Parsing of Subject-Verb Agreement by German Infants

Determiner phrases (DPs), an overarching term, can be classified into two determiner types: referential determiner phrases (RDPs, e.g., the boy) and quantificational determiner phrases (QDPs, e.g., each boy). Using the event-related potential (ERP) technique, this study explored the modulation of RDP vs. QDP in the online processing of English subject-verb agreement with omission errors by Chinese learners of English, addressing the question of whether singular quantification increases or decreases Chinese learners' sensitivity to agreement violations. The experiment manipulated the determiner type, specifically RDP vs. QDP, and grammaticality (grammatical vs. ungrammatical). The results indicated that similar to previous studies, a P600 effect was elicited in response to subject-verb agreement violations with omission errors, demonstrating that Chinese L2 learners are sensitive to such agreement violations. Additionally, the ERP patterns exhibited variations due to D-linking and number specification of RDP and QDP. Regarding D-linking, subject-verb agreement violations in the QDP conditions, necessitating integration of discourse-related knowledge, elicited laterally and frontally distributed P600 effects associated with integration complexity at the discourse level; however, non-D-linked referential determiners elicited the posteriorly-distributed P600 effects. Differences in number specification resulted in the distinctive P600 latencies and whether P600 was preceded by N400 or not. While both the RDP and QDP conditions exhibited the P600 effects, the onset latency of this effect in the number-unspecified RDP condition was 300 ms later compared to the number-specified QDP condition. Furthermore, an additional N400 component observed in the RDP condition suggests that L2 learners acquire morphologically complex subject-verb agreements by rote, treating them as unanalyzed chunks. This N400 component was absent in the QDP condition. From these results, the conclusion can be drawn that L2 learners are sensitive to the subject-verb agreement violations with omission errors, and L2 processing patterns of subject-verb agreement vary with different features of determiners, providing further evidence for the cue-based retrieval model during comprehension of grammatical sentences. Pedagogical implications are provided, and the future research direction is suggested.

This study reports on the use of (c)overt subjects and subject–verb agreement in Hebrew in the spontaneous speech of a child, EK, acquiring Hebrew and English simultaneously from birth and of five slightly younger Hebrew monolingual controls. Analysis shows that EK's production of pragmatically inappropriate overt subjects is more than three times that of the controls, while she resembles the controls in terms of subject–verb agreement, a purely syntactic phenomenon. These results strongly suggest that influence from English is restricted to phenomena that involve the syntax/pragmatics interface, supporting Hulk and Müller's (2000) hypothesis that crosslinguistic influence in early bilingual acquisition is a predictable and systematic phenomenon.

In Study 1 we analyzed Italian child-directed-speech (CDS) and selected the three most frequent active transitive sentence frames used with overt subjects. In Study 2 we experimentally investigated how Italian-speaking children aged 2;6, 3;6, and 4;6 comprehended these orders with novel verbs when the cues of animacy, gender, and subject-verb agreement were neutralized. For each trial, children chose between two videos (e.g., horse acting on cat versus cat acting on horse), both involving the same action. The children aged 2;6 comprehended S + object-pronoun + V (soprov) significantly better than S + V + object-noun (svonoun ). We explain this in terms of cue collaboration between a low cost cue (case) and the first argument = agent cue which we found to be reliable 76% of the time. The most difficult word order for all age groups was the object-pronoun + V + S (oprovs). We ascribe this difficulty to cue conflict between the two most frequent transitive frames found in CDS, namely V + object-noun and object-pronoun + V.

It is a long-standing though controversial claim that morphological case has syntactic effects. In particular, word order freedom has been argued to be dependent on the presence of overt case markers. Thus, Latin and Classical Greek have both a rich case system and very free word order, while languages like Dutch and English lack both. If there is a connection between morphological case and syntax, this does not only make typological and diachronic predictions of the sort discussed here, but also predictions about language acquisition. This article explores a number of potential effects of morphological case that have to be encoded in grammar. Alongside word order effects, it also considers generalisations that have to do with the form of constituents with particular grammatical functions. For example, quirky subjects (overt subjects that fail to agree with the finite verb in a structure that otherwise has subject-verb agreement) are found exclusively in languages with morphological case.

