• to present different paradigms used in child language research;
• to introduce basic concepts in developmental psycholinguistics;
• to present basic models of language development;
• to discuss these models analytically.

• demonstrate familiarity with the central concepts and ideas of the models of language development;
• be able to discuss theoretical issues and concepts;
• demonstrate understanding of research papers;
• critically evaluate particular models.

• lectures on basic problems;
• group discussions;
• guided reading.

Language and Context: The Acquisition of Pragmatics, Acadeemic Press, NY, 1976.

Bates et al. (eds.),

The Emergence of Symbols Cognition and Communications in Infancy, Academic Press, NY, 1979.

Bates, E. & McWhinney, B.,

Functionalism and the Competition Model, in McWhinney, B. & Bates, E. (eds.). The Cross-Linguistic Study of Sentence Processing, Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Baker, C.,

Syntactic Theory and the Projection Problem, Linguistic Inquiry, 10, 1979.

Berwich, R.,

The Acquisition of Syntactic Knowledge, MIT Press, 1985.

Bloom, L. & Lahey M.,

Language Development and Language Disorders, John Wiiley & Sons, NY, 1978.

Clark, H. & Clark, E.,

Psychology and Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, NY, 1977.

Chomsky, N.,

Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht, Holland, 1981.

Fletcher, P. & Garman, M. (eds.),

Language Acquisition, 1st ed., Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Lightbown, P. & White, L.,

The Influence of Linguistic Theories on Language Acquisition Research, Language Learning, 37, 1987.

McClelland, J., Rumelhart, D. and the PDP Research Group,

Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructures of Cognition, vol. 2 - Psychological and Biological Models, MIT Press, 1986.

Owens, P.,

Language Development: An Introduction, 2nd ed., Macmillan Publ. Co, NY, 1988.

Slobin, D.,

Cognitive Evidence for the Development of Grammar, in Ferguson, C. & Slobin, D. (eds.), Studies of Child Language Development,Holt, Rinehart & Winson, NY, 1973.

Slobin, D.,

Crosslinguistic Evidence for the Language Making Capacity, in Slobin, D. (ed.), Crosslinguistic Study of Language Acquisition, vol. 2. Theoretical Issues, Hillsdale, 1985.

Wanner, E. & Gleitman, L. (eds.),

Language Acquisition: The State of the Art, 1st ed., Cambridge University Press, 1982.

• written examination of given theme;
• multiple choice test.