This book presents the first comprehensive study of how children acquire
complex sentences. Drawing on observational data from English-speaking
children aged 2 to 5, Holger Diessel investigates the acquisition of
infinitival and participial complement clauses, finite complement clauses,
finite and nonfinite relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and coordinate
clauses. His investigation shows that the development of complex sentences
originates from simple non-embedded sentences and that two different
developmental pathways can be distinguished: complex sentences including
complement and relative clauses evolve from simple sentences that are
gradually expanded to multiple-clause constructions, and complex sentences
including adverbial and coordinate clauses develop from simple sentences
that are integrated in a specific biclausal unit. He argues that the
acquisition process is determined by a variety of factors: the frequency of
the various complex sentences in the ambient language, the semantic and
syntactic complexity of the emerging constructions, the communicative
functions of complex sentences, and the social-cognitive development of the
child.
1. Introduction
2. A dynamic network model of grammatical constructions
3. Towards a definition of complex sentences and subordinate clauses
4. Infinitival and participial complement constructions
5. Complement clauses
6. Relative clauses
7. Adverbial and co-ordinate clauses
8. Conclusion.
Linguistic Field(s):
Language Acquisition
Semantics
Syntax
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