From First Words to Grammar: Individual Differences and Dissociable Mechanisms

Bates, Elizabeth; Bretherton, Inge; Snyder, Lynn Sebestyen

ISBN 10: 0521341426 / ISBN 13: 9780521341424

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1988

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # Q-0521341426

Bibliographic Details

• Title: From First Words to Grammar: Individual Differences and Dissociable Mechanisms
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521341426
• ISBN 13: 9780521341424
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: New
• Weight: 21 ounces

About this title

Synopsis

This book is the first comprehensive study of the passage from first words to grammar in a sample of children large enough to permit systematic analysis of individual differences in style and rate of development. The authors provide a large body of information about first words and early grammatical development in qualitative and quantitative patterns that are useful not only for researchers in the field, but for speech/language pathologists and early childhood educators interested in the assessment of early language. They also address one of the most controversial theoretical issues in modern linguistics and psycholinguistics: the problem of modularity, with individual differences suggesting that components of language can come apart in early stages, developing at different rates in different children. But these differences appear to cut across the supposed boundaries between grammatical and lexical development, suggesting that the same mechanisms are responsible for both. The results support a unified functionalist approach to language development, and have implications for the way we think about the structure and breakdown of language under normal and abnormal conditions.

Book Description

The controversial problem of modularity is addressed in the first comprehensive study of the transition from words to grammar within a sampling of children large enough to permit systematic analysis of individual differences in style and development rate.