Use of the clitic se was analysed in 28- and 36-month-old Spanish-speaking toddlers using a Cognitive Grammar model (Langacker 1987, 1992, Maldonado 1992). The data demonstrate that the first forms of the clitic se focus on the critical moment of change (middle forms) rather than true reflexives. This aspectual phenomenon is based on cognition. We argue, therefore, that the earliest uses of se by Spanish-speaking children occur because of the cognitive salience of the action described by the verb. These results provide strong support for cognitive models of language acquisition and evidence against the claim that all non-reflexive uses of se are either derived from a subject deletion rule or simple exceptional uses that should be listed in the lexicon.
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