Week 2. The emergence of syntax

1
GRS LX 700Language Acquisition andLinguistic
Theory

• Week 2. The emergence of syntax

2
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 16)
• Marie go. (Sarah 23)
• Eve gone (Eve 16)
• Eve cracking nut. (Eve 17)
• Kitty hiding (210)
• Fraser not see him (Eve 20)

3
Eve talk funny

• This is recognizably related to English, and even
  comprehensible, but its 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,
  its kind of specific type of functional bit.

4
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), its still the functional
  part of the tree (vs. lexical).

5
Ah, yes. Short human, short tree.

• 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 clausesjust the VP,
  and the NP.
• Various people have run with this idea. For
  example, Radford, Vainikka.
• Structure building approach to acquisition of
  syntax.

6
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
  q-relation between them.
• VP Small Clause NP q V Hypothesis
  man V q NP chase car

7
Small Clause Hypothesis

• Adults CPIPVP
• Kids VP adult syntax ? child syntax
• 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.)

8
Small Clause Hypothesis

• Adults CPIPVP
• Kids VP adult syntax ? child syntax
• Absence of evidence for DP
• no non-q 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.
• See also Vainikka (1993/4) for a similar proposal.

9
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.
• Danishkøre bil driveinf car
• GermanThorstn das habn T that haveinf
• FrenchDormir petit bébé sleepinf little
  baby
• DutchEarst kleine boekje lezen first little
  book readinf
• Further evidence for missing functional
  projections?

10
Sleeps baby

• Well, but maybe not. At the very same time as
  theyre using these superfluously infinitive
  verbs, they are also using finite verbs.
• Well, yeah, sure, but they hear finite verbs. But
  they dont have the clause-structural support for
  it yet (so they dont know the verbs are finite
  or notthats information one gets from INFL).
  Its just that you can pronounce sleep either
  as dort (sleeps) or as dormir (sleep). Right?
  Yes?
• Well, its easy to check. See if they can tell
  the difference. See if they make errorsfinite
  verbs come in various kinds, do they use 1st
  person agreement when they should have used 3rd?

11
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.

12
Adult German

• Poeppel Wexler (1993). Data Andreas (21, 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.

13
German clause structure
CP
C?

• This second position is generally thought to be
  C, where something else (like the subject, or any
  other XP) needs to appear in SpecCP.
• This only happens with finite verbs. Nonfinite
  verbs remain at the end of the sentence (after
  the object).

DP
IP
CI
kaufte
Hans
I?


VP
V?

DP
den Ball
14
German clause structure
CP
C?

• Things other than subjects can appear in first
  position.
• When the tense appears on an auxiliary, the verb
  stays in place.

DP
IP
CI
hat
denBall
DP
I?
VP
Hans
V?
V

gekaufte
15
What to look forin 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 du das haben
• I do that not you that have

16
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
17
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?
VP
FV
Subject
V?


18
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 whats 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.

19
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.

20
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 weve 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.

21
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 PW 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
  itadults use IP for that.

22
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?

23
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 theres 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 CIV IP Subject VP neg/adv tSubj
  tV tI

24
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.)
• Whats happening when kids use an infinitive?

25
Harris Wexler (1996)

• Child English bare stems as OIs?
• In the present, only morphology is 3sg -s.
• Bare stem isnt 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 dont get inflection yet go and goes are
  basically homonyms.
• These are OIs, the -s is correlated with
  something systematic about the child syntax.

26
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 strandedThe
  verb -ed not move.
• Do is inserted to save T.
• Predicts No T, no do insertion.

27
Harris Wexler (1996)

• Empirically, we expect
• She go
• She goes
• She not go (no T, no do)
• She doesnt go (adult, T and do)
• but never
• She not goes (evidence of T, yet no do).
• Note All should be options if kids dont get
  inflection.

28
Harris Wexler (1996)

• Looked at 10 kids from 16 to 41
• 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.

29
Harris Wexler (1996)

• Affirmative
• 43 inflected
• Negative
• lt 10 inflected
• It not works Mom
• no N. has a microphone
• no goes in there
• but the horse not stand ups
• no goes here!

aff neg
-inflec 782 47
inflec 594 5
30
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-26
  group, 73 vs. 61 in the post-26 group.

31
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 past future
bare stem 771 128 39
-s 418 14 5
-ed 10 168 0
32
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 dont you think
  that he goes?
• Processing load? Extra load of not alleviated by
  leaving off the -s? If thats the case, wed
  expect never and not to behave the same wayin
  fact, never might be harder, just because its
  longer (and trigger more -s drops).

33
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.

34
An alternative to missing T

• Much of what weve 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 why modals?
• Second, they dont (always) seem to mean what
  they should if there is a null modal. 20/37 seem
  to be clearly non-modal (according to PW93).
• Thorsten Ball haben (T already has the ball)

35
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 occurnonfinite 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
  Theres no need to move anything to SpecCP if V
  remains unmoved. The subject remains first.

36
Modal drop

• Just to be sure (since the numbers are small),
  PW 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.

37
Subject case errors

• Various people have observed that kids learning
  English sometimes will use accusative subjects.
• It turns out that theres a kind of a correlation
  with the finiteness of the verb as well. Finite
  verbs go with nominative case, while nonfinite
  verbs seem to go with either nominative or
  accusative case.

38
Finiteness vs. case errors
Schütze Wexler (1996) Nina111-26 Schütze Wexler (1996) Nina111-26 Loeb Leonard (1991) 7 representative kids211-34 Loeb Leonard (1991) 7 representative kids211-34
subject Finite Nonfinite Finite Nonfinite
heshe 255 139 436 75
himher 14 120 4 28
non-Nom 5 46 0.9 27
39
EPP and missing INFL

• If there were just an IP, responsible for both
  NOM and tense, then they should go together (cf.
  IP grammar vs. VP grammar)
• Yet, there are many cases of root infinitives
  with NOM subjects.
• And, even ACC subjects seem to raise out of the
  VP over negation (me not go).
• We can understand this once we consider IP to be
  split into TP and AgrP tense and case are
  separated, but even one will still pull the
  subject up out of VP.

40
Syntax

• Recall the basic structure of adult sentences.
• IP (a.k.a. TP, INFLP, ) is the position of
  modals and auxiliaries, also assumed to be home
  of tense and agreement.
• CP is where wh-words move and where I moves in
  subject-aux-inversion

41
Splitting the INFL

• Syntax since 1986 has been more or less driven by
  the principle every separable functional element
  belongs in its own phrase.
• Various syntactic tests support these moves as
  well (cf. CAS LX 523).

42
Splitting the INFL

• Distinct syntactic functions assigned to distinct
  functional heads.
• T tense/modality
• AgrO object agreement, accusative case
• AgrS subject agreement, nominative case
• Neg negation
• Origins Pollock (1989) (split INFL into Agr and
  T), Chomsky (1993) (split INFL into AgrS, T,
  AgrO).

43
What to make of the case errors?

• Case is assumed to be the jurisdiction of AgrSP
  and AgrOP.
• So, nominative case can serve as an unambiguous
  signal that there is an AgrSP.
• Accusative case, conversely, may signal a missing
  AgrSP.

• Why are non-AgrSP subjects accusatives?
• Probably a default case in English
• Whos driving? Me. Me too. Its me.
• Other languages seem not to show this accusative
  subject error but also seem to have a nominative
  default (making an error undetectable).

44
ATOM

• Schütze Wexler propose a model of this in which
  the case errors are a result of being able to
  either omit AgrSP or Tense.
• For a subject to be in nominative case, AgrSP
  must be there (TPs presence is irrelevant).

• For a finite verb, both TP and AgrSP must be
  there. English inflection (3sg present s) relies
  on both. If one or the other is missing, well
  see an infinitive (i.e. bare stem).
• Thus, predicted finite (AgrSPTP) verbs show Nom
  (AgrSP), but only half of the nonfinite verbs
  (not both AgrSP and TP) show Nom (AgrSP). We
  should not see finiteAcc.

