Syntax in Language Acquisition: Root Infinitives and Small Clause Hypothesis
Children's syntactic development in language acquisition progresses from one-word utterances to combining words into basic sentences. This stage shows missing elements like tense, subject agreement, and auxiliary verbs. The Small Clause Hypothesis suggests that children initially lack certain structural layers in their syntax. Differences between adult and child syntax are highlighted, indicating the absence of evidence for certain syntactic structures in children's language production.
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CAS LX 500A1 Topics in Linguistics: Language Acquisition Week 2b. Root infinitives
Syntax 101 Initially, children start off producing basically one- word utterances. Though not impossible (comprehension), it is difficult to conclude much about syntactic knowledge at this stage. Somewhere around one and a half years, kids will start putting words together: Syntax of a sort. Papa have it (Eve 1;6) Marie go. (Sarah 2;3) Eve gone (Eve 1;6) Eve cracking nut. (Eve 1;7) Kitty hiding (2;10) Fraser not see him (Eve 2;0)
Eve talk funny This is recognizably related to English, and even comprehensible, but it s not the way adults talk. 3sg -s often missing. Past tense -ed often missing. Auxiliaries have, do, and be often missing. In general, it seems like the grammatical (functional) bits that are missing. Actually, it s kind of specific type of functional bit.
My need tea The things that seem to be missing are actually things that all were considered part of INFL (a.k.a. I , a.k.a. T ). Tense and subject agreement. Even if syntactic theory has gone on to the view that there are multiple functional heads there (AgrSP, TP, AgrOP), it s still the functional part of the tree (vs. lexical).
Small Clause Hypothesis A very natural suggestion to make about kids syntax at this stage is that it lacks the functional layers of structure. The sentences are small clauses just the VP, and the NP. Various people have run with this idea. For example, Radford, Vainikka. Structure building approach to acquisition of syntax.
Small Clause Hypothesis Radford (1990, 1995), Early Child English Kids syntax differs from adults syntax: kids use only lexical (not functional) elements structural sisters in kids trees always have a - relation between them. VP Small Clause Hypothesis NP man V V NP chase car
Small Clause Hypothesis Adults: Kids: Absence of evidence for IP: No modals (repeating, kids drop them) No auxiliaries (Mommy doing dinner) No productive use of tense & agreement (Baby ride truck, Mommy go, Daddy sleep) Absence of evidence for CP: no complementizers (that, for, if) no preposed auxiliary (car go?) no wh-movement (imitating where does it go? yields go?; spontaneous: mouse doing?) kids bad at comprehending wh-object questions (out of canonical order). ( What are you doing? No.) CP IP VP VP adult syntax child syntax
Small Clause Hypothesis Adults: Kids: Absence of evidence for DP: no non- elements no expletives (raining, outside cold) no of before noun complements of nouns (cup tea) Few determiners (Hayley draw boat, want duck, reading book) No possessive s, which may be a D. No pronouns, which are probably D. CP IP VP VP adult syntax child syntax See also Vainikka (1993/4) for a similar proposal.
To sleep little baby Turns out kids talk funny around this time in lots of languages. A particularly popular funny way to talk is to use infinitives. Danish: k re bil German: Thorstn das habn French: Dormir petit b b Dutch: Earst kleine boekje lezen Further evidence for missing functional projections? drive[inf] car T that haveinf sleepinflittle baby first little book readinf
Sleeps baby Well, but maybe not. At the very same time as they re using these superfluously infinitive verbs, they are also using finite verbs. Well, yeah, sure, but they hear finite verbs. But they don t have the clause-structural support for it yet (so they don t know the verbs are finite or not that s information one gets from INFL). It s just that you can pronounce sleep either as dort (sleeps) or as dormir (sleep). Right? Yes? Well, it s easy to check. See if they can tell the difference. See if they make errors finite verbs come in various kinds, do they use 1st person agreement when they should have used 3rd?
Do kids get I/T? Radford points out that the overt realization of I (T) is often missing (morphology, modals, auxiliaries). But is it random? Are kids just arbitrarily using tense morphology when they do? When tense is there, does it act like tense would for an adult? Do kids differentiate between tensed and infinitive verbs, or are these just memorized Vs at this point? If kids differentiate between tensed and infinitive verbs, there must be some grammatical representation of tense.
