Early Child Grammar Research Articles

The knowledge of binding principles in early child grammar: Experimental evidence from 30-month-old toddlers

ABSTRACT We investigated toddlers’ understanding of the hierarchical syntactic configurations that constrain the referential meanings of reflexives and pronouns. In particular, reflexives must co-refer with the c-commanding antecedent within the local domain (Principle A) (e.g., Hei washes himselfi. Johni knows that Billj likes himselfj.), and pronoun reference must be disjoint from its local c-commanding antecedent (Principle B) (e.g., Hei washes himj. Johni knows that Billj likes himi.). French-learning 30-month-olds participated in an eye-tracker task. In Experiment 1 each trial presented a simple sentence containing a reflexive or a pronoun and a target verb (e.g., Il i se i/le j lave. “hei washes himselfi/himj”), while displaying side-by-side pictures depicting self- directed versus other-directed actions of the target verb. Experiment 2 tested the locality conditions of the principles using complex sentences, with the target verb and the reflexive/pronoun appearing in the embedded clause (e.g., Le bébé i voit que le papa j se j /le i lave. “The babyi sees that the dadj washes himselfj/himi”); the pictures were those of Experiment 1, with the patient of the verb being the local antecedent in the embedded clause versus the non-local antecedent in the matrix-clause. Experiment 3 tested the c-commanding requirements of the principles with sentences containing a complex subject, a reflexive/pronoun and a target verb (e.g., Le bébé i du papa j se i /le j lave. “The babyi of the dadj washes himselfi/himj”). In the pictures the patient was the linearly farther versus closer antecedent. Eye-gazes to action images showed adult-like interpretations across sentential structures, demonstrating that binding principles are in child grammar during age two.

Parameterization in labeling: Evidence from child language

AbstractThis paper examines very early child grammars from the minimalist perspective. It discusses the well-known erroneous strings very young children produce such as Root Infinitives in English and their Japanese counterparts, preverbal object sentences in English, and sentences without Case markers in Japanese. The main question to be addressed is whether those sentences children produce are labeled, and if so, how the labeling takes place. Assuming that ϕ-feature agreement and suffixal Case markers play crucial roles for labeling in English and Japanese respectively (Chomsky 2013; Saito 2016), I consider two possibilities. One is that children are equipped with those almost from the outset although they are not phonetically realized. This means that even the erroneous strings children produced are properly labeled. The other is that those strings are not labeled in the adult way and that children at the relevant stage are still in the process of figuring out how the {XP, YP} structure is labeled in their respective languages. I argue that the latter is a viable possibility, given the parameterization in the labeling mechanism, and receives support from the child data as well. This conclusion implies that a main part of the acquisition of syntax is for a child to discover how her/his target language labels the {XP, YP} structure.

Case Before Gender in the Acquisition of German

The paper discusses the acquisition of pronominal forms in German-speaking children. Main emphasis lies on the development of the form paradigms of definite pronouns and articles which are formally identical in German (except of the genitive forms which are not acquired in the early phase) and the functional content of the contrasting definite forms in early child grammar. On the base of an analysis of various types of overgeneralizations, it is argued here that children first acquire the lexico-semantic content related to definiteness, then functional features related to case distinctions and only later on functional features related to gender distinctions. On the contrary to previous investigations, the derived hypothesis is that a uniform case paradigm is the starting point in the acquisition of the paradigmatic relations. Gender, as a productive component of paradigm structure is realized by the child only later on. In general, the observed developments confirm assumptions of Natural Morphology and other functional theoretical concepts on the principles of paradigm organization.

Information structure development: Evidence from the acquisition of word order in Russian and English

The present paper aims at shedding some light onto the nature of the early child grammar. It is claimed that children do not operate with pure syntactic structures but also have access to pragmatics. On the basis of word order acquisition in Russian and English it is shown that from early on children resort to various strategies to encode information structure. Children acquiring Russian, a language that allows for structural encoding of Topic and Focus, make wide use of pragmatically marked word orders. Speakers of English, a highly configurational language, find other ways to mark information status of constituents, e.g. by means of Topic drop. <p> The results of the study suggest that different grammatical modules, syntax and pragmatics in the particular case, are acquired in a parallel rather than consecutive fashion.

Aktionsart, aspect, and the aquisition of finiteness in early child grammar

This article investigates the origins of the eventivity effect during the root infinitive (RI) stage in child French, German, Dutch, and English. Ferdinand (1996), Wijnen (1997), Hoekstra and Hyams (1998), and Becker and Hyams (2000) show that children acquiring French, German, and Dutch (F/G/D) use almost exclusively event-denoting predicates as root infinitives (RIs). By contrast, stative verbs in these child languages have been shown to appear in a finite form. Hoekstra and Hyams (H&H) (1998) argue that the eventivity effect stems from modal/irrealis semantics of infinitival predicates, a morphological predicate type that occurs in adult and child F/G/D root clauses. H&H also propose that the RI stage in child English does not manifest the eventive/stative distinction because bare stems (the most frequent nonfinite predicate type) are inherently [+perfective] (Giorgi and Pianesi 1997). The main objective of this article is to provide an alternative analysis of the eventivity effect and to show how it is present in all four languages (F/G/D and English), contrary to what H&H suggest. The central claim is that the eventivity effect results from the underspecified nature of AspP, a projection where eventives with no inherent telicity pick up an appropriate syntactic telicity feature. The new account eliminates the distinction between the two types of RI grammar (the F/G/D type and English type) suggested in the work of H&H because it attributes the occurrence of RIs to the same property of child grammar. The article also discusses the implications of the proposed analysis for cross-linguistic variation in the RI stage.

Controversies about CP: A Comparison of Language Acquisition and Language Impairments in Broca's Aphasia

In both language acquisition research and the study of language impairments in Broca's aphasia there is an ongoing debate whether or not phrase-structure representations contain the Complementizer Phrase (CP) layer. To shed some light on this debate, I will provide data on German child language and on German agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Analyses of subordinate clauses, wh-questions, and verb placement indicate that early child grammars do not generate the CP layer yet, whereas the ability to project the CP layer is retained in agrammatism.

Reciprocity and Binding in Early Child Grammar

Les precedentes etudes sur l'acquisition de l'anaphore reciproque indiquent que les enfants rencontrent des difficultes lors de l'acquisition de la condition de localite. Dans cette note, l'A. propose une nouvelle analyse des difficultes rencontrees par les enfants pour acquerir la condition de localite, ainsi que la necessite du A-liage de la trace de each

Very early parameter setting and the unique checking constraint: A new explanation of the optional infinitive stage

This paper argues that the traditional view of experience-dependent properties (learned properties) of language as developing late and non-experience-dependent properties as developing early is in fact often wrong. Parameters are set correctly very early (Very Early Parameter-Setting) and properties of inflectional items are also learned very early. On the other hand, some universal properties of language emerge later, presumably under a genetically-driven maturational program. The Optional Infinitive(OI) Stage (Wexler, 1990, 1992, 1994) of grammatical development is explained by the AGR/TNS Omission Model (ATOM) of Schutze and Wexler, (1996). This paper derives this model via a new proposal for a developmental constraint: the Unique Checking Constraint (UCC), which prevents a D-feature on DP from checking more than one D-feature on functional categories, thus forcing either AGR or TNS to be omitted. The Minimalist framework of Chomsky 1995 is assumed — in particular the assumption that a D-feature and not a case feature is the driving force for the Extended Projection Principle. With AGR and TNS both having a D-feature, UCC predicts that finite sentences will not converge. The model also predicts that subjects of OI's will raise to a higher functional projection, even when case is not assigned by INFL, thus solving a traditional problem in the theory of OI's. With natural assumptions on the nature of null-subject languages, the Null-Subjection/Optional Infinitive Correlation of Wexler (1996) is derived from the UCC — that OI's exist in early child language if and only if the adult grammar is not an INFL-licensed null-subject language. Thus the UCC is seen as a fundamental explanatory force for a range of phenomena in early child grammar. Moreover the child data provide strong evidence for the claim that a D-feature motivates the raising of the subject in UG, thus unifying child and adult grammar and demonstrating the usefulness of the investigation of child grammar in the study of UG.

Determiner Phrases and the Debate on Functional Categories in Early Child Language

The apparent omission of determiners by young English-speaking children has led to the proposal that the DP-layer is universally absent in very early child grammars. In this article, I challenge this hypothesis by investigating the longitudinal development of the determiner system of a Swedish child (age 1;8-2;1). The article addresses phenomena such as suffixed and free articles, double definiteness, genitives, pronouns and "nominal style." I show that analyses of these early data must invoke at least one functional projection above the NP. These data therefore argue against any claim about the universal absence of functional structure in early child grammar.

V2 in first-language acquisition: early child grammars fall within the range of universal grammar

L'A. montre que les systemes grammaticaux des jeunes enfants sont soumis a des contraintes imposees par la grammaire universelle. Il illustre son propos en analysant le developpement de l'acquisition de l'allemand, une langue a verbe second, par un enfant bilingue allemand/francais. Il montre que sa grammaire de l'allemand ressemble a celle du yiddish adulte, une autre langue V2, et qu'elle autorise des structures phrastiques agrammaticales et interdit des structures phrastiques grammaticales dans la langue cible. L'A. explique cette construction de grammaires deviantes en partie par la mauvaise configuration des parametres caracterisant l'allemand adulte (cas, position de la tete, finitude)

A. Radford, Syntactic theory and the acquisition of English syntax: the nature of early child grammars of English. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. vii + 311.1

A. Radford, Syntactic theory and the acquisition of English syntax: the nature of early child grammars of English. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. vii + 311.1

Towards an Empirical Model of Language Acquisition

Recent research in primary language acquisition can be subdivided into two schools. Under the influence of the highly mentalistic theory of language known as Transformational Generative Grammar, an innate language acquisition device was postulated, and the first school tried to establish what the structure of this device might be on the evidence of its output, i.e. early child grammars. Subsequently a new school arose which concentrated on mothers' speech to young children, providing empirical evidence against the nativist view that primary language acquisition occurs more or less independently of the ambient language environment. In the present article a language acquisition ‘device’ is suggested which differs in essential respects from the nativist-transformationalist model. Instead of an innately endowed ‘black box’ in the head of the child, the ‘device’ is seen as a two-way transmitting and receiving system existing between, and jointly operated by, the language learning child and society.

Sensory-motor intelligence and semantic relations in early child grammar

Based on case grammar and on the findings of studies of early child language, a system of semantic clause-types is elaborated for the description of the relational meanings that are apparently expressed universally in the two-word speech of young children. These semantic relations are compared to the concepts invoked in Piaget's descriptions of sensory-motor intelligence, in particular to the concepts of permanent objects and their spatial relations, to the dual concepts of persons as physical objects and as active beings, and to the role of persons as causers of changes in the locativity of objects. A close correspondence is found, and it is claimed that the nature of sensory-motor intelligence severely constraints the range of relational meanings expressed, including even the child's notions of possessive relations between persons and objects, of attributes of objects and his use of apparently ‘experiential’ verbs.