Responses to query on questions and negatives

[Sean Devitt]

Dear All
In August I sent out a query for material on the acquisition of negatives and /
or questions in L1 and L2. In spite of the fact that it was bang in the middle
of the holiday period, I got quite a lot of material.
Here is what I received. I tried attaching it as a word file also, but was told
that it would not be allowed through to the list.
I have attached the emails and contact information for anyone who sent me
material. To these especially I want to say a big thanks.
If you happen to know of anything that combines the study of negatives and / or
questions with the study of morphological development, that would be especially
valuable.
Thanks to everyone once again.
Best wishes
Sean Devitt




info.childes feedback
List of references from responses to request for material on
the acquisition of questions and / or negatives, August 2004
Abdulkarim, Lamya. (2001) Complex WH questions and universal grammars: New
evidence from the acquisition of negative barriers. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis.
(Department of Communication Disorders), University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
[“On questions involving negation and relativized minimality.  This is the most
sophisticated experimental work on the topic that is available” (Tom Roeper).]
Bellugi, U. (1965). The development of interrogative structures in  children's
speech. In K. Riegel (Ed.), The development of language  functions. University
of Michigan Language Development Program, Report No.  8, 103-138. [suggested by
C. Rowland]
Bellugi, U. (1971). Simplification in children's language. In R. Huxley &  E.
Ingram (Eds.), Language acquisition: Models and methods (pp. 95-119).  London:
Academic Press. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Berninger & Garvey (1982).  Tag constructions: Structure & function in
child discourse.  Journal of Child Language, 9, 151-168. [suggested by Laura
DeThorne]
Bloom, Markin, & Wootten (1982).  Wh-Questions: Linguistic factors that
contribute to the sequence of acquisition.  Child Development, 53, 1084-1092.
[suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Brown, R. (1968). The development of wh-questions in child speech. Journal  of
Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 7, 279-290. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Dabrowska, E. (2000). From formula to schema: The acquisition of English
questions. Cognitive Linguistics, 11, 83-102
Dabrowska, E. (2000). From formula to schema: The acquisition of English
questions. Cognitive Linguistics, 11, 83-102 [suggested by C. Rowland and E.
Dabrowska]
Dabrowska, E., Lieven, E. (in press) Towards a lexically specific grammar of
children's question constructions. Cognitive Linguistics
De Houwer, A. (1999). The acquisition of two languages from birth.  Cambridge
University Press. [You'll find an analysis of the acquisition of interrogatives
and negatives by an English-Dutch bilingual child (BFLA) aged 2;7-3;4.]
Dennis, Sugar, & Whitaker (1982).  The acquisition of tag questions.  Child
Development, 53, 1254-1257. [suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Derwing, T. & Smyth, R. (1988) Auxiliary inversion  revisited'.  Journal of the
Atlantic Provinces Linguistics  Association [now called Linguistica Atlantica],
1-15 [see website of journal at http://www.unb.ca/apla-alpa/journal.html]
DeVilliers, J. (1991). Why questions?  In T. Maxfield and B. Plunkett  (Eds.),
Papers in the acquisition of WH (pp. 155-173). Amherst, MA:  University of
Massachusetts Occasional Papers. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Erreich (1984).  Learning how to ask: Patterns of inversion in yes-no and
wh-questions.  Journal of Child Language, 11, 579-92. [suggested by Laura
DeThorne]
Erreich, A. (1984). Learning how to ask: Patterns of inversion in yes-no  and
wh-questions. Journal of Child Language, 11, 579-602. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Guasti , M. (2002) Language acquisition, MIT Press. [suggested by M. Guasti and
K. Wexler]
Guasti, M. T., R. Thornton and K. Wexler (1995) Children’s Negative Questions:
The Case of English. In D. MacLaughlin and S. McEwen (eds.) Proceedings of the
Boston University Conference on Child Language Development, 19. Somerville, MA:
Cascadilla Press. [suggested by K. Wexler]  [The big phenomenon we discovered
was that 5 yeard old normal kids can't ask negative questions correctly; they
mostly double the aux: "What is she isn't eating". The generalization is that
"nt" can't appear in C for these kids, is how I put it now, and I think I have
some ideas. But the phenomenon is striking, and mostly replicated.  (Kenneth
Wexler)]
Hurford, J. (1975). A child and the English question formation rule.  Journal of
Child Language, 2, 299-301. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Johnson, C. E. (1983). The development of children's interrogatives: from
formulas to rules. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 22.
[Suggested by A. Ninio] [This study was also presented at the Stanford Child
Language Forum in March 1983.]
Jones & Quigley (1979).  The acquisition of question formation in spoken
English and ASL by two hearing children of deaf parents.  Journal of Speech
and Hearing Disorders, 44, 196-208. [suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Klee, T. (1985).  Role of inversion in children’s question
development.  Journal of Speech & Hearing Research, 28, 225-232. [suggested by
Laura DeThorne]
Kuczaj, S. A. (1976). Arguments against Hurford's 'Aux Copying Rule'.  Journal
of Child Language, 3, 423-427 [suggested by C. Rowland]
Labov, W., & Labov, T. (1978). Learning the syntax of questions. In R.  Campbell
& P. Smith (Eds.), Recent advances in the psychology of language:  Formal and
experimental approaches (pp. 1-44). New York: Plenum Press. [suggested by C.
Rowland]
Mackey (1991).  Input, interaction, and second language development: An
empirical study of question formation in ESL.  Studies in Second Language
Acquisition, 21, 557-87. [suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Ninio, A., & Snow, E. C.  (1996).  Pragmatic development.   Boulder, CO:
Westview Press. [The description is of the development of questions in Hebrew,
but the book may have some English results as well, I can't check it now for
you.]
Oetting & McDonald (2001).  Nonmainstream dialect use and specific language
impairment.  Journal of Speech, Language, & Hearing Research, 44, 207-23.
[suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Parnell, Amerman, & Harting (1986).  Responses of language-disordered
children to wh-questions.  Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools,
17, 95-106. [suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Perales Haya, Susana (2003): La adquisición de la negación en inglés por
hablantes bilingües de euskera/castellano. Unpublished Ph D dissertation,
University of the Basque Country. [The theme of my dissertation was the
acquisition of negation in English by Basque/Spanish bilinguals.]
Rowland & Pine (2000).  Subject-auxiliary inversion errors and wh-question
acquisition: ‘What children do know?’  Journal of Child Language, 27, 157-81.
[suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Rowland, C. F. (2000). The acquisition of wh-questions in early English
multi-word speech. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of
Nottingham, England. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Rowland, C. F., & Pine, J. M. (2000). Subject-auxiliary inversion errors  and
wh-question acquisition: What children do know? Journal of Child  Language, 27,
157-181. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Rowland, C. F., Pine, J. M., Lieven, E. V. M. & Theakston, A. L. (2003).
Determinants of the order of acquisition of wh-questions: Re-evaluating the
role of caregiver speech. Journal of Child Language, 30, 609-636. [suggested by
C. Rowland]
Rowland, C. F., Pine, J. M., Lieven, E. V. M. & Theakston, A. L. (in  press).
The incidence of error in young children's wh-questions. Journal of  Speech,
Language and Hearing Research. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Santelmann, L., Berk, S., Austin, J., Somashekar, S., & Lust. B. (2002).
Continuity and development in the acquisition of inversion in yes/no
questions: Dissociating movement and inflection, Journal of Child Language,
29, 813-842. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Stromswold, K. (1990). Learnability and the acquisition of auxiliaries.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Thornton, R. (1995) Children’s Negative Questions: A Production/Comprehension
Asymmetry. In J. Fuller, H. Han and D. Parkinson (eds.) Proceedings of ESCOL.
Published by Cornell University. [suggested by K. Wexler]
Tower (2000).  Questions that matter: Preparing elementary students for the
inquiry process.  The Reading Teacher, 53, 550-7. [suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Vainikka, A. (1994). Case in the development of English syntax. Language
Acquisition, 3, 257-325. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Valian, V., Lasser, I., & Mandelbaum, D. (1992) Children's early questions.
Unpublished manuscript, Hunter College, New York. [suggested by C. Rowland]
Van Valin, R.D. (2002).  The development of subject-auxiliary inversion in
English wh-questions: An alternative analysis.  Journal of Child Language,
29, 161-75. [suggested by Laura DeThorne]
Wilcox & Leonard (1978).  Experimental acquisition of wh-questions in
language-disordered children.  Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 21,
220-39. [suggested by Laura DeThorne]
I have just finished an experimental study on children's acquisition  of English
(as L1) questions (attached). The paper is currently  under review (so please
don't cite it yet!) but includes lots of  references to studies of L1 question
acquisition in English, of which  Rowland and Pine (2000) is probably the best.

