Professor Elena Lieven 

In previous research Julian Pine and I have shown that children's early multiword speech is best characterised by low-scope, slot-and-frame patterns, which are initially unrelated. We have just finished the data collection for a longitudinal study of 12 children between the ages of 2-3 years (funded by the ESRC) and we are beginning to analyse the processes by which children build up more general and more powerful constructions. In doing so we are testing a number of theoretical proposals (e.g. performance limitations accounts, the role of semantic transparency in verb-argument structure, the claims for an optional infinitive tage). In addition we are about to start a one-year diary study of a child from 2-3 years at the Max Planck Child Study Centre in Manchester. Using this data we can explore in even greater detail the process of building up constructions. Analyses underway: 1. Auxiliary syntax 2. Wh-questions 3. Verb-argument structure.

Lieven, E., Pine, J.M. & Baldwin, G. (1997). In Journal of Child Language, 24, 187-219. Pine, J., Lieven, E. & Rowland, C.F. (1998). In Linguistics, 36, 4.

Variation between children in the learning of a language can be used to analyse the relative importance of developmental factors, linguistic typology and the child's environment. This can have important implications for theoretical claims that are based on statements about the relative distribution of specific forms at particular points in development. A number of preliminary analyses on the Manchester-Nottingham database suggest that much of the variation in the distribution of forms in the children's language is directly accounted for by the distribution of those forms in their own mother's speech. A number of complementary experiments are being designed which will be conducted in Manchester. These will systematically vary the contexts in which nonce verbs are presented to see if we can reproduce the variations in distribution found in the naturalistic data.

Lieven, E. In Slobin, D.I. (1997), The Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 5, 199-265. London, Lawrence Erlbaum Ass.

If close relationships exist between the distribution of forms in the adult speech and their distribution in the child's speech, this raises the question of how children build up language structures in environments which are far less dyadic than those that have been intensively studied. Suggestions have been made about this (see for instance Lieven, 1994 for an overview) but there has been almost no systematic research. We hope to use the inter-disciplinary environment of our Institute to promote fieldwork that will combine anthropological expertise with the empirical methods of developmental psychology.

Lieven, E. In Galloway, C. & Richards, B.J (1994), Input and Interaction in Language Acquisition, 56-74. Cambridge University Press.

Collaborators

• Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig