Article published in:
The Pragmatics of Discourse Coherence: Theories and applications
Edited by Helmut Gruber and Gisela Redeker
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 254] 2014
► pp. 209–242

“Why? Because I’m talking to you!” Parental input and cognitive complexity as determinants of children’s connective acquisition

| Utrecht University
| Utrecht University
| Utrecht University
| Utrecht University
We report a series of longitudinal studies on children’s acquisition of Dutch, English and German causal connectives supporting a model in which children’s cognitive development, parental input and the cognitive complexity of different types of causality are brought into a systematic relationship. The data reveal that less complex connectives are acquired first, and that parental connective input has both short- and long-term effects, although children are not simply parroting their parents. Audience design in connective input is not at stake: parents’ independent connective use is stable over time, but their elicited connective use increases as children grow older and start asking why-questions themselves. Still, parental why-questions are scaffolds of children’s connective use and of their ability to ask why-questions themselves.
Published online: 26 November 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.254.08vee
References
Abbot-Smith, Kirsten, and Michael Tomasello
2006 “Exemplar-learning and Schematization in a Usage-based Account of Syntactic Acquisition.” The Linguistic Review 23: 275–290. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Behrens, Heike
2006 “The Input-output Relationship in First Language Acquisition.” Language and Cognitive Processes 21: 2–24. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 “Usage-based and Emergentist Approaches to Language Acquisition.” Linguistics 47: 383–411. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Ruth
2004 “Between Emergence and Mastery: The Long Development Route of Language Acquisition.” In Language Development across Childhood and Adolescence, ed. by Ruth Berman, 9–34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, Lois, Margaret Lahey, Lois Hood, Karin Lifter, and Kathleen Fiess
1980 “Complex Sentences: Acquisition of Syntactic Connectives and the Semantic Relations They Encode.” Journal of Child Language 7: 235–261. Reprinted 1991 in Language development from two to three, ed. by Lois Bloom, 261–289. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bol, Gerard W
1996 “Optional Subjects in Dutch Child Language.” In Proceedings of the Groningen Assembly on Language Acquisition Held at the University of Groningen, 7–9 September 1995, ed. by Charlotte Koster, and Frank Wijnen, 125–135. Groningen: Center for ­Language and Cognition Groningen.Google Scholar
Borovsky, Arielle, and Jeffrey Elman
2006 “Language Input and Semantic Categories: A Relation between Cognition and Early Word Learning.” Journal of Child Language 33: 759–790. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bowerman, Melissa
1979 “The Acquisition of Complex Sentences.” In Language Acquisition: Studies in First Language Development, ed. by Paul Fletcher, and Michael Garman, 285–305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Braunwald, Susan
1997 “The Development of BECAUSE and SO: Connecting Language, Thought, and Social Understanding.” In Processing Interclausal Relationships: Studies in the Production and Comprehension of Text, ed. by Jean Costermans, and Michel Fayol, 121–137. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Britton, Bruce K
1994 “Understanding Expository Text. Building Mental Structures to Induce Insights.” In Handbook of Psycholinguistics, ed. by Morton A. Gernsbacher, 641–674. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Roger
1973 A First Language: The Early Stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Eve V
1978 “Discovering What Words Can Do.” In Papers from the Parasession on the Lexicon, ed. by Donka Farkas, Wesley M. Jacobsen, and Karol W. Todrys, 34–57. Chicago IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
2003 First Language Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Eve V. Clark
1977 Psychology and Language; an Introduction to Psycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert H., and Gregory L. Murphy
1982 “Audience Design in Meaning and Reference.” In Language and Comprehension, ed. by Jean-Francois LeNy, and Walter Kintsch, 287–299. Amsterdam: North-Holland. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth
1996 “Intonation and Clause Combining in Discourse: The Case of Because.” Pragmatics 6 (3): 389–426.Google Scholar
Degand, Liesbeth, and Henk Pander Maat
2003 “A Contrastive Study of Dutch and French Causal Connectives on the Speaker Involvement Scale.” In Usage-Based Approaches to Dutch, ed. by Arie Verhagen, and Jeroen van de Weijer, 175–199. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
de Villiers, Jill, and Peter de Villiers
1973 “A Cross-sectional Study of the Acquisition of Grammatical Morphemes in Child Speech.” Journal of Psycholinguistics Research 2: 267–178. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Diessel, Holger
2004 The Acquisition of Complex Sentences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Eisenberg, Ann R