Finally, there are two people who notified me about research in progress:

Karen M. Andriacchi
I work for Dr. Jon F. Miller at the Univeristy of Wisconsin - Madison.  We are
working on a grant involving bilingual Spanish/English children grades k-3 for
which we have almost 1500 narrative retell language samples already transcribed
that can be analyzed using SALT.  Negatives and questions are part of SALT's
Standard Word Lists.  Not sure if this is helpful to you, but if so, let us
know.

Ben Ambridge
I have just finished an experimental study on children's acquisition  of English
(as L1) questions (attached). The paper is currently  under review (so please
don't cite it yet!) but includes lots of  references to studies of L1 question
acquisition in English, of which  Rowland and Pine (2000) is probably the best.


List of email addresses and contact information from informants:

Tom Roeper <roeper at linguist.umass.edu>
Ewa Dabrowska <e.dabrowska at shef.ac.uk>
Dr Ewa Dabrowska Department of English Language and Linguistics University of
Sheffield Sheffield S10 2TN telephone +44 114 2220215 fax +44 114 22768251
Ron Smyth <smyth at utsc.utoronto.ca>
Ron Smyth, Associate Professor Linguistics & Psychology University of Toronto
Tracey Derwing <tracey.derwing at ualberta.ca>
Anat Ninio <msninio at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il>
Susana Perales Haya <susana.haya at teleline.es
Caroline Rowland <crowland at liverpool.ac.uk> Dr. Caroline Rowland School of
Psychology University of Liverpool Bedford Street South Liverpool L69 7ZA
Annick De Houwer <annick.dehouwer at ua.ac.be>
Maria Teresa Guasti mariateresa.guasti at unimib.it
Ben Ambridge <ben.ambridge at stud.man.ac.uk>
Karen M. Andriacchi  <kmandriacchi at facstaff.wisc.edu>:
 Ponderabilia <ponderabilia1 at poczta.onet.pl>
Laura DeThorne <lsd12 at psu.edu>
Ben Ambridge <ben.ambridge at stud.man.ac.uk>
Ken Wexler <wexler at MIT.EDU>


Dr. Seán Devitt, F.T.C.D.
Senior Lecturer in Education,
Education Department,
Trinity College, University of Dublin
Dublin.