The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek
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The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek
Language Acquisition & Language Disorders Volumes in this series provide a forum for research contributing to theories of language acquistion (first and second, child and adult), language learnability, language attrition and language disorders.
Series Editors Harald Clahsen
Lydia White
University of Essex
McGill University
Editorial Board Melissa F. Bowerman
Luigi Rizzi
Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen
University of Siena
Katherine Demuth
Bonnie D. Schwartz
Brown University
University of Hawaii at Manao
Wolfgang U. Dressler
Antonella Sorace
Universität Wien
University of Edinburgh
Nina Hyams
Karin Stromswold
University of California at Los Angeles
Rutgers University
Jürgen M. Meisel
Jürgen Weissenborn
Universität Hamburg
Universität Potsdam
William O’Grady
Frank Wijnen
University of Hawaii
Utrecht University
Mabel Rice University of Kansas
Volume 31 The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek by Theodoros Marinis
The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek
Theodoros Marinis University College London
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Marinis, Theodoros The acquisition of the DP in modern Greek / Theodoros Marinis. p. cm. (Language Acquisition & Language Disorders, issn 0925–0123 ; v. 31) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Greek language, Modern--Determiners. 2. Greek language, Modern--Noun phrase. I. Title. II. Series. PA1082.M37 2003 489’.3’019-dc22 isbn 90 272 2500 1 (Eur.) / 1 58811 450 3 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
2003062782
© 2003 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Acknowledgements ix Preface
xi
Abbreviations xiii Chapter 1 Acquisition theories and the acquisition of the DP 1.1 Universal Grammar 2 1.1.1 UG and parameterisation within the PPT 3 1.1.2 UG within the MP 7 1.2 The acquisition process within the PPT 9 1.2.1 The Maturation Hypothesis 10 1.2.2 The Continuity Hypothesis 14 1.3 Language acquisition within the MP 26 1.4 Summary 32 Notes 32
1
Chapter 2 Methodology 2.1 The data 37 2.2 Data collection 38 2.3 Transcription 39 2.4 Coding 40 2.4.1 Morphological tier 40 2.4.2 Syntax tier 44 2.4.3 Imitations, self-repetitions 44 2.5 The use of formulaic expressions 45 2.6 Data analysis 47 2.6.1 Quantitative analysis 47 2.6.2 Qualitative analysis 52
35
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2.7 Summary 53 Notes 54 Chapter 3 The DP in Modern Greek 3.1 The distribution of articles 56 3.2 The syntactic structure of the DP in MG 57 3.2.1 Horrocks & Stavrou (1986; 1987) 58 3.2.2 Karanassios (1990; 1992), Stavrou (1996) 60 3.2.3 The analysis adopted in this book 66 3.3 The syntax-semantics mapping 68 3.3.1 Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter 68 3.3.2 Modern Greek within the Nominal Mapping Parameter model 70 3.4 Morphological marking in the Greek DP 76 3.4.1 Morphological marking on definite articles 76 3.4.2 Morphological marking on nouns 77 3.5 Summary 80 Notes 81
55
Chapter 4 Acquiring the DP in MG 4.1 Evidence for the DP and the FP layer 85 4.1.1 Acquiring the definite and indefinite article 86 4.1.2 The use of articles as impostors 90 4.1.3 Acquiring the DP and the FP layer 98 4.2 The syntax-semantics mapping 100 4.2.1 Testing the Nominal Mapping Parameter model 100 4.2.2 Acquiring the licensing conditions for bare arguments 104 4.3 The acquisition of morphological marking in the MG DP 112 4.3.1 Previous studies in morphological marking of the Greek DP 113 4.3.2 Quantitative analyses on the acquisition of number and case 118 4.3.3 Acquiring the NumP and the FP layer 130 4.4 Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory 132 4.5 Summary 135 Notes 137
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Chapter 5 The acquisition of the possessive construction 5.1 The properties of the MG possessive construction 140 5.2 Syntactic analyses of the MG possessive construction 140 5.3 Acquiring the possessive construction in MG 145 5.3.1 Word order in the possessive construction 146 5.3.2 Word order and the use of definite articles in the possessive construction 151 5.3.3 Quantitative analysis of the use of definite articles and genitive marking on the possessor 158 5.4 Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory 162 5.5 Summary 163 Notes 163
139
Chapter 6 The acquisition of Determiner Spreading 6.1 The properties of Determiner Spreading 165 6.2 Syntactic analyses of DS 169 6.2.1 Androutsopoulou (1994; 1995) 169 6.2.2 Alexiadou & Wilder (1998) 174 6.2.3 The analysis adopted in this book 177 6.3 Acquiring Determiner Spreading 179 6.3.1 The emergence of DS 179 6.3.2 DS compared to other structures involving the CP and the DP layer 181 6.3.3 DS involving pronouns 185 6.4 Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory 187 6.5 Summary 189 Notes 189
165
Chapter 7 The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names 7.1 The properties of close appositions in MG 192 7.2 Syntactic analyses of CAs in MG 194 7.2.1 Stavrou (1994; 1995) 194 7.2.2 The analyses adopted in this book 196
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7.3 Acquiring CAs with KTs and PNs 200 7.3.1 The developmental pattern in the acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs 201 7.3.2 Quantitative analysis of word order in CAs with KTs and PNs 207 7.3.3 Qualitative analysis of word order in CAs with KTs and PNs 208 7.4 Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory 211 7.5 Summary 212 Notes 213 Chapter 8 Summary and conclusion 8.1 Putting the pieces together 216 8.2 Comparison to the acquisition of the DP cross-linguistically 217 8.3 Maturation vs. continuity 219 8.4 Implications for linguistic theory 222 8.5 General conclusions 223 Notes 224 References
227
Appendix 1 239 Appendix 2 247 Index 255
215
Acknowledgements
This book is a revision of my PhD dissertation at the University of Potsdam. First of all, I would like to thank my advisor Jürgen Weissenborn for his help, support and encouragement. I am grateful to the members of my committee Susan Powers, Doug Saddy and Tom Roeper for guidance, stimulating discussions and crucial suggestions throughout my work. Having in my committee proponents of the Strong Continuity Hypothesis, the Structure Building Hypothesis and Merger Theory for Acquisition and having taken my first course on language acquisition with Harald Clahsen made me realize that it is more interesting to study the development of child grammar in order to derive conclusions which are relevant for the linguistic theory than to stick to a specific acquisition theory and try to prove that this is the ‘right’ one. My approach on the structure of the Modern Greek DP has been heavily influenced by the work of Artemis Alexiadou, Melita Stavrou and Ianthi Tsimpli, whom I would like to thank for their insightful work and their willingness to discuss their ideas with me. I am grateful to Ursula Stephany for her suggestions at the beginning of this study and for putting me in touch with Anastasia Christofidou. Without the longitudinal corpus of Christos this book would not have been written. I am indebted to Anastasia Christofidou for trusting me with the corpus of her son and for discussions about the development of his speech. I wish to thank Olga Dougali and Depy Rizou for transcribing the corpus of Christos. Without their work this study would have lasted another three years. Further back, I wish to thank the people of the University of Athens for giving me the first tools in the field of linguistics. Especially, I would like to thank Elisabeth Kotzia for convincing me to write a linguistics dissertation, Eleni Efthimiou for giving me the first course in Generative Grammar, Friederike Batsalia for showing me that there is more in linguistics than theoretical syntax and Dimitra Theofanopoulou-Kontou for pointing me in the right direction. This work has been supported through a grant from the Graduiertenkolleg ‘Economy and Complexity of Language’ which is funded by the DFG
Acknowledgements
(Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). It was a great experience to be part of the Graduiertenkolleg. I would like to thank my teachers at the University of Potsdam and at the Humboldt University in Berlin: Ria de Bleser, Rainer Dietrich, Gisbert Fanselow, Tracy Hall and Chris Wilder, and my former colleagues: Jens Ahrens, Joanna Blaszczak, Heiner Drenhaus, Sylke Eichler, Susann Fischer, Peter Gebert, Roland Hinterhölzl, Dorothee Kaesler, Jürgen Manowsky, Diana Pili, Marzena Rochon, Stephan Schmidt, Jochen Trommer and Tonjes Veenstra for feedback on my work and for moral support. For some part of this study I was a guest in the Language Acquisition Group of the ZAS in Berlin. I am indebted to Dagmar Bittner for inviting me to the ZAS, and for reading and commenting on parts of this work. The revisions of this study have been made while I was working at the University of Essex and at the University College London. I am grateful to the Acquisition Group at the University of Essex for valuable discussions and to Harald Clahsen and Heather van der Lely for their support in finishing this book. The recommendations of two anonymous reviewers are very much appreciated, as they have helped me restructure and highlight several aspects of this book. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents Evangelos and Eleni Marini and Voula Triantafillidou for their consistent moral support throughout the years of writing this book and beyond.
Preface
The acquisition of the Determiner Phrase (DP) has been one of the central topics of interest in recent years. Research in this area has brought insight into the development of the DP cross-linguistically and has provided empirical evidence for the interaction of the acquisition of syntax and morphology. Moreover, development in linguistic theory has opened new dimensions and has brought new tools for the description and understanding of the development of child speech. This book explores the acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek (MG) in the domains of syntax, semantics and morphology. The goal of this book is threefold: (a) to describe the development of the acquisition of the DP in MG, (b) to discuss and evaluate predictions deriving from current theoretical analyses of the DP, and (c) to provide insight into general aspects of the language acquisition process and implications for linguistic theory. The main questions that will be discussed in this book are: – – – – – –
When do we have evidence for the acquisition of the functional layers of the nominal domain in MG? Are the properties attributed to the DP acquired simultaneously or incrementally? What is the relationship between the acquisition of syntax and morphology of the DP? When are language specific properties of the Greek DP such as the use of multiple definite articles acquired? When do complex DPs involving the possessive construction, Determiner Spreading and appositive constructions emerge in child Greek? Is the core system of the nominal domain acquired simultaneously with the Left Periphery of the DP?
In order to answer these questions, I will investigate the acquisition of simple DPs consisting of articles and nouns as well as the acquisition of complex DPs. As far as simple DPs are concerned, I will investigate the acquisition of definite and indefinite articles. The emergence of definite and indefinite articles
Preface
and their productive use can provide evidence for the presence of the functional layers DP and FP of the nominal domain. Further, I will investigate the syntax-semantics interface within Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter. Finally, I will analyse the emergence and consistent marking of number and case marking in nouns and definite articles. This can provide evidence for the functional layers NumP and FP and for the relationship between the acquisition of syntax and morphology. With respect to the acquisition of complex DPs, I will investigate the acquisition of the possessive construction, Determiner Spreading, and appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names. The study of the acquisition of these constructions can shed light into the acquisition of language specific properties of the DP, such as the acquisition of multiple definite articles and the acquisition of word-order within the DP. Finally, the acquisition of these constructions can show whether structures involving the Left Periphery of the DP are acquired simultaneously or later than phenomena associated with the core domain of the DP. This book is organised as follows: Chapter 1 is concerned with central notions of language acquisition within the Generative Grammar, i.e. with the notion of Universal Grammar within the Principles and Parameters Theory and the Minimalist Program and the main hypotheses that have been articulated for the acquisition process within these models. Chapter 2 is the methodology chapter, in which I present the sources of data that have been used in this book and I will discuss methodological issues, such as the use of imitations, repetitions, the use of formulae and the calculation of MLU. Chapter 3 describes the syntax, syntax-semantics interface and morphology of the Greek DP. Chapter 4 deals with the acquisition of simple DPs, consisting of article and noun sequences. Based on data from the syntax, syntax-semantics interface and morphology, it focuses on the acquisition of the functional layers of the Greek DP. Chapters 5 to 7 investigate the acquisition of complex DPs. Chapter 5 presents data on the acquisition of the possessive construction, Chapter 6 presents the acquisition of Determiner Spreading, and Chapter 7 the acquisition of appositive constructions. The results of this book are summarised and further discussed in Chapter 8.
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Abbreviations
AgrOP AgrP AP BSCN CA CP DefP DIM DP EPP FF FP IC IP KT LAD LWC MG MLU MP NP NumP PN PossP PP PPT prt-fut prt-subj RC SD UG VP xxx
Object Agreement Phrase Agreement Phrase adjective phrase Bare Singular Count Noun Close Apposition Complementiser Phrase Definite Phrase diminutive Determiner Phrase Extended Projection Principle Formal Feature Funtional Phrase Inflectional Class Inflectional Phrase Kinship term Language Acquisition Device Local Wellformedness Constraint Modern Greek mean length of utterance Minimalist Program Noun Phrase Number Phrase Proper name Possessive Phrase Prepositional Phrase Principles and Parameters Theory future particle subjunctive particle Relative clause Standard deviation Universal Grammar Verb Phrase uninteligible speech
F: LALD31AB.tex / p.1 (35-144)
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Chapter 1
Acquisition theories and the acquisition of the DP
Within the Generative Framework knowledge of language is considered to be innate. This is based on the idea that humans have a genetic endowment that enables them to learn language, the so-called Language Acquisition Device (LAD) or Language Faculty, which is thought to provide a blueprint of the range of possible grammars of natural languages. The motivation for hypothesising such an innate system lies in the problem of explaining how children are capable of acquiring a language, the socalled Logical Problem of language acquisition. A child that acquires a language is thought to build up the grammar of his/her language on the basis of the linguistic input s/he encounters. However, the input is thought to be defective in several ways. This is usually referred as the Poverty of the Stimulus Problem. The input is thought to be defective because firstly, the input consists of a finite set of utterances, i.e. the child does not hear all possible sentences of the language that s/he is acquiring. Secondly, the input does not contain direct negative evidence as to what is not allowed in the target language. Parents usually do not tell their children what they should not say, and whilst they may correct some of their errors, the corrections are not always made consistently. This is referred to as the No Negative Evidence Hypothesis. Given that children manage to acquire a productive rule system despite the limitations of the input, it has been hypothesised that there is an innate Language Faculty that reduces the acquisition burden placed on the child and makes it possible for the child to acquire his/her native language in a relatively short period of time. Evidence for the species-specific nature of the Language Faculty has been provided by studies on animal communication and from primate research. Studies of animal communication have shown that the properties of nonhuman communication differ significantly from human language. As reported by Pinker (1995: 334), non-human communication is based on one of the following three designs: (a) a finite repertory of calls (which is opposed to the infinite character of human language), (b) a continuous analog signal that reg-
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Chapter 1
isters the magnitude of some state (which is opposed to the infinity of human language achieved through the rearranging of discrete elements in particular orders and combinations and not varying some signal along a continuum) or (c) a series of random variations on a theme (which is opposed to the compositionality of human language, i.e. each of the infinite combinations has a different meaning, which is predictable from the meanings of its parts and the principles arranging them). Unsuccessful attempts to teach American Sign Language to chimpanzees have provided additional evidence for the species-specific nature of the Language Faculty (see Pinker 1995: 335–341).1 Grammar within the Generative Framework develops on the basis of the Language Faculty and linguistic experience, i.e. the speech input of the target language or the primary linguistic data. The Language Faculty provides the child with an algorithm for developing grammar on the basis of linguistic experience, in other words it provides the child with a procedure for analysing the linguistic experience in such a way as to devise the grammar of the target language. This procedure can be represented schematically as in (1) below. (1)
Linguistic Experience
Language Faculty
Target Grammar
This chapter is concerned with the content and structure of the Language Faculty and with the different approaches to the acquisition process. The notion of Universal Grammar (UG) within the two most recent models of the Generative Framework, i.e. the Principles and Parameters Theory (PPT) and the Minimalist Program (MP), will be discussed in Section 1.1. Section 1.2 discusses the hypotheses that have been put forward for the acquisition process, i.e. the Maturation and the Continuity Hypothesis and Section 1.3 is concerned with hypotheses that have been developed within the MP, the framework that is adopted in the study undertaken in this book. Finally, Section 1.4 concludes this chapter with a brief summary of the information presented.
. Universal Grammar As seen in the previous section, within the Generative Framework, it is assumed that there is a component of the human mind/brain, which is dedicated to language, the Language Faculty, and that it is available to each individual prior to linguistic experience. The Language Faculty has an Initial State and under trig-
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gering and shaping influences of the environment it undergoes changes until it reaches the Final State, i.e. the adult/target grammar. According to Chomsky (1998), UG is supposed to be ‘the theory of the initial state, and particular grammars to be theories of attained states’ (Chomsky 1998: 2). However, the characterisation of UG has not been stable in the course of the development of Generative Grammar. For example, the elements conceived as language universals within the PPT differ from the ones within the MP. Moreover, even within the PPT the nature of parameterisation has also changed through the development of the theory. The next two sections will discuss these issues. Section 1.1.1 shows the content of UG and the nature of parameterisation within the PPT and Section 1.1.2 within the MP. .. UG and parameterisation within the PPT Within the PPT, UG consists of a finite set of principles and a finite set of parameters, which have a finite set of values. Since the set of principles, parameters and parameter values is finite, language variation is restricted in a formal way. Cross-linguistic variation is explained through the fixing of the parameter values in a different way in every language. However, there is no consensus on the nature of parameterisation. Three main hypotheses have been developed to explain the nature of parameterisation: (a) parameters are associated with UG principles, (b) parameters are associated with particular lexical items, and (c) parameters are associated with functional categories. Each of these hypotheses is considered in the following sections.
Parameterisation of Principles In Chomsky (1986), Parameters are associated with UG Principles. For example, X-bar Theory consists of the Principles listed in (2) below: (2) a. XP = (YP), X’ b. X’ = YP*,2 X
(from Atkinson 1992: 70)
(2a) above stipulates that a phrase consists of a specifier (YP) and an intermediate node, X’, and (2b) above that the intermediate node, X’, consists of a head, X, and a complement, YP. However, the elements in (2) are unordered, which is indicated by the commas. The linear order of the elements is defined through the Specifier Parameter, as shown in (3) below and the Head-Direction Parameter, as shown in (4) below, each one of which has two values.
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Chapter 1
(3) Specifier Parameter a. XP = (YP) – X’ (specifier-initial) b. XP = X’ – (YP) (specifier-final) (4) Head-Direction Parameter a. X’ = X – YP* (head-initial) b. X’ = YP* – X (head-final)
(from Atkinson 1992: 92)
Cross-linguistic variation with respect to the order of the head and the specifier is represented in this system through the different values of the Head-Direction Parameter and the Specifier Parameter. The Parameter Values are, thus, associated with particular languages and each language should have the same value for all phrasal types, Verb Phrases (VPs), Noun Phrases (NPs), Prepositional Phrases (PPs), etc.3
The Lexical Parameterisation Hypothesis The second hypothesis for the nature of parameterisation has been introduced by Wexler & Manzini (1987). Wexler & Manzini, building on work by Borer (1984), pursued the idea that values of a parameter are associated with particular lexical items in a language and not with particular languages. Wexler & Manzini developed the Lexical Parameterisation Hypothesis in order to describe binding data on Icelandic pronouns. Relevant for this analysis are Principle A and B of the Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981), as shown in (5) below. (5) Principle A: An anaphor is bound in its governing category. Principle B: A pronoun is free in its governing category.
The term ‘bound’ means ‘c-commanded and coindexed’, as in (6) below, while the term ‘free’ means ‘not bound and coindexed’. (6) α binds β iff α and β are coindexed and α c-commands β
With respect to the governing category, Wexler & Manzini based on Manzini & Wexler (1984), assume that the values in (7) below may capture the distribution of anaphors and pronouns cross-linguistically.4 (7) γ is a governing category for α iff γ is the minimal category which contains α and a. has a subject, or b. has an INFL, or
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c. has a TNS, or d. has an indicative TNS, or e. has a root TNS
Wexler & Manzini observed that the value that was associated with the parameter in the definition of the governing category of the Icelandic anaphor sig, i.e. value d. in (7) above, cannot capture the distribution of the pronoun hann. The distribution of hann, however, can be captured by the parametric value c. in (7) above. Consequently, Icelandic cannot be associated with any single value of the governing category parameter. This led Wexler & Manzini to conclude that the parameter values in (7) are associated with particular lexical items in a language and not with particular languages, as it has been claimed so far. Wexler & Manzini extended this conclusion drawn for the parameter in (7) above to parameters in general, as shown in (8) below, and labelled it the Lexical Parameterisation Hypothesis. (8) Lexical Parameterisation Hypothesis Values of a parameter are associated not with particular languages, but with particular lexical items in a language. (Wexler & Manzini 1987: 55)
Given that Wexler & Manzini developed the Lexical Parameterisation Hypothesis in order to account for the properties of pronouns, which are words belonging to functional categories, it is not clear as to whether this hypothesis applies only to functional words or also to lexical ones. However, if it is extended to all parameters, it seems that we miss some crucial generalisations that can be captured under the assumption that a particular parameter value is associated with a particular language, as is the case for the Head-Direction Parameter for example.5 The idea that the parameter values are associated with particular lexical items in a language leads to the assumption that the values that we saw in (3), i.e. head-final and head-initial, have to be stored in the lexical entry of every verb, preposition etc. This does not pose a problem for the theory,6 however, as Atkinson (1992: 234) notes, it is unattractive from the point of view of language acquisition, since it implies that children have to learn in an item-by-item fashion the directionality of the head.7
The parameterisation of functional categories The origin of the final and the most influential hypothesis for the nature of parameterisation comes from the work of Borer (1984).
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Chapter 1
During the course of the development of linguistic theory, considerable emphasis has been placed on the understanding of the properties of functional categories, which have been thought to be the locus of parameterisation (see Ouhalla 1991). This hypothesis has been put forward in the theoretical literature, as well as in the acquisition literature. Consider (9) and (10) below. (9) The theory of UG is the theory of the parametric variation in the specification of closed class elements, filtered through a theory of levels. (Lebeaux 1988: 19) (10) Properties of the lexicon too are sharply constrained, by UG or other systems of the mind/brain. If substantive elements (verbs, nouns, etc.) are drawn from an invariant universal vocabulary, then only functional elements will be parameterised. (Chomsky 1989: 44)
An example that illustrates the functional parameterisation hypothesis is given by Fassi-Fehri (1989) who deals with the directionality of (subject) case assignment and its interaction with word-order. The data Fassi-Fehri wants to account for concern the different position of the subject in English and Arabic, as illustrated in (11) below. (11) a. The enemy bombed the city. b. qasafa l-c aduww-u l-madi:nat-a bombed the-enemy-nom the-city-obj ‘The enemy bombed the city.’ (Fassi-Fehri 1989 as cited by Atkinson 1992: 250)
Adopting the subject VP-internal analysis, Fassi-Fehri attributes the difference in the word-order of the subject in English versus Arabic to the parameterised case assignment. In English, case assignment for I is to the left, while in Arabic to the right. Under the assumption that V moves in both languages to I in order to receive the verbal inflection, the subject in English must move to Spec,IP in order to receive nominative case, as illustrated (12a) below.
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Acquisition theories and the acquisition of the DP
(12) a.
IP DP
I’
the enemyi
VP
I I
V
V’
ei
bombedj
DP
ej
the city
In contrast to English, the subject in Arabic does not have to move to Spec,IP, because case assignment in Arabic is to the right. Thus, the subject l-c aduwwu = the enemy, can receive case in its base position. This is illustrated in (12b) below. IP
(12) b. I qasafai bombed
VP DP l–caduww-u the enemy
V’ V
DP
ei
l-madi:nat-a the city
In the acquisition literature, the idea of functional parameterisation has been adopted among others by Radford (1990a; 1990b), Guilfoyle & Noonan (1992) and Tsimpli (1992/1996) who assume within the Maturation Hypothesis (see also Section 1.2.1) that in the early stages of acquisition the child grammar consists only of lexical categories.8 Moreover, within the Weak Continuity Hypothesis (see Section 1.2.2), Clahsen, Penke & Parodi (1993/1994), Clahsen, Eisenbeiss & Penke (1996) and Eisenbeiss (2000) have claimed that in early child speech functional categories are underspecified with respect to some of their features. .. UG within the MP Within the MP, the conception of UG has changed radically. UG does not consist anymore of principles and parameters. In Chomsky (2001), language con-
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Chapter 1
sists of three components, narrow syntax, the phonological component and the semantic component. The components that are assumed to be uniform in all languages are narrow syntax and the semantic component. UG is assumed to determine the set of features available for languages. This does not mean that all languages have the same set of features. Instead each language selects a subset of these features and constructs its lexicon. Language variation, hence, results from differences in the lexicon related to the set of features available in each language and not on differences within narrow syntax. With respect to the types of features, there is a tripartite division of primitive features into: a. features that are interpreted at the semantic component, b. features that are interpreted at the phonological component, and c. features that are interpreted at neither interface. (Chomsky 1996: 6) Moreover, features are divided into: a. Formal Features (FFs) that are subject to syntactic operations, and b. other features that are not relevant for syntax. (see Chomsky 1996: 6) Examples of FFs are categorial features [±N], [phi-features], [Case], [Tense] and operator features, i.e. [Q- or wh-], [Topic], [Focus]. An example of a feature that is not subject to syntactic operations is the semantic feature [artefact] (see Chomsky 1995: 239). With respect to the interpretability of features, examples of features that are interpretable at the semantic component are [phi-features] of nominals, i.e. [Number] and [Gender], as well as the feature [±human] and [Person]. FFs that are uninterpretable are for example [Case] of nominals and [phifeatures] of verbs. Within this system narrow syntax consists of operations, which are primitives and do not have to be learned. The operations available in narrow syntax in Chomsky (2001) are Merge, Agree, Transfer, and SIMPL, all of which will be dealt below. The operation Merge takes two syntactic objects (α, β) and forms K (α, β) from them. Merge can be external or internal.9 External Merge is associated with argument structure and Internal Merge with scopal and discourse-related properties. In External Merge α and β are separate objects. In Internal Merge, on the other hand, we are not dealing with two separate objects, but one is part of the other and Internal Merge yields the property of displacement. The operation Agree establishes a relation between two objects, a Probe and a Goal. This operation is associated with the deletion of uninterpretable fea-
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tures and it applies when an object α, the Probe, has an uninterpretable feature and is in an appropriate relation to interpretable features of some other object β, the Goal. The Goal must be complete with a full set of features. Agree as such does not involve movement. Unlike in previous stages of the MP, movement/displacement does not display a separate operation. It involves the operation Agree, but apart from the Probe–Goal relation between an uninterpretable feature on the Probe and an interpretable feature on the Goal, it is forced by the presence of EPP on an uninterpretable feature. EPP forces Internal Merge and so displacement takes place. The operation Transfer applies to the derivation in narrow syntax and sends it to the interfaces, the semantic component and the phonological component. In the current version of the MP (Chomsky 2001), transfer applies cyclically in a piece-by-piece fashion. The units transferred are called Phases, which are the CP, vP and according to Adger (2001) also DP. Finally, the operation SIMPL converts <α, β> to {α, β}, which is then an ordered set. According to Chomsky (2001) SIMPL takes place after narrow syntax, at the point of TRANSFER and in part of the TRANSFER operation. A considerable amount of acquisition research has been undertaken in recent years within the MP (see Section 1.3). Several studies in particular have focused on the application of the operation Merge in early child speech and the production of utterances that were very difficult to describe within the PPT, such as the ones in (13) below which have been called by Roeper (1996; 1999) ‘Unique Maximal Projections’ (see also Powers (1996; 2000; under review). (13) no wet more read are you put this on me?
(from Powers, under review)
FFs that have been discussed in the acquisition literature, are among others the features [±specific] in Roeper (1996), [+Event] in Powers & Lebeaux (1998), [±count], [+mass], [±gradable] in Moore & Roeper (1998), [±referential] in Pérez-Leroux & Roeper (1999), [Gender], [Person], [Case], [+definite], [+wh], [+subjunctive], [+Arg], [+anaphoric], [+Aux] [+Neg] in Roeper (1999).
