Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument Structure

by Steven Pinker

Book Overview

When children learn a language, they soon are able to make surprisingly subtle distinctions: "donate them a book" sounds odd, for example, even though "give them a book" is perfectly natural. How can this happen, given that children do not confine themselves to the sentence types they hear, and are usually not corrected when they speak ungrammatically? Steven Pinker resolves this paradox in a detailed theory of how children acquire argument structure...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262660733
• ISBN13: 9780262660730
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Bradford Book
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher