Language Acquisition and Development

The word infant is derived from the Latin word infans, which means literally "unable to speak". Consequently, the acquisition of speech is often regarded as marking the end of infancy. However, deciding precisely when speech has appeared (and hence, when infancy has ended) is not an easy matter. This is because the early development of language takes place very gradually. Thus, during the months which follow the production of the first word, the infant might learn to produce only one, two or three new words per month (Benedict, 1979; Nelson, 1973). Consequently, during these early months of language development, the infant still relies much more heavily upon cries, actions, and gestures rather than  speech for the purposes  of communication (Lock, 1978,1980; Lock, Service, Brito, & Chandler, Chapter 10, this volume; Schaffer, 1977, Chapter 8, this volume; Zinober & Martlew, 1985a, 1985b). And even after the infant has come to rely upon words as a major medium of communication, that infant might still not be able to combine words together to form simple two-word utterances with any degree of regularity until several more months have passed (Bloom, 1973; Garman, 1979).
The present chapter describes these various linguistic developments which gradually draw the period of infancy to a close. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first part considers the first words which infants acquire, whereas the second part describes the subsequent linguistic developments that occur during the period of single-word speech. The third part considers how infants make the final transition into the multi-word speech of early childhood.

The present study discusses about the monolingual and bilingual child language acquisition on theoretical concern and the varied language acquisition processes which reflect in the language competence of both monolingual and bilingual child. It provides a detailed account of the different terminologies exists in literature of child language acquisition, particularizing the notion of Chomsky’s Universal Grammar (UG). It links and differentiates the study of language acquisition of monolingual children from the bilingual in light of four important criteria. Finally, the papers suggest/points out as a concluding note how the study of child bilingualism could make a significant contribution in the area of language acquisition research.
Index Terms
Language Acquisition, Language Development, Bilingual Acquisition, Monolingual Child, Bilingual Child, Universal grammar

Summary:
This book introduces a principled approach to conceptualizing and measuring working memory in first and second language research. It presents comprehensive, thorough and updated reviews of relevant literatures of WM and SLA research in cognitive sciences, cognitive psychology and applied linguistics. Drawing on multidisciplinary research insights, it advocates an integrated framework for implementing working memory and second language acquisition research. In light of the basic tenets and general principles of this integrated perspective, the book then proposes an overarching theoretical model that clearly specifies the distinctive roles of phonological and executive working memory as they relate to specific second language acquisition domains and processing activities. The implications of this innovative Phonological/Executive Model are further discussed and elaborated, first for the specific realm of L2 task-based speech planning and performance, and then within the broader context of foreign language aptitude.

Reviews:
"One of the most encouraging features of the development of the multicomponent model of working memory has been its application beyond the laboratory to a range of  issues of which language learning is among the most important. Work was initially focused on native language acquisition but subsequently exciting developments are increasingly occurring in the hugely significant field of second language learning. This book surveys the field in detail , producing a synthesis of evidence and theory that will make a substantial contribution to this important field." Alan Baddeley, University of York, U.K.

"There are perhaps few predicaments as frustrating as being unable to communicate with another person because he or she does not speak the same language as you. In this volume, Dr. Wen comprehensively considers the importance for second-language learning of the individual’s working memory, the small amount of information that can be readily held in mind to carry out cognitive tasks. Different theoretical views are considered in detail and they are judiciously applied in an up-to-date treatment of various facets of language learning. The volume will be of great interest to students of both memory and language, ranging from novices to experts." Nelson Cowan, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA

"A well-informed, up-to-date, and comprehensive review of phonological and executive aspects of working memory, their  components and measurement, their roles in second language acquisition and processing, and their status as language aptitudes. An excellent overview for scholars in these areas." Nick Ellis, University of Michigan, U.S.A.

"A thorough analysis of how the various components of the working memory system relate to different aspects of second language processing and learning. This is a very timely and useful contribution to a centrally important topic in the field of individual differences."  John Williams, University of Cambridge, UK

Author Biography:
Zhisheng (Edward) Wen is Associate Professor at School of Languages and Translation at Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI). Dr. Wen has been lecturing undergraduate and postgraduate courses in applied linguistics and psycholinguistics for over 15 years. He has published extensively in these areas. His paper publications have appeared in key academic journals (e.g., Language Teaching, ELT Journal, InJAL). He is recipient of the ‘Language Learning Roundtable Conference Grant’ and lead-editor of “Working memory in second language acquisition and processing” (2015, Multilingual Matters).  His another forthcoming monograph “Cognitive individual differences in second language acquisition” will be published by Mouton de Gruyter in 2017.