45
Agr/T Omission Model (ATOM)

• Adult clause structure AgrP NOMi Agr?
  Agr TP ti T ? T VP

46
ATOM

• Kiddie clause, missing TP (TNS) AgrP
  NOMi Agr? Agr VP

47
ATOM

• Kiddie clause, missing AgrP (AGR)
  TP ACC ? defaulti T ? T VP

48
Pronunciation of English

• TAgrS(V) is pronounced like
• /s/ if we have features3, sg, present
• /ed/ if we have the feature past
• Ø otherwise

• Layers of default, most specific first,
  followed by next most specific (Distributed
  Morphology, Halle Marantz 1993).
• Notice 3sg present s requires both TP and
  AgrSP, but past ed requires only TP (AgrSP might
  be missing, so we might expect some accusative
  subjects of past tense verbs).

49
One prediction of ATOM

• AGRTNS NOM with inflected verb (-s)
• AGRTNS NOM with bare verb
• AGRTNS default (ACC) with bare verb
• AGRTNS GEN with bare verb(the GEN case was
  not discussed by Wexler 1998, but see Schütze
  Wexler 1996)
• Nothing predicts Acc with inflected verb.

50
Finite goes with nominative subjects.
Schütze Wexler (1996) Nina111-26 Schütze Wexler (1996) Nina111-26 Loeb Leonard (1991) 7 representative kids211-34 Loeb Leonard (1991) 7 representative kids211-34
subject Finite Nonfinite Finite Nonfinite
heshe 255 139 436 75
himher 14 20 4 28
non-Nom 5 46 0.9 27
51
ATOM and morphology

• 3sg pres -s
• past -ed
• Ø
• masc 3sg nomplay3sgpres
• he plays.
• 2sg nomplay2sg past
• you play.
• But is this knowledge built-in? Hint no.

• masc, 3sg, nom he
• masc, 3sg, gen his
• masc, 3sg him
• fem, 3sg, nom she
• fem, 3sg her
• 1sg, nom I
• 1sg, gen my
• 1sg me
• 2, gen your
• 2 you

52
ATOM and morphology

• What if the child produces a lot of utterances
  like
• her sleeping
• her play
• and even
• her sleeps
• her goes to school
• but never uses the word she?

• ATOM predicts that agreement and nominative case
  should correlate.
• So does this childs use of her goes to school
  mean ATOM is wrong?

53
Schütze (2001, inter alia)

• No.
• Her goes to school is not necessarily a
  counterexample to ATOM (although it is a
  candidate).
• Morphology must be learned and is
  crosslinguistically variable.
• She is known to emerge rather late compared to
  other pronouns.

• If the kid thinks her is the nominative feminine
  3sg pronoun, her goes to school is perfectly
  consistent with ATOM.
• Hence, we should really only count heragr
  correlations from kids who have demonstrated that
  they know she.

54
ATOM and morphology

• Morphology (under Distributed Morphology) is a
  system of defaults.
• The most specified form possible is used.
• Adult English specifies her as a feminine 3sg
  pronoun, and she as a nominative feminine 3sg
  pronoun.
• If the kid doesnt know she, the result will be
  that all feminine 3sg pronouns will come out as
  her. Thats just how you pronounce nominative 3sg
  feminine, if youre the kid.
• Just like adult you.

• masc, 3sg, nom he
• masc, 3sg, gen his
• masc, 3sg him
• fem, 3sg, nom she
• fem, 3sg her
• 1sg, nom I
• 1sg, gen my
• 1sg me
• 2, gen your
• 2 you

55
Rispoli (2002, inter alia)

• Rispoli has a proposal about her-errors.
• Pronoun morphology is organized into tables
  (paradigms) basically, where each form has a
  certain weight.
• When a kid is trying to pronounce a pronoun, s/he
  attempts to find the entry in the table and
  pronounce it.

• The kids success in finding the form is affected
  by gravity. Heavier forms are more likely to
  be picked when accessing the table, even if its
  not quite the right form. If its close and its
  heavy, itll win out a lot of the time.
• Her by virtue of being both acc and gen is
  extra-heavy, and pulls the kid in fairly often.

56
Her plays

• ATOM and Rispoli make different predictions with
  respect to her plays.
• ATOM says it should never happen (up to simple
  performance error)
• Rispoli says case errors are independent of
  agreement, her plays is perfectly possible, even
  expected.

