Showing papers in "Language Acquisition in 1990"
TL;DR: The authors observe how children learn languages and find that to make them understand what the names of simple ideas or substances stand for, people ordinarily show them the thing whereof they would have them have the idea; and then repeat to them the name that stands for it, as 'white','sweet','milk','sugar', 'cat', 'dog'.
Abstract: If we will observe how children learn languages, we will find that, to make them understand what the names of simple ideas or substances stand for, people ordinarily show them the thing whereof they would have them have the idea; and then repeat to them the name that stands for it, as 'white', 'sweet', 'milk', 'sugar', 'cat', 'dog'.
1,378 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that children do not accept a local antecedent for a pronoun that is a bound variable, but do not know a relevant pragmatic principle, not the syntactic Principle B.
Abstract: We report three experiments concerning English-speaking children's knowledge of locality conditions in the binding of reflexives and pronouns (Principles A and B). The children tested were between the ages of 2;6 and 6;6. By age 6, children know that a reflexive must be locally bound. At the same age, however, they appear to not know that a pronoun may not be locally bound. We suggest that children are missing a pragmatic principle, not the syntactic Principle B. This hypothesis predicts that children will not accept a local antecedent for a pronoun that is a bound variable. Experiment 4 confirms this prediction. We conclude that children know the grammatical principles of binding but do not know a relevant pragmatic principle. We suggest that such dissociation in children might be a useful tool in the study of linguistic theory.
487 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, three constraints are discussed that restrict the class of possible parameters and the way they are fixed in development, and empirical results on the acquisition of subject-verb agreement, verb placement, empty subjects, and negation in German child language are presented.
Abstract: In the first part of this article, it is argued that in order to improve the parameter model as a theory of acquisition it has to be constrained in several ways. Three constraints are discussed that restrict the class of possible parameters and the way they are fixed in development. In the second part, empirical results on the acquisition of subject-verb agreement, verb placement, empty subjects, and negation in German child language are presented. I suggest a grammatical analysis for these data (in terms of the Split-Infl Hypothesis) that allows us to maintain the learnability constraints from the beginning.
253 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the effects of instruction on parameter resetting in second language acquisition, where the first and second language (French and English, respectively) differ as to the settings they adopt for verb movement.
Abstract: This article investigates effects of instruction on parameter resetting in second language acquisition, where the first and second language (French and English, respectively) differ as to the settings they adopt for verb movement (Pollock, 1989). The question addressed is whether instruction on one of a cluster of properties associated with lack of verb movement in English (i.e., question formation) generalizes to another property associated with lack of movement (i.e., adverb placement). A total of 138 francophone learners of English as a second language (ages 10-12) were exposed to two different conditions, being instructed either on English adverb placement or on question formation. Subjects were tested on their knowledge of adverb placement using three different tasks. They were tested prior to instruction, immediately after instruction, and again after a delay of 5 weeks. Results show clear differences between the groups; only the subjects instructed on adverbs came to know the restrictions on adverb...
208 citations
TL;DR: This paper found evidence that developmental dysphasia results from a deficit in marking a specific class of linguistic features, which is not a perceptual problem or any general cognitive problem in representing hierarchical relationships, but rather appears to be a specifically linguistic problem.
Abstract: This article provides evidence that supports the hypothesis that developmental dysphasia results from a deficit in marking a specific class of linguistic features. The data show that this deficit is not the result of a perceptual problem or any general cognitive problem in representing hierarchical relationships, but rather appears to be a specifically linguistic problem. Moreover, it is not a deficit that affects all parts of language equally. Syntacficosemantic features are affected, whereas some other language processes, like thematic relations in simple sentences, are unimpaired. Because these features are absent, morphophonemic rules and rules that match features in the syntax are also absent. The fact that the same errors are found in all manifestations of language-spontaneous speech, grammatical judgment, repetition, and writing-supports the hypothesis that the deficit is in the underlying grammar rather than merely a problem of performance. Data from a wide range of features (including number, per...
205 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that up to at least 6 years of age, French-speaking children, although they do have WH-movement in questions, show no evidence of having a WHmovement strategy for constructing relative, clauses.
Abstract: French is generally considered to be fundamentally identical to English with respect to relative clause formation. However, I show that up to at least 6 years of age, French-speaking children, although they do have WH-movement in questions, show no evidence of having a WH-movement strategy for constructing relative, clauses. This contrasts with English-speaking children, who seem to acquire WH-movement in relative clauses relatively early. As noted by various researchers, children of 4 and 5 years of age produce relatives headed by the WH word what (The dog what bit him) in areas where the local dialect does not have what as a relative pronoun (cf. Flynn & Lust, 1980; Goodluck, personal communication, February 1988; Menyuk, 1969).