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) is one among several theories and models that have been raised in order to understand students’ various learning styles. This theory postulates creating a learning environment that makes it easier for students to link their prior knowledge to real-life situations;  allowing them to transfer what they learned in one context to another by applying their new experiences to real-life situations.  The present study aimed at investigating the impact of Kolb’s experiential learning theory to enliven pedagogical practices in EFL grammar classrooms at the English Language Department, College of Humanities, Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, KSA. A need has been felt to adopt such pedagogical practices and suitable teaching methodologies that might motivate students to learn according to their different individual learning styles. This objective was implemented in this study by exploring learners’ different learning styles that facilitated the modeling of the content in a way that created a creative, live, and authentic relationship between learners and the learning environment. The study sampled a total of sixty EFL students who were divided equally between control and experimental groups. The experimental group received teaching through Kolb’s four facet cycle, while the control group was taught according to the conventional teaching method. A t-test was used to measure the difference between the mean scores of both control and experimental groups. Significance of the difference between the mean of both groups was tested at 0.05 level. Results of the posttest proved the improvement of the experimental group class interaction in grammar skills due to the application of the experiential learning as an innovative teaching /learning method, taking into consideration the learners’ learning preferences.

Discourse is all about communication. Putting discourse first is a form of scaffolding that can yield more thoughtful discussions about the language choices speakers and writers make and how language awareness can help students advance their communicative purpose most effectively.

Lundgren, C. & Shafer Willner, L. (June, 2021). Putting discourse first. MinneTESOL Journal 31(1). http://minnetesoljournal.org/

Central to every learning environment, and by extension every community, is how enlightened its members are. Reading is one of the processes by which every member or community members get enlightened. A society that places premium on reading is a society that achieves greatness. Reading is embedded in a complex cultural network system of a society because it is a highly complex cultural system that involves a great many considerations beyond the decoding by the reader of the words of a text. It allows individual readers construct their understanding, through socio-cultural influences that inform the meaning the reader seeks to construct. Through reading, individual readers construct an informal social network that could be described as ''proto-community''. This paper seeks to come up with ways societies can encourage the development, over time, of a reading culture that would have deep roots in the traditions of a given society especially in Saudi Arabia where reading is not seen as part of life or has been completely thrown away. It suggests ways teachers can encourage the utilization of space and time, the two integral components of culture, in reading among learners to build in them a solitary act-an act that is constituted through interaction between the ideas of the writer and the brain of the reader. With this, learning takes place and language is developed.

Few will argue that Teaching English through English (TETE) is an approach that many practitioners have a definite opinion on. Some praise it as the best way to conduct ESL/EFL classes; others criticize it as being inappropriate and ineffective.

Abstract: The argument I will develop in this essay is that the foreign students are a latent human resource who can assist with overcoming English monolingualism in the Australian population. Foreign students, properly rewarded, can be a major source of skills transfer. Every one of those students is a walking compendium of language and cultural skills that Australians need to know.

A nyelvi fejlődést a veleszületett biológiai adottságok, a szociális beállítódások, a nyelvi tapasztalatra épülő fejlődési folyamatok, a társas környezet és az interperszonális kapcsolatok együttesen alakítják. Az anyanyelv elsajátítása, a kommunikáció és a beszéd kialakulása folyamatos és ugrásszerű fejlődésmenetekben zajlik, de egymást követő, megfordíthatatlan fejlődési szakaszokhoz kötött. Az egyes szakaszok sokszor észrevétlenül alakulnak át a következőbe, illetve a megelőző és a következő periódus sajátosságai egymás mellett, egyidejűleg is megjelenhetnek. Az újszülött gyermek sok olyan készséggel rendelkezik, amelyek bizonyítottan nem a születést követő tapasztalatokból fejlődtek ki, hanem az anyaméhben eltöltött idő alatt. Dolgozatunkban a csecsemőkori kommunikáció szakaszait tekintjük át (gügyögés, gagyogás, egyszavas kijelentések megjelenése). 1.Bevezető A nyelv, a beszéd az ember természetes, magától értetődőnek tűnő kommunikációs képessége. A nyelv az emberek közötti kommunikáció eszköze, az információk tárolásának és rendszerezésének csak az emberre jellemző sajátossága. A gyermek a nyelv elsajátításával olyan képességek birtokába jut, amelyek segítségével alkalmassá válik gondolatainak megformálására és átadására. Az anyanyelv (vagy első nyelv, L1) elsajátításának vannak általános sajátosságai és vannak olyanok, amelyek csak egyes nyelvekre jellemzőek, például az adott nyelv hangrendszerének és nyelvtani formáinak elsajátítása és használata. A szülők és a család számára rendkívüli élményt jelent a gyermek nyelvelsajátítása, mivel a nyelv és a beszéd révén a gyermek értelmi, érzelmi fejlődése is követhetővé válik. Ilyen módon a sikeres nyelvelsajátítás összekapcsolódik a gyermek teljes körű fejlődésével. Dolgozatunkban az anyanyelv-elsajátítás kezdeti szakaszát mutatjuk be, a magzatnyelvtől körülbelül a gyermek egyéves koráig. Az anyanyelv elsajátítása nem minden esetben problémamentes, a nyelvi