• Rispolis critique of Schützes studies
• Excluding kids who happen not to produce she in
  the transcript under evaluation is not good
  enough. The assumption is that this learning is
  monotonic, so if the kid ever used she
  (productively) in the past, the her errors should
  not be excluded.

57
Monotonicity

• Schütze assumes that use of she is a matter of
  knowledge of she. Once the kid knows it, and
  given that the adult version of the kid will know
  it, its there, for good.
• Rispoli claims that the weight of she can
  fluctuate, so that it could be known but
  mis-retrieved later if her becomes too heavy.

• Rispoli (2002) set out to show that there is a
  certain amount of yo-yoing in the production
  of she.
• Well focus on Nina, for whom we can get the data.

58
Nina she vs. her

• Rispolis counts show Nina using she from
  basically the outset of her use of pronouns, and
  also shows a decrease of use of she at 25.

she her
2213-15 24 4396
2316-19 18 1292
2420-23 114 686
2524-31 79 7391
59
Ninas early shes

• 22
• CHI she have hug a lady .
• CHI she have jamas_at_f on .
• 23
• MOT does she like it ?
• CHI she drink apple juice .
• CHI her like apple juice .
• 24
• MOT he's up there ?
• CHI no she's not up there .
• CHI he's up there .

• These are the times when Nina used she (twice at
  22, once at 23, once at 24).
• Rispoli found 7 at 25, well deal with them
  later.

60
What if we include early files in evaluating ATOM?

• 22
• CHI helping her have a yellow blanket .
• MOT she has a yellow blanket ?
• CHI yeah yes .
• CHI her's ok .
• CHI her ok .
• MOT she's ok ?
• CHI ok .
• CHI her's ok .
• CHI her ok .
• CHI her's ok .
• MOT she's ok .

• These three and one other time Nina said hers ok
  are the only candidate counterexamples at 22.
• At 22, 45 herbare verb.
• (R got 43, possibly including hers ok)
• At 23, no candidate counterexamples, 14 herbare
  verbs.
• (R got 12)
• At 24 none, 7 herbare.
• (R got 6)

61
Including early files?

• MOT what happened when I shampooed Miriam
  yesterday ?
• CHI her was cried .
• MOT oh there's the dolly's bottle .
• CHI her's not going to drink it .
• MOT I'll start washing it .
• MOT see how clean it comes ?
• MOT you want to use the pot ?
• CHI a little bit .
• CHI her don't .
• CHI her's not dirty .
• CHI not dirty .

• 25
• I found about 76 herbare/past verbs.
• I found 3 potential counterexamples.

62
Bottom line?

• It doesnt seem like anything was particularly
  affected, even if Ninas early files were fully
  included.
• The number of possible counterexamples seems well
  within the performance error range.

• The point about variation in usage of she is
  valid, worth being aware of the assumptions and
  being sure were testing the right things.
• Rispoli made the point that if wed accidentally
  missed a she in the early files, we might have
  excluded counterexamples there. Yet, even
  including everything, the asymmetry is strong.

63
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.

64
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)

65
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).

66
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 arent learning the parameters?
• KW Certain (very specific, it turns out)
  properties of the grammar mature.

67
Root infinitives vs. time

• The timing on root infinitives is pretty robust,
  ending around 3 years old.

68
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

69
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 GeneralizationChildren in a
  language go through an OI stage iff the language
  is not an INFL-licensed null subject language.

70
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.

71
NS/OI and Hebrew(Rhee Wexler 1995) of RIs
kids up to 111 1/2 past/fut (NS) else (non-NS)
null subjects 0 (of 21) 32 (36/112)
overt subjects 0 (of 6) 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)
72
Where we are

• There is evidence that children around the age of
  2
• Allow nonfinite verbs in main clausesin non-NS
  languages.
• Differentiate between the syntax of finite and
  nonfinite verb forms.
• Show evidence from word order of functional
  structure above the VP.
• Subject case and do-support suggest that TP/AgrP
  can be missing from the child representations.

