The ability to define words by means of other words, which forms a part of many standardized tests, must be learned by a child. The nature of the ‘definitional task’ and the development of language responses (from children 4; 5 to 7; 5) are discussed in terms of a linguistic analysis of the definitional form and its semantic relations. Progress in definitional strategies by children moves along two continua: conceptually from the individually experiential to the socially shared; and syntactically from actual predicates through hypothetical predicates to adult definitional sentence frames. Implications include novel elicitation techniques, psycholinguistically informed evaluation of direction and scoring measures of some common standardized verbal tests, and better understanding of the range of normal development on one specific language task.

Very young children perceive colour normally and possess the concept of colour, but it has been widely reported, on the basis of informal observation or normative assessment, that beginning colour naming is confused and that accurate and consistent colour naming is relatively retarded developmentally. A neutral test was devised to compare experimentally 3-year-olds' abilities to make colour-to-name versus shape-to-name associations. Children learned colour-label associates significantly more slowly than matched shape-label associates, and they committed more errors with colours than with shapes during learning. The design of this study eliminates several explanations often proposed to explicate retarded colour naming, including relative perceptual salience, differential experience, and immature cognitive development, and, in their stead, opens the possibility that the difficulty underlying beginning colour naming may reflect specific word-to-colour associations.

A Reichenbach-type theory is proposed that accounts for a child's early system of temporal reference and relates it directly to the adult system. This theory makes predictions different from those of a competing theory, a strong decentring hypothesis. Experimental results and data from spontaneous speech are examined, and the predictions of the first theory are borne out: young English-speaking children express notions of temporal ordering as well as aspectual notions.

A longitudinal diary-and-videotape study of the production of phonological segments by a Spanish–English bilingual child, age 1;1–3;9, revealed four stages in consonantal acquisition: presystematic variation, formation of a single system, separation into two systems corresponding to the two languages, and achievement of adult target values with later interference of one language in the other. Vocalic acquisition proceeded with widespread variation, followed by stabilization at target adult values, without any apparent intermediate unitary-system stage. Relevance of the data adduced here to the issue of whether bilingual children first function with a single system before acquiring two discrete languages is discussed. The issue of what it may mean to have one or two systems of phonology is addressed.

We investigated the association between individual differences in metaphor understanding and Theory of Mind (ToM) in typically developing children. We distinguished between two types of metaphors and created a Physical and Mental Metaphors task, echoing a similar distinction for ToM. Nine-year-olds scored lower than older age-groups in ToM as well as in the interpretation of mental, but not physical, metaphors. Moreover, nine-year-olds (but not older children) who are better in ToM are also better in interpreting mental, but not physical, metaphors. This suggests that the link between metaphor and ToM is stronger when metaphorical interpretation involves mental aspects, and it is more evident in early rather than later childhood.

Verb-pattern alternation in Hebrew is characterized in terms of consonantal roots associated with a fixed set of morphological patterns in the lexicalized expression of categories such as causative, reflexive, inchoative and passive. It is assumed that at first Hebrew-speaking children will use a verb-root in one invariant pattern, and hence may also neutralize required morpho-semantic distinctions. Observational and experimental data from children aged 2; 6 to 5; 6 reveal a development in linguistic control of the system from non-alternation to near-mastery, with the concepts of causativity and distinctions in transitivity being lexicalized earlier than others. These findings are discussed in terms of the interplay between linguistic and conceptual development, and the evidence from language acquisition for linguistic theory.

The study investigates the development of English multiword negation, in particular the negation of zero marked verbs (e.g. no sleep, not see, can't reach) from a usage-based perspective. The data was taken from a dense database consisting of the speech of an English-speaking child (Brian) aged 2;3–3;4 (MLU 2·05–3·1) and his mother. The focus of the study was the emergence and usage of negators in the child's and mother's speech (e.g. no, not, can't, won't, don't). Two analyses were conducted: firstly, the emergence and usage of all negators in Brian's speech and in the input were calculated in order to present an overall picture of negator usage across the sample. The findings indicate a gradual and systematic development of negator selection in Brian's speech which follows the trajectory no–not–'nt. The pattern of negator emergence was found to follow the frequency of negators in the input; that is negators used frequently in the input were the first to emerge in the child's speech. Secondly, a more fine-grained analysis of utterances containing negated zero marked verbs (neg V utterances) was conducted on both the child's and mother's speech. In the first instance the development of negator selection for all neg V utterances was calculated. The results indicated the same no–not–'nt cline as attested in the initial analysis. A function-based analysis of neg V utterances was also conducted which indicated that the speed of movement across the no–not–'nt cline varied from one function to the next. A function-based analysis of the input suggested that the speed at which Brian moved across the cline within a particular function could be traced to function-based frequency effects in the input. Thus the findings of the study indicate function-based, input-driven learning which is consistent with the usage-based approach. However the findings also indicate creative learning on the part of the child from the earliest stages of multiword negation.