Human language appears to be unique among natural communication systems, and such uniqueness impinges on both nature and nurture. Human babies are endowed with cognitive abilities that predispose them to learn language, and this process cannot operate in an impoverished environment. To be effectively complete the acquisition of human language in human children requires highly socialised forms of learning, scaffolded over years of prolonged and intense caretaker-child interactions. How genes and environment operate in shaping language is unknown. These two components have traditionally been considered as independent, and often pitted against each other in terms of the nature versus nurture debate. This perspective article considers how innate abilities and experience might instead work together. In particular, it envisages potential scenarios for research, in which early caregiver verbal and non-verbal attachment practices may mediate or moderate the expression of human genetic systems for language.

This article reports on an exploratory study conducted on applied languages undergraduate students' use of machine translation. Starting from the observation that they widely use free tools available online, our aim was to understand whether they are capable of identifying and correcting machine translation errors, and if so to what extent.

Despite research showing the benefits of translation to linguistic development in the foreign language learning, the practice of translation is considered as an interference to the language learning process.  This heuristic inquiry study explores the relationship between language learning and literary translation, examining the existence of a positive symbiosis.  It focuses on the Italian language and Italian-English literary translation, and documents the researcher’s experience translating A braccia aperte, a poetry collection by Sicilian poet Mario Tornello. A literature review and interviews by two poets and translators counterbalance the methodology’s subjectivity.
The results showed marked improvement in the researcher’s overall command of Italian, specific to translation.  As a case study the data cannot be generalized. However, the results 1) indicate that translation may be useful in overcoming psychological blocks experienced by adult language learners, 2) provide strategies for incorporating translation in the classroom, and 3) suggests that further research may be beneficial to language programs.  Furthermore, it reinforces that language may be intrinsically connected to identity and perception of reality, implying that the inability to access one’s native language could be considered tantamount to denying one’s self-construct.

I giovani protagonisti di queste pagine sono migranti da poco arrivati in Italia attraverso la rotta centrale africana, la Libia e il mare Mediterraneo. Tutti quanti hanno percorso per lungo tempo, a piedi, in bicicletta, in bus, in pickup le strade africane, e sono capaci di muoversi dentro l’universo della diversità linguistica con il piglio sicuro di chi non ne ha paura e sa usarne tutte quante le risorse. Il loro viaggio migratorio ha comportato anche la permanenza, per mesi o anni, all’interno di quell’inferno che è la Libia attuale. Anche in condizioni estreme, come quelle dei luoghi di raccolta per migranti o delle carceri, la loro capacità di acquisizione spontanea di una nuova lingua si è rivelata una grande risorsa fino ad essere, almeno per una parte di loro, un elemento chiave di una prospettiva collettiva che emerge anche qui, in analogia con indagini su altri processi migratori. Tutto il volume è percorso dalla ‘voce’ di giovani migranti, ascoltati in interazioni spontanee, interviste individuali o di gruppo, durante laboratori di narrazione. Le loro parole e i loro racconti, insieme ai dati quantitativi della ricerca (relativi a caratteristiche anagrafiche, lingue, scolarità, pratiche di literacies), restituiscono un universo composito la cui comprensione è utile non solo a chi è interessato in maniera particolare al rapporto fra migrazioni e lingue, ma anche a docenti, volontari, professionisti e operatori dell’accoglienza che quelle ‘voci’, spesso, stentano a decifrare. Inoltre queste pagine possono servire per guardare a come le lingue siano una forza a cui attingere non solo per sopravvivere evadendo da una prigione, ma anche per tornarci con la mente, cercando di risanare le proprie ferite attraverso la loro condivisione.

