topics: |  language-acquisition

An early text that makes some important point regarding what it is that the child
learns.  

Main points

at least three senses in which a child is acquiring "language":
- learning to make well-formed utterances
    There is something implausible about the acquisition as grammar... it seems
    highly unlikely in the light of our present knowledge that infants learn grammar
    for its own sake.  Its mastery seems always to be instrumental to doing something
    with words in the real world, if only meaning something.
- learn to refer and to mean (using lg)
    how does the child learn to refer and to mean? and do so by using
    lexico-grammatical speech?  
- learn to get things done with words
    can the child request, indicate, promise or support or show respect, using
    language? 

these three q's imply that the child must master syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.  

this book takes th view that these three facets are interdependent - that they are
necessarily inseparable 18

of course it must have some prior endowments that enable this acquisition.  19

It is obvious that an enormous amount of the activity of the child during the first
year and a half of life is extraordinarily social and communicative. 27