Week 1. Introduction

1
GRS LX 700Language Acquisition andLinguistic
Theory

• Week 1. Introduction

2
Language is really complicated

• Frasier threw out Martins chair.
• Frasier threw Martins chair out.
• Daphne walked out the door.
• Daphne walked the door out.
• What did Roz say Niles bought?
• What did Roz say that Niles bought?
• Who did Roz say bought an espresso doppio?
• Who did Roz say that bought an espresso doppio?

3
Language is really complicated

1. His mother thinks Bill is a genius.
2. He thinks Bill is a genius, too.
3. Mary saw her.
4. Mary saw her duck.
5. I asked Mary to buy rum.
6. What did you ask Mary to buy ?
7. I saw the book about snakes on the table.
8. What did you see the book about on the table?

4
Yet people know this stuff

• Adult native speakers uniformly and
  overwhelmingly agree.
• To know English is to have knowledge of (how to
  determine) which sentences are possible and which
  are impossible in English.
• How one comes to have this knowledge is going to
  be our primary focus.

5
Consider learning this

• Frasier threw out Martins chair.
• Frasier threw Martins chair out.
• Prepositions can go on either side of the object?

6
Consider learning this

• Frasier threw out Martins chair.
• Frasier threw Martins chair out.
• Prepositions can go on either side of the object?
  Bzzt!
• Daphne walked out the door.
• Daphne walked the door out.

7
Consider learning this

• What did Roz think Niles bought?
• What did Roz think that Niles bought?
• Ok, that is optional?

8
Consider learning this

• What did Roz think Niles bought?
• What did Roz think that Niles bought?
• ? Ok, that is optional? Bzzt!
• Who did Roz say bought an espresso doppio?
• Who did Roz say that bought an espresso doppio?

9
Consider learning this

• His mother thinks Bill is a genius.
• He/his can be Bill even if he precedes Bill?
• I asked Mary to buy rum.
• What did you ask Mary to buy ?
• To make a question, move the wh-word to the
  front, invert auxiliary. Right?
• I saw the book about snakes on the table.

10
Consider learning this

• His mother thinks Bill is a genius.
• He/his can be Bill even if he precedes Bill?
  Bzzt!
• He thinks John is a genius, too.
• I asked Mary to buy rum.
• What did you ask Mary to buy ?
• To make a question, move the wh-word to the
  front, invert auxiliary. Right? Bzzt!
• I saw the book about snakes on the table.
• What did you see the book about on the table?

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Grammar

• People eventually end up with a system with which
  they can produce (and rate) sentences a
  grammar.
• Even if a native speaker of English has never
  heard either of these sentences before, s/he
  knows which one is possible in English and which
  one isnt
• Eight very adept sea lions played trombones.
• Eight sea lions very adept trombones played.

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How do people know this?

• Every native speaker of English knows these
  things.
• Nobody who speaks English as a first language was
  explicitly taught (growing up) You cant
  question a subject in a complement embedded with
  that or You cant use a proper name if its
  c-commanded by something coindexed with it.
• Trying to use any simple kind of general learning
  principle based on (analogy to) the sentences you
  get seems almost sure to lead you astray.

13
Thats the setup

• Language involves a complex grammar.
• Adults end up with knowledge of this grammar,
  quite uniformly.
• Children seem to go through advancing stages of
  language sophistication they are learning, the
  end result being the adult language system.
• Next question What is the nature of the
  childrens learning?

14
Linguists, great and small

• As linguists trying to figure out the grammatical
  system of a language, we
• Look at which sentences are grammatical
• Look at which sentences are ungrammatical
• Compare them to describe generalizations about
  what the crucial factors are differentiating the
  grammatical from the ungrammatical.
• Check the predictions of the hypothesized
  generalization by looking at more complex
  sentences.
• Are kids just little linguists?

15
Kids are not just little linguists.

• What did you see the book about on the table?
• Who did Mary say that bought coffee?
• Eight very adept sea lions played trombones.
• Linguists theories built by considering both
  grammatical and ungrammatical sentences (often of
  a fairly complex type).
• Kids Dont hear ungrammatical sentences, nor
  even all of the grammatical sentences (often of a
  simpler type).

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So how do they do it?

• One hypothesis holds suggests that parents
  actually help kids along (though not
  consciously).
• Its well known that people seem to instinctively
  talk to little kids in kind of a weird way
  exaggerated intonation, simpler words, more
  repetition. Baby talk or as it is sometimes
  known, Motherese.
• Many have entertained the idea that this simpler,
  more carefully articulated, speech might guide
  kids along the path of language acquisition.

