Cognitive principles underlying children's errors in pronominal case-marking
- 1 May 1974
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Journal of Child Language
- Vol. 1 (2) , 271-276
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900000696
Abstract
Data on children's errors in marking pronominal case are surveyed and the pattern of errors described: children substitute objective forms for nominative ones but do not commit substitution errors in the opposite direction. It is proposed that two general cognitive principles underlying language acquisition might explain the uniformities in the data: avoid exceptions, and pay attention to the ends of words. It is further suggested that the last of these should be extended in scope, to cover short-term processing of larger constituents.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- A First LanguagePublished by Harvard University Press ,1973