Syntactic Development

This is a broad critical survey of the research literature on child language development, providing coverage of both theoretical and empirical issues. Covering a wide range of perspectives, this text constructs a picture of how children acquire the syntax of English. The first part of the book offers an overview of the developmental data pertaining to a range of syntactic phenomena, including word order, subject drop, embedded clauses, wh-questions, inversion, relative clauses, passives, and anaphora. Part Two considers the various theories which have been advanced to explain the facts of development as well as the learnability problem, reporting on work in the mainstream formulist framework, but also considering the results of alternative approaches. A reference for specialists in the field of Language acquisition, this text aims to provide an introduction to the acquisition of syntax for students and researchers in psychology, linguistics and cognitive science.