Syntactic Development presents a broad critical survey of the research literature on child language development. Covering both theoretical and empirical issues, William O'Grady constructs an up-to-date picture of how children acquire the syntactic structure of English. O'Grady first offers an overview of the developmental data pertaining to a range of syntactic phenomena, including word order, subject drop, embedded clauses, wh-questions, inversion, relative clauses, passives, and anaphora.

This study of the available empirical work on language acquisition is accompanied by a comprehensive assessment of the various theories advanced to explain the facts of development. O'Grady reports on work in the mainstream formalist framework as well as the results of alternative approaches.

With a wide view of the modern study of linguistics, this book is an invaluable reference for specialists in the field of language acquisition and provides an excellent introduction to the acquisition of syntax for students and researchers in psychology, linguistics, and cognitive science.