Linguistics: The Acquisition of Language: The Study of Developmental Psycholinguistics. DAVID MCNEILL

Abstract

A 183-page textbook emphasizing the acquisition of syntax within a transformational grammar framework, though there is also material on phonology, semantics, and biological views. McNeill argues for his own theoretical positions, which have been controversial and influential (for example, linguistic nativism). In the chapter on semantic development, he gives an elementary survey of the literature, including a proposal that children begin with a sentence-meaning dictionary and later switch to a word-meaning dictionary. Two hypotheses about the addition of semantic features (horizontal vs. vertical development) are suggested. Reviewed by Eve Clark in Contemporary Psychology, 17, pp. 66-68. Pages 103-112 (On the role of experience) reprinted in Rogers, S. (1975). Children & Language. Oxford University Press.