The comparative method of language acquisition research /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Pye, Clifton, author.
Imprint:	Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
Description:	xiv, 304 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Language acquisition. Mayan languages -- Acquisition. Chol language -- Acquisition. Mam language -- Acquisition. Quiché language -- Acquisition. Psycholinguistics -- Comparative method. Language acquisition.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11385492

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780226481289 022648128X 9780226481319 9780226539614 022653961X
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	The Mayan family of languages is ancient and unique. With their distinctive relational nouns, positionals, and complex grammatical voices, they are quite alien to English and have never been shown to be genetically related to other New World tongues. These qualities, Clifton Pye shows, afford a particular opportunity for linguistic insight. Both an overview of lessons Pye has gleaned from more than thirty years of studying how children learn Mayan languages as well as a strong case for a novel method of researching crosslinguistic language acquisition more broadly, this book demonstrates the value of a close, granular analysis of a small language lineage to untangling the complexities of first language acquisition. Pye here applies the comparative method to three Mayan languages K'iche', Mam, and Ch'ol showing how differences in the use of verbs are connected to differences in the subject markers and pronouns used by children and adults. His holistic approach allows him to observe how small differences between the languages lead to significant differences in the structure of the children's lexicon and grammar, and to learn why that is so. More than this, he expects that such careful scrutiny of related languages' variable solutions to specific problems will yield new insights into how children acquire complex grammars. Studying such an array of related languages, he argues, is a necessary condition for understanding how any particular language is used; studying languages in isolation, comparing them only to one's native tongue, is merely collecting linguistic curiosities.

Table of Contents:

Comparing languages
A history of crosslinguistic research on language acquisition
The comparative method of language acquisition research
The structure of Mayan languages
The acquisition of the Mayan lexicon
The acquisition of the Mayan intransitive verb complex
The acquisition of the Mayan transitive verb complex
The acquisition of person marking in the Mayan verb complex
The acquisition of Mayan argument structures
Argument realization in Mayan languages
Conclusion.

The comparative method of language acquisition research /

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