Language Acquisition: A Linguistic Introduction

Thistextisanup-to-dateintroductiontolanguageacquisition,designedtomeettheneedsofadvancedundergraduatesandbeginninggraduatestudentsinlinguisticsandcognitivescience.Itisthefirstlanguageacquisitiontexttobewrittenfromtheperspectiveofrecenttheoreticallinguistics,andusesChomskyangenerativegrammarasaframeworkfordescription.Takingmodelsandanalysesfromgenerativephonology,morphology,syntaxandsemantics,ProfessorGoodluckdescribeschildren'slanguageacquisitionusingexamplesfromavarietyoflanguages.Furtherchapterstakeupcentralquestionsconcerningcognitivemechanismsbywhichchildrenprocesslanguageandformrules,thenatureoftheinputtothelanguagelearner,andtherelationbetweenlanguagedevelopmentandotheraspectsofcognitivedevelopment.Thebookisextensivelyillustratedwithmodelsandfigures,andeachchapterisfollowedbyquestionsfordiscussionandsuggestionsforfurtherreading.Italsoincludesafullbibliography.