Acknowledgements

The present book is the revised version of my PhD thesis that I submitted and defended in 2014 at Mainz University. My thanks go first and foremost to my supervisor Günther Lampert for interesting me in this topic, for providing continued guidance, support and encouragement, and for offering helpful feedback on my work throughout the years. I also wish to epxress my gratitude to Britta Mondorf, the Stipendienstiftung Rheinland-Pfalz, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), GlaxoSmithKline, and a number of institutions at Mainz University (Department of English and Linguistics, Allgemeines Promotionskolleg, Frauenförderung, Friedrich Schubel-Stiftung, inneruniversitäre Forschungsförderung) for financial support of various kinds.

Many heartfelt thanks go to my colleague Matthias Eitelmann for always offering words of encouragment when needed, for his contagious optimism, for sharing the interest in bringing together pleasure and academia, and for providing valuable feedback on parts of my PhD thesis. I have also received helpful comments on my work from Damaris Nübling, Petr Rösel, Svenja Kranich and an anonymous reviewer from Benjamins, and profited from presenting and discussing my work at various conferences. I appreciate the constructive comments and suggestions made. Of course, despite the help I received, any errors or shortcomings of this work are entirely my own.

Not to forget, I am particularly grateful for having been able to freely access the data I needed for my research project. Not having to collect, transcribe and code the data myself saved me a lot of time, and I sincerely thank the people involved in maintaining the CHILDES database and the BNC.

Lastly, and most importantly, I wish to thank my family and friends for bearing with me throughout this difficult project, for offering love, encouragement and understanding, and for keeping me sane. Thank you!