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Conjunction reduction in child language*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Barbara Lust
Barbara Lust
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Abstract

Coordinate conjunction was evaluated in early child language with regard to its structural properties. In a series of four studies, 60 two- and three-year-olds grouped by MLU were studied in an elicited imitation task where in the linguistic form of sentences was varied according to conjunction structure (whether sentential or phrasal) and according to pattern of redundancy deletion in conjunction reduction (whether forward or backward in directionality). Both factors were found to affect children's imitation. The results suggested specific constraints on the structure of coordination in child language.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 1977, pp. 257 - 287
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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Footnotes

*

This paper is based on a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The research was supervised by Professors H. Beilin, V. Valian and D. T. Langendoen. Professors J. Glick, H. Cairns and S. Carey provided helpful comments. Professor H. Sinclair significantly aided the interpretive analysis. To all of the above the author expresses her gratitude. The author also thanks Constantine Kaniklidis for essential support, Georgette Ioup and Larry Jordan for insightful advice; and New York's Temple Shaaray Tefila, the Lathrop Learning Center and the CUNY Day Care Center as well as paediatricians Dr V. Pomeranz and Dr E. Watkins and numerous mothers and fathers, for sharing their children. Preparation of this paper was supported in part by NIH fellowship 1 F22 HDO1226-01.

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