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The connective ‘and’: do older children use it less as they learn other connectives?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Carole Peterson  and
Allyssa McCabe
Carole Peterson*
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Allyssa McCabe
Affiliation:
Southeastern Louisiana University
*
Psychology Department, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland, CanadaA1B 3X9.
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Abstract

The connective and has frequently been described as a useful allpurpose connective that is used as a vehicle for introducing new inter-sentential semantic relationships. As new and more specific connectives are acquired, they are matched to these meanings. An assumption is that as children get older, and should be used less to express the various meanings for which more specific connectives exist; rather, it should be increasingly reserved for simple co-ordination. This hypothesis was tested by examining narratives produced by children between 4 and 9 years old; contrary to expectation, and was used no differently by 9-year-olds than by 4-year-olds, and simple co-ordination constituted no more than 20% of the relationships. The role of and may be to indicate cohesion between sentences, without regard to semantic relationship.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 375 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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Footnotes

*

The authors would like to thank Michael Bruce-Lockhart for the development and use of the NARRAN software package. Further information about NARRAN or its availability can be obtained from the first author. This research was supported by National Science and Engineering Research Council grant AO513 to the first author.

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