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Some properties of Motherese

• Slower speech, longer pauses
• Higher pitch, greater pitch range
• Exaggerated intonation and stress
• More varied loudness
• Fewer disfluencies
• More restricted vocabulary
• More rephrasings
• More repetitions
• Shorter, less complex utterances
• More imperatives and questions
• Fewer complex (multiclause) sentences

18
Does Motherese drive acquisition?

• Initially tempting, perhaps, but no.
• If Motherese were crucial for acquisition, it
  must be available to all language acquirers,
  universally.
• Several documented cultures dont even speak to
  the kids until they reach linguistic
  sophistication. (Of course, theyre exposed to
  language in the environment, but not directed at
  them in Motherese)

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Does Motherese drive acquisition?

• If you give a 4-month old the choice of whether
  to listen to Motherese or to normal
  adult-directed speech, the kid will choose to
  listen to Motherese
• so it is quite likely that Motherese forms a
  significant part of the PLD for the kid, but it
  cant be necessary for successful language
  acquisition.

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Simpler isnt really better

• Linguists look to complex sentences to
  differentiate between predictions of different
  hypotheses about how the grammar works.
• Generally, prior to considering complex
  sentences, the data underdetermines the grammar
  there are (at least) two systems compatible with
  the data observed so far.
• If linguists need to look to complex sentences to
  figure out the intricacies of the rules (which
  all adult native speakers seem to end up with),
  kids should need this information too.

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Positive and negative evidence

• Kids need to know the grammatical system by the
  time they are adults.
• Kids hear grammatical sentences(positive
  evidence)
• Kids are not told which sentences are
  ungrammatical(no negative evidence)
• Lets consider no negative evidence further

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Negative evidence

• Negative evidence (information that a given
  sentence is ungrammatical) could come in various
  conceivable forms.
• The sentence Bill a cookie ate is not a sentence
  in English, Timmy. No sentence with SOV word
  order is.
• Upon hearing Bill a cookie ate, an adult might
• Offer negative reinforcement
• Not understand
• Look pained
• Rephrase the ungrammatical sentence grammatically

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Kids resist instruction

• McNeill (1966)
• Nobody dont like me.
• No, say nobody likes me.
• Nobody dont like me.
• repeats eight times
• No, now listen carefully say nobody likes me.
• Oh! Nobody dont likes me.

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Kids resist instruction

• Braine (1971)
• Want other one spoon, daddy.
• You mean, you want the other spoon.
• Yes, I want other one spoon, please Daddy.
• Can you say the other spoon?
• Otheronespoon
• Say other
• Other
• Spoon
• Spoon
• Other spoon
• Otherspoon. Now give me other one spoon?

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Kids resist instruction

• Cazden (1972) (observation attributed to Jean
  Berko Gleason)
• My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted
  them.
• Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits?
• Yes.
• What did you say she did?
• She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them.
• Did you say she held them tightly?
• No, she holded them loosely.

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Negative evidence via feedback?

• Do kids get implicit negative evidence?
• Do adults understand grammatical sentences and
  not understand ungrammatical ones?
• Do adults respond positively to grammatical
  sentences and negatively to ungrammatical ones?

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Approval or comprehension?

• Brown Hanlon (1970)
• Adults understood 42 of the grammatical
  sentences.
• Adults understood 47 of the ungrammatical ones.
• Adults expressed approval after 45 of
  thegrammatical sentences.
• Adults expressed approval after 45 of the
  ungrammatical sentences.
• This doesnt bode well for comprehension or
  approval as a source of negative evidence for
  kids.

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Kids experience differs

• Parents respond differently
• Eve Sarahs parents ask clarification questions
  after ill-formed wh-questions.
• Adams parents ask clarification after
  well-formed wh-questionsand after past tense
  errors.
• How can kids figure out what correlates with
  grammaticality in their situation?

29
Kids experience differs

• Piedmont Carolinas Heath (1983)
• Trackton adults do not see babies or young
  children as suitable partners for regular
  conversationUnless they wish to issue a
  warning, give a command, provide a
  recommendation, or engage the child in a teasing
  exchange, adults rarely address speech
  specifically to young children.

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Feedback disappears

• Adam and Sarah showed almost no reply
  contingencies after age 4
• But they still made errors after age 4
• And they still stopped making those errors as
  adults (learning didnt cease).

31
Three possible types of feedback

• Complete consistent response, indicates
  unambiguously grammatical or ungrammatical.
• Partial if there is a response, it indicates
  grammatical or ungrammatical
• Noisy response given to both grammatical and
  ungrammatical sentences, but with
  different/detectible frequency.

32
Statistics (from Marcus 1993)

• Suppose response R occurs 20 of the time for
  ungrammatical sentences, 12 of the time for
  grammatical sentences.
• Kid gets response R to utterance U, theres a 63
  chance (20/32) that U is ungrammatical. Guess
  ungrammatical, but 38 chance of being wrong.
• Kid doesnt get response R, 52 chance (88/168)
  its grammatical. Guess grammatical, but 48
  chance of being wrong.

