Language Acquisition: Core Readings
Language Acquisition offers, in one convenient reader, work by the most outstanding researchers in each field and is intended as a snapshot of the sort of theory and research taking place in language acquisition in the 1990s. All of the articles and chapters were chosen to reflect topics and debates of current interest, and all take an interdisciplinary approach to language development, relating the study of how a child comes to possess a language to issues within linguistics, computational theory, biology, social cognition, and comparative psychology.While there are several introductory texts on language development, and countless collections of articles, thisscientists are asking about language acquisition, the important experimental findings, and the key theoretical debates, suitable for students at advanced levels and scholars with a range of different perspectives and interests.The readings are organized into six sections:- the onset of language development,- word learning,- syntax and semantics,- morphology,- acquisition in special circumstances, and- alternative perspectives.Each section serves as an introduction to a specific area and provides sufficient background for further reading.Preface : language acquisitions / Paul Bloom -- Overview : controversies in language acquisition / Paul Bloom -- Human maternal vocalizations to infants as biologically relevant signals : an evolutionary perspective / Anne Fernald -- Modularity and constraints in early lexical acquisition : evidence from children's early language and gesture / Laura Ann Petitto -- Infant contributions to the achievement of joint reference / Dare A. Baldwin -- Constraints children place on word meanings / Ellen M. Markman -- The structural sources of verb meanings / Lila Gleitman -- Early word meanings : the case of object names / Janellen Huttenlocher and Patricia Smiley -- The notion of source in language acquisition / Eve V. Clark and Kathie L. Carpenter -- Affectedness and direct objects : the role of lexical semantics in the acquisition of verb argument structure / Jess Gropen ... [et al.]Learning a semantic system : what role do cognitive predispositions play? / Melissa Bowerman -- Language acquisition in the absence of experience / Stephen Crain -- Language growth with experience without feedback / Richard F. Cromer -- On learning the past tenses of English verbs / D.E. Rumelhart and J.L. McClelland -- Rules of language / Steven Pinker -- Level-ordering in lexical development / Peter Gordon -- Beyond the input given : the child's role in the acquisition of language / Susan Goldin-Meadow and Carolyn Mylander -- Maturational constraints on language learning / Elissa L. Newport -- Innate constraints and developmental change / Annette Karmiloff-Smith -- The instinct to learn / Peter Marler