1980 “A Syntactic, Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis of Conjunction.” Stanford Papers and Reports on Child Language Development 19: 70–78.Google Scholar
Elbers, Loekie, and Frank Wijnen
1992 “Effort, Production Skill, and Language Learning.” In Phonological Development: Models, Research, Implications, ed. by Charles A. Ferguson, Lise Menn, and Carol Stoel-Gammon, 337–368. Timonium, MD: York Press.Google Scholar
Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline
2005 The Development of Dutch Connectives: Change and Acquisition as Windows on Form-function Relations. PhD dissertation. Utrecht University. LOT: Utrecht. Available at: http://​www​.lotpublications​.nl​/publish​/articles​/001378​/bookpart​.pdfGoogle Scholar
Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline, Liesbeth Degand, Benjamin Fagard, and Liesbeth Mortier
2011 “Historical and Comparative Perspectives on Subjectification: A Corpus-based Analysis of Dutch and French Causal Connectives.” Linguistics 49 (2): 445–478. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline, and Ted Sanders
2009 “The Emergence of Dutch Connectives; How Cumulative Cognitive Complexity Explains the Order of Acquisition.” Journal of Child Language 36: 829–854. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 “Discovering Domains – On the Acquisition of Causal Connectives.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 1645–1662. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Garrod, Simon, and Martin J. Pickering
2004 “Why is Conversation so Easy?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 8: 8–11. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Harvey
1999 Multilevel Statistical Models. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Granger, Sylviane
2004 “Computer Learner Corpus Research. Current Status and Future Prospects.” In Applied Corpus Linguistics. A Multidimensional Perspective, ed. by Ulla Connor, and Thomas Upton, 123–145. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne
1996 “From Subordination to Coordination? Verb-second in German Clausal and Concessive Constructions.” Pragmatics 6 (3): 323–356.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan
1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hobbs, Jerry R
1979 “Coherence and Coreference.” Cognitive Science 3: 67–90. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Keller, Rudi
1995 “The Epistemic Weil.” In Subjectivity and Subjectivisation: Linguistic Perspectives, ed. by Dieter Stein, and Stein Wright, 16–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kidd, Evan, Elena V. M. Lieven, and Michael Tomasello
2006 “Examining the Role of Lexical Frequency in the Acquisition and Processing of Sentential Complements.” Cognitive Development 21: 93–107. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Klee, Thomas, Mary Schaffer, Susan May, Irene Membrino, and Karen Mougey
1989 “A Comparison of the Age-MLU Relation in Normal and Specifically Language-impaired Preschool Children.” Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 54: 226–233. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kuczaj, Stan
1976 -Ing, -s and -ed: A Study of the Acquisition of Certain Verb Inflections. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Kyratzis, Amy, Jiansheng Guo, and Susan Ervin-Tripp
1990 “Pragmatic Conventions Influencing Children’s Use of Causal Constructions in Natural Discourse.” In Proceedings of the 16th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, ed. by Kira Hall, Jean Pierre Koenig, Michael Meacham, Sondra Reinman, and Laurel A. Sutton, 205–214. Berkeley, CA: BLS.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, Brian
2000 The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk, 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
McCabe, Allyssa, and Carol Peterson
1997 “Meaningful ‘Mistakes’: The Systematicy of Children’s Connectives in Narrative Discourse and the Social Origins of this Usage About the Past.” In Processing Interclausal Relationships: Studies in the Production and Comprehension of Text, ed. by Jean Costermans, and Michel Fayol, 139–154. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Miller, Jon F., and Robin S. Chapman
1981 “The Relation between Age and Mean Length of Utterance in Morphemes.” Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 24: 154–161. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Max
1979 The Logic of Language Development in Early Childhood. Berlin: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Noordman, Leo G. M., and Wietske Vonk
1997 “The Different Functions of a Conjunction in Constructing a Representation of the Discourse.” In Processing Interclausal Relationships. Studies in the Production and Comprehension of Text, ed. by Jean Costermans, and Michel Fayol, 75–93. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Pander Maat, Henk, and Ted Sanders
2000 “Domains of Use or Subjectivity? The Distribution of Three Dutch Causal Connectives Explained.” In Cause, Condition, Concession and Contrast: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives, ed. by Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, and Bernd Kortmann, 59–81. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2001 “Subjectivity in Causal Connectives: An Empirical Study of Language in Use.” Cognitive Linguistics 12: 247–273.Google Scholar
