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The acquisition of German relative clauses: A case study*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2008

SILKE BRANDT ,
HOLGER DIESSEL  and
MICHAEL TOMASELLO
SILKE BRANDT*
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
HOLGER DIESSEL*
Affiliation:
University of Jena
MICHAEL TOMASELLO*
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
*
*Addresses for correspondence: Silke Brandt & Michael Tomasello, Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Email: brandt@eva.mpg.de, tomasello@eva.mpg.de.
Holger Diessel, University of Jena, Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8, 07743 Jena, Germany. holger.diessel@uni-jena.de
*Addresses for correspondence: Silke Brandt & Michael Tomasello, Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. Email: brandt@eva.mpg.de, tomasello@eva.mpg.de.
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Abstract

This paper investigates the development of relative clauses in the speech of one German-speaking child aged 2 ; 0 to 5 ; 0. The earliest relative clauses we found in the data occur in topicalization constructions that are only a little different from simple sentences: they contain a single proposition, express the actor prior to other participants, assert new information and often occur with main-clause word order. In the course of the development, more complex relative constructions emerge, in which the relative clause is embedded in a fully-fledged main clause. We argue that German relative clauses develop in an incremental fashion from simple non-embedded sentences that gradually evolve into complex sentence constructions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , May 2008 , pp. 325 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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