This book offers a unique interdisciplinary perspective on argument structure and its role in language acquisition. Drawing on a broad range of crosslinguistic data, this volume shows that languages are much more diverse in their argument structure properties than has been realized. The volume is the outcome of an integrated research project and comprises chapters by both specialists in first language acquisition and field linguists working on a variety of lesser-known languages. The research draws on original fieldwork and on adult data, child data, or both from seventeen languages from eleven different language families. Some chapters offer typological perspectives, examining the basic structures of a given language with language-learnability issues in mind. Other chapters investigate specific problems of language acquisition in one or more languages. Taken as a whole, the volume illustrates how detailed work on crosslinguistic variation is critical to the development of insightful theories of language acquisition. Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure integrates important contemporary issues in linguistics and language acquisition.

Recent years have seen a revolution in our knowledge of how children learn to think and speak. In this volume, leading scholars from these rapidly evolving fields of research examine the relationship between child language acquisition and cognitive development, bringing two vital strands of investigation into close dialog. The book explains important new ideas about how language acquisition interacts with the process of early cognition, providing original empirical contributions based on a variety of languages, populations and ages as well as theoretical discussions that bridge psychology, linguistics and anthropology.

First published in 1973, this important work was the first systematic attempt to apply theoretical and methodological tools developed in America to the acquisition of a language other than English. Dr Bowerman presents and analyses data from a longitudinal investigation of the early syntactic development of two Finnish children, and compares their speech at two stages of development with that of American, Samoan and Luo children. The four language families (Finno-Ugric, Indo-European, Malayo-Polynesian and Nilotic respectively) with very different structures, and this is the first systematic comparison of the acquisition of several types of native language within a common analysis. Similarities in the linguistic behaviour of children learning these four different languages are used to evaluate hypotheses about universals of language, and to generate new proposals.

Recent years have seen a revolution in our knowledge of how children learn to think and speak. In this volume, leading scholars from these rapidly evolving fields of research examine the relationship between child language acquisition and cognitive development, bringing two vital strands of investigation into close dialog. The book explains important new ideas about how language acquisition interacts with the process of early cognition, providing original empirical contributions based on a variety of languages, populations and ages as well as theoretical discussions that bridge psychology, linguistics and anthropology.

In her Beijing lectures, Melissa Bowerman presents a lucid introduction and account of her research on a range of topics: how children acquire the semantics of spatial terms, how they construct categories and acquire the semantics of nouns, and how they master the semantics of verbs in early language acquisition. Bowerman also covers the learning of argument structure and expressions of end-state, with special attention to the adult speech that guides children, and hence also the role of typology in acquisition; how cross-linguistic variation affects, for example, how speakers represent 'cutting' and 'breaking' in different languages, and the relation of the Whorfian Hypothesis to cross-linguistic variations in the semantics of languages. Bowerman's over-riding concern throughout is with how children come to master the first language being spoken to them by their parents and caregivers.

Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure: Implications for Learnability offers a unique interdisciplinary perspective on argument structure and its role in language acquisition. Much contemporary work in linguistics and psychology assumes that argument structure is strongly constrained by a set of universal principles, and that these principles are innate, providing children with certain bootstrapping strategies that help them home in on basic aspects of the syntax and lexicon of their language. Drawing on a broad range of crosslinguistic data, this volume shows that languages are much more diverse in their argument structure properties than has been realized. acquisition, affects the range of solutions that can be considered plausible, and highlights new acquisition puzzles that until now have passed unnoticed. The volume is the outcome of an integrated research project and comprises chapters by both specialists in first language acquisition and field linguists working on a variety of lesser-known languages. both from seventeen languages from eleven different language families. Some chapters offer typological perspectives, examining the basic structures of a given language with language-learnability issues in mind. Other chapters investigate specific problems of language acquisition in one or more languages. variation is critical to the development of insightful theories of language acquisition. Crosslinguistic Perspectives on Argument Structure integrates important contemporary issues in linguistics and language acquisition. With its rich crosslinguistic base and the innovative empirical methods, it showcases for studying the role of argument structure in language acquisition, it will be of great interest to linguists and language acquisition specialists alike, as well as to upper-level students in linguistics and psychology in the United States and abroad.