Introduction to Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue focuses on evidence bearing on the specific ways in which linguistic differences across languages may affect what is learned early (or late) in language and to what extent language-specific structures interact with cognition. The ultimate question is whether or not development follows a universal course or is influenced by the linguistic system being acquired. Of particular interest in the linguistic realm are data exploring what governs the late development of linguistic forms; of particular interest in the cognitive realm are areas for which crosslinguistic data reveal linguistic influences on the timing of development of cognitive concepts or on attentional patterns in children. The combined research suggests that the morphosyntactic structure of the language, the semantic notions encoded in the language and the cognitive underpinnings related to those structures all play a role in the course of development.