16.1094, Diss: Lang Acquisition: Aguado-Orea: 'The ...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-1094. Thu Apr 07 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.1094, Diss: Lang Acquisition: Aguado-Orea: 'The ...'

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1)
Date: 06-Apr-2005
From: Javier Aguado-Orea < jaguado at nebrija.es >
Subject: The Acquisition of Morpho-syntax in Spanish: Implications for current theories of development

	
-------------------------Message 1 ----------------------------------
Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 11:25:09
From: Javier Aguado-Orea < jaguado at nebrija.es >
Subject: The Acquisition of Morpho-syntax in Spanish: Implications for current theories of development


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Institution: University of Nottingham
Program: School of Psychology
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2004

Author: Javier Aguado-Orea

Dissertation Title: The Acquisition of Morpho-syntax in Spanish: Implications
for current theories of development

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition

Subject Language(s): Spanish (SPN)

Language Family(ies): Romance


Dissertation Director(s):
Fernand Gobet
Julian M Pine

Dissertation Abstract:

The objective of the analyses included in this thesis is to test two
different sets of theories about the way children acquire the knowledge
required to use verb inflection in Spanish. One of them assumes that
children have innate knowledge about grammatical properties that are common
to all languages. Some of the authors defending this claim propose that
children are fully competent from the beginning of speech (Hoekstra &
Hyams, 1998; Wexler, 1998). On the other hand, the other set of theories
avoids assuming such initial domain-specific knowledge. Consequently, these
theories predict a gradual progression towards the achievement of full
competence (Pine, Lieven & Rowland, 1998; Tomasello, 2000a). New
longitudinal naturalistic samples of the speech of two children have been
collected for the purpose of this study (a boy: 1;10.21 - 2;5.29 years old;
a girl: 2;2.25 - 2;7.15 years old). New methods have also been developed to
analyse these samples. They consist of controlled comparisons across the
speech of different speakers (i.e. parents and children) or within the
speech of the child recorded at different developmental points. The
accuracy of children in the provision of finite and non-finite verb forms
has also been assessed and used to differentiate between the theories
mentioned above. Finally, a computational model of the acquisition of
syntax has been used to explore the relation between the pattern of
finiteness marking in early child Spanish and the distributional
characteristics of Spanish child directed speech. The implications of these
results for theories of language development and children's early knowledge
of verb inflection are discussed.




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