Frequency and economy in the acquisition of variable word order

Abstract

This paper discusses how children deal with word order variation in the input, focusing on the effects of frequency and economy in the acquisition process. We consider two contexts where Norwegian displays variable word order, viz. subject placement in main and embedded clauses, and the variable word order found inside the DP in possessive constructions. We identify the conditions under which each word order is chosen in the target language, both with respect to syntax and information structure, and investigate the frequency of the different orders in child-directed speech. In both cases it is shown that the children have both word orders in place from the onset of production of relevant utterances and that they are sensitive to the distinctions between the two from early on. Nevertheless, in their earliest production, the children seem to have a preference for the word order that is the least frequent one in the input. These findings indicate that frequency by itself is not sufficient to explain children's preferences in early production. Instead, the findings in the child data are accounted for in terms of an economy principle of movement that is argued to be operative in early child language.