Heike Behrens
Biographic Data
| ID | 3851498 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Heike Behrens |
| GIVEN NAMES | Heike |
| FAMILY NAME | Behrens |
| SIGNATURE | BEHRENS H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Groningen |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 24 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Corpus Analysis of Child Language
Corpus research has a long‐standing tradition in child language research: Observational data provide the basis for our knowledge about developmental processes including their individual and crosslinguistic differences (for more detail, see Behrens, 2008). But the analyses critically depend on an appropriate corpus design that provides sufficient information on and appropriate transcription and annotation of the linguistic structures at stake. In …
Participation practices in mother-child interactions: Longitudinal case studies
In recent years, Conversational Analysis (CA) has seen an increasing interest in longitudinal studies (Deppermann & Pekarek Doehler, 2021). The recurrent experience of interactional practices leads interactants to develop routines that may sediment into entrenched patterns over time (Dreyer, 2022). Longitudinal CA thus aims to track the emergence and sedimentation of interactional practices over time. In this contribution, we analyse interactiona…
Joint responses to crying: How mothers and their children comfort crying babies
One of the fascinating challenges in adult-child interaction is found in the fine-grained coordination of joint activities in the real time of play-interactions. In this contribution we take a closer look at caregiving activities that are jointly carried out by mothers and their five-year-old children. At this age, changing diapers, feeding, and comforting a crying baby (doll) is a challenging activity. The focus of our empirical study is on resp…
Constructivist Approaches to First Language Acquisition
Constructivist approaches to language acquisition predict that form-function mappings are derived from distributional patterns in the input, and their contextual embedding. This requires a detailed analysis of the input, and the integration of information from different contingencies. Regarding the acquisition of morphology, it is shown which types of information leads to the induction of (lexical) categories, and to paradigm building. Regarding …
Gradual development of constructional complexity in German spatial language
In this paper, we assess the developmental trajectories by which children approach adult levels of complexity and informativeness in the linguistically and conceptually challenging domain of spatial language. To this end, we look at three types of spatial relations (localization, spontaneous and caused motion) in spontaneous German child speech (age 2;6 to 2;11 and 4;6 to 4;11), and in elicited
Editoral
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Grammatik und Lexikon im Spracherwerb: Konstruktionsprozesse
Putting together novel expressions is something that speakers do, not grammars. It is a problemsolving activity that demands a constructive effort and occurs when linguistic convention is put to use in specific circumstances. (Langacker 1987, S. 65
Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition
It was long considered to be impossible to learn grammar based on linguistic experience alone. In the past decade, however, advances in usage-based linguistic theory, computational linguistics, and developmental psychology changed the view on this matter. So-called usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition state that language can be learned from language use itself, by means of social skills like joint attention, and by means…
The input–output relationship in first language acquisition
This study provides an account of the distributional information and the production rates in a particularly rich corpus of German child and adult language. Three structural domains are analysed: the parts-of-speech distribution for a coded corpus of circa one million words as well as the internal constituency of 300,000 noun phrases and almost 200,000 verb phrases. In all three domains, the distribution over time in the adult input is extremely h…
Wortarten-Erwerb durch Induktion
That a lot of language learning is tied to the acquisition of the lexicon is widely acknowledged.However, there are at least two fundamentally different concepts of lexicalism.The notion of lexical learning as applied in generative grammar assumes that part-of-speech information is an inherent property of words, such that words project syntax.It remains unclear, however, how children come to acquire such knowledge.In contrast, constructivist theo…
The relationship between prosodic and syntactic organization in early multiword speech
Several descriptions of the transition from single to multiword utterances use prosody as an important diagnostic criterion. For example, in contrast to successive single-word utterances, ‘real’ two-word utterances are supposed to be characterized by a unifying intonation contour and a lack of an intervening pause. Research on the acquisition of prosody, however, revealed that control of the phonetic parameters pitch, loudness, and duration is fa…
Early syntactic creativity: A usage-based approach
The aim of the current study was to determine the degree to which a sample of one child's creative utterances related to utterances that the child previously produced. The utterances to be accounted for were all of the intelligible, multi-word utterances produced by the child in a single hour of interaction with her mother early in her third year of life (at age 2;1.11). We used a high-density database consisting of 5 hours of recordings per week…
Verbal prefixation in German child and adult language
Previous research has demonstrated that children pick up even small differences in the lexicalization patterns of closely related languages quickly and successfully. This study examines verbal prefixation in German child and adult language, using a particularly detailed case study. The data show that the child starts to produce prefixed verbs and prepositional phrases within a few months. More crucially, the child's speech gets attuned to the pre…
How difficult are complex verbs? Evidence from German, Dutch and English
Most research on the acquisition of verbs has focused on acquiring the syntactic category verb and on the verb's argument structure. It is assumed that due to their specific syntactic nature verbs are acquired in a different fashion than nouns, and that due to their specific semantic nature verbs do not simply denote activities or situations, but rather package meaning components in a (language-) specific way. This paper refines the problem of ac…
Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition
It was long considered to be impossible to learn grammar based on linguistic experience alone. In the past decade, however, advances in usage-based linguistic theory, computational linguistics, and developmental psychology changed the view on this matter. So-called usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition state that language can be learned from language use itself, by means of social skills like joint attention, and by means…
Gradual development of constructional complexity in German spatial language
