500First Language Acquisition -

א. מטרות הקורס:

The course will focus on the process of first language acquisition across languages, explaining various phenomena (such as the acquisition of word order, inflections and subordination) from the different theoretical perspectives: developmental psycholinguistics on the one hand and the generative (nativist) theory on the other hand. The course will also give some insight to research methodologies used in this field.

ב. תוכן הקורס:

Topic / Reading / Date
Stages in language acquisition: An overview. / 4/3
Different disciplines in language acquisition / Crain / 4/3
Communication development / Adamson / 11/3
Prelinguistic development / Ingram / 11/3
First words – Form and content in the one-word stage / Kim et al / 18/3
Early verbs / Armon-Lotem & Berman / 8/4
CHILDES WORKSHOP 1 (22.4) / 22/4
Lag Ba'omer / 29/4
Early grammar – from multi word utterances to simple sentences / Deprez & Pierce, Armon-Lotem / 6/5
Parameter theory / Hyams / 13/5
Acquisition of the lexicon / Clark / 20/5
CHILDES WORKSHOP 2 (27.5) / 27/5
Complex syntax : Movement rules / Friedmann& Lavi / 3/6
Acquisition of semantics: Universal quantifiers / Meroni et al / 10/6
Later Acquisitions and the narrative / Berman / 17/6
Make-up lesson / 24/6

ג. חובות הקורס/Requirements:

דרישות קדם:184, 287

חובות / דרישות / מטלות:נוכחות, קריאה, תרגיל ובחינה

מרכיבי הציון הסופי/ :Grade composition

נוכחות והשתתפות / Participation and attendance– 10%

תרגיל / CHILDESCHIDES exercise- 30%

בחינה / Exam - 60%

ד. ביבליוגרפיה/Required reading:

Adamson, B. L. 1996. Communication Development during Infancy. Oxford: Westview. 15-37.

Armon-Lotem, S. 2008. The interaction between question formation and verbal morphology in the acquisition of Hebrew –a Minimalist perspective. In S. Armon-Lotem, G. Danon and S. Rothstein (eds), Current Issues in Generative Hebrew Linguistics, in the series "Linguistics Today". John Benjamins: 223-242

Armon-Lotem, S. and R. A. Berman. 2003. The Emergence of Grammar: Early Verbs and Beyond. Journal of Child Language 30.4: 845-862

Berman, R. A. 1996. Form and function in the development of narrative abilities. In D.I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratziz, and J. Guo (eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Arvin-Tripp.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Clark, E. V. 1993. The Lexicon in Acquisition. CambridgeUniversity Press. 67-83

Crain, S. 1991. Language Acquisition in the Absence of Experience. Behavioral and brain Sciences 14, 597-602, 605-606, 611. + Peer Commentary by Berman, Grant & Karmiloff-Smith, Lowenthal and Slobin.

Deprez, V. and A Pierce. 1994. Crosslinguistic Evidence for Functional Projections in Early Child Grammar. In Hokstra & Schwartz (eds.), p. 57-84.

Friedmann, N., & Lavi, H. 2006. On the order of acquisition of A-movement, Wh-movement and V-C movement. In A. Belletti, E. Bennati, C. Chesi, E. Di Domenico, & I. Ferrari (Eds.), Language acquisition and development (pp. 211-217). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press/CSP.

Hyams, N. 1986. Parameter theory and syntactic development. In T. Roeper & E. Williams (eds.) Parameter Setting. Reidel. 2-21

Ingram, D. 1989. First Language Acquisition. CambridgeUniversity Press. 87-115

Kim M, McGregor K.K, Thompson C.K. 2000. Early lexical development in English- and Korean-speaking children: language-general and language-specific patterns. J Child Lang. 27(2):225-54.

Meroni, L., Gualmini, A. & S. Crain. 2000. A Conservative Approach to Quantification in Child Language. U. Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 7.1, 171-182

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