cognitive and communicative principles to construct a grammar that integrates semantic and pragmatic notions. The chapter explores child language data that are relevant to such issues as how layered clause structure, operator projection, predicate structure and grammatical relations are acquired within a communication-and-cognition framework. In showing how the language acquisition data map to the Role and Reference Grammar framework, the chapter includes contrasts with alternative theories, such as autonomous syntax theory. From the perspective of conceptual development, the infant-toddler is viewed as a relatively proficient information processor with the capacity to discover fundamental linguistic relationships, in the spirit of the theory of Operating Principles (Slobin 1985).

Keywords

language acquisitionOperating Principlesclause structureoperator scopegrammatical relationsWH-questionsTurkishJapanesePolish
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Role and Reference Grammar , pp. 666 - 692
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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