In this paper, we assess the developmental trajectories by which children approach adult levels of complexity and informativeness in the linguistically and conceptually challenging domain of spatial language. To this end, we look at three types of spatial relations (localization, spontaneous and caused motion) in spontaneous German child speech (age 2;6 to 2;11 and 4;6 to 4;11), and in elicited
How difficult are complex verbs? Evidence from German, Dutch and English
Most research on the acquisition of verbs has focused on acquiring the syntactic category verb and on the verb's argument structure. It is assumed that due to their specific syntactic nature verbs are acquired in a different fashion than nouns, and that due to their specific semantic nature verbs do not simply denote activities or situations, but rather package meaning components in a (language-) specific way. This paper refines the problem of ac…
How difficult are complex verbs? Evidence from German, Dutch and English
Most research on the acquisition of verbs has focused on acquiring the syntactic category verb and on the verb's argument structure. It is assumed that due to their specific syntactic nature verbs are acquired in a different fashion than nouns, and that due to their specific semantic nature verbs do not simply denote activities or situations, but rather package meaning components in a (language-) specific way. This paper refines the problem of ac…
Early syntactic creativity: A usage-based approach
The aim of the current study was to determine the degree to which a sample of one child's creative utterances related to utterances that the child previously produced. The utterances to be accounted for were all of the intelligible, multi-word utterances produced by the child in a single hour of interaction with her mother early in her third year of life (at age 2;1.11). We used a high-density database consisting of 5 hours of recordings per week…
Verbal prefixation in German child and adult language
Previous research has demonstrated that children pick up even small differences in the lexicalization patterns of closely related languages quickly and successfully. This study examines verbal prefixation in German child and adult language, using a particularly detailed case study. The data show that the child starts to produce prefixed verbs and prepositional phrases within a few months. More crucially, the child's speech gets attuned to the pre…
Wortarten-Erwerb durch Induktion
That a lot of language learning is tied to the acquisition of the lexicon is widely acknowledged.However, there are at least two fundamentally different concepts of lexicalism.The notion of lexical learning as applied in generative grammar assumes that part-of-speech information is an inherent property of words, such that words project syntax.It remains unclear, however, how children come to acquire such knowledge.In contrast, constructivist theo…
The relationship between prosodic and syntactic organization in early multiword speech
Several descriptions of the transition from single to multiword utterances use prosody as an important diagnostic criterion. For example, in contrast to successive single-word utterances, ‘real’ two-word utterances are supposed to be characterized by a unifying intonation contour and a lack of an intervening pause. Research on the acquisition of prosody, however, revealed that control of the phonetic parameters pitch, loudness, and duration is fa…
The input–output relationship in first language acquisition
This study provides an account of the distributional information and the production rates in a particularly rich corpus of German child and adult language. Three structural domains are analysed: the parts-of-speech distribution for a coded corpus of circa one million words as well as the internal constituency of 300,000 noun phrases and almost 200,000 verb phrases. In all three domains, the distribution over time in the adult input is extremely h…
Usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition
It was long considered to be impossible to learn grammar based on linguistic experience alone. In the past decade, however, advances in usage-based linguistic theory, computational linguistics, and developmental psychology changed the view on this matter. So-called usage-based and emergentist approaches to language acquisition state that language can be learned from language use itself, by means of social skills like joint attention, and by means…
Grammatik und Lexikon im Spracherwerb: Konstruktionsprozesse
Putting together novel expressions is something that speakers do, not grammars. It is a problemsolving activity that demands a constructive effort and occurs when linguistic convention is put to use in specific circumstances. (Langacker 1987, S. 65
Editoral
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Gradual development of constructional complexity in German spatial language
In this paper, we assess the developmental trajectories by which children approach adult levels of complexity and informativeness in the linguistically and conceptually challenging domain of spatial language. To this end, we look at three types of spatial relations (localization, spontaneous and caused motion) in spontaneous German child speech (age 2;6 to 2;11 and 4;6 to 4;11), and in elicited
Constructivist Approaches to First Language Acquisition
Constructivist approaches to language acquisition predict that form-function mappings are derived from distributional patterns in the input, and their contextual embedding. This requires a detailed analysis of the input, and the integration of information from different contingencies. Regarding the acquisition of morphology, it is shown which types of information leads to the induction of (lexical) categories, and to paradigm building. Regarding …
Participation practices in mother-child interactions: Longitudinal case studies
In recent years, Conversational Analysis (CA) has seen an increasing interest in longitudinal studies (Deppermann & Pekarek Doehler, 2021). The recurrent experience of interactional practices leads interactants to develop routines that may sediment into entrenched patterns over time (Dreyer, 2022). Longitudinal CA thus aims to track the emergence and sedimentation of interactional practices over time. In this contribution, we analyse interactiona…
Joint responses to crying: How mothers and their children comfort crying babies
One of the fascinating challenges in adult-child interaction is found in the fine-grained coordination of joint activities in the real time of play-interactions. In this contribution we take a closer look at caregiving activities that are jointly carried out by mothers and their five-year-old children. At this age, changing diapers, feeding, and comforting a crying baby (doll) is a challenging activity. The focus of our empirical study is on resp…
Corpus Analysis of Child Language
Corpus research has a long‐standing tradition in child language research: Observational data provide the basis for our knowledge about developmental processes including their individual and crosslinguistic differences (for more detail, see Behrens, 2008). But the analyses critically depend on an appropriate corpus design that provides sufficient information on and appropriate transcription and annotation of the linguistic structures at stake. In …
Psychology (10 works) · Language Development and Disorders (8 works) · Linguistics (8 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · German (4 works) · Natural language processing (4 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (4 works) · Artificial Intelligence (3 works) · Developmental psychology (3 works)