Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:47:44.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The emergence of Dutch connectives; how cumulative cognitive complexity explains the order of acquisition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2008

JACQUELINE EVERS-VERMEUL  and
TED SANDERS
JACQUELINE EVERS-VERMEUL*
Affiliation:
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS – Utrecht University
TED SANDERS
Affiliation:
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS – Utrecht University
*
Address for correspondence: Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS, Trans 10, NL – 3512 JK Utrecht, The Netherlands. tel: +31 30 253 6337; fax: +31 30 253 6000; e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , September 2009 , pp. 829 - 854
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

This paper is based on the PhD dissertation of the first author (Evers-Vermeul, 2005), supervised by the second author and Fred Weerman. Part of the analyses in this paper have been performed in collaboration with Johanneke Wilson-Birnie. We would like to thank Fred Weerman, two anonymous reviewers and the editors for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

References

REFERENCES

Behrens, H. (2006). The input–output relationship in first language acquisition. Language and Cognitive Processes 21, 2–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, L. (1991). Language development from two to three. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bloom, L., Lahey, M., Hood, L., Lifter, K. & Fiess, K. (1980). Complex sentences: acquisition of syntactic connectives and the semantic relations they encode. Journal of Child Language 7, 235–61. Reprinted in Bloom, L. (1991), Language development from two to three, 261–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bol, G. W. (1996). Optional subjects in Dutch child language: In Koster, C. & Wijnen, F. (eds) Proceedings of the Groningen assembly on language acquisition held at the University of Groningen, 7–9 September 1995, 125–35. Groningen: Center for language and cognition Groningen.Google Scholar
Bowerman, M. (1979). The acquisition of complex sentences. In Fletcher, P. & Garman, M. (eds) Language acquisition: studies in first language development, 285–305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Braunwald, S. R. (1985). The development of connectives. Journal of Pragmatics 9, 513–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. (1973). A first language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. & Hanlon, C. (1970). Derivational complexity and order of acquisition in child speech. In Brown, R. (ed.) Psycholinguistics: selected papers by Roger Brown, 155–207. New York: Free Press. Reprinted from: Hayes, J. R. (ed.) Cognition and the development of language. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1973). How children describe time and order. In Ferguson, C. A. & Slobin, D. I. (eds) Studies of child language development, 585–606. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (2003). First language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. (1974). Semantics and comprehension. In Sebeok, T. A. (ed.) Current trends in linguistics, Vol. 12: Linguistics and adjacent arts and sciences, 1291–1498. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Clark, H. H. & Clark, E. V. (1977). Psychology and language: an introduction to psycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Costermans, J. & Fayol, M. (eds) (1997). Processing interclausal relationships: studies in the production and comprehension of text. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Diessel, H. (2004). The acquisition of complex sentences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elbers, L. & Wijnen, F. (1992). Effort, production skill, and language learning. In Ferguson, C. A., Menn, L. & Stoel-Gammon, C. (eds) Phonological development: Models, research, implications, 337–68. Timonium, MD: York.Google Scholar
Evers-Vermeul, J. (2005). The development of Dutch connectives; change and acquisition as windows on form–function relations. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Utrecht University. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Hobbs, J. (1979). Coherence and coreference. Cognitive Science 3, 67–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knott, A. & Dale, R. (1994). Using linguistic phenomena to motivate a set of coherence relations. Discourse Processes 18, 35–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knott, A. & Sanders, T. (1998). The classification of coherence relations and their linguistic markers: An exploration of two languages. Journal of Pragmatics 30, 135–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: tools for analyzing talk, third edition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Noordman, L. G. M. & Vonk, W. (1998). Memory-based processing in understanding causal information. Discourse Processes 26, 191–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piaget, J. (1969). Judgement and reasoning in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [Translation of: Piaget, J. (1924). Le jugement et le raisonnement chez l'enfant. Neuchatel: Delachaux et Niestlé.]Google Scholar
Reichenbach, H. (1947). Elements of symbolic logic. New York: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Roelofs, M. (1998). ‘Hoe bedoel je?’ De verwerving van pragmatische vaardigheden [‘What do you mean?’ The acquisition of pragmatic skills]. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam. Den Haag: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Sanders, T. J. M. (1997). Semantic and pragmatic sources of coherence: On the categorization of coherence relations in context. Discourse Processes 24, 119–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, T. J. M. & Noordman, L. G. M. (2000). The role of coherence relations and their linguistic markers in text processing. Discourse Processes 29, 37–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, T. J. M. & Spooren, W. P. M. (2007). Discourse and text structure. In Geeraerts, D. & Cuykens, H. (eds) The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics, 916–43. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sanders, T. J. M., Spooren, W. P. M. & Noordman, L. G. M. (1992). Toward a taxonomy of coherence relations. Discourse Processes 15, 1–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, T. J. M., Spooren, W. P. M. & Noordman, L. G. M. (1993). Coherence relations in a cognitive theory of discourse representation. Cognitive Linguistics 4(2), 93–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlichting, J. E. P. T. (1996). Discovering syntax; an empirical study in Dutch language acquisition. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen. Nijmegen: Nijmegen University Press.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1973). Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In Ferguson, C. A. & Slobin, D. I. (eds) Studies of child language development, 175–208. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Spooren, W. P. M. (1997). The processing of underspecified coherence relations. Discourse Processes 24, 149–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spooren, W. P. M. & Sanders, T. J. M. (2008). The acquisition of coherence relations: On cognitive complexity in discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 40(12), 2003–2026.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweetser, E. E. (1990). From etymology to pragmatics. Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. (2003). Constructing a language: a usage-based theory of language acquisition. Harvard: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Uit den Boogaart, P. C. (ed.) (1975). Woordfrequenties in geschreven en gesproken Nederlands [Word frequencies in written and spoken Dutch]. Utrecht: Oosthoek, Scheltemat & Holkema.Google Scholar
Van Hell, J. G., Verhoeven, L. & Wengelin, L. (1999). Narrative and L1 acquisition: coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. Paper presented at the 12th World congress of Applied Linguistics, AILA '99, August 1–6, 1999, Tokyo, Japan.Google Scholar
Van Kampen, J. (1997). First steps in wh-movement. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
Van Veen, R., Evers-Vermeul, J., Sanders, T. & Van den Bergh, H. (2008). Parental input and connective acquisition in German: a growth-curve analysis (To appear in First Language).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wason, P. C. & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1972). Psychology of reasoning: structure and content. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wijnen, F. & Verrips, M. (1998). The acquisition of Dutch syntax. In Gillis, S. & de Houwer, A. (eds) The acquisition of Dutch, 223–99. Amsterdam/Baltimore: Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar