Research Catalog

Title

Language acquisition and the form of the grammar / David Lebeaux.

Author

Lebeaux, David.

Publication

Philadelphia : J. Benjamins, [2000], ©2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xxix, 277 pages; 23 cm

Summary

• "Language Acquisition and the Form of the Grammar attempts to re-think the ideal organization of the grammar, given its need to be learned. The book proposes a fundamental connection between the form of the adult grammar and the sequence of grammars which the child adopts in first language acquisition.
• Challenging the conventional division between language acquisition and syntax, this influential work constructs a new understanding of phrase structure, bringing syntactic data to bear on phrase structure composition. Two new phrase structure composition operations are proposed, Adjoin-[alpha], which adjoins adjuncts into the structure, and Project-[alpha], which fuses open class and closed class structures.
• The author also introduces the novel concept of subgrammars, successively larger grammars that take the child from the initial state to the adult grammar."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

• Language acquisition
• Generative grammar

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-272) and index.

Contents

Ch. 1. A Re-Definition of the Problem -- Ch. 2. Project-[alpha], Argument-Linking, and Telegraphic Speech -- Ch. 3. Adjoin-[alpha] and Relative Clauses -- Ch. 4. Agreement and Merger -- Ch. 5. The Abrogation of DS Functions: Dislocated Constituents and Indexing Relations.

ISBN

• 1556198582
• 9027225656 (Eur.)

LCCN

00039775

OCLC

• ocm43903770
• SCSB-4044109

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries