| Popis: |
Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the first stages of the child's acquisition of the grammar of his language. It describes several characteristics of his early utterances. The chapter discusses some recent theories regarding the nature of the grammatical rules internalized by the child. It discusses various views concerning the mechanisms responsible for the learning of these rules. In the first stages of his linguistic development, each of the child's utterances consists of one word. At about 18 months, he begins to string together two, and occasionally more, words. At first, the intonation pattern of these utterances often differs from that of short adult sentences: The child pauses after each word, the child stresses each of the words equally, and the typical terminal intonation is lacking. Presumably, one word is no longer enough to get the child's meaning across and he, therefore, adds words to make himself understood. The sequence of words is probably determined by momentary factors with the word that happens to be most salient for the child appearing first in the utterance. |
