Abstract
The present study addresses the development of syntactic complexity in early writing. Written narratives elicited through a sequence of three images were collected from 126 children at two moments: beginning of second grade and beginning of third grade of primary school. The study compared the two sets of written narratives (252 in total) considering the number, proportion and diversity of coordination and subordination connectives. The results indicate that there is an increase in the diversity of connectives that children resort to, as well as a significant increase in the proportion of subordination processes, which points to the relevance of this measure to assess syntactic complexity in early writing. Additionally, the study allowed us to identify three different profiles of early writers, depending on their mastery of syntactic complexity measures combined with their mastery of punctuation norms.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Empirical and theoretical approaches to language acquisition |
| Subtitle of host publication | a generative perspective |
| Editors | Merle Weicker, Rabea Lemmer, Andrea Listanti, Angela Grimm |
| Place of Publication | Cambridge |
| Publisher | Cambridge Scholars Publishing |
| Pages | 88-106 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-0364-0854-1 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-0364-0853-4 |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |