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A functional account of verb use in the early stages of English multiword development*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2011

THEA CAMERON-FAULKNER
THEA CAMERON-FAULKNER*
Affiliation:
School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester
*
Address for correspondence: Thea Cameron-Faulkner, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL. e-mail: t.cameron@manchester.ac.uk
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Abstract

The present study investigates flexibility of verb use in the early stages of English multiword development, and its relationship with patterns attested in the input. The data is taken from a case study of a monolingual English-speaking boy aged 2 ; 5–2 ; 9 and his mother while engaged in daily activities in the home. Data were coded according to Halliday's (1975) functional system. The findings suggest that early multiword verb use is functionally restricted and closely tied to verb use in the input.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , September 2012 , pp. 885 - 897
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

[*]

Parts of the research reported here were supported by funding from the ESRC (Grant no. RES-000-22-1125). We are extremely grateful to Michael Tomasello, the editor, the action editor and reviewers for their valuable feedback.

References

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