33
Statistics (from Marcus 1993)

• Suppose response R occurs 20 of the time for
  ungrammatical sentences, 12 of the time for
  grammatical sentences.
• Suppose kid got response R to U, and is 63
  confident that U is ungrammaticalok, but nowhere
  near good enough to build a grammar.
• This is a serious task, a kids going to want to
  be sure. Suppose kid is aiming for 99 confidence
  (adults make at most 1 speech errors of the
  relevant kindpretend this reflects 99
  confidence).

34
Lacking confidence

• Based on R (20-12 differential), theyd have to
  repeat U 446 times (and compile feedback results)
  to reach a 99 confidence level.
• Based on various studies on noisy feedback, a
  realistic range might be from 85 times (for a
  35-14 differential) to 679 times (for a
  11.3-6.3 differential).
• This sounds rather unlike what actually happens.

35
In a way, its moot anyway

• One of the striking things about child language
  is how few errors they actually make.
• For negative feedback to work, the kids have to
  make the errors (so that it can get the negative
  response).
• But they dont make enough relevant kinds of
  errors to determine the complex grammar.

36
Yes-no questions

• The man is here.
• Is the man here?
• Hypothesis 1 Move the first is (or modal,
  auxiliary) to the front.
• Hypothesis 2 Move the first is after the subject
  noun phrase to the front.
• The man who is here is eating dinner.

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Yes-no questions

• The man who is here is eating dinner.
• Is the man who here is eating dinner? (H1)
• Is the man who is here eating dinner? (vH2)
• No kids ever said (20) to mean (21), which would
  have been necessary to distinguish hypotheses 1
  and 2 Why not?
• It seems that kids dont even entertain
  Hypothesis 1.
• And thats fine, because it seems like Hypothesis
  1 is a kind of rule not found in any adult
  language.

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Abstract principles

• Principle C Nothing coreferential can c-command
  a proper name.
• Hei believes Johnis teacher.
• Hisi teacher believes Johni.
• Study of adult grammar reveals that c-command is
  the appropriate abstract notion, defined on
  syntactic structures. But how do kids learn about
  c-command? You cant hear c-command.
• Whats more, study of adult grammar reveals that
  Principle C holds in every language!

39
So, weve got

• Kids dont make as many mistakes as would be
  needed for hypothesis testing.
• Kids seem to receive no relevant negative
  evidence while learning language anyway.
• Kids learn fast.
• Kids become adults with all the grammatical
  knowledge pertaining thereto (uniform, highly
  complex)
• Kids come to know abstract principles (like
  Principle C) without access to evidence
  determining them. In many cases, these principles
  are observed in all human languages. Poverty of
  the stimulus

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Having language being human

• A linguistic capacity is part of being human.
• Like having two arms, ten fingers, a vision
  system, humans have a language faculty.
• Specification of having arms instead of wings,
  etc., is somehow encoded genetically.
• Structure of the language faculty is
  predetermined, like the structure of the vision
  system is.
• The language faculty (tightly) constrains what
  kinds of languages a child can learn.
• Universal Grammar (UG).

41
Universal Grammar

• UG tightly constrains the learning process.
• Study of syntax, phonology, etc., is generally
  trying to uncover properties of Language, to
  specify what kind of languages a child can learn,
  to see what kinds of restrictions UG places on
  language.
• But kids dont just enter the world speaking like
  adultstheres development.
• And, adults dont all end up speaking the same
  languagethere is learning.

42
Game Plan

• The goal of the first part of the course is to
  discover what we can about UG, about this
  language acquisition device, through looking at
  first language development.
• What do kids know and when? How could they come
  to know these things? What have been some of the
  major discoveries concerning development of
  syntax?

43
Coming upL1A

• Formal learnability
• Principles and parameters
• How to set a parameter
• Triggers, subset principle
• Syntax at age 2
• Root clause nonfinite verbs
• Null subjects
• Case errors
• Theories of development
• Weak and strong continuity
• Experimental evidence
• Optional Infinitives/ATOM

Binding theory How early is Principle
B? Passives How early are passives? Maturation Do
some innate grammatical principles
mature? Wh-questions Properties of development,
implications for syntactic theory
44
Coming upL2A

• L1A ? L2A? How so?
• Knowledge of language
• Course of development
• Parameter settings?
• Critical period hypothesis
• Windows of opportunity
• Access and Transfer
• What are the effects of the L1 on the L2ers
  knowledge?
• What role does UG play in L2A?

Experimental results Course of development Sensiti
vity to universal constraints Effects of
instruction Other factors Major models Vainikka
Young-Scholten, Krashen, White, Flynn, Schwartz
Sprouse,
45
Learnability

• The Principles Parameters model is designed to
  address the learnability problem children face
• Languages are very complex.
• Languages differ (something has to be learned).
• Children get insufficient and variable evidence
  to deduce the uniform rules of grammar they end
  up with.
• Children have adult-like grammars relatively
  quickly.

