Week 12. Acquirers and questions

1
GRS LX 700Language Acquisition andLinguistic
Theory

• Week 12.Acquirers and questions

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Question formation

• Perhaps one of the most syntacticky things in
  language is the formation of questions.
• Often involves pretty dramatic word order
  changes.
• Word order changes vary from language to
  language.
• Subtle restrictions on what is and isnt a
  possible question.
• So, its a interesting place to look to assess
  the state of childrens knowledge of language

3
English

• English
• What will John buy? Where did John go?
• Who bought crêpes?
• What did John laugh after Mary ate?
• Move a wh-word to the front
• But you cant move out of an island, such
  questions are impossible to form.
• Invert the auxiliary and the subject
• Unless the wh-word was the subject
• And insert do if there was no auxiliary

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Language

• Wh-movement
• None Japanese, Korean, Chinese (French)
• One English, French, Spanish
• All Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian
• Restrictions
• Wh-islands (English, Japanese)
• Adjunct islands (English, Bulgarian)
• Left branch islands (English, not Hungarian)
• Who do you think __s flower fell off?
• Whose do you think flower fell off?

5
SAI

• Subject-auxiliary inversion is descriptively a
  pretty complex thing
• What should I eat?
• How come I should eat that?
• I know what I should eat.
• Who should eat that?

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Stromswold 1990, table 5.2
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Kuczaj Maratsos (1983)

• Kids seem to learn auxiliaries one by one they
  appear at different times.

Form Abe Abe Ben Ben
Form Uninv Inv Uninv Inv
can 25 211 26 210
is (cop) 27 31 24 28
are (cop) 29 30 27 210
is (aux) 30 30 27 31
are (aux) 30 31 210 30
will 30 31 210 210
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Kuczaj Maratsos (1983)

• Each auxiliary seems be first used outside of
  inversion contexts, only later in inversions

Form Abe Abe Ben Ben
Form Uninv Inv Uninv Inv
can 25 211 26 210
is (cop) 27 31 24 28
are (cop) 29 30 27 210
is (aux) 30 30 27 31
are (aux) 30 31 210 30
will 30 31 210 210
9
Kuczaj Maratsos (1983)

• Only correctly inverted verbs (auxiliaries)
  appear in child speech (no inversion of main
  verbs)

Form Abe Abe Ben Ben
Form Uninv Inv Uninv Inv
can 25 211 26 210
is (cop) 27 31 24 28
are (cop) 29 30 27 210
is (aux) 30 30 27 31
are (aux) 30 31 210 30
will 30 31 210 210
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A famous non-result SAI in YNQs before SAI in
whQs

• Adam At a certain point, inversion appears in
  yes-no questionsbut inversion with wh-questions
  is still infrequent. Soon afterwards, inversion
  is frequent for both types of questions.
• Bellugi (1971)

YNQs YNQs WhQs WhQs
Inv Uninv Inv Uninv
30 0 1 0 3
35 198 7 9 22
38 33 5
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Stromswold (1990, table 5.5) of inversion WHQ
vs.YNQ
Child WH YN Child WH YN
Adam 88.3 96.6 Nathan 60.1 46.2
Allison 85.7 100 Nina 98.5 93.9
April 91.7 94.1 Peter 92.1 98.5
Eve 95.5 87.2 Ross 99.3 97
Mark 97.9 97.6 Sarah 92.9 91.9
Naomi 96.2 94.2 Shem 95.6 79
MEAN 93 93.7
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Guasti, Thornton, and Wexler (1995)

• Elicited negative questions
• I heard the snail doesnt like some things to
  eat. Ask him what.
• There was one place Gummi Bear couldnt eat the
  raisin. Ask the snail where.
• One of these guys doesnt like cheese. Ask the
  snail who.
• I heard that the snail doesnt like potato chips.
  Could you ask him if he doesnt?

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GTW (1995)

• 10 monolingual English speaking kids between 38
  and 47.
• Kids got positive questions right for the most
  part.
• 88 of kids wh-questions had inversion
• 96 of kids yes-no questions had inversion
• Except youngest kid (38), who had inversion only
  42 of the time.
• Kids got negative declaratives right without
  exception, with do-support and clitic nt.

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GTW (1995)

• Kids got lots of negative wh-questions wrong.
• Aux-doubling
• What kind of bread do you dont like? (310)
• Neg Aux doubling
• Why cant she cant go underneath? (40)
• No I to C raising (inversion)
• Where he couldnt eat the raisins? (40)
• Not structure
• Why can you not eat chocolate? (41)

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GTW (1995)

• But kids got negative subject wh-questions right.
• which one doesnt like his hair messed up? (40)
• as well as how-come questions.
• How come the dentist cant brush all the teeth?
  (42)
• Re Not structure
• Why can you not eat chocolate? (41)
• Kids only do this with object and adjunct
  wh-questionsif kids just sometimes prefer not
  instead of nt, we would expect them to use it
  just as often with subject wh-questions.

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GTW (1995)

• So, in sum
• Kids get positive questions right
• Kids get negative declaratives right
• Kids get negative subject questions right.
• Kids get negative how-come questions right.
• Kids make errors in negative wh-questions where
  inversion is required. Where inversion isnt
  required (or where the sentence isnt negative),
  theyre fine.

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GTW (1995)

• The kids errors all seem to have the character
  of keeping negation inside the IP.
• What did he didnt wanna bring to school? (41)
• What she doesnt want for her witchs brew? (38)
• Why can you not eat chocolate? (41)
• Why cant she cant go underneath? (43)
• GTW propose that this is a legitimate option
  citing Paduan (Italian dialect) as a language
  doesnt allow neg-gtC.

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Paduan

• Cosa galo fato?What has-she doneWhat has she
  done?
• Cosa nol ga fatoWhat NEG-he has done(What
  hasnt he done?)
• Cosa no galo fato?What neg has-he done(What
  hasnt he done?)
• Cosa ze che nol ga fato?What is that NEG-he has
  doneWhat hasnt he done?

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GTW (1995)

• Re subject and how come questions
• In a subject question, we dont know that the
  subject wh-word got out of IPmaybe kids left it
  in IP heck, maybe even adults do.
• Who left?
• Who did leave?
• How come questions dont require SAI in the adult
  language./?
• How come John left?
• How come did John leave?

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Auxless questions

• Guasti (2002) discusses questions like
• Where Daddy go? (Adam 23)
• What I doing? (Eve 20)
• By making some assumptions (inherited from
  Rizzi), Guasti finds these problematic.
  Wh-movement requires SAI, so what moved to C?
• Specifically, wh-movement depends on SAI, which
  happens because wh starts on T and must move
  to C so it can be in a Spec-head relation with
  the wh-word in SpecCP. Also subject questions
  need no inversion on this story.

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Auxless questions

• Auxless questions are relatively common among
  wh-questions in the 2-4 age range.
• Guasti/Rizzis suggestion An auxiliary at the
  head of the root can be null (similar to the null
  subject story). For adults, the head of the root
  is ForceP, but for kids it might be lower (FocP,
  where wh-words go).
• Kids who might otherwise say What I doing? will
  nevertheless not say Who laughing?. Subject
  wh-questions seem immune from auxiliary drop.
• The Guasti/Rizzi explanation is pretty contrived,
  actually. The aux need not proceed as high as
  FocP for subject questions, so it ends up not
  being highest.
• Not really any clear alternative, though

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Early, early wh-questions

• There may be an early formulaic stage where
  kids ask questions by just asking Wh(s) NP?.
• OGrady (1997) Because of their formulaic
  character, it seems reasonable to treat these
  utterances as instantiations of a simple template
  rather than the product of whatever mechanism
  forms wh-questions in the adult grammar.
• But why? We already have lots of reason to think
  young kids know a lot about adult grammar by
  then What is simpler about a simple template?

