Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T14:41:47.765Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The connective ‘and’: do older children use it less as they learn other connectives?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Carole Peterson  and
Allyssa McCabe
Carole Peterson*
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland
Allyssa McCabe
Affiliation:
Southeastern Louisiana University
*
Psychology Department, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland, CanadaA1B 3X9.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The connective and has frequently been described as a useful allpurpose connective that is used as a vehicle for introducing new inter-sentential semantic relationships. As new and more specific connectives are acquired, they are matched to these meanings. An assumption is that as children get older, and should be used less to express the various meanings for which more specific connectives exist; rather, it should be increasingly reserved for simple co-ordination. This hypothesis was tested by examining narratives produced by children between 4 and 9 years old; contrary to expectation, and was used no differently by 9-year-olds than by 4-year-olds, and simple co-ordination constituted no more than 20% of the relationships. The role of and may be to indicate cohesion between sentences, without regard to semantic relationship.

Type
Notes and Discussion
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 1987 , pp. 375 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The authors would like to thank Michael Bruce-Lockhart for the development and use of the NARRAN software package. Further information about NARRAN or its availability can be obtained from the first author. This research was supported by National Science and Engineering Research Council grant AO513 to the first author.

References

Bloom, L., Lahey, M., Hood, L., Lifter, K. & Fiess, K. (1980) Complex sentences: acquisition of syntactic connectives and the semantic relations they encode. Journal of Child Language 7. 235–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clancy, P., Jacobsen, T. & Silva, M. (1976) The acquisition of conjunction: a cross-linguistic study. Papers & Reports on Child Language Development 12. 71–80.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. (1970) How young children describe events in time. In d'Arcais, G. B. Flores & Levelt, W. J. M. (eds), Advances in psycholinguistics. New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Deese, J. (1984) Thought into speech: the psychology of a language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, A. R. (1980) A syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic analysis of conjunction. Papers & Reports on Child Language Development 19. 70–8.Google Scholar
Feagans, L. (1980) Children's understanding of some temporal terms denoting order, duration, and simultaneity. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 9. 41–57.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hood, L., Lahey, M., Lifter, K. & Bloom, L. (1978) Observational, descriptive methodology in studying child language: preliminary results on the development of complex sentences. In Sackett, G. P. (ed.), Observing behavior, Vol. 1. Theory and application in mental retardation. Baltimore: University Park Press.Google Scholar
McCabe, A. & Peterson, C. (1985) A naturalistic study of the production of causal connectives by children. Journal of Child Language 12. 145–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peterson, C. & McCabe, A. (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: three ways of looking at a child's narrative. New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, C. & McCabe, A. (1985) Understanding ‘because’: how important is the task? Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 14. 199–218.Google Scholar
Tibbits, D. F. (1980) Oral production of linguistically complex sentences with meaning relationships of time. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 9. 545–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar