Publications [#351931] of Michael Tomasello

Journal Articles

1. Cameron-Faulkner, T; Lieven, E; Tomasello, M, A construction based analysis of child directed speech, Cognitive Science, vol. 27 no. 6 (January, 2003), pp. 843-873 [doi]
   (last updated on 2025/06/15)

   Abstract:
   The child directed speech of twelve English-speaking mothers was analyzed in terms of utterance-level constructions. First, the mothers' utterances were categorized in terms of general constructional categories such as Wh-questions, copulas and transitives. Second, mothers' utterances within these categories were further specified in terms of the initial words that framed the utterance, item-based phrases such as Are you ..., I'll ..., It's ..., Let's ..., What did .... The findings were: (i) overall, only about 15% of all maternal utterances had SVO form (most were questions, imperatives, copulas, and fragments); (ii) 51% of all maternal utterances began with one of 52 item-based phrases, mostly consisting of two words or morphemes (45% began with one of just 17 words); and (iii) children used many of these same item-based phrases, in some cases at a rate that correlated highly with their own mother's frequency of use. We suggest that analyses of adult-child linguistic interaction should take into account not just general constructional categories, but also the item-based constructions that adults and children use and the frequency with which they use them. © 2003 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.