This comprehensive account of how children acquire complex sentences investigates spontaneous speech in English-speaking children between ages two and five. After examining the acquisition of numerous types of clauses, Holger Diessel argues that the acquisition process is determined by a variety of factors: the frequency of the various complex sentences in the language, the complexity of the emerging constructions, the communicative functions of complex sentences, and the child's social-cognitive development.

Provides a comprehensive account of how children acquire complex sentences.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as...