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‘Mommy sock’: the child's understanding of possession as expressed in two-noun phrases*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff  and
Joan Markessini
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
Joan Markessini
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
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Abstract

Thirty children with a mean length of utterance ranging from 1·00 to 4 and an age range of 1; 7 to 5; 5 were tested by their own mothers for comprehension of two-noun possessive phrases such as mommy's shoe. Three types of possessive relationships (alienable, intrinsic and reciprocal) in addition to anomalous possessive phrases were used to uncover children's knowledge of the semantics and syntax of English possession. Results indicated, first, that even young children may have detailed notions of which objects are likely to serve as possessors and which as possessions, and second, that word order may not be used to comprehepossessive phrases until considerable linguistic development has occurred.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , February 1980 , pp. 119 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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Footnotes

[*]

A brief report of these data was presented at the American Psychological Association Meetings, Washington D.C., in September 1976. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to Mary Wolfe for her assistance in data analysis and to Adele Abrahamsen, Carol Harding, Marcia Halperin and Frank B. Murray for their helpful comments on this paper. Address for correspondence: R. M. Golinkoff, Department of Educational Studies, College of Education, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19711.

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