The acquisition of syntax Elective 3rd year students 1st year MA students Spring term 2013

2
THE ACQUISITION OF FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES (I)

Organization 1. Why focus on functional categories? 2. One privileged functional category: Tense 2.1 The optional infinitive stage in a nutshell 2.2 Tense: a category of grammar and a semantic category 1. Why focus on functional categories? 1.1 Back in time....
Functional categories DETERMINERS (Det) INFLECTION (I)(=umbrella term for Agreement, Aspect, Mood) DEGREE (Deg) COMPLEMENTIZERS (Comp) Examples the, a, this, that Tense, Tense: -ed, Aspect: -ing, Agreement : -s, infinitival to. More, most, -er,-est that, whether, for

the locus of grammatical information (Ouhalla 1990:8) determine the various grammatical processes which constructions can undergo grammatical formatives. lack descriptive content have grammatical/functional meaning select one unique type of complement < c- selection: 2 D NP 2 I VP 2 Deg AdjP/AdvP

project into hierarchically structured phrases: DP

2 Spec D 2 D0 NP
the book

< the skeleton of Ss < functional projections < every separable functional marker heads its own phrase

Distinct syntactic functions assigned to distinct functional heads e.g. T: tense // AgrO: object agreement, accusative case//AgrS: subject agreement, nominative case// D: reference/person/case

e.g. Agr Agr is a collection of phi-features: gender, number, person Nominative and Accusative case: the realization of a Spec-head relation = Case is systematically checked within an agreement configuration involving the mediation of an Agr head, i.e. the relation between DP and V is mediated by Agr in both situations MP : an AgrP projection must be present in the clause to host Case checking for the subject and another one for the object; the checking procedure of Acc Case (in nominative-accusative languages) is identical to the checking procedure of Nom case < Case and agreement ( features) often go together in languages with overt Case morphology e.g. German: the article: features in the noun phrase + Case. Romanian: the article, 3rd person pronominal clitics Nom case is checked in [Spec AgrsP] of finite clauses under a Spec-head agreement relation Acc case is checked in [SpecAgroP ] of clauses containing a transitive verb there is a symmetry between the subject and the object inflectional systems both agreement and structural case are manifestations of the Spec-head relation < Case depends on properties of T and V

the properties of functional categories and the relationship between them and the lexical category which they select as their complement determine the structure of sentences, i.e. syntax is driven by the properties of functional elements , i.e. word order reflects the properties of functional categories

the properties of inflectional domains pied-pipe a series of syntactic properties the features of these domains trigger displacement (an imperfection of the system)

Parametric variation affects functional categories

properties of inflectional domains account for variety across languages the inventory of functional projections is part of Universal Grammar (UG) but the value of the features associated with these projections as well as the mapping from syntax to grammatical formatives has to be acquired on the basis of linguistic experience. The features are specified by Universal Grammar (UG) but the way in which languages choose to encode information about the value of these features is purely arbitrary, accidental and language specific. Grammatical formatives are in many respects to be viewed as language-specific lexical units. 1.2 Back to the previous lectures UG= the system of principles and rules which are properties of all human languages + a set of parameters whose value is set by experience and which may vary from one language to another Language acquisition: acquisition of the lexicon + setting values to parameters

Parameters: < features of functional categories

Assume that: the acquisition process involves the valuation of relevant features, mirrored in the emergence of associated syntactic structures, and full knowledge of the system, reflected in target-like use of associated individual items and structures, i.e. the childs task is to learn the idiosyncratic properties of the items stored in the lexicon and set the correct value to the features made available by UG.

1.3 Functional categories and features A. features: (i) formal, e.g [+/-N], [+/- plural]; (ii) semantic formal features: (i) intrinsic, e.g. categorial features, person, gender, case assignment; (ii) optional (added as the item enters the numeration), e.g. number, case. B. features: +/- strong. If [+strong], then it is the feature of a non-substantive category and is checked by a categorial feature i.e. Ns and Vs do not have strong features e.g. EPP < a strong D-feature of I overt wh-movement < a strong D-feature of C < strong features trigger overt movement: they trigger an overt operation and they are eliminated after being checked C. features: +/- interpretable. If [+ interpretable] they are accessible to the computation throughout, whether checked or not; the [-interpretable] ones, after being checked, are no longer accessible to the computation e.g. the displacement property is implemented by uninterpretable features (Chomsky 1997), i.e. those features which are not visible at either the semantic interface or the phonetic interface It is clear that the lexicon contains substantive elements (nouns, verbs...) with their idiosyncratic properties. And it is at least reasonably clear that it contains some functional categories: complementizer (C), for example. But the situation is more obscure in the case of other possible functional categories, in particular, T, Agr, specific phi-features, a Case category K, and so on... (Chomsky 1995:240). functional categories (T, C, D, Agr) consist primarily/entirely of formal features a functional category has to be justified by (i) theory-internal arguments or (ii) by output conditions (phonetic and semantic interpretation) formal features advance the computation

1.4 Some related acquisition facts

children tend to omit certain elements during the early stages of linguistic development: determiners, auxiliary verbs, copula be, complementizers, subjects, object clitics, subject clitics.
a. b. c. apa [ ] pus-o [ target = apa a pus-o] water put past part cliticAcc.3rd pers.fem.sg. [B. 1;10] aia [e] verde. [target = aia e verde] thatfem green [A. 1;09] Adult: i boieru(l) i-a dat-o? and did the boyard give it to him? Child: n [i] -a dat [-o]. [ target = nu i-a dat-o] not has given [ A. 2;0.11]