La Atención Temprana (AT) tiene como objetivo principal dar respuesta a las necesidades transitorias o permanentes de la población infantil durante la etapa de 0-6 años. Tal y como consta en el Libro Blanco, el objetivo principal se orienta a la prevención, por lo que la AT se dirige fundamentalmente a quienes presentan el riesgo de padecer trastornos de desarrollo. Puesto que el entorno lingüístico en el que crecen los niños sordos no siempre es en lengua de signos o señas, parece especialmente importante conocer los indicadores del desarrollo evolutivo de estos niños con el fin de comprobar que las capacidades y habilidades, que, en las diferentes etapas del desarrollo, el niño sordo está adquiriendo avanzan adecuadamente. Partiendo de la experiencia en el programa de AT para una niña sorda en la etapa 12-24 meses, su familia oyente y la escuela infantil delimitaremos la escala lingüística en LSE que nos servirá de indicadores evolutivos de los niños sordos. Nuestro estudio se articula en tres apartados ¿qué es la atención temprana?, ¿cuáles son los indicadores del desarrollo evolutivo? y ¿es la LSE un buen indicador del desarrollo evolutivo de los niños sordos?

The paper organizes the topic of signs in Lev Vygotsky's various writings into a coherent whole in order to study signs' role in child development. Vygotsky related conventional signs that have their origin in interpersonal communication, and are subject to cultural history taking place over generations during historical time, to psychological functioning of individual human beings. Vygotsky's "natural history of signs" is the study of how symbolic activity appears and develops. The paper outlines the process of inclusion of symbols within the behaviour of the child and gives an account of various changes in psychological functions and their interrelations that it brings along. In cultural development specifically human forms of behaviour appear, and children's relationship to social and material environment is changed qualitatively. Vygotsky outlines the formation of sign use and analyses its developmental steps. Vygotsky's approach explains how the use of various sign systems shapes both the cognitive processes in the person, the child, and the cognitive development as a whole. Vygotsky's approach to signs is presented within the conceptual framework of its time.

This study, from a viewpoint of an English Language teacher, aims to identify hurdles faced in foreign language teaching, address the causes of these issues and seek appropriate remedies. Although this is a study emerged as a result of professional observations and experience, findings obtained and suggestions made were supported by various scientific articles and studies. It was found that failure encountered in foreign language teaching is based on three main reasons related to student, teacher and the system. Current system contents itself with giving information on a foreign language rather than helping students attain communication skills in that foreign language. Ignoring human being’s innate talent to learn a language and neglecting the skill of communication which is the ultimate aim of learning a language, this mindset causes a vicious circle by complicating students’ language learning process with unnatural exercises and grammar rules and thus students complete their secondary education lives as persons incapable of expressing themselves in a foreign language even in the very basic issues. In the conclusion part of the study, a curriculum based on the comprehensible input-rich classrooms of the same level groups, prioritizing verbal communication in terms of both student performance and teacher competence, not using any traditional score based summative assessment, and a curriculum which stimulates students' need of learning a foreign language were suggested.

The Monitor Model for Second Language Performance is a theory of second language acquisition developed by Stephen Krashen that attempts at explaining various aspects of second language performance. Although the model is considered to be one of the most influential theories in second language acquisition, it remains flawed. This study, therefore, aims at evaluating the Model and its fundamental hypotheses in an attempt to bridge all gaps for the end result of implementing the revised version in EFL teaching. The present work is divided into three chapters; the first is dedicated to the research methodology where the researchers opted for a mixed-method approach to collect data using three tools; a questionnaire, two sets of interviews, and a theory-testing experiment. The second chapter covers the literature review offering a comprehensive view of the topic at hand and critiques evoked to the model by other scholars, and the third and final chapter analyzes and interprets the data collected from the selected research tools, introduces updates to the model, as well as provides some strategies to best apply the revised model. One of the major findings was that the researchers created and developed a new Input hypothesis that takes into account individual differences as well the need for interaction. In conclusion to this work, the researchers acknowledge the significance of implementing personalized teaching to serve the needs of the individually unique learners of an EFL classroom.

