Linguistics An Introduction

In the previous sections of this part of the book, we have introduced a large number of the tools used by linguists when they examine words and their structure in a range of languages. From now on, we seek to apply some of these tools, beginning with the child's acquisition of words. Like most aspects of first language acquisition, this process, once started, is something that parents and other adults take very much for granted. The very first strings of sounds produced by the child which are recognised as words are greeted with great acclaim, but from then on sight is often lost of the child's massive achievement.

In considerations of first language acquisition, it is customary to be concerned with questions of order. For example, if we suppose that part of what is involved in acquiring a language is the establishment of appropriate word classes and assigning specific words to those classes, we can immediately ask whether there is evidence that children acquire word classes in a particular order. Assuming a positive answer to this question immediately gives rise to a second, more difficult question: why? Pursuit of the first question is a largely descriptive enterprise, which could be viewed as a prerequisite to seriously posing the second; answers to the second question will, if adequate, provide us with an explanatory account of some aspect of acquisition.