Although adult-based words co-occur in the period of transition to speech with a variety of non-word vocalizations, little attention has been given to the formidable problem of identifying these earliest words. This paper specifies explicit, maximally ‘inclusive’ identification procedures, with criteria based on both phonetic and contextual parameters. A formal system for evaluating phonetic match is suggested, as well as a set of child-derived functional categories reflecting use in context. Analysis of word use across two samples of 10 children each, followed from 0;9 to 1;4, provides evidence to suggest that context-bound words can be ‘trained’ by focusing on eliciting language, but that the timing of context-flexible word use remains independent of such training.

Interaction sequences are explored which are initiated by either child requests or adult offers of objects. The focus is on those sequences in which the child does not want an object that is passed to her, and on how the child manages such an interactional contingency. Throughout the age range in question, 1;0 to 1;8, the child uses re-requests where this contingency occurs in request sequences. The analysis traces the development of these re-requests and compares them with other forms of re-request. In addition, differences are uncovered as between request and offer sequences concerning the child's ways of dealing with an unwanted object that is passed to her. Linkages are made between these themes and work on third position repair within conversation analysis. Home based video-recordings of one child between the ages of 1;0 and 1;8 constitute the data base for the study.

Young children learning English as well as many other languages frequently omit weakly stressed syllables from multisyllabic words. In particular, they are more likely to omit weak syllables from word-initial positions than from word-internal or -final positions. For example, the weak syllable of a weak-strong (WS) word like giraffe is much more likely to be omitted than the weak syllable of a SW word like tiger. Three hypotheses for this omission pattern have been offered. In two, children's weak syllable omissions reflect innate perceptual biases either to ignore initial weak syllables or to encode word-final syllables. In contrast, the SW Production Template Hypothesis states that children have a template for producing a strong syllable followed by an optional weak syllable. When they apply a series of SW templates to their intended utterances, weak syllables that do not fit the templates are more likely to be omitted than those that do. To compare the three hypotheses, young two-year-olds were asked to say four-syllable SWWS and WSWS nonsense words. Children's pattern of weak syllable preservations was highly consistent with the SW production template hypothesis, but not with the perception-based hypotheses. Implications of this research for children's function morpheme omissions and for the relation of metrical and segmental production templates are discussed.

A longitudinal diary-and-videotape study of the production of phonological segments by a Spanish–English bilingual child, age 1;1–3;9, revealed four stages in consonantal acquisition: presystematic variation, formation of a single system, separation into two systems corresponding to the two languages, and achievement of adult target values with later interference of one language in the other. Vocalic acquisition proceeded with widespread variation, followed by stabilization at target adult values, without any apparent intermediate unitary-system stage. Relevance of the data adduced here to the issue of whether bilingual children first function with a single system before acquiring two discrete languages is discussed. The issue of what it may mean to have one or two systems of phonology is addressed.

Speech addressed to children is supposed to be helpfully redundant, but redundant or predictable words addressed to adults tend to lose intelligibility. Word tokens extracted from the spontaneous speech of the parents of 12 children aged 1;10 to 3;0 and presented in isolation to adult listeners showed loss of intelligibility when the words were redundant because they had occurred in repetitions of an utterance (Experiment 1) or referred to an entity which was physically present when named (Experiment 2). Though children (N = 64; mean age 3;5, S. D. 6·1 months) recognized fewer excerpted object names than adults (N = 40), less intelligible tokens appeared to induce child listeners to rely on the word's extra-linguistic context during the recognition process (Experiment 3), much as such tokens normally induce adults to rely on discourse context. It is proposed that interpreting parental utterances with reference to non-verbal context furthers linguistic development.

The study investigates how basic communicative functions expressed by utterance modalities (declarative, exclamative, injunctive, interrogative) emerged in the early language of a French child, and examines whether and how morphosyntactic and prosodic devices were used to mark these contrasts. A longitudinal corpus of naturalistic productions was collected between the ages of 1;2 and 1;9, and 960 utterances were subjected to functional, prosodic and grammatical analyses. Declarative, exclamative and injunctive utterances were found from 1;2, and first interrogatives appeared at 1;6. Intonation contours varied as a function of utterance modality and were largely in accordance with the patterns in French: declaratives and exclamatives were falling, interrogatives rising and injunctives split between falling and rising contours depending on their specific functions. A quarter of the productions involved an elementary grammatical marking of utterance modality such as interjections, imperative or indicative verbal forms, or interrogative morphemes. These findings indicate an early and complementary use of prosodic and grammatical devices in the child's construction of the linguistic system.

The purpose of the present study was to show that children under age 3;0 are capable of reformulating requests in different ways depending on how their addressee responds to the request. This adaptive ability is considered to be an indication of the use of both communicative and conversational skills. Children from French-speaking families were observed at two developmental thresholds: the end of the prelinguistic period (1;6) and the start of the linguistic period (2;6). The verbal and nonverbal outputs of the two groups of 12 children (1;6 and 2;6) were compared in three object request situations: the adult immediately complies with the request (satisfaction), the adult asks a clarification question (clarification), and the adult refuses to comply with the request (refusal). The ways in which the children adapted to each situation were found to be similar at the two ages considered. In the clarification situation, vocal productions and their repairs were more numerous, whereas in the refusal situation, non-reformulations and gazes to and from the requested object and addressee predominated. The discussion deals with the significance of these results in the development of communicative and conversational skills in children.

We report a study of the acquisition of colour terms by speakers of Setswana, the language of Botswana in Southern Africa. This was carried out as a test of Berlin & Kay's theory of colour term universals, on a language with less than the maximum complement of eleven basic colour terms, and in order to document changes in Setswana under the impact of economic development. Seventy-seven five- to nine-year-olds were studied on two colour tasks: elicited lists and colour naming. In general the data were consistent with Berlin & Kay's theory: the rank order of frequency of correct use of colour terms was similar to the order of the Berlin & Kay hierarchy; and primary colour terms were offered more frequently and were more likely to be used correctly than secondary colour terms. The use of English colour terms was prevalent, especially amongst the younger groups, but they functioned as substitutes for Setswana terms, rather than as a means to fill the vacant basic colour term slots.

This study investigated the form of infinitival sentences produced by young children and their knowledge of the control properties of this sentence form. Twenty-five children between the ages of 3;7 and 5;4 participated in a story completion task designed to elicit infinitive sentences and in an act-out comprehension task. Although the infinitive form was productive for even the youngest children in this study, development of this form was not complete even for the five-year-olds, nor did any child demonstrate adult knowledge of control. In addition, two competing claims regarding order of acquisition (that of Limber, 1973, and Hyams, 1985) were evaluated.

Children aged 2;11 to 8;3 sang informally, once in the presence of their infant sibling and once when the infant was out of view. Paired excerpts from 22 children were presented to adult listeners, who were required to identify the infant-directed excerpt in each pair. Listeners' accuracy was above chance levels but below what would be expected for mothers' singing in comparable contexts. Children altered their singing style in the infant's presence by singing at a higher pitch level and with a different vocal quality.