LINGUIST List 12.2214

Mon Sep 10 2001

Books: Language Acquisition

Editor for this issue: Karolina Owczarzak <karolinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Sean Hanrahan, Lang Acquisition: Grammatical Features and Acquisition of Reference

GRAMMATICAL FEATURES AND THE ACQUISITION OF REFERENCE: 
A Comparative Study of Dutch and Spanish
Sergio Baauw, Utrecht University

This book offers a comparative study of the interpretation
of definite articles and pronouns by Dutch and Spanish 4-7
year old children. It presents experimental evidence showing
that children's interpretation of definite articles and
pronouns is affected by their incomplete acquisition of
morphosyntactic features of the D-position, the host of both
pronouns and definite articles. It is argued that children often
interpret definite articles as expletive determiners and
third person pronouns as SE-anaphors ("se" in Spanish and
"zich" in Dutch). This study also offers evidence that young
children are sensitive to inflectional morphology. It shows
that children acquiring a poorly inflected language, such
as Dutch, have considerably more difficulties with the
adult interpretation of pronouns and definite articles
than children acquiring a richly inflected language, such
as Spanish. Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics series.

January 2002: 256 pp
Hb: 0415937612: $70.00 �50.00

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Acquisition of Pronouns and Definite Articles
2. Underspecification of the D-Position
3. The Acquisition of Pronominal Anaphora in Spanish and Dutch
Conclusions
References
Appendices