Adult German Poeppel & Wexler (1993). Data: Andreas (2;1, from CHILDES). Adult German is SOV, V2 The finite verb (or auxiliary or modal) is the second constituent in main clauses, following some constituent (subject, object, or adverbial). In embedded clauses, the finite verb is final. V2 comes about by moving the finite verb to (head-initial) C.
German clause structure CP C DP This second position is generally thought to be C, where something else (like the subject, or any other XP) needs to appear in SpecCP. C+I IP Hans kaufte I VP V This only happens with finite verbs. Nonfinite verbs remain at the end of the sentence (after the object). DP den Ball
German clause structure CP C DP Things other than subjects can appear in first position . IP C+I hat den Ball I DP When the tense appears on an auxiliary, the verb stays in place. VP Hans V V gekaufte
What to look for in Child German Poeppel & Wexler found that Andreas will sometimes use a finite verb, sometimes a nonfinite verb. In adult German: finite verbs move to 2nd position, nonfinite verbs are clause-final. Does this also happen in kid German? Look for a correlation between finiteness and verb position: ich mach das nich I do that not du das haben you that have
Results There is a strong contingency. Conclude: the finiteness distinction is made correctly (at the earliest observable stage). Conclude: children do represent tense. Andreas: 33 finite, 37 nonfinite verbs. 8 in both: finite, V2; nonfinite final. Remaining verbs show no clear semantic core that one might attribute the distribution to. +finite -finite V2, not final 197 6 V final, not V2 11 37
Verb positioning = functional categories In adult German, V2 comes from V I C. If we can see non-subjects to the left of finite verbs, we know we have at least one functional projection (above the subject, in whose Spec the first position non- subject goes). FP Object F F+V VP SubjectV
Is it really V2 (not SVO)? V2 (German) is different from SVO in that the preverbal constituent need not be the subject. Is Andreas really using adult-like V2 (not SVO)? Look at what s preverbal: Usually subject, not a big surprise. But 19 objects before finite V2 (of 197 cases, 180 with overt subjects) And 31 adverbs before finite V2 Conclude: Kids basically seem to be acting like adults; their V2 is the same V2 that adults use.
Full Competence Hypothesis (Poeppel & Wexler 1993) The morphosyntactic properties associated with finiteness and attributable to the availability of functional categories (notably head movement) are in place. The best model of the child data is the standard analysis of adult German (functional projections and all). The one exception: Grammatical Infinitive Hypothesis: Matrix sentences with (clause-final) infinitives are a legitimate structure in child German grammar.
CP The Full Competence Hypothesis says not only that functional categories exist, but that the child has access to the same functional categories that the adult does. In particular, CP should be there too. Predicts what we ve seen: finite verbs are in second position only (modulo topic drop leaving them in first position) nonfinite verbs are in final position only subjects, objects, adverbs may all precede a finite verb in second position.
Comparing FCH to SCH SCH (Radford, et al.) pointed to lack of morphological evidence for CP. But they also tend not to use embedded clauses. Which causes which? But P&W showed syntactic evidence for a functional category (V2 with finite verbs) to which V moves. Adults use CP for this. finite verb is second non-subjects can be first Absence of evidence evidence of absence. Andreas uses agreement correctly when he uses it adults use IP for that.
Is it really CP and IP? Or just FP? Can we get away with only one functional category? The word order seems to be generable this way so long as F is to the left of VP. subject can stay in SpecVP V moves to F non-subject could move to SpecFP. though people tend to believe that IP in German is head-final (that is, German is head- final except for CP). How do kids learn to put I on the right once they develop CP?
Is it really CP and IP? Empirical argument for CP & IP: negation and adverbs mark the left edge of VP. A subject in SpecVP (i.e. when a non-subject is topicalized) should occur to the right of such elements (if there s just an FP). So, look for non-subject-initial sentences with negations or an(other) adverb. There were 8 that matched the criteria. All eight have the subject to the left of the adverb/negation: [CP Object C+I+V [IP Subject [VP neg/adv tSubjtV] tI ]]
Kid structures Hypothesis: Kids have full knowledge of the principles and processes and constraints of grammar. Their representations can be basically adult-like. But kids seem to optionally allow infinitives as matrix verbs (which they grow out of). (And when they use an infinitive, it acts like an infinitive.) What s happening when kids use an infinitive?
