Semantics in Acquisition [electronic resource] / edited by Veerle van Geenhoven.

The development of the syntax-semantics interface -- 'Mismatches' of Form and Interpretation -- Watching Noun Phrases Emerge: Seeking Compositionality -- Cross-Linguistic Acquisition of Complement Tense -- Acquiring Universal Quantification -- Everybody Knows -- The Effect of Context on Children'S Interpretations of Universally Quantified Sentences -- Structure and Meaning in the Acquisition of Scope -- Time in the language of a learner -- Time for Children: An Integrated Stage Model of Aspect and Tense -- State Change and Temporal Reference in Inuktitut Child Language -- Temporal Adverbials and Early Tense and Aspect Markers in the Acquisition of Dutch -- Finiteness and its development -- On Finiteness -- Functions of Finiteness in Child Language -- Focus particles in child language -- Additive Particles and Scope Marking in Child German -- (Un)Stressed ook in Child Dutch.

This book is unique in that it relates two linguistic subfields: Semantics and Language Acquisition. The volume contains a collection of writings that focuses on semantic phenomena and their interpretation in the analysis of the language of a learner. The variety of phenomena that are addressed is substantial: temporal aspect and tense, specificity, quantification, scope, finiteness, focus structure, and focus particles. The number of languages in which these phenomena are investigated is very large as well: Dutch, English, German, Inuktitut, Italian, Japanese, and Polish, to name a few. The volume creates a theoretical as well as an empirical bridge between semantic research on the one hand and psycholinguistic acquisition studies on the other.