Modality in Language Acquisition / Modalité et acquisition des langues

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

This volume presents research in the field of first language acquisition discussed at the 1993 meeting of the Child Language Research Forum. The contributors are Maria A. Alegre, Ursula Bellugi, Jeffrey G. Bettger, Paul Bloom, Melissa Bowerman, Ursula Brinkmann, Penelope Brown, Nancy Budwig, Joan Bybee, Alice Shuk-yee Cheung, Soonja Choi, Patricia Clancy, Stephen Crain, William Croft, Cynthia Crosser, Peter Culicover, Eve Danziger, Sonja Eisenbeiss, Karen Emmorey, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Claire Foley, Dicky G. Gilbers, Adele E. Goldberg, Alison Gopnik, Peter Gordon, Susan A. Graham, Jiansheng Guo, D. Geoffrey Hall, Alison Henry, James H. Hoeffner, Qian Hu, Tara Jackson, Catalina Johnson, Shyam Kapur, Bonita P. Klein, Edward S. Klima, Amy Kyratzis, Marie Labelle, Barbara Landau, Thomas Hun-tak Lee, Barbara Lust, Rachel I. Mayberry, James L. McClelland, Zelmira Nez del Prado, Dominique Nouveau, Diane Poulin-Dubois, Lisa Riche, Nancy Soja, Susan Toth-Sadjadi, Andrew Chung-yee Tse, and Klarien J. van der Linde. Eve V. Clark is Professor of Linguistics at Stanford University, author of The Lexicon in Acquisition, and co-author of Psychology and Language (with Herbert H. Clark).

An invaluable resource for students and professionals alike with an interest in child language acquisition.

How children first acquire language is one of the central issues in linguistics. This book draws on a wide range of research, including work in developmental psychology, anthropology and sociology, to explore the processes behind child language acquisition to the preschool period.

This volume brings together a collection of 18 papers that look into the expression of modality in the grammars of natural languages, with an emphasis on its manifestations in naturally occurring discourse. Though the individual contributions reflect a diversity of languages, of synchronic and diachronic foci, and of theoretical orientations — all within the broad domain of functional linguistics — they nonetheless converge around a number of key issues: the relationship between 'mood' and 'modality'; the delineation of modal categories and their nomenclature; the grounding of modality in interactive discourse; the elusive category 'irrealis'; and the relationship of modal notions and categories to other categories of grammar.

This volume deals with a variety of pragmatic issues involved in cross-language and interlanguage studies as well as second-language acquisition and cross-cultural studies. Part I contains papers dealing with general issues stemming from contrastive work, for example, the question of tertium comparationis and its place in the development of contrastive studies as well as the applicability of generalizations proposed by speech-act theorists in contrasting concrete languages and cultures. The second part tackles a number of pragmatic issues involved in second-language learners' written productions, classroom discourse, as well as more general questions pertaining to pragmatic errors and learners' interlanguage. An Index of terms and an Index of names complete the volume.

This book offers a distinct approach to the analysis of the multiple meanings of English modals, conjunctions, conditionals and perception verbs. Although such ambiguities cannot easily be accounted for by feature-analyses of word meaning, Eve Sweetser's argument shows that they can be analysed both readily and systematically. Meaning relationships in general cannot be understood independently of human cognitive structure, including the metaphorical and cultural aspects of that structure. Sweetser shows that both lexical polysemy and pragmatic ambiguity are shaped by our metaphorical folk understanding of epistemic processes and of speech interaction. Similar regularities can be shown to structure the contrast between root, epistemic and 'speech-act' uses of modal verbs, multiple uses of conjunctions and conditionals, and certain processes of historical change observed in Indo-European languages. Since polysemy is typically the intermediate step in semantic change, the same regularities observable in polysemy can be extended to an analysis of semantic change. This book will attract students and researchers in linguistics, philosophy, the cognitive sciences, and all those interested in metaphor.