This study considers the much-debated markedness and structural status of word-initial /s/-sequences in English by examining the development of KR (male, age 3;6) who has a phonological disorder. Three points in time are discussed: (1) when all initial consonant sequences are reduced to singletons; (2) when only initial /s/-sequences surface correctly; and (3) when all initial consonant sequences surface correctly. While these production patterns are common across developing systems, few accounts have addressed them in terms of structure or markedness. Toward that end, it is argued that KR's /s/-sequences surface as ADJUNCTS, rather than complex onsets. This is explained within optimality theory, whereby high-ranking markedness constraints prevent complex onsets but not adjuncts. The account offers an explanation for consonant sequence asymmetries within and across grammars, allowing for differing representations for /s/-sequences across speakers and for variation exhibited in children's productions. A typology of possible grammars is therefore offered, and clinical implications are considered.

Recently, much research has explored the role that nonverbal pointing behaviours play in children's early acquisition of language, for example during word learning. However, few researchers have considered the possibility that these behaviours may continue to play a role in language comprehension as children develop more sophisticated language skills. The present study investigates the role that eye gaze and pointing gestures play in three- to five-year-olds understanding of complex pragmatic communication. Experiment 1 demonstrates that children (N = 29) better understand videotapes of a mother making indirect requests to a child when the requests are accompanied by nonverbal pointing behaviours. Experiment 2 uses a different methodology in which children (N = 27) are actual participants rather than observers in order to generalize the findings to naturalistic, face-to-face interactions. The results from both experiments suggest that broader units of analysis beyond the verbal message may be needed in studying children's continuing understanding of pragmatic processes.

In this study vocabulary development of a sample of 42 Italian children was evaluated through monthly administration of the Italian version of the CDI. Data collection started at 1;0–1;1 for 32 children and at 1;3–1;4 for the remaining subjects and continued until children's vocabulary reached 200 words. At fixed stages of vocabulary size (50, 100 and 200 words), individual differences in percentile scores and vocabulary composition were examined. Individual growth curves were analysed in order to verify the presence of a vocabulary spurt and the type of lexical items which contributed most to rapid acceleration in vocabulary growth.

Stylistic differences in vocabulary composition were examined regarding the ‘referential–expressive’ distinction, controlling vocabulary size. Data have shown that general trends in vocabulary development are quite similar to those obtained for other languages using CDI adaptations. Moreover, all children in this sample eventually exhibited a vocabulary spurt, even if some can be defined as ‘late spurters’. The type of lexical items which are learned during the spurt depend on both infant vocabulary size and referential score. About 28% of infants in this sample were defined ‘referential’ when their vocabulary size was about 50 words, but the stylistic differences disappeared at the 100- and 200-word stages.

Composition of vocabulary did not differ in relation to precocity in reaching different stages of vocabulary development. The only exception was that infants who reached the 50-word stage first also had a vocabulary with a lower proportion of function words.

This study investigated the interface of form and function in the acquisition of negation in Cantonese-speaking children. The data, from the Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus, were longitudinal spontaneous samples of eight children aged 1;5 to 3;8. The main issues of the study were the sequence of emergence of negative markers mou5, m4 and mei6 and the acquisition trend of 11 semantic categories of negation in children's expressive language. The acquisition trend of the semantic categories matched Bloom's (1970, 1991a) finding that Non-existence preceded Rejection and Denial.

This study investigates acquisition of the rhyme using cross-sectional and longitudinal data from 14 English-speaking children (aged 1;3–2;0). It focuses on 4 questions pertaining to rhyme development, which are motivated from current theories of prosodic acquisition: 1. Do children make vowel length errors in early acquisition?; 2. Do children acquire coda consonants before they learn the vowel length contrast?; 3. What consonants are first acquired as codas?; and 4. Is there a size constraint such that children's productions are minimally and maximally bimoraic? The results indicate that the percentage of vowel length errors across all children was low irrespective of the percentage of codas produced. In particular, two children produced very few coda consonants and made few vowel length errors, suggesting that mastery of vowel length was not secondary to coda acquisition. With respect to coda segments, children produced voiceless obstruents as codas before sonorants supporting generally the claim that obstruents emerge before sonorants in coda position. Children produced coda consonants more frequently after short than long vowels consistent with a bimoraic size constraint in syllable development. The paper concludes by comparing the English findings with cross-linguistic work on vowel length acquisition.

The current study analysed article use in Spanish-speaking children with specific language impairment who are learning English as a second language. The SURFACE HYPOTHESIS account of specific language impairment was evaluated in relation to the use of articles in these children. Language samples were obtained from 15 Spanish-speaking children with language impairment and 15 with normal language, ages 5;0 to 7;1, matched by age, gender, and school. The percentage of article errors was tested between groups with a nonparametric analysis and an analysis of covariance with mean length of terminable unit as the covariate. Results revealed significant differences between groups on percent of article errors with and without MLTU as the covariate. Nonparametric statistics on percent of article error types indicated that most errors consisted of omissions and gender agreement substitutions. As predicted by the Surface Hypothesis, article errors were likely to occur in unstressed definite articles, suggesting that perceptual and prosodic processes have some impact on children's production of articles.