Harris & Wexler (1996) Child English bare stems as OIs ? In the present, only morphology is 3sg -s. Bare stem isn t unambiguously an infinitive form. No word order correlate to finiteness. OIs are clearer in better inflected languages. Does English do this too? Or is it different? Hypotheses: Kids don t get inflection yet; go and goes are basically homonyms. These are OIs, the -s is correlated with something systematic about the child syntax.
Harris & Wexler (1996) Hypothesis: RIs occur when T is missing from the structure (the rest being intact). Experiment: Explore something that should be a consequence of having T in the structure: do support. Rationale: Main verbs do not move in English. Without a modal or auxiliary, T is stranded: The verb -ed not move. Do is inserted to save T. Predicts: No T, no do insertion.
Harris & Wexler (1996) Empirically, we expect: She go She goes She not go (no T, no do) She doesn t go (adult, T and do) but never She not goes (evidence of T, yet no do). Note:All should be options if kids don t get inflection.
Harris & Wexler (1996) Looked at 10 kids from 1;6 to 4;1 Adam, Eve, Sara (Brown), Nina (Suppes), Abe (Kuczaj), Naomi (Sachs), Shem (Clark), April (Higginson), Nathaniel (Snow). Counted sentences with no or not before the verb without a modal auxiliary with unambiguous 3sg subjects with either -s or -ed as inflected.
Harris & Wexler (1996) Affirmative: aff neg 43% inflected Negative: < 10% inflected -inflec 782 47 It not works Mom no N. has a microphone no goes in there +inflec 594 5 but the horse not stand ups no goes here!
Harris & Wexler (1996) Small numbers, but in the right direction. Generalization: Considering cases with no auxiliary, kids inflect about half the time normally, but almost never (up to performance errors) inflect in the negative. If presence vs. absence of T is basically independent of whether the sentence is negative, we expect to find do in negatives about as often as we see inflection in affirmatives. Also, basically true: 37% vs. 34% in the pre-2;6 group, 73% vs. 61% in the post-2;6 group.
Harris & Wexler (1996) When kids inflect for tense, do they inflect for the tense they mean? (Note: a nontrivial margin of error ) Inflected verbs overwhelmingly in the right context. present 771 418 10 past 128 14 168 future 39 5 0 bare stem -s -ed
Harris & Wexler (1996) Last, an elicitation experiment contrasting affirmative, never (no T dependence for adults), and not. Does the cow always go in the barn, or does she never go? Does the cow go in the barn or does she not go in the barn? Do you think he always goes or do you think he never goes? Do you think that he goes, or don t you think that he goes? Processing load? Extra load of not alleviated by leaving off the -s? If that s the case, we d expect never and not to behave the same way in fact, never might be harder, just because it s longer (and trigger more -s drops).
Harris & Wexler (1996) Affirmatives inflected often, not inflected rarely, never sort of inbetween. Looking at the results in terms of whether the question was inflected: Kids overall tended to use inflection when there was inflection in the question. When the stimulus contained an -s: affirmative: 15 vs. 7 (68% had an -s) never: 14 vs. 16 (48%) not: 4 vs. 12 (25%) quite a bit lower.
An alternative to missing T Much of what we ve seen so far could also be explained if kids sometimes use a null modal element: Idea: I want to eat pizza. I will eat pizza. RI? I want to eat pizza. I will eat pizza. First question: whymodals? Second, they don t (always) seem to mean what they should if there is a null modal. 20/37 seem to be clearly non-modal (according to P&W93). Thorsten Ball haben (T already has the ball)
Modal drop Can we test this another way? What are the properties of adult modals? Adult modals are in position 2, regardless of what is in position 1. If kids are dropping modals, we should expect a certain proportion of the dropped modals to appear with a non-subject in position 1. But none occur nonfinite verbs also seem to come with initial subjects. Why? Well, if V2 is a) movement of V to T to C, and b) topicalization of something to SpecCP; and, if this is triggered by V reaching C: There s no need to move anything to SpecCP if V remains unmoved. The subject remains first.
Modal drop Just to be sure (since the numbers are small), P&W check to make sure they would have expected non-subjects in position 1 with nonfinite verbs if the modal drop hypothesis were true. 17% of the verbs are infinitives 20% of the (finite) time we had non-subject topicalization So 3% of the time (20% of 17%) we would expect non- subject topicalization in nonfinite contexts. Of 251 sentences, we would have expected 8. We saw none.
