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In:The Acquisition of Referring Expressions: A dialogical approach
Edited by Anne Salazar-Orvig, Geneviève de Weck, Rouba Hassan and Annie Rialland
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 28] 2021
► pp. 141–161

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Chapter 5
Referring expressions and developmental language disorders

ORCiD logo with link | Université de Montréal
 | Université de Neuchâtel
ORCiD logo with link | Université de Neuchâtel
ORCiD logo with link | Université de Lorraine
ORCiD logo with link | Université de Neuchâtel
Published online: 16 June 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.28.05rez
Abstract
This study investigated the relation between morphosyntactic and discourse-pragmatic features in the production of referential expressions by French-speaking children with developmental language disorders (DLD) as compared to their typically developing peers (TD). Fifteen TD children and 15 children with DLD, age 4;6 to 7;5 were asked to tell a picture-book story with their mother. The type of referring expression, the position in the referential chain, and the syntactic function were coded. Both groups of children were sensitive to discourse and syntax. Children with DLD differed from their peers in the use of object clitic pronouns in subsequent mentions, the proportion of nouns produced without a determiner, and null subjects. Null subjects only appeared in a particular discursive and pragmatic context.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Procedure
    • 2.3Coding
      • Type of referring expressions
      • Position in the referential chain
      • Syntactic function
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Discursive and syntactic effects on the use of clitic pronouns
    • 3.2Effects of the position in the referential chain on nouns without a determiner, and on null subjects
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
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Cited by (6)

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2021. Chapter 11. The acquisition of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], DOI logo
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