内容

目次

Part 1 The modularity matching model: constraints and universal grammar;the poverty of the stimulus; models of language development; continuityversus input matching; the competing factors model; competing tasks -reaction time studies; competing tasks - the act-out task; competing tasks -imitation; judgment tasks and competing factors; context and competingfactors; language processing; extralinguistic knowledge; when principles andpreferences collide; performance errors; methodological preliminaries. Part 2The elicited production task: elicited production; eliciting relativeclauses; asking questions- the "ask/tell" problem; structure-dependence;wanna contraction; long-distance questions and the medial-wh; why childrenmake good subjects; summary of designs. Part 3 The truth value judgment task:truth value judgments; backward anaphora; fundamentals of design: principleC; what's wrong with this picture?; strong crossover; strongest crossover;principle B; following up on principle B; sets and circumstances; discoursebinding; universal quantification; donkey sentences; a potential drawback ofthe task; resolving the dilemma - control sentences; resolving the dilemma-varying the context.