Table 1- Children's longitudinal data
Complex Syntax: Movement Rules
Reading: Friedmann, N., & Lavi, H. 2006. On the order of acquisition of A-movement, Wh-movement and V-C movement. In A. Belletti, E. Bennati, C. Chesi, E. Di Domenico, & I. Ferrari (Eds.), Language acquisition and development (pp. 211-217). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press/CSP.
Three types of movement rules
• Movement rules in simple clauses
– A movement (Unaccusative, Passive)
– WH (Ᾱ) movement (questions, topicalization)
– Verb movement (V1, V2)
• Movement rules in complex clauses
– WH (Ᾱ) movement (Relative clauses)
A-movement - Passive
Maryi was kissed ti by John
• Passive is A-movement rather than A’-movement
• The subject is the patient (no necessary agent)
• The transitive verb has unique morphology (with or without an auxiliary verb) which makes it intransitive
• The passive derives n-place predicate from n+1-place predicate
• Not all languages permit an agent-phrase (by phrase), and the same agent-phase can occur with non-passive verbs
What is passive used for?
A forgrounding and backgrounding operation
1. John kissed Mary
2. Mary was kissed (by John)
3. Mary, John kissed (topicalization)
4. As for Mary, John kissed her (left-dislocation)
Issues in acquisition
• Reversible vs. non-reversible
• Actional vs. non-actional
• Adjectival vs. verbal
• Do children understand the by-phrase?
• Comprehension vs. Production
• Actional vs. non-actional
Kids are better at actional passives than nonactional passives (Fox & Grodzinsky 1995):
1. Jasmine was combed (by Wendy)
2. Peter Pan was feared (by Captain Hook)
• Do children understand the by-phrase?
Kids are better at short passives (without the by-phrase) earlier than long passives.
The by (agent)-phrase problem (stative- preference)
• Adjective Passive is acquired earlier than verbal Passive (Hogan, 1978), Borer & Wexler (1987).
• Adjective (stative structures) do not permit by-phrases.
• By-phrase is less frequent in input
• Reliance on Canonical word order
The canonical sentence strategy for English:
NP - V - NP = Agent - Action - Theme.
Turner & Rommentveit (1967): Reversible passives are later acquired than non-reversible passives.
• Canonical word order is preferred acquisition device.
• It’s the most basic in many languages (Givon, 1984).
The example of Hebrew
The passive is morphologically derived using different conjugations (pattern).
|Adjectival Passive |Passive |Active |
|CaCuC (pa’ul) |niCCaC (nif’al)* |CaCaC (pa’al) |
|shavur ‘broken’ |nishbar ‘was broken’ |shavar ‘broke’ |
|MeCuCaC (mefu’al) |CuCaC (pu’al) |CiCeC (pi’el) |
|mesupar ‘has a hair cut’ |supar ‘got a hair cut’ |siper ‘gave a hair cut’ |
| |mesupar ‘gets …’ | |
|muCCaC (muf’al) |huCCaC (huf’al) |hiCCiC (hif’il) |
|mustar ‘hidden’ |hustar ‘ was hidden’ |histir ‘hid’ |
| |Mustar ‘is hidden’ | |
*This conjugation is also unaccusative, e.g., the door opened
Acquisition of Passive in Hebrew
• Adjectival passives are used from the age of 3, but verbal passives do not emerge in Hebrew-speaking children until school age (Berman & Sagi (1981), Borer & Wexler (1987), Berman (1994))
• While preschool children comprehend the adjectival passive, comprehension of verbal passive is later (Sudhalter & Braine 1985).
• In Hebrew, passive is fully acquired by the age of 9, Nif’al is acquired first and the other two conjugations only by 8-9 (Ravid, Landau and Lubazky (2003)).
• Nif’al (niCCaC) is acquired first because the same conjugation also has an unaccusative reading.
Findings
Findings – by conjugation
Comprehension of passive
• Looking at the overall performance, the 3s and 4s seem to score slightly above chance, while the 5s and 6s show comprehension of passive (~80% success).
• Comparing the two conjugations, all age groups score better (and above chance) with nif’al.
