Null Subject Versus Null Object: Some Evidence From the Acquisition of Chinese and English

Abstract

Because young English-speaking children use null subjects systematically, it has been proposed that they begin with an initial parameter setting allowing null arguments (NAs) and must change this setting on the basis of linguistic evidence that adult English prohibits NAs. A recent proposal suggests that the licensing and identification of NAs used by English-speaking children is like that used in adult Chinese. This predicts that young Chinese- and English-speaking children should exhibit parallel performance in their use of NAs. This study investigated this prediction using an elicited production task with both Chinese- and English-speaking children. Although the hypothesis that early English allows null subjects was upheld, the evidence is against the claim that early English is a discourse-oriented language like Chinese: Whereas the Chinese children systematically used null objects, the American children did not. An alternative analysis of the use of null arguments is suggested.