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Form and function of negation in early developmental Cantonese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2001

CLARA W-Y. TAM  and
STEPHANIE F. STOKES
CLARA W-Y. TAM
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong
STEPHANIE F. STOKES
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong
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Abstract

This study investigated the interface of form and function in the acquisition of negation in Cantonese-speaking children. The data, from the Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus, were longitudinal spontaneous samples of eight children aged 1;5 to 3;8. The main issues of the study were the sequence of emergence of negative markers mou5, m4 and mei6 and the acquisition trend of 11 semantic categories of negation in children's expressive language. The acquisition trend of the semantic categories matched Bloom's (1970, 1991a) finding that Non-existence preceded Rejection and Denial.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 2001 , pp. 373 - 391
Copyright
2001 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Many thanks to Paul Fletcher for comments on a draft of this manuscript, and to Dr Zehava Weisman and her research assistants for their help in using the CHAT files.