46
Principles and Parameters

• The proposed solution to the apparent paradox is
  to suppose that to a large extent all human
  languages are the same. The grammatical systems
  obey the same principles in all human languages.

English
Japanese
UG
47
Principles and Parameters

• Languages differ, but only in highly limited
  ways.
• In the order between the verb and the object.
• In whether the verb raises to tense

English
Japanese
UG
48
Principles and Parameters

• This reduces the task for the child immenselyall
  that the kid needs to do is to determine from the
  input which setting each of the parameters needs
  to have for the language in his/her environment.

English
Japanese
UG
49
The standard picture

• The way this is usually drawn schematically is
  like this. The Primary Linguistic Data (PLD)
  serves as input to a Language Acquisition Device
  (LAD), which makes use of this information to
  produce a grammar of the language being learned.

LAD
PLD
grammar
50
The standard picture

• This isolates the innately specified language
  faculty into a single component in the picture.
  The LAD contains (a specification for) all of the
  principles and the parameters, and has a
  procedure for going from PLD to parameter
  settings.

LAD
PLD
grammar
51
Modeling human language capacity

• We may be able to avoid confusion later, though,
  if we differentiate the innately provided system
  into its conceptual components.
• This is my rendition of a way to think about UG,
  parameters, and LAD.

LAD
UG
PLD
Subjacency
Binding Theory
52
Modeling human language capacity

• UG provides the parameters and contains the
  grammatical system (including the principles,
  like Subjacency, Binding Theory, etc.) that makes
  use of them.
• LAD sets the parameters based on the PLD.
  Responsible for getting language to kids.

LAD
UG
PLD
Subjacency
Binding Theory
53
Modeling human language capacity

• The idea behind this diagram is that UG is
  something like the shape of language knowledge.
• Knowledge of language can only take a certain,
  innately pre-specified shape.
• A system with this shape has certain
  properties, among them Binding Theory,
  Subjacency, the Principles.

LAD
UG
PLD
Subjacency
Binding Theory
54
Modeling human language capacity

• The Parameters are different ways in which stored
  knowledge can conform to the shape of UG.
• The LAD is a system which analyzes the PLD and
  sets the parameters.

LAD
UG
PLD
Subjacency
Binding Theory
55
Principles and Parameters

• So two languages which differ with respect to one
  parameter setting might be represented kind of
  like this.
• This is of course a cartoon view of things, but
  perhaps it might be useful later.

Language A
Language B
56
Principles and Parameters

• So what are the Principles and Parameters?
• Good question! and thats what theoretical
  linguistics is all about.
• Since 1981, many principles and parameters have
  been proposed. As our understanding of language
  grows, new evidence comes to light, and previous
  proposals are discarded in favor of better
  motivated ones. Its hard to keep a current tally
  of the principles we know of because of the
  active nature of the field.

57
Principles and Parameters

• Some of the (proposed) Parameters that have
  received a fair amount of press are
• Bounding nodes for Subjacency
• Binding domain for anaphors and pronouns
• Verb-object order
• Overt verb movement (V moves to tense)
• Allowability of null subject (pro) in tensed
  clauses
• Well look at each of them in due course

58
Verb-object order

• The parameter for verb-object order (more
  generally, the head parameter setting out the
  order between X?-theoretic head and complement)
  comes out as
• Japanese Head-final (X follows complement)
• English Head-initial (X precedes complement).
• Figuring out which type the target language is is
  often fairly straightforward. Kids can hear
  evidence for this quite easily. (Not trivial,
  thoughconsider German SOV-V2)

59
Principle A

1. Sam believes that Harry overestimates
   himself
2. Sam-wa Harry-ga zibun-o tunet-ta to
   it-taSam-top Harry-nom self-acc pinch-past-that
   say-pastSam said that Harry pinched him(self).

60
Principle A

• Principle A. A reflexive pronoun must have a
  higher antecedent in its binding domain.
• Parameter Binding Domain
• Option (a) domain smallest clause containing
  the reflexive pronoun
• Option (b) domain utterance containing the
  reflexive pronoun

61
But how can you set this parameter?

• Every sentence a kid learning English hears is
  consistent with both values of the parameter!
• If a kid learning English decided to opt for the
  utterance version of the domain parameter,
  nothing would ever tell the kid s/he had made a
  mistake.
• S/he would end up with non-English intuitions.

62
But how can you set this parameter?

• A kid learning Japanese can tell right away that
  their domain is the sentence, since theyll hear
  sentences where zibun refers to an antecedent
  outside the clause.

63
But how can you set this parameter?

• The set of sentences allowed in English is a
  subset of the set of sentences allowed in
  Japanese. If you started assuming the English
  value, you could learn the Japanese value, but
  not vice-versa.Sentences allowed in Japanese
  (domain utterance)Sentences allowed in
  English (domain clause)

64
Subset principle/defaults

• Leads to The acquisition device selects the most
  restrictive parametric value consistent with
  experience. (Subset principle)
• That is, for the Principle A domain parameter,
  you (a LAD) start assuming youre learning
  English and switch to Japanese only if presented
  with evidence.