Peterson, Carol, Beulah Jesso, and Allyssa McCabe
1999 “Encouraging Narratives in Preschoolers: An Intervention Study.” Journal of Child Language 26: 49–67. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Piaget, Jean
1969 Judgement and Reasoning in the Child. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Pit, Mirna
2003 How to Express Yourself with a Causal Connective. Subjectivity and Causal Connectives in Dutch, German and French. Ph.D. Dissertation, Utrecht University. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Sachs, Jacqueline
1983 “Talking about the There and Then: The Emergence of Displaced Reference in Parent–child Discourse.” In Children’s Language, ed. by Keith E. Nelson, Vol. 4, 1–28. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sanders, Ted
1997 “Semantic and Pragmatic Sources of Coherence: On the Categorization of Coherence Relations in Context.” Discourse Processes 24: 119–147. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, Ted, and Henk Pander Maat
2006 “Cohesion and Coherence: Linguistic Approaches.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., ed. by Keith Brown, et al., Vol. 2, 591–595. London: Elsevier. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, Ted, and Wilbert Spooren
2009 “Causal Categories in Discourse: Converging Evidence from Language Use.” In Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition, ed. by Ted Sanders, and Eve Sweetser, 205–246. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sanders, Ted, Wilbert Spooren, and Leo Noordman
1992 “Toward a Taxonomy of Coherence Relations.” Discourse Processes 15: 1–35. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, Ted, and Eve Sweetser
(eds) 2009 Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Slobin, Dan I
1973 “Cognitive Prerequisites for the Development of Grammar.” In Studies of Child Language Development, ed. by Charles A. Ferguson, and Dan I. Slobin, 175–208. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Spooren, Wilbert, and Ted Sanders
2008 “The Acquisition of Coherence Relations: On Cognitive Complexity in Discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 40: 2003–2026. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stukker, Ninke, and Ted Sanders
2012 “Subjectivity and Prototype Structure in Causal Connectives: A Cross-linguistic Perspective.” Journal of Pragmatics 44 (2): 169–190. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Suppes, Patrick
1974 “The Semantics of Children’s Language.” American Psychologist 29: 103–114. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sweetser, Eve
1990 From Etymology to Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, Michael
2000 “First Steps toward a Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition.” Cognitive Linguistics 11: 61–82.Google Scholar
2006 “Acquiring Linguistic Constructions.” In Handbook of Child Psychology, ed. by Deanna Kuhn, and Robert S. Siegler, 255–298. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael, and Hannes Rakoczy
2003 “What Makes Human Cognition Unique? From Individual to Shared to Collective Intentionality.” Mind and Language 18: 121–147. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Traxler, Matthew J., Michael D. Bybee, and Martin J. Pickering
1997 “Influence of Connectives on Language Comprehension: Eyetracking Evidence for Incremental Interpretation.” The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 50A: 481–497. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Valian, Virginia, and Lyman Casey
2003 “Young Children’s Acquisition of Wh-questions: The Role of Structured Input.” Journal of Child Language 30: 117–143. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
van Kampen, Jacqueline
1997 First Steps in Wh-movement. Ph.D. dissertation, Utrecht University.Google Scholar
van Veen, Rosie
2011 The Acquisition of Causal Connectives: The Role of Parental Input and Cognitive Complexity. PhD dissertation, Utrecht University. LOT: Utrecht. Available at: http://​www​.lotpublications​.nl​/publish​/articles​/004337​/bookpart​.pdfGoogle Scholar
van Veen, Rosie, Jacqueline Evers-Vermeul, Ted Sanders, and Huub van den Bergh
2009 “Parental Input and Connective Acquisition in German: A Growth Curve Analysis.” First Language 29: 267–289. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 “The Influence of Parental Input on Connective Acquisition: A Growth Curve Analysis of English Because and German Weil.” Journal of Child Language 40 (5): 1003–1031. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, Lev
1978 “Interaction between Learning and Development.” In Mind in Society, transl. by Michael Cole, 79–91. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wijnen, Frank, and Maaike Verrips
1998 “The Acquisition of Dutch Syntax.” In The Acquisition of Dutch, ed. by Steven Gillis, and Annick De Houwer, 223–299. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wood, David, Jerome S. Bruner, and Gail Ross
1976 “The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving.” Journal of Child Psychology and Child Psychiatry 17: 89–100. CrossrefGoogle Scholar