73
Proposals concerning TP/AgrP

• Wexler (1998) Unique Checking Constraint.
• For adults, subjects need to check a feature both
  on T and on Agr. For kids, only one is possible
  (so either T or Agr must be left out, or UCC must
  be violated).
• Predicts NS/OI. Other reflexes, perhaps object
  shift in Korean.
• Rizzi (1993/4) Truncation.
• Adults know that CProot. Kids dont, so they
  will sometimes stop early.
• Predicts If TP is missing, so is CP.
• Legendre et al. (2000) Like UCC, within OT.

74
Implementing the UCC

• The basic idea In adult clauses, the subject
  needs to move both to SpecTP and (then) to
  SpecAgrP.
• This needs to happen because T needs something
  in its specifier (EPP) and so does Agr.
• The subject DP can solve the problem for both T
  and for Agrfor an adult.

75
Implementing ATOM

• Implementation For adults
• T needs a D feature.
• Agr needs a D feature.
• The subject, happily, has a D feature.
• The subject moves to SpecTP, takes care of Ts
  need for a D feature (the subject checks the D
  feature on T). The T feature loses its need for a
  D feature, but the subject still has its D
  feature (the subject is still a DP).
• The subject moves on, to take care of Agr.

76
Implementing ATOM

• Implementation For kids
• Everything is the same except that the subject
  can only solve one problem before quitting. It
  loses its D feature after helping out either T
  or Agr.
• Kids are constrained by the Unique Checking
  Constraint that says subjects (or their D
  features) can only check another feature once.
• So the kids are in a bind.

77
Implementing ATOM

• Kids in a pickle The only options open to the
  kids are
• Leave out TP (keep AgrP, the subject can solve
  Agrs problem alone). Result nonfinite verb, nom
  case.
• Leave out AgrP (keep TP, the subject can solve
  Ts problem alone). Result nonfinite verb,
  default case.
• Violate the UCC (let the subject do both things
  anyway). Result finite verb, nom case.
• No matter which way you slice it, the kids have
  to do something wrong. At that point, they
  choose randomly (but cf. Legendre et al.)

78
Minimalist terminology

• Features come in two relevant kinds
  interpretable and uninterpretable.
• Either kind of feature can be involved in a
  checkingonly interpretable features survive.
• The game is to have no uninterpretable features
  left at the end.
• T needs a D means T has an uninterpretable D
  feature and the subject (with its normally
  interpretable D feature) comes along and the
  two features check, the interpretable one
  survives. UCCD uninterpretable on subjects?

79
Are kids really UG-constrained?

• So, arent TP and AgrSP required by UG? Doesnt
  this mean kids dont have UG-compliant trees?
• Actually, perhaps no. UG requires that all
  features be checked, but it isnt clear that
  there is a UG principle that requires a TP and an
  AgrP in every clause.

80
Are kids really UG-constrained?

• Perhaps what requires TP and AgrP are principles
  of (pragmatic) interpretation
• You need TP so that your sentence is anchored
  in the discourse.
• You need AgrSP why? Well, perhaps something
  parallel? Wexler doesnt really say
• Regardless, kids can check all the
  uninterpretable features even without TP or
  AgrSP hence, they can still be considered to be
  UG-constrained.

81
NS/OI via UCC

• An old idea about NS languages is that they arise
  in languages where Infl is rich enough to
  identify the subject.
• Maybe in NS languages, AgrS does not need a D (it
  may in some sense be nouny enough to say that it
  is, or already has, D).
• If AgrS does not need a D, the subject is free to
  check off Ts D-feature and be done.

82
Is there any way to see the effects of UCC even
in NS languages?

• Italian Mary has laughed.
• Suppose that auxiliaries (like have) also have a
  D-feature to be checked as the subject (in the
  adult language) passes through.
• Not crazy (All) the students (all) have (all)
  left.
• UCC-constrained kids will have to drop something
  (the auxiliary or T), even in Italian.
• Lyons (1997) reports that a substantial
  proportion of auxiliaries are omitted in OI-age
  Italian.
• Ok, maybe. Consistent, anyway.

83
One open question

• The UCC says you can only use a D-feature on a DP
  to check against a functional category once.
• This explains why sometimes TP is omitted
  (keeping AgrSP) and sometimes AgrSP is omitted
  (keeping TP).
• but if GEN infin. comes from omitting both TP and
  AgrSP, what could ever cause that (particularly
  given Minimize Violations)?

