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V C Gathercole

Publications and source records attributed to V C Gathercole.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

Contrast: a semantic constraint?

This article challenges the position of Clark (1988) with regard to Contrast. The evidence cited in support of this theory from adult languages is far from clear, and the evidence coming from child language admits of alternative explanations. In addition, the 'logic' of assuming Contrast leads to insurmountable difficulties in the acquisition of irregular forms and allomorphs. An alternative to Contrast is proposed. This draws on the drive towards the adult system, the development of non-linguistic concepts, the acquisition of language in context, and the use of the Co-operative Principle by participants in conversational exchanges to account for those features of language and language acquisition that Contrast was designed to explain.

Child↗
PubMed1985

More and more and more about more.

Three experiments explored the development of three linguistic aspects of more in children's speech. Subjects were 56 children between the ages of 2;6 and 6;0. Experiment 1 addressed the nature of the early semantic content of more. Experiment 2 examined the child's differentiation of mass more from count more. Experiment 3 explored the child's use of more as a comparative marker on adjectives. The results suggest, first, that the child initially stores the meaning of more with a prototype, rather than with some more systematic, featural representation. In addition, children's linguistic understanding of the dual use of more as a quantifier of mass amounts and count amounts does not appear to develop until long after they have been using more appropriately in unambiguous contexts. Finally, children learn to use more as a marker on comparatives only after they have acquired -er as a comparative marker, and some time after they have been using more successfully in nonadjectival constructions.

Child↗