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Addresses how affective facial expression interacts with the linguistic forms in American Sign Language (ASL) motherese. The article presents data from both cross-sectional and longitudinal interaction from 15 deaf mothers signing with their deaf toddlers. Findings indicate a shift from affect to grammar at about the child's second birthday. (59 references) (Author/CK)

A study examining the initial stages in the acquisition of the conditional system is reported. The objective was to discover how morphological productivity is related to the child's comprehension of the semantics of individual conditional types. Schachter's model of reality and unreality conditionals was used as a framework. Eight middle class, monolingual English-speaking children aged 2.6 - 3.2 were assigned production and comprehension tasks to elicit the different conditionals. Subject unwillingness and limited language abilities complicated the study. Results showed a wide range of abilities in conditional production, available morphology, and comprehension of the conditional types, showing very individual approaches to integrating the morphological and semantic components, and implicitly, the requisite cognitive notions involved in conditionals. The diversity in approaches to language acquisition suggests that: (1) for each child, individual systems (e.g., morphology or semantics) have individual timetables, implying an initial independence of systems that later become integrated; and (2) although the sequence of development within a particular system is generally predictable, growth within two adjacent systems is not necessarily parallel and development in one does not immediately predict development in another. (MSE)

The form and function of conditional structures in the speech of English speaking children between the ages of 2;6 and 8 years were investigated. Two types of conditionals were distinguished: reality conditionals and unreality conditionals. Data were obtained from audiotapes of the subjects under naturalistic conditions. A five-stage acquisition sequence was described in which the child's increasing ability to deal with abstract notions underlying more complex conditional types lead to mastery of further departures from present reality. From this developmental profile it was seen that the course of conditional development and comprehension generally followed a semantic rather than a grammatical progression. Developmental progress was viewed as the superimposition of successively more abstract layers onto this basic semantic function. (RW)