. The acquisition process within the PPT As noted in the previous section, a central claim within the Generative Framework is the presence of a genetic endowment in humans that enables them to develop language. The component of the mind/brain dedicated to language is
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the Language Faculty. At the Initial State, parameter values are open, which are then fixed in the course of acquisition resulting in the Target-Grammar, i.e. the Final State. The language acquisition process can, thus, be schematically represented as in (14) below. (14) G0 = Initial State G1 G2 : :
Gn–1 Gn = Final State
Language acquisition research focuses on the intermediate grammars between the Initial State and the Final State. The grammar of the child at the outset, i.e. the Initial State cannot be observed for obvious reasons. However, there is no consensus on the way development proceeds. This is known in the language acquisition research as the ‘Developmental Problem of Language Acquisition’ (see Verrips 1990). The two main Hypotheses that have been put forward for the acquisition process within the PPT are the Maturation Hypothesis and the Continuity Hypothesis. Both hypotheses will be discussed in the next sections on the basis of data on the acquisition of the DP in English, German and Swiss German. .. The Maturation Hypothesis The basic idea that characterises the Maturation Hypothesis is that child grammar differs fundamentally from the target grammar and changes in the grammar of the child are caused by maturation in the domain of biology (mind/brain). This entails that certain properties of a biologically determined program should be available at specific points in time. In essence, this means that the changes that lead from the Initial State to the Final State reflect a biological phenomenon and are not influenced by linguistic input to the child, but rather are determined by maturation in biological terms. If we consider again the scheme that was presented at the beginning of Section 1.2, and shown in (15) below, the development which takes place in
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each one of the grammars that intervene between the Initial State and the Final State is the result of biological maturation and not of any linguistic factors. (15) G0 = Initial State maturation of x G1 maturation of y G2 : :
Gn–1 maturation of z Gn = Final State
Three versions of the Maturation Hypothesis were proposed in the 80s and 90s. The Discontinuity Hypothesis Felix (1987), a second version by Borer & Wexler (1987), Wexler (1994; 1996) and a third version by Guilfoyle & Noonan (1992), Radford (1990a; 1990b; 1995) and Tsimpli (1992/1996). According to Felix (1987; 1992), UG is not available from the outset to the child. Principles emerge in a specific temporal order, which is biologically determined. Consequently, child grammars are possible grammars only in a restricted sense, i.e. only with respect to the principles that have already emerged. However, children may build ‘wild’ grammars, i.e. grammars, which are not constrained by UG at a stage in which some principles have not yet emerged. Thus, child grammars violate UG principles that have not yet matured. For example, according to Felix (1987), early child German exhibits free word-order which is attributed to the unavailability of X-bar Theory in child grammar. Within Felix’s analysis, word-order in early child German is regulated by the semantic properties of the lexical items used by the child. Eventually, when principles and parameters mature, child grammar becomes consistent with UG and the parameters get fixed. In the example of German word order, when Xbar Theory matures, the possible word-order patterns are then restricted to the ones that are allowed by the X-bar scheme.10 Borer & Wexler (1987) and Wexler (1994; 1996) put forward the idea that maturation affects some specific parts of UG. For Borer & Wexler, the properties of UG that mature are A-chains. The unavailability of A-chains is responsible for the absence of verbal passives in child speech. The presence of adjectival passives reflects the fact that adjectival passives involve a lexical process unlike verbal passives which involve a syntactic process.11
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According to Wexler (1994; 1996) the UG property that matures is TENSE. The Optional Infinitive Stage which has the properties illustrated in (16) below, is according to Wexler the result of the optionality of TENSE: ‘the Optional Infinitive Stage is TENSE-Optionality: TENSE is optional (All other relevant UG and language-particular facts are known to the child)’ (Wexler 1996: 130). (16) a. There are main clauses with finite verbs. b. There are main clauses with non-finite verbs. c. Nevertheless, the children know the difference between the finite and non-finite verbs. That is they know verb movement and all the morphosyntactic conditions associated with verb movement, both the UG conditions and the language-particular (parametric) conditions. (Wexler 1996: 126)
However, according to Wexler (1994; 1996) optionality of TENSE does not imply that children’s representations are not UG constrained: ‘although children’s grammatical capacities might mature, the representations that they have are always consistent with UG’ (Wexler 1994: 307). The third version of the Maturation Hypothesis is based on the Functional Parameterisation Hypothesis. As in Wexler (1994; 1996), UG is available to the child from the outset. However, unlike Borer & Wexler and Wexler, what matures are functional categories or, according to Tsimpli (1992/1996), the Functional Module. Thus, early child speech is constrained by UG, but consists only of words belonging to lexical categories. Modules which are related to functional categories, e.g. Case and Binding, are thought to be nonoperative or vacuously operative when functional categories have not yet matured. The emergence of functional categories in child speech is the result of a maturational process. The most detailed analysis of the acquisition of functional categories within the Maturation Hypothesis has been put forward by Radford (1990a; 1990b; 1995) for the acquisition of English. To illustrate the Maturation Hypothesis, I will refer to Radford’s data and analysis on the acquisition of the DP in English. According to Radford (1990a) the early grammar of the child (typically between the ages of 20–23 months, ±20%) consists of only lexical categories. This means that the first instances of noun phrases (i.e. prior to the ages of 20– 23 months, ±20%) are exclusively NPs and not DPs. DPs emerge as the result of the maturation of functional categories. Empirical evidence for this claim has been provided in Radford (1990a; 1990b) from the observations summarised in (17) below:
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(17) 1. The first occurrence of nouns in child speech consists of nouns that lack prenominal determiners, i.e. a/the/this/that etc., in contexts where adult grammar would require them, as in (18a), 2. Children do not attach the genitive -s morpheme, which functions as a head determiner, to possessor nominals, as in (18b). 3. There is no case system operating in the child grammar: (a) children at this stage fail to use the ‘dummy’ case-marking preposition of when introducing noun complements, as shown in (18c) and (b) many children do not use case-marked pronouns, i.e. I/you/he/she/we/they etc., they rather use nouns in contexts, where adults would use pronouns, as illustrated in (18d). Given that case is an inherent morphosyntactic property of the D-system, lack of the case-marking mechanisms is evidence for lack of the D-system. 4. Children are not aware of the semantic properties of the D-system, i.e. the referential properties of nouns and pronouns: person properties and binding properties: (a) they refer frequently to themselves using their name, as shown in (18e), (b) they use nouns to refer both to the speaker and to the addressee, i.e. they are not aware of the restriction that nouns are typically used for third person reference, as illustrated in (18f) and (c) binding properties do not seem to be operative, as shown in (18g). (18) a. b. c. d. e. f. g.
Open door. Mommy milk Cup tea. Baby eat cookies. Bethan sit down. Mommy pick up . . . Kendall. (instead of You pick me up.) Kendall see Kendall. (from Radford 1990a)
Independent evidence for the presence of the DP in child grammar can be provided if children use words that in the adult language belong to the functional category D, like demonstrative and personal pronouns, such as this/that/it/I/you/me/my. Indeed there are instances of demonstrative and (in a smaller amount) personal pronouns in early child speech. However, such instances are analysed by Radford as ‘impostors’, in this case as pronominal NPs/N-bar and not as pronominal DPs/D-bar.12 According to the Structure Building Hypothesis (see Guilfoyle & Noonan 1992; Radford 1990b; 1995), functional categories mature gradually. Children pass from a lexical stage to a functional stage. In the lexical stage, their phrase marker consists of only lexical categories, e.g. NPs and VPs. In the functional
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stage, the phrase marker expands gradually bottom-up with functional projections closer to the NP and VP appearing before others. The order of maturation is, thus, linked to the hierarchical order of functional categories, for example IP should emerge earlier than CP. The Maturation Hypothesis provides an adequate description of the empirical data on the acquisition of functional categories.13 Moreover, the difference between child and target grammar is traced to assumptions that are based on linguistic theory. Thus, it is a very attractive hypothesis both on empirical and conceptual grounds. Nevertheless, development within the Maturation Hypothesis is not the effect of the interaction of the Primary Linguistic Data with the Language Faculty, but the result of a biological mechanism. Consequently, despite the fact that development is described through linguistic assumptions, i.e. the maturation of functional categories or the Functional Module, the Maturation Hypothesis does not explain why development proceeds in this way and not in some other way. .. The Continuity Hypothesis The central idea of the Continuity Hypothesis is that child grammar does not differ significantly from adult grammar. As in Borer & Wexler (1987), Wexler (1994; 1996), Radford (1990a; 1990b) and Tsimpli (1992/1996), UG is available to the child from the outset. Children do not build ‘wild’ grammars as in Felix (1987; 1992). Child grammar is UG constrained, it violates neither principles nor parameters. However, unlike the Maturation Hypothesis, development is not the result of biologically based maturation, but results from the interaction of the LAD with Primary Linguistic Data, i.e. the input to the child. This is illustrated in the scheme shown in (19) below. (19) G0 = Initial State Input G1 Input G2 : :
Gn–1 Input Gn = Final State
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The empirical fact that children do not talk like adults has led to the development of two different sub-hypotheses: the Strong Continuity and the Weak Continuity Hypothesis/the Lexical Learning Approach which deal with the relation between child and target grammar within the areas of syntax and morphology. In the rest of this section these two hypotheses will be discussed in more detail. The Strong Continuity Hypothesis will be presented through the studies of Penner (1994) and Penner & Weissenborn (1996) on the acquisition of the DP in Swiss German and the Weak Continuity Hypothesis/the Lexical Learning Hypothesis through the work of Clahsen, Penke & Parodi (1993/1994), Clahsen, Eisenbeiss & Penke (1996) and Eisenbeiss (2000) on the acquisition of the DP in German.
The Strong Continuity Hypothesis According to the Strong Continuity Hypothesis (see Penner 1994; Penner & Weissenborn 1996), the representations of the early child grammar violate neither UG principles nor parameters of the target language. Parameter setting can be fully target-consistent from the beginning, i.e. certain parameter values can be fixed very early, at the pre-linguistic or the one-to-two-word stage, but in some other cases a given parameter can be set stepwise. This will result in an early grammar which is only partially consistent with the target grammar. Parameter setting is the result of the interaction of the Input to the child with the Language Faculty. According to this hypothesis the input contains triggering information, the so-called triggers. The notion of a trigger is based on ideas put forward by Roeper & Weissenborn (1990).14 According to Roeper & Weissenborn (1990), for each parameter there is a Unique Trigger in the input to the child, which causes the setting of the parameter to its target value. Roeper & Weissenborn developed this idea for the setting of the pro-drop parameter. As far as the pro-drop parameter is concerned, given that children acquiring English, French, and Italian encounter contradictory data with respect to the features that are related to the pro-drop phenomenon, Roeper & Weissenborn have made a distinction between a Unique Trigger that leads to parameter setting and corollary features that alone do not suffice to (re)set the parameter: ‘What the child must find is the one crucial feature which definitely sets the parameter; all other corollary features can exist for either option of the parameter.’ (Roeper & Weissenborn 1990: 152)
Additionally, Roeper & Weissenborn have distinguished between a general parameter and subparameters. The general parameter is set through a Unique
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Trigger. Once the general parameter is set, a set of unmarked biases is created for a series of subparameters, which are local and structure-specific. The notion of Unique Triggers is related to the existence of specific syntactic domains, which provide unambiguous evidence to the child for Parameter Setting. With respect to the setting of the pro-drop parameter, Roeper & Weissenborn observed that the matrix clause often contains ambiguous information for parameter setting, while in subordinate clauses children may receive unambiguous data for the setting of the general parameter. As the subordinate clause is the point at which the deep structure of the language is open to view, according to Roeper & Weissenborn, the subordinate clause is the Unique Trigger for the setting of the pro-drop parameter. Based on these ideas put forward by Roeper & Weissenborn (1990), Penner (1994) developed a model in which triggers are ordered in a hierarchical way on the basis of their accessibility to the child. Central notions for the definition of the Accessibility Hierarchy of Triggers are the notions of canonicity and syntagmatic versus paradigmatic triggering frames. Triggers are embedded in triggering frames which may be syntagmatic or paradigmatic. A triggering frame is syntagmatic if it involves root/non-root asymmetries, i.e. a minimal pair consisting of two distinct manifestations of the triggering feature. For example, main versus subordinate clauses display a root/non-root asymmetry in the clausal domain, while the minimal pair vocative versus non-vocative displays a root/non-root asymmetry in the nominal domain. A triggering frame is paradigmatic if the trigger is visible by means of paradigmatic relations, i.e. if ‘the trigger is not globally linked to a given structure, but either to a specific lexical item or to a slot in a paradigm’ (Penner 1994: 16). If the trigger is embedded in a syntagmatic frame, then it is canonical; on the other hand, triggers that are embedded in paradigmatic frames are noncanonical. Triggers that are canonical are thought to be more accessible to the child, while triggers, which are non-canonical are less accessible to the child. Since canonical triggers are more accessible to the child, they are predicted to be available to the child early in the course of parameter setting. Noncanonical triggers, on the other hand, are less accessible to the child and can be revealed by creating paradigms or complete distributional lists. This involves item-by-item learning, which is predicted to take more time. Consequently, children are initially predicted to syntactically bootstrap only the target parameters that are canonical in nature. Triggers that are not encoded in this manner become accessible at a later stage (Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 1). Thus, the child’s representations initially may not fully match the target ones. These
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inconsistencies between child and adult grammar are determined by the Local Well-formedness Constraint (Weissenborn 1994), which is shown in (20) below. (20) Local Well-formedness Constraint (LWC) The representation of any utterance of the child is locally well formed with respect to a representation of the adult grammar either at the level of phrase structure or at an intermediate level in the sequence of derivations carried out on it. (Weissenborn 1994: 229)
The LWC is a constraint on projections. The child’s utterances are well formed to the level to which they project, i.e. it holds within the domain of a given Extended Projection (CP as an extended projection of VP and DP as an extended projection of NP), not between domains. The LWC constrains the possible forms that children’s representations can take, including their possible deviations from the target in terms of both phrase structures and representational steps and forces the variations in the child’s language to stay within the parametric system of the target grammar. Thus, no parameter resetting is necessary (Weissenborn 1994: 243). The most detailed analysis of the acquisition of the DP within the Strong Continuity Hypothesis has been developed by Penner (1994) and Penner & Weissenborn (1996) for the acquisition of the DP in Bernese Swiss German and High German. In the rest of this subsection, to illustrate the Strong Continuity Hypothesis I will use the data and analysis of the acquisition of the DP in Bernese Swiss German from Penner (1994) and Penner & Weissenborn (1996). According to Penner (1994), the DP involves two principles, which are thought to be part of UG, the DP Subject Condition and the D Condition. For the present discussion only the D Condition is important and this is shown in (21) below. (21) The D Condition i. The D position must be filled ii. The D Condition is met iff a. or b. a. Spec,DP is occupied either by a topicalised Xmax , an intermediate trace, or a raised quantifier b. D0 is filled either by a base-generated determiner (substantive and expletive determiners or possessive pronouns) or by means of Nto-D movement. (Penner 1994: 71–72)
Bernese Swiss German has expletive definite articles, which are proclitic elements and appear optionally with generics and obligatorily with proper names, kinship terms, unica, geographical terms, official roles, diseases, emotions and
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abstract nouns. Penner and Penner & Weissenborn analyse the clitic character of expletive definite articles in Bernese Swiss German as the result of Nto-D movement (cf. Longobardi 1994). Additionally, Bernese Swiss German has a Possessive Construction that involves the Possessor, the Possessum and the Possessive Pronoun, which has according to Penner an expletive character. For example: (22) Em Vater si Huet. the-dat-masc-sg father his-masc-sg|masc-sg hat-masc-sg ‘Father’s hut.’ (Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 171)
The Possessive Pronoun in (22) above agrees with both the Possessor and the Possessum in Number and Gender, as can be seen in the gloss. With respect to the Hierarchy of Triggers, as we saw above, triggers that are canonical in nature are more accessible to the child than triggers that are non-canonical. If we take into consideration the definition of canonicity, expletive definite articles display triggers which are canonical because they appear in a syntagmatic triggering frame, i.e. vocative (root), as in (23a) versus non-vocative (non-root), as in (23b) below. (23) a.
Anna, chum hei! Anna come here ‘Anna, come here!’ b. D’ Anna isch heicho. the Anna came home ‘Anna came home.’
(vocative = root)
(non-vocative = non-root) (Penner 1994: 93)
Substantive definite articles, on the other hand, are non-canonical because they do not appear in syntagmatic triggering frames, i.e. there is no minimal pair, like the one in (23) above because common nouns typically do not appear in the vocative.15 Expletive possessive pronouns are canonical, because they appear in a syntagmatic triggering frame, as shown in (24) below. (24) a.
Fritz, chum hei! Fritz come here ‘Fritz, come here!’ b. (Ja,) dr Mueter ihre Fritz isch da. oh the mother her Fritz is here ‘Oh, mother’s Fritz is here!’
(Penner 1994: 97)
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Penner (1994) and Penner & Weissenborn (1996) assume that parameter values emerge initially in the domain of the trigger. Under this assumption, elements from the input that are canonical triggers should be acquired earlier in development than non-canonical ones. In the Bernese Swiss German DP canonical triggers are expletive definite articles and expletive possessive pronouns. Substantive definite articles, on the other hand, are non-canonical triggers. Thus, the prediction is that expletive definite articles and expletive possessive pronouns should be acquired prior to substantive definite articles. Based on the data from one child, Juwal,16 Penner and Penner & Weissenborn showed that this prediction is borne out. According to Penner & Weissenborn (1996) there is no evidence for the DP projection prior to 1;6 in the data under investigation. Noun phrases between 1;2 and 1;6 consist of bare nouns, as shown in (25) below. (25) Ditsi mei. güetzi nei (target utterance) cookies no ‘There are no more cookies.’
(Juwal 1;2.18)
(Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 178)
Possessor Raising emerges at the age of 1;6.14 with bare possessor raising structures, as in (26) below. This has been taken as evidence for the emergence of the DP-layer. (Juwal 1;6.14)
(26) Nomi Bett. Naomi Bett ‘Naomi’s bed.’
(Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 179)
According to Penner & Weissenborn, the noun phrase in (26) above corresponds to the phrase marker in (27) below. (27)
DP D’
Spec Nomi -
D0
NP Bett -
(Penner & Weissenborn 1996:183)
During this age there are no definite articles attested in the speech of Juwal. Definite articles emerge in his speech at the age of 1;7.13, one month after the emergence of bare possessor raising. At this stage, definite articles are rather unsystematic and until the age of 2;0 only 6% of definite articles are present in
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obligatory contexts. Moreover, definite articles do not show case and agreement marking until the age of 1;9.10, as shown in (28) below.17 (28) D’ Outo ab. the-nom/acc-sg car down ‘The car down.’
(Juwal 1;7.13) (Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 181)
Expletive possessive pronouns emerge at the age of 1;7.29. However, in these structures Juwal uses only the Possessor and the Possessive Pronoun, i.e. he omits the Possessum, as shown in (29) below that corresponds to the phrase marker in (30).18 (29) Mami sis. mother its-neut-sg|neut-sg ‘Mother’s.’ (30)
(Juwal 1;7.29) (Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 179)
DP D’
Spec Mami -
D0
NP
sis -|-
(Penner & Weissenborn 1996:184)
The complete dative possessive construction emerges in 1;10.19. From this age onwards, Juwal uses both the Possessor and the Possessum, as shown in (31) below, which has a phrase marker as in (32). However, there are still dative possessive constructions attested with the Possessum omitted (10% from 1;10.19 to 2;5.1). (31) Nadaw sis Ue. Nadaw its-neut-sg watch ‘Nadaw’s watch.’
(Juwal 1;10.19) (Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 180)
DP
(32)
D’
Spec Nadaw -
D0
NP
sis -|- Ue -
(Penner & Weissenborn 1996:184)
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In the 27th month, i.e. at the age of 2;3, there is a significant increase (45%) in the use of expletive definite articles with proper names and kinship terms. This is interpreted by Penner & Weissenborn as ‘a systematic process of generalisation of the Expletive Insertion Rule via definite articles’ (Penner & Weissenborn 1996: 184), which lasts from 2;3 until 2;7. Interestingly, until the age of 2;3.14, possessive pronouns are unspecified with respect to the obligatory dative marking and agreement features. Case marking in possessive pronouns emerges in 2;3.14. However, between 2;3.14 and 2;5.1 case marking on possessive pronouns is attested only in 25% of the constructions. Finally, until 2;5.1 no gender and number distinctions are expressed by the expletive possessive pronoun. Given that Penner & Weissenborn analyse noun phrases from 1;6.14 onwards as DPs, absence of case marking on the possessive pronoun has been taken as evidence against the idea that case marking precedes the emergence of the full fledged DP. To summarise the developmental sequence of the acquisition of the DP in Bernese Swiss German, noun phrases consist initially of bare nouns. Evidence for the DP-layer comes initially from Possessor Raising Constructions. Unsystematic use of definite articles is followed by the emergence of expletive possessive pronouns, which is eventually followed by the systematic use of expletive definite articles with proper names and kinship terms. Systematic use of substantive definite articles emerges even later. Finally, case and agreement marking is acquired later than expletive possessive pronouns and expletive definite articles. These findings seem to support the predictions deriving from the Trigger Hierarchy developed by Penner (1994) and Penner & Weissenborn (1996). Expletive possessive pronouns and expletive definite articles are canonical triggers and are predicted to be acquired prior to substantive definite articles, which are non-canonical triggers. This has been borne out by the data. The data presented in Penner and Penner & Weissenborn do not differ significantly from the data on the acquisition of the DP in English presented in Radford (1990a; 1990b). In both child English and Bernese Swiss German, children initially omit determiners and do not show morphological marking. However, the analysis of Penner and Penner & Weissenborn differs significantly from Radford’s (1990a; 1990b). According to Radford, the child grammar lacks a DP-layer, when the properties that are related to the DP are not instantiated in child speech. In the analysis of Penner and Penner & Weissenborn, on the other hand, the DP-layer is available in child grammar very early (at the age of 1;6), as soon as Bare Possessor Raising emerges. If the analysis of Penner and Penner & Weissenborn is right, i.e. if the DP-layer is available in child grammar
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very early in development, why do children omit definite articles and not use target-like case and agreement marking within the DP? This question is tackled by Penner and Penner & Weissenborn in the following way: the emergence of determiners and case and agreement marking is determined by the Trigger Hierarchy. The DP-layer is available in child grammar, however, the point in time in which each DP-element emerges is determined by the way in which it is encoded in the input to the child. Thus, unavailability of substantive definite articles should not be taken as evidence for the unavailability of the DP-layer, in contrary, this is predicted from the Canonicity Hierarchy of Triggers.19 However, the following fact poses a serious problem to the analysis of Penner and Penner & Weissenborn: according to the Canonicity Hierarchy, substantive definite articles are non-canonical, because they are not used in syntagmatic frames, i.e. in the context of vocative/non-vocative. There are cases, though, in which animate common nouns may be used in the vocative. Consider a situation, in which somebody is having his lunch break and is sitting on a beach eating a sandwich. Then a dog comes up and wants to eat his food. Given that he does not know the name of the dog, he might use the common noun dog in the vocative in order to command the dog to go away, i.e. Dog, go away! Interestingly, the use of vocatives for animals and dolls is common in child directed speech and also in child speech. This being so, substantive definite articles should also be canonical triggers, just like expletive definite articles with proper names and kinship terms because all three noun classes (proper names, kinship terms and common nouns) may be used in the context of vocative and non-vocative. Under this assumption, the difference between the accessibility of substantive versus expletive definite articles reduces to the difference of the semantics of the two types of articles.
The Weak Continuity Hypothesis or the Lexical Learning Approach The second hypothesis for the acquisition process within the Continuity Hypothesis is the Weak Continuity Hypothesis / the Lexical Learning Approach. The central elements of the Weak Continuity Hypothesis / the Lexical Learning Approach have been defined by Clahsen, Eisenbeiss & Penke (1996), as: a. weak continuity, b. head-driven projections and structural economy, and c. morphological bootstrapping. Within this hypothesis, all components of UG are available to the child at the beginning of the acquisition procedure and language-particular grammatical
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knowledge increases over time. Thus X’-theory constrains the child phrasemarker from the onset of acquisition, but the whole tree of the particular language is not available from the outset, but rather emerges gradually, based on UG principles and the input data. Functional layers are added to the existing phrase-structure representation when children learn new properties of the heads of functional projections. According to the notion of head-driven projections, it is assumed following Chomsky (1995) that UG does not provide a fixed set of labels for functional projections, e.g. CP, IP, etc. Functional projections are feature bundles and their properties are determined by their head features. Structural economy states, following Safir (1993), that at any point in a derivation, a structural description for a natural language string employs as few nodes as grammatical principles and lexical selection require. This goes hand in hand with Grimshaw’s (1994) Principle of Minimal Projection by adults and children. According to the Principle of Minimal Projection, projections are legitimate only when they are motivated. Every projection that is present must have a filled head at S-structure. Consequently, the representation of clause structure is not uniform. Extended projections are as small as possible and they contain the smallest possible number of functional projections, depending on the content of the head of each functional projection. According to Grimshaw, there is no stage in the development of language acquisition, in which children lack functional projections. Lexical and functional projections are in principle available to the child, albeit, their deployment is governed by the principle of Minimal Projection (Grimshaw 1994: 80). Similar ideas have been put forward by Speas (1994) who has proposed the Principle of Economy of Projection. (33) Principle of Economy of Projection Project XP only if XP has content.
(Speas 1994: 186)
The content of a node is defined by Speas on the basis of its phonological or semantic matrix: ‘a node X has content if and only if X dominates a distinct phonological matrix or a distinct semantic matrix’ (Speas 1994: 187). Consequently, configurations in which both the head and the specifier are empty, as in (34) below, will not be projected. For similar ideas for language acquisition, see Powers (1996); (under review).
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(34)
XP Ø
X’ X Ø
YP
(Speas 1994: 187)
Within the Lexical Learning Hypothesis, morphology is important for syntactic development – morphological bootstrapping. According to this idea, functional categories or syntactic features emerge as a consequence of the acquisition of a regular inflectional paradigm of distinct inflectional affixes. With respect to the acquisition of functional projections, according to the Lexical Learning Approach these may be underspecified20 for some of their grammatical features in the early stages of development given that functional projections and their feature matrix are language specific and they are acquired as children learn the properties of their heads. For example, Clahsen (1990/1991) argued that the extended projection of the verbal domain of German children around the age of 2 years consists of only one functional layer, which hosts the feature [+finite]. Thus, it does not correspond to any adult functional layer of the verbal domain, i.e. IP, AgrP or CP, but it is rather an underspecified functional layer, which contains only a subpart of the features of an adult functional layer. This underspecified layer has been labelled by Clahsen FP. Eventually, when the features of the corresponding head are acquired, the position in the phrase marker becomes fully specified and the projection receives its target label, i.e. IP, AgrP or CP. Clahsen, Eisenbeiss & Vainikka (1994), Clahsen, Eisenbeiss & Penke (1996) and Eisenbeiss (2000) have analysed the acquisition of the German DP within the Lexical Learning Approach. The most complete analysis of the acquisition of the DP within the Lexical Learning Approach has been carried out by Eisenbeiss (2000). To illustrate the Lexical Learning Approach, the rest of this subsection is concerned with Eisenbeiss’s data and analysis of the acquisition of the German DP. As functional layers are acquired when children acquire the properties of the heads of functional projections, which are particular to each language, the Lexical Learning Approach predicts that early child grammar may generate underspecified functional projections. In the nominal domain this corresponds to the generation of underspecified DPs in the sense that some of the features hosted by D will not be present in the child grammar. With respect to the acquisition of determiners, the Lexical Learning Approach predicts that: (1) early determiners may not correspond to target determiners, i.e. they may be im-
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postors (see also Section 1.2.1 for the use of impostors by children acquiring English), and a U-shaped developmental curve should signal the change from the impostor status of determiners to the target-like status of determiners, (2) if the DP is underspecified early determiners may not show case marking, given that D0 is the locus of nominal case features and (3) lexical entries for the different determiners hosted in D0 may be acquired independently, thus, they may appear in different times in development. The predictions for the acquisition of determiners are borne out by the data21 analysed by Eisenbeiss (2000): firstly, one child (Mathias) passes through a stage in which he does not use any determiners at all and in the speech of four children (Annelie, Hannah, Leonie and Mathias) a U-shaped curve has been attested with respect to their use of determiners. In the speech of three children (Annelie, Hannah and Leonie) there is a close relationship between the omission rate of determiners and the use of determiners in formulaic expressions, and a high proportion of determiners in obligatory contexts correlates with the use of determiners in different syntactic contexts. Moreover, determiners and adjectives are initially in complementary distribution in the speech of four children (Annelie, Hannah, Leonie and Mathias). Secondly, early determiners do not show case distinctions and thirdly, various types of determiners are acquired at different times in development: indefinite articles emerge before definite articles in the speech of four children (Annelie, Hannah, Leonie and Mathias). With respect to the possessive construction, the Lexical Learning Approach predicts that: 1. children will initially omit the possessive suffix -s, 2. subsequently, children will build up lexeme-specific representations for possessors with the possessive marker and the feature [+POSS], which will lead to the projection of a full-fledged DP. At the same time noun phrases for which children do not yet have a lexical entry with the feature [+POSS] will represent NPs and not DPs, 3. eventually children will be able to generalise over different possessor nouns with -s and create a lexical entry for the possessive marker. The result of this will be that children will be able to use the suffix -s with all possessors, and thus, all possessive constructions will project up to the DP-layer. The predictions for the acquisition of the possessive construction are also borne out by the data. The possessive suffix -s is initially omitted in the speech of three children (Annelie, Leonie and Mathias), two children pass through a stage in which they use the possessive suffix -s in a restricted way, i.e. only
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with specific lexical items, later on children overgeneralise the suffix -s also to nouns that cannot be used with the possessor suffix in the target language, an observation that provides evidence for a rule-based use of the suffix -s. Given these facts, Eisenbeiss argues for the initial underspecification of the DP with respect to its grammatical features.22 Thus, in the Lexical Learning Approach and the Structure Building Hypothesis but not in the Strong Continuity Hypothesis, it is assumed that the syntactic representation of child grammar differs from the syntactic representation of the target grammar. The difference between child versus target production in the Lexical Learning Approach is attributed to the underspecification of functional categories in child grammar. This is in contrast to the assumption of the Structure Building hypothesis, that functional categories are absent in an early stage of development. The Lexical Learning Hypothesis does not postulate the presence or the absence of functional categories at any developmental stage, it rather describes and explains development through the specification of the heads of functional projections through grammatical features. This is very similar to approaches to language acquisition within the MP, as we will see in the next section.
. Language acquisition within the MP As mentioned in Section 1.1.2, UG within the MP does not consist of Principles and Parameters. The computational system, narrow syntax, does not have to be learned. The acquisition process consists of selection of the Formal Features that are grammaticalised in the target language, construction of lexical items and mapping of features to lexical items and refinement of the computational system (see Chomsky 1998: 12–13). Several ideas have been put forward within the MP in order to describe and explain the acquisition process. For example, Platzack (1996) used the notion of strength, Powers (1996; 2000; under review) and Powers & Lebeaux (1998) used the operation Merge and Roeper (1996; 1999) used Merge and the notions Feature Identification, Feature Extraction and Feature Projection. Jakubowicz, Nash, Rigaut & Gérard (1998) used the notions of Canonical versus Non-Canonical Merge and the feature specification of pronouns, Wexler (1999) developed within checking theory the notion of the Uniqueness Checking Constraint and Tsimpli & Stavrakaki (1999) and Tsimpli (2001) used the distinction between interpretable and non-interpretable features. Platzack’s idea for the acquisition process within the MP is the most clearly developed one and can be applied to the acquisition of several phenomena.
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Therefore, I will present in the rest of this section Platzack’s hypothesis to illustrate the acquisition process within the MP. However, this is based on a notion that is not part of the theory anymore, i.e. the notion of strength. This section will also be concerned with ideas by Powers and Roeper concerning the Identification, Extraction and Projection of Formal Features that are crucial for this book.
The Initial Hypothesis of Syntax Based on ideas concerning strength of features and feature-checking as in Chomsky (1995), Platzack (1996), proposed the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax, shown in (35) below. (35) Initial Hypothesis of Syntax All instances of feature checking take place after Spell-Out (Platzack 1996: 376)
Platzack’s idea is that the child initially hypothesises that all syntactic features are weak. The child expects to find all elements in their base position, thus, s/he does not ‘move’, and feature-checking takes place after Spell-Out. In Platzack’s view, the acquisition process with respect to the strength of features and featurechecking takes place in the following manner: if a language does not postpone all feature-checking after Spell-Out, the child will recognise a tension between his expectations made by the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax and the way speakers around him/her express themselves. Thus, the child will be able to workout that word-orders that are not predicted by the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax are ‘the result of a strong position somewhere among the functional phrases. Given enough input, it takes the child about two years to figure out where all the strong positions are to be found’ (Platzack 1996: 377). As the theory has changed, the notion of strength has been abandoned in recent versions of the MP (Chomsky 1998, 1999, 2001), and thus, the Initial Hypothesis of Syntax is not part or cannot be deduced from UG in the recent version of the theory.
Feature Identification, Projection and Rejection Within the MP, Powers (1996; 2000; under review), Powers & Lebeaux (1998) and Roeper (1996; 1999) analysed acquisition data that are inconsistent with the target grammar. These consist of child-innovations, as in examples (36a) to (36c) below.
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(36) a. more car b. no mama c. are you put this on me
(from Powers, under review)
Such examples have been described within the PPT as instances of adjunction of no, more and are. These structures differ from adult representations. Within this analysis (see also Hoekstra & Jordens 1994), eventually children have to reanalyse these words in order to converge on the target representation.23 Within the MP, the same set of data can be analysed in a different way. In this theory, the phrase marker is created through the operation Merge, which builds binary trees concatenating two elements, as shown in (37) below. ã
(37) á
â
There is no explicit reference to hierarchical structure (i.e. levels X, X’, XP), since X-bar Theory has been abandoned; α and β are sets of features. As there is no restriction as to which of the two elements should be the head of the projection, either member can possibly project and label the phrase marker, as illustrated in the examples (38a) and (38b) below.24 (38) a.
more more
b. car
car more
car
As far as children’s projections are concerned, according to Roeper (1996; 1999) these do not necessarily have the feature specification of target nodes. In this view, child projections are not a subpart of adult projections. Under the assumption that feature matrixes of lexical items by children may differ from adult feature matrixes, children may pass through a stage in which they merge features and project phrase markers that do not correspond to adult maximal projections. Roeper (1996; 1999) has labelled such maximal projections Unique Maximal Projections.25 This being so, children will project only the features they have identified (Feature Identification and Projection). Consequently, they will build novel phrase markers, i.e. phrase markers that do not exist in the target grammar. If we consider again example (36b), according to Powers, ‘the child has identified the feature [+negative] with the lexical item no’ (Powers, under review:17). Further, according to Roeper (1996: 423), in example (36c) the child’s novel use of the word are reflects that the child has identified the feature [+yes/no] with
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this word. The phrase markers corresponding to (36b) and (36c) are given in (39a) and (39b) below. (39) a.
no → negative feature
no [+negative]
N(P) bed
b.
are → yes/no feature
are [+yes/no]
IP
you put this on me
(39a) above can be treated as a precursor of the adult NegP and (39b) as a precursor of the adult CP. A further interesting example comes from Roeper (1996: 421). Wanting to account for child utterances that violate categorial properties of lexical items, such as the ones in (40) below, reported by Brown (1973), Roeper hypothesises that the child allows the merger of the possessive with an article (presumably with the POSS as specifier of N). (40) a. a your car b. a my pencil
(Roeper 1996: 421)
In this analysis, children will abandon the merger of articles with possessives when they will ‘recognize’ case features which require the presence of POSS in the DP, and thus, incompatibility between article and POSS will be created. This example illustrates the relation between the acquisition of morphological features and the emergence of functional categories. As Roeper notes, ‘in general, morphological features on inflections carry requirements that force functional categories into existence which in turn require checking theory to be satisfied’ (Roeper 1996: 421). Consequently, with respect to the feature specification of functional categories, Merger Theory is similar to the Lexical Learning Approach. Since, according to Roeper and Powers, the feature specification of child lexical items is not identical with the target lexical items, the nodes created by children may be underspecified with respect to some of the features of the target node. For example, at an early developmental stage ‘the CP could be limited to tense features, which is what Clahsen & Penke (1992) have called FP. The possibility of such a node with Formal Features, but not exactly the set of adult FF, is precisely the prediction that Merger Theory makes’ (Roeper 1996: 435). An idea that seems to contradict this has been developed in Roeper (1999: 4). According to Roeper (1999), children project initially all possible FFs for a given projection. Thus, for the utterance ‘the boy’ the child should hypothesise that the article the contains gender, number, case, definiteness fea-
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tures, etc. and consequently, s/he should build a projection containing these features, as shown in (41) below. (41) Projection of all possible FFs the [masc, fem, neut, sg, pl, nom, acc, definite, ...] boy
the
[masc, fem, neut, sg, pl, nom, acc, definite, ...]
Upon hearing the phrase ‘the girl’, the child will exclude the masculine gender and upon hearing the phrase ‘the dog’, the child will reject the feature gender altogether (Feature Rejection), as shown in (42) below. (42) Feature Rejection the [masc, fem, neut, sg, pl, nom, acc, ...] the
boy
[masc, fem, neut, sg, pl, nom, acc, ...]
Moreover, upon hearing the boys, the child should reject the number features from the definite article. As Roeper (1999) mentions, the idea of Feature Projection of all possible features and consequently Feature Rejection of the features that are not grammaticalised in the target language is consistent with the Subset Principle. That is, if this process is right, the child will encounter data that will give him/her the necessary cues in order to abandon FFs that are not present in the target nodes (Feature Rejection). Although this process is very attractive with respect to learnability considerations, it is incompatible with the idea that Unique Maximal Projections contain a sub-part of the adult FFs. Of course it could be that Unique Maximal Projections do not contain a sub-part of the target FFs, but all possible FFs. However, it is not clear what ‘all possible FFs’ means. For example, what prohibits children to hypothesise that the English definite article does not contain in its feature matrix the features [Tense] and [Aspect]. If there is no restriction on the projection of features, then we should suppose that children project all features and not ‘all possible’ features. However, the empirical data seem to contradict this hypothesis. If children project initially all possible features, we would not expect child utterances, such as the ones in (40), because case features would be present from the outset, and thus, they would cause incompatibility of article and POSS. Consequently, on em-
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pirical grounds the notion of Feature Identification and Projection seems to be more adequate than the notion of Feature Projection and Rejection.
Theoretical assumptions crucial for this study This study will take as a point of departure the version of the MP developed in Chomsky (2001). As shown in Section 1.1.2, the components that are subject to language variation are the phonological component and the lexicon. Acquisition process involves selection of the particular features that are grammaticalised in the target language from the set of features available in the UG and construction of the lexicon. As the study undertaken in this book focuses on the acquisition of the MG nominal domain, relevant features in this study are the features of gender, number, case, and the features involved in the marking of definiteness. Finally, as DPs in MG involve movement to the left periphery of the DP, which is the specifier of the DP, EPP is also crucial, as the presence of EPP forces movement within this model. With respect to the acquisition process, Section 1.2 has shown that within the PPT two major hypotheses have been articulated, the Maturation Hypothesis and the Continuity Hypothesis. Within the MP, the debate of maturation versus continuity seems not to be a major issue anymore. This is because of the changes that the theory has undergone. The debate between maturation and continuity within the PPT has focused mainly in the availability of functional categories in the child grammar, but also in the availability of chains and movement. Given that within the MP there is no specific set of functional categories and projections, the debate of maturation or continuity of functional categories cannot be maintained in it’s previous form. Additionally, as the component of narrow syntax is supposed to be uniform in all languages, it should not be subject to learning. Movement that takes place in narrow syntax and is language specific is thought to be the result of the presence of EPP on uninterpretable features. Could the debate between maturation and continuity apply to the availability of features? As shown in Section 1.1.2, within the MP UG is assumed to contain a set of features and each language selects a subset of these features that are grammaticalised in the language. The relevant question then is whether the selection of the features grammaticalised in each language and the availability of uninterpretable features is the result of biological maturation or the result of interaction between the intermediate grammar of the child and the input. In this book I will show that children acquiring MG create structures that do not correspond to adult ones. This is similar to the observations by Roeper
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and Powers. However, I will show that the non-target-like data cannot be explained within a maturational approach, as children run through phases in which they seem to have acquired some feature, for example case, but not in all possible contexts. This of course does not exclude the possibility of a maturational process prior to this phase. However, if a feature, such as case, has matured there is no explanation as to why children should use one case and not another if neither of the cases represent unmarked forms. This book will, thus, support the idea that the selection of the features grammaticalised in the target language is the result of interaction between the input to the child and the child’s grammar rather than the result of maturation.
. Summary This chapter has discussed the acquisition theories available within the generative framework. More specifically, Section 1.1 has illustrated the notion of UG and the locus of parameterisation within the PPT and within the MP. The acquisition process within the PPT has been discussed in Section 1.2 and the acquisition process within the MP in Section 1.3.
Notes . For a critique on the results drawn from the primate experiments from the 70s, see Campbell (1988), the discussion ‘Farewell to Nim Chimpansky’ in March 2000 in the CHILDES mailing list which can be found in the CHILDES archive http://listserv.linguistlist.org/ archives/info-childes.html and the discussion ‘Species Extinction versus Language Extinction’ in March 2000 in the LinguistList mailing list which can be found in the LinguistList archive mail numbers 11.488 and 11.469. . * = abbreviation for a set of zero or more YPs. . However, languages such as German and Dutch pose a problem for the Head-Direction Parameter because VPs are head-final, whereas PPs are head-initial. For discussion see Ouhalla (1991). . Value a. captures the distribution of English anaphors and pronouns, value b. captures the distribution of the Italian anaphor sè, value c. the Icelandic pronoun hann, value d. the Icelandic anaphor sig, and value e. the Korean anaphors caki and taanu (see Manzini & Wexler 1984 and for a critical discussion Atkinson 1992). . But see Note 3.
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Acquisition theories and the acquisition of the DP . However, also from a theoretical perspective such a solution is not very attractive, since it misses the generalisation that head directionality is in many languages uniform, but see Note 3. . This is not to say that there is no item-by-item learning by children. Such a stage has been documented very often and has also been documented in the data used in this book (see Chapter 4). . The empirical fact that words belonging to functional categories are missing from early child speech has been observed by several researchers from the mid 60s. In the 60s and 70s, these words were called functors, operators or pivots, see among others Braine (1963; 1976), Brown & Bellugi (1964), Brown & Fraser (1964), Brown, Fraser, & Bellugi (1964), Bowerman (1973). . There is a further distinction between set-Merge, which corresponds to substitution and pair-Merge, which corresponds to adjunction (Chomsky 1998: 50; Chosmky 2001: 16). As these are not relevant for this book, they will not be further considered. . But see Clahsen (1992: 60–66) for a reanalysis of the data from Felix (1987) within the Continuity Hypothesis combined with the Lexical Learning Hypothesis and Powers (2000) who argues against the idea of Felix that early child German exhibits free word-order. . For a critical discussion of Borer & Wexler (1987) see among others Weinberg (1987), Demuth (1989), Crain (1991), and Tsimpli (1992/1996). . For the use and case errors of personal pronouns in English, see among others Rispoli (1994), Vainikka (1993/1994), Powers (1996). . But see Crain & Fodor (1989) and Demuth (1989) for arguments against the Maturation Hypothesis based on empirical data on the acquisition of passive. . For a rather different view of triggers, see Gibson & Wexler (1994). . One of the reviewers noted that the distinction between definite and indefinite noun phrases constitutes a minimal pair of binary opposition within the set of substantive definite articles, and given that, substantive definite articles should also be considered as canonical. Although there is indeed a minimal pair of opposition within substantive definite articles, this does not provide relevant information as to the distinction between NPs and DPs. Consequently, this opposition cannot be the trigger for the acquisition of the DP, but rather a trigger for the acquisition of definiteness and the distribution of definite and indefinite articles. . The data for Bernese Swiss German analysed in Penner & Weissenborn (1996) consist of two corpora of diary data from one child, Juwal. The first corpus contains a daily collection of all the developmentally relevant data between the age of 1;2 and 2;8, i.e. from the one-word-stage until the acquisition of V2 and the second corpus focuses on the late development of subordination. . One reviewer commented that example (28) does not fit the prediction that substantive definite articles are acquired later than expletive definite articles, as this example shows the use of a substantive definite article at the age of 1;7, whereas expletive definite articles are acquired at the age of 2;3. According to Penner & Weissenborn, the use of substantive definite articles at the age of 1;7 is very low and unsystematic. Therefore, they do not take the
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use of substantive definite articles at that age as evidence that Juwal has acquired substantive definite articles. As far as the acquisition of articles is concerned, Penner & Weissenborn use systematic use as acquisition criterion. As the expletive definite article is the first type of articles to be used systematically by Juwal, the prediction that expletive definite articles should be acquired prior to substantive definite articles is borne out by the data. . In (29) and (30), the possessive pronoun sis seems to agree with the possessor, which is present, but also with the possessum that is omitted. This is not to say that Juwal has acquired agreement between possessive pronouns, possessors and possessums and this age. According to Penner & Weissenborn, possessive pronouns are unspecified for agreement features until 2;3.14. . However, note that as expletive definite articles are canonical triggers, they should be attested from the early developmental stages. The unavailability of expletive definite articles at early stages is not predicted by Penner & Weissenborn and remains unexplained. . Underspecification in the sense that language specific grammatical features of the adult grammar may not be instantiated in child grammar from the outset. . The data used by Eisenbeiss consist of five longitudinal and two cross-sectional corpora of monolingual German children. . Similar data have been presented by Müller (1994) for the acquisition of the DP by two bilingual French/German children. According to Müller, the functional category D is not available in early child grammar. During this stage of development the grammatical features [Gender] and [Number] have not yet been discovered by the children. Eventually, these features are acquired in a step-by-step fashion. . For a discussion and critique of the adjunction analysis see Powers (under review). . As the only purpose of (38a) and (38b) is to illustrate that there are no constraints in this theory as to which element will project, I will not go into the details as to which features are projected in these examples. . Unique in the sense that they do not correspond to target maximal projections.
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Methodology
This chapter is concerned with methodological issues, more specifically, it will present the data this book is based on, details about the data collection, transcription and the coding scheme used. Additionally, I will address the issue of identification of formulaic expressions and the criteria used for their exclusion from the analyses. Finally, I will discuss the methods of data analysis used in this study along with the means of defining developmental stages and patterns of development. In language acquisition research there are three possible sources of data that could be used: (1) diary data, (2) longitudinal data and (3) experimental data. Diary data is when a researcher writes down each utterance a child makes within a specific period of time. The use of diary data is very good for studying developmental aspects of language acquisition because it will typically include every novel utterance produced by a child within a specific time period. Collection of diary data is a feasible task during the early stages of acquisition when the child is not producing all that many utterances. However, at the later stages of acquisition keeping a diary becomes practically impossible, as the number of utterances produced by the child increases dramatically. An additional limitation of diary data is that they cannot provide the basis for quantitative analyses, because they often consist of only novel child utterances and not of all the utterances produced by the child within a specific time span. Longitudinal data is when a researcher makes recordings of one or more children over a long period of time at regular time intervals. Longitudinal data enables quantitative analyses because the frequency of correct and incorrect use of a child’s utterances can be compared at different time intervals. Where the recordings take place at regular time intervals, longitudinal data is very good at capturing developmental aspects of the acquisition process. Longitudinal data is also ideal for the investigation of the interaction between the acquisition of different phenomena, for example the acquisition of articles and morphological marking on nouns because typically they consist of naturalistic speech that makes possible the analysis of all shorts of linguistic phenomena. However, an
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important shortfall of the use of longitudinal data in acquisition studies is that based on this type of data, it is very difficult to investigate phenomena that are not very frequent in children’s speech. Experimental data refers to data obtained when an experiment is undertaken to investigate a specific linguistics phenomenon. Experimental data is most appropriate for the investigation of infrequent structures, as in an experiment it is possible to target and elicit the specific constructions under investigation. Experimental methodology also has the advantage that a large number of children can be tested, which enables a more representative picture of the acquisition process to be gained. However, before designing an experiment, it is essential to know the base line with respect to the developmental stages children undergo when they acquire their native language. The best way to define developmental stages is through the use of longitudinal data. The study undertaken in this book has used longitudinal data in order to establish the developmental sequence of the acquisition of the DP in MG. As far as the acquisition of the nominal domain in MG is concerned, only one study was available prior to the start of this study, i.e. Stephany (1997). This has a section on the acquisition of the nominal domain, including the acquisition of articles, nouns and adjectives. Stephany’s study is based mainly on longitudinal data from five children (Stephany 1997: 198), a part of which is included in the Stephany Corpus in the CHILDES1 database. However, the Stephany Corpus is a relatively small data set and in this corpus the intervals between the recording sessions are sometimes six months long. A consequence of this is that although it is possible to see how the children’s speech develops from one recording session to the next, the development attested is often massive. With this set of data it is, therefore, impossible to capture developmental changes that take place within shorter periods of time than those measured. Due to the lack of studies on the acquisition of the nominal domain in MG based on large corpora with short intervals between the recording sessions, I found it necessary to study the acquisition of the nominal domain on the basis of a large set of longitudinal data. Thus, by doing this it is possible to establish the baseline of the development of the nominal domain, which is a crucial step if one wants to do further research with experimental methodology. The baseline obtained from longitudinal studies can then be refined through the use of experimental data that can reveal fine-grained distinctions and can also shed light on phenomena that are infrequent in child and adult speech.
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Methodology
. The data The present study is based on two longitudinal corpora, the Stephany Corpus and the Christofidou Corpus. The Stephany Corpus consists of audiorecordings from four children (Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria) and it is available in the CHILDES Database (MacWhinney & Snow 1985). The Christofidou Corpus consists of audio-recordings of one child (Christos), which have been kindly made available to me by Anastasia Christofidou. All five children were monolingual Greek speakers, who were living in Athens. The age and the sex of the children is shown in Table 2.1. The socio-economic status of the children’s families is shown in Table 2.2.
Table 2.1. Age and sex of children Name
Sex
Age
Christos Spiros Janna Mairi Maria
male male female female female
1;7–3;0 1;9 1;11/2;3/2;9 1;9/2;5/2;9 2;3/2;9
Table 2.2. Socio-economic status of the children’s families* Christos
Spiros
Janna
Mairi
Maria
Father’s Profession
aeronautical engineer
salesman
theologian
tile layer
civil servant
Father’s Education
university degree
elementary school
university degree
elementary school
high school
Mother’s Profession
linguist
saleswoman
theologian
housewife
civil servant
Mother’s Education
university degree
elementary school
university degree
elementary school
high school
Siblings
only child
only child
only child
only child
one sibling
*The data from Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria come from Stephany (1985: 22).
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Chapter 2
. Data collection The Christofidou Corpus has been collected by the mother of the child, Anastasia Christofidou. The recordings took place in a naturalistic setting in the family home and the main person interacting with the child was the mother. In some of the recordings the father, the grandparents and an uncle of the child were also present. The sessions consisted mainly of the describing picture books, free play with toys and talking about activities that had taken place that day or during the previous days. Most importantly for the study undertaken in this book, the child’s mother was doing research in the acquisition of nominal morphology (see Christofidou 1998; Christofidou & Kappa 1998; Christofidou & Stephany 1997; Kilani-Schoch, de Marco, Christofidou, Vassilakou, Vollmann & Dressler 1997) and, therefore, elicited as many noun phrases from her child as was possible. In the first recording of the corpus, the child was 1;7 and in the last recording 3;0. In the present study, only the recordings from 1;7 to 2;8 have been analysed. The frequency of the recordings was approximately one every week and the total number of recordings from 1;7 to 2;8 was 69. The sessions have been recorded with a SONY WM-D6C Walkman professional recorder. Separate files have been constructed for every recording session with the exception of five recordings, which were very short and were therefore combined together with longer ones. The file name, the age and the number of utterances in each file are listed in Table 1 in Appendix 1. The Stephany Corpus has been collected by Ursula Stephany. This is also a longitudinal corpus and has been collected at three different points in time. Spiros was recorded at the age of 1;9, Janna at the ages of 1;11, 2;5 and 2;9, Mairi at the ages of 1;9, 2;3 and 2;9 and Maria at the ages of 2;3 and 2;9. The recordings of the children took place mainly at home. During the recordings, in addition to the child and the investigator, the mother, the father or sometimes other relatives or friends of the family were also present. The main activities during the recording sessions were looking at picture books, free play with several toys and performing daily routines. For more details about the activities carried out during the recordings, see Stephany (1985: 24–25). The Stephany Corpus consists of 28 recordings, some of which were combined in one file, due to their short length. The recordings of Janna, Maria and Mairi were made with an Uher 4000 Report L (speed 9,5 cm/sec) tape recorder partly with a portable microphone. The recordings of Spiros were carried out with an Uher CR 210 stereo tape recorder.
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Methodology
Some minor changes have been made in the files of the Stephany Corpus from CHILDES in order to have a one-file, one-recording date correspondence. To that end, I have combined transcripts that belonged to the same recording day, but were in the CHILDES database in two separate files. Additionally, I have divided a file into two, if it contained material from two separate recording days. In the files of Spiros, I deleted the last page of file Spi21a1.cha from the CHILDES database because it is included in the next file. The last part of the transcript of file Spi21a1.cha contains six utterances, which are not the result of a recording session, but come from notes of the experimenter. These six utterances were not analysed, in order for the corpus to remain homogeneous, i.e. consisting only of tape-recorded data. From file Mai21a1.cha of Mairi, I have only kept the first seven pages. The next 22 were combined with Mai21a2.cha, as they shared the same recording day. Files Mai21a3.cha and Mai21a4.cha have been combined into Mai21a34.cha and files Mai21a5.cha and Mai21a6.cha have been combined into Mai21a56.cha, because they also share the same recording day. Finally, the first 17 pages of Mai33c2.cha were combined with Mai33c1.cha, because they have the same recording day as well. The file names of the Stephany Corpus in the CHILDES database, the file names with my changes, the child’s age and the numbers of utterances in each recording session are shown in Table 2 in Appendix 1.
. Transcription In the Christofidou Corpus, all the utterances of the child and the adults were transcribed first by hand by a student in Greece. Two Greek students in Berlin, Olga Dougali and Efterpi Rizou, who had been trained with the CHAT2 transcription format, transcribed the recordings after listening to the audio-tapes and reading the initial transcriptions. Before starting the analysis, the final transcripts were verified against the audio-tapes. The final transcription was carried out with a professional SONY BM-89 transcriber.3 The transcription of the Stephany Corpus was carried out by Ursula Stephany. Several notes were made during the recording sessions, which were added to the transcripts. Some of the transcripts were checked by the mothers of the children and almost all of them by native speakers of MG.
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Chapter 2
. Coding The Stephany Corpus has morphological and phonological coding in a morphology (%mor) and phonology (%pho) line. An error line (%err) indicates errors and an %act and a %sit line provide information about activities and situations during the recordings. The coding of the Christofidou Corpus was carried out by the author of this book on the basis of the CHILDES coding scheme and adaptations made by Powers (1996). Since the focus of this book is on the acquisition of morphology and syntax of the nominal domain, the coding was carried out mainly for noun phrases. Two coding lines were created in the CHAT transcripts, a morphological and a syntactic line. .. Morphological tier
Word classes All words belonging to the nominal domain were coded for their word-class, i.e. adjectives, determiners, nouns and pronouns, see Appendix 1, Table 3. Nouns have been coded also for the noun class, i.e. proper names, kinship terms, count nouns, mass nouns, unica, abstract nouns. Articles have been coded as definite or indefinite, pronouns as personal, possessive, demonstrative, indefinite, emphatic, reflexive, wh- and relative pronouns.4 Personal pronouns have been further coded as strong (full pronouns) or weak (clitics). Words, which were ambiguous with respect to word-class have not been coded and were excluded from the analyses. Articles As far as the coding of articles is concerned, I have used the code $DET (Determiner) when an article has been used by the child. This code was combined with the code DEF (Definite) when it was a definite article or with the code INDEF (Indefinite) when it was an indefinite article yielding the codes $DET:DEF (Definite Determiner) and $DET:INDEF (Indefinite Determiner). In the case of article omission, I have used the code zero, i.e. $0DET in front of the corresponding type of article that was missing. An example of the coding of an utterance with definite article is illustrated in (1) below.
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Methodology
(1) Child: Pile (i) ghiaghia pile to papilato. (Christos 2;2.18) pire i ghiaghia pire to podhilato (target) took (the) grandma took the bike ‘Grandma took the bike.’ %mor: $0DET:DEF:fem:nom:sg $n:kins:ghiaghia:fem:(nom)/acc/voc:sg
In (1) above, the missing definite article is given in the parenthesis in the main line and in the coding line it is preceded by a zero. When it was clear from the context that there was article omission, but it was not clear which form of the article was missing, the article has not been put into brackets in the main line. Article omission was then coded only on the morphological line. Such cases are frequent with proper names and kinship terms, which are obligatorily used with the definite article in MG when they occur in argument positions. Such an example is illustrated in the dialog in (2) below. (2) Child: Ghiaghia. (Christos 1;9.3) ‘Grandma.’ %mor: $0DET :def:fem:nom/gen/acc:sg $n:kins:ghiaghia:fem:nom/acc/ voc:sg Adult: I ghiaghia su ta estile afta? the grandma you them sent these ‘Did grandma send these to you?’ Child: Ghiaghia. ‘Grandma.’ %mor: $0DET :def:fem:nom/gen/acc:sg $n:kins:ghiaghia:fem:nom/acc/ voc:sg Adult: Tis ghiaghias ine agori mu. the grandma are boy my ‘They belong to grandma, my boy.’
As we can see in the dialogue (2) above, the child uses only the noun ghiaghia = grandma, omitting the definite article. Because kinship terms in argument positions must always be preceded by the definite article in MG, it is clear that this is an instance of definite article omission. If Christos’ grandmother had been present during the recording, the noun in (2) above could have been an instance of a vocative and then this would not have been a definite article omission. However, Christos’ grandma was not present during this recording session. Hence, this is an unambiguous instance of definite article omission. As far as the form of the omitted article is concerned, it is not clear in this example whether this would have been a definite article in the nominative or
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Chapter 2
genitive case. As we can see from the child-mother interaction, the child might have intended to say that grandma did something or that something belongs to grandma. In the first case, ghiaghia = grandma would have been the subject, and the definite article should have been in the nominative case; in the second case, it would have been a possessive, and it should have been in the genitive case. In such instances, the definite article omission has only been coded in the morphological line and no word has been put into brackets in the main line. Grammatical bare nouns, have been coded with two zeros preceding the coding of determiner, i.e. $00DET, as shown in (3) below. (3) Adult: Afto Christo ti ine? this Christo what is ‘What is this, Christo?’ (Christos 2;3.26) Child: Tzipaci palio. 5 Jeep-dim old ‘An old jeep.’ %mor: $00DET $n:comm:tzipaci:neut:(nom)/acc/voc:sg
When it was not clear from the context whether this was a case of article omission or a grammatical bare noun, the code $#0DET was used, and these noun phrases were not considered in further analyses. Such an example is illustrated in (4) below. (4) Adult: Eki ti echi? there what has ‘What is there?’ Child: Mama. Mummy. %mor: $#0DET $n:kins:mama:fem:nom/acc/voc:sg MOT: I mama na to aniksi? 6 the mummy prt-subj it open ‘Should mummy open it?’
(Christos 1;9.3)
In (4) above, Christos might have intended to use the vocative, in which case a definite article should not have been present, or the nominative, as in the speech of his mother, in which case a definite article should have been present. Because both are possible, i.e. it was not possible to decide between the two options, the code $#0DET was used and these cases were excluded from further analyses.
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Methodology
If an article was unambiguously omitted, but it was not clear whether this was an omission of the definite or indefinite article, the code $?0DET was used and those noun phrases were excluded from further analyses. The codes for article omission and grammatical bare nouns are shown in Table 4, in Appendix 1.
Gender, number, case, person marking MG is a language with rich nominal morphology. Nouns, articles, pronouns and adjectives have gender, number and case marking, personal and possessive pronouns also have person marking and there are also several inflectional classes for nouns (see Ralli 1994; 1998). Moreover, nominal, adjectival, pronoun, and article inflection displays a relatively high degree of syncretism which needs to be reflected in the coding scheme. In order to capture syncretism in the MG inflectional system, all potential features have been included in the coding of each word form. This is exemplified in the coding of the noun ghiaghia = grandmother, in example (5) below. (5) Child: Pu pighe i ghiaghia xxx.7 where went the grandma ‘Where did the grandma go?’ %mor: $n:kins:ghiaghia:fem:(NOM)/ACC/VOC:sg
(Christos 2;4.1)
In this example, the stem-vowel -a in the noun ghiaghia is used for the nominative, accusative and vocative case. For this information to be captured in the coding, the noun was coded as being marked for all potential cases, i.e. (NOM)/ACC/VOC. As the noun in this particular utterance is in the nominative case, brackets have been used for the nominative denoting the actual case of the noun, i.e. (NOM)/ACC/VOC. Whenever it was not possible from the context to identify the case of the noun, no brackets have been used, as shown in example (6) below. (6) Child: Ghiaghia. ‘Grandma.’ %mor: $n:kins:GiaGia:fem:NOM/ACC/VOC:sg
(Christos 1;7.11)
The code in example (6) above indicates that the form of the noun ghiaghia = grandma is the one corresponding to the nominative, accusative and vocative, but also that it is not clear which one of the three cases was intended. From such instances it is also not clear whether the child is aware of the case marking involved in this form, particularly when the child uses only one form for a specific noun.8 This issue will be further discussed in Chapter 4.
