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Description and explanation in the acquisition of verb-forms*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Paul Fletcher
Paul Fletcher
Affiliation:
University of Reading
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Abstract

Research on the learning of verb-forms in English has consistently reported the late acquisition of the PRESENT PERFECT. Explanations for this have been in terms of children's cognitive abilities. Difficulties are presented for such explanations by an apparent discrepancy between American English (AE) and British English (BE) acquisition data. This paper examines in detail the forms included in the PRESENT PERFECT paradigm, and the use of these and related forms by a sample of BE children aged 3; 3. While there is considerable variability across the sample, the results indicate that BE children at this age have not in any sense mastered the present perfect. The implications of this are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 1981 , pp. 93 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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Footnotes

[*]

A version of this paper was presented at the conference ‘Beyond Description in Child Language’, organized by the Projektgruppe für Psycholinguistik, Max-Planck Institut, Nijmegen, June 1979. I am particularly grateful to Gordon Wells for permission to use data from his SSRC project, and for comments on the paper. My thanks also to Michael Garman, Gordon Hart and Aithur Hughes for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Address for correspondence: Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading, Reading RG6 2AA, UK.

References

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