Research article summary (published 30 May 2001):

Form and function of negation in early developmental Cantonese.

Full Abstract

This study investigated the interface of form and function in the acquisition of negation in Cantonese-speaking children. The data, from the Hong Kong Cantonese Child Language Corpus, were longitudinal spontaneous samples of eight children aged 1;5 to 3;8. The main issues of the study were the sequence of emergence of negative markers mou5, m4 and mei6 and the acquisition trend of 11 semantic categories of negation in children's expressive language. The acquisition trend of the semantic categories matched Bloom's (1970, 1991a) finding that Non-existence preceded Rejection and Denial.

Author information

Author/s: Tam, C W (CW); Stokes, S F (SF);

Affiliation: University of Hong Kong, 5/F, 34 Hospital Road, Hong Kong, SAR, China.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of child language (J Child Lang), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2001-Jun; vol 28 (issue 2) : pp 373-91

Dates: Created 2001/07/13; Completed 2001/09/27; Revised 2004/11/17;

PMID: 11449944, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Age Factors Child Language Child, Preschool Female Humans Infant

Infant Language Male Semantics Verbal Behavior Verbal Learning

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