• Both 3s and 4s seem to score at chance (50%) with pu’al
Passive – A crosslinguistic study (COST A33)
Preliminary Summary of findings – 5s
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Ᾱ-Movement
Questions in English
• Yes/no questions are marked only by subject-auxiliary inversion, i.e., an overt syntactic change in word order in which the auxiliary is raised into C. Do-support operates when there is no auxiliary is the declarative.
• [Spec, CP] is the target for overt Wh-movement both in matrix and embedded clauses, with subject-auxiliary inversion in matrix clauses, but not in embedded clause. Do-support operates when there is no auxiliary is the declarative.
a. What did the child see?
b. The teacher wondered what the child saw.
Questions in Adult Hebrew
• Yes/no questions are marked only by rising intonation without overt syntactic change in word order. In formal speech, yes/no questions are preceded by a question mark haim 'whether'
• [Spec, CP] is the target for overt Wh-movement both in matrix and embedded clauses, but no obligatory verb raising or subject-auxiliary inversion occurs.
1. a. ma ra'a ha-yeled?
‘what saw the-child?’
b. ma ha-yeled ra'a?
‘what the-child saw?’
2. a. ha-mora sha'ala ma ha-yeled ra'a
‘the-teacher asked what the-child saw’
b. ha-mora sha'ala ma ra'a ha-yeled
‘the-teacher asked what saw the-child’
• There is no difference between matrix and embedded clause.
Acquisition of Questions in English (Klima and Bellugi 1966)
Phase I
• Children use neither modals nor auxiliaries
• Yes/no questions are marked only with rising intonation
• Wh-word appears sentence initially in wh-questions without inversion.
• A limited set, ‘what,’ ‘where’ and ‘why,’ ( ‘where (NP) go?,’ ‘w(NP) doing?’)
• Children do not seem to understand wh-questions and their responses are often inappropriate (Radford 1990)
Phase II
• Auxiliary verbs are used in subject auxiliary inversion for yes/no questions
• Auxiliary verbs are not used for wh-questions.
• Wh-questions involve productive use of an extended set of wh-words, but no inversion.
Phase III
• Children make adult use of question formation, which involves subject-auxiliary inversion.
Acquisition of Questions in Hebrew
Armon-Lotem (1996) - Longitudinal study of 4 children aged 1;6 - 3;0. 4 phases.
a. Formulaic forms
a. ma asit? [Lior1;09;25]
what you-did
'what have you done?' (limited to dirtying her pants)
b. ma kara? [Lior 1;09;16]
‘what happened?’
These formulaic questions correlate with the acquisition of the gender and number distinctions (AgrPrt) and lack of overt knowledge of Tns.
b. Non-formulaic questions with verbs inflected for gender & number
lama ata boxe? [Lior 1;11;00]
why you-sg-ms cry-sg-ms
'Why are you crying?'
This phase correlates with the use of Tns and to certain extent AgrS in the declarative sentences.
c. Productive use of questions with all inflections & null subject
a. ma asiti aba? [Lior 2;01;18]
what I-did Daddy
'what have I done, Daddy?'
b. ma samti? [Lior 2;01;18]
what I-put
'What did I put?'
d. Adult-like full questions
a. lama at lo kanit et ze?
why you-sg-fm not bought-2-sg-fm ACC it
‘Why didn’t you buy it?’ [Yuval 2;06]
b. ma hu lo hevi li?
what he not brought-3-sg-ms to-me
‘What didn’t he bring me?’ [Yuval 2;07]
Adultlike wh-questions are used just before complementizers are mastered.
Types of complex clauses
• Complement clauses – I want to drink, I know that she is late
• Coordinate clauses – I like juice and she likes water
• Adverbial clauses – I went to sleep when we got home
• Relative clauses – The man who Mary saw was funny
Preconjunctional subordinate clause (PSC)
a. roce Yuvali yiftax xashmal
want Yuvali will-open light
'I want that Yuvali will turn on the light' [Yuval 2;01;00]
a. *ze regel koevet lax
this foot-fm hurts-fm you
'This is the foot that hurts you' [Lior 1;10;08]
b. *ze shaon ose tuktuk
this clock does ticktock
'This is a clock that goes ticktock' [Leor 2;1]
Order of Acquisition
Order for English (Bloom et al 1980, Bowerman 1979)
1) Complement clauses – I want to drink, I know that she is late
2) Coordinate clauses – I like juice and she likes water
3) Adverbial clauses – I went to sleep when we got home
4) Relative clauses – The man who Mary saw was funny
Order for Hebrew ( Kaplan 1983, Dromi and Berman 1986)
1) Coordinate clauses
2) Subordination, complementation by an embedded question precedes complementation by a declarative sentential complement,
3) Adverbials clauses for causativity and then for temporality.