(1)

these phenomena co-occur during certain stages of linguistic development acquisition studies searched for a common acquisition cause and route e.g. Hoekstra & Hyams (1995): one of the most important properties which some of the omitted elements share is that they are deictic:

[] they are all points at which the sentence may be anchored into discourse. Finiteness places the event or state denoted by the verb at a time relative to the time of discourse; definite determiners pick out entities which are familiar [], that is, discourse referents; and subject pronouns may be deictic []. (H&H 1995: 124)

how do children travel from this here and the now use of language to the adult-like system? What do they have to know in order to be able to anchor their utterances into discourse via grammar? Available answers: (i) acquisition of tense and/or agreement (Clahsen, Eisenbeiss, and Penke 1996, Radford 1990, Rizzi 1994, Schtze & Wexler 1996, Wexler 1994); (ii) acquisition of number (Grinstead 2000, Hoekstra & Hyams 1995); (iii) acquisition of person (Schaeffer & Ben Shalom 2002) 2. One privileged functional category: Tense 2.1 The Optional infinitive/ the root infinitive stage = a syntactic approach < the acquisition of tense as a functional category < OI stage = an early stage when children use both finite and non-finite forms in contexts which require finite predicates (2) gras eten grass eat-inf (Dutch) (Haegeman 1995)

(3) (4) (5) (6)

Michelle dormir (French) (Pierce 1989) Michelle sleep-inf Thorstn das habm (German) (Wexler 1994) Thorsten that have-inf He tickle a feet (English) (Brown 1973, CHILDES) Mama spat. (Russian) (Brun et al. 1999) Mummy to sleep

Two types of languages: A. English, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Irish, Russian, Czech, Brazilian Portuguese, Icelandic, French : the infinitival form of the verb is optionally used instead of the finite form = the optional infinitive (Wexler 1994) or the root infinitive (Rizzi 1994) stage. B. Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Tamil, Turkish, Modern Greek or Romanian: root infinitives are absent/ extremely rare early root infinitives exist only in non-pro drop languages

(i) (ii)

(iii)

why is optionality allowed in child grammar during this stage ? why is the non -finite form allowed in finite contexts in spite of the fact that children know the relevant finite forms which they use in the appropriate structural position? why do root infinitives occur in some languages but are absent in others?

Some available answers: (1) Tense is optional / Tense has not matured (Wexler 1990, 1994) (2) Tense and Agr are not yet available (Radford 1990, Ingham 1998) (3) Tense and/or Agr are missing (Schtze and Wexler 1996) (4) the tense chain cannot be established because the intermediary functional position, Number, does not have a specified value (Hoekstra and Hyams 1996) (5) Tense and all the projections above Tense may be missing (Rizzi 1993/1994). (6) OIs are structures with a null modal (Ingram and Thompson 1996) (7) merger of the verb with inflection can be delayed for processing reasons (Phillips 1995).

(1)

CP 2 A AgsP 2 TP 2 AgroP 2 VP problematic

a deficient Tense projection reflexes in the syntactic domain this optionality derives from the fact that the temporal system has not been fully acquired yet Important: a difference between the acquisition of morphological marking and the acquisition of the syntactic correlates of Tense
Q: does the absence/underspecification of the functional projection Tense/the

lack of overt tense markers, imply that temporal interpretation is also absent or deficient at this stage? Boser et al. (1992) , Phillips (1995) : the absence of overt marking should be analysed as merely the lack of the phonetic realisation of a specified feature. This might suggest that the lack of overt morphological markers does not automatically imply that temporal meaning is also absent. 2.2. Tense as a category of meaning < relationships between tense-aspect morphology and event types encoded in verb meanings (< Antinucci & Miller 1976) e.g. do children use tense markings in an adult-like way from the onset of acquisition? early production of verbal morphology = a pattern of underextension before 2;6 children acquiring a variety of languages produce telic verbs with past and/or perfective morphology and they produce atelic verbs with present and/or imperfective morphology. Romance languages Greek < relationships between conceptual and language development in the domain of temporality (< Bronckart & Sinclair 1973) The cognition hypothesis (Cromer 1974) < Piagets constructivist theory of development: thought processes are developmentally the prerequisite for language development, i.e. cognitive development lays the foundation for linguistic development
Q: is cognitive development a sufficient condition for language development? Q: to what extent does cognitive development constrain language acquisition?

Temporality: children are egocentric, live in the here-and-now in the beginning they cannot abstract from their perspective and see events from another viewpoint (they cannot de-centre) Stage 1: children are egocentric Stage 2: children have the operational time concept (around age 8;00) they are able to talk about events in inverted order ( < reversibility of thought) and to integrate the order of events with their duration < they understand the concept of physical time, as a relation between distance and velocity questions: e.g. Does past tense marking indicate the acquisition of the concept of temporal displacement in childrens cognitive development? YES: e.g. Cromer 1968, Antinucci and Miller 1976, Weist 1986, Weist et al. 1984, Weist et al 1997

... a correct understanding of the childs first past tense forms and their gradual development cannot be obtained unless we place them in relation to their cognitive prerequisites (Antinucci and Miller 1976:168). NO: e.g. Behrens 2001, Shirai & Miyata 2006 temporal linguistic systems and representational knowledge interact during development with the influence occurring in both directions Weist et al. 1997

the bet: address the issue within an approach which integrates 2.1 and 2.2