65
What it takes to set a parameter
J
E

• Binding domain parameter
• Option (a) Binding domain is clause.
• Option (b) Binding domain is utterance.
• English option a, Japanese option b.

66
What it takes to set a parameter

• Binding domain parameter
• Kids should start under the assumption that the
  parameter has the English setting.
• If they hear only English sentences, they will
  stick with that setting.
• If they hear Japanese sentences, they will have
  evidence to move to the Japanese setting.

J
E
67
What it takes to set a parameter
Very sensible. Now, lets consider another
parameter of variation across languages.
I
E

• Null subject parameter
• Option (a) Null subjects are permitted.
• Option (b) Null subjects are not permitted.
• Italian option a, English option b.

68
What it takes to set a parameter

• The Subset principle says that kids should start
  with the English setting and learn Italian if the
  evidence appears.
• But even English kids are well-known to drop
  subjects early on in acquisition. As if had the
  Italian setting for this parameter.

I
E
69
Moreover

• English kids hear looks good and seems ok and
  stop that right now. Why dont they end up
  speaking Italian? If they mis-set the parameter,
  how could they ever recover?
• Italian kids hear subjectless sentenceswhy dont
  they interpret them as imperatives or fragments
  (so as not to have to change the parameter from
  the default)?

70
Triggers

• It seems like actual occurrence of null subjects
  isnt a very good clue as to whether a subject is
  a null subject language or not.
• Are there better clues? If a strapping young LAD
  were trying to set the null subject parameter,
  what should it look for?

71
Triggers

• Turns out Only true subject-drop languages allow
  null subjects in tensed embedded clauses.
• John knows that must go. (English)
• Juan sabe que debe ir. (Spanish)Juan knows
  that he must go.
• Perhaps the LAD knows this and looks for
  exactly this evidence. Null subjects in embedded
  tensed clauses would be a trigger for the
  (positive setting of the) null subject parameter.

72
Triggers

• A potential problem with the proposed
  subject-drop trigger is that it requires complex
  sentencesyou need to look at an embedded
  sentence to check for the trigger.
• Such sentences might be too complicated for kids
  to process.
• Degree-1 learnability Triggers need look no
  lower than 1 level of embedding.
• Degree-0 learnability Triggers need look only at
  main clauses.

73
Triggers

• Many who work on learnability haveadopted the
  hypothesis that triggersneed to be degree-0
  learnable.
• Subjacency. wh a b t where a and b
  are bounding nodes.Bounding node parameter for
  IP
• Option (a) IP is a bounding node (English).
• Option (b) IP is not a bounding node (French,
  Italian).

IP and TP are often used inter-changeably
74
Triggers

• Thus, a kid learning French couldnt choose
  option (b) by hearing this
• Violà un liste de gens there is a list of
  peopleà qui on na pas encore trouvé quoi
  envoyer t t to whom one has not yet found
  what to send
• since thats a degree-2 trigger. But

75
Triggers

• Combien as- IP tu vu NP t de personnes?How-ma
  ny have you seen of peopleHow many people did
  you see?
• If IP were a bounding node, this should be
  ungrammatical in French, so this can serve as
  (degree-0) evidence for option (b).

76
Triggers

• Principles are part of UG
• Parameters are defined by UG
• Triggers for parameter settings are defined as
  part of the LAD.

77
Navigating grammar spaces

• Regardless of the technical details, the idea is
  that in the space of possible grammars, there is
  a restricted set that correspond to possible
  human grammars.
• Kids must in some sense navigate that space until
  they reach the grammar that theyre hearing in
  the input data.

78
Learnability

• So how do they do it?
• Where do they start?
• What kind of evidence do they need?
• How much evidence do they need?
• Research on learnability in language acquisition
  has concentrated on these issues.

79
Are we there yet?

• There are a lot of grammars to choose from, even
  if UG limits them to some finite number.
• Kids have to try out many different grammars to
  see how well they fit what theyre hearing.
• We dont want to require that kids remember
  everything theyve ever heard, and sit there and
  test their current grammar against the whole
  corpus of utterancesthat a lot to remember.

80
Are we there yet?

• We also want the kid, when they get to the right
  grammar, to stay there.
• Error-driven learning
• Most theories of learnability rely on a kind of
  error-detection.
• The kid hears something, its not generable by
  their grammar, so they have to switch their
  hypothesis, to move to a new grammar.

81
Plasticity

• Yet, particularly as the navigation progresses,
  we want them to be zeroing in on the right
  grammar.
• Finding an error doesnt mean that you (as a kid)
  should jump to some random other grammar in the
  space.
• Generally, you want to move to a nearby grammar
  that improves your ability to generate the
  utterance you heardmove in baby steps.