Mes mots résonnent dans ma tête et vibrent comme une corde
à l’intérieur d’un piano pour former la mélodie de ma pensée.
D’où me viennent-ils ? De quoi sont-ils l’écho ? Sont-ils bien à moi
ou suis-je livré à eux ? M’appartiennent-ils ou me possèdent-ils
comme une voix qui ne serait pas la mienne ? Pour comprendre
d’où vient la musique, j’aimerais simplement soulever le couvercle
et voir la mécanique à l’oeuvre : faculté d’abstraction, modèle
de catégorisation, représentation mentale, fonction symbolique.
Je me penche sur la question, mais l’origine de ma parole reste
obscure. Je n’arrive pas à comprendre comment j’ai appris à
jouer de mes mots.
Le mystère s’éclaircit quand on filme comment le langage passe
d’une génération à l’autre dans l’intimité de nos vies. C’est en
effet des adultes que les enfants apprennent le sens de leurs mots.
Suivre l’enchaînement des jeux de langage par lesquels notre
langue maternelle devient un air connu procure une compréhension
de nos mots en donnant à voir les connexions de nos expressions
dans leur usage de tous les jours.
Tout bien réfléchi, le livre que vous avez entre les mains s’avère
n’être qu’un film. Le point de vue grammatical qu’il adopte n’a
pas d’autre ambition que de faire voir l’évidence que nous avons
toujours eue sous les yeux.

This book presents a general overview of our current knowledge of language development in children. All the principal strands of language development are covered, including phonological, lexical, syntactic and pragmatic development; bilingualism; precursors to language development in infancy; and the language of children with developmental disabilities, including children with specific language impairment. This introductory chapter provides an introduction to the nature of the language acquisition process, and the sheer complexity of the developmental task in which the language-learning child is engaged. It also provides an overview of the chapters in the book.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented changes worldwide and continues to affect societies and communities in a number of different ways. Challenges of linguistic minorities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been recently described in the light of the inaccessibility to emergency language services and in the light of linguistic racism pointing at dual pandemics that these communities are undergoing. The proposed study will contribute to the investigation of experience of multilingual communities by documenting language practices in multilingual families during COVID-19. Based on the perceived experiences of multilingual communities, we aim to provide an after-COVID-19 roadmap which is aimed at enhancing harmonious multilingual development. The project comes at a critical point in time for countries with multilingual populations, like Germany and Israel: the two countries have the largest proportions of preschool and school children with immigrant backgrounds of the first and second generation (Israel: 17%; Germany: 16.9%).

https://www.uni-potsdam.de/en/bilingualism-and-covid/index

The field of TESL is constantly looking towards the field of linguistics for new and better ways of teaching English as a second or foreign language. Unfortunately, since the advent of generative grammars of almost a half century age, very little of the myriad of linguistic research has found its way into the ESL/EFL classroom in the form of practical teaching materials. In recent years, the field of cognitive linguistics has become more prominent and its theory more well-known. Some of its concepts and their representations outwardly appear to lend themselves to adaptation as classroom teaching materials with little alteration. Two of these concepts are image schemas and conceptual metaphors, which are interrelated. As the overwhelming majority of the work in the area of image schemas has had to do with particles (prepositions and phrasal verb particles), the graphical representations of some of these image schemas have been selected to test their efficacy as teaching material for the teaching of English particles.

Language acquisition is generally a spontaneous process that occurs with the inputs of individuals while interacting with the people around them, without requiring any special effort, until a certain age. Language learning involves the conscious development of language rules, systems, and patterns. When one is learning a new language, learning and using knowledge is a conscious and effort required process. In recent years, foreign language teaching in early childhood has become an important topic all over the world. There are different opinions put forward in foreign language teaching. According to one view, it is argued that in foreign language teaching, individuals have a flexible brain structure during the period from birth to adolescence, and this flexibility decreases with age, so it is advantageous to start foreign language teaching at an early age. Another view is that children are programmed to learn languages and have the ability to comprehend by listening to discourses. On the other hand, a group of scientists argued that foreign language teaching at an early age would negatively affect the children’s cognitive development and that language acquisition processes would slow down due to the disruption in children’s mother tongue. These suggestions show that today it is not possible to mention a single and inclusive theoretical model for foreign language teaching in early childhood and that there is not a single method that covers all learners. From past to present, every new method is generally designed to compensate for the previous one’s deficiency or to close the points where it is inadequate. How to teach a foreign language, which theory will be based on and which method will be used is one of the most important questions emphasized by educators. There is no single proper method in foreign language teaching because each child has individual differences in terms of developmental characteristics, needs, motivation, and learning style; hence, many different teaching methods are synthesized and used together in foreign language teaching.

