Constructivist Approaches to First Language Acquisition

Abstract

Constructivist approaches to language acquisition predict that form-function mappings are derived from distributional patterns in the input, and their contextual embedding. This requires a detailed analysis of the input, and the integration of information from different contingencies. Regarding the acquisition of morphology, it is shown which types of information leads to the induction of (lexical) categories, and to paradigm building. Regarding the acquisition of word order, it is shown how languages with fixed or variable word order profit from stable syntactic hyperschemas, but require a more detailed analyses of the form-function contingencies to identify the underlying, more specific semantic, syntactic and morphological patterns. At a theoretical level, it is shown how findings from acquisition and processing converge into new linguistic theories that aim to account for regular as well as irregular phenomena in language.

Sources of individual differences in the dual language development of heritage bilinguals

“…Kupisch & Rothman, 2018;Rankin & Unsworth, 2016). That being said, ID approaches are more integral to non-nativist, constructivist theories of language acquisition (e.g., Behrens, 2021). Some associations between ID factors and language abilities are inherently UNIDIREC-TIONAL, suggesting causality.…”

“…Kupisch & Rothman, 2018; Rankin & Unsworth, 2016). That being said, ID approaches are more integral to non-nativist, constructivist theories of language acquisition (e.g., Behrens, 2021).…”

Acquisition of demonstratives in cross-linguistic perspective

“…Rather than distinguishing between null-argument and non-null-argument languages, usage-based linguists analyze cross-linguistic differences in the occurrence of pronouns (and other referring terms) as a continuum that reflects language-specific conventions on argument realization that have emerged, historically, from general cognitive processes of language use (Ariel, 2014). Few usage-based studies have directly addressed the question of how null arguments are acquired in this approach (but see Valian, 2016, for relevant research); but researchers generally emphasize that the acquisition of linguistic expressions is crucially influenced by their frequency in the ambient language (e.g., Behrens, 2021;Tomasello, 2003), predicting that cross-linguistic differences in the occurrence of third person pronouns in child-directed speech give rise to cross-linguistic differences in the frequency of third person pronouns in child language (Ambridge, Kidd, Rowland, & Theakston, 2015). 1 Both theories can account for the cross-linguistic differences in frequency of third person pronouns; but, in the usage-based approach, parameter setting is not a confound for our study as the acquisition of grammar is entirely explained by domain-general processes that are sensitive to frequency of use (cf.…”

Enchrony

“…Research on animal communicative behavior has long acknowledged the utility of distinguishing different frames for different types of causal process, invoking ethologist Niko Tinbergen's “four questions”: (1) the mechanism of a behavior, (2) the fitness value of the behavior, (3) its evolutionary foundation, and (4) its emergence in the lifespan (Tinbergen, 1963; cf., Bateson & Laland, 2013). Linguists have implicitly invoked a similar range of frames for examining dynamic processes in language 4 : the microgenetic frame focuses on the moment‐by‐moment processing of language, whether in production or comprehension (see Cutler, 2005, 2012; Hagoort, 2019; Levelt, 1989); the ontogenetic frame focuses on development in the lifespan, especially the process of first‐language acquisition in the first few years of life, but also covering any developmental phase including second‐language learning in adulthood (Behrens, 2021; Bowerman & Levinson, 2001; Clark, 2003; Klein, 1986; Saville‐Troike & Barto, 2017; Tomasello, 2003); the phylogenetic frame focuses on the processes by which our species evolved such that we (and only we) are capable of acquiring language (Fitch, 2010; Hurford, 2007, 2012); and the diachronic frame refers to changes in a language that occur over historical time (and that imply population‐level processes): in cognitive approaches to linguistics, work in the diachronic frame has primarily concerned semantic change, either in the lexicon (Blank & Koch, 1999), in the morphosyntax (Harris & Campbell, 1995), or in the link between the two (i.e., in research on grammaticalization; see Nikiforidou, 1991, Traugott & Heine, 1991, Sweetser, 1990, Hopper & Traugott, 1993, Traugott & Dasher, 2002, Heine, 2002).…”