Adjective Forms and Functions in British English Child-Directed Speech

Autor/inn/en	Davies, Catherine; Lingwood, Jamie; Arunachalam, Sudha
Titel	Adjective Forms and Functions in British English Child-Directed Speech
Quelle	In: Journal of Child Language, 47 (2020) 1, S.159-185 (27 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Davies, Catherine)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0305-0009
DOI	10.1017/S0305000919000242
Schlagwörter	Form Classes (Languages); Syntax; Semantics; Socioeconomic Status; Preschool Children; Pragmatics; Linguistic Input; English; Computational Linguistics; Foreign Countries; Language Acquisition; Speech Communication; Childrens Literature; Video Technology; United Kingdom + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Analytischer Sprachbau; Semantik; Socio-economic status; Sozioökonomischer Status; Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Pragmalinguistik; Sprachbildung; English language; Englisch; Linguistics; Computerlinguistik; Ausland; Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; 'Children''s literature'; Kinderliteratur; Großbritannien
Abstract	Adjectives are essential for describing and differentiating concepts. However, they have a protracted development relative to other word classes. Here we measure three- and four-year-olds' exposure to adjectives across a range of interactive and socioeconomic contexts to: (i) measure the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic variability of adjectives in child-directed speech (CDS); and (ii) investigate how features of the input might scaffold adjective acquisition. In our novel corpus of UK English, adjectives occurred more frequently in prenominal than in postnominal (predicative) syntactic frames, though postnominal frames were more frequent for less-familiar adjectives. They occurred much more frequently with a descriptive than a contrastive function, especially for less-familiar adjectives. Our findings present a partial mismatch between the forms of adjectives found in real-world CDS and those forms that have been shown to be more useful for learning. We discuss implications for models of adjective acquisition and for clinical practice. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01