Volume 21, Winter 1999
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing Volume 21, Winter 1999 by Subject "English language"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemOpen AccessCalgary Working Papers in Linguistics, Volume 21, Winter 1999(University of Calgary, 1999-01) Atkey, Susan; Belland, Jana; Rowsell, Lorna V; Strickland, MelanieThe editors of, this volume, Susan Atkey, Jana Belland, Melanie Strickland and Lorna Rowsell are pleased to present the twenty-first issue of the Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics published by the department of Linguistics at the University of Calgary. The papers contained in this volume represent works in progress and as such should not be considered in any way final or definitive.
- ItemOpen AccessSplit INFL and the acquisition of Neg and Aux(University of Calgary, 1999-01) Hanson, RebeccaBecause child language is human language, it is important that proposed linguistic theories be able to account equally well for both child and adult speech. This paper examines a model of split-INFL, which was proposed for adult language, from the perspective of acquisition. With a focus on the acquisition of English negatives auxiliaries, I test the ability of this model to account for the earliest observed stages of child speech in these areas. Data from several children learning English is considered and the model is found able to predict and explain the common patterns. The hierarchical structure within INFL accounts for the word order in the first instances of negation, the relative order of appearance between negatives and auxiliaries, and the fact that the earliest auxiliaries were negated. The success in these areas suggests that a further, crosslinguistic look at the role of split-INFL in acquisition would be worthwhile.