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utterances. As soon as words combine, basic organizational principles, such as the
binary distinction between head and non-head, are activated and enter into
coalitions with other (semantic, pragmatic) levels of representation.
In addition we claim that monolinguals behave very much like bilinguals in that
initially all children create coexisting grammars. Various types of evidence in
favor of this proposal are considered. Convergence comes about when children
(assisted by universal grammar) reconstruct derivational relationships linking
hitherto independent systems. The overall process is slow, making it possible for us
to detect transitional problems. Bilingual language mixing yields important insights
into children's early awareness of cross-linguistic equivalence and contrasts and
can be related to specific properties of a child's grammars at different
developmental stages.
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