82
Triggers

• Gibson Wexler (1994) looked at learning word
  order in terms of three parameters (head, spec,
  V2).
• Their triggering learning algorithm says if you
  hear something you cant produce, try switching
  one parameter and see if it helps. If so, thats
  your new grammar. Otherwise, stick with the old
  grammar and hope youll get a better example.

83
Local maxima

• A problem they encountered is that there are
  certain places in the grammar space where you end
  up more than one switch away from a grammar that
  will produce what you hear.
• This is locally as good as it getsnothing next
  to it in the grammar space is betteryet if you
  consider the whole grammar space, there is a
  better fit somewhere else, you just cant get
  there with baby steps.

84
Local maxima

• This is a point where any move you make is worse,
  so a conservative algorithm will never get you to
  the best place. Something a working learning
  algorithm needs to avoid. (And kids, after all,
  make it).

85
Backing up a few steps

• Of course, theres a long way to go between being
  plunked down in the world and evaluating whether
  youre hearing null subjects in embedded tensed
  clauses (or, conversely and degree-0 learnably,
  expletives like in its raining).
• What are the words?
• Which ones are verbs?

86
lvk\t?ætˆts?\sˆtgosain! ænd\mˆnivæn! si?\brˆd??
87
Learning language is hard.

• Kids have to find the words. And the referents.
• Extraction identify grammatical units.
• Segmentation analyze identified units into
  component parts.
• We will disregard these important points in order
  to proceed analyzing the development of syntax.

88
Do kids have syntactic categories?

• Once theyve got the words, have the kids
  categorized them correctly?
• Do kids categorize the linguistic world in terms
  of the same kinds of categories adults do? (e.g.,
  noun, verb, )
• Evidence is hard to come by.

89
So, do kids have syntactic categories?

• Theres not really any clear way to know at the
  earliest (one word) stages.
• One view is that the null hypothesis (which we
  adopt, lacking evidence to the contrary) should
  be that kids do have adult-like syntactic
  categories.
• Continuity. Kids end up being adults with adult
  syntactic categories if they initially
  categorize words differently, we need to explain
  how they change their categorization to the adult
  type.

90
MLU

• Kids linguistic development is often measured in
  terms of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU).
• Can be measured in various ways (words,
  morphemes)
• Gives an idea of kids normal utterance length
• Seems to correlate reasonably well with other
  qualitative changes in kid productions

91
2-year olds

• Around 2 years old
• Around MLU 1.75
• Around 400 words in the vocabulary
• 1-3 word utterances
• Word order generally right
• Grammatical words (the, is) generally missing

92
2 1/2 year olds

• About 2 1/2 to 3 years
• About MLU 2.25
• About 900 words in the vocabulary
• Some grammatical devices (past tense -ed, verbal
  -ing).
• Over-regularization errors (He goed in the
  house), indicating theyve grasped the rule of
  past tense formation.
• Single clause sentences

93
3 and 4 year olds

• About 3 to 3 1/2 years, MLU about 2.75, about
  1200 words, beginning to use syntactic
  transformations (Is Daddy mad? Where is he
  going?)
• About 3 1/2 to 4 years, MLU about 3.5, about 1500
  words, multi-clause sentences, still some
  over-regularization

94
4 and 5 year olds

• 4-5 years, MLU around 4, about 1900 words, using
  more conjunctions and temporal terms (before,
  after), gain some metalinguistic awareness.
• After 5, MLU stays about the same (no longer
  predictive), sentences get more complex,
  vocabulary increases (more slowly),
  over-regularization decreases

95
Do kids at the one-word stage have/know syntactic
structure?

• Early attempt to answer the question.
• Based on comprehensionkids clearly understand
  more than they can produce.
• de Villiers de Villiers (1973), kids around MLU
  (mean length of utterance) 1 to 1.5 asked to act
  out the truck pushes the car, and got it right
  only about a third of the time.

96
Do kids at the one-word stage have/know syntactic
structure?

• Hirsh-Pasek Golinkoff (1991), preferential
  looking task. Less burdensome task. Significant
  preference for correct screen (word order role).

Hey,Cookie Monster is tickling Big Bird.
?
?
97
How do we describe multi-word utterances?

• Syntactically, in the same terms as the adult
  grammar? (continuity)
• Or discontinuously? (For some reason, people seem
  to think this is simpler)
• Thematic (agentaction, actiontheme, )
• Pivot (P1 O, O P2, O O, O)
• Limited scope formulas (hereX, wantX)

98
Syntactic approach

• Continuity ?
• VP VP V PP V PP sit sit P NP
  P NP on chair chair

99
Why 2 words?

• Maybe they omit words they dont know?
• Well, but they do omit words they know.
• A kid whos used hurt before, documented as
  saying baby cheek to mean baby hurt cheek.
• Pinker (1984) Processing bottleneck
• A 2-word utterance filter
• Kids grow out of this constraint.
• Still, kind of mysterious. Whats easier?

