ABSTRACT
We embarked on this study by making certain assumptions about the development of linguistic forms: that individual forms would take on more functions with development (Prediction 5), that new forms would emerge in order to meet the narrative functions involved in telling the frog story (Prediction 6), and that the interrelated development between form and function would be expressed most particularly in what we have called syntactic packaging (Prediction 7). Our study has made it possible to examine these assumptions against the background of shared findings for the developmental route of overall narrative abilities (Part II) and in light of the different paths taken by children en route to becoming proficient speakers/narrators in different languages. The complex developmental path taken en route to mature, proficient syntactic packaging is detailed for each language in the sections on connectivity in Part III and re-evaluated from a functional perspective in IVc. This chapter focuses on the more general issue of forms and functions in developing abilities to tell the frog story. We aim to show that while the findings from our study strongly confirm all three of our predictions about general linguistic development, the overall picture which emerges is more complex, and more multifaceted, than we had originally envisaged.
