The Acquisition of Determiner Phrase in Early Child Mandarin

Meiyun Chang-Smith provides an authoritative account§of the first language (L1) acquisition of Mandarin§Determiner Phrase (DP) in this ground breaking work,§the first to utilize grammatical aspects of the§Minimalist Program to explain early child Mandarin§data. The study is both theory and data driven,§leading the reader step by step along the§developmental pathway for Mandarin DP as exhibited by§the two child subjects, one monolingual and the other§a simultaneous Mandarin-English bilingual. Through§the inclusion of detailed and extensive examples from§the original corpora together with discussions and§analysis, this book reveals unique and original§insights into the L1 acquisition of a classifier§language possessing a DP with complex internal§structure. By careful comparison of both the§bilingual and the monolingual DP acquisition§patterns, the study reveals that simultaneous§bilingual and monolingual children pursue the same§developmental pathway during the course of§development of Mandarin DP. It sheds light on§fundamental issues in language acquisition such as§the continuity debate and will be a valuable resource§for students and practicing acquisition researchers§alike.