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Wh-subjects and wh-objects

• Is there a difference in the timing of emergence
  between subject wh-questions and object
  wh-questions? In English, there is an apparent
  difference in complexity (distance of movement,
  SAI).

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Early, early, early wh-questions

• Seidl and Hollich (2003) looked at headturn
  preferences in really young kids.
• Minimizes demands of task
• Use looking preferences to answer wh-questions.
• What hit the apple?
• What did the apple hit?
• Where is the apple?

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Seidl et al.

• Kids saw a little simplistic computer-generated
  movie where, e.g., a book hit some keys.
• Then there were two screens presented side by
  side, one with a book displayed, one with keys
  displayed.
• What hit the keys? (book)
• What did the book hit? (keys)
• Where is the book? (book)

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Seidl et al.

• Graph shows differences (target minus
  non-target).
• 20-month-olds seemed quite capable of
  comprehending all three kinds.
• 15-month-olds couldnt do objects 13-month-olds
  couldnt do any.

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Processing, structural distance

• The distance between the base and derived
  positions for an object wh-word is greater than
  the distance between the base and derived
  positions for a subject wh-word.
• Whati did IP John VP buy ti ?
• Whoi IP ti VP bought coffee ?

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Processing, structural distance

• Re preference for subject wh-questions perhaps
  kids are sensitive to the number of phrases a
  moving wh-phrase has to escape. This also makes
  other predictions
• Whati will IP Sue VP read ti ?
• Whati will IP Sue VP talk PP about ti ?
• Whati will IP Sue VP read NP a book PP
  about ti ?

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Hildebrand (1987)

• Tested (fairly old) kids on a paradigm of
  wh-questions of varying depth to see if more
  embedded wh-words are harder.
• In a repetition task (4-10 year olds), it was
  almost uniformly true that the more deeply
  embedded the wh-word was, the more errors the
  kids made trying to repeat it.

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But wait

• So kids make more errors extracting from more
  deeply embedded structures. Is this a fact about
  the acquisition of wh-movement? Or is it just a
  fact about language processing in general?
• What do adults do?
• My guess Even for adults, the more complex
  structures are (marginally) harder to process.
  Certainly true for subject vs. object relative
  clauses (the man who _ left vs. the man who I met
  _).
• Cf. NPAH.

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Does child wh-movement obey the adult rules for
wh-movement?

• When the kids ask wh-questions, what structures
  are they using? Are they like the adult
  structures? If not, how are they different? Are
  they performing movement? Are there traces? Do
  the movements obey constraints (e.g., wh-island,
  ECP, )?

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Do kids have wh-traces in their wh-questions?

• How do they perform on wanna-contraction?
• Who do you want to help t?
• Who do you wanna help t?
• Who do you want t to help you ?
• Who do you wanna / t help you ?
• Crain Thornton (1991) studied this

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Crain Thornton (1991)

• There are three guys in this story Cookie
  Monster, a dog, and this baby. One of them gets
  to take a walk, one gets to take a nap, and one
  gets to eat a cookie. The rat gets to choose who
  does each thing. So one gets to take a walk,
  right? Ask Ratty who he wants.
• Kid Who do you want to take a walk?

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Crain Thornton (1991)

• The kids (210 to 55) all knew the wanna
  contraction rule
• 59 of the time kids contracted to wanna with
  object questions (as allowed)
• 4 of the time kids contracted to wanna with
  subject questions (out for adult)

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The ECP and argument-adjunct asymmetries

• Moving a wh-word out of a wh-island is better or
  worse depending on whether the wh-word is an
  argument (subject or object) or an adjunct.
• How did he ask wh where to fix the car t ?
• What did he ask wh how to fix t ?

