‘Mommy sock’: the child's understanding of possession as expressed in two-noun phrases
- 1 February 1980
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Journal of Child Language
- Vol. 7 (1) , 119-135
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900007066
Abstract
Thirty children with a mean length of utterance ranging from 1·00 to 4 and an age range of 1; 7 to 5; 5 were tested by their own mothers for comprehension of two-noun possessive phrases such as mommy's shoe. Three types of possessive relationships (alienable, intrinsic and reciprocal) in addition to anomalous possessive phrases were used to uncover children's knowledge of the semantics and syntax of English possession. Results indicated, first, that even young children may have detailed notions of which objects are likely to serve as possessors and which as possessions, and second, that word order may not be used to comprehepossessive phrases until considerable linguistic development has occurred.Keywords
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