Pragmatic keywords and the first combining verbs in children's speech

Abstract

The first two transitive verbs and the first two intransitive verbs which begin word-combinations in the speech of children acquiring Hebrew were examined for their use as expressions of communicative intents in an independent speech sample of mothers and of children. It was found that the first-combining verbs tend to be used as constants or keywords of communicative intents. Syntagmatic relations apparently emerge from pragmatic relations between two single-word expressions of communicative intents, one a constant and the other its detailed elaboration. The results suggest that developmentally, syntax emerges from pragmatics, through a transitional period using highly frequent,