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De Villiers, Roeper, and Vainikka (1990)

• Kid takes a shortcut home, rips dress, that
  night, kid tells parent about dress
• When did she say t she ripped her dress t?
• at night that afternoon
• When did she say t wh how she ripped her dress t
  t ?
• at night that afternoon
• 3-6 year-olds allow short and long distance
  questions for complement clauses, dont like long
  distance adjunct questions out of wh-islands

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De Villiers, Roeper, and Vainikka (1990)

• And kids make the argument-adjunct distinction
  the ECP makes for adults
• No wh-island, arguments/adjuncts both take long
  distance interpretation about 30-40 the time
• Argument wh-island, neither argument nor adjuncts
  can move out (2-8 LD)
• Adjunct wh-islands, arguments can move out (30
  LD) but not adjuncts (6 LD).

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Again, kids have a lot rightbut what do they
have wrong?

• When kids make a mistake with a question like
• When did she say how she ripped her dress?
• it will often be that they answer something like
  climbing over the fenceanswering the question
  How did she say t she ripped her dress? instead.

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What are kids doing when they answer a medial
wh-word?

• Are they answering the last wh-word they saw?
• Kids dont answer medial wh-words in yes-no
  questions.
• Did Mickey tell Minnie what he bought?
• Kids dont answer wh-words in relatives.
• How did you meet the man who sang?

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German partial wh-movement?

• Kids have been observed to produce questions with
  an initial wh-word and a lower copy.
• What do you think whats in her hat?
• What do you think is in her hat?
• What do you think where the marble is?
• Where do you think the marble is?
• What do you think what Cookie Monster eats?
• What do you think Cookie Monster eats?

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German partial wh-movement?

• Was hat er gesagt wie er das Kuchen machen
  kann ?
• What has he said how he the cake make can
• How did he say he could make the cake?
• Are kids treating the upper wh-word like a scope
  marker? (Are they speaking German?)
• Hard to say with confidence, but its an
  interesting possibility. German partial
  wh-movement does have certain restrictions.
  Thornton (1990) and van Kempen (1997) showed that
  kids do this only out of finite clauses, and
  German only allows partial movement out of finite
  clauses too.

42
Processing constraints?

• OGrady (1997) suggests that another reason why
  kids might answer the intermediate wh-word is
  that theyve already forgotten the matrix clause
  (citing Phinney 1981, who found that 3-year olds
  often delete the matrix subject and verb when
  repeating biclausal sentences).
• Kids dont answer a medial wh-word in a yes-no
  question, though..?

43
Speaking Irish? French?

• Another crosslinguistic analogy we could make is
  to Irish, French, and other languages that seem
  to show a certain amount of wh-agreement when a
  wh-word passes through SpecCP.
• Ceapann tú go bhuailfidh an píobare an
  t-amhrán.think you that play.fut the piper the
  songYou think that the piper will play the
  song.
• Caidé aL cheapann tú aL bhuailfidh an
  píobare?what WH think you WH play.fut the
  piperWhat do you think the piper will play?
• Je crois que Marie est partie.
• Qui crois-tu qui et partie?

44
Speaking Irish? French?

• So, perhaps the kids non-adult use of
  intermediate wh-words is actually a mis-analysis
  of English.
• First, they suppose it is Irish, and the
  intermediate wh-words are the pronunciations of
  agreeing complementizers.
• A medial wh-word is never a whole wh-phrase. A
  head?
• Then, they suppose it is French, and limit the
  agreement to subject wh-words.
• Sometimes production goes from SO medial
  wh-questions to just S.
• Then, they get to English.

45
Other constraints on wh-movement from 3-5 year
olds

• They reject adjunct extraction from NP
• Howi did the mother see his riding ti?
• But they allow argument extraction?
• Whoi did the mother show his copying ti ?
• This is de Villiers example seems ambiguous to
  me between extraction and non-extraction
  readings. Better might be What did the mother
  show his eating?
• They reject adjunct extraction from rel. clause
• Howi did the woman who knitted ti swim?
• And reject extraction from temporal adjuncts
• Who did the elephant ask before helping ti ?

