The Syntax of Conservation.

ABSTRACT This paper outlines the syntactic structures which represent a stage in the cognitive development of children, and focusses on an aspect of cognitive development known as conservation. The cognitive components of conservation are preiented as the primordial base for the set of syntactic structures which map or mirror them. Piaget proposed four periods or levels of cognitive development; during the third period, that of concrete operations, a child learns to use logical processes to solve concrete problems. Some of these problems have to do with conservation. The ability to conserve requires that the child realize that the amount or quantity of substance or matter stays the same even though its shape or position is changed. These problems include the conservation of number, mass, and volume. The ability to conserve presupposes a mastery of subsets of cognitive structures such as reversibility and seriation. Each of these cognitive structures is represented by some primary syntactic fora. Conservation in its cognitive and linguistic sense is the effective interaction of these composite structures. (Author/CLK)