Some Sesotho nouns may be used without a noun prefix (a phenomenon we refer to as null noun class prefix). There are several studies that deal with this phenomenon in relation to language acquisition (Kunene, 1979; Suzman, 1980; Connelly, 1984; Tsonope, 1987; Demuth, 1988 and Ziesler & Demuth, 1995). Machobane (2003) deals with this phenomenon in Sesotho, paying attention to the determiner phrase (DP) structure. She argues that in some Bantu languages the noun prefix is the head of DP, while in others a phonologically empty D is the head. This difference leads to parametric variations in DP structures. This article explores phonological, morphological, semantic, syntactic and discourse factors that contribute to the null prefix phenomenon. It shows that phonologically null prefixes are associated with the consonants [1], [s] and [d], which are [+coronal]. The prefixes with the consonants [m] and [b], which have the feature [-coronal], do not allow null prefixes (except in the case of class 14). Morphologically, the nouns that have an agreement which is identical to the noun prefix, allow a null prefix, while the ones that have an agreement prefix which is not identical with the noun prefix, do not (except for class 2). Syntactically, a null prefix is possible where there is agreement in the form of the subject verb agreement, noun modifier or copulative complement. At a discourse level, a null prefix appears when a noun expresses given/old information or is salient in the discourse context. However, none of the suggested explanations can account for a null prefix on its own.

The present study applies a multidimensional methodological approach to the study of the acquisition of morphosyntax. It focuses on evaluating the degree of productivity of an infrequent subject-verb agreement pattern in the early acquisition of French and considers the explanatory role played by factors such as input frequency, semantic transparency of the agreement markers, and perceptual factors in accounting for comprehension of agreement in number (singular vs. plural) in an experimental setting. Results on a pointing task involving pseudo-verbs demonstrate significant comprehension of both singular and plural agreement in children aged 2;6. The experimental results are shown not to reflect input frequency, input marker reliability on its own, or lexically driven knowledge. We conclude that toddlers have knowledge of subject-verb agreement at age 2;6 which is abstract and productive despite its paucity in the input.

Although the use of pronouns has been extensively investigated in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), most studies have focused on English, and no study to date has investigated the use of subject pronouns in null subject languages. The present study aims to fill this gap by investigating the use of subject and object pronouns in 5- to 8-year-old Greek-speaking high-functioning children with ASD compared to individually matched typically developing age and language controls. The “Frog where are you” (Mayer, 1969) narrative task was used to elicit subject and object pronouns as well as Determiner Phrases (DPs). Greek is a null subject language, and as a result, subject pronouns most often remain without phonological content. The findings showed that both groups used more null than overt subject pronouns, indicating that children with ASD know that Greek is a null subject language. TD children used more null subjects than subject DPs, whereas children with ASD used an equal proportion of null subjects and subject DPs. In terms of object pronouns, both groups produced more clitics and object DPs than strong object pronouns, but the difference between clitics and DPs did not reach significance in either of the groups. Importantly, the groups did not differ from each other in the use of ambiguous pronouns in both the subject and object position. The ASD children’s avoidance to use pronominal subjects can be taken as evidence that they use a strategy to avoid infelicitous reference. This would suggest that the ASD children’s difficulties with pronouns is not due to difficulties in core grammar.

I observe that in an earlystage of child Catalan and Spanish, no overt subjects are used. At this same age and MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE (MLU), child speakers of overt subject languages such as French, German, Dutch, and English use at least some overt subjects optionally. I explain this crosslinguistic variation bysuggesting that the adult target grammars vary with respect to the position in which overt subjects are realized. In the overt subject languages, subjects are realized in the canonical specifier-of-IP position, whereas in the null subject languages (such as Catalan and Spanish), subjects are located in a topic/focus position, which becomes accessible onlylater in development. As evidence for this, I show that overt subjects, fronted objects, and WH-questions begin to be used at the same point in development in child Catalan and Spanish. I also argue that subject agreement constitutes an incorporated pronominal subject in Catalan and Spanish and that children converge on this parametric option veryearly . The inabilityof child Spanish- and Catalan-speakers to use discourse-pragmatic information is explained as a delayin the development of the interface between grammar and discourse-pragmatics.