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Chapter 2
Errors Errors have been coded with the code e (error) which precedes the code of the corresponding word in the morphological line. This is illustrated in example (7) below. (7) Child: Ochi o fio o Nikos. (Christos 2;8.7) ochi o thios o Nikos (target-utterance) no the uncle the Nikos ‘Not uncle Nikos.’ %mor: $det:def:masc:nom:sg $en:kins:thios:masc:nom:sg $det:def:masc:nom:sg $n:prop:Nikos:masc:nom:sg
In this example, the child uses the form fio = thio = uncle which is the accusative form of the noun instead of the nominative form thios. The error has been coded in the morphology line with the letter e preceding the code of the noun. .. Syntax tier The syntactic function of the noun phrase has been coded in a syntax tier. Noun phrases, which were ambiguous with respect to their syntactic function, have been given the code $OTHER, following Powers (1996), and have not been analysed further. Adjectives have been coded for their use as attributive or predicative adjectives and verbs have been coded as simple verbs or complex verbs. Complex predicate constructions of the type kano banio = do bath = take a bath or pezo bala = play football, which consist predominantly of a light verb and a noun which is not used as a referring expression have been coded as a complex verb. The list of codes for the syntax tier is shown in Table 5 in Appendix 1. .. Imitations, self-repetitions Imitations and self-repetitions have been coded with the symbol $$ in the morphological line, as illustrated in example (8) below, and they were excluded from all further analyses, including the calculation of MLU. (8) Adult: Ki afta edho ti ine edho? and these here what are here ‘And what are these here?’ Child: Paputsia. ‘Shoes.’
(Christos 1;10.9)
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Methodology
%mor: $00det $n:comm:paputsi:neut:(nom)/acc/voc:pl Child: Paputsia. (Christos 1;10.9) ‘Shoes.’ %mor: $$00det $$n:comm:paputsi:neut:(nom)/acc/voc:pl
. The use of formulaic expressions A methodological issue which is very important for the analysis of naturalistic data, is the treatment of formulaic expressions (see among others Hickey 1993; Pine & Martindale 1996; Lieven, Pine, & Baldwin 1997). The use of frozen utterances in child language has long been identified and discussed (see Brown 1973; Clark 1974; Peters 1983; Snow 1986 among others). Formulaic expressions have been defined as utterances consisting of unanalysed chunks that function syntactically as one unit. Several criteria have been proposed for the identification of formulaic expressions, based on the length (see Peters 1983), frequency (see Brown & Hanlon 1970), phonological properties of the utterances (see Plunkett 1990), and the inappropriateness of use (see Brown 1973). The most complete proposal concerning criteria for the identification of formulae has been made by Hickey (1993). Hickey took into consideration the criteria mentioned above and made use of Jackendoff ’s (1983) cluster of interrelated conditions to propose a preference rule system for the identification of formulae, which consists of three types of conditions, necessary conditions, typical conditions which apply typically but are subject to exceptions and graded conditions in which the more something is true, the more secure is the judgement. These are summarised in (9) below. (9) Condition 1 The utterance is at least two morphemes long. (necessary, graded) Condition 2 The utterance coheres phonologically. (necessary) Condition 3 The individual elements of an utterance are not used concurrently in the same form separately or in other environments. (typical, graded) Condition 4 The utterance is grammatically advanced compared to the rest of the child’s language (i.e. the grammatical pattern is not represented with different words). (typical, graded)
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Chapter 2
Condition 5 The utterance is a community-wide formula, or one which occurs frequently in the parents’ speech. (typical, graded) Condition 6 The utterance is an idiosyncratic chunk. (typical, graded) Condition 7 The utterance is used repeatedly in the same form. (typical, graded) Condition 8 The utterance is situationally dependent. (typical, graded) Condition 9 The utterance may be used inappropriately, either syntactically or semantically. (typical, graded) (Hickey 1993: 32)
Using Hickey’s criteria, formulaic expressions involving articles were identified and then excluded from further analyses. Common examples of formulaic expressions involving definite articles in the speech of the children under investigation are prepositional phrases involving the preposition se = in, at, to, on. In adult MG, the final vowel of the preposition se is deleted, if it is followed by the definite article, which cliticises to the preposition. This is illustrated in example (10) below. (10) Ime se to spiti -> Ime sto spiti am at the home -> am at-the home ‘I am at home.’
An example of a formulaic expression with the preposition se in the speech of Christos is given in (11) below. (11) Adult: Pu pai to aeroplano aghapi mu? Pu pai? where goes the plane love my where goes ‘Where does the plane go, darling? Where does it go?’ Child: Tsi ghiaghia. (Christos 1;9.12) sti ghiaghia (target-utterance) to-the grandma ‘To grandma.’
At the age of 1;9, Christos does not use any other prepositions apart from se. This preposition appears in his speech only in combination with the definite article in the form illustrated in (11) above, i.e. tsi or si instead of the targetform sti, which alternates with the two other forms. Moreover, the form tsi, si or sti, is used only with the noun ghiaghia = grandma and only in the context of a plane that goes to grandma and as an answer to the question ‘Where does
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Methodology
the plane go?’. Furthermore, Christos seldom uses definite articles at this age, as we will see in Chapter 4. If we consider Hickey’s criteria, conditions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8 are satisfied for the form tsi/si/sti = to-the: it consists of two morphemes in the adult language (Condition 1), it is phonologically coherent (Condition 2), the preposition se is not being used in isolation (Condition 3), the word-form is grammatically advanced as compared to the rest of the child’s language, i.e. Christos does not use prepositional phrases (Condition 4), and it appears frequently in the parents’ speech, more specifically in the context of a plane that goes to grandma (Condition 5), i.e. it is also situationally dependent (Condition 8). Consequently, we can safely identify it as a formula. After exclusion of imitations, self-repetitions and formulaic expressions, the total number of noun phrases analysed in the speech of Christos was 5,203 and in the speech of Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria 2,841. The number of noun phrases for each one of the files of the two corpora, is shown in Table 6 (Christofidou Corpus) and Table 7 (Stephany Corpus), in Appendix 1.
. Data analysis Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data were conducted using CLAN programs from the CHILDES project (MacWhinney & Snow 1985). The corpora were initially analysed for correct use and omission of definite and indefinite articles. In a further step, the inflection of articles and nouns was analysed with respect to case, number and gender marking. Finally, the acquisition of three types of complex noun phrases was analysed: (1) possessive constructions, (2) adjective modification of the type of Determiner Spreading, and (3) appositive constructions. .. Quantitative analysis Quantitative analysis of the data has been carried out for each one of the children and each one of the phenomena under investigation separately using the CLAN9 programs freq and combo. These programs enable the calculation of the numbers and frequency of correct and incorrect occurrence of the relevant structures per transcript/recording. The number and frequency of use of the structures under investigation was analysed initially for every child and for every transcript/recording separately. Subsequently, transcripts of the same month were combined and numbers/frequencies have been calculated for the
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Chapter 2
data of each child per month. The children’s data was then grouped by age and mean length of utterance. The next section discusses the way the mean length of utterance has been calculated in the study undertaken in this book. ... Calculating mean length of utterance Mean length of utterance (MLU) is a measure developed by Roger Brown and colleagues as a means of comparing development across children. This is based on the idea that the mean length of children’s utterances increases as their grammar develops. As Brown (1973) puts it: The mean length of utterance (MLU) is an excellent simple index of grammatical development because almost every new kind of knowledge increases length: the number of semantic roles expressed in a sentence, the addition of obligatory morphemes, coding modulations of meaning, the addition of negative forms and auxiliaries used in interrogative and negative modalities, and, of course, embedding and coordination. (Brown 1973: 53–54)
Brown developed nine rules for the calculation of MLU as a result of his experience with acquisition data. However, as more researchers have calculated MLU in different languages, several problems have been identified which are related to the method of calculating as well as the validity of MLU as an index of grammatical development. For example Park (1974), Smoczynska (1979) and Stephany (1985) have criticised the use of MLU as a criterion for the definition of stages in languages with rich morphology, like German, Polish and MG. One of the criticisms is related to the calculation of MLU on the basis of morphemes. More specifically, in morphologically complex languages children use inflectional affixes from very early on but it is not clear, whether children treat those affixes as independent morphemes, or whether they use words consisting of stems and affixes as unanalysed chunks. A further problem concerning the calculation of MLU on the basis of morphemes arises in the acquisition of languages with fusional morphology, like MG. In languages of this type, morphemes may encode more than one grammatical features. For example in MG nominal inflection, gender, number and case are encoded in a single morpheme. Several studies have shown (see Stephany 1997; Christofidou 1998 among others) that in early stages of acquisition children may identify only a subpart of the features encoded in one morpheme. Such cases show that whilst children may have been able to segment affixes from stems and map features to affixes, those affixes identified and used
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Methodology
by the child do not correspond to the adult grammar, as they lack the full adult feature specification. In order to overcome these problems, and given that MLU is an index of grammatical development and not of development of morphology per se, several researchers studying languages with rich, fusional morphology have calculated MLU on the basis of words rather than morphemes. For the reasons given above, MLU has been calculated in this book on the basis of words. Furthermore, MLU has been calculated on the whole transcript and not on the first 100 utterances (see Brown 1973: 54). The decision to calculate MLU on the entire transcript was based on the observation that reliability increases as the number of utterances used for the calculation of MLU increases (see Allen 1996). The mean MLU per month in the speech of Christos is given in Figure 2.1; the mean MLU in the speech of Spiros is 1.66, and the mean MLU in the speech of Janna, Mairi and Maria is given in Figures 2.2 to 2.4 respectively. The MLUrate for each file in the speech of Christos is shown in Table 8 in Appendix 1 and the MLU-rate for each file in the speech of Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria is given in Table 9 in Appendix 1.
3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 MLU
MLU 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 1;7 1;8 1;9 1;101;11 2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5 2;6 2;7 2;8 Age
Figure 2.1. Mean MLU per month in the speech of Christos
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Chapter 2 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 MLU
MLU 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 1;11
2;5 Age
2;9
Figure 2.2. Mean MLU per month in the speech of Janna 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 MLU
MLU 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 1;9
2;3 Age
2;9
Figure 2.3. Mean MLU per month in the speech of Mairi
... Developmental stages Following Brown (1973), the children’s transcripts were divided into stages on the basis of their MLU. Accordingly, Stage I ranged between MLU scores 1.0– 1.99, Stage II ranged between 2.0 and 2.49, Stage III between 2.5 and 2.99, and Stage IV between 3.0 and 3.99.
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Methodology 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0 MLU
MLU 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 2;3
2;9 Age
Figure 2.4. Mean MLU per month in the speech of Maria
The data form Christos (Christofidou Corpus) covered Stage I, II and III. The data from the children of the Stephany Corpus covered Stages I to IV, but as shown in Table 2.3 below, data was not available for all the children at each stage. According to Brown (1973), Stage I is marked by the onset of multiword utterances. At this stage, children show a consistent use of word order which is the first syntactic device and their utterances reveal a basic set of semantic relations. Inflection and grammatical morphemes start to be acquired at Stage II. If we apply this to the acquisition of the nominal domain, a very specific prediction can be formulated as to the stage in which acquisition of the DP should be acquired, namely children should acquire the DP at Stage II. As we will see in Chapter 4, Christos uses very few definite articles at Stage I, and the few definite articles present are used in a lexically based fashion. At the Table 2.3. Developmental stages in the speech of the children
Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage IV
Christos
Spiros
Janna
1;7–2 2;0–2;5 2;6–2;8
1;9
1;11 2;5 2;9
Mairi 1;9 2;3/2;9
Maria
2;3 2;9
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Chapter 2
beginning of Stage II, however, there is a large increase in the use of definite articles and Christos starts using definite articles productively. A further prediction deriving from Brown’s definition of Stages is that inflectional morphology in the nominal domain will not be acquired before Stage II. As we will see in Chapter 4, at Stage I Christos uses mainly unmarked forms of inflected nouns. Case and number marking is used consistently from the transition from Stage I to II onwards. Apart from the acquisition of simple DP constructions consisting of a definite article and a noun, the study undertaken in this book has concentrated on investigating the acquisition of complex DPs consisting of two DPs and involving movement operations, i.e. the possessive construction, Determiner Spreading and appositive constructions. In order for these structures to be generated, the child must have acquired the DP structure and the movement operation. This makes a very precise prediction. If the DP is acquired at Stage II, there should be no instances of complex DPs attested at Stage I. Moreover, if we do find instances of complex noun phrases at Stage I, these should not be syntactical in nature, but they should either have the status of unanalysed chunks or they should be constructed on the basis of semantic rules. Finally, given that all three instances of complex DPs involve two DPs and movement operations, the prediction will be that they should emerge at the same developmental stage. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 will show that all three constructions emerge at Stage II. .. Qualitative analysis Qualitative analyses have been conducted within each stage for the identification of developmental patterns in the structures under investigation. Although all structures belong to the same structural domain – the nominal domain – they differ from one another in the obligatoriness of their usage, which has consequences for the developmental patterns attested. ... Patterns of development Two types of developmental patterns have been identified in this book, a threephase pattern, which arises in the acquisition of structures that are obligatory in the target language and a multi-phase pattern, which is manifested in optional structures involving complex DPs. The three-phase pattern can be exemplified by the acquisition of the definite article. In order for a noun phrase to encode definiteness, it has to be introduced by the definite article. Omission of a definite article represents a non-target-like utterance. Consequently, in the acquisition of the definite arti-
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Methodology
cle, development follows a pattern of three phases. In the first phase the child does not use any definite articles, which results in non-target utterances. This period is then followed by a phase of optional use, also involving non-targetlike utterances. It is only in the last phase that obligatory use of definite articles is found. Interestingly, the three phases in the development of the definite article in the speech of Christos coincide with Brown’s Stage I, II and III which are based on the children’s MLU as mentioned in Section 2.6.1.2 above. However, a different pattern emerges in the acquisition of the possessive construction, a multi-phase pattern. As in the case of the acquisition of definite articles, there is initially a phase in which children do not use the possessive construction. However, as there are several means of expressing possession (i.e. use of the possessive pronoun, use of complex DPs and use of the verb have), the possessive construction involving a complex DPs is not an obligatory construction. Consequently, the first phase in the acquisition of the possessive construction differs from the first phase in the acquisition of the definite article, as it does not represent a non-target-like behavior. Children who do not use the possessive construction may be using other means to express a possessive relation. Moreover, when children start using the possessive construction, in contrast to the acquisition of definite articles, they do not pass through a phase of optionality. Finally, as this construction involves two DPs and a specific word order, several phases have been identified, which are related to the word order of the DPs and the presence or omission of definite articles. For the definition of the phases of a multi-phase developmental pattern, I will make use of Stromswold’s criterion of Age of First Use, which is the age at which a child first uses a clear novel example of a construction (Stromswold 1990: 83). According to Stromswold, the Age of First Use as a measure of acquisition is highly correlated with two other criteria, i.e. the Age of Repeated Use and the Age of Regular Use.
. Summary This chapter has discussed methodological issues of this study. It has presented the data this book is based on, details about the data collection, transcription and the coding scheme used. Further, the issue of the identification of formulaic expressions was addressed and the criteria used in this study for their exclusion from the analyses. Finally, the methods of data analysis have been discussed along with the means of defining developmental stages and the patterns of development attested.
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Chapter 2
Notes . CHILDES = Child Language Data Exchange System. . CHAT = Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts, which is the transcription system for the CHILDES database. . Thanks to Barbara Höhle and Nicole Stadie for making this transcriber available to me. . For the classification of pronouns, I have used the classification system of Joseph & Philippaki-Warburton (1987). . dim = diminutive . prt-subj = subjunctive particle . xxx denotes material that could not be heard and transcribed because of noise or other reasons. . In languages with bound morphemes, it is well known that children at an early stage do not use bare stems (see Smoczynska 1979; Christofidou 1998; Stephany 1997 among others), which in turn is a consequence of the fact that children do not use non-words, but they use the least marked well-formed item of the paradigm instead (see Varlokosta, Vainikka, & Rohrbacher 1996; 1998 for this issue with respect to the verbal paradigm in MG). In the earliest files, Christos uses only one word-form for certain nouns, adjectives and pronouns which is most of the times the unmarked form of the paradigm, as in example (6). . CLAN = Computerised Language Analysis.
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Chapter 3
The DP in Modern Greek
This chapter is concerned with the properties of the DP in MG and will form the basis for the rest of this book. The focus will be on three aspects of the DP, namely syntactic structure, syntax-semantics mapping and morphological marking within the DP. With respect to the syntactic structure of the DP, I will concentrate on the number and types of functional projections needed for capturing the distribution of determiners, modifiers and complements of nouns. In order to achieve this, the main syntactic analyses of the DP layer from it’s introduction to the present day will be presented and critically discussed. The presentation of the functional layers of the nominal domain is relevant for the acquisition of the DP, as one of the main objectives of studies looking at the acquisition of the DP concerns the acquisition of functional categories. Additionally, studies in the acquisition of functional categories have been essential for the debate concerning the acquisition process (maturation vs. continuity) within the Principles and Parameters Theory (see Chapter 1). The second aspect to be addressed concerns the syntax-semantics mapping that will be couched within Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter. I will discuss data from the MG system and show how the MG system can be captured within Chierchia’s model. This is important for the study undertaken in this book as Chierchia’s model makes very specific predictions for the acquisition of definite articles. The last part of this chapter is concerned with the final aspect of the DP, namely morphological marking in the MG DP, more specifically, with case and number marking. Case and number marking is crucial for this study, as it can provide evidence for the availability of the functional layers related to these two features. The present chapter is organised as follows. Section 3.1 presents the distributional properties of articles in MG and Section 3.2 is concerned with syntactic analyses of the MG DP. The syntax-semantics mapping will be discussed in Section 3.3 and morphological marking in articles and nouns is presented in Section 3.4. Finally, Section 3.5 is a summary of this chapter.
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Chapter 3
. The distribution of articles MG has a definite and an indefinite article, as illustrated in (1a) and (1b) below. Both the definite and indefinite article precede the noun1 and agree in case, number and gender with the noun. (1) a.
Aghorasa to neo vivlio bought the-acc/neut/sg new book-acc/neut/sg tis Galanaki. the-gen/fem/sg Galanaki-gen/fem/sg ‘I bought the new book of Galanaki.’ b. Aghorasa ena neo vivlio bought a/one-acc/neut/sg new book-acc/neut/sg tis Galanaki. the-gen/fem/sg Galanaki-gen/fem/sg ‘I bought a/one new book of Galanaki.’
The indefinite article is a homophone with the numeral and it cannot be used in the plural; indefiniteness expressed through the indefinite article entails singularity. According to Mackridge (1990: 298) the sense of the numeral is inherent to the indefinite article because they share the same form. For Mirambel (1988: 172) one of the uses of the numeral is as indefinite article. Finally, ChilaMarkopoulou (1999), making use of Lehmann’s (1985; 1995) criteria of grammaticalisation, argues that the indefinite article should not be considered as an article but rather as an indefinite marker, i.e. its grammaticalisation process has not yet been completed (see also Marmaridou 1984: 220).2 As far as the distribution of articles is concerned, the definite and the indefinite article are in complementary distribution with the determiners kapios = ‘some(one)’, kanenas = ‘any/no(body)’, kati = ‘some(body/thing)’, tipota = ‘any/no(thing)’, katholu = ‘not/any at all’ (see Joseph & Philippaki 1987; Mackridge 1990; Holton, Mackridge & Philippaki-Warburton 1999). However, the definite article is not in complementary distribution with all determiners. The demonstratives aftos = ‘this’, ekinos = ‘that’, tutos = ‘this’ and the quantifier olos = ‘all’ are in complementary distribution with the indefinite article, as shown in (2a) and (3a) below, but not with the definite article, as shown in (2b) and (3b) below. In fact, the definite article must be obligatorily used with the demonstratives and the quantifier olos = ‘all’, as shown in (2c) and (3c) below. (2) a. *Aghorasa afto ena vivlio. bought this a/one book
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The DP in Modern Greek
b. Aghorasa afto to vivlio. bought this the book c. *Aghorasa afto vivlio. bought this book ‘I bought this book.’ (3) a. *Aghorasa olo ena ktirio. bought all a/one building b. Aghorasa olo to ktirio. bought all the building c. *Aghorasa olo ktirio. bought all building ‘I bought the whole building.’
To summarise, both articles in MG are used prenominally. However, with respect to their distribution, the indefinite article is in complementary distribution with all determiners, whilst the definite article is in complementary distribution with all determiners apart from demonstratives and the quantifier olos = ‘all’ that require the definite article.
. The syntactic structure of the DP in MG This section is concerned with the syntactic structure of the functional layers of the nominal domain in MG. The description of the functional layers of the MG DP are relevant for the study of the acquisition of the DP and for acquisition theory, as several theories on language acquisition have been based on data from the acquisition of functional categories. Hence, this section will present and critically discuss the main analyses that have been proposed from the introduction of the functional projection DP in MG until the present day and will also present the analysis adopted in this book. The analyses that are discussed are those of Horrocks & Stavrou (1986; 1987), which will be presented in Section 3.2.1, Karanassios (1990; 1992) and Stavrou (1996), which will be presented in Section 3.2.2. Finally, the syntactic structure that will be adopted in this book will be presented in Section 3.2.3.
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Chapter 3
.. Horrocks & Stavrou (1986; 1987) Horrocks & Stavrou (1986; 1987) were the first to propose a functional layer in the MG nominal domain, which they called Det” and corresponds to the DP, as shown in the phrase marker in (4). DP
(4) XP
D’ D
NP XP
N’ N
XP
Horrocks & Stavrou (1986:110)
According to Horrocks & Stavrou, NPs that function syntactically as arguments are complements of Ds (an idea, which has been developed for English by Abney 1987). In other words, the inclusion of the NP layer into a DP layer makes the NP a referring expression, whereas non-argumental nominals consist only of an NP layer. For Horrocks & Stavrou, the motivation for the introduction of the DP layer in MG is twofold: 1. on theoretical grounds, the functional projection DP is parallel to the functional projection CP in the clausal domain, and 2. on empirical grounds, the introduction of a functional projection in the nominal domain resolves the problem of extraction of wh-expressions from complex NPs, which would otherwise violate subjacency. As far as the first point is concerned, the DP projection parallels the CP projection at the clausal domain. Articles are structurally parallel to complementisers. Both are heads of maximal projections into which NPs or IPs have to be embedded before they can function as arguments. With respect to the second point, this analysis captures the extraction out of a complex NP, as shown in (5) below. (5) [CP pioni [ IP akuses [ NP ti fimi [ CP ti oti [ IP apelisan ti ]]]]] whom heard-2sg the rumour that dismissed-3pl ‘Whom did you hear the rumour that they dismissed?’ (Horrocks & Stavrou 1987: 83)
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In example (5) above, the wh-word pion = whom, moves out of the embedded clause through the specifier of the embedded CP to the specifier of the matrix clause. However, the structure in (5) violates subjacency, as we have movement out of a complex NP. The problem of subjacency violation is resolved by the introduction of the DP-layer. As the specifier of the DP is an A’-Position, movement out of a complex NP, as in (5) above, takes place in two steps through the specifier of the CP and the DP, as shown in (6) below. (6) [ pyoni [ akuses [ ti ti [ fimi [ ti oti [ apelisan ti ]]]]]] whom
heard-2
the
rumour
that
dismissed-3
‘Whom did you hear the rumour that they dismissed?’
The specifier of the DP serves as an escape hatch for movement, just like the specifier of the CP in the clausal domain. The wh-phrase moves cyclically to the specifier of the CP of the embedded clause, then to Spec,DP and finally to the specifier of the CP of the matrix clause. Hence, no subjacency violation is observed. Empirical evidence for the status of the specifier of the DP as an A’-position has been provided by Horrocks & Stavrou from data on extraction of NP genitive complements. The unmarked position for genitive complements in MG is post-nominal, as shown in (7) below. Pre-nominal genitives are licit, but they involve focalisation, as shown in example (8) below. (7) To spiti tu Niku. the house the-gen Nikos-gen ‘Nikos’ house.’ (8) TU NIKU 3 to spiti. the-gen Nikos-gen the book ‘NIKOS’ house.’
In the analysis of Horrocks & Stavrou, the base position for all types of genitive complements is post-nominal and case assignment takes place through government – nouns properly govern their complements and assign genitive case to them. Pre-nominal genitives are the result of movement of the genitive complement to the specifier of the DP for focalisation. Under the assumption that NP complements receive case in their base position and move to Spec,DP for focalisation, the destination of the moved constituent will be a non-argument position. Finally, focalisation of NP complements, exemplified in (7) and (8)
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Chapter 3
above, is parallel to focalisation of constituents in the clausal domain, as shown in (9) and (10) below. (9) Edhose to vravio stin Afrodhiti gave-3sg the prize to-the Afrodhiti ‘He gave the prize to Afrodhiti.’ (10) STIN AFRODHITI edhose to vravio to-the Afrodhiti gave-3sg the prize ‘He gave the prize TO AFRODHITI.’ Horrocks & Stavrou (1987: 86–87)
.. Karanassios (1990; 1992), Stavrou (1996) A second functional projection in the MG nominal domain has been introduced by Karanassios (1990; 1992). This was labelled AgrP (Karanassios 1990) and FP (Karanassios 1992). This can be seen in (11) below. Stavrou (1996) has adopted this idea and she has dubbed the second functional projection as DefP (Stavrou 1996). As the two analyses do not differ with respect to this issue, they will be presented in the same section and for simplicity reasons this second functional layer will be labelled FP hereafter. (11)
DP Spec
D’ D
FP F
NP
Karanassios and Stavrou have brought both theoretical and empirical motivation for the introduction of the functional category FP within the DP: 1. on theoretical grounds the functional projection FP is parallel to the AgrOP in the clausal domain, and 2. on empirical grounds this analysis captures better the distributional differences between the definite and indefinite articles shown in Section 3.1 and the distributional properties of demonstratives and post-nominal adjectives. The parallels between the structure in the nominal domain and the structure in the clausal domain display the theoretical motivation for the introduction of a
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second functional projection in the nominal domain. In this analysis, the functional projection FP contains the feature [number] and is parallel to the AgrOP in the clausal domain, which contains the feature [person]. Lexical realisation of F0 is the definite article and the number suffix of the noun (Karanassios 1990: 179–180). Empirical evidence in Karanassios (1990; 1992) and Stavrou (1996) for the introduction of a second functional layer in the MG DP comes from the distribution of definite articles and demonstratives and the distribution and interpretation of post-nominal adjectives. According to Karanassios (1992: 51–52), the definite article in MG has a special categorial status that distinguishes it from all other determiners; it has the status of an agreement element. Apart from agreement in gender, number and case, the definite article marks agreement in definiteness between the head noun and the whole DP. The properties of the definite article that distinguish it from other determiners are summarised below: 1. its presence is required by demonstratives, 2. its distribution with adjectives differs from the distribution of indefinite articles with adjectives, 3. the definite article, in contrast to all other determiners, commonly ‘introduces an AP as well’, a phenomenon that has been called Determiner Spreading by Androutsopoulou (1994), see Chapter 6, 4. unlike other determiners,4 the definite article can never follow the noun, 5. the definite article has the same morphological form with the personal clitic pronoun. (from Karanassios 1992: 51–52) Furthermore, Karanassios (1992: 51–52) claims that the definite article has, in contrast to all other determiners, an affixal character, which is manifested by the two properties given below: 1. contrary to other determiners, the definite article can never appear in isolation, i.e. it can not be intransitive,5 and 2. in contrast to other determiners, it does not support clitics.6 Due to this special status, there is a split in the class of the determiners between the definite article and the rest of the determiners. In this analysis, the definite article is generated as the head of an agreement projection, FP, whereas all other determiners are generated as heads of the DP, which hosts the feature [±definite]. For example take the phrase markers in (12) and (13) below.
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Chapter 3
(12)
DP D’ FP
D [+def]
F’ afto this
F
NP
to the
spiti house
DP
(13)
D’ D [–def]
FP F’
ena a/one
F
NP
Ø
spiti house
‘A/one house’.
In (12) above, the definite article is generated as the head of the functional projection FP, which is filled when D0 contains the feature [+definite]. When D0 contains the feature [–definite], F0 remains empty, as shown in (13) above. The first piece of empirical evidence for this analysis comes from the distribution of demonstratives. As shown in Section 3.1, demonstratives in MG require the definite article when used as determiners, as shown in examples (14) and (15) below. (14) Afto to spiti ine poli meghalo. this the house is very big ‘This house is very big.’ (15) *Afto spiti ine poli meghalo. this house is very big ‘This house is very big.’
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The DP in Modern Greek
Given that demonstratives are not in complementary distribution with definite articles, it cannot be claimed that both are generated in the same position. Moreover, unlike definite articles, demonstratives can surface pre- and post-nominally, as shown in examples (16) and (17) respectively. (16) Afto to spiti. this the house ‘This house.’ (17) To spiti afto the house this ‘This house.’
In Karanassios (1990; 1992) and Stavrou (1996), the co-existence of demonstratives and definite articles is captured by them being generated in different positions. The demonstrative is generated in D0 and the definite article in F0 . In its base position, the demonstrative precedes the definite article, as shown in (18) below. This conforms to the intuition, that the linearisation demonstrative-definite article is the unmarked one. (18)
DP D’ FP
D [+def]
F’ afto this
F
NP
to the
N spiti house
‘This house’.
The linearisation in which the definite article and the noun precede the demonstrative is derived through A’-movement of the FP to Spec,DP, as shown in (19) below.
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Chapter 3 DP
(19) FP
D’ D [+def]
F’ F
NP
to the
N
ti
afto this
spiti house ‘This house’.
Given that the demonstrative and the definite article are generated in different positions, this analysis captures the obligatory existence of both the demonstrative and the definite article. The pre- and post-nominal position of the demonstrative is captured through movement to the specifier of the DP and this analysis is consistent with the intuition that the unmarked position for the demonstrative is pre-nominal and its derived position post-nominal. The second set of data that provide empirical evidence for the introduction of the functional layer FP, comes from the distribution and interpretation of adjectives. Adjectives in MG are used pre-nominally, as shown in (20) below. (20) a.
Aghorasa ena kokino milo. bought a/one red apple ‘I bought a/one red apple.’ b. Agorasa to kokino milo. bought the red apple ‘I bought the red apple.’
Post-nominal adjectives are licit in the presence of the indefinite article, as illustrated in (21a) below, but not with the definite article, as shown in (21b) below. (21) a.
Agorasa ena milo kokino. bought one apple red ‘I bought a/one red apple.’ b. *Agorasa to milo kokino bought the apple red ‘I bought the red apple.’
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The asymmetry between the definite and indefinite article displayed by the contrast between (21a) and (21b) above has been captured in the analysis of Karanassios and Stavrou through the introduction of an optional Nmovement. When the indefinite article is present in D0 , F0 is empty, as shown in (22) below. DP
(22) D ena a/one
FP F Ø
NP AP
NP
kokino red
milo apple
‘A/one red apple’.
In this example, the noun can optionally move to F0 for focalisation reasons, as shown in (23) below.7 Post-nominal adjectives are the result of N-movement to F0 . DP
(23) D ena a/one
FP F
NP AP
NP
kokino red
ti
miloi apple
‘A/one red apple’.
The same type of movement cannot take place in the presence of the definite article because F0 is filled by the definite article and this captures the unavailability of post-nominal adjectives in DPs containing definite articles. As far as the interpretation of adjectives is concerned, pre-nominal adjectives have an attributive interpretation, as shown in examples (24a) and (24b) below.
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Chapter 3
(24) a.
Evapse to ble amaksi. painted-3sg the blue car ‘He painted the blue car.’ b. Evapse ena ble amaksi. painted-3sg a/one blue car ‘He painted a/one blue car.’
(attributive reading)
(attributive reading)
Post-nominal adjectives with the indefinite article, on the other hand, are ambiguous. They can have either an attributive or a predicative reading, as shown in the English translation in example (25) below. (25) Evapse ena amaksi ble. painted-3sg a/one cars blue ‘He painted a/one blue car.’ ‘He painted a/one car blue.’
(attributive reading) (predicative reading)
This difference in the interpretation of pre- as opposed to post-nominal adjectives has been pointed out by Stavrou (1996). Stavrou attributes the difference in the interpretation of pre- and post-nominal adjectives to N-movement involved in the later case. When the noun moves from N0 to F0 , as in (25) above, it ‘has come out of its own maximal projection (NP) and is now superior (in fact it m-commands) the AP, which is part of the NP; hence the noun can be successfully coindexed with the AP creating a subject-predicate relationship’ (Stavrou 1996: 100). Thus, the ambiguity attested in (25) above is the result of movement of N0 to F0 movement. Besides the attributive interpretation, which is available prior to movement, the subject-predicate relationship established after N0 movement to F0 allows a further interpretation, a predicative interpretation. To summarise this section, Karanassios (1990; 1992) and Stavrou (1996) have suggested that a second functional layer is needed in the MG DP, which is sandwiched between the DP and the NP. Thus, the nominal domain is parallel to the clausal domain, FP being parallel to AgrOP. This analysis captures a series of phenomena that could not be satisfactory accommodated in a DP structure involving only one functional layer, namely the distribution of definite articles and demonstratives and the distribution and interpretation of pre- vs. postnominal adjectives .. The analysis adopted in this book The analysis adopted in this book is based on the analysis of Karanassios and Stavrou. This analysis has been slightly modified in order to update it with
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respect to the structural representation of number marking and to fit into Chomsky’s (2001) framework. These two issues will be discussed in turn. According to Karanassios and Stavrou, the definite article is an agreement marker. As such, it is not generated within the DP layer which hosts the definiteness feature, but within the FP layer. The functional category FP contains the feature [number] and hosts, apart from the definite article, the number suffix of the noun. In this analysis, nouns move to the head of the FP layer in order to check for number. However, there is an empirical problem with an analysis that assumes that the FP layer hosts both the definite article and the number feature, namely that the definite article can also be used in the plural, as shown in example (26) below. (26) Agorasa ta mila. bought the apples ‘I bought the apples.’
In example (26) above, the noun in plural cannot move to F0 , as F0 is occupied by the definite article, as shown in (27) below. FP
(27) F
NP
ta the
mila apples
‘The apples’.
A way to solve this empirical problem is by splitting the functional category FP into two.8 One functional category that hosts the definite article and one that hosts number marking. In fact this has already been independently suggested by Alexiadou (2001) and Panagiotidis (2000). Alexiadou and Panagiotidis have proposed, like Ritter (1991), a functional category within the DP that is different from the layer that hosts the definite article and is the locus of the number feature. Like Ritter, they have dubbed this functional layer NumP. In this analyses N to Num movement is triggered by a categorical [N] feature. This movement can be translated into Chomsky’s (2001) framework as movement due to EPP. In this book, I adopt Alexiadou and Panagiotidis’ idea, and I propose a DP structure with three functional layers, as in (28) below. (28) DP – FP – NumP – NP
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Chapter 3
The DP layer hosts the definiteness feature and its realisations are demonstratives and the indefinite article, FP hosts the case feature9 and its realisation is the definite article and NumP hosts the feature number. Finally, there is movement of the noun to the head of the NumP as a result of EPP.
. The syntax-semantics mapping This section is concerned with the syntax-semantics mapping. As discussed in the previous section, referring expressions have the structure of a DP and non-referring expressions the structure of an NP, i.e. the inclusion of an NP into a DP makes the noun phrase a referring expression. This idea is central in Longobardi (1994) who has proposed an isomorphism between DPs and noun phrases functioning as arguments, as shown in (29) below.10 (29) A ‘nominal expression’ is an argument only if it is introduced by a category D. (Longobardi 1994: 620)
This is also reflected in Chomsky (1994; 1995). Chomsky (1995: 337) notes that the quasi-referential, indexical character of a noun phrase is a property of the D head of the DP, NP being a kind of predicate and he discusses the idea that T, D, and C have semantic properties. With respect to D, he mentions that ‘D may be the locus of what is loosely called ‘referentiality’.’11 This is also reflected in Szabolcsi (1994) who argues that the article in Hungarian, just like the complementiser, is a subordinator, i.e. ‘it enables a propositional entity to act as an argument of a higher predicate’ (Szabolcsi 1994: 208). In this book, the syntax-semantics mapping of the DP in MG will be couched within Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter model (Chierchia 1998). According to this model there is no isomorphism between arguments and the DP layer. The reason for choosing this model is because it makes very clear cross-linguistic predictions for the acquisition of the definite article. The Nominal Mapping Parameter will be presented in Section 3.3.1 and Section 3.3.2 will describe the properties of MG within this model. .. Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter In Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998), unlike Longobardi’s system, there is no cross-linguistic isomorphism between arguments and the DP layer. Within this framework, count nouns are not cross-linguistically of the type <e, t>, i.e. they are not per definition predicates. They can, or even
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sometimes must, be kind-denoting in the sense of Carlson (1977). In other words, count nouns can, and sometimes must be, of the type e, that of arguments. Consequently, unlike Longobardi’s system, there is no need to assume the presence of a DP layer with a null D0 each time bare common nouns appear in argument positions. In Chierchia’s model, cross-linguistic variation is expressed through the use of the binary features [±arg], [±pred], which constrain the way in which nouns are mapped onto their interpretations. For our discussion, the most relevant features are [+arg] and [–arg]. A [+arg] specification means that nouns can be mapped onto arguments, and thus, they can appear as bare nouns in argument positions. A [–arg] specification, on the other hand, means that nouns cannot be mapped onto arguments, thus they need a DP layer when they appear in argument positions.12 Accordingly, there are three combinations, which represent the possible language types, i.e. [+arg, –pred], [+arg, +pred] and [–arg, +pred],13 each one of which represents a setting of the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998: 352–358).14 The three possible combinations [+arg, –pred], [+arg, +pred], [–arg, +pred] correspond to three language types, Chinese, Germanic and Romance. The specification [+arg, –pred] appears in languages of the Chinese type (e.g. Chinese, Japanese), the specification [–arg, +pred] appears in Romance languages (e.g. French, Italian) and the specification [+arg, +pred] appears in Germanic languages (e.g. English, German). Nouns in Chinese are argumental (names of kinds) and can occur without determiners in argument positions, as illustrated in example (30a) below. The extension of all nouns is mass and there is no plural marking, as shown in example (30b) below. Finally, Chinese has a Generalised Classifier System, as illustrated in example (30c) below. (30) a.
wò kànjiàn xióng le. I see bear asp ‘I saw (some/the) bears.’ b. yí zhang zhuozi. one cl table ‘One (piece of) table.’ c. liang zhang zhuozi. two cl table ‘Two (pieces of) tables.’
(Chierchia 1998)
In Romance languages, nouns are mapped onto predicates. Consequently, they need a DP projection in order to occur as arguments. In these languages the ex-
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tension of nouns is count or mass and count nouns may have plural marking. French does not have bare nouns in argument positions, as illustrated in examples (31a) and (31b) below, whereas Italian has bare arguments in positions governed by a lexical head, as illustrated in examples (31c) and (31d) below. In this case, Chierchia assumes similarly to Longobardi the existence of a null D0 , which is licensed by the lexical head. (31) a. *Enfants sont venus chez nous. ‘Kids have come by us.’ b. *J’ai mangé biscuits dans mon lait. ‘I ate cookies with my milk.’ c. *Bambini sono venuti da noi. ‘Children came by us.’ d. Ho preso biscotti con il mio latte. ‘I had cookies with my milk.’
(Chierchia 1998)
In Germanic languages, some of the nouns are argumental and some others predicative. For example, English allows both predicative and argumental NPs, and behaves like French for certain aspects of its nominal system, i.e. for singular count nouns and like Chinese for other aspects, i.e. for plurals and mass nouns, as illustrated in examples (32) and (33) below.15 (32) Dogs are widespread. (33) Gold is rare.
.. Modern Greek within the Nominal Mapping Parameter model MG matches the [–arg, +pred] setting, i.e. the Romance setting. Bare nouns in argument positions are generally disallowed, as illustrated in examples (34) and (35) below. Thus, a DP shell has to be projected each time a noun appears in an argument position. (34) *Zachari ine ghlikia. ‘Sugar is sweet.’ (35) *Skilia dhagonun. ‘Dogs bite.’
However, as in Italian, bare nouns in argument positions are licit only in restricted environments: (a) in positions governed by a lexical head, or (b) as objects of verbs in focus. Example (36) illustrates a bare plural, which is lexi-
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cally governed by the verb and example (37) illustrates a bare mass noun which is in focus. (36) Efagha biskota me to ghala mu. ate cookies with the milk my ‘I ate cookies with my milk.’ (37) KOTOPULO thelo na fao, ochi psari. CHICKEN want to eat not fish ‘I want to eat chicken, not fish.’
Apart from bare plurals and bare mass nouns, MG also allows bare singular count nouns (BSCNs). As noted by Marmaridou (1984), Sioupi (1999) and Marinis (2002a), these are restricted as objects of verbs of accomplishment (see Vendler 1967), as shown in example (38) below. (38) O Nikos chtizi spiti sti Mykono. The Nikos builds house in-the Mykonos ‘Nikos is building a house in Mykonos.’
Moreover, BSCNs are licit as objects of light verbs, such as the verb kano = do, see example (39) below, as objects of the verb thelo = want, see example (40) below and as objects of the copula exo = have, see example (41) below, something that has also been noted in Tzartzanos (1945), Mackridge (1990), Holton, Mackridge & Philippaki-Warburton (1997) and Tsimpli & Stavrakaki (1999).16 (39) I Maria ekane mbanio sti Varkiza. the Maria did bath in-the Varkiza ‘Maria had a bath/swim in Varkiza.’ (40) I Maria pantrevete ke theli spiti stin Kifisia. the Maria gets married and want house in-the Kifisia ‘Maria is getting married and wants a house in Kifisia’ (41) I Maria echi aftokinito Italiko. the Maria has car Italian ‘Maria has an Italian car.’
As Sioupi (1999) shows, evidence for the existence of a null D in BSCNs is provided by word-order facts. For example in (42) below the word-order is VOS. (42) Dhiavaze efimeridha o Giannis otan mbika. read newspaper the Giannis when got in ‘Giannis was reading the newspaper when I got it.’
(Sioupi 1999)
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According to Alexiadou (1997), the word-order VOS in MG involves object shift which instantiates movement of a light element out of a focus domain. Following Mahajan (1992) and Laka (1993), only full DPs can occupy Spec,AgrO; NPs involving no DP-layer must remain VP internally. Consequently, object shift in example (42) above provides evidence, that in the bare object efimeridha = newspaper a null D is present and thus, movement to the AgrO layer is possible. If the bare object would be an NP, we would expect that it would remain VP internally.17 An alternative analysis for BSCNs is to consider them to be cases of incorporation or of complex predication. Sioupi (1999) used the tests in (43) below, in order to exclude such analyses. (43) a. b. c. d. e.
coordination focalisation wh-question adjectival modification use of adverbs
Examples (44a) to (44e) below correspond to the above five tests. (coordination) Efagha milo ke portokali. ate apple and orange ‘I ate an apple and an orange.’ (focalisation) b. MILO troo. apple eat ‘I eat an apple.’ (wh-question) c. Ti echtise o Petros? – Spiti. what built the Petros house ‘What did Petros build? – A house. (adjectival modification) d. Echtise oreo spiti. built nice house ‘He built a nice house.’ (use of adverbs) e. Dhiavaze sinithos efimeridha o Giannis. read usually newspaper the Giannis ‘Giannis was usually reading the newspaper.’ (Sioupi 1999)
(44) a.
Example (44a) shows that BSCNs can be coordinated, (44b) shows that they can be focused, (44c) shows that they can be used in isolation as an answer to a wh-question, (44d) shows that they can be modified by adjectives and (44e) shows that adverbs may intervene between the verb and the BSCN. If the BSCN would form a unit with the verb either by incorporation or as a complex predicate, examples (44a) to (44e) would be ungrammatical. Additionally, the
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adverb in (44e) is an aspectual adverb. According to Alexiadou (1997), aspectual adverbs are generated in Spec,AdvP and are licensed under feature matching (Alexiadou 1997: 92). In this analysis, in the word-order V-Adv, the verb has passed by the adverb, while the object moves out of the VP in Spec,AgrO. Movement of the BSCN out of the VP to Spec,AgrO provides evidence, that it is not an NP, but a DP with a null D. With respect to the subject position, BSCNs are licit if the noun phrase is used: (1) contrastively, as in examples (45a) and (45b), (2) in the scope of negation, as in (46a) and (46b) (see Setatos 1995), (3) in the context of headlines or as announcements (see Marmaridou 1984: 171; Mackridge 1990: 300; Holton, Mackridge & Philippaki-Warburton 1997: 284), as in examples (47a) and (47b), or (4) as meta-language, as in example (48) (Anastasiadi-Simeonidi p.c.).18 (45) a.
Stratiotis perase apo do, politis apo ki. soldier passed from here civilian from there ‘A soldier passed from here, a civilian from there.’ b. Stratiotis perase apo do (ochi politis). soldier passed from here (not civilian) ‘A soldier passed from here (not a civilian).’
(46) a.
Skilos dhen troi tetia. dog not eats such ‘Dogs do not eat such things.’ b. Skilos na fai tetia, pote. dog prt-subj eat such never ‘Dogs never eat such things.’
(Setatos 1995: 186)
(47) a.
Mitera skotose ta dhio tis pedhia ke meta aftoktonise. mother killed the two her children and then killed-herself ‘A mother killed her two children and then committed suicide.’ b. Ipalili tis Aghrotikis Trapezas katevikan pali se aperghia. clerks the agricultural bank went again on strike ‘Clerks of the Agricultural Bank went on strike again.’ (Marmaridou 1984: 171)
(48) ‘Efimeridha’ ine usiastiko thiliku ghenus. newspaper is noun feminine gender “Newspaper’ is a feminine noun.’
As far as proper names are concerned, Chierchia (1998) assumes that proper names have the semantic type <e, t>, meaning that they are predicates true of just one individual. Under this approach, as with common nouns, the de-
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notation of proper names is not cross-linguistically uniform. In Chinese type languages, proper names are argumental and appear as bare nouns in argument positions, whilst in Romance type languages, there is a clash between the semantics and syntax of proper names: proper names want to be argumental, but their syntactic type has to be mapped into predicates. This clash is resolved in two different ways, as shown in (49) below.19 (49) Option 1: the definite article in inserted in order for proper names to appear in argument positions, Option 2: proper names move to an argumental position, i.e. D, in order to show up as bare arguments.
Option 1 is chosen by the most Northern Italian dialects, as shown in example (50) below. Option 2 is chosen in Standard Italian, as shown in example (51) below. (50) Il Gianni mi ha telefonato. the Gianni me has called up ‘Gianni called me up.’ (51) Gianni mio ha finalmente telefonato. Gianni my has finally called up ‘My Gianni finally called up.’
(Longobardi 1994)
In Germanic languages, as with count nouns, some proper names will be mapped into arguments and some others into predicates. In the second case, they must be true of just one singular individual. Thus, two options will be available, as shown in example (52) below. (52) Option 1: proper names mapped into arguments should appear as bare arguments, Option 2: proper names mapped into predicates should be used with determiners when they appear in argument positions.
In English, Option 1 is chosen by most proper names. Option 2 applies to proper names such as plural family names which appear obligatorily with the definite article, as shown in example (53) below. (53) the Whites (family name)
(Chierchia 1998: 397)
As already discussed above, MG matches Romance type languages. Consequently, proper names are of the syntactic type of predicates, i.e. they are predicates of one single individual. When they appear in argument positions, they resemble Northern Italian dialects and choose Option 1. Thus, proper names in
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argument positions are used obligatorily with the definite article, as illustrated in examples (54) and (55) below. (54) O Ghiannis kimate. the Giannis sleeps ‘Giannis is sleeping.’ (55) Aghapao ti Maria. love the Maria ‘I love Maria.’
Proper names used in non-argumental positions such as the ones in examples (56) and (57) below,20 on the other hand, are used obligatorily as bare nouns. (56) Ton lene Gianni him call Gianni ‘They call him Gianni.’ (57) Gianni, ela do! Gianni come here ‘Gianni, come here!
The use of definite articles with proper names and in generic contexts is treated in Chierchia’s theory in the following way. The definite article is analysed as an iota operator, as shown in (58) below. (58) a. ι X = the largest member of X if there is one (else, undefined) b. the dogs = ι DOGS = the largest plurality of dogs c. the dog = ι DOG = the only dog (if there is one) (Chierchia 1998: 346)
If it applies to a set of pluralities it will refer to the largest plurality in that extension. If it applies to a set of singularities, it also seeks the largest one. If it applies to mass nouns (like the furniture) it will refer to the largest plurality of pieces of furniture of which the common noun furniture is true. Chierchia’s analysis goes hand in hand with the analysis of Greek definite articles by Giannakidou & Stavrou (1999). Giannakidou & Stavrou, argue that ‘generic DPs can be characterised as referential in the sense that they make reference to kinds’.21 Thus, they put forward the idea that the two uses of definite articles, i.e. the referential use in definite descriptions and with proper names and the generic use in generic DPs, are connected. In the case of definite descriptions and proper names, they make use of the ι-operator, whilst with generic DPs they make use of the nominalisation operator (see Chierchia 1998).
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. Morphological marking in the Greek DP This section is concerned with morphological marking in the MG DP. More specifically, it will focus on morphological marking on definite articles and nouns. As definite articles and nouns are marked for case, number and gender, the acquisition of morphological marking of definite articles and nouns can provide evidence for the acquisition of the functional categories that host the case and number feature, FP and NumP respectively.22 Additionally, as MG has rich nominal morphology consisting of several inflectional classes some of which show a great degree of syncretism, data on the acquisition of nominal morphology can shed light into the role of syncretism in the acquisition of morphology. This section is organised as follows. Section 3.3.1 will present the inflectional paradigm of the definite article and Section 3.3.2 will illustrate the inflectional paradigms of nouns. .. Morphological marking on definite articles The MG definite article is marked for case, number and gender. The inflectional paradigm of the definite article is illustrated in Table 3.1. Table 3.1 shows that there is degree of syncretism in the inflectional paradigm of the definite article. The nominative and accusative forms of the neuter are identical and the same is true for the genitive form of the masculine and neuter. A higher degree of syncretism is observed in the plural than in the singular. The total number of word forms in the plural is 5, whilst in the singular there are 7 different forms of the definite article. As far as case is concerned, the highest degree of syncretism is observed in the genitive case. The total number of word forms in the genitive is 3, whereas in the nominative it is 4 and in the accusative it is 6.
Table 3.1. Inflectional paradigm of the definite article
Nominative Accusative Genitive
Masc
Singular Fem
o to(n) tu
i ti(n) tis
Neut
Masc
to to tu
i tus ton
Plural Fem i tis ton
Neut ta ta ton
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The form to of the definite article, which corresponds to the neuter form in the nominative and accusative case in the singular, has been suggested to represent the unmarked form of the paradigm (Tsimpli & Stavrakaki 1999). If syncretism is relevant for the acquisition process, then we should expect to see differences in the acquisition sequence of different word forms of the paradigm of the definite article. Additionally, the unmarked form of the definite article is expected to be the predominant form when children use definite articles erroneously. .. Morphological marking on nouns Nouns are similar to definite articles marked for case, number and gender. In addition, they are marked for Inflectional Class (IC hereafter). According to Ralli (1994; 1998), there are eight inflectional classes in the nominal inflection. IC 1 corresponds to the class of trikatalikta, while IC 2–8 correspond to the class of dikatalikta in Kourmoulis (1964) and Babiniotis & Kontos (1967), as shown in Table 3.2. Table 3.2 shows the relation between Ralli and Kourmoulis’ system. Trikatalikta are nouns that have three different word forms in each number whereas dikatalikta are nouns that have only two different forms. Consequently, in the class of trikatalikta there is a three-way distinction, whereas in the class of dikatalikta a two-way distinction. Table 3.3 illustrates examples from nouns belonging to each one of the ICs. The relation between IC, gender and case contrast is illustrated in Table 3.4. Moreover, Table 3.4 shows, which inflectional classes have a two-way distinction, i.e. their paradigm has only two word forms, and which inflectional class has a three/four way distinction. Table 3.2. Relationship between the system of Ralli and Kourmoulis’ system
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Table 3.3. Examples of nouns for each IC* IC 1
anthropos = man psifos = vote
IC 2
tamias = cashier machitis = fighter papas = priest papus = grandfather kafes = coffee bakalis = grocer
IC 3 IC 4 IC 5 IC 6 IC 7 IC 8
mitera = mother avli = yard alepu = fox mama = mummy poli = city vuno = mountain spiti = house kratos = state soma = body plisimo = washing
*In this table, nouns are illustrated in the nominative form of the singular.
Table 3.4. IC, gender, case contrast and distinction between word forms
As we can see in Table 3.4, IC 1 contains mainly masculine nouns, but also some feminine ones, ICs 3 and 4 contain only feminine nouns and ICs 5, 6, 7 and 8 contain only neuter nouns. With respect to case contrast, IC 1 has a three/fourway distinction whereas ICs 2 to 8 have a two-way distinction. Syncretism in ICs 2 to 8 is, thus, higher than in IC 1. In IC 2 the contrast is between the nom form and the form used in gen/acc/voc, while in IC 3 to 8 the contrast is between the form in gen and the form used in nom/acc/voc. Examples in the singular of ICs with a two-way distinction are available in Table 3.5. In IC 2 in the singular, as there is syncretism between genitive, accusative and vocative, the paradigm is represented in the system of Thomadaki
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Table 3.5. The paradigm of IC 2, 3 and 5 in the singular
Table 3.6. The paradigm of IC 1 in the singular
(1994: 104) through the features [+nom] and [–nom]. For example the kinship term babas = daddy has the specification given in (59) below. (59) babas [+nom] baba [–nom]
As syncretism in ICs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 in the singular is between nominative, accusative and vocative, the paradigms are represented through the features [+gen] and [–gen]. For example the noun vuno = mountain from IC5 has in Thomadaki’s system the specification given in (60) below. (60) vuno [–gen] vunu [+gen]
In IC 1 we have a three/four-way distinction. Two examples of the paradigm of IC 1 in the singular (one with a three-way distinction and one with a four-way distinction) are given in Table 3.6. Noun forms of IC 1 are specified by the features [+nom/–gen], [–nom/ +gen] and [–nom/–gen]. For example the forms of the proper name Nikos have in the system of Thomadaki the specification given in (61) below. (61) Nikos [+nom/–gen] Niku [–nom/+gen] Niko [–nom/–gen]
Making use of the notion of markedness as in Jacobson (1962) and Chomsky & Halle (1968), Thomadaki (1994) defines the forms that show syn-
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cretism as unmarked, and those that do not show syncretism as marked. In IC2, the gen/acc/voc form is the unmarked form and in ICs2–8 the nom/acc/voc form is the unmarked form. Finally, in IC1, the acc/voc form is the unmarked form. In this system, accusative case forms are always unmarked, since accusative forms always coincide with other case forms. Moreover, in all ICs apart from IC 5 the accusative form coincides with the stem vowel. Interestingly, if we consider all ICs with a two-way distinction, the marked form does not correspond to one case. The marked form of IC2 is the nominative form, whereas the marked form of IC2 3 to 8 is the genitive form. Finally, in IC1 both the nominative and the accusative form are marked forms of the paradigm. The two- vs. three/way distinction attested in the singular holds also in the plural. However, the unmarked vs. marked forms are distributed differently. ICs 2 to 8 show in the plural a two-way distinction, as they do in the singular. However, in all 7 ICs, the marked form is the form in the genitive, whereas the unmarked form corresponds to the nom/acc/voc. Table 3.7 contains examples from ICs 2, 3 and 5. Table 3.7. The paradigm of IC 2, 3 and 5 in the plural
The distinction between unmarked and marked forms for each paradigm is important for the acquisition of nouns, as unmarked forms are expected to emerge prior to unmarked forms.
. Summary This chapter has examined the syntactic structure of the DP in MG, the syntaxsemantics mapping and morphological marking on definite articles and nouns and this provides the theoretical basis for the rest of this book. As far as the syntactic structure is concerned, current analyses of the MG DP have been presented and critically discussed. The analysis of the DP
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adopted in this book involves three functional layers, the DP layer that hosts the definiteness feature, the FP layer that hosts the case feature and the NumP layer that hosts the number feature. The realisations of these three layers are demonstratives and indefinite articles, definite articles and number suffixes respectively. The acquisition of these will be examined in the next chapter. The syntax-semantics mapping of articles in MG has been couched within Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter. According to this model, nouns in MG are of the Romance Type, i.e. they are of the predicative type. In order to be used in argument positions, a DP layer must be projected. However, MG also allows bare nouns in argument positions, albeit in restricted environments. Bare mass nouns, bare plurals and bare singular count nouns as objects of verbs are licit in lexically governed positions or in focus. A further restriction for bare singular count nouns is that they are licit only as objects of verbs of accomplishment or light verbs. Bare nouns in the subject position are licit in fewer environments than they are in the object position, i.e. they are restricted to contrastive contexts, in the scope of negation, in the context of headlines or as announcements and in meta-language. In Romance Type languages and in MG, there is an isomorphism between the existence of the DP-layer and the syntactic function of a noun phrase as an argument of a verb. Bare arguments have, thus, the status of DPs with a null D0 . Chierchia’s model makes very specific predictions for the acquisition of definite articles. The acquisition of definite articles, the acquisition of bare arguments and the licensing conditions for bare arguments will be presented in the next chapter. The third part of this chapter has presented the morphological marking of definite articles and nouns. More specifically, the paradigms of definite articles and nouns have been illustrated along with the degree of syncretism and the unmarked versus marked word forms within each paradigm. The next chapter will present the predictions for the acquisition of morphological marking deriving from the status of the word form (unmarked vs. marked), and from the correspondence between morphology and functional layers of the MG DP. These predictions will then be evaluated on the basis of data from the acquisition of the morphology of definite articles and nouns.
Notes . According to Chila-Markopoulou (1999: 542) enas can be used post-nominally with the meaning ‘not even one/nobody’, as in (i).
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(i)
Anthropos enas dhen irthe na tu simbarastathi. man a/one not came prt-subj him supporting ‘Nobody came to support him.’
