Papers by Jill de Villiers
Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2009
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Harvard University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 1979
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Proceedings of the 21st Annual Boston …, 1997
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University of Massachusetts Occasional Papers in Linguistics, 1991
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Journal of Child Language, Jun 1, 1995
ABSTRACTTwo studies are described which investigate preschool children's sensitivity to relat... more ABSTRACTTwo studies are described which investigate preschool children's sensitivity to relative clauses as barriers to the movement of wh-questions. The children were presented with short stories followed by questions in which the wh-word had two possible sites of interpretation, the ungrammatical option being inside a relative clause. A cross-sectional study with 23 children aged 3;1 to 6;1, and a longitudinal study over the course of one year with 12 children aged 3;1 to 4;1 at the start, found young children refused to extract wh-questions from the ungrammatical site inside a relative clause. This confirms other findings that children's early grammars are sensitive to universal constraints on movement. In addition, the children differentiated between wh-complements and relative clauses in their tendency to mistakenly answer the medial wh-complementizer but not the wh-relative pronoun. Explanations for the latter are framed in terms of children's initial assumptions about the attachment of complements.
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The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific, May 1, 2023
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Harvard University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 1979
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The fundamental questions to be asked about syntax acquisition concern whether the child’s knowle... more The fundamental questions to be asked about syntax acquisition concern whether the child’s knowledge is abstract and principled in nature, or piecemeal and highly input- and frequency-dependent. Generative linguists following Chomsky argue that universal grammar dictates development from the start, and propose that grammar development is limited by twin considerations of modularity and continuity. A brief review is provided of the arguments and empirical evidence about these matters at various key points in the course of development: the first two-word sentences, the acquisition of inflectional morphology, movement rules, and complex sentences. The role of developing syntax in cognitive development is highlighted to uncover what advantages grammar might convey. Models of learning are introduced, comparing the concepts that learning is statistical versus algebraic, and connectionist models to the ideas of natural selection among multiple grammars.
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Oxford University Press eBooks, Nov 2, 2016
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International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, Dec 20, 2022
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Infancy
Early screening for language problems is a priority given the importance of language for success ... more Early screening for language problems is a priority given the importance of language for success in school and interpersonal relationships. The paucity of reliable behavioral instruments for this age group prompted the development of a new touchscreen language screener for 2‐year‐olds that relies on language comprehension. Developmental literature guided selection of age‐appropriate markers of language disorder risk that are culturally and dialectally neutral and could be reliably assessed. Items extend beyond products of linguistic knowledge (vocabulary and syntax) and tap the process by which children learn language, also known as fast mapping. After piloting an extensive set of items (139), two phases of testing with over 500 children aged 2; 0–2; 11 were conducted to choose the final 40‐item set. Rasch analysis was used to select the best fitting and least redundant items. Norms were created based on 270 children. Sufficient test‐retest reliability, Cronbach's alpha, and con...
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PsycTESTS Dataset
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Child Development, 2020
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Knowledge and Language, 1993
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Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 2012
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Psychology of Language and Communication, Nov 24, 2017
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Journal of language and cultural education, May 24, 2017
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Papers by Jill de Villiers