Learning Compositional Language

Babies come into the world not knowing a word. Within three years, they know enough of their first language to understand the difference between, "your doll is a toy" and "the stove is not a toy". By age five, they can’t yet be trusted to look both ways before crossing the road, but their language is close to native adult speakers. How is this possible? This course looks at how children learn how language expresses meaning; how they go from understanding individual words to putting words together to compose and express complex, meaningful ideas – the development of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.