ABSTRACT This purpose of this project is to investigate a number of live theoretical issues in the acquisition of language through detailed experimental studies in Chinese and English. These studies will focus on the development of one module of linguistic theory, namely Binding theory. Throughout the course of this investigation, the investigators will to chart many important aspects concerning children's development of knowledge of Binding. The Chinese data will be collected in Taiwan and the English data will be collected in the United States. Several topics and theoretical approaches will be considered. In particular, the researchers will investigate the following interrelated topics: 1) The interaction between syntactic and pragmatic principles on children's acquisition of bound-variable versus referential pronouns. 2) The relationship between Chinese children's apparent lack of long-distance binding and their acceptance of object antecedents for the reflexive ziji. 3) The possibility of explaining anomalous acquisition phenomena by a parametrized theory with independent parameters versus a richly interrelated developmental theory. 4) The relationship between children's knowledge of long-distance binding and subject- orientation and the theory of ziji-movement in Logical Form. 5) Children's knowledge of non-canonical chain-binding and binding of adjuncts.