The two studies presented here explore the relationship between children's pragmatic skills and their growth in grammar. In study 1, thirty normally developing children were videotaped interacting with their parents at 1;2 and again at 2;7. Using correlational and regression techniques, we found that pragmatic accomplishments of MUTUAL ATTENTION, as well as mother's conversational style, explained 45% of the variance in grammar at 2;7. The second study investigated pragmatic–grammatical relationships with data from 6 high-functioning children with autism. To control for individual variation in skill level at the start of the study, within-individual growth rates for grammar were estimated as our outcome. The results substantiated those of study 1, in that pragmatic accomplishments within mutual attention predicted the per month growth rate in grammar. We interpret these findings as consistent with the position that the infant's social-pragmatic skills contribute to the acquisition of grammar.

Before they are three years old, most children have started to build coherent discourse. This article focuses on one important linguistic device children have to learn: connectives. The main questions are: Do connectives emerge in a fixed order? And if so, how can this order be explained? In line with Bloom et al. (1980) we propose to explain similarities in the development in terms of cumulative cognitive complexity: complex relations are acquired later than simple ones. Following a cognitive approach to coherence relations, we expect positive relations to be acquired before negatives and additives before temporals and causals. We develop a multidimensional approach to the acquisition process in order to account for the variation among children. Hypotheses were tested by analyzing data from children aged 1 ; 5–5 ; 6 on the emergence of Dutch connectives. The multidimensional approach of cognitive complexity describes both the uniformity and the diversity in the developmental sequences of Dutch-speaking and English-speaking children.

Functional and referential changes in maternal speech were investigated in a developmental study of nineteen mother–infant dyads, using video recordings of their free play at three and six months. The role of the infant in influencing speech adjustments was investigated by analysing the relationships between different types of maternal speech and different infant behavioural modes. Three general modes were differentiated – Communicative, Praxic and Other – and, regardless of infant age, mothers were found to make some modifications to their speech style as a function of infant mode. Speech style also was found to change, at a pragmatic level, from three to six months. Both findings support the conclusion that maternal speech is influenced by non-linguistic behavioural ‘feedback’ from infants. However, a finding that affect-oriented speech is more sensitive to infant behaviour than informative speech supports Brown's (1977) contention that the maternal speech register is shaped by two relatively independent interpersonal functions – the affective and communicative components. It is argued that a fuller account of maternal conversational adjustments to prelingual infants requires both a dialogic and a monologic explanation.

Two studies investigating young readers' use of conjunctions are reported. In Study One, 145 eight- to ten-year-olds completed one of two narrative cloze tasks in which different types of conjunction were deleted. Performance for additive conjunctions was not affected by age in this study, but older children were more likely to select the target conjunction than were younger children for temporal, causal, and adversative terms. Performance was superior in the cloze task in which they were given a restricted choice of responses (three vs. seven). In Study Two, 35 eight- and nine-year-old good and poor comprehenders completed the three-choice cloze task. The poor comprehenders were less likely to select the target terms in general. Sentence-level comprehension skills did not account for their poor performance. The results indicate that understanding of the semantic relations expressed by conjunctions is still developing long after these terms are used correctly in children's speech. The findings are discussed in relation to the role of conjunctions in text comprehension.

This study compares homonym learning to novel word learning by three- to four-year-old children to determine whether homonyms are learned more rapidly or more slowly than novel words. In addition, the role of form characteristics in homonym learning is examined by manipulating phonotactic probability and word frequency. Thirty-two children were exposed to homonyms and novel words in a story with visual support and learning was measured in two tasks: referent identification; picture naming. Results showed that responses to homonyms were as accurate as responses to novel words in the referent identification task. In contrast, responses to homonyms were more accurate than responses to novel words in the picture-naming task. Furthermore, homonyms composed of common sound sequences were named more accurately than those composed of rare sound sequences. The influence of word frequency was less straightforward. These results may be inconsistent with a one-to-one form–referent bias in word learning.