. For the grammaticalisation process of the definite article in MG, see Lehmann (1995). For the properties of the definite article in Ancient Greek and Byzantine Greek, see Manolessou (1999). . Focalisation is indicated through the use of capital letters. . But like the indefinite article. . The determiner ‘kathe’ = ‘every’ is another exception, as noted by an anonymous reviewer. Consider example (i) below. (i) *Idha kathe. saw every ‘I saw everyone.’ . As noted by an anonymous reviewer, this does not hold for the determiners ‘kati’ = ‘some(body/thing)’, ‘katholou’ = ‘not/any at all’ and ‘tipota’ = ‘any/no(thing)’. . Under this approach, adjectives are generated in the Spec,NP/Spec,FP or as Adjuncts to NP/FP and do not intervene in the extended projection of NP between DP and NP, as in Abney (1987). Consequently head to head movement of N to F0 is not blocked from intervening adjectives, as it would be the case in Abney’s analysis. . An alternative solution would be through the operation AGREE without movement of the noun to F0 . . This is similar to Tsimpli & Stavrakaki (1999). . See also Stowell (1991) and Higginbotham (1987). . But consider Pérez-Leroux & Roeper (1999) and Roeper (1995), according to which the distinguishing feature of the DP-layer is the feature [+specific]. As they note, ‘the logical extreme of this position is that articles can be generated in either NP or DP depending upon their specificity’ (Roeper 1995: 15). . Similarly for the features [+pred] and [–pred]. . The [–arg, –pred] specification is not a possible option, because it would prevent nouns from having any interpretation at all, i.e. nouns would be mapped neither onto arguments nor onto predicates. . However, consider Munn & Schmitt (1999) and Schmitt & Munn (1999), who argued against the Nominal Mapping Parameter based on data from Brazilian Portuguese. . Roeper (1995) and Pérez-Leroux & Roeper (1999) analyse bare nouns in argument positions in English as NPs and not as DPs. This is in line with Chierchia (1998) and this book. Since English nouns are [+arg, +pred], bare nouns appearing in argument positions are NPs. . BSCN as objects of verbs of accomplishment, light verbs, the verb thelo = want and the copula echo = have, are licit in the same restricted environments as bare plurals and bare mass nouns are, i.e. in lexically governed positions and in focus.
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The DP in Modern Greek . According to an anonymous reviewer, data on word order does not provide sufficient evidence for a null D, as MG has a flexible word order and some analyses do not involve movement. As an in depth analysis of the word order facts in MG is beyond the scope of this chapter, for the present purposes I will rely on the analysis of Alexiadou (1997) for word order and Sioupi (1999) for the justification of null D and I will leave this issue open for future research. . As an anonymous reviewer commented, the environments presented in (45) to (48) can also support bare plurals and the environment in (48) supports also mass nouns. . This is similar to Longobardi’s (1994) analysis. . But see Szabolcsi (1994) according to which D0 is not absent from vocatives but rather empty. . Kinds in the sense of Chierchia (1998). . As gender in MG is a feature of the stem and it does not relate to the functional domain, this book will not be concerned with the acquisition of gender.
Chapter 4
Acquiring the DP in MG
This chapter is concerned with the acquisition of three aspects of the Greek DP, the functional layers, the syntax-semantics mapping and morphological marking. Chapter 3 has shown that the nominal domain in MG requires three functional projections, DP, FP and NumP. Evidence for the acquisition of the DP layer can be provided by the presence of indefinite articles, evidence for the FP layer in child grammar can be provided by the use of definite articles and case marking and evidence for the acquisition of the NumP can be provided by the use of number marking. Data on each of these issues will be presented in turn. Section 4.1 is concerned with the acquisition of the definite and indefinite articles and how they can provide evidence for the acquisition of the DP and FP layer in child grammar. Section 4.2 will examine the syntax-semantics mapping. The predictions deriving from the Nominal Mapping Parameter will be tested on the basis of acquisition data. The acquisition of morphological marking will be discussed in Section 4.3 where we will see that data from morphological marking can provide evidence for the acquisition of the FP and NumP layer. The implications of these results for acquisition theory and linguistic theory will be discussed in Section 4.4. Finally, the results of this chapter will be summarised in Section 4.5.
. Evidence for the DP and the FP layer This section is concerned with the acquisition of the DP and the FP layer. In the analysis adopted in this book the head of the DP layer hosts the indefinite article and the head of the FP layer hosts the definite article and the case feature. This being so, the presence of indefinite articles in child speech can be taken as evidence for the presence of the DP-layer in child grammar, and the use of definite articles and case marking can be taken as evidence for the FP layer.
Chapter 4
.. Acquiring the definite and indefinite article The first issue to be addressed is the emergence of the definite and indefinite article. Do the children under investigation use articles at the very start of the recordings, does one of the two articles emerge prior to the other, do children omit definite or indefinite articles or do they omit both? These questions are important for the acquisition of the DP and the FP layer. In the data analysed in this book, Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria, use articles from the first recording. On the other hand, Christos from the Christofidou Corpus does not use any articles at all in the first recording of the corpus. In his first recording there were 28 obligatory contexts for definite articles and the definite article is missing from all 28 contexts in his speech. In the same recording there were no obligatory contexts for the indefinite article. Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether Christos omits indefinite articles. How can the difference between the children from the Stephany Corpus and Christos be explained? Does this difference represent a sampling error or does it reflect a difference in developmental stages? Or should this difference be attributed to individual variation, in other words is Christos’ speech untypical for the development of child MG? In order to provide an answer to these questions, we have to consider the onset of recording of the corpora used and the developmental stage of the children under investigation. Christos is the youngest child studied in this book. He was 1;7 at the onset of the recordings. At this age, he was at Stage I in development and his MLU was 1.2. All children from the Stephany Corpus were older than Christos at the onset of the recordings. Spiros was 1;9, Janna was 1;11, Mairi was 1;9 and Maria 2;3. As far as their developmental stage is concerned, Mairi and Maria were at a later developmental stage, Mairi was at Stage II and Maria at Stage III. Spiros and Janna were at the same stage with Christos, at Stage I. However, their MLU were higher than Christos’ MLU. The MLU of Spiros was 1.7 and the MLU of Janna was 1.5. Although the possibility of Christos’ speech being untypical cannot be excluded, MLU scores can be taken as evidence that Christos’ speech reflects an earlier phase of development than the speech of the children from the Stephany Corpus. With respect to the type of articles used by the children, all children who used articles from the first recording available (Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria) use definite articles from the first recording. This is not the case for indefinite articles. The number and percentage of definite and indefinite articles used by each child of the Stephany Corpus per month and in each developmental stage
Acquiring the DP in MG
is given in Tables 4.1 to 4.4 (the number of definite and indefinite articles used in each recording is given in Appendix 2, Tables 1 to 8). Tables 4.1 to 4.4 show that Janna, Mairi and Maria use both definite and indefinite articles from the first recording available. In contrast, Spiros does not use any indefinite articles.1 Does the lack of indefinite articles in the speech of Spiros indicate that children acquiring MG initially use only definite articles and only later on start to use indefinites? The data from Christos’ speech is relevant for answering this question because at the beginning of the recordings, (a) he was younger than all other children, (b) his MLU was lower than the MLU of all other children and (c) the intervals between his recordings are very short, i.e. it is unlikely that we have missed a developmental phase due to the unavailability of recordings in that particular stage. Table 4.1. Def. and indef. articles in the speech of Spiros Stage
Age
Definite Articles
Indefinite Articles
I
1;9
23% [N=35/153]
0% [N=0/2]
Table 4.2. Def. and indef. articles in the speech of Janna Stage
Age
Definite Articles
Indefinite Articles
I III IV
1;11 2;5 2;9
17% [N=10/60] 93% [N=67/72] 97% [N=144/149]
80% [N=4/5] 60% [N=3/5] 100% [N=1/1]
Table 4.3. Def. and indef. articles in the speech of Mairi Stage
Age
Definite Articles
Indefinite Articles
II
1;9
77% [N=294/384]
94% [N=34/36]
III
2;3 2;9
80% [N=185/231] 91% [N=258/284]
92% [N=22/24] 93% [N=13/14]
Table 4.4. Def. and indef. articles in the speech of Maria Stage
Age
Definite Articles
Indefinite Articles
III IV
2;3 2;9
67% [N=32/48] 92% [N=133/144]
95% [N=19/20] 100% [N=5/5]
Chapter 4
Table 4.5. Def. and indef. articles in the speech of Christos Stage
Age
Definite Articles
Indefinite Articles
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
0% [N=0/28] 11% [N=2/18] 6% [N=2/31] 11% [N=6/54] 3% [N=4/147]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
32% [N=83/256] 47% [N=206/442] 63% [N=155/246] 75% [N=318/425] 66% [N=174/262] 77% [N=159/207]
[N=0/0] 100% [N=3/3] [N=0/0] 50% [N=1/2] 100% [N=2/2] 100% [N=7/7]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
91% [N=187/205] 97% [N=212/219] 95% [N=310/325]
100% [N=6/6] 89% [N=16/18] 94% [N=15/16]
[N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/0]
Christos starts to use articles at the age of 1;8, at Stage I (MLU < 2.0). Indefinite articles, on the other hand, emerge five months later in his speech, at the age of 2;1, at Stage II (MLU < 2.5). This is illustrated in Table 4.5, which shows the number and percentage of definite and indefinite articles used by Christos per month2 (the number of definite and indefinite articles used in each recording is given in Appendix 2, Tables 9 and 10). The data from Christos confirms the observation from Spiros’ speech that definite articles in the speech of children acquiring MG emerge earlier than indefinite articles.3 However, as the obligatory contexts for the use of the indefinite article are very low as compared to the obligatory contexts for the use of definite articles, this observation needs to be confirmed by data from more children or by experimental data. As far as the rate of definite article omission is concerned, many definite articles are missing initially from the speech of all the children that are at Stage I. This has already been pointed out by Stephany (1997). According to Stephany, at the initial stage specific definite reference is expressed merely through the use of demonstratives rather than through the use of definite articles. Interestingly, Stephany notes that definite articles are not overused with nouns in the vocative case and nearly never misused as indefinite reference. This has been taken as an indication that the development of the definite article as a grammatical category is well under way.
Acquiring the DP in MG
With respect to the acquisition of the indefinite article, Stephany notes that the definite article occurs much more frequently than the indefinite article, which is nearly always used where contextually required.4 This is in contrast to the definite article, which is at first often lacking. Moreover, all children correctly express indefinite plural reference by articleless nouns (Stephany 1997: 265). According to Stephany, at the age of 1;10, Mairi uses the indefinite article productively and also contrasts the indefinite article with zero. She never overuses it with mass nouns that have a partitive sense, or specific indefinite reference. Moreover, the indefinite article énas mostly marks indefinite reference, rather than carries a numeral meaning. Stephany mentions that it is difficult to judge whether child expressions with and without an indefinite article, such as examples (1a) and (1b) below, differ in meaning. However, she notes that for indefinite specific reference, the indefinite article occurs with nouns referring to objects that can be easily isolated, such as houses, towers, etc., especially in the context of verbs like kano = make or ftiachno = construct, as in example (1a) below. On the other hand, in the context of classification, nouns occur usually without an article, as in example (1b) below. (1) a.
Adult: Ti tha ftiaksume? what prt-fut construct ‘What are we going to build?’ Child: Ena pirgho. a/one tower ‘A tower.’ b. Adult: Ti ine afto? ‘What is this?’ Child: Aeroplano. ‘Airplane.’
(Mairi 1;10)
(Mairi 1;10)
On the other hand, according to Stephany, Janna uses articleless nouns for naming or labeling and also in sentences containing the verb ftiachno = construct. Stephany (1997: 264) also notes that there are only two examples in which Janna uses the indefinite article denoting a specific referent (at the age of 2;4 and 2;10). Finally, Stephany mentions that Maria seems to have developed a special liking for the indefinite article: while she uses parallel constructions with and without an indefinite article, she even sometimes uses it in contexts, in which adults participating in the child-adult interaction do not use it. To summarise, the data from two children show that definite articles emerge earlier than indefinite articles. Nevertheless, the rate of definite article omission is higher than the rate of indefinite article omission. It should be
Chapter 4
noted that it is very difficult to establish obligatory contexts for the use of indefinite articles in a corpus of spontaneous speech. In the data under investigation, children use bare nouns a lot, which are grammatical with a non-specific interpretation, but ungrammatical with a specific interpretation. Due to the fact that it is very difficult to disambiguate between specific and non-specific context in a corpus with naturalistic data, as the child’s intention is often not clear, the results from the use of indefinite articles should not be taken as conclusive. Crucialy, they need to be verified by data from more children, and ideally, from experimental data, in which it is possible to establish contexts for specific and non-specific usage of indefinite articles. Do these data show that the DP and the FP layer are available in the grammar of the children under investigation? The presence of words and morphemes belonging to functional categories in the adult grammar does not necessarily imply that these words belong to functional categories in child grammar. The target-like status of words in child speech has been questioned by among others Radford (1990a). According to Radford (1990a: 103), children sometimes use in the pre-functional stage words that in the adult language belong to the functional category D, such as in example (2) below. (2) Read that. That Luke, mum. This. Get it. Catch it. Open it. Put that in there. What this? (Lucy 20) (from Radford 1990a: 102)
According to Radford, the pronouns in (2) above are impostors, i.e. they have the same phonological shape as their apparent adult counterparts, but they have a different categorial status, i.e. they are analysed by Radford as pro-NPs and not as determiners. Before addressing the question as to whether the data presented here shows the availability of the DP and FP layer in the children’s grammar, we have to examine whether or not the articles attested in the children’s speech represent impostors. This will be undertaken in the next section. .. The use of articles as impostors In the early stages of development, children often make use of words belonging to functional categories, albeit not in a target-like way. One such case concerns the use of words in formulaic expressions. The use of formulaic expressions in child speech has been discussed extensively among others in Clark (1974), Peters (1983), Snow (1986), Bates, Bretherton & Snyder (1988), Pine & Lieven (1990) and Pine & Martindale
Acquiring the DP in MG
(1996).5 The use of articles in formulaic expressions has been reported by Penner & Weissenborn (1996) and Eisenbeiss (2000). In this book, formulaic expressions have been identified by making use of Hickey’s (1993) criteria for the identification of formulae (see Chapter 2) and they have been excluded from further analyses. However, the use of articles in formulaic expressions is not the only possible manifestation of articles as impostors. Children may use definite articles in a lexically-based fashion, with only a particular class of nouns or only in particular syntactic environments. Use of articles in a lexically based fashion is defined as the use of articles only with a particular set of nouns, for example only with the nouns ball and doll. In this case, the child’s grammar may contain rules such as the ones illustrated in (3) below. (3) the + ball the + doll
Studies on the acquisition of the proper name/common noun distinction (see Katz, Baker & Macnamara 1974; Gelman & Taylor 1984; Hall 1991) and of the mass noun/count noun distinction in English (see Gathercole 1986; Gordon 1985, 1988; Soja 1994) have shown, that young children are sensitive to syntactic cues for the categorisation of nouns into noun classes. More specifically, Gelman & Taylor (1984) have shown that 2-year-old children tend to interpret novel nouns as proper names (hereafter PNs), when they are marked syntactically as such and are applied to animate objects. Gordon (1988) has shown that even at a stage in which children omit 50% of articles, mass nouns are distributionally differentiated from count nouns Finally, Soja (1994) has provided evidence that children between the ages of 2;1 and 4;0 distinguish between count nouns and NP-type nouns.6 Given that children can distinguish between noun classes from very early on, they may initially use articles on the basis of a rule, such as in (4) below. (4) the + PN the + count noun
If children make use of such rules, we expect them to use articles only with one class of nouns, e.g. only with PNs or only with count nouns. One further possibility is that children will pass through a stage in which they use articles with nouns that have a particular syntactic function, e.g. subject or object. In this case, their grammar should have a rule such as in (5) below.
Chapter 4
(5) the + subject the + object
It has often been reported that a U-shaped curve occurs when children switch from the use of elements belonging to functional categories as impostors into their use in a target-like fashion (see Marcus, Pinker, Ullman, Hollander, Rosen & Xu 1992 for the occurrence of a U-shaped curve in the acquisition of the English Past Tense and also Eisenbeiss, 2000 for the occurrence of U-shaped curves in the acquisition of definite articles in German). At the stage when children reanalyse functional words initially used as impostors, a low peak is attested, which is followed by a high peak. If Greek children pass through a stage, in which they use articles in a lexically based fashion, with particular noun classes or in a particular syntactic environment, we would expect to find a U-shaped curve in the transition of the use of articles as impostors to their use in a target-like way. Such transitions take place usually in short time periods. Consequently, such a change can only be observed in a corpus the does not have large intervals between the recordings. In the data analysed in this book, this is the case only in the Christofidou Corpus. The intervals between the recording sessions in the children from the Stephany Corpus are as long as six months. Hence, the rest of this section will examine only Christos’ production of articles for their use as impostors. Moreover, as there are very few obligatory contexts for indefinite articles in his speech, this section will examine only the status of definite articles as impostors. Figure 4.1 shows the use of definite articles in obligatory contexts in the speech of Christos. Figure 4.1 shows that there is a low peak in the production of definite articles in the speech of Christos. Definite articles emerge in his speech at the age of 1;8. At 1;9, they reach 23% in obligatory contexts. However, at the age of 1;11, the use of definite articles in obligatory contexts decreases to 3%. Subsequently, at 2;0 years of age we have an abrupt change, the use of definite articles in obligatory contexts reaches 32%. Interestingly, this change coincides with the transition from Stage I to Stage II. The increase from 3% to 32% is statistically significant (x2 = 48.15, p<.001). Moreover, the decrease from around 20% to 3% and the subsequent increase to 32% represent a typical U-shaped curve. Additional evidence comes from the number of definite articles. Prior to 2;0, the number of definite articles in Christos’ speech is very low, (N = 2 at 1;8 and 1;9, N = 6 at 1;10 and N = 4 at 1;11). In contrast, at 2;0 years of age the number of definite articles used in obligatory contexts is 83 and in the sub-
Acquiring the DP in MG
Stage I
Stage II
Stage III
97% 95%
91% 77%
75% 66%
63% 47% 32% 11% 0% 1;7
6% 11%
3%
1;9 1;10 1;11 2;0
1;8
2;1
2;2
2;3
2;4
2;5
2;6 2;7
2;8
Age
Figure 4.1. Percentage of use of definite articles in obligatory contexts
80 Stage I
definite articles missing [N]
Stage II
definite articles present [N]
60
57 48
N 40
30 20 19
16
45
23 23
17
19
30 28
9 18
5 5 7
2; 0.
7 .2 11
07
2
0
1;
0
.1 3
.0 11
0
1; 11
2
1
1;
2
.0 9
.2 09
3
1; 10
1
4
1
1;
0
.0 3 1; 09
1; 07
.1 1
0 0 2
Age
Figure 4.2. Number of definite articles between 1;7.11 and 2;0.16
2; 0. 16
20
38
35
28
Chapter 4 100 90 Stage I
80
Stage II
70 60 % 50 40
34
30 17
20 10
11 0
0
5
23 14 5
5
27
8 0
0
0
07 . 1; 11 08 . 1; 21 09 1; .03 09 . 1; 12 09 1; .24 10 . 1; 01 10 1; .09 10 .2 1; 4 11 1; .0 11 . 1; 10 11 1; .13 11 . 1; 19 11 .2 2; 7 0. 0 2; 4 0. 0 2; 7 0. 1 2; 5 0. 16
0
18
38
1;
Age
Figure 4.3. Percentage of definite articles between 1;7.11 and 2;0.16
sequent months higher than 150. The presence of a U-shaped curve becomes even more apparent if we observe the development of the use of definite articles file by file for the period between 1;8 and 2;0 years. This is illustrated in Figures 4.2 and 4.3. Figure 4.2 shows the number of definite articles in obligatory contexts from 1;7.11 to 2;0.16. The number of definite articles between 1;8.21 and 1;11.0 is very low. Each file contains only 1 to 3 definite articles. Moreover, in the three subsequent recordings Christos does not use any definite articles at all. Significantly, in these three files there were 17, 30 and 38 obligatory contexts for definite articles. Figure 4.3 shows the percentage of definite articles in obligatory contexts per file for the same period. The recordings at 1;11.10, 1;11.13 and 1;11.19 represent the low peak of the U-shaped curve. The use of definite articles in obligatory contexts in these three recordings is 0%. The U-shaped curve indicates that definite articles used by Christos prior to the age of 2;0, at Stage I, have the status of impostors and not of target-like definite articles. In the rest of this section I will analyse the definite articles used during this period, i.e. from 1;8 to 2;2, in order to shed light on the rule operating in Christos’ use of definite articles. This will show whether or not Christos uses definite articles in a lexically-based fashion, with a particular class of nouns or in particular syntactic positions.
Acquiring the DP in MG
If Christos uses definite articles in a lexically-based fashion, we would expect him to use definite articles only with a particular set of nouns. Accordingly, an analysis has been conducted in order to find out whether or not Christos uses articles only with a particular set of nouns. Definite articles emerge in his speech at the age of 1;8.21. In this recording Christos uses a definite article twice, once with a PN, i.e. his own name, as illustrated in example (6) below and once with a kinship term (hereafter KT), namely mama = ‘mummy’. (6) Adult: Pchianu in aftos o stilos? whose is this the pen ‘Whose is this pen?’ Child: O Tsitso acio. the-nom Christos-un this tu Christu ine aftos the-gen Christos-gen is this ‘This belongs to Christos.’
(Christos 1;8.21) (target utterance)
From 1;8.21 to 1;11.0, Christos uses a very small number of definite articles (total number = 12) with a limited number of nouns (types/tokens = 9/12). The nouns used with the definite article are: babas = daddy, Christos, maksilari = pillow, mama = mummy, Miki = Mickey, roloi = clock/watch, papaci = duckDIM, papus = grandpa, and psomi = bread. The use of definite articles only with a small set of nouns indicates that definite articles are used in a lexicallybased fashion. From the age of 2;0.7 onwards, Christos starts using definite articles with more nouns than he did previously. Table 4.6 shows how many noun types are used with the definite article in the period between 1;7 and 2;2. Table 4.6 shows that the number of noun types increases from the age of 2;0 onwards. The next question to be examined is whether or not Christos uses definite articles with particular noun classes. In order to answer this question, I analysed the use of definite articles with PNs, KTs and common nouns (CNs) between 1;8 and 2;2. The number and percentage of definite articles used with each noun class per month is given in Table 4.7 (the number and percentage of definite articles used with each noun class in each recording is given in Appendix 2, Table 11). Table 4.7 shows that Christos uses definite articles with all noun classes, i.e. PNs, KTs and CNs from the age of 1;9 onwards, i.e. even at the stage, in which definite articles are used in a lexically-based fashion. When definite articles are
Chapter 4
Table 4.6. Number of noun types used with def. articles between 1;7 and 2;2 Age
Noun types
1;07.11 1;08.21 1;09.03 1;09.12 1;09.24 1;10.01 1;10.09 1;10.24 1;11.0 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;0.04
Age
0 2 0 1 1 1 3 1 2 0 0 0 2 6
2;00.07 2;00.15 2;00.16 2;01.02 2;01.09 2;01.14 2;01.22 2;01.23 2;01.26 2;01.27 2;02.12 2;02.14 2;02.18 2;02.24
Noun tupes 10 10 16 9 5 16 6 24 16 6 4 22 13 20
Table 4.7. Number of def. articles used with CNs, PNs and KTs Stage
Age
with CN
with PN & KT
I
1;08 1;09 1;10 1;11
[N=0/0] 100% [N=1/1] 33% [N=3/9] 0% [N=0/14]
11% [N=2/18] 3% [N=1/29] 7% [N=3/42] 3% [N=4/129]
II
2;00 2;01 2;02
54% [N=38/70] 64% [N=93/145] 63% [N=57/91]
24% [N=44/140] 37% [N=106/179] 62% [N=89/54]
used more productively, i.e. after 1;11, Christos uses definite articles with all three noun classes as well. Thus, he does not pass through a stage, in which he uses definite articles only with a particular noun class, and thus, there is no evidence that the production of definite articles in his speech is subject to a rule of the type definite article + particular noun class. The final hypothesis with respect to the use of definite articles as impostors relates to the use of definite articles in specific syntactic positions, i.e. in the subject vs. in the object position. If the production of definite articles in the speech of Christos is governed by a rule, such as def. article + subject or def. article + object, he should use definite articles only in the subject or only in the object position.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Table 4.8. Number of def. articles in the subject vs. object position Stage
Age
Subject
I
1;08 1;09 1;10 1;11
[N=0/0] 33% [N=1/3] 14% [N=1/7] 6% [N=1/18]
II
2;00 2;01 2;02
27% [N=21/78] 47% [N=74/158] 65% [N=60/92]
Object [N=0/0] [N=0/0] 0% [N=0/5] 0% [N=0/9] 29% [N=7/24] 57% [N=35/61] 67% [N=18/27]
In order to test this hypothesis, I analysed the use of definite articles with nouns in the subject versus object position from 1;8 to 2;2. The number and percentage of definite articles used in each syntactic position per month is given in Table 4.8 (the number of definite articles used in each syntactic position for each recording is given in Appendix 2, Table 12). Table 4.8 shows that between 1;9 and 1;11, i.e. during the period in which Christos uses definite articles in a lexically-based fashion, there are no instances of definite articles in the object position and only three in the subject position. The number of definite articles between 1;9 and 1;11 is so low that it cannot be taken as an indication for a rule underlying his use of definite articles. Interestingly, when he starts using definite articles more productively, i.e. from 2;0 onwards, Christos uses definite articles both in the subject and in the object position. Consequently, we do not have any evidence that Christos uses a rule of the type definite article + particular syntactic position in his production of definite articles. To summarise this section, it has often been claimed that sometimes children at early stages of development use articles as impostors. A general indication for the use of words as impostors is the presence of a U-shaped curve. The use of definite articles in the speech of Christos at Stage I shows a U-shaped curve. Further, three hypotheses have been discussed for the nature of the rule that Christos applies to the generation of definite articles: use of definite articles in a lexically-based fashion, with particular noun classes or in particular syntactic positions. The data has provided evidence for a lexically-based use of definite articles. Use of definite articles with particular noun classes or only in particular syntactic positions has not been supported by the data. Christos does not use definite articles only with a particular noun class. Moreover, from the age of 2;0 onwards, he uses definite articles both in the subject and in the object position.
Chapter 4
.. Acquiring the DP and the FP layer We have seen so far that children acquiring MG run through a phase in which they do not use any articles at all. This corresponds to the speech of Christos at the age of 1;7. Subsequently, they make use of definite articles in a lexically based fashion. This phase has been observed in the speech of Christos between 1;8 and 1;11. Between 2;0 and 2;5, Christos uses definite articles productively, although the rate of definite articles omission is still high. Finally, from 2;6 onwards, Christos uses definite articles over 90% of the time. The developmental sequence of the acquisition of the definite article in Christos’ speech is summarised below. – – – –
Phase 1: no definite articles Phase 2: lexically based use of definite articles Phase 3: productive use of definite articles Phase 4: mastery of the use of definite articles
In Christos’ speech, there is a close relationship between the developmental sequence of the acquisition of the definite article and the increase of MLU. The transition from Phase 2 to Phase 3 corresponds to the transition from Stage I to Stage II as defined by the MLU. Similarly, the transition from Phase 3 to Phase 4 corresponds to the transition from Stage II to Stage III. The relationship between the production of definite articles and increase of MLU is also supported by most of the children in the Stephany Corpus. The percentage of definite articles in obligatory contexts in the children at Stage I (Spiros at 1;9 and Janna at 1;11) is very low (23% and 17% respectively). The only child, whose speech is at Stage II, Mairi at 1;9, uses a definite articles in obligatory contexts consistently (77%), but less than 90% of the time. Children at Stage III onwards with the exception of Mairi at 2;3 and Maria at 2;3 use more than 90% of definite articles in obligatory contexts. Finally, all children at Stage IV use more than 90% of definite articles in obligatory contexts. Consequently, with the exception of only two recordings, the use of definite articles seems to be related to the development of MLU. What do the data on the acquisition of definite and indefinite articles reveal with respect to the acquisition of the DP and the FP? Evidence for the DP layer in child grammar can be provided by the acquisition of indefinite articles, and evidence for the acquisition of the FP from the acquisition of the definite article. At Stage I use of definite articles in a lexically based way does not provide evidence that the child is able to project the FP layer. Consequently, there is
Acquiring the DP in MG
no evidence for the presence of the FP layer in Christos’ grammar at Stage I. His phrase marker at Stage I is given in (7a) below for utterances with lexically based definite articles and in (7b) for utterances involving definite article omission.
Stage I (7) a. to the
b.
NP vivlio book
NP vivlio book
As far as the DP layer is concerned, data from the children under investigation is not very clear. Christos does not start using indefinite articles prior to Stage II, and Spiros does not use indefinite articles at Stage I. In contrast to these two children, Janna uses at Stage I 80% of indefinite articles in obligatory contexts. As the number of indefinite articles are in general very low, on the basis of the present data it is impossible to make any strong claim for the DP layer at Stage I. Evidence for the acquisition of the FP layer in Christos’ speech is provided when he starts using definite articles productively, i.e. at Stage II. From Stage II onwards Christos and Mairi are able to project the FP over the NP layer. However, during Stage II there is a high rate of definite article omission. The children’s grammar in the case of definite article omission at this stage can be characterised in two ways. They may project this layer always when necessary, but sometimes they may use null definite articles. Alternatively, they may project the FP layer only optionally. The second interpretation entails that sometimes (e.g. in cases of high processing load) they regress back to a previous stage and project only an NP layer. With respect to the DP layer, from Mairi’s and Christos’ data it is apparent that indefinite articles have been acquired at Stage II. Consequently, from Stage II onwards there is evidence from the use of definite and indefinite articles that children are able to project both the FP and the DP layers. The phrase marker of children acquiring MG at Stage II is illustrated in (7c) and (7d) below.
Chapter 4
Stage II (7) c. D0 ena a/one
d.
DP FP
DP
D0 toi
NP vivlio book
FP F0 ti
NP vivlio book
. The syntax-semantics mapping This section is concerned with the acquisition of the syntax-semantics mapping. It will first present the predictions deriving from Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter model, which will be tested on the basis of acquisition data. Then, it will investigate the acquisition of Bare Nouns in argument positions and the acquisition of their licensing conditions. .. Testing the Nominal Mapping Parameter model The Nominal Mapping Parameter model makes very specific predictions for the acquisition sequence of definite articles. Within this hypothesis and assuming the Subset Principle (see Wexler & Manzini 1987) according to which children hypothesise the most restrictive grammar, the prediction is that children will start with the feature specification that rules out the most, so that they may revise their hypothesis on the basis of positive evidence. According to the Subset Principle (Wexler & Manzini 1987: 44), if one value of a parameter yields a language A and another value of the parameter yields a language B and language B is contained in language A, then language B is a strict subset of language A. According to the learning strategy predicted from the Subset Principle, the learner will select the value that yields language B first. If this is the right choice, the learner will not receive positive evidence for the value of language A and will stay with the value of language B. However, if this is the wrong choice, the learner will receive positive evidence from sentences of language A which are not contained in language B. Encountering positive evidence for language A, the learner will switch to the parameter value that yields language A.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Within the Nominal Mapping Parameter the most restrictive feature specification is [+arg, –pred], which corresponds to the Chinese setting. Languages of the Chinese type are a subset of Romance and Germanic type languages, as illustrated in (8) below. This is based on the facts that in Chinese type languages: (a) nouns occur without determiners, (b) the extension of nouns is mass, (c) there is no plural marking and (d) a classifier system is operative. The properties (a) to (d) are contained in Romance and Germanic type languages. (8) A B
Chinese Type: [+arg, –pred] C
If the initial setting is [+arg, –pred], we expect children initially to omit definite articles, to treat all nouns as mass and not to use plural morphology.7 The existence of definite articles, plural morphology, and numeral quantifiers combining directly with nouns (which are not part of the properties of Chinese type languages) can provide positive evidence to the language learner in order to change the feature specification of nouns. Thus, upon discovering definite articles and plural marking in the input, children will change the initial feature specification to [–arg, +pred] (Romance type), which is the second most restrictive value of the Nominal Mapping Parameter, as illustrated in (9) below. (9) A
Romance Type: [–arg, +pred] B
Chinese Type: [+arg, –pred] C
The value of Romance languages is the next most restrictive feature matrix because in Romance languages: (a) the extension of nouns is mass or count, (b) nouns occur with determiners, (c) there is plural marking on count nouns
Chapter 4
and (d) a classifier system is operative. The properties (a) to (d) are contained in Germanic languages. The second setting excludes bare nouns altogether. Consequently, we expect children to always project a DP-layer when they use nouns in argument positions. However, they also have to figure out, which nouns are mass and which are count, as well as when a null D is licit and when not. The unrestricted occurrence of bare mass nouns in argument positions should lead children to change the value of the Nominal Parameter to the setting of Germanic type languages, i.e. [+arg, +pred]. Consider (10) below. (10)
Germanic Type: [+arg, +pred] A
Romance Type: [–arg, +pred] B
Chinese Type: [+arg, –pred] C
How can these general predictions be applied to the acquisition of MG? Children acquiring MG should start with the Chinese setting. The prediction deriving from this setting is that children will initially use bare nouns and will not use plural marking.8 Upon discovering definite articles and/or plural morphology, they should switch to the Romance setting. This predicts that they will always project a DP-layer. However, the input to children acquiring MG contains bare plurals, bare mass nouns and bare singular count nouns (BSCNs) in lexically governed and in focus positions. Thus, children must: (a) distinguish which nouns are mass and which are count, (b) identify, in which positions bare nouns are licit, and (c) discover which verb classes allow BSCNs as arguments. Uncertainty in these aspects may result in the optional use of definite articles.9 At this point some clarifications are in order. How can we exclude the possibility that Greek children will change the feature value of the Nominal Parameter to [+arg, +pred], i.e. of the Germanic type on encountering bare arguments in lexically governed and focus positions. Are there any contexts, which can provide unambiguous evidence that nouns in MG are [–arg, +pred]? Unambiguous contexts that nouns in MG are [–arg, +pred] can be provided by the use of PNs and KTs. PNs and KTs are the only nouns that cannot be used as bare nouns in argument positions, irrespective of the verb class:
Acquiring the DP in MG
in argument positions they must be used obligatorily with definite articles, in non-argument positions, e.g. in the vocative, they must be used obligatorily without definite articles. This minimal pair can act as a Unique Trigger (see Roeper & Weissenborn 1990 and Chapter 1 of this book) providing the relevant information for the feature specification of nouns. Importantly, PNs and KTs are very frequent in child directed speech in both argument and non-argument positions, and we can thus be sure that children will get enough input of PNs and KTs in these two contexts. Considering this last property of MG, under the assumption that the trigger emerges early in children’s production, we expect children to use definite articles with PNs and KTs, as soon as they start using definite articles productively. This does not imply that they will use definite articles only with PNs and KTs and not with other noun classes, since having the right specification will enable them to use definite articles with all noun classes.10 The predictions for the acquisition of articles in MG deriving from Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter are listed below. – – –
Prediction 1: initial stage: drop of definite articles Prediction 2: second stage: optional use of definite articles Prediction 3: definite articles with PNs and KTs at the outset of productive use of definite articles
As far as the first prediction is concerned, Section 4.1 has shown that the youngest child who also has the lowest MLU passes through a stage, in which he does not use any definite articles at all. This is at the age of 1;7 and with MLU of 1.2. Consequently, Prediction 1 is supported by the data. According to Prediction 2, the phase of dropping definite articles altogether should be followed by a phase of optional use of definite articles. Section 4.1 has shown that all children pass through a stage of optional use of definite articles. In the speech of Christos, such a period was attested between 1;8 and 2;5. A similar period was observed in the speech of Spiros at 1;9, Janna at 1;11, Mairi at 1;9 and Maria at 2;3. Hence, Prediction 2 is also supported by the data. As far as the use of definite articles with PNs and KTs is concerned, Table 4.7 has shown that Christos produces definite articles with PNs and KTs from 1;8, i.e. when he uses definite articles in a lexically-based fashion, but also after 2;0, when he uses definite articles in a more productive way. The use of definite articles with PNs, KTs and CNs by Spiros, Janna, Mairi, and Maria is illustrated in Table 4.9. Table 4.9 shows that all children use definite articles with PNs and KTs from the first recording available in the corpus. This does not necessarily imply that
Chapter 4
Table 4.9. Def. articles used with CNs, PNs and KTs by Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria Child
Age
with CN
with PN & KT
Spiros
1;09
21
11
Janna
1;11 2;05 2;09
5 50 90
3 9 38
Mairi
1;09 2;03 2;09
182 110 147
71 60 68
Maria
2;03 2;09
20 71
9 33
definite articles with PNs and KTs emerge at the outset of the productive use of definite articles, but neither does it provide counter evidence. Thus, Prediction 3, can be supported by Christos’ data. To summarise, the predictions deriving from the Nominal Mapping Parameter are supported by the data from Christos and partially from the data from the Stephany Corpus. Children seem to start from the most restrictive hypothesis that nouns are specified as [+arg, –pred]. This phase was attested in Christos’ speech only. Upon encountering input data, children change the feature specification of nouns until they come to the one of the target language, in the case of MG this is the specification [–arg, +pred]. However, children pass through a stage, in which they use definite articles optionally, possibly because they have to figure out the licensing conditions of bare arguments. This phase has been attested in the speech of all children under investigation. Finally, definite articles emerge with PNs and KTs from the outset of productive use of definite articles, a fact that can be taken as evidence that PNs and KTs provide unambiguous information that MG nouns have the specification [–arg, +pred]. The next section will discuss the acquisition of licensing conditions for Bare Nouns in argument positions. .. Acquiring the licensing conditions for bare arguments Chapter 3 has shown that in MG bare objects are licit in restricted environments. These are: (a) positions governed by a lexical head and (b) in focus. BSCNs are licit as objects of verbs of accomplishment or as objects of light verbs.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Stage II 34%
24%
25%
31% 39%
18%
Stage III
38%
34% 40%
43%
45%
49% 48% 48% 38%
2;1
44%
56% 58%
26%
bare arguments def. art. present def. art. missing 2;0
42%
2;2
20%
19% 13%
2;3
52%
2;4
2;5
10% 2;6
2% 2;7
3% 2;8
Figure 4.4. Bare arguments vs. definite articles present and missing
Bare subjects are licit in even more restrictive environments, i.e. when the noun phrase (a) is used contrastively, (b) is in the scope of negation, (c) is in the context of headlines or announcements, or (d) is used in meta-language. Acquisition of the nominal system in MG should be reflected in the conformity of these restrictions. More specifically, knowledge of the target-grammar should be reflected in: (a) a subject-object asymmetry with respect to the use of definite articles and (b) the use of BSCNs only as objects of specific verb classes, i.e. verbs of accomplishment or light verbs. The most relevant data to test these predictions is the data from Christos’ speech, because of the density of the corpus. Additionally, it is possible to observe the relation between the increase of definite articles (from 30% at 2;0 to 95% at 2;8) and the development of the use of bare arguments. Let us first consider the first prediction. Since bare subjects in MG are licit in more restricted environments than bare objects, knowledge of the target grammar by Christos should be reflected in a subject-object asymmetry in the use of bare arguments. Figure 4.4 shows the percentage of use of definite articles and definite article omission by subjects (Ss) and objects (Os) and the use of grammatical bare arguments (Ss and Os) from the age of 2;0 (productive use of definite articles) until 2;8. Figure 4.4 shows an increase of definite articles and a parallel decrease of definite article omission. Interestingly, the percentage of grammatical bare ar-
Chapter 4 0%
1%
0%
2%
27%
0%
0%
0%
Stage II
1%
2%
Stage III
47% 65% 72%
73%
68%
78%
83% 96%
96%
2%
2%
53% 35% bare subjects def. art. present def. art. missing 2;0
2;1
2;2
26%
32% 22% 17%
2;3
2;4
2;5
2;6
2;7
2;8
Figure 4.5. Bare subjects vs. subjects with definite articles present and missing
bare objects def. art. present def. art. missing
Stage II
Stage III
50%
53% 60%
69%
63%
27% 9% 22% 2;0
27%
76%
2;1
13%
14%
2;2
2;3
63%
43%
23% 17%
20%
68%
70%
23%
30%
7%
7%
7%
2%
2;4
2;5
2;6
2;7
34% 3% 2;8
Figure 4.6. Bare objects vs. objects with definite articles present and missing
guments between 2;0 and 2;8 does not seem to interact with the percentage of definite article omission. The use of bare arguments in the subject versus in the object position is illustrated in Figures 4.5 and 4.6 respectively.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Figure 4.5 shows that bare subjects are almost non-existent. There are hardly any bare subjects in Christos’ speech. In contrast, Figure 4.6 shows that bare objects overrule the rate of objects with definite articles present and definite article omission. Additionally, the rate of bare objects remains roughly the same. This observation indicates that from this age onwards, the nominal system for the licensing of bare objects is relatively stable. Figures 4.5 and 4.6 show that there is a subject-object asymmetry in the use of bare arguments in Christos’ speech. This can be taken as evidence that from this point onwards Christos has some knowledge of the licensing of bare arguments. As far as the use of bare objects in relation to verb classes is concerned, the first instance of a bare object appears at the age of 1;9.24 with the verb echo = ‘have’ with an existential meaning, as shown in example (11) below. (11) Adult: Itan papacia eci pu pighes? were ducks-dim there that go ‘Were there any small ducks at the place where you went?’ (Christos 1;9.24) Child: Iche papatsi. had duck-dim-sg iche papacia (target-utterance) had ducks-dim-pl ‘There were ducks.’
Christos uses the verb echo = ‘have’ initially only with bare objects. From 2;3.26 onwards he starts using echo = ‘have’ with objects preceded by the definite article. The same is true for the verb thelo = ‘want’. This verb is used initially with bare objects and only later with objects preceded by the definite article. The first instances of this verb with bare objects appears at 1;10.9, as shown in examples (12) and (13) below. (12) Child: Eli ciaghia. want-3sg milk thelo ghala (target-utterance) want-1sg milk ‘I want some milk.’
(Christos 1;10.9)
(13) Child: Theli pipilia. want-3sg dummy thelo pipila (target-utterance) want-1sg dummy ‘I want a dummy.’
(Christos 1;10.9)
Chapter 4
In examples (12) and (13) above, Christos uses the verb want = ‘thelo’ with a mass noun and a count noun as a bare object. Moreover, in both utterances the verb appears with the suffix -i. Katis (1984), Stephany (1997) and Varlokosta, Vainikka & Rohrbacher (1996; 1998) have reported that children acquiring MG, pass through a stage in which they overgeneralise this suffix -i which corresponds to the 3PSg and with the past participle. Varlokosta et al. showed that verbs with the suffix -i correspond to Root Infinitives in languages that have infinitival forms. Thus, they proposed a stage in child Greek that corresponds to the Root Infinitive Stage.11 At the age of 2;1.9, Christos starts using bare objects with the verb kano = ‘do’, as shown in example (14) below. The verb kano = ‘do’ is used for the first time with an object preceded by the definite article two months later, at the age of 2;3. (14) Child: Vota kani Picioch. volta kani o Christos walk does the Christos ‘Christos goes for a walk.’
(Christos 2;1.9)
However, Christos does not use bare objects only with light verbs. From the age of 1;11.0 onwards, bare arguments also appear with other verbs, which are ungrammatical in the target language and such cases indicate definite article omission. Such an example is given in the dialogue in (15) below, in which the mother of Christos is referring to an orange and asks Christos what he wants to do with it. (15) Adult: Ti na to kanume? what prt-subj it do ‘What shall we do with it?’ Child: Koopi. cut Adult: Na to kopsume? prt-subj it cut ‘Shall we cut it?’ (Christos 1;11.0) Child: Koopi kali. cut-un orange na kopsume/kopsis to portokali (target utterance) prt-subj cut-1pl/2sg the orange ‘We/you should cut the orange.’
Acquiring the DP in MG
Table 4.10. Verbs used with bare objects vs. with objects preceded by the definite article – Stage I Age
Verbs with BSCNs
1;9
echo = have
1;10
echo = have thelo = want
1;11
(kovo = cut)* thelo = want
Verbs with the def. art.
*The brackets indicate ungrammaticality of the bare object.
Tables 4.10 and 4.11 show the list of verbs used by Christos with bare objects and with objects preceded by the definite article at Stage I and II. Additionally, these tables show the verbs used with bare objects, which are grammatical and ungrammatical, i.e. they instantiate cases of definite article omission. The last ones are in brackets. These tables show that Christos uses both light and full verbs with bare objects. However, light verbs are used initially only with bare objects and not with objects that are preceded by the definite article. This indicates that the distinction between full and light verbs is instantiated in his grammar. With respect to the second prediction, target-like BSCNs emerge in Christos’ speech initially with light verbs, as shown in examples (16) and (17) below. (16) Child: O Pupis ci petelo. o Gufi echi kapelo (target utterance) the Gufi has hut ‘Gufi has a hut.’
(Christos 2;0.16)
(17) Child: Oi telo cicineto. no want car dhen thelo aftocinito (target utterance) not want car ‘I don’t want a car.’
(Christos 2;3.14)
The full list of verbs used with target-like BSCNs by Christos is given in Table 4.12. As far as bare subjects are concerned, very few bare subjects were found in Christos’ speech (types/tokens = 4/6). Only in 4 out of the 6 tokens (2 types) is there an overt verb in the utterance. The two verbs are the copula ime = ‘be’, as shown in (18) and the verb ‘mbeno’ = enter, as shown in (19) below.
Chapter 4
Table 4.11. Verbs used with bare objects vs. with objects preceded by the definite article Age
Verbs with BSCNs
2;00
echo = have (chtipao = hit) (perno = take) (thelo = want) (vazo = put) (chalao = destroy) echo = have forao = wear kano = do (odhighao = drive) thelo = want vazo = put (vazo = put)
2;01
2;02
2;03
echo = have kano = do (pao = go/bring) (perno = take) pezo = play (troo = eat) (chtipao = hit) (dhino = give) echo = have (echo = have) (patao = step on) perno = take (perno = take)
Verbs with the def. art.
afino = leave anigho = open chalao = destroy ferno = bring perno = take svino = erase stelno = send troo = eat vazo = put chtipao = hit chalao = destroy perno = take petao = throw thelo = want chalao = destroy dhino = give echo = have kano = do kitazo = look kunao = move perno = take
Age
Verbs with BSCNs
Verbs with the def. art.
2;03
pezo = play thelo = want (thelo = want) troo = eat vazo = put allazo = change (chalao = destroy) echo = have ferno = bring odhighao = drive perno = take (perno = take) pulao = sale (thelo = want) troo = eat (anigho = open) (chtipao = hit) echo = have (echo = have) forao = wear kano = do (kano = do) perno = take petao = throw thelo = want (thelo = want) vazo = put
thelo = want vazo = put
2;04
2;05
ferno = bring perno = take thelo = want
afino = leave echo = have kovo = cut kratao = hold perno = take thelo = want vazo = put
(18) Child: Edho ine boghies. here are colours ‘Colours (colour pencils) are here.’
(Christos 2;8.18)
(19) Child: Beni cicineta. benun aftocinita (target utterance) enter cars ‘Cars enter.’
(Christos 2;3.26)
Due to the very small number of bare subjects in Christos’ speech it is not possible to make any conclusions about his knowledge of the licensing mechanism of bare subjects. However, the difference in the amount of bare subjects versus
Acquiring the DP in MG
Table 4.12. Verbs used with BSCNs by Christos Age
Verbs used with BSCNs
Age
Verbs used with BSCNs
1;10 1;11 2;00 2;01
thelo = want thelo = want echo = have echo = have thelo = want echo = have kano = do echo = have pezo = play thelo = want allazo = change echo = have odhighao = drive echo = have perno = take thelo = want vazo = put echo = have kano = do thelo = want
2;07
echo = have kano = do perno = take thelo = want troo = eat vazo = put dhino = give echo = have ftiachno = construct kano = do perno = take thelo = want troo = eat vafo = paint vazo = put vrisko = find
2;02 2;03
2;04
2;05
2;06
2;08
bare objects indicates that Christos has some knowledge about the licensing of bare arguments in the target language.12 To summarise this section, the predictions deriving from the Nominal Mapping Parameter are supported by Christos’ data and partially by the data from Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria. Moreover, the restrictions on the use of bare arguments are satisfied in Christos’ speech from the age of 1;11–2;0 onwards: a subject-object asymmetry with respect to the use of bare arguments was attested in his speech. Finally, BSCNs are used initially with light verbs. Light verbs in this phase take as complements only bare arguments. Some discussion with respect to the uniqueness of the predictions deriving from the Nominal Mapping Parameter and advantages of this hypothesis over other hypotheses is necessary here. Are the predictions deriving from the Nominal Mapping Hypothesis unique? As we saw in Chapter 1, the No Functional Projections Hypothesis also predicts the omission of definite articles in early child speech, since according to this hypothesis the children’s grammar initially does not contain functional categories. Are there any advantages of this hypothesis over the No Func-
Chapter 4
tional Categories Hypothesis? The advantage of the Nominal Mapping Parameter is that it accounts for cross-linguistic variation and it makes predictions for differences in the acquisition of definite articles between languages. For example, we expect definite articles to emerge in the speech of children acquiring Romance languages earlier than in the speech of children acquiring Germanic languages. In fact, this has been justified in Chierchia, Guasti & Gualmini (1999). Despite the advantages mentioned above, several issues concerning the Nominal Mapping Parameter remain open, and these are listed below: a. How do children figure out, which nouns are mass and which are count? b. How do children figure out that the language they are learning has null Ds? c. At the point when they do discover null Ds, why don’t they use always null Ds? d. How do they figure out when to use null Ds and when contentfull Ds? e. How do they identify lexically governed and focus positions? f. How do children acquiring Italian figure out that bare nouns are licit in lexically governed and focus positions? g. How do children acquiring MG discover that BSCNs are licit with specific verb classes? Children may use the distribution of different quantifier types, e.g. much versus many in order to identify which nouns are mass and which count. The presence of bare nouns and definite articles may trigger the discovery of null Ds. Wordorder and stress may provide the relevant information for the identification of lexically governed and focus positions and the semantics of verbs may provide relevant cues for the identification of the class of verbs, with which bare singular count nouns are allowed. Answering these questions is beyond the scope of this book and, therefore, these issues remain open for future research.
. The acquisition of morphological marking in the MG DP This section is concerned with the acquisition of morphological marking in the Greek DP. More specifically, the focus will be on the acquisition of number and case marking. The acquisition of number marking can provide evidence for the acquisition of the NumP and for movement of the noun to the head of NumP and the acquisition of case marking can provide evidence for the acquisition of the FP.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Chapter 3 has shown that morphological marking on articles and nouns is not uniform in MG. The degree of syncretism on inflectional classes 2 to 8 is higher than the degree of syncretism on IC1. If contrast facilitates the acquisition process (see Clark 1993: 91), under the assumption that contrasts based on single oppositions are more accessible to the child than contrasts based on multiple oppositions, paradigms showing a two-way contrast should be more accessible to the child than paradigms showing a three- or four-way distinction. With respect to markedness, if unmarked forms emerge earlier than marked ones, noun forms ending in the stem vowel should emerge prior to noun forms involving suffixation and the unmarked form of the definite article, i.e. to, is expected to emerge prior to other forms of the definite article. Finally, when children make errors in the inflection of nouns and definite articles, we expect them to use unmarked forms instead of marked forms of the paradigm involved. In the next sections, I will first present the results of previous studies on the acquisition of morphological marking of the Greek DP and subsequently I will present a new quantitative analysis on the acquisition of number and case marking on nouns and definite articles. .. Previous studies in morphological marking of the Greek DP Stephany (1997) has studied the acquisition of article and noun morphology in the speech of Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria, and Christofidou & Stephany (1997), Kilani-Schoch et al. (1997), and Christofidou (1998) have studied the acquisition of noun morphology in the speech of Christos.
Morphological marking on nouns According to Stephany (1997), at an early stage of development nouns lack overt case marking and correspond to standard accusative singular (or plural) forms ending in the stem vowel, which corresponds to the unmarked form of the noun. Subsequently, a number difference emerges paired with a gender difference for neuters and feminines (and eventually masculines). ‘Case differences between unmarked singular accusative forms and the marked nominative of masculine stems as well as the genitive of the three genders may either develop later than or simultaneously with number distinctions’ (Stephany 1997: 224).13 The development of noun inflection in the data analysed by Stephany is illustrated in Table 4.13. Stephany mentions that Spiros at the age of 1;9 marks 85% of the nom/masc/sg nouns with the suffix -os, at 1;9 Mairi marks 50% of masculine
Chapter 4
Table 4.13. Development of noun inflection in the data analysed by Stephany
stems for nominative and Maria starts marking masculine stems for nominative only after 2;3. At the age of 2;3, Janna seems to have knowledge of nominative singular marking of masculine stems, because by misinterpreting the unmarked feminine form maimu = ‘monkey’ as a masculine stem in analogy to papu = ‘grandpa’ (masc/acc/sg), she created the masculine nominative singular forms maimus = ‘monkey’ instead of the feminine nominative singular maimu = ‘monkey’ (Stephany 1997: 223). Christofidou & Stephany (1997), Kilani-Schoch et al. (1997) and Christofidou (1998) studied morphological marking on nouns in the speech of Christos. According to these studies, from 1;7 to 1;10 the nouns used by Christos do not show case marking, but represent unmarked forms of the inflectional paradigm.14 Between 1;10 and 1;11 case marking emerges with the masc/nom/sg marker -s (from the IC 2) and within 10 days, ‘the marker is being applied correctly to almost all old and novel nouns of Christos’ (1;11.10) vocabulary (88.5% of the intended nominative forms of masculine nouns carry the standard marker -s, (N=97)) (Christofidou 1998). In the next two sessions, the marker -s is used contrastively at least to accusative and vocative
Acquiring the DP in MG
and it is overgeneralised to foreign names, e.g. Mickey, Pluto. Significantly, the masc/nom/sg marker -s was also the first case marking to be found in the speech of the children observed by Theophanopoulou-Kontou (between 2;0 and 3;0).15 From 1;11 to 2;4 genitive case marking emerges with the fem/gen/sg suffix -s (at 1;11.19), which is used with one lexical item, i.e. mama = ‘mummy’ (from the IC 3). Despite its limited use to one lexical item, the fem/gen/sg suffix -s is used contrastively with nom and acc, a fact that provides evidence for a rule-based use rather than a rote-learned use. It should be noted that Theophanopoulou-Kontou has also observed that the fem/gen/sg suffix -s is the first suffix marking genitive acquired. Evidence for genitive case marking with masculine nouns appears at 2;0.16 (for the IC 2). Christos uses the masc/nom/sg marker -s contrastively to gen with one lexical item, i.e. papu = ‘grandpa’. However, Christos inflects all masculine nouns (from both IC 1 and IC 2) according to IC 2, i.e. he only has one inflectional paradigm for masculine nouns. Thus, Christofidou & Stephany (1997) conclude that ‘for the child inflectional patterns are at first totally determined by gender, something which is only partial valid for the adult language.’ (Christofidou & Stephany 1997: 136). That IC 1 is acquired later than IC 2 is also found in the data from Theophanopoulou-Kontou (see Theophanopoulou-Kontou 1973: 60–61). Evidence for the distinction of IC 1 and IC 2 comes at the age of 2;4.1, when the masc/gen/sg suffix -u emerges and is used consistently with one lexical item, i.e. Christos. As far as number marking is concerned, according to Christofidou (1998) the first noun forms in plural appear at the age of 1;9.3 in the speech of Christos, i.e. ne(r)a = ‘waters’, (porto)kalia = ‘oranges’. However, as Christofidou notes, ‘these plurals come as standard answers to standard pictures of a book that has been used very often as a basis for conversation’. Moreover, these words are used only in the plural, therefore, it is very likely that these plural forms are instances of rote-learning. Between 1;10 and 2;4, plural noun forms appear (a) as instances of imitation, (b) wrongly in contexts requiring singular, (c) functionally ambiguous or (d) correctly, but non contrastively. Contrastive use of plural versus singular noun forms appear for the first time at 2;4.12, as illustrated in examples (20) and (21). (20) Adult: Ti (i)n(e) afto? ‘What is this?’
Chapter 4
Child: Papaci. duck-dim-sg ‘A little duck.’ (21) Adult: Afta ti ine? these what are ‘What are these?’ Child: Papacia. ducks-dim-pl ‘Little ducks.’
(Christos 2;4.12)
(Christos 2;4.12)
However, at the same age, Christos still uses plural forms interchangeably with singular ones. It is only one month later, at the age of 2;5 that Christos stops using plural forms interchangeably with singular forms.16
Morphological marking on definite articles Morphological marking on definite articles by the children in the Stephany Corpus has been studied in Stephany (1997). Stephany observed at an early stage of development (a) phonetic traces of the definite article and (b) placeholders. More specifically, in Janna’s speech (at 1;19) phonetic traces of the definite article have been found (in 16% of noun tokens requiring definite articles) in the form of unanalysed forms, such as teténo = to treno = ‘the train’. In Spiros’ speech (at 1;9.2), 13% of the contexts requiring the definite article consist of phonetic placeholders, as shown in example (22) below. (Spiros 1;9.2) (22) Child: Lali m mama li tipa. remove mummy hole na to vghali i mama apo tin tripa (target) prt-subj it remove the mummy from the hole ‘Mummy shall take it out of the hole.’
With respect to such instances of the definite article, Stephany argues against a pure amalgamate status. ‘Since nouns are used without articles in the preinflectional stage, and definite articles are widely lacking in the early inflectional stage, article-noun sequences cannot be mere amalgams. The fact that articles are sometimes used and sometimes omitted shows that they are not unanalysable parts of the nouns, but represent a marking the child has begun to master under certain conditions, such as syntactic simplicity and/or communicative importance’ (Stephany 1997: 231). With respect to gender, number and case marking on definite articles, according to Stephany there is no evidence for case and number marking, but
Acquiring the DP in MG
only for gender marking on definite articles in this stage; in Spiros’ speech at 1;9.2 the ‘productive subsystem of the definite article is restricted to the nominative singular of the three genders’ (Stephany 1997: 229). The three genders emerge simultaneously in the nominative and accusative singular with almost no gender errors, once children start to use definite articles productively (Stephany 1997: 231). This is the case in the speech of Mairi’s speech at 1;10. The paradigm of the definite article used by Mairi at the age of 1;10 to 2;10 is given in Table 4.14 below. The singular/plural distinction is observed early in the unmarked form of the neuter article, i.e. the nominative/accusative form to in sg versus ta in pl. The fem/acc/pl form tis is attested in the speech of Mairi (at 1;10) in the reduced form i or ti. Splitting of the feminine singular into accusative (ti) versus genitive (tis) and the masculine genitive singular (tu) and feminine accusative plural (tis) appear later. Table 4.15 shows the paradigm of the definite article used by Mairi, Janna and Maria at the age of 2;4 to 2;10. Table 4.14. Forms of the definite article used by children at the age of 1;10 to 2;10 masc
fem
neut
sg
nom obl*
o to
i ti
to to
pl
nom obl
– –
– ti
ta ta
*obl = oblique = accusative and genitive
(from Stephany 1997: 232)
Table 4.15. Forms of the definite article used by children at the age of 2;4 to 2;10 masc
fem
neut
sg
nom acc gen
o to/ton tu
i ti/tin ti/tis
to to –
pl
nom acc
– –
i tis
ta ta (Stephany 1997: 232)
Chapter 4
.. Quantitative analyses on the acquisition of number and case This section presents new analyses on number and case marking on nouns and definite articles. As a relative large number of data is required for a quantitative analysis, the analyses have been conducted on the larger corpus used in this book, the Christofidou Corpus. ... Number marking on nouns Christos uses plural forms of nouns from very early on. This is illustrated in Table 4.16. Table 4.16 shows the number of nouns used in the singular and plural. Christos uses nouns in the plural from the first recording. However, the first nouns attested in the plural are nouns used typically in the plural, like children, shoes, oranges and Christos uses these nouns only in the plural. Consequently, it is not clear whether or not Christos has knowledge of plural marking. Unambiguous evidence that the child has knowledge of plural marking can be provided if the child uses the same noun in both the singular and the plural. Therefore, a second analysis has been conducted, which included only nouns that are attested in both the singular and the plural. This is illustrated in Table 4.17. Table 4.17 shows the number of nouns used in both the singular and the plural. Until the age of 1;11 there is only a single noun used in the singular and Table 4.16. Number of nouns used in the singular and in the plural Stage
Age
Singular
Plural
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
56 47 75 168 318
1 3 9 16 24
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
472 678 352 687 465 366
15 75 18 59 73 53
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
283 334 500
59 70 79
Acquiring the DP in MG
Table 4.17. Number of nouns used in both the singular and plural Stage
Age
tokens
types
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
0 0 1 0 8
0 0 1 0 6
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
2 54 1 40 42 25
2 15 1 12 19 12
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
48 51 41
18 21 20
Table 4.18. Substitutions of plural forms with singular forms Stage
Age
Pl->Sg
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
50% 0% 10% 11.1% 4%
[N=1/ 2] [N=0/ 3] [N=1/ 10] [N=2/ 18] [N=1/ 25]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
6.3% 1.3% 0% 0% 3.9% 0%
[N=1/ 16] [N=1/ 76] [N=0/ 18] [N=0/ 59] [N=3/ 76] [N=0/ 53]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
6.3% 0% 1.3%
[N=4/ 63] [N=0/ 70] [N=1/ 80]
the plural, nero, nera = ‘water’. From 1;11 onwards there are more instances of nouns used in both the singular and the plural and this is not with only one or two nouns. Table 4.17 also shows the number of noun types used in the singular and the plural. From 1;11 onwards, Christos uses several noun types in the singular and the plural.