100
Evidence for structure

• Recall also the Hirsh-Pasek Golinkoff (1991),
  preferential looking task.
• Structure plays a crucial role in figuring out
  which screen to look at.

Hey,shes kissing the keys.
?
?
101
The second green ball

• Challenge to assumption that kids have structure?
  Matthei (1982) 39-63 get the second green
  ball.
• When faced with thisDo they pick the second
  and green ball or the second green ball?
• Kids did terriblyabout half the time wrong.

102
beware of the task

• However, why chance? Why not always second and
  green?
• This tends to suggest kids didnt really get
  the task. In fact, they made the same mistake
  with this array and pick the second ball.
• So the problem is probably with ordinal numbers
  and manipulating subsets

103
beware of the task

• Additionally, the kids could see the array the
  whole time, so kids may well have decided on
  which object to pick by the time they heard pick
  the second
• Hamburger Crain (1984) re-did the experiment,
  hiding the array until the request was
  completekids error rate dropped to 14.

104
Intermediate moral

• Its not easy to run a successful experimentyou
  have to be sure that what youre testing for
  isnt being obscured by other cognitive
  limitations.
• Act out The truck pushes the car.
• Pick the second green ball.

105
One-substitution

• Anecdotal evidence
• nice yellow pen, nice one (111)
• Hamburger Crain (1984) Point to the first
  green ball. Ok. Now, point to the second one.
• Note Failure wouldnt tell us anything here,
  since one could also legitimately mean ballbut
  if kids take one to mean green ball, thats
  evidence that kids do have the syntactic
  sophistication to replace N? with one.
• Nevertheless, 42 / 50 kids interpreted it as
  green ball.

106
Some properties of kidspeak

• Kids language differs from adult language in
  somewhat predictable ways. These can serve as
  clues to kids grammatical knowledge. Up to
  around 3 or so
• Case errors for nouns
• Some word order errors
• Omitted subjects
• Verbs not (always) fully inflected

107
Word order errors?

• Languages vary with respect to word order
• SVO English, French, Mandarin,
• VSO Tagalog, Irish,
• SOV Japanese, Korean, Turkish,
• SOVV2 German,
• Clahsen (1986) reports that German kids dont
  manage to put the verb in second position until
  the finite/nonfinite distinction is mastered.
• But at that point the change was immediate
  Sentence-syntactic properties are stored
  separately from words category properties.

108
Word order errors?

• Surprisingly few95 correct in English,
  DP-internal order (black the dog) may be at
  100.
• Yet there are a number of things like Doggy sew.
• It appears that in these cases, it is themeV
  without an expressed agent. When agent is
  expressed, themes are in their place.
• Sounds like an unaccusative or a passiveperhaps
  they are treating the verb in these cases as
  unaccusatives? An attractive ideabut for the
  fact that young kids are bad at passives and
  unaccusatives.

109
Word order errors

• Occasionally, postverbal subjects occurbut these
  seem to occur with likely unaccusatives with
  postverbal subjects on occasion going it, come
  car, fall pants. (cf. adult Mandarin , or
  Italian, which would allow that).
• Alternative approach to Doggy sew might be
  topicalization Doggy, you sewif kids actually
  cant do passives and unaccusatives, then this
  might be the only explanation (short of pure
  performance error).

110
The Bennish optative

• Anecdote about Ben, from Sadock (1982)
• SVO normally, but in optative (wish)
  constructions, he uses a weird word order.
• Intransitives (subject follows verb)
• Fall down Daddy. Daddy should fall down
• Eat Benny now. Let Benny eat now.
• Sit down Maggie, Mommy.Maggie should sit down,
  Mommy.
• Transitives (subject marked with for)
• Pick up Benny for Daddy.Daddy should pick Ben
  up.
• Read a story for Mommy.Mommy should read a
  story.

111
The Bennish optative

• Hes marking transitive subjects with for, but
  leaving intransitive subjects and objects
  unmarked.
• In the optative, Ben treats transitive subjects
  differently, and objects and intransitive
  subjects the same way.
• This pattern is reflected in a type of adult
  language as well. Ergative languages mark
  subjects of transitives differently from both
  objects and intransitive subjects.
• Accusative languages (like English) mark objects
  differently (I left, I bought cheese, Bill saw
  me).

112
The Bennish optative

• Perhaps Bens language is ergative in the
  optative mood. (An option for adult languages,
  though clearly not in his parents language)
• Further evidence
• Ergative case marker is often homophonous with
  marker for possessive (cf. Inuktitut -up used for
  both), and Ben uses for (his ERG marker) in
  possessive constructions as well.
• Thats a nose for Maggie Thats Maggies nose.

