This dissertation examines the impact of the type of referring expression on the acquisition of word order variation in German-speaking preschoolers. A puzzle in the area of language acquisition concerns the production-comprehension asymmetry for non-canonical sentences like "Den Affen fängt die Kuh." (“The monkey, the cow chases.”), that is, preschoolers usually have difficulties in accurately understanding non-canonical sentences approximately until age six (e.g., Dittmar et al., 2008) although they produce non-canonical sentences already around age three (e.g., Poeppel & Wexler, 1993; Weissenborn, 1990). This dissertation investigated the production and comprehension of non-canonical sentences to address this issue. Three corpus analyses were conducted to investigate the impact of givenness, topic status and the type of referring expression on word order in the spontaneous speech of two- to four-year-olds and the child-directed speech produced by their mothers. The positioning of the direct object in ditransitive sentences was examined; in particular, sentences in which the direct object occurred before or after the indirect object in the sentence-medial positions and sentences in which it occurred in the sentence-initial position. The results reveal similar ordering patterns for children and adults. Word order variation was to a large extent predictable from the type of referring expression, especially with respect to the word order involving the sentence-medial positions. Information structure (e.g., topic status) had an additional impact only on word order variation that involved the sentence-initial position. Two comprehension experiments were conducted to investigate whether the type of referring expression and topic status influences the comprehension of non-canonical transitive sentences in four- and five-year-olds. In the first experiment, the topic status of the one of the sentential arguments was established via a preceding context sentence, and in the second experiment, the type of referring expression for the sentential arguments was additionally manipulated by using either a full lexical noun phrase (NP) or a personal pronoun. The results demonstrate that children’s comprehension of non-canonical sentences improved when the topic argument was realized as a personal pronoun and this improvement was independent of the grammatical role of the arguments. However, children’s comprehension was not improved when the topic argument was realized as a lexical NP. In sum, the results of both production and comprehension studies support the view that referring expressions may be seen as a sentence-level cue to word order and to the information status of the sentential arguments. The results highlight the important role of the type of referring expression on the acquisition of word order variation and indicate that the production-comprehension asymmetry is reduced when the type of referring expression is considered. --- Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Dissertation wurde der Einfluss des referierenden Ausdrucks auf den Erwerb von Wortstellungsvariationen bei deutschsprachigen Vorschulkindern untersucht. Eine zentrale Fragestellung im Spracherwerb betrifft die Asymmetrie zwischen Produktion und Verständnis. Diese Asymmetrie ist dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass sechsjährige Kinder oft Schwierigkeiten haben, Sätze in der nicht-kanonischen Wortstellung, z.B. „Den Affen fängt die Kuh.“, zu verstehen (z.B., Dittmar et al., 2008), obwohl bereits Dreijährige nicht-kanonische Sätze produzieren können (z.B., Poeppel & Wexler, 1993; Weissenborn, 1990). Um diese Asymmetrie zu untersuchen wurde in der Dissertation die Produktion und das Verständnis von nicht-kanonischen Sätzen betrachtet. In drei Korpusstudien wurde der Einfluss von Vorerwähntheit, Topikstatus und Wahl des referierenden Ausdrucks auf die Wortstellung in der Spontansprache von Zwei- bis Vierjährigen und in der kind-gerichteten Sprache ihre Mütter analysiert. Es wurde die Position des direkten Objektes in ditransitiven Sätzen untersucht, d.h., Sätze in denen das direkte Objekt vor oder nach dem indirekten Objekt in den satzmedialen Positionen stand, und Sätze in denen es in der satzinitialen Position stand. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ähnlich Abfolgemuster in der Satzproduktion der Kindern und Erwachsenen. Die Position des direkten Objektes, vor allem in den satzmedialen Positionen, war zu einem großen Teil durch die Wahl des referierenden Ausdrucks vorhersagbar. Informationsstrukturelle Faktoren (z.B. Topikstatus) hingegen beeinflussten - unabhängig vom Einfluss des referierenden Ausdrucks - nur die Wortstellung in der satzinitialen Position. Zwei Verständnisexperimente wurden durchgeführt um den Einfluss des referierenden Ausdrucks und des Topikstatuses auf das Verständnis von nicht-kanonischen transitiven Sätzen zu untersuchen. Im ersten Experiment wurde der Topikstatus eines der beiden Satzargumente durch einen vorherigen Kontext modifiziert. Im zweiten Experiment wurde zusätzlich der referierende Ausdruck modifiziert, d.h. das Topik wurde entweder durch eine lexikalische Nominalphrase (NP) oder ein Personalpronomen realisiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass vier- und fünfjährige Kinder Sätze in der nichtkanonischen Wortstellung besser verstehen konnten, wenn das Topik als Personalpronomen realisiert wurde, unabhängig von der grammatischen Rolle des Topiks. Das Satzverständnis war jedoch nicht verbessert, wenn das Topik als lexikalische NP realisiert wurde. Zusammengefasst zeigen die Ergebnisse der Produktions- und Verständnisstudien, dass der referierende Ausdruck als Hinweis auf die Wortstellung und auf den Informationsstatus der Argumente des Satzes von den Kindern genutzt werden kann. Sie unterstreichen somit die Bedeutung der Wahl des referierenden Ausdrucks auf den Erwerb von Wortstellungsvariation und zeigen, dass die Asymmetrie zwischen Produktion und Verständnis an Bedeutung verliert, wenn der referierende Ausdruck einbezogen wird.