The acoustic-phonetic realizations of words can vary dramatically depending on a variety of within- and across-talker characteristics such as regional dialect, native language, age, and gender. Robust word learning requires that children are able to recognize words amidst this substantial variability. In the current study, perception of foreign-accented words was assessed in four- to seven-year-old children to test how one form of variability influences word recognition in children. Results demonstrated that children had less accurate word recognition than adults for both native- and foreign-accented words. Both adults and children were less accurate at identifying foreign-accented words compared to native-accented words with children and adults showing similar decrements. For children, age and lexicon size contributed to accurate word recognition.

There have been relatively few studies on tone acquisition, as compared to studies on the acquisition of segmentals, morphology, and syntax. Still fewer are the studies on Chinese language acquisition. The present paper reports on a longitudinal case study of a Cantonese-speaking child aged 2; 8 and considers the implications of tone acquisition for tone studies in general, and Cantonese tonology in particular.

The aim of the study presented here was to examine variations in the forms and functions of agreement and refusal messages – which can be solely gestural, solely verbal, or combined gestural and verbal – by thirty children aged 1;4, 2;0, and 3;0 (ten in each age group) observed at home during an interaction with their mother. The results showed that even though verbal forms were the predominant ones as a whole, gestural forms were carried over into the linguistic period, and for the youngest children, constituted the sole means of agreeing and refusing. They also showed that the most frequently expressed function was assertion.

Forty children, aged 1 ; 8–2 ; 0, participated in one of three training conditions meant to enhance their comprehension of the spatial term under: the +Gesture group viewed a symbolic gesture for under during training; those in the +Photo group viewed a still photograph of objects in the under relationship; those in the Model Only group did not receive supplemental symbolic support. Children's knowledge of under was measured before, immediately after, and two to three days after training. A gesture advantage was revealed when the gains exhibited by the groups on untrained materials (but not trained materials) were compared at delayed post-test (but not immediate post-test). Gestured input promoted more robust knowledge of the meaning of under, knowledge that was less tied to contextual familiarity and more prone to consolidation. Gestured input likely reduced cognitive load while emphasizing both the location and the movement relevant to the meaning of under.

Studies of comprehension of the quantifiers all and more are reported. The subjects were children between the ages of three and five. There were two main conditions. In one of these the objects to which the quantifiers related were enclosed in containers which either were or were not filled by the objects. In the other no containers were present. These conditions yielded substantially different response patterns. The relation of the findings to those typically obtained from Piagetian conservation tasks is discussed; and the implications for theories of semantic development are considered.

It is often assumed that children go through a stage in which they systematically overapply irregular past tense patterns to inappropriate verbs, as in wipe-wope, bring-brang, trick-truck, walk-has walken. Such errors have been interpreted both as reflecting over-use of minor grammatical rules (e.g. ‘change i to a’), and as reflecting the operation of a connectionist pattern associator network that superimposes and blends patterns of various degrees of generality. But the actual rate, time course, and nature of these errors have never been documented. We analysed 20,000 past tense and participle usages from nine children in the CHILDES database, looking for overapplications of irregular vowel-change patterns, as in brang, blends, as in branged, productive suffixations of -en, as in walken, gross distortions, as in mail-membled, and double-suffixation, as in walkeded. These errors were collectively quite rare; children made them in about two tenths of one per cent of the opportunities, and with few stable patterns: the errors were not predominantly word-substitutions, did not occur predominantly with irregular stems, showed no consistency across verbs or ages, and showed no clear age trend. Most (though not all) of the errors were based closely on existing irregular verbs; gross distortions never occurred. We suggest that both rule-theories and connectionist theories have tended to overestimate the predominance of such errors. Children master irregular forms quite accurately, presumably because irregular forms are just a special case of the arbitrary sound-meaning pairings that define words, and because children are good at learning words.

The English orthography is morphophonemic: spellings encode both morphemes and phonemes. Questions of the starting point and extent of young children's understanding of the link between morphemes and spelling are important for theories of spelling development. We conducted two experiments to address these issues. In Experiment 1, 65 six- to eight-year-old English-speaking children spelled just the first sections of inflected, derived and control words. Their spelling of these first segments was better in inflected and derived words than in control words. The findings were replicated in Experiment 2 with 78 six- to eight-year-old children spelling a greater number of items. These two studies converge on the conclusion that, in specific testing situations, six- to eight-year-old children appreciate the role of root morphemes in the spelling of both inflected and derived words. These results are discussed in relation to current models of spelling development.