84
One adult result

• If the UCC/ATOM approach is right, this is one of
  the only places where we might actually have
  evidence that both TP and AgrSP (exist and)
  require the subject to move through their
  specifiers. Generally, its hard to tell in the
  adult syntax whether its just one or the other.

85
Rizzi and truncated trees

• Rizzi (1993/4) Kids lack the CProot axiom.
• The result (of not having CProot) is that kids
  are allowed to have truncated structurestrees
  that look like adult trees with the tops chopped
  off.
• Importantly The kids dont just leave stuff
  outthey just stop the tree early. So, if the
  kid leaves out a functional projection, s/he
  leaves out all higher XPs as well.

86
Truncation lt TP lt CP

• If kid selects anything lower than TP as the
  root, the result is a root infinitivewhich can
  be as big as any kind of XP below TP in the
  structure.
• Note in particular, though, it cant be a CP.
• So we expect that evidence of CP will correlate
  with finite verbs.

87
Truncation TP lt AgrSP

• Pierce (1989) looking at French observed that
  there are almost no root infinitives with subject
  cliticsthis is predicted if these clitics are
  instances of subject agreement in AgrS if there
  is no TP, there can be no AgrSP.

88
Truncation TP ltgt 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
  isFrench 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
  infinitivesbut further study could lead to a
  theoretical result of this sort about the adult
  languages.

89
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.

90
Truncation? Where train go?

• Truncation predicts If TP is missing, then CP
  should be missing.
• But Bromberg Wexler (1995) observe that bare
  verbs do appear in wh-questions in child English.
  Wh-questions implicate CP, bare verbs implicate
  something missing (TP or AgrP). So, truncation
  cant be right.
• Guasti notes that although the logic here works,
  English is weird in this respect pretty much all
  other languages do accord with the prediction.

91
Theories of missing structure

• No functional projections. (Radford) Kids dont
  have any functional projections (TP, CP, and so
  forth). This comes later. No TP, no tense
  distinction.
• Structure building. (Vainikka, Guilfoyle
  Noonan) Kids start with no functional projections
  and gradually increase their functional structure.

92
Theories of missing structure

• ATOM (Full competence). (Wexler, ) Kids have
  access to all of the functional structure and
  have a very specific problem with tense and
  agreement that sometimes causes them to leave one
  out.
• Truncation. (Rizzi) Like structure building but
  without the time coursekids have access to all
  of the functional structure but they dont
  realize that sentences need to be CPs, so they
  sometimes stop early.

93
Legendre et al. (2000)

• Wexler During OI stage, kids sometimes omit T,
  and sometimes omit Agr. Based on a choice of
  which to violate, the requirement to have T, to
  have Agr, to have only one.
• (cf. Kids in a pickle slide)
• Legendre et al. Looking at development (of
  French), it appears that the choice of what to
  omit is systematic we propose a system to
  account for (predict) the proportion of the time
  kids omit T, Agr, both, neither, in progressive
  stages of development.

94
Optimality Theory

• Legendre et al. (2000) is set in the Optimality
  Theory framework (often seen in phonology, less
  often seen applied to syntax).
• Grammar is a system of ranked and violable
  constraints

95
Optimality Theory

• In our analysis, one constraint is Parse-T, which
  says that tense must be realized in a clause. A
  structure without tense (where TP has been
  omitted, say) will violate this constraint.
• Another constraint is F (Dont have a
  functional category). A structure with TP will
  violate this constraint.

96
Optimality Theory

• Parse-T and F are in conflictit is impossible
  to satisfy both at the same time.
• When constraints conflict, the choice made (on a
  language-particular basis) of which constraint is
  considered to be more important (more highly
  ranked) determines which constraint is satisfied
  and which must be violated.

97
Optimality Theory

• So if F gtgt Parse-T, TP will be omitted.
• and if Parse-T gtgt F, TP will be included.

98
Optimality Theory

• Grammar involves constraints on the
  representations (e.g., SS, LF, PF, or perhaps a
  combined representation).
• The constraints exist in all languages.
• Where languages differ is in how important each
  constraint is with respect to each other
  constraint.

