A Detailed Examination of TO-infinitive Development in Typically Developing Preschool-age Children

<p>Purpose. The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed cross-examination of TO-infinitive use and TO-particle omission errors in typically developing children between the ages of 3;0 and 4;11 (years; months).</p> <p>Method. The current study utilized 1294 language transcripts from the CHILDES database. TO-infinitive development and TO-particle omissions were examined at the sentence structure level and at the matrix verb level.</p> <p>Results. Overall, significant growth in TO-infinitive knowledge is occurring during the preschool period. TO-Infinitive use increases across the preschool years, particularly with the WH/OBJ structure. Children are also increasing their use of matrix verbs, specifically in the NULL/OBJ and NP/OBJ-2SUB structures. Overall, TO-particle omission errors significantly decrease across this time frame, but errors persist with the matrix verb going in the NULL/OBJ structure.</p> <p>Discussion. These results provide developmental information on TO-infinitive development that can be used to benefit children with language impairments who demonstrate difficulty with this complex grammatical construction.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Campus Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Year dc:date.available

2012

Author dc:creator

• Kersting, Jessica

Contributors dc:contributor

• Denise Finneran

• Communication
• Social and Behavioral Sciences
• grammar
• Infinitives
• Language development
• Preschool

Statement dc:rights

• © 2012, Jessica Kersting

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/2576

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarcommons.sc.edu:etd-3665