Book contents
- Front matter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A dynamic network model of grammatical constructions
- 3 Towards a definition of complex sentences and subordinate clauses
- 4 Infinitival and participial complement constructions
- 5 Complement clauses
- 6 Relative clauses
- 7 Adverbial and co-ordinate clauses
- 8 Conclusion
- Appendix
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
8 - Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Front matter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 A dynamic network model of grammatical constructions
- 3 Towards a definition of complex sentences and subordinate clauses
- 4 Infinitival and participial complement constructions
- 5 Complement clauses
- 6 Relative clauses
- 7 Adverbial and co-ordinate clauses
- 8 Conclusion
- Appendix
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
The bulk of the literature on the acquisition of complex sentences has been concerned with children's comprehension of multiple-clause structures in experiments. Almost all of these studies found that children have great difficulties in understanding complex sentences until well into the school years. For instance, Chomsky (1969) reported that 5- to 9-year-olds often misinterpret certain types of nonfinite complement clauses, and Sheldon (1974) and Tavakolian (1977) observed that relative clauses create tremendous difficulties at least until the early school years. Similarly, Piaget (1948) reported that children as old as 7 years tend to confuse cause and effect in causal clauses, and Clark (1971) found that 3- to 5-year-olds have difficulties comprehending temporal clauses marked by after and before. Many of these studies have argued that children's comprehension of complex sentences involves an interpretation strategy, such as the conjoined clause analysis or the order-of-mention principle, which seems to suggest that children learn very little about complex sentences during the preschool years.
Although young children have great difficulties in comprehending complex sentences in experiments, they use them at a very early age. As we have seen throughout this book, children begin to produce a wide variety of complex sentences during the preschool years. The earliest complex sentences emerge around the second birthday. They include the complement-taking verb wanna and a bare infinitive. Shortly thereafter, children begin to combine clauses by and.
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- The Acquisition of Complex Sentences , pp. 174 - 185Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004
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