Studies in the Acquisition of Deictic Terms

Language is spoken at a particular time, in a particular place, by a particular person; and certain words, the deictic terms, can only be fully defined by recourse to this extra-linguistic context. Consequently many linguists considered deixis as something peripheral in the working language and its central importance in what Quine has called the ontogenesis of reference has only recently been recognised. In these studies Dr Tanz investigates children's acquisition of the deictic distinctions involved in the (single) personal pronouns, the spatial terms in back of and in front of, the verbs come and go, the demonstratives and the locatives here and there. Her experimental work leads to a number of important methodological insights and is the basis of a broad discussion of semantic development. In particular, she evaluates a number of current influential hypotheses, notably those of H. Clark and E. Clark. The volume will be of interest to psychologists and linguists and particularly to researchers in child language.