In recent years the role of general cognitive development in language acquisition has been stressed (e.g. Piaget, Sinclair). However, most often this relationship is implied, rather than empirically verified. This paper provides data for both linguistic and cognitive functioning in the same children. It is concerned with the acquisition of active/passive sentences (synonymy judgement) and temporally,
causally, and conditionally related sequences in relation to 'reversal skills'. Ability to relate active and passive sentences in order to judge meaning equivalence and the ability to reverse clause order to correspond with event order and/or cause-effect is dependent on the child's ability to perform reversible operations as involved in conservation tasks. The concept of time is supposed to be spatial in origin (seriation tasks), and an understanding of relational time is dependent on the ability to decentre and coordinate (picture arrangement task). Also conditionals require reversible transformations and coordination of several internal structures.
Only at the age from 5 to 7 and onwards can children comprehend the complex structures in question, if they have to rely on syntactic information alone for their interpretation, but if the child can rely on his knowledge of the world, he can begin to interpret/produce these structures already at the age of 3, that is before he has achieved reversible operations.
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