99
Optimality Theory big picture

• Universal Grammar is the constraints that
  languages must obey.
• Languages differ only in how those constraints
  are ranked relative to one another. (So,
  parameter ranking)
• The kids job is to re-rank constraints until
  they match the order which generated the input
  that s/he hears.

100
Legendre et al. (2000)

• Proposes a system to predict the proportions of
  the time kids choose the different options among
• Omit TP
• Omit AgrSP
• Omit both TP and AgrSP
• Include both TP and AgrSP (violating UCC)

101
French v. English

• English TAgr is pronounced like
• /s/ if we have features 3, sg, present
• /ed/ if we have the feature past
• /Ø/ otherwise
• French TAgr is pronounced like
• danser NRF
• a dansé (3sg) past
• je danse 1sg (present)
• jai dansé 1sg past

102
The idea

• Kids are subject to conflicting constraints
• Parse-T Include a projection for tense
• Parse-Agr Include a project for agreement
• F Dont complicate your tree with functional
  projections
• F2 Dont complicate your tree so much as to
  have two functional projections.

103
The idea

• Sometimes Parse-T beats out F, and then theres
  a TP. Or Parse-Agr beats out F, and then theres
  an AgrP. Or both Parse-T and Parse-Agr beat out
  F2, and so theres both a TP and an AgrP.
• But what does sometimes mean?

104
Floating constraints

• The innovation in Legendre et al. (2000) that
  gets us off the ground is the idea that as kids
  re-rank constraints, the position of the
  constraint in the hierarchy can get somewhat
  fuzzy, such that two positions can
  overlap. F Parse-T

105
Floating constraints

• F Parse-T
• When the kid evaluates a form in the constraint
  system, the position of Parse-T is fixed
  somewhere in the rangeand winds up sometimes
  outranking, and sometimes outranked by, F.

106
Floating constraints

• F Parse-T
• (Under certain assumptions) this predicts that we
  would see TP in the structure 50 of the time,
  and see structures without TP the other 50 of
  the time.

107
French kid data

• Looked at 3 French kids from CHILDES
• Broke development into stages based on a modified
  MLU-type measure based on how long most of their
  utterances were (2 words, more than 2 words) and
  how many of the utterances contain verbs.
• Looked at tense and agreement in each of the
  three stages represented in the data.

108
French kid data

• Kids start out using 3sg agreement and present
  tense for practically everything (correct or
  not).
• We took this to be a default
• (No agreement? Pronounce it as 3sg. No tense?
  pronounce it as present. Neither? Pronounce it as
  an infinitive.).

109
French kid data

• This means if a kid uses 3sg or present tense, we
  cant tell if they are really using 3sg (they
  might be) or if they are not using agreement at
  all and just pronouncing the default.
• So, we looked at non-present tense forms and
  non-3sg forms only to avoid the question of the
  defaults.

110
French kids data

• We found that tense and agreement develop
  differentlyspecifically, in the first stage we
  looked at, kids were using tense fine, but then
  in the next stage, they got worse as the
  agreement improved.
• Middle stage looks likecompetition between
  Tand Agr for a single node.

111
A detail about counting

• We counted non-3sg and non-present verbs.
• In order to see how close kids utterances were
  to adults utterances, we need to know how often
  adults use non-3sg and non-present, and then see
  how close the kids are to matching that level.
• So, adults use non-present tense around 31 of
  the timeso when a kid uses 31 non-present
  tense, we take that to be 100 success
• In the last stage we looked at, kids were
  basically right at the 100 success level for
  both tense and agreement.

112
Proportion of non-present and non-3sg verbs
113
Proportion of non-finite root forms
114
A model to predict the percentages

• Stage 3b (first stage)
• no agreement
• about 1/3 NRFs, 2/3 tensed forms F2 FParse
  T ParseA

115
A model to predict the percentages

• Stage 4b (second stage)
• non-3sg agreement and non-present tense each
  about 15 (about 40 agreeing, 50 tensed)
• about 20 NRFs F2 FParseT ParseA

116
A model to predict the percentages

• Stage 4c (third stage)
• everything appears to have tense and agreement
  (adult-like levels) F2 FParseT ParseA

117
Predicted vs. observedtense
118
Predicted vs. observedagrt
119
Predicted vs. observedNRFs
120
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