Abstract
Background: Child Spanish-speakers appear to use more null subjects than do adults. Null subject use, like the use of tense marking, is sensitive to discourse-pragmatics. Because tense marking has been used to identify child Spanish-speakers with specific language impairment (SLI) with near good sensitivity and specificity (89%), null subject use may as well, following the predictions of the Interface Deficit Hypothesis. We investigate the possibility that null subject occurrence may form part of a useful discriminant function for the identification of monolingual child Spanish-speakers diagnosed with specific language impairment. Methods: We evaluate the rate of null subject expression from spontaneous production data, together with results from independent measures of another discourse-sensitive construction, verb finiteness, in child Spanish. We perform a discriminant function analysis, using null subject expression as a target variable, among others, to classify monolingual child Spanish-speakers (N = 40) as SLI or as typically-developing (TD). Results: The SLI group is shown to have significantly higher scores than the TD group on null subject expression. Multiple discriminant functions, including the null subject variable with tense measures, and in combination with mean length of utterance in words (MLUw), are shown to provide good sensitivity and specificity (<90%) in the classification of children as SLI vs. TD. Conclusion: Our findings support the contention that null subject occurrence is a plausible reflection of the Interface Deficit of SLI for Spanish-speaking children.
Highlights
Children acquiring overt subject languages such as English produce fewer overt subjects than adults do, with rates of overt subject use that vary from 30–100%, depending on age and mean length of utterance (MLU, see Hyams 2011 for review)
As some authors have argued, child Spanish speakers produce more null subjects than do adults, could we find that null subject production is a useful grammatical characteristic of children with specific language impairment (SLI), such that it could distinguish them from typically developing children? Before answering this question, we turn to the question of subject use in typically-developing child Spanish
Two different research groups looking at the question from before children get to mean length of utterance in words (MLUw) levels of 1.5, or so, find in 11 children’s spontaneous production data that such a stage exists
Summary
Children acquiring overt subject languages such as English produce fewer overt subjects than adults do, with rates of overt subject use that vary from 30–100%, depending on age and mean length of utterance (MLU, see Hyams 2011 for review). Researchers concerned with specific language impairment (SLI) have explored the possibility that this non-adult-like predisposition of English-speaking children to use overt subjects less than adults might distinguish children with SLI from those without it (Grela 2003a, 2003b; Grela and Leonard 1997). In null subject languages, such as Spanish, Catalan and Italian, there is evidence (though a debate persists) that typically-developing children use more null subjects than adults. Because tense marking has been used to identify child Spanish-speakers with specific language impairment (SLI) with near good sensitivity and specificity (89%), null subject use may as well, following the predictions of the Interface Deficit Hypothesis. We perform a discriminant function analysis, using null subject expression as a target variable, among others, to classify monolingual child Spanish-speakers (N = 40) as SLI or as typically-developing (TD)
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