46
Superiority 3-5

• Adults
• Whoi ti slept where?
• Wherei did who sleep ti ?
• And the kids seem to have that down cold. (Kid
  Its better if I start.)
• (from deVilliers and Plunkett, unpublished as of
  1995?)

47
That-trace?

• Who did the pig believe that swam in the pond?
• Kids opt for the interpretation where the
  questions asks which, of the animals the pig
  believes, swam.
• Kids dont go at all for the interpretation which
  entails a violation of that-trace (the pig
  believed that who swam)
• (Phinney 1981)
• This is sort of mysterious, since languages
  differ as to whether they respect the that-trace
  filter.

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That-trace?

• Some conflicting results?
• Thornton (1990), production experiment found
  that-trace violations 18 of the time subject
  wh-questions were used.
• McDaniel, Chiu and Maxfield (1995) found an
  acceptance rate of 24 for that-trace effects.

49
Grammar vs. Preferences

• These experiments are really testing preferences
  not grammaticality. If they prefer the that-less
  variant, we wont see that-trace violations even
  if they are strictly grammatical for the kid.
• Just because a structure is dispreferred (for
  whatever reasonfrequency, difficulty, etc.) does
  not mean that it is ungrammatical in the childs
  grammar.
• Preferences are not the best route to discovering
  the properties of child grammar, though its hard
  to design grammaticality judgment experiments..

50
Questioning out of quotations

• Adult languages generally can not question out of
  a quotation
• Whati did the boy say Can I bring ti ?
• But English, French and German kids (3-6 years)
  seem to allow it.
• Why?

51
Correlates to questioning out of quotations

• Kids may not quite grasp the quotation yet.
• A significant proportion of kids around the same
  age range allow co-reference between a pronoun in
  the quotation and the subject
• Hei can sit here said Mickeyi.
• Perhaps, it has more to do with the fact that it
  requires getting into someone elses head

52
False beliefs

• Kids before a certain age (usually before 4) seem
  unable to take another persons perspective
• Little rabbit puts carrot in red basket, leaves.
  Mother rabbit comes in, moves carrot to blue
  basket. Little rabbit comes back. Where does he
  look for the carrot?
• Some kids will answer the blue basketunable to
  see that the little rabbit shouldnt have known.

53
False beliefs quotations

• Those same kids who answered blue basket were
  also those who would do this
• Mother bought cake, but wanted to surprise girl.
  When asked, mother claimed to have bought paper
  towels.
• What did Mother say she bought?
• The blue basket kids answer cake.

54
False beliefs quotations

• So, perhaps it is understanding what a quotation
  is that is allowing kids to extract from
  themthey treat a quotation as a regular clausal
  complement.

55
Weak islands

• In the adult language, there is a certain
  configuration which seems to create an island for
  movement of wh-adjuncts, which arguably has to do
  with the logical meaning.
• Coming by train is a subset of the events coming.
• John said Mary was coming by train implies John
  said Mary was coming.

56
Weak islands

• In weak islands the implication fails
• Negation
• John didnt say Mary was coming by train.
• John didnt say Mary was coming.
• Factives
• John forgot Mary was coming by train.
• John forgot Mary was coming.
• With quantificational adverbs
• John often eats grapes with a fork.
• John often eats grapes.

57
Weak islands

• And in those cases, you cant extract wh-adjuncts
  in the adult language.
• Whyi did John say (ti) that Mary left (ti)?
• Whyi did John forget (ti) that Mary left (ti)?
• Whyi didnt John say (ti) that Mary left (ti)?
• Whyi does John often say (ti) that Mary left
  (ti)?

58
Weak islands

• Four-year-olds have been observed to fail on the
  implication
• Jim forgot that his aunt was arriving by train,
  so he went to the bus station to pick her up Did
  Jim forget that his aunt was coming?
• Yes!
• Guess They havent gotten the implication
  pattern down for these non-monotonic-increasing
  environments.

