Abstract
In 1933 La Brant,2 using as material compositions written by children in the fourth to the twelfth grades, published an interesting study of language development. She obtained an index of subordination by dividing the number of subordinate predicates by the total number of predicates in compositions of approximately 150 words. She found that the index of subordination increased with mental age and with chronological age, the curve for mental age rising from 8 1/2 years to 13 1/2 years and then falling off, while the curve for chronological age rose steadily from 8 1/2 years to 16 years. Although on the whole the girls showed a slightly higher index of subordination than the boys, at different age levels the relationship between the indices for the sexes varied. No evidence was found to support Jespersen's statement that subordination is more characteristic of males than of females.
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