Language Acquisition by Children

This textbooks introduces the main arguments for an innate, domain specific capacity to learn human language. It guides you through the growth of language in a typically developing child and also discusses a range of viewpoints, introducing the central controversies in the field of language acquisition. Taking models and analyses from generative phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, the author describes children's language acquisition using examples from a wide variety of languages. She explores the connections between language and other aspects of human cognition, the role of environment in learning, and the role in language development of mechanisms for speech production and speech comprehension. Extensively illustrated with models and figures, each chapter is also followed by a summary box, exercises and questions for discussion. An appendix of research techniques and suggestions for further reading is also included, to provide a Chomskyan introduction to language acquisition for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in linguistics and cognitive science.