4) Relative clauses.
First Occurrence of the Three Types of Subordinate Clauses in Six Hebrew-Speaking Children.
| |Asaf |Hagar |Leor |Lior |Sivan |Smadar |
|Relative |2;1;10 |2;1;20 |2;2;05 |2;1;27 |1;11;2 |1;10;19 |
|Adverbial |2;1;10 |2;1;19 |2;2;25 |2;2;18 |2;3;12 |1;10;19 |
|Complement |2;2;28 |2;2;04 |2;2;11 |2;2;25 |2;2;18 |1;11;13 |
Relative clauses
The girli that John kissed ti is nice
• Relative clauses involve an A'-movement which yields coindexation of an NP in the main clause with a gap in the embedded clause, through an operator.
• The operator carries the theta-role of its trace/gap
• subject vs. object
• Some languages have resumptive pronouns in RCs
ha-yalda she dani nishek ota nexmada
the-girl that Dani kissed her nice
'The girl that Dani kissed is nice'
Types of relative clauses
• Subject RC
– The man who _ reads the book is my friend
– I saw the man who _ read my book
– האיש ש_קרא את הספר הוא ידידי
– פגשתי את האיש ש_קרא את הספר
• Object RC
– The man who David saw _ is my friend
– I met the man who David saw _
– האיש שדויד ראה _ הוא ידידי
– פגשתי את האיש שדויד ראה _
Comprehension of relative clauses by monolingual TD children (Sheldon 1974)
• Act-out task
– [The dog that __ jumps over the pig] bumps into the lion [SS]
– The dog stands on [the horse that the giraffe jumps over __] [OO]
– [The lion that the horse bumps into __ ] jumps over the giraffe [SO]
– The pig bumps into [the horse that __ jumps over the giraffe] [OS]
Findings
• SS & OO are easier than SO & OS
• Error in OS: The pig bumps into the horse and __ jumps over the giraffe (49%)
• Why?
Nonadult competence (Tavakolian 1981)
• Linear rather than hierarchical reading
• Problems: Continuity. Negative Evidence (How do children unlearn the structure? )
Adult competence + processing complexity (Goodluck & Tavakolian 1982)
• The errors are the outcome of the complexity of the relative clause
6. d’. The pig bumps into [the horse that __ hops up and down] [OS]
• Correct in 76%
Adult competence + pragmatic factors (Hamburger & Crain 1982)
• Felicity conditions - What is said should be appropriate for the goals of the conversation (Grice 1989)
• Relative clauses should be used only when there is a choice between two identical objects.
• A change in the original experiment: two horses ( 95% at age 5, 69% at age 3
Friedmann, N., & Lavi, H. (2006). On the order of acquisition of A-movement, Wh-movement and V-C movement. In A. Belletti, E. Bennati, C. Chesi, E. Di Domenico, & I. Ferrari (Eds.), Language acquisition and development (pp. 211-217). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press/CSP.
Subjects: 60 Hebrew speaking children aged 2;2-3;10: 21 children aged 2;2-2;9, 19 children aged 2;10-3;2, and 20 children aged 3;3-3;10.
Task: SR - 80 sentences (8 categories by syntactic complexity), 4 words.
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Findings
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"No correlation was found between repetition of any of the movement types and age (Rpb < 0.22 for all the sentences with movement), and no significant difference in repetition was detected between the three age groups: For example, a 2;3 year old girl succeeded in repeating all the V-C sentences, whereas a 3;10 boy failed in them. Two girls aged 2;5 succeeded in repeating Wh sentences, whereas 4 children aged 3;7 failed in them." (p. 214)
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