113
The Bennish optative

• Further evidence
• Ergative languages are almost invariably split
  often along semantic lines. Sadock takes the
  optative restriction to be of this type (cf.
  Georgian, nominative-accusative most of the time,
  except in the subjunctive and aorist, where it is
  ergative-absolutive)
• Bens not really making word order errors,
  exactlyhe just thinks hes speaking Georgian.
  His errors come from among the options.

114
Pre-subject negation

• Kids will say things like
• No I see truck
• Not Fraser read it
• No lamb have a chair either.
• Anaphoric no? No, I see the truck.
• Often distinguishable from context, and they are
  not all anaphoric.

115
Pre-subject negation

• Déprez Pierce 1993 looked at these, and
  proposed that not Fraser read it comes from a
  failure to raise the subject out of SpecVP to
  SpecIP. That is, here, Fraser is still in its
  VP-internal subject position.
• Some believe this, some dont, but its a
  well-known analysis.

116
Case errors

• English pronouns exhibit Case
• Nom I, he, she, they
• Acc me, him, her, them
• Gen my, his, her, their
• Kids seem to make errors until at least 2.
• me got bean
• her do that
• me eye
• In general, it is often overgeneralization of Acc.

117
Overuse of accusative

• Default case Acc in adult English (Schütze 1997)
• Me too.
• What, me cheat?! Never!
• Me, I like pizza.
• Its me.
• Who did this? Me.
• So, overuse of accusative may well be just
  using a default form for nouns which dont have
  case.

118
Default Case

• Russian (Babyonyshev 1993) Default case appears
  to be Nom.
• Russian kids make basically no errors in subject
  case.
• but they overuse Nom in other positions (e.g.,
  Nom instead of Acc on an object).

119
Default Case

• German (Schütze 1995) Default case also appears
  to be Nom
• Was? Ich dich betrügen? Nie!What? I cheat on
  you? Never!
• Der, den habe ich gesehen.He, him I saw.
• Object case errors are more common than subject
  case errors, and usually involve
  overgeneralization of Nom.

120
Determiners

• Kids will also often leave out determiners.
• Hayley draw boat.
• Turn page.
• Reading book.
• Want duck.
• Wayne in garden
• Daddy want golf ball.

121
Subject drop

• Even in languages which dont allow null
  subjects, kids will often leave subjects out.
• No turn.
• Ate meat.
• Touch milk.
• Dropping the subject is quite commondropping
  other things (e.g., object) is quite rare.

122
Subject vs. object drop
A E S
Subject 57 61 43
Object 8 7 15
123
Root infinitives

• French
• Pas manger la poupéenot eatinf the doll
• Michel dormirMichel sleepinf
• German
• Zahne putzenteeth brushinf
• Thorstn das habenThorsten that haveinf.
• Dutch
• Ik ook lezenI also readinf.

• Another, fairly recently-noticed aspect of kid
  speech is that they will use infinitive verbs
  sometimes when adults would use finite verbs. In
  lots of languages.

124
Root infinitives

• English kids do this too, it turns out, but this
  wasnt noticed for a long time.
• It only write on the pad (Eve 20)
• He bite me (Sarah 29)
• Horse go (Adam 23)
• It looks like whats happening is kids are
  leaving off the -s.
• Taking the crosslinguistic facts into account, we
  now think those are nonfinite forms (i.e. to
  write, to bite, to go).

125
Root infinitives

• However, children learning some languages seem to
  show very few root infinitives or none at all.
• Italian, for example.
• Often these languages with very few root
  infinitives
• Allow null subjects
• Have fairly complex agreement morphology

126
Pulling it all together

• Kids sometimes use nonfinite verbs.
• Kids sometimes leave out the subject.
• Kids sometimes use the wrong Case on the subject
  (looks like a default Case).
• Kids sometimes get the word order wrong
  (specifically, with respect to negation and for
  V2).
• Kids generally leave out determiners.

127
Kid grammars

• A major research industry arose trying to explain
  how these properties of child speech come about
  (and how they relate to each other) in terms of
  the grammatical and/or performance abilities of
  children.

128
?

• ? ?
• ?
• ? ?
• ? ?
• ?
• ?

129
References

• Braine, M. D. S. (1971). On two types of models
  of the internalization of grammars. In D. Slobin
  (ed.), The ontogenesis of grammar A theoretical
  symposium. New York Academic Press.
• Brown, R. and C. Hanlon (1970). Derivational
  complexity and order of acquisition in child
  speech. In J. R. Hayes (ed.), Cognition and the
  development of language. New York John Wiley
  Sons.
• Heath, S. B. (1982). Questioning at home and at
  school A comparative study. In G. Spindler
  (ed.), Doing the ethnography of schooling
  Educational anthropology in action. New York
  Holt, Rinehart Winston.
• Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words Language,
  life and work in communities and classrooms.
  Cambridge University Press.
• Peters, A. (1983). The units of language
  acquisition. Cambridge University Press.