VP-shell analysis for the acquisition of Japanese intransitive verbs, transitive verbs, and causatives

Abstract

Japanese-speaking children erroneously produce intransitive forms instead of (di)transitive forms, and intransitive/(di)transitive forms instead of causative forms. Murasugi and Hashimoto (2004) provide a uniform account of such verbal errors following Larson's (1988) v-VP frame or VP-shell hypothesis: (i) the predicate-argument structures of large V's and small v's are acquired early, (ii) children assume [±cause] v to be phonetically null at one stage, and (iii) what requires time is the acquisition of the lexical form of each V and the forms in which [±cause] small v's are realized. Additional empirical evidence for their v-VP frame analysis is obtained from Sumihare Noji's database as well as from observational data reported in previous research. Based on an analysis of Japanese-speaking children's common errors widely observed in previous literature and on the two longitudinal studies presented in this article, we develop the v-VP frame analysis for the acquisition of Japanese verbs and complex predicates.