Ku Waru Clause Chaining and the Acquisition of Complex Syntax

Alan Rumsey,Francesca Merlan,Lauren W Reed

doi:10.3389/fcomm.2020.00019

Abstract

How do children learn to understand and use complex syntactic constructions? In English, Diessel (2004) shows that they do so in two different ways. Complex sentences with dependent clauses (e.g., ‘Peter promised that he would come’) develop out of simple sentences that are gradually expanded into multi-clause ones. Complex sentences with coordinate clauses (e.g., ‘He tried hard, but he failed’) develop by integrating two independent sentences into a single two-clause unit. Here we expand on that research by focusing on the acquisition of a kind of complex syntactic structure which involves both dependency and coordination – the clause chain – in Ku Waru, a Papuan language spoken in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Clause chains are constructions coordinating multiple clauses in sequence, where the non-final or ‘medial’ clauses are in a dependent relationship with the final clause. One function of clause chains, which is often taken to be the prototypical one, is to refer to a series of events in sequence. Some Ku Waru clause chains do refer to sequential events. Other Ku Waru clause chains containing particular verbs refer to single events, sometimes with the particular verb providing aspectual or adverbial qualification (‘keep doing’, ‘do quickly’, etc.). In this article, we track their acquisition of several different kinds of clause chains based on longitudinal recordings of four children acquiring Ku Waru as their first language between the ages of 1½ and 5. We show that, although there are differences among the children in the ages at which they acquire the various kinds of clause chain, all four of them follow the same series of steps in doing so. In conclusion, we compare our findings to Diessel’s for English. We find that they are similar in some ways and different in others, which may be related to the differences between subordinate constructions, coordinate non-dependent constructions and coordinate-dependent constructions.

Highlights

This article focuses on children’s acquisition of clause chaining in the Papuan language Ku Waru
For Ku Waru in particular it must be added that some of the non-final verbs in clause chains are fully specified for person and number, but not for their tense, which is determined by that of the final verb
As in other clause chaining languages such as the ones discussed by Foley and Olson (1985) and Van Valin and LaPolla (1997), non-final clauses in Ku Waru are linked to their final clause in a relationship that shows elements of dependency and coordination

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This article focuses on children’s acquisition of clause chaining in the Papuan language Ku Waru. What the adverbial uses of these verbs and the aspectual ones in final position (such as mol-) have in common with each other, and with the lexicalized clause chains, is that all such cases involve sequences of two or more verbs that refer to a single event. (15) kibul-n to-pa konji-pa stick-INST hit-MED.3SG kill-MED.3SG kangla-ø me-pa i clasp-MED come-MED.3SG DEM nosa-ø mo-lum put-MED be/stay-PRF.3SG “He killed it with a stick, clasped it to himself, came, put it there and kept it there.” In addition to their use described in section The Chameleon Class, Optative verbs can be used in a particular kind of two-clause construction identifiable on the basis of intonation, grammatical features, and the semantic relation between the two clauses. Because Optative-Final constructions are a kind of clause linkage that emerges along with the earliest clause chaining by children, we do include examples of them when discussing and exemplifying the latter below (section Patterns in the Kinds of Two-Clause Chains that Children Produce)

METHODOLOGY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE DATA

CONCLUSIONS

Findings

ETHICS STATEMENT