59
Weak islands

• Now If kids havent gotten the implication
  pattern, and if the implication pattern is
  implicated in the islandhood, do kids fail to
  observe weak islands just when they also fail on
  the implication pattern?
• Philip and de Villiers (1992) looked into this

60
Philip and de Villiers (1992)

• Kids never allow LD association out of a
  wh-island (they obeyed the purely syntactic
  constraint).
• Whyi did the mother ask what he made ti ?
• The other facts were generally in support(de
  Villiers 1995) of the conclusion that where kids
  fail to make the inferences required by
  non-monotone-increasing environments, they also
  fail to treat them as movement islands.
• (Sorry, I wasnt able to hunt down the original
  paper, so I just have the secondary source)

61
Gavruseva Thornton 2001

• Who do you thinks flower fell off?
• Who do you thinks sunglasses P tried on?
• Who do you thinks Spiderman saved cat?
• Hungarian
• Ki-nek veszett el t a kalap-ja?
• Ki-nek a kalap-ja veszett el t?

62
GT 2001

• So we know that Grovers fish is in the cradle.
  But ask the snail whose he thinks.
• Whose fish do you think is in the cradle?

63
Multiple questions

• A fair amount of theoretical work has concerned
  the treatment of multiple wh-questions.
• E.g., the wh-typology English (move one) vs.
  Japanese (move none) vs. Bulgarian (move all).
• What do kids do with them?
• Well, but thats lunacyadults barely use them,
  how are we going to find out about kids?

64
Grebenyova (2005)

• Russian as a multiple-movement language
• chto kuda Smurf polozhil?What where S put?
• Interpretation
• PL (Pair-list) Who invited who for dinner?
• SP (Single pair) Which diplomat invited which
  journalist? Who invited the roommate of who for
  dinner?
• Who invited who for dinner?
• English, Russian PL, SP
• Serbo-Croatian, Japanese PL, SP

65
Grebenyova (2005)

• Ok, lets check CHILDES (parental speech).
  Varvara (17-211).
• 737 single questions.
• 1 multiple question.
• kto tebe chto podaril ?Whonom you whatacc gave?
• Not very much input here.

66
Grebenyova (2005)

• Attempts to elicit multiple interrogatives.
• Story 3 characters each hide a different thing.
• Characters and items not in a natural category
• Avoiding Which x hid which Y? Who hid which X?
  Which x hid what?
• Add a character who doesnt hide anything (and
  pointing that out).
• Avoiding What did everyone hide?
• Not mentioning the names of the characters in the
  lead-in
• Avoiding What did they hide?
• First time single question. Decide to ask a more
  difficult question next time.

67
Grebenyova (2005)

• And it worked Kids (and adult controls) produced
  multiple wh-questions in PL contexts (but not SP
  contexts) about a third of the time in English,
  about half the time in Russian.
• Syntax English kids did it like adults. Russian
  kids 15 of the time did it like English
  kids/adults
• Kto sprjatal chto?Who hid what

68
Grebenyova (2005)

• Tried non-subjects and adjuncts to figure out
  more about the syntax
• Who hid what?
• Who did Lizard give what?
• Who did the dog find where?
• Found some wh-in-situ for kids, both notably both
  for kids and adults found about two-thirds
  multiple fronting and one-third partial fronting
• Kogo sobaka gde nashia?Who dog where found
• Perhaps (for wh-in-situ but partial fronting?)
• Acquisition of focus?
• Mixed/confusing input (which phrases can stay in
  situ)?

69
?

• ? ?
• ?
• ? ?
• ? ?
• ?
• ?

70
English wh-questions

• What will John bake?
• Two components to forming a (main clause)
  wh-question (in English)
• Move a wh-word to SpecCP.
• What C TP John will bake t
• Move T to C (Subject-Aux InversionSAI)
• What willC TP John t bake t

71
The Wh-criterion

• What will John bake?
• Who will bake the cake?
• One of the most robust movement operations, and
  there are two mo

72
Question formation

• Declarative John will buy coffee.
• Wh-inversion What will John buy?
• Wh-fronting What will John buy?
• Yes/No-inversion Will John buy coffee?
• Greenberg (1963)
• Wh-inversion implies Wh-fronting.
• Yes/No-inversion implies Wh-inversion.

73
Wh-inversion?Wh-fronting

• English, German Both.
• What will John buy?
• Japanese Korean neither.
• John will buy what?
• Finnish Wh-fronting only.
• What John will buy?
• Unattested Wh-inversion only.
• Will John buy what?

74
Y/N-inversion?Wh-inversion

• English Both
• Will John buy coffee? What will John buy?
• Japanese Neither
• John will buy coffee? John will buy what?
• Lithuanian Wh-inversion only.
• John will buy coffee? What will John buy?
• Unattested Y/N-inversion only.
• Will John buy coffee? What John will buy?

75
Universals and parameters

• Even if its not completely clear what accounts
  for the implicational universals, inversion and
  wh-fronting do seem to be independent.
• A kid needs to learn what his/her language does
  in each domain.
• Wh-inversion implies Wh-fronting Perhaps the
  only reason youd move T to C is to get a wh
  feature originally on T into a position where it
  can be checked by a wh-word in SpecCP
  (Wh-criterion, see Guasti).
• Y/N-inversion implies Wh-inversion ?

76
Kids get these parameters down early

• Guasti (2000) Adam, Eve, and Sarah pretty much
  never left wh-words in situ, and when they did it
  was generally in a (grammatical) echo question.
• Same with inversion, there seem to be very few
  (on the order of 1) errors of non-inversion in
  German, Italian, Swedish.
• Yet Bellugi (1971)very famouslyseemed to find
  something different in English Stages
• SAI in yes-no questions, not in wh-questions
• Notice this runs counter to Greenbergs univeral.
• SAI in positive questions, not in negative
  questions.

77
Conclusion really seems to be

• Kids will sometimes fail to invert.
• Kids will sometimes fail to invert more in one
  construction (e.g., wh-questions) than in another
  (e.g., yes/no-questions), but which one gets the
  advantage seems to vary by kid.

78
SAI errors doubling

• A double-auxiliary error, both an inverted and an
  un-inverted auxiliary
• Why did you did scare me?
• How can he can look?
• A double-tensing error (where an auxiliary
  moves to I but the verb surfaces with tense).
• What did you bought?
• What did you did?

79
Doubling errors

• Are the kids pronouncing a loud trace of
  (head-)movement? (Are they moving the auxiliary
  but failing to leave the trace unpronounced?)
  That would be interesting.
• Are they just forgetting what they are trying to
  say midway through and blending two structures?
  (one with and one without movement)

80
Nakayama (1987)

• The longer the subject is, the more likely a kid
  is to make a doubling error the length of the VP
  makes no difference.
• Is the boy who is watching Mickey is happy?
• Looks like blending, rather than the (more
  interesting) loud trace idea Common error
  type
• Is the boy who is watching M, is he happy?

81
Inversion in negation

• Guasti, Thornton Wexler (BUCLD 1995) looked at
  doubling in negative questions.
• Previous results (Bellugi 1967, 1971, Stromswold
  1990) indicated that kids tend to invert less
  often in negative questions.
• First True?
• Second Why?

82
Subject vs. Object wh-questions

• Philip et al. (2001 BUCLD 25)
• Who is helping the boy?
• Who is the boy helping?
• Stromswold (1995) SWH more common in spontaneous
  speech (though OWH might be acquired earlier)
• OWH are more frequently misunderstood
• Why? Distance? Reversed order?

83
Philip et al

• Wie zei je dat beer natspoot?Who said you that
  the bear wet-squired