ABSTRACT
Children acquiring French elaborate their early verb constructions by adding adjacent morphemes incrementally at the left edge of core verbs. This hypothesis was tested with 2657 verb uses from four children between 1;3 and 2;7. Consistent with the Adjacency Hypothesis, children added clitic subjects first only to present tense forms (as in il saute 'he jumps'); modals to infinitives (as in faut sauter 'has to jump'); and auxiliaries to past participles (as in a sauté 'has jumped'). Only after this did the children add subjects to the left of a modal or auxiliary, as in elle veut sauter 'she wants to jump', or elle a sauté 'she has jumped'. The order in which these elements were added, and the development in the frequencies of the constructions, all support the predictions of the Adjacency Hypothesis for left edge development in early verb constructions.
Subject(s)
Child Language , Language Development , Language , Semantics , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Infant , Longitudinal Studies , Male , Phonetics , PsycholinguisticsABSTRACT
Pragmatic functioning of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children is rarely examined in socially-meaningful contexts. This study investigates the way oppositional episodes are handled in such contexts by 25 families, 10 with ASD and 15 with typically-developing children. Oppositions occur whenever someone protests, refuses or denies someone else's action, request or statement. The analysis focuses on justifications accounting for the opposition and on their immediate persuasive effect. Analyses of 1,065 oppositional episodes show no differences in justifications among partners and children, except for ASD children with a verbal age 3-4 years, who justify less than their matched controls. The persuasive effect of justifications on children and on partners differs according to their group and verbal age. Implications of the study and future perspectives are discussed.