The present study, based on a corpus of contemporary Brazilian film dialogues (Sub-Corpus Carioca Urbano, Corpus I-Fala, Luso-Brazilian Film Dialogues as a resource for L1 & L2 Learning and Linguistic Research), illustrates how Brazilian Portuguese (BP) has undergone a process of change in the representation of referential subjects, with preference for overt pronominal subjects, passing from being a null subject language to being a partial null subject language. Thus, the current work revisits De Rosa (2017) by including 3rd person subjects and using film dialogue transcriptions (not scripts) and discusses the presence of null and overt subjects in the corpus, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The study also compares the filmic data to spontaneous speech and shows a basically conservative nature of the former.

Aims and Objectives/Purpose/Research Questions: A number of studies on the acquisition of non-null subject languages in child grammars have suggested that while overt subjects are mainly used with finite forms, null subjects co-occur with non-finite forms. The purpose of this study is to explore the proposed relationship between subject realization and verbal morphology in a simultaneous bilingual context. Design/Methodology/Approach: Longitudinal case study Data and Analysis: The present study analyses longitudinal data from an English-Turkish bilingual child (2;4–3;9), with special reference to the distribution of finite forms and the suppliance of overt subjects on the one hand, and subject drop and the use of non-finite forms, on the other. The English/Turkish data comprise 37 recordings collected regularly for nearly 18 months. Findings/Conclusions: English-Turkish bilingual data show that the majority of the overt subjects in the English language of the bilingual child occur both with inflected and uninflected verb forms. At a time the child has consistent and productive suppliance of overt subjects in his English, he uses uninflected verb forms with overt subjects, suggesting that the proposed association discussed in the literature does not necessarily hold. Moreover, around the same time the bilingual child’s Turkish presents robust evidence for the productive and systematic use of inflected forms as well as omission of subjects. Originality and significance/implications: These data, based on a less commonly studied language pair, English-Turkish, challenge previous research that postulates an association between overt subjects and finite forms versus null subjects and non-finite root forms. Overall, there appears to be a relationship between the acquisition of subject–verb agreement in the bilingual child’s Turkish and the correct suppliance of overt subjects in his English, suggesting language-particular devices for the realization of person deixis.

This longitudinal study investigates the distribution of null and overt subjects in the spontaneous production of six Italian-speaking children between the ages of 1 year, 7 months and 3 years, 3 months. Like their peers acquiring other Romance null-subject languages, the children in this sample produced more overt subjects as their mean length of utterance in words (MLUW) increased. Pronominal subjects, and specifically first person pronouns, accounted for an increasingly larger proportion of the overt subjects used. The distribution of both pronominal and lexical subjects was further investigated as a function of the informativeness value of a number of pragmatically relevant features. The results showed that as early as MLUW 2.0 Italian-speaking children can use null and overt subjects in a pragmatically appropriate way. The relevance of these findings is discussed with reference to performance limitation and syntactic accounts of subject omission, and implications are drawn for a model of language development that incorporates the mastery of pragmatics in the acquisition of syntax.

This paper reports on two studies, investigating the use and knowledge of overt and null pronominal subjects of a speaker in both her attrited L1-Bulgarian and near-native late L2-German. Both studies focus on studying pronominal subjects in a pro-drop-L1/non-pro-drop but expletive- and topic-drop-L2 constellation. Phenomena at the syntax-discourse interface have been claimed problematic in similar cases, namely for attrited L1 Italian-L2 English and L1 English-near-native L2 Italian speakers (Interface Hypothesis, Sorace, Linguist Approache Bilingual 1:1–33, 2011; Sorace and Filiaci, Sec Lang Res 22(3):339–368, 2006; and related work). Both groups overused overt subjects in topic-continuity contexts compared to non-attrited Italians. However, recent studies indicate that this kind of attrition is temporary since L1-knowledge can be reactivated after short re-exposure to L1 (Chamorro et al., Lang Cognit 19(3):520–532, 2016; Genevska-Hanke, Linguistik im Nordwesten: Beitrage zum 8. Nordwestdeutschen Linguistischen Kolloquium, Bremen, pp 1–31, 2017; Kopke and Genevska-Hanke, Front Psychol, 2018). This is confirmed by the present longitudinal investigation of late L1-attrition, supporting stability of fully-developed L1s (Schmid and Kopke, First Language Attrition, pp 1–12, 2007). The results of the L2-study revealed that the use of German subjects of the near-native speaker differed significantly from that of L1-speakers. She failed to differentiate distinct subject types, using overt referential, expletive and arbitrary subjects interchangeably to replace null referential and expletive subjects. Hence differences were found for both grammatical phenomena and phenomena at the syntax-discourse interface.

