Desarrollo gramatical inicialalgunas cuestiones metodológicas e interdisciplinares

Abstract

The author reviews the paper presented by Llinàs-Grau. In the first place he criticizes the harsh style used by Llinàs-Grau in reference to other authors' points of view, particularly in relation to two notions. The first is the idea that there are qualitative changes in development from a stage when children do not show grammatical knowledge to a more advanced stage in which grammatical knowledge is shown. The second is the idea that children pay attention to linguistic input and process it, which requires that children work mentally with language. Later on, the author comments on the methodological weakness of Llinàs-Grau' article and her lack of interest in presentation of data and the way those data are obtained. Anecdotal observations are not enough to support hypotheses on the existence of given grammatical knowledge. The process of gathering data and selection of data for the analysis to be carried out are of crucial importance, as different examples which are discussed by the author demonstrate. Among those examples are the non-existence of a non-overt subject stage in early Spanish children's language development, the item-based nature of first combinations of words, the acquisition of the verb category by Catalan bilingual children, or the use of first combinations of words by Galician children with different degrees of vision. The point of productivity of forms or structures is crucial for language acquisition research. When strict criteria are adopted, changes seem to be more gradual. The role of imitation in first language development is also discussed by the author. Finally the author criticizes the process followed by Llinàs-Grau to give support to the Minimalist Program theory, and pleads for less dogmatic and more open attitudes in language acquisition research