Abstract
In a classic study, Brown and Hanlon (1970) demonstrated that four-year-old children accurately formed and regularly used English tag questions. Their study was undertaken within the paradigm of transformational grammar, which was predominant at that time. It focused on syntactic development, and mastery of the construction was seen as a purely syntactic problem. In a later summary Brown (1973) observed, ‘the peculiar beauty of the English tag question is that it is semantically rather trifling, a request for confirmation, and it has such simple equivalents as huh? right?’ (p. 408).
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© 1993 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Lloyd, B., Goodwin, R. (1993). Intonation and Function of Four-year-olds’ Tag Constructions. In: Messer, D.J., Turner, G.J. (eds) Critical Influences on Child Language Acquisition and Development. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22608-5_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22608-5_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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