Young infants can discriminate many non-native sounds, but the discrimination ability is thought to decrease within the first year of life due to perceptual attunement. However, most studies tested infants’ perception cross-sectionally, without examining within-group change. To this end, the current study tested German infants’ discrimination of the English /æ/-/ɛ/ contrast both cross-sectionally and longitudinally using the visual habituation technique. In Experiment 1, 96 German-learning infants were tested cross-sectionally at 5–6, 8–9 and 12–13 months. Linear mixed-effects models revealed that while the 5–6-month-olds did not discriminate the contrast, the 8–9- and 12–13-month-olds showed signs of discrimination only when they were habituated with /ɛ/, in line with previous findings suggesting that changes from central to peripheral vowels in the F1/F2 vowel space are more noticeable than in the reverse direction. Moreover, the 8–9-month-olds showed a novelty preference, while the 12–13-month-olds showed a familiarity preference. In Experiment 2, the infants tested at 5–6 months in Experiment 1 were tested again at 8–9 and 12–13 months. Fifteen infants completed the three experiments. Here, only the 12–13-month-olds discriminated the contrast by showing a novelty preference but only when habituated with /æ/. Overall, both experiments showed gradual development of discrimination ability across the first year, which challenges the assumptions of perceptual attunement. We propose that the perceptual sensitivity for a non-native vocalic contrast can improve during development. The change in perceptual asymmetry tells us that the direction of asymmetry is not universal and can be altered by linguistic experience. The change from novelty to familiarity preference may be due to the emerging preference for the more native-like vowel as well as the effect of repeating experiments with the same infants. In sum, our cross-sectional and longitudinal results overlap broadly, but the potential effect of repeating experiments must be considered when interpreting longitudinal studies.

The relationship between finiteness and verb placement has often been studied in both first language (L1) and second language (L2) acquisition and many studies claim that, while there is a correlation between finiteness and verb placement in L1 acquisition, these areas represent separate learning tasks in second language acquisition (SLA). The purpose of this article is to provide a new perspective on this elusive question, analysing data from speakers of Romance languages learning German as a second language (L2). Verbs are classified as thematic and nonthematic and analysed with respect to overt subject–verb agreement and verb placement as seen in negation patterns. A clear association between subject–verb agreement and verb placement is seen for nonthematic verbs: they are in most cases morphologically finite and show the syntactical distribution of finite verbs. These verbs are interpreted as a spell-out of agreement features, differing both from the speakers' L1 and from the L2, but conforming to a universal grammar (UG) option.

Studies of cross-language consonant discrimination have shown a shift from a language-general to a language-specific pattern during the first year of life. Recently, the same pattern of change was observed for English-speaking infants' discrimination of two non-native vowel contrasts (Polka and Werker, 1994). The present study was designed to provide a more direct assessment of language-specific influences on infant vowel contrast perception. In experiment 1 adults were tested on a German (non-English) contrast, /dut/ versus /dyt/, and an English (non-German) contrast, /d epsilon t/ versus /daet/. English and German adults discriminated both contrasts with high levels of accuracy in a categorial AXB task. However, results of an identification and rating task showed that, within each non-native vowel contrast, one vowel perceptually matched a native vowel category better than the other. In experiment 2 discrimination of /dut/ versus /dyt/ and /d epsilon t/ versus /daet/ was examined in English- and German-learning infants in two age groups (6-8 months and 10-12 months) using the conditioned headturn procedure. English and German infants did not differ in their discrimination of either contrast and there were no age differences in discrimination of either contrast for the German or for the English infants. However, in both language groups at both ages, there were clear differences in performance related to the direction in which the vowel change was presented to the infants. For the German contrast, discrimination was significantly poorer when the contrast changed from /dut/ to /dyt/. For the English contrast, discrimination was significantly poorer when the contrast changed from /daet/ to /d epsilon t/. The directional asymmetries observed here and in other infant vowel studies point to a language-universal perceptual pattern which suggests that vowels produced with extreme articulatory postures serve as perceptual attractors in infant vowel perception.