Summary and Concluding Remarks

Abstract

In this book I have discussed various experimental and theoretical studies that addressed the interplay between syntactic and discourse-related knowledge. I have attempted to account for the abnormal performance (comprehension or production) in terms of the limitation of processing resources necessary for the implementation of particular linguistic knowledge. In this sense, the approach I take assumes that the null hypothesis in the study of language acquisition is that children’s knowledge is no different from that of normal adults. While this view, of course, is by no means new, a precise picture of what is missing in children, if not knowledge, has been, and probably remains, somewhat vague. Researchers often mention complexity as a factor in children’ s performance, but equally often this notion does not provide sufficient explanatory power. For example, sentences with quantifiers may appear more complex, in some sense, than sentences with R-expressions; yet the former yield a better performance in children’s interpretation of pronominals.