“Why? Because I’m talking to you!”: Parental input and cognitive complexity as determinants of children’s connective acquisition

We report a series of longitudinal studies on children’s acquisition of Dutch, English and German causal connectives supporting a model in which children’s cognitive development, parental input and the cognitive complexity of different types of causality are brought into a systematic relationship. The data reveal that less complex connectives are acquired first, and that parental connective input has both short- and long-term effects, although children are not simply parroting their parents. Audience design in connective input is not at stake: parents’ independent connective use is stable over time, but their elicited connective use increases as children grow older and start asking why-questions themselves. Still, parental why-questions are scaffolds of children’s connective use and of their ability to ask why-questions themselves.