Agenda

Virginia Valian

How abstract is children’s early grammar?

Do very young children – two-year-olds – already have a grammar with the same abstract syntactic categories as adults?  Or do they gradually acquire those categories, starting with something more rudimentary and word-based?  I will argue that the patterning of words like a and the in English and other languages shows that two-year-olds and their parents have the same basic grammar. With respect to basic grammar, I argue that nothing develops.  As soon as children put words together, they appear to have abstract categories.  What develops are vocabulary, knowledge of particular facts, and cognitive functions.

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The room will open at 13:45 to accept participants until 14:14. The talk will start at 14:15 sharp.
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For some reason, even if the event is set as public, some user need to be accepted manually. This may take some time if the audience is numerous (as I hope). The room will open at 13:45 to accept participants until 14:14. The talk will start at 14:15 sharp.

You may follow the seminar in streaming at this link  https://stream.meet.google.com/stream/2b40ca10-50a1-4a3c-bd6d-c42d8f7fcbe3 

bio Virginia Valian is Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, and Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  She works on first language acquisition, bilingualism, and gender. She is currently a visiting scholar at the DSLCC, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in the frame of the development project of a department of excellence