133 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that children over the age of 6 knew that he could not refer to Pluto in sentence (1), whereas 77% of their 5-year-olds allowed coreference in such sentences, in violation of Principle C.
Abstract: Principle C of the binding theory says that names must be free in all domains. It entails that a pronoun may not c-command its referent (Reinhart, 1976). C. Chomsky (1969) was probably the first to investigate this principle in acquisition. With two exceptions, the children in her study over the age of 6 knew that he could not refer to Pluto in sentence (1), whereas 77% of her 5-year-olds allowed coreference in such sentences, in violation of Principle C.
113 citations
TL;DR: This article investigated the binding properties of anaphors and pronouns in the early grammars of English-speaking children and found that the binding theory is a parametrized system.
Abstract: The development of lexical anaphors and pronouns and the binding conditions that govern the relationship of these elements to their anteced? ents have been a prominent area of language acquisition research in recent years. There have been numerous experimental studies of binding in the early grammars of English-speaking children (Jakubowicz, 1984; McDaniel, Cairns, & Hsu, 1987; Otsu, 1981; Wexler & Chien, 1985; among others). More recently, there have been a number of studies of children acquiring languages other than English. Of particular interest are those languages with binding properties that are distinct from English, such as Chinese (Chien & Wexler, 1987b), Korean (Lee & Wexler, 1987), and Danish (Jakubowicz & Olsen, 1988). The acquisition studies have proceeded in tandem with research on binding in adult languages. Recent investigation of the binding properties of anaphors and pronouns across a number of different languages strongly suggests that the binding theory (Chomsky, 1981) is a parametrized system (Johnson, 1984; Wexler & Manzini, 1987; Yang, 1984; and others). Although the precise nature of the parametrization is open to some debate, the empirical facts seem to show, among other things, that there are
87 citations
TL;DR: The authors conducted two studies investigating the status of control principles in children's grammars and found some children with a grammar type in which PRO has arbitrary reference, as well as children with the grammar types previously attested in the literature.
Abstract: We conducted two studies investigating the status of control principles in children's grammars. In the first, 20 children ranging in age from 3;9 to 5;4 acted out and gave judgments on sentences containing control in complement and adverbial clauses. We found some children with a grammar type in which PRO has arbitrary reference, as well as children with the grammar types previously attested in the literature. We also found some children whose grammars apparently had a conference requirement for adverbial clauses, causing pronouns to behave like PRO in such constructions. The second study longitudinally explored the findings of the first with 14 children, initially aged 4;1 to 4;10. The results of the second study comported with and elaborated on those of the first. We attempt to characterize the children's grammar types in terms of Universal Grammar and to account for how the grammar types change.
54 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, an account of the acquisition of subject-auxiliary inversion is provided, and it is shown that principles derived from linguistic and learnability theory to solve the logical problem of acquisition are sufficient to explain the developmental sequence associated with this construction.
Abstract: An account of the acquisition of subject-auxiliary inversion is provided. We show that principles derived from linguistic and learnability theory to solve the logical problem of acquisition are sufficient to explain the developmental sequence associated with this construction. The fact that some children learn features of this construction at the same time, whereas others learn the same features at different points in development, is shown to be a problem for the Maturation Hypothesis of Borer and Wexler (1987).
47 citations
TL;DR: This paper present an analysis of the syntax of nominal arguments in the early patterned speech of young children natively acquiring English and show that early child nominals are purely lexical projections of nouns into noun phrases and thus lack adult functional projections of determiners into determiner phrases.
Abstract: This article presents an analysis of the syntax of nominal arguments in the early patterned speech of young children natively acquiring English. The overall hypothesis is that the earliest syntactic structures they produce are purely thematic and lexical. Consequently, the earliest nominals produced by young children are thematic in nature, lacking nonthematic constituents like expletive pronouns and nonthematic prepositions. This assumption accounts for the nonacquisition of referential and possessive determiners. I further maintain that early child nominals are purely lexical projections of nouns into noun phrases and thus lack adult functional projections of determiners into determiner phrases (DPs). Child nominals also lack the adult case and binding properties of DPs and so are caseless, unindexed noun phrases. Taken together, these assumptions provide a principled account of the absence of nominal movement chains in early child English. I examine several possible explanations for the lexical-themati...