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The influence of input on connective acquisition: a growth curve analysis of English because and German weil*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2012

ROSIE VAN VEEN ,
JACQUELINE EVERS-VERMEUL ,
TED SANDERS  and
HUUB VAN DEN BERGH
ROSIE VAN VEEN*
Affiliation:
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS – Utrecht University
JACQUELINE EVERS-VERMEUL
Affiliation:
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS – Utrecht University
TED SANDERS
Affiliation:
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS – Utrecht University
HUUB VAN DEN BERGH
Affiliation:
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS – Utrecht University; Graduate School of Teaching and Learning – Amsterdam University
*
Address for correspondence: Rosie van Veen, Utrecht Institute of Linguistics, Trans 10, NL – 3512 JK Utrecht, The Netherlands. tel. +31 30 253 8692; fax +31 30 253 6000; e-mail: rosievanveen@hotmail.com
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Abstract

The current study used growth curve analysis to study the role of input during the acquisition of the English causal connective because and its German counterpart weil. The corpora of five German and five English children and their adult caretakers (age range 0;10–4;3) were analyzed for the amount as well as for the type of connective use – imitated, elicited, and independent. The growth curves showed that children's elicited use developed faster than their independent use; imitations were rare. Adult connective input was not found to function as a scaffold of children's connective use. Rather, the adult why/warum-questions played an important role in the acquisition of because and weil. In turn, children also used why/warum-questions to elicit causal responses from their caretakers, which shows that children were responsible for a great part of their own input.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 40 , Issue 5 , November 2013 , pp. 1003 - 1031
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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Footnotes

[*]

The first, second, and third author's research was enabled by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific research, through NWO-Vici-grant 277-70-003, awarded to Ted Sanders. Furthermore, we would like to thank Rosemarie Rigol, Heike Behrens, and the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, for sharing their data with us.

References

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