Little Words is an interdisciplinary examination of the functions and change in the use of clitics, pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, discourse particles, auxiliary/light verbs, prepositions, and other “little words” that have played a central role in linguistic theory and in language acquisition research. Leading scholars present advanced research in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, discourse function, historical development, variation, and acquisition by children and adults.

This unique volume integrates the views and findings of these different research areas into one professional source to be used within and across disciplines. Languages studied include English, Spanish, French, Romanian, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Slavonic, and Medieval Leonese.

Ronald P. Leow is an associate professor of Spanish applied linguistics and director of Spanish Language Instruction at Georgetown University.

Héctor Campos is an associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, linguistics, and modern Greek at Georgetown University.

Donna Lardiere is an associate professor of linguistics at Georgetown University.

Preface

1. IntroductionRonald P. Leow, Héctor Campos, and Donna Lardiere

Part I: History

2. From "Two" to "Both": Historical Changes in the Syntax and Meaning of Oba in SlavicAgnieszka Łazorczyk and Roumyana Pancheva

3. When Small Worlds Collide: Morphological Reduction and Phonological Compensation in Old Leonese ContractionsMinta Elsman and D. Eric Holt

Part II: Phonology

4. Distinguishing Function Words from Content Words in Children's Oral ReadingCarol Lord, Robert Berdan, and Michael Fender

5. Motivating Floating QuantifiersLisa Rochman

Part III: Syntax

6. Applicative Phrases Hosting Accusative CliticsLuis Sáez

7.The Little DE of Degree ConstructionsRemus Gergel

8. The Complementizer TheHeather Lee Taylor

9. What is There When Little Words Are Not There?: Possible Implications for Evolutionary StudiesLjiljana Progovac

10. Spanish Personal a and the AntidativeOmar Velázquez-Mendoza and Raúl Aranovich

Part IV: Semantics

11.Predicting Argument Realization from Oblique Marker SemanticsJohn Beavers

12. Aspect Selectors, Scales, and Contextual Operators: An Analysis of by Temporal AdjunctsMichael F. Thomas and Laura A. Michaelis

13. Distributive Effects of the Plural Marker -tul in KoreanJong Un Park

Part V: Pragmatics

14. The Pragmatics of the French Discourse Markers donc and alorsStéphanie Pellet

15. "Little Words" in Small Talk: Some Considerations on the Use of the Pragmatic Markers man in English and macho/tío in Peninsular SpanishLaura Alba-Juez

16. Little Words that Could Impact One's Impression on Others: Greetings and Closings in Institutional EmailsSigrun Biesenbach-Lucas

Part VI: Acquisition

17. Instructed L2 Acquisition of Differential Object Marking in SpanishMelissa Bowles and Silvina Montrul

18. The Role of Pedagogical Tasks and Focus on Form in Acquisition of Discourse Markers by Advanced Language LearnersMaria José de la Fuente

19. Article Acquisition in English, German, Norwegian, and SwedishTanja Kupisch, Merete Anderssen, Ute Bohnacker, and Neal Snape

20. A Continuum in French Children's Surface Realization of AuxiliariesChristina D. Dye