Divergent hypotheses exist concerning the types of knowledge underlying early bilingualism, with some portraying a troubled course marred by language delays and confusion, and others portraying one that is largely unremarkable. We studied the extraordinary case of bilingual acquisition across two modalities to examine these hypotheses. Three children acquiring Langues des Signes Québécoise and French, and three children acquiring French and English (ages at onset approximately 1;0, 2;6 and 3;6 per group) were videotaped regularly over one year while we empirically manipulated novel and familiar speakers of each child's two languages. The results revealed that both groups achieved their early linguistic milestones in each of their languages at the same time (and similarly to monolinguals), produced a substantial number of semantically corresponding words in each of their two languages from their very first words or signs (translation equivalents), and demonstrated sensitivity to the interlocutor's language by altering their language choices. Children did mix their languages to varying degrees, and some persisted in using a language that was not the primary language of the addressee, but the propensity to do both was directly related to their parents' mixing rates, in combination with their own developing language preference. The signing-speaking bilinguals did exploit the modality possibilities, and they did simultaneously mix their signs and speech, but in semantically principled and highly constrained ways. It is concluded that the capacity to differentiate between two languages is well in place prior to first words, and it is hypothesized that this capacity may result from biological mechanisms that permit the discovery of early phonological representations. Reasons why paradoxical views of bilingual acquisition have persisted are also offered.

This study investigated the use of ‘mama’ or similar sounds (collectively referred to as ‘MAMA’) by 75 infants less than six months of age. Parents were directed to listen for ‘MAMA’ sounds and to note the sounds made, the age of onset, whether the sounds appeared to be directed to any person or persons and whether they appeared to have a purpose. ‘MAMA’ began at a mode of two months, range two weeks to five months, was usually part of a cry, and was always interpreted as a ‘wanting’ sound. Most parents thought that the infant wanted some form of attention, but a minority thought it indicated hunger. Responses to a Structured Response Protocol indicated that some infants uttering ‘MAMA’ were satisfied if a favourite caretaker approached and paid attention to them while the remainder were satisfied if they were both paid attention to and picked up. The ‘MAMA’ cry appears to promote attention-giving behaviour by parents and other caretakers.

Rispoli (1999) suggests that previous studies arguing for a contingency between the case of subject pronouns and the presence/absence of verbal agreement in the acquisition of English (e.g. Schütze, 1997) suffer from methodological problems, and presents new data that fail to support earlier findings. I show that Rispoli's methodology unnecessarily biases his study against finding the predicted contingencies: it fails to take account of children's productive lexical inventory of pronoun forms. As a result, syntactic versus morphological sources of error fail to be distinguished. I explain why this distinction is crucial within the AGR/Tense Omission Model, and clarify its predictions.

Astington (1988) found that seven- to nine-year-olds often fail to distinguish between promises and predictions when judging the utterances of characters in simple stories. Instead, these children attend only to the outcome of the story (i.e. whether the promised event occurred) when deciding whether a promise has been made and, to a lesser extent, when deciding whether the speaker is responsible for the outcome. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether seven- to nine-year-olds (a) vary their judgements of responsibility according to the reason that the promised action was not completed, and (b) recognize that an unfulfilled promise is a promise regardless of whether the speaker's failure is unavoidable or intentional. Seven-year-olds, nine-year-olds, and adults were asked to make promise and responsibility judgements for two story types: stories in which the promiser intentionally failed to fulfil his or her promise and stories in which an unforeseen event prevented the promiser from fulfilling the promise. Participants at all ages assigned responsibility correctly across both story types. In making promise judgements, however, the seven-year-olds' decisions about promises reflected a misguided attention to the outcome of a promise or the obstacle to its fulfilment. The nine-year-olds recognized that an unfulfilled promise is a promise but only when there was a clear reason for the speaker's failure to fulfil his or her obligation. We suggest that children consider only sincere promises to be instances of promising and make inferences about speaker sincerity by looking to external factors in the communicative context.

Children's ability to distinguish between the text, WHAT WAS SAID, and the intentional structure, WHAT WAS MEANT, was interrogated by means of verbatim and paraphrase questions in two types of discourse, narratives and nursery rhymes. Three- to seven-year-olds participated (n = 119, mean age 5·1). There was an interaction between the type of discourse and the younger children's ability to separate wording from intentional structure. In the narrative form they had difficulty rejecting true paraphrases when asked to focus on wording, while in the nursery rhyme form the difficulty was accepting a true paraphrase when asked to focus on intention.