| Budget Amount *help |
¥5,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
This study aims to examine the acquisition of English grammar and constructions from the theoretical viewpoint of cognitive linguistics and construction grammar, and to provide a cognitively adequate model of language acquisition. The survey employs CHILDES (MacWhinny 2000), the database of conversations between children and adults. This method enables quantitative research as well as detailed observations on the gradual emergence of children’s grammar based upon actual instances of utteranes, and eventually shows the efficiency of the usage-based approach to this issue. Specifically handled here are (i) middle voice and transitive-intransitive alternations, (ii) motion-event expressions and (iii) location/setting-subject constructions in English. The present study has clarified grammatical and semantic properties in children’s use of these linguistics forms and suggested a significant correlation between grammar acquisition and cognitive development concerning event construal.
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