Adverbial connectivity in conversations of children 6 to 12.

Abstract

ABSTRACTNatural language samples of 114 children aged 6 to 12 years are analysed for instances of discourse connectivity via adverbial conjuncts and disjuncts. Conjunct use is just emerging at 6 and is limited to the encoding of a subset of possible logical relations with only one lexical item per relation (transitional now, inferential then, result so and concessive though). Developmental progress takes the form of increasing use of the same conjuncts, plus additional logical relations and an increasing repertoire of lexical items per relation. Disjunct use is rare at all ages and largely limited to really and probably. Developmental interactions between form, content and use (discourse context) are probed. The 12-year-old child falls far short of an adult rate of production but is learning a similar set of connectivity forms.