The Acquisition of Determiner Phrase in Early Child Mandarin

Meiyun Chang-Smith provides an authoritative account
of the first language (L1) acquisition of Mandarin
Determiner Phrase (DP) in this ground breaking work,
the first to utilize grammatical aspects of the
Minimalist Program to explain early child Mandarin
data. The study is both theory and data driven,
leading the reader step by step along the
developmental pathway for Mandarin DP as exhibited by
the two child subjects, one monolingual and the other
a simultaneous Mandarin-English bilingual. Through
the inclusion of detailed and extensive examples from
the original corpora together with discussions and
analysis, this book reveals unique and original
insights into the L1 acquisition of a classifier
language possessing a DP with complex internal
structure. By careful comparison of both the
bilingual and the monolingual DP acquisition
patterns, the study reveals that simultaneous
bilingual and monolingual children pursue the same
developmental pathway during the course of
development of Mandarin DP. It sheds light on
fundamental issues in language acquisition such as
the continuity debate and will be a valuable resource
for students and practicing acquisition researchers
alike.

Autorentext

Meiyun Chang-Smith gained her PhD in Linguistics at TheAustralian National University in 2005. Her research involvesmonolingual and bilingual grammatical development,grammatical constraints on code switching andcognitive neuro-linguistics. She is currently PostdoctoralResearch Fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute, University ofQueensland.

Klappentext

Meiyun Chang-Smith provides an authoritative accountof the first language (L1) acquisition of MandarinDeterminer Phrase (DP) in this ground breaking work,the first to utilize grammatical aspects of theMinimalist Program to explain early child Mandarindata. The study is both theory and data driven,leading the reader step by step along thedevelopmental pathway for Mandarin DP as exhibited bythe two child subjects, one monolingual and the othera simultaneous Mandarin-English bilingual. Throughthe inclusion of detailed and extensive examples fromthe original corpora together with discussions andanalysis, this book reveals unique and originalinsights into the L1 acquisition of a classifierlanguage possessing a DP with complex internalstructure. By careful comparison of both thebilingual and the monolingual DP acquisitionpatterns, the study reveals that simultaneousbilingual and monolingual children pursue the samedevelopmental pathway during the course ofdevelopment of Mandarin DP. It sheds light onfundamental issues in language acquisition such asthe continuity debate and will be a valuable resourcefor students and practicing acquisition researchersalike.