Morphological transparency and the Delay of Principle B Effect

Abstract

In L1 acquisition of English, Dutch, Russian, and Icelandic, children do not acquire Principle B until age 7–8, while in L1 acquisition of Italian, French, and German children no such delay is observed. This is the Delay of Principle B Effect (DPBE). Existing accounts of this contrast in terms of the clitic status of the relevant pronouns or their referential properties are unable to account for the dividing line between the languages with and without the DPBE. We relate the DPBE in language acquisition to the Absence of Principle B Effect (APBE) in the adult language. The APBE is the fact that cross-linguistically pronouns express reflexive meanings when dedicated reflexive pronouns are not available. The reason for this is that Principle B effects result from the competition between pronouns and dedicated reflexives. The delay in the acquisition of Principle B is accounted for by a delay in this competition taking effect. This delay is in turn caused by the morphological makeup of dedicated reflexive pronouns. Principle B will be acquired sooner, i.e. there will be no DPBE, when the internal morphological makeup of dedicated reflexives is more transparent. Only if dedicated reflexives are easily recognised as such in the course of acquisition will they compete with pronouns from the start. In such a case, there will be no developmental delay in the acquisition of Principle B. This approach allows us to correctly predict which languages do and which do not show the effect.