Development of the Syntax-Discourse Interface

The main focus of the book is the development of referential abilities in young children. A number of findings suggest that errors exhibited by young children in various experiments and spontaneous speech result from the inability to implement discourse-related knowledge. It is further argued that the deficiency is due to the lack of language-specific processing resources characteristic for young children. In order to support the lack of processing resources argument, certain similarities between the language of children and Broca's aphasics are also discussed. A new theoretical model of the syntax--discourse interface is presented, and it is shown how the proposed model can explain various psycholinguistic findings. The book is intended for scholars and graduate students working in the field of language acquisition and language impairment. It may also be of interest to linguists whose work focuses on the theory of syntax--discourse interface.