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  • 18 - Functional Acquisition Processes in Child Language

  • from Part Four - Applications of RRG
  • Edited by Delia Bentley, University of Manchester, Ricardo Mairal Usón, Universidad National de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Wataru Nakamura, Tohoku University, Japan, Robert D. Van Valin, Jr, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Role and Reference Grammar
    Published online:
    08 June 2023
    Print publication:
    22 June 2023, pp 666-692

  • Summary

    This chapter proposes a functional theory of language acquisition based on the idea that children utilize their understanding of cognitive and communicative principles to construct a grammar that integrates semantic and pragmatic notions. The chapter explores child language data that are relevant to such issues as how layered clause structure, operator projection, predicate structure and grammatical relations are acquired within a communication-and-cognition framework. In showing how the language acquisition data map to the Role and Reference Grammar framework, the chapter includes contrasts with alternative theories, such as autonomous syntax theory. From the perspective of conceptual development, the infant-toddler is viewed as a relatively proficient information processor with the capacity to discover fundamental linguistic relationships, in the spirit of the theory of Operating Principles (Slobin 1985).