Previous findings suggest that in natural language, frequency may be inherently correlated with generality, prototypicality or simplicity. The most frequently used instances in each domain may be the “best models” of that domain, so that the effect of input frequency is to have children learn the best exemplars of a domain first. To test this hypothesis, the first intransitive verbs to participate in multiword combinations were investigated, based on longitudinal observations of 20 children acquiring Hebrew. The results were compared to the frequency of intransitive verbs in multiword utterances in a speech corpus based on recordings of 48 mothers. The first verbs that begin the acquisition of intransitive word-combinations are the most frequent intransitive verbs in the input. These verbs also tend to be relatively nonspecific, general, or generic intransitive verbs with light semantics. The same verbs that children first combine with subjects or locative adjuncts, and which are the most frequent in the speech of mothers, are typical grammaticalized markers of intransitivity or directional-movement in many languages. These results join many previous findings in showing that the statistical structure of natural languages makes possible, at the onset of acquisition, a kind of lexical learning which is at the same time a type of category-or rule-formation.
Barrett, M.D. (1981). The communicative functions of early child language . Linguistics, 19, 273-305.
2.
Bartlett, E. (1976). Sizing things up: The acquisition of the meaning of dimensional adjectives. Journal of Child Language, 3, 205-220.
3.
Berman, R.1985). The acquisition of Hebrew. In D.I. Slobin (Ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition (Vol.I, pp.255-371). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
4.
Berman, R. (1988). Word class distinctions in developing grammars. In Y. Levy, I. Schlesinger, & M. D. S. Braine (Eds.), Categories and processes in language acquisition (pp. 45-72). Hillsdale, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum.
5.
Bierwisch, M. (1967).Some semantic universals of German adjectivals . Foundations of Language, 3, 1-36.
6.
Blake, B.J. (1994). Case. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
7.
Blewitt, P. (1982). Word meaning acquisition in young children: A review of theory and research . In H. Reese & L. Lipsitt (Eds.), Advances in child development behavior (Vol.17,pp. 140-185). New York: Academic Press.
8.
Bloom, L. (1973). One word at a time: The use of single word utterances before syntax. The Hague: Mouton .
9.
Boas, F.( 1947). Kwakiutl grammar, with a glossary of the suffixes. (Edited by H. B. Yampolsky). Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 37,203-377.
10.
Brown, R. (1973).A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
Brown, R., & Hanlon, ( 1970). Derivational complexity and order of acquisition in child speech. In J. R. Hayes (Ed.), Cognition and the development of language. (pp.11-53). New York: Wiley.
12.
Bybee, J., Perkins, R., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The evolution of grammar. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
13.
Campbell, R., & Wales, R. (1970). The study of language acquisition. In J. Lyons (Ed.), New horizons in linguistics (pp. 242-260). Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books.
14.
Clark, E. (1972).On the child's acquisition of antonyms in two semantic fields. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 50-758.
15.
Clark, E. (1978).Strategies for communicating. Child Development ,49, 953-959.
16.
De Villiers, J.G. (1980).The process of rule learning in child speech: An new look.In K. E. Nelson (Ed.), Children's language (Vol. 2, pp.1-44). New York: Gardner Press.
17.
Dixon, R.M.W. (1980).The languages of Australia. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
18.
Dixon, R.M.W. (1982). Where have all the adjectives gone?New York: Mouton.
19.
Eilers, R., Oller, D.K., & Ellington, J. (1974). The acquisition of word meaning for dimensional adjectives: The long and the short of it. Journal of Child Language, 1, 195-204.
20.
Foley, W.A., & Olson, M. (1985). Clausehood and verb serialization. In J. Nichols & A. C. Woodbury (Eds.), Grammar inside and outside the clause (pp.17-60). Cambridge , U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
21.
Forner, M. (1979). The mother as LAD: Interaction between order and frequency of parental input and child production. In F. R. Eckman & A.J. Hastings (Eds.),Studies in first and second language acquisition (pp. 17-44). Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
22.
Givon, T. (1975). Serial verbs and syntactic change: Niger-Congo . In C. Li (Ed.), Word order and word order change (pp.47-112). Austin: University of Texas Press. Givon , T. (1991). Serial verbs and the mental reality of"event." In E.C. Traugott & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization (Vol. 1, pp. 81-127). Amsterdam: Benjamins. Greenfield, P.M., & Smith,J.H. (1976). The structure of communication in early language development. New York: Academic Press.
23.
Griffiths, P. (1985). The communicative functions of children's single-word speech. In M. Barrett (Ed.), Children's single-word speech (pp. 87-112). New York: Wiley.
24.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1975). Learning to mean-Explorations in the development of language. London: Edward Arnold .
25.
Heider, E. (1971). "Focal" color areas and the development of color names. Developmental Psychology, 4, 447-455.
Ingram, D. (1989). First language acquisition. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
28.
Johnson, E.G. (1977). The development of color knowledge in preschool children. Child Development ,48, 308-311.
29.
Lehmann, C. (1991). Predicate classes and participation. In H. Seiler & W. Premper (Eds.), Partizipation (pp. 183-239). Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
30.
Li, C.N., & Thompson, S.A. (1981). Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.
31.
Lord, C. (1982). The development of object markers in serial verb languages. In P. Hopper & S. Thompson (Eds.),Studies in transitivity . Syntax and Semantics15 (pp.277-299). New York: Academic Press.
32.
Moerk, E.L. (1980). Relationships between parental input frequencies and children's language acquisition: A reanalysis of Brown's data. Journal of Child Language, 7,105-118.
33.
Ninio, A. (1984). Functions of speech in mother-infant interaction . Final Science Report to the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Jerusalem, Israel.
34.
Ninio, A. (1993). On the fringes of the system: Children's acquisition of syntactically isolated forms at the onset of speech. First Language, 13, 291-313.
35.
Ninio, A. (1996). Pathbreaking verbs in syntactic development. Paper presented at the Seventh International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Istanbul, Turkey.
36.
Ninio, A. (in press). Pathbreaking verbs in syntactic development and the question of prototypical transitivity. Journal of Child Language, 26 (3).
37.
Ninio, A., & Wheeler, P. (1984a). Functions of speech in mother-infant interaction . In L. Feagans, G.J. Garvey & R. Golinkoff (Eds.), The origins and growth of communication (pp.196-207). Norwood, NJ : Ablex.
38.
Ninio, A., & Wheeler, P.( 1984b).A manual for classifying verbal communicative acts in mother-infant interaction. Working Papers in Developmental Psychology, No. 1. Jerusalem : The Martin and Vivian Levin Center, Hebrew University . Reprinted as TranscriptAnalysis, 1986 ,3, 1-82.
39.
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1972).A grammar of contemporary English. London: Longman.
40.
Rosch, E. (1975). Cognitive representation of semantic categories . Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 192-233.
41.
Silverstein, M. (1972). Chinook JargonI. Language, 48, 378-406.
42.
Slobin, D.I. (1987). Frequency reflects function. Paper presented at the conference on The Interaction of Form and Function in Language. University of California, Davis.
43.
Traugott, E.C., & Heine, B. (1991). Introduction. In E. C. Traugott & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization (Vol. 1, pp.1-14). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
44.
Weisenberger, J.L. (1976). A choice of words: Two-year-old speech from a situational point of view. Journal of Child Language, 3, 275-281.
45.
Wolff, J.G. (1988).Learning syntax and meanings through optimization and distributional analysis. In Y. Levy , I. Schlesinger,& M.D.S. Braine (Eds.), Categories and processes in language acquisition (pp. 179-215). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