This book provides linguists with a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Leading researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors' introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on focus, topic, and givenness. Part 2 covers a range of current issues in the field, including quantification, dislocation, and intonation, while Part 3 is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including language processing and acquisition. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world's language families. This volume will be the standard guide to current work in information structure and a major point of departure for future research.

This book deals with the questions asked about the L2 acquisition process within different research paradigms, examines the results found in each approach, and evaluates the contributions of each to our understanding of L2 acquisition of syntax and to possible implications for L2 instruction.

This book describes the repertoire and uses of referring expressions by French-speaking children and their interlocutors in naturally occurring dialogues at home and at school, in a wide range of communicative situations and activities. Through the lens of an interactionist and dialogical perspective, it highlights the interaction between the formal aspects of the acquisition of grammatical morphemes, the discourse-pragmatic dimension, and socio-discursive, interactional and dialogical factors. Drawing on this multidimensional theoretical and methodological framework, the first part of the book deals with the relation between reference and grammar, while the second part is devoted to the role of the communicative experience. Progressively, a set of arguments is brought out in favor of a dialogical and interactionist account of children’s referential development. This theoretical stance is further discussed in relation to other approaches of reference acquisition. Thus, this volume provides researchers and students with new perspectives and methods for the study of referring expressions in children.

This book brings together contributions by prominent researchers in the fields of language processing and language acquisition on topics of common interest: how people refer to objects in the world, how people comprehend such referential expressions, and how children acquire the ability to refer and to understand reference.

This handbook addresses words in all their multifarious aspects and brings together scholars from every relevant discipline to do so. The many subjects covered include word frequencies; sounds and sound symbolism; the structure of words; taboo words; lexical borrowing; words in dictionaries and thesauri; word origins and change; place and personal names; nicknames; taxonomies; word acquisition and bilingualism; words in the mind; word disorders; and word games, puns, and puzzles. Words are the most basic of all linguistic units, the aspect of language of which everyone is likely to be most conscious. A 'new' word that makes it into the OED is prime news; when baby says its first word its parents reckon it has started to speak; knowing a language is often taken to mean knowing its words; and languages are seen to be related by the similarities between their words. Up to the twentieth century linguistic description was mainly an account of words and all the current subdivisions of linguistics have something to say about them. A notable feature of human languages is the sheer vastness of their word inventories, and scholars and writers have sometimes deliberately increased the richness of their languages by coining or importing new items into their word-hoards. The book presents scholarship and research in a manner that meets the interests of students and professionals and satisfies the curiosity of the educated reader.

Infants and very young children develop almost miraculously the ability of speech, without apparent effort, without even being taught - as opposed to the teenager or the adult struggling without, it seems, ever being able to reach the same level of proficiency as five year olds in their first language. This useful textbook serves as a guide to different types of language acquisition: monolingual and bilingual first language development and child and adult second language acquisition. Unlike other books, it systematically compares first and second language acquisition, drawing on data from several languages. Research questions and findings from various subfields are helpfully summarized to show students how they are related and how they often complement each other. The essential guide to studying first and second language acquisition, it will be used on courses in linguistics, modern languages and developmental psychology.