The development of metalinguistic abilities in children

1 Introduction.- 1.1 Recent Trends in Research on Linguistic Development.- 1.2 Relationships Between Linguistic and Cognitive Development.- 1.2.1 The Sensory-Motor Period.- 1.2.2 The Preoperational Period.- 1.2.3 The Transition from Preoperations to Concrete Operations.- 2 The Nature and Development of Metalinguistic Abilities.- 2.1 The Development of Metalinguistic Abilities.- 2.2 Relationships Between Metalinguistic and Cognitive Developments.- 3 A Study of Children's Metalinguistic Abilities: Method.- 3.1 Tasks and Materials.- 3.1.1 Conservation.- 3.1.2 Synonymy.- Active, Passive, and Cleft Sentences.- Locative Existential Sentences.- Temporal Relations Sentences.- Spatial Relations Sentences.- Size and Amount Sentences.- The Synonymy Task.- 3.1.3 Comprehension.- The Comprehension Task.- 3.1.4 Acceptability.- Word-Order Changes.- Violations of Strict Subcategorization Rules.- Violations of Selectional Restrictions.- Indeterminates, Indefinites, and Negation.- Inalienable Possession.- Meaningful False Sentences.- The Acceptability Task.- 3.1.5 Phonemic Segmentation.- 3.2 Subjects.- 3.3 Procedure.- 4 A Study of Children's Metalinguistic Abilities: Results and Discussion.- 4.1 Conservation.- 4.2 Comprehension.- 4.3 Synonymy.- 4.4 Acceptability.- 4.5 Segmentation.- 4.6 Relationships Among the Tasks.- 5 Reflections on Reflecting on Language.- References.