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THE ACQUISITION OF LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL ASPECT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2004

Ayumi Matsuo
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

Extract

THE ACQUISITION OF LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL ASPECT. Ping Li and Yasuhiro Shirai. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000. Pp. v + 261. $106.00 cloth.

This book covers everything related to aspect in the field of language acquisition; I was amazed by how the authors managed to do this in such a clear manner in only 261 pages. The book discusses numerous topics related to the acquisition of aspect: from tense to grammatical to lexical aspect, from nativist to functionalist approaches, from a connectionist model to Universal Grammar, and from first language (L1) to second language (L2). It also covers relevant previous research in the acquisition of tense and aspect in Chinese, English, and Japanese. Although the aim of the book is not an extensive survey of the research done on aspect in all possible languages, given the importance of the work done on aspect in Slavic languages, one might have expected to see more discussion of this area.

Type
BOOK REVIEWS
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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References

REFERENCES

Hawkins, R. (2001). Second language syntax: A generative introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.
Klein, W. (1994). Time in language. London: Routledge.
Li, P., & Bowerman, M. (1998). The acquisition of lexical and grammatical aspect in Chinese. First Language, 18, 311350.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y., & Andersen, R. (1995). The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology: A prototype account. Language, 71, 743762.Google Scholar
Shirai, Y. (1998). The emergence of tense-aspect morphology in Japanese: Universal predisposition? First Language, 18, 281309.Google Scholar