Notes on the emergence and evolution of biargumental constructions in child language: A study based on materials from the corpus Koiné

Authors

  • Pablo Cano López
  • Isabel Fernández López
Keywords: child language, first language acquisition, syntactic development, constructions

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to inquire into the child’s acquisition of the transitive or biargumental sentence type, i. e. that scheme of syntactical arrangement in which two arguments are attached to one and the same predicator. On the basis of data gathered from the Corpus “Koiné” of Children’s Speech (http://www.usc.es/koine), it will be tried to uncover a pattern of progress in this particular province of grammatical development. It will be shown that around the age of three years there is a significant increase in the frequency of occurrence of biargumental constructions, as also in their length and grammatical complexity. Finally, attempts will be made both to conjecture the factors which lay behind this sort of “acceleration” in growth, and to suggest paths for further research on this topic.

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How to Cite
Cano López, P., & Fernández López, I. (2011). Notes on the emergence and evolution of biargumental constructions in child language: A study based on materials from the corpus Koiné. Journal of Linguistic Research, 14, 35–59. Retrieved from https://revistas.um.es/ril/article/view/142271