Abstract
Recent emphasis on underlying semantic relations in the child's acquisition of grammar has left ignored those cases where syntactic operations can be observed relatively independent of semantic relations. Such operations may reveal optional processes in the child's transition from single-word utterances to grammatical usage that may be related to specific linguistic rather than general cognitive abilities.
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Leonard, L.B. On differentiating syntactic and semantic features in emerging grammars: Evidence from empty form usage. J Psycholinguist Res 4, 357–364 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067064
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067064