book announcement

[Brian MacWhinney]

NEW PUBLICATION FROM MOUTON DE GRUYTER

>From the series
Studies on Language Acquisition
Series Editor: Peter Jordens


Wittek, Angelika

LEARNING THE MEANING OF CHANGE-OF-STATE VERBS
A CASE STUDY OF GERMAN CHILD LANGUAGE
2002. 23 x 15,5 cm.
VIII, 233 pages. Cloth.
Approx. EUR 88,- /sFr 141,- /approx. US$ 88.00
ISBN 3-11-017304-2
(Studies on Language Acquisition 17)

MOUTON DE GRUYTER

Causative change-of-state verbs like 'to open', 'to fill', and 'to wake' are
central to both recent theories of grammatical development and theories of
lexical structure. This book focuses on how German-speaking children learn
the meaning of change-of-state verbs. It offers a thorough characterization
of the acquisition of German, embedded in a crosslinguistic perspective. The
author provides a comprehensive review of the acquisition literature on that
topic and introduces a new account as to how the meaning of these verbs can
be learned. The empirical backbone of the investigation are a set of
carefully designed experimental studies.

>From the Contents:

Chapter I
Introduction
1. What does it take to learn the meaning of a verb?

1.1. Why learning the meaning of verbs is difficult

1.1.1. The problem of determining verb meaning by observation

1.1.2. The problem of complexity of verb meaning

1.2. Why learning the meaning of change-of-state verbs should be easy,but it
isn't - previewing the learning paradox

2. Goals and organization of this study

Chapter II

A paradox: Learning the meaning of change-of-state verbs

should be easy, but it isn't


1. Children are sensitive to state changes from early on

2. The learning problem: Children neglect the endstate in interpreting
change-of-state verbs

2.1. Evidence for children's neglect of the endstate

2.2. Why would children neglect the endstate?

2.3. How to test the scope of the neglect of endstate: The Transparent
Endstate Hypothesis

3. Conclusion

Chapter III

Is the learning problem due to mapping problems? Testing the Transparent
Endstate Hypothesis

1. How causal state changes are lexicalized in German

2. Experiment 1: Transparent endstates (Type: wachmachen 'awake-make')

2.1. Method

2.2. Experimental predictions

2.3. Results

2.4. A tree-based modeling analysis of the data

2.5. Discussion

3. Experiment 2: Transparent endstates (Type: wachklingeln 'awake-ring')

3.1. Method

3.2.Experimental predictions

3.3. Results

3.4. Discussion

4. Experiment 3: Transparent endstates made salient (Type: wachmachen
'awake-make')

4.1. Method

4.2. Experimental predictions

4.3. Results

4.4. A tree-based modeling analysis of the data

4.5. Discussion

5.General Discussion

6. Conclusion

Chapter IV

A subtle learning problem: The Weak Endstate

1. The resolution of the paradox?

1.1. Characterizing children's interpretation of change-of-state verbs: The
Weak Endstate

1.2. "Weak" endstates in the adult language

1.3. Change-of-state verbs in a broader crosslinguistic perspective

1.4. The learning problem is more subtle than we thought

2. How does the child correct inappropriate Weak Endstate interpretations?

2.1. The Syntactic Bootstrapping Hypothesis

2.2. A related proposal: Morphological Bootstrapping

2.3. The Semantic Structure Hypothesis Testing Hypothesis

3. Conclusion

Chapter V

Modifiers as cues to verb meaning

1. How could the learner use modifiers as cues to verb meaning?

1.1. What do modifiers do?

1.2. The Adverbial Modification Cue Hypothesis

2. A candidate solution to the Weak Endstate problem: wieder 'again'

2.1. The properties of again

2.2. Restitutive again as an Adverbial Modification Cue

3. Do children have knowledge of restitutive wieder 'again',and do

caretakers use it in their speech?

3.1. Evidence from previous studies

3.2. A CHILDES search

4. Children's and adults' use of restitutive wieder 'again' with
morphologically complex vs. simple change-of-state verbs: An exploratory
study

4.1. Method

4.2. Predictions

4.3. Results

4.4. Discussion

5. Conclusion

Chapter VI

Testing the Adverbial Modification Cue Hypothesis


1. Developing an experimental design to test restitutive wieder 'again' as
an Adverbial Modification Cue

2. Experiment 4: Testing restitutive wieder 'again' as a cue that a verb

entails an endstate

2.1. Method

2.2. Experimental prediction

2.3. Results

2.4. Discussion

3. Experiment 5 (control experiment)

3.1. Method

3.2. Experimental prediction

3.3. Results

3.4. Discussion

4. General Discussion: A broader perspective on the Adverbial Modification
Cue Hypothesis

5. Conclusion


Chapter VII

Summary: The status of the endstate in children's semantic representations
of change-of-state verbs

Appendices
Notes
References
Subject Index
Author Index

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