Two hypotheses about learning (Wexler 1998) VEPS (very early parameter setting) Basic parameters are set correctly at the earliest observable stages, that is, at least from the time that the child enters the two- word stage around 18 months of age. VEKI (very early knowledge of inflection) At the earliest observable stage (two-word stage), the child knows the grammatical and phonological properties of many important inflectional elements of their language.
Very Early Parameter Setting As soon as you can see it, kids have: VO vs. OV order set (Swedish vs. German) V I [yes/no] (French vs. English) V2 [yes/no] (German vs. French/English) Null subject [yes/no] (Italian vs. Fr./E.) So, at least by the 2-word stage, they have the parameters set (maybe earlier)
VEKI? Generally, when kids use inflection, they use it correctly. Mismatches are vanishingly rare. English (Harris & Wexler 1995) German (Poeppel & Wexler 1993) Again, this is kind of contrary to what the field had been assuming (which was: kids are slow at, bad at, learning inflection).
Ok, but So: Kids have the full functional structure available to them, and they set the parameters right away and know the inflection. What then do we make of the fact that kids make non-adult utterances in the face of evidence that they aren t learning the parameters? KW: Certain (very specific, it turns out) properties of the grammar mature.
Root infinitives vs. time The timing on root infinitives is pretty robust, ending around 3 years old.
NS/OI But some languages appear not to undergo the optional infinitive stage. How can this be consistent with a maturational view? OI languages: Germanic languages studied to date (Danish, Dutch, English, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish), Irish, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech Non-OI languages: Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Tamil, Polish
NS/OI What differentiates the OI and non-OI languages? Agreement? Italian (non-OI) has rich agreement, but so does Icelandic (OI). Null subjects! Null Subject/OI Generalization: Children in a language go through an OI stage iff the language is not an INFL-licensed null subject language.
NS/OI and Hebrew (Rhee & Wexler 1995) Hebrew is a NS language but only in 1st and 2nd person, non-present tense. Everywhere else (3rd past, future, present) subjects are obligatory. Hebrew-learning 2-year-olds showed optional infinitives except in 1/2-past, and allowed null subjects elsewhere, with infinitives.
NS/OI and Hebrew (Rhee & Wexler 1995) % of RIs kids up to 1;11 null subjects overt subjects 1/2 past/fut (NS) 0 (of 21) 0 (of 6) else (non-NS) 32% (36/112) 0 (of 28) all OI kids 1/2 past/fut (NS) else (non-NS) null subjects 0.6% (1/171) 25% (85/337) overt subjects 1.4% (1/72) 0.6% (3/530)
Rizzi and truncated trees Rizzi (1993/4): Kids lack the CP=root axiom. The result (of not having CP=root) is that kids are allowed to have truncated structures trees that look like adult trees with the tops chopped off. Importantly: The kids don t just leave stuff out they just stop the tree early. So, if the kid leaves out a functional projection, s/he leaves out all higher XPs as well.
Truncation: < TP < CP If kid selects anything lower than TP as the root, the result is a root infinitive which can be as big as any kind of XP below TP in the structure. Note in particular, though, it can t be a CP. So: we expect that evidence of CP will correlate with finite verbs.
Truncation: TP < AgrSP Pierce (1989) looking at French observed that there are almost no root infinitives with subject clitics this is predicted if these clitics are instances of subject agreement in AgrS; if there is no TP, there can be no AgrSP.
Truncation: TP <> NegP? There is some dispute in the syntax literature as to whether the position of NegP (the projection responsible for the negative morpheme) is higher or lower than TP in the tree. If NegP is higher than TP, we would expect not to find negative root infinitives. But we do find negative RIs (Pierce 1989): in the acquisition of French, negation follows finite verbs and precedes nonfinite verbs (that is French kids know the movement properties of finiteness, and thus they have the concept of finiteness). So, is TP higher than NegP? Hard to say conclusively from the existing French data because there are not many negative root infinitives but further study could lead to a theoretical result of this sort about the adult languages.
S O Vfin? Usually (Poeppel & Wexler 1993) German kids put finite verbs in second position, and leave nonfinite verbs at the end. Occasionally one finds a finite verb at the end. Rizzi suggests we could look at this as an instance of a kid choosing AgrSP as root, where CP is necessary to trigger V2.
