Publications [#351950] of Michael Tomasello

Journal Articles

1. Tomasello, M, The item-based nature of children's early syntactic development, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 4 no. 4 (April, 2000), pp. 156-163 [doi]
   (last updated on 2026/01/18)

   Abstract:
   Recent research using both naturalistic and experimental methods has found that the vast majority of young children's early language is organized around concrete, item-based linguistic schemas. From this beginning, children then construct more abstract and adult-like linguistic constructions, but only gradually and in piecemeal fashion. These new data present significant problems for nativist accounts of children's language development that use adult-like linguistic categories, structures and formal grammars as analytical tools. Instead, the best account of these data is provided by a usage-based model in which children imitatively learn concrete linguistic expressions from the language they hear around them, and then - using their general cognitive and social-cognitive skills - categorize, schematize and creatively combine these individually learned expressions and structures. Copyright (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.