The acquisition of complex sentences / Holger Diessel.
"This book presents the first comprehensive study of how children acquire complex sentences. Drawing on observational data from English-speaking children aged 2 to 5, Holger Diessel investigates the acquisition of infinitival and participial complement clauses, finite complement clauses, finite...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Ebook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge, U.K. ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
2004.
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| Series: | Cambridge studies in linguistics ;
105. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Cambridge Books on Core Contributor biographical information |
| Summary: | "This book presents the first comprehensive study of how children acquire complex sentences. Drawing on observational data from English-speaking children aged 2 to 5, Holger Diessel investigates the acquisition of infinitival and participial complement clauses, finite complement clauses, finite and nonfinite relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and coordinate clauses. His investigation shows that the development of complex sentences originates from simple non-embedded sentences and that two different developmental pathways can be distinguished: complex sentences including complement and relative clauses evolve from simple sentences that are gradually expanded to multiple-clause constructions, and complex sentences including adverbial and coordinate clauses develop from simple sentences that are integrated in a specific biclausal unit. He argues that the acquisition process is determined by a variety of factors: the frequency of the various complex sentences in the ambient language, the semantic and syntactic complexity of the emerging constructions, the communicative functions of complex sentences, and the social-cognitive development of the child."--Publisher description. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xvi, 226 pages) : illustrations. |
| Format: | Mode of access: World Wide Web. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0511229763 9780511229763 0511230540 9780511230547 0511231318 9780511231315 0511316585 9780511316586 0511486537 9780511486531 1280703040 9781280703041 |
| DOI: | 10.1017/CBO9780511486531 |