Language development and language socialization among the Mayans of Zinacantan.
Longitudinal study from birth to early language production looking at preverbal communication, teasing routines, early semantics, early evidentials and the context of children development in a traditional indigenous culture.  Awarded the Best Research in Linguistics in 2005 by the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e HIstoria.

Nach Jakobson (1941) lassen sich in der frühen phonologischen Entwicklung zwei diskrete Phasen unterscheiden. Eine erste Phase, in der vorsprachliche Lalllaute produziert werden und keine phonologischen Kontraste gegeben sind, und eine zweite Phase, die eigentliche Sprachstufe, in der eben diese sprachsystematischen Kontrastbildungen sukzessive ausgebaut werden. Ausgehend von diesem strukturalistischen Paradigma wurden Protowörter, die im Übergang von der Lallphase zur Zielwortproduktion realisiert werden und bei einer relativ stabilen Bedeutungszuweisung keine overte Ähnlichkeit zu Zielwörtern zeigen, entweder als artikulatorische Muster analysiert oder unter der Perspektive der Generativen Grammatik als nicht-phonologische Wortformen gänzlich ignoriert. Im Gegensatz zu diesen tradierten Ansätzen wird in dieser Arbeit ein neuer Ansatz vertreten, nach dem dreidimensionale (mit segmentaler, silbischer und metrischer Ebene) phonologische Repräsentationen ab ovo in der Sprachverarbeitung aktiv sind und sich gemäß der klassischen Kompetenz-Performanz-Unterscheidung in frühen Wortproduktionen auch linguistisch analysieren lassen. Das adäquate Instrumentarium für diese Analyse können gerade nicht zielsprachliche Merkmalskontraste mit bedeutungsunterscheidender Funktion sein, sondern genuin phonologische Kontraste. Zielführend ist hier die Anwendung der Demisilbentheorie von Clements (1990), mit deren Hilfe die phonologische Komplexität von Demisilben nach Maßgabe von Sonorität berechnet werden. Wurde diese Theorie bisher erfolgreich in der Aphasiologie angewendet, wird sie hier erstmals in der Untersuchung der Protowortproduktion, appliziert. Die Daten stammen aus der im Rahmen dieser Arbeit durchgeführten Einzelfallstudie, in der die Spontansprachproduktionen von Kind J., 1;4 Jahre, jeweils einmal wöchentlich für 30 Minuten aufgezeichnet wurden. Die Aufnahmen endeten zu dem Zeitpunkt, als Kind J. keine Protowörter mehr produzierte. Wesentliche Ergebnisse einer linguistisch-qualitativen wie auch einer statistisch-quantitativen Analyse dieser Daten waren, dass Proto- und Zielwortproduktion korrelierten, d.h., bei Abnahme der Protowortproduktion die Zielwortproduktion zunahm; beide Wortklassen tendenziell aus nicht-komplexen Demisilben aufgebaut waren und Protowörter in dem Sinne als Vorläufer von Zielwörtern angesehen werden können, als dass bei ihnen nicht die zielsprachliche Bedeutungszuweisung, sondern die Etablierung phonologischer Repräsentationen maßgeblich ist. Ausgehend von diesen Ergebnissen wird ein differenziertes Schalenmodell der frühen phonologischen Entwicklung vorgestellt, nach welchem der segmentale Merkmalsausbau und seine Integration in die Silbe mittels Sonorität noch vor der metrischen Betonungszuweisung stattfindet. Unter Hinzunahme der Parallelen Architektur von Jackendoff (2002) wird abschließend eine kognitiv-linguistische Definition von Protowörtern gegeben, die nicht zuletzt auch zu diagnostischen Zwecken in der sprachtherapeutischen Praxis gebraucht werden kann.

This research focuses on the investigation of paradigmatic and sintagmatic links in the Russian child mental lexicon. We examined free associations distributions by analysis of variance. Paradigmatic associations are fairly often. Sintagmatic associations occur rarely. The results of the analysis highlight the influence of factor "gender" on the amount of paradigmatic and sintagmatic associations. Sintagmatic associations are more frequent for Russian boys. Paradigmatic associations are more frequent among Russian girls associative reactions. Their mental lexicon structure is similar to Russian adults one.