Grammar and the lexicon: Developmental ordering in language acquisition

Recent accounts of language acquisition propose that the knowledge structures that comprise language develop within a single, unified system that shares computational resources and representations. One implication of this approach is that developmental relations within the system become central to theorizing about language acquisition. Previous work suggested that lexical development preceded grammatical development, a developmental ordering with strong theoretical implications. One purpose of the current article is to test this developmental ordering hypothesis. Results showed that children (aged 16-30 months) developed lexicon and grammar synchronously. The second purpose is to demonstrate a recently developed method for testing developmental ordering, the nonlinear-mapping approach, and show how the method can be extended to capitalize on multiply determined developmental systems, such as language.