Chapter 4
Further evidence for the acquisition of number marking can be provided by the analysis of substitution errors. For this purpose, an error analysis has been conducted, in which I calculated the percentage of substitutions of plural forms with singular forms. Table 4.18 shows the percentage and number of singular nouns used a plural context. Overall there were very few substitutions of plural with singular forms. Moreover, from the end of Stage I onwards the percentage of substitutions drops below 10%. This provides additional evidence that from Stage II onwards Christos has knowledge of plural marking on nouns. ... Case marking on nouns As far as case marking on nouns is concerned, Chapter 3 has shown that nouns in MG form inflectional classes. Nouns in IC 1 have three separate word forms (nominative, accusative, unmarked) whereas nouns in ICs 2 to 8 have only two word forms (marked vs. unmarked). Knowledge of case marking should be reflected in the appropriate use of case marked forms in Christos’ speech. For this purpose, I analysed nouns used by Christos by context. As the number of plural nouns in marked contexts was very low, I will present only the data of nouns in the singular in the rest of this section. Moreover, there were no marked contexts for neuter nouns. Therefore, this analysis includes only masculine and feminine nouns. Evidence for the acquisition of case marking can be provided from the use of nouns in contexts requiring marked forms. Therefore, this analysis has not included nouns in contexts requiring unmarked forms. The marked contexts were nominative and accusative contexts for IC1, nominative contexts for IC2 and genitive contexts for IC3 and IC4. Table 4.19 shows the percentage of nouns with correct case marking. Table 4.19 shows that from the end of Stage I almost 70% of Christos’ nouns are marked with case. This is similar to number marking. From the end of Stage I onwards, Christos seems to make use of both number and case marking on nouns. However, 90% of case marking is reached later than 90% of number marking. Christos uses 90% correct number marking at 1;11, whereas he uses 90% correct case marking towards the end of Stage II, at 2;4. The next question is whether or not there is an effect of syncretism in the acquisition of case marking in nouns. In order to answer this question, I divided nouns into two groups, nouns with a three-way distinction (nominative, genitive, unmarked) and nouns with a two-way distinction (marked vs. unmarked). The first group includes nouns of IC1 (masculine nouns) and the second class includes nouns from IC2, IC3 and IC4 (masculine and feminine nouns) and these are shown in Table 4.20.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Table 4.19. Case marking in nouns Stage
Age
case marked nouns
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
50% 0% 0% 0% 69.4%
[N=2/4] [N=0/1] [N=0/7] [N=0/4] [N=34/49]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
85% 80.2% 80.7% 78% 93.3% 92.9%
[N=68/80] [N=130/162] [N=71/88] [N=92/118] [N=126/135] [N=39/42]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
92.9% 92.3% 90.8%
[N=39/42] [N=48/52] [N=59/65]
Table 4.20. Case marking in nouns of IC1 vs. IC2, IC3 & IC4 Stage
Age
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
IC1
IC2, IC3 & IC4
69.6%
[N=0/0] [N=0/1] [N=0/2] [N=0/0] [N=16/23]
0% 0% 69.2%
[N=2/4] [N=0/0] [N=0/5] [N=0/4] [N=18/26]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
80.6% 82.9% 80.8% 82.3% 98.2% 93.3%
[N=25/31] [N=87/105] [N=42/52] [N=65/79] [N=54/55] [N=14/15]
87.8% 75.4% 80.6% 69.2% 90% 92.6%
[N=43/49] [N=43/57] [N=29/36] [N=27/39] [N=72/80] [N=25/27]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
89.5% 96.6% 94.1%
[N=17/19] [N=28/29] [N=32/34]
95.7% 87% 87.1%
[N=22/23] [N=20/23] [N=27/31]
0% 0%
50%
Table 4.20 shows that there is no considerable difference in the acquisition of case marking between nouns whose inflectional paradigm has three word forms (IC1) and nouns whose inflectional paradigm has two word forms (IC2, IC3 and IC4). Nouns from both groups show case marking approaching 70% from the end of Stage I onwards and 90% of case marking is reached at the age
Chapter 4
of 2;4. This shows that the degree of syncretism does not seem to influence the acquisition of case marking in nouns. The next issue is whether or not the two marked cases, nominative and genitive are acquired simultaneously or whether the child acquires one case prior to the other. In order to be able to answer this question, I have analysed the contexts for nominative and genitive separately. The results of this analysis are illustrated in Table 4.21. Overall there were more contexts for nominative marking than for genitive marking. Table 4.21 shows that nominative marking is used consistently prior to genitive marking. Christos marks at 1;11 (at the end of Stage I) more than 70% of nouns with nominative case, whereas only at 2;3 does he reach 66% of genitive marking. For both cases Christos reaches 90% at the age of 2;4. This shows that although consistent use of nominative marking is reached prior to consistent use of genitive marking, both types of case are mastered at the same age, towards the end of Stage II. The analysis in Table 4.20 has shown that there were no effects of syncretism. If case type and not syncretism is the relevant factor for the acquisition of case, then we would expect genitive case to be used consistently later than nominative case in nouns across ICs, i.e. with both 2-way and 3-way distinction. A further analysis has been conducted in order to answer this question. Table 4.22 shows the acquisition of nominative vs. genitive case in nouns with Table 4.21. Nominative vs. genitive marking in nouns Stage
Age
nominative marking
genitive marking
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
50% 0% 0% 0% 76.7%
[N=2/4] [N=0/1] [N=0/7] [N=0/2] [N=33/43]
0% 16.7%
[N=0] [N=0] [N=0] [N=0/2] [N=1/5]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
88.3% 83.7% 85.4% 82% 91% 92.3%
[N=68/77] [N=128/153] [N=70/82] [N=73/89] [N=71/78] [N=36/39]
0% 22.2% 16.7% 65.5% 96.5% 100%
[N=0/3] [N=2/9] [N=1/6] [N=19/29] [N=55/57] [N=3/3]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
90.6% 90.7% 88.5%
[N=29/32] [N=39/43] [N=46/52]
100% 100% 100%
[N=10/10] [N=9/9] [N=13/13]
Acquiring the DP in MG
Table 4.22. Nominative vs. genitive marking in nouns of IC1 (3-way distinction) Stage
Age
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
nominative 0% 0% 80%
[N=0/0] [N=0/1] [N=0/2] [N=0/0] [N=16/20]
genitive
0%
[N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/3]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
86.2% 83.7% 87.5% 85.5% 97.8% 92.3%
[N=25/29] [N=87/104] [N=42/48] [N=53/62] [N=44/45] [N=12/13]
0% 0% 0% 70.6% 100% 100%
[N=0/2] [N=0/1] [N=0/4] [N=12/17] [N=10/10] [N=2/2]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
81.8% 95% 90.9%
[N=9/11] [N=19/20] [N=20/22]
100% 100% 100%
[N=8/8] [N=9/9] [N=12/12]
Table 4.23. Nominative vs. genitive marking in nouns of IC 2, 3 and 4 (2-way distinction) Stage
Age
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
nominative (IC2) 50%
genitive (IC3 & IC4)
0% 0% 73.9%
[N=2/4] [N=0/0] [N=0/5] [N=0/2] [N=17/23]
0% 33.3%
[N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/2] [N=1/3]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
89.6% 83.7% 82.4% 74.1% 81.8% 92.3%
[N=43/48] [N=41/49] [N=28/34] [N=20/27] [N=27/33] [N=24/26]
0% 25% 50% 58.3% 95.7% 100%
[N=0/1] [N=2/8] [N=1/2] [N=7/12] [N=45/47] [N=1/1]
2;6 2;7 2;8
95.2% 87% 86.7%
[N=20/21] [N=20/23] [N=26/30]
100%
III
[N=2/2] [N=0/0] [N=1/1]
100%
a 3-way distinction (IC1) and Table 4.23 shows the acquisition of nominative vs. genitive case in nouns with a 2-way distinction (IC2, 3 and 4). Comparison of Table 4.22 and 4.23 shows that in both nouns with a 2way and 3-way distinction nominative is used consistently earlier than geni-
Chapter 4
tive. Consistent use of genitive is reached slightly earlier in nouns of IC1 than in nouns of ICs 2, 3 and 4 – at 2;3 vs. at 2;4. This is in contrast to consistent marking of nominative case that is reached for all ICs at the end of Stage I, at 1;11. Finally, an error analysis has been conducted in order to elucidate whether case errors are due to substitutions of case marked forms through unmarked forms or through other case marked forms. This is possible to investigate only in nouns with a 3-way distinction, which are nouns from IC1 – nouns with a 2-way distinction have only one case marked form and one unmarked form. This analysis can be seen in Table 4.24. Table 4.24 shows that the majority of substitutions is through unmarked forms and not through a different case marked form. To summarise, the main result from this section is that syncretism does not seem to influence the acquisition of case marking in nouns. In contrast case type seems to play an important role. Nominative marking is used consistently prior to genitive marking. As this was attested across several inflectional classes, this indicates that this result does not reflect a gap in the morphological paradigm. The next section will focus on the acquisition of case marking in definite articles. If the same pattern is attested in the acquisition of case marking on definite articles, this will support the idea that delayed marking is due to syntax and not due to morphology. Table 4.24. Substitutions in nouns of IC1 Stage
Age
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
unmarked form
other case marked form
71.4%
[N=0/0] [N=1/1] [N=2/2] [N=0/0] [N=5/7]
28.6%
[N=0/0] [N=0/1] [N=0/2] [N=0/0] [N=2/7]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
100% 83.3% 90% 100% 100% 100%
[N=6/6] [N=15/18] [N=9/10] [N=14/14] [N=1/1] [N=1/1]
0% 16.7% 10% 0% 0% 0%
[N=0/6] [N=3/18] [N=1/10] [N=0/14] [N=0/1] [N=0/1]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
100% 100% 100%
[N=2/2] [N=1/1] [N=2/2]
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0% 0%
[N=0/2] [N=0/1] [N=0/2]
Acquiring the DP in MG
... Case marking on definite articles This section will present the acquisition of case marking on definite articles. As there were relatively few definite articles attested in the plural, the analysis will focus on the acquisition of definite articles in the singular. Table 4.25 shows the percentage and number of case marked definite articles in Christos’ speech.17 The overall number of definite articles in case marked contexts is very low at Stage I. From the beginning of Stage II (at 2;0) there is a considerable number of contexts for case marked definite articles. Over 85% of definite articles in case marked contexts have target-like case marking at Stage II. This is similar to case marking on nouns, as illustrated in Table 4.19. Over 70% of nouns have case marking at the age of 1;11 and over 80% of nouns have case marking from 2;0 onwards. The only difference between case marking in nouns and definite articles is that the number of case marked nouns is considerably larger than the number of case marked definite articles at the age of 1;11. This reflects the high rate of definite article omission at this age and indicates that case marking is not related to definite article omission. Although the percentage of definite article omission is very high, the definite articles used have over 70% correct case marking. The next question to be asked is whether or not consistent nominative case marking appears earlier than genitive case marking. Does the difference between nominative and genitive marking attested in the acquisition of case marking in nouns apply also to the acquisition of case marking in definite artiTable 4.25. Case marking in definite articles Stage
Age
case marked def. articles
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
91.7% 94.4% 88.8% 90.1% 85.8% 91.1%
[N=33/36] [N=85/90] [N=79/89] [N=155/172] [N=97/113] [N=72/79]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
97.3% 98.6% 97.4%
[N=72/74] [N=72/73] [N=114/117]
50% 50% 50% 75%
[N=0/0] [N=1/2] [N=1/2] [N=1/2] [N=3/4]
Chapter 4
Table 4.26. Nominative vs. genitive marking in definite articles Stage
Age
nominative marking
genitive marking
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
100% 100% 50% 100%
[N=0/0] [N=1/1] [N=1/1] [N=1/2] [N=3/3]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
94.1% 94.3% 91.4% 96.6% 95.2% 97%
[N=32/34] [N=83/88] [N=74/81] [N=140/145] [N=80/84] [N=65/67]
50% 100% 62.5% 55.6% 58.6% 58.3%
[N=1/2] [N=2/2] [N=5/8] [N=15/27] [N=17/29] [N=7/12]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
100% 98.3% 96.9%
[N=47/47] [N=57/58] [N=95/98]
92.6% 100% 95%
[N=25/27] [N=15/15] [N=19/20]
0%
0%
[N=0/0] [N=0/1] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/1]
cles? Table 4.26 shows that overall the number of contexts for nominative case marked definite articles is higher than for genitive case marked definite articles. From the beginning of Stage II (at 2;0) there is considerable number of nominative contexts for definite articles and over 90% of articles are marked with nominative case. This is similar to nominative case marked nouns, as shown in Table 4.21 in the previous section. The number of contexts for genitive marked definite articles is very low until the age of 2;3 and at Stage I Christos does not use any definite articles in the genitive. This can be seen in example (23) below. (23) Adult: Pchianu ine aftos o stilos? whose is this the pen ‘Whose is this pen?’ (Christos 1;8.21) Child: O Tsitso acio. the-nom Christos-un this-un tu Christu ine aftos (target utterance) the-gen Christu-gen is this-nom ‘This belongs to Christos.’
In example (23), Christos uses the nominative instead of the genitive form of the definite article. Interestingly, the noun and the demonstrative are also not case marked but in the unmarked form.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Christos starts using genitive case marking on definite articles at the beginning of Stage II (at 2;0). Consider example (24) below. (24) Child: O Pitsi tu Niko the Christos the-gen Niko-un o Christos tu papu tu the Christos the-gen grandpa-gen the-gen ‘Grandpa Nikos’ Christos.’
papu. (Christos 2;0.16) grandpa-gen Niku (target) Niku-gen
In example (24) Christos uses genitive marking on the article and the KT papu = ‘grandpa’, but not with the PN Niko. Moreover, the word-order KTPN is reversed. The acquisition of this phenomenon will be further discussed in Chapter 7. From 2;3 onwards there is a considerable number of contexts for definite articles marked with genitive case. This is also similar to genitive contexts for nouns, as illustrated in Table 4.21. However, genitive case marking on definite articles remains from 2;3 until the end of Stage II below 60%. Only at Stage III does Christos use genitive case marking on definite articles more than 90% of the time. This is in contrast to the use of genitive marking on nouns. Christos reaches the same percentage of genitive marked nouns two months earlier, at the age of 2;4, as shown in Table 4.21 above. Finally, an error analysis has been conducted in order to elucidate whether non-target case marking involved substitution through the unmarked form of the definite article or through a different case form. Contexts for nominative and genitive marked definite articles have been analysed separately. Consider Table 4.27 for nominative case. Table 4.27 shows that although the number of substitutions is very low, the majority of errors involve substitution of nominative case through the unmarked form ‘to’ of the definite article. As far as genitive case is concerned, there were many substitutions of the masculine/neuter genitive form ‘tu’ through the unmarked form ‘to’, but there were no substitutions whatsoever of the feminine genitive article ‘tis’ through the unmarked form ‘to’. Instead, Christos’ substitutions of the feminine genitive article involved exclusively the accusative form of the feminine article ‘ti’. Consider examples (25), in which Christos is referring to the suitcases of his mother.
Chapter 4
Table 4.27. Error types in the nominative Stage
Age
unmarked form
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
0% 0% 50% 0%
[N=0/1] [N=0/1] [N=1/2] [N=0/3]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
5.9% 5.7% 8.6% 2.1% 4.8% 3%
[N=2/34] [N=5/88] [N=7/81] [N=3/143] [N=4/84] [N=2/67]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
0% 1.7% 2.1%
[N=0/47] [N=1/58] [N=2/98]
(25) Child: . . . ti mama. the-acc mummy-un tis mamas (target utterance) the-gen mummy-gen ‘Mummy’s.’ Adult: I valitses tis mamas. the suitcases the mummy ‘Mummy’s suitcases.’
other case 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1.4% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1%
[N=0/1] [N=0/1] [N=0/2] [N=0/3] [N=0/34] [N=0/88] [N=0/81] [N=2/143] [N=0/84] [N=0/67] [N=0/47] [N=0/58] [N=1/98]
(Christos 2;0.15)
In example (25) above, Christos uses the accusative form of the definite article and the unmarked form of the noun. In example (26) below, three months later, Christos uses the genitive form of the noun, but the accusative form of the definite article. (26) Adult: Tu Christu ine afta aghapi mu? the Christos ine these dear my ‘Do these belong to Christos, dear?’ (Christos 2;3.18) Child: Ata ine ti ti mamas. these are the-acc mummy-gen afta ine tis mamas (target utterance) these are the-gen mummy-gen ‘These belong to mummy.’
Acquiring the DP in MG
Could it be the case that Christos does not use the final -s of the form of the definite article in genitive due to phonological reasons? Interestingly, at the age of 2;3, Christos is using for the genitive form of the feminine definite article the form tsi instead of tis, as shown in example (27) below, i.e. it seems that he is avoiding the final -s. (27) Child: Ato ine tsi ghiaghias t’ alo t’ alo ti ghiaghias. afto ine tis ghiaghias t alo tis ghiaghias this is the grandma the other the other the grandma ‘This belongs to grandma, the other belongs to grandma.’ (Christos 2;3.21)
As we can see in example (27) above, the definite article is used in the same utterance once in the form tsi and once with the form ti. This can be taken as evidence that the form ti results from deletion of the final -s. However, Christos does use the form tis as imitation. Consider example (28) below. (28) Adult: Tis Sulis. the Sulis ‘Suli’s.’ Child: Tis Chiulich. tis Sulis (target utterance) the Sulis ‘Suli’s.’
(Christos 2;1.23)
The use of this form as an imitation indicates that the reasons for not using this form cannot be attributed to phonology. If we exclude the instances of imitation, the genitive form tis is used for the first time by Christos at 2;4.12, as shown in example (29) below. (29) Adult: Ti ine? what is ‘What is it?’ Child: Tis Sulich. tis Sulis (target utterance) the Sulis ‘Suli’s.’
(Christos 2;4.12)
The first use of the target-like form does not imply that Christos is always using this form from this point onwards. The use of the form ti instead of tis is persistent throughout the corpus until the age of 2;8.
Chapter 4
Table 4.28. Error types in the genitive Stage
Age
I
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
unmarked form 0%
0%
other case
[N=0/1] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=0/1]
100%
[N=1/1] [N=0/0] [N=0/0] [N=1/1]
0% 0% 12.5% 0% 3.4% 0%
[N=0/2] [N=0/2] [N=1/8] [N=0/27] [N=1/29] [N=0/12]
0% 0% 0%
[N=0/27] [N=0/15] [N=0/20]
II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
50% 0% 25% 44.4% 37.9% 41.7%
[N=1/2] [N=0/2] [N=2/8] [N=12/27] [N=11/29] [N=5/12]
III
2;6 2;7 2;8
7.4% 0% 5%
[N=2/27] [N=0/15] [N=1/20]
100%
Consequently, it seems that ‘ti’ is the unmarked form of the genitive article. For that reason, in the error analysis for genitive illustrated in Table 4.28 I have considered as unmarked form of the feminine the form ‘ti’. Table 4.28 shows that the majority of errors in genitive articles involve substitutions of genitive forms with unmarked forms of the definite article, ‘to’ for masculine/neuter and ‘ti’ for feminine. To summarise, similar to the acquisition of case marking in nouns, consistent nominative marking on definite articles is attested prior to genitive marking. This supports the idea that this acquisition pattern does not reflect gaps in the inflectional paradigm, but is due rather to syntactical reasons. However, genitive marking on definite articles is acquired later than genitive marking on nouns. As with case marking on nouns, errors in case marking of definite articles involve predominantly substitutions through unmarked forms of the definite article. .. Acquiring the NumP and the FP layer Based on the use of definite and indefinite articles, Section 4.1.3 has shown that at Stage I there is no evidence for the availability of the DP and the FP layers in children acquiring MG. The present section will discuss the availability of the NumP and the FP layer on the basis of the data on number and case marking presented in Section 4.3.2.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Evidence for the presence of the NumP layer in children’s grammar can be provided from their use of number marking. Case marking can provide evidence for the FP layer. Number marking in Christos’ speech emerges towards the end of Stage I, at 1;11 and at Stages II and III there is ample evidence for number marking on nouns. This indicates that the NumP layer is instantiated in the grammar of children acquiring MG slightly prior to Stage II. A similar picture has been identified with respect to case marking. In Christos’ speech case is consistently marked on both nouns and definite articles from 1;11 onwards. As the case feature is hosted within the FP layer, this provides evidence for the availability of the FP layer from 1;11 onwards. Consequently, the phrase markers for the acquisition of the nominal domain presented in Section 4.1.3 have to be slightly revised. The phrase marker in (30) below corresponds to Christos’ noun phrases at 1;7 when he does not use any definite articles at all, and there is no number and case marking on nouns and the phrase marker in (31) below corresponds to his noun phrases from 1;8 to 1;10 where he uses definite articles in a lexically based fashion. (30)
Stage I (1;7)
(31)
Stage I (1;8 to 1;10)
NP
NP to the
vivlio book
vivlio book
The phrase marker in (32) corresponds to Christos’ noun phrases at 1;11 when he uses number and case marking consistently on nouns and definite articles. In this month we have the transition of the use of definite articles as impostors to their use as determiners. (32)
Stage I (1;11) FP F0 to the
NumP vivlioj book
NP tj
As there are no indefinite articles attested and the use of definite articles is very low, it is not clear whether the DP layer hosting the indefinite article and the definiteness feature is instantiated. Unequivocal evidence for the DP layer is
Chapter 4
present from 2;1 when indefinite articles are attested for the first time in the speech of Christos. His phrase marker for noun phrases from 2;1 onwards is a full fledged DP as in the target language. (33) below shows the phrase marker corresponding to a definite DP. (33) Stage II (from 2;1 onwards) DP toi
FP F0 ti
NumP vivlioj book
NP tj
The phrase marker in (34) below corresponds to an indefinite DP. (34) Stage II (from 2;1 onwards) DP ena
FP F0
NumP vivlioj book
NP tj
. Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory This chapter has shown that some of the properties of the DP are acquired simultaneously and others are acquired incrementally. Number marking is acquired simultaneously with case marking and case marking on nouns is acquired simultaneously with case marking on definite articles. Moreover, number and case marking starts to be used consistently when definite articles switch from a lexically based use to a productive use and from that point onwards there is a subject-object asymmetry with respect to the use
Acquiring the DP in MG
of bare nouns. Definite articles emerge in the speech of some children slightly earlier than indefinite articles and nominative case is acquired earlier than genitive case. This shows that at a specific phase (at the end of Stage I in the speech of Christos) the core structure of the Greek nominal domain emerges in one step. This involves the FP and the NumP layer. As data on the acquisition of indefinite articles are rather scarce, we cannot have a conclusive answer as to whether the DP layer emerges together with the FP and the NumP layer or slightly later. However, there is conclusive evidence that some properties of the DP are acquired at a later stage. These properties involve the marking of genitive case. Consistent marking of genitive case emerges later than consistent marking of nominative case. How can the dissociation between the acquisition of nominative and genitive case be explained and does this reflect acquisition of syntax or morphology? Case marking reflects a dependency between two elements. In nominative case the dependency is between Infl and the noun phrase whereas in genitive case it is the dependency between two noun phrases. Target-like marking of nominative case shows that the child has established the relationship between Infl and the noun phrase and has discovered the means of expressing this dependency through inflectional morphology on the definite article and/or the noun. Target-like marking of genitive case shows a similar process for a dependency between two noun phrases. The emergence of the genitive later than nominative marking can reflect two things. The child either cannot establish a dependency between two noun phrases, in which case later acquisition of genitive shows a delay at the syntactic level. Alternatively, the child might not have acquired the means to express this relationship. In this case lack of genitive marking is due to incomplete acquisition of inflectional morphology. Christos seems to be able to establish a relationship between two noun phrases, as there are contexts for genitive marking from 1;11 onwards. Chapter 5 will show that Christos makes use of the possessive construction involving two noun phrases from 1;11 onwards. This shows that he is able to establish a relationship between two noun phrases. However, he has not acquired yet the means of expressing this relationship through inflectional morphology. Consequently, lack of genitive marking does not reflect a non target-like syntactic representation, but rather a problem in inflectional morphology. If lack of genitive marking does not reflect a non target-like syntactic representation, but a problem in inflectional morphology, what is causing a later acquisition of the genitive marking as opposed to nominative marking? There are
Chapter 4
two possible reasons for the late acquisition of genitive marking. First, the frequency of contexts for genitive case is lower than the frequency of contexts for nominative marking. Given that frequency is a relevant factor in language acquisition, the difference in frequency between nominative and genitive marking may cause the acquisition of nominative prior to genitive. A second possible reason relates to the markedness hierarchy of case. Although the unmarked forms of Greek paradigms are the accusative forms, the default case in Greek is nominative case. The genitive form is the most marked form in the Greek paradigm. If markedness is a relevant factor for language acquisition, the most marked form is expected to be the form to be acquired later. This is a further reason why genitive case is acquired later than nominative case. These results have crucial implications for acquisition theory. Taking the issue of the acquisition of indefinite articles apart, it seems that the syntax of the Greek nominal domain as reflected in the availability of functional layers is not unavailable at an earlier acquisition stage. This has been attested at Stage I in Christos’ speech between 1;7 and 1;10. The functional layers emerge all at once at 1;11 and this is reflected in the onset of number and case marking and the switch in the use of definite articles in a lexically based fashion to a productive way. Some of the properties of the DP related to inflectional morphology are acquired at a later stage. These results are only partially compatible with the Maturation Hypothesis. According to the Maturation Hypothesis, language acquisition is the result of biologically determined maturation. Linguistic input does not seem to influence the acquisition process. Simultaneous acquisition of number, case and definite articles is compatible with this hypothesis. However, data on the acquisition of genitive marking remain unexplained, as they require the interaction of the already acquired syntactic knowledge and the input. The data presented in this chapter can be better accounted for within the Continuity Hypothesis. In the Continuity Hypothesis, input plays an important role in the acquisition process. The Strong Continuity Hypothesis emphasises in the role of input for syntactic development and triggers for syntactic development are very important parts of this theory. This chapter has shown that definite articles with PNs and KTs seem to be the Unique Triggers for the acquisition of the FP. However, the data concerning the acquisition of genitive marking remain unexplained within the Strong Continuity Hypothesis, as acquisition of the functional layers in this theory should also entail the acquisition of these further properties. The data presented in this chapter are fully compatible only with the Weak Continuity Hypothesis, according to which the acquisition process may take
Acquiring the DP in MG
place in an incremental way. This does not imply that functional layers have to be acquired incrementally. Simultaneous acquisition of the functional layers of the Greek DP does not pose a problem for the Weak Continuity Hypothesis. Moreover, if the observation that indefinite articles emerge later than definite articles is confirmed by data from other children, this would support the Structure Building Hypothesis, according to which children’s representations are acquired bottom-up. Within this hypothesis, the FP layer hosting the definite articles is expected to be acquired prior to the DP layer hosting the indefinite article. Finally, acquisition of genitive marking later than nominative marking is fully compatible with the Weak Continuity Hypothesis, as children’s representations may contain a subset of the features of the target representations. In the case of genitive marking, when children’s noun phrases lack genitive marking, the children’s representations would be similar to the adult representations albeit the case feature marking genitive would be lacking. What are the implications of the results of this chapter for linguistic theory? The main result that some of the properties of the Greek DP are acquired prior to others support a minimalist approach of the language faculty. Within the PPT, functional categories are primitives. Acquisition of a functional layer entails acquisition of all properties of the corresponding functional layer. In contrast, within the MP, UG primitives are features and not functional categories. Consequently, incremental acquisition of case marking attested in this chapter supports a minimalist view of the language faculty.
. Summary This chapter was concerned with the acquisition of DPs in MG consisting of sequences of (in)definite articles and nouns. The focus of this chapter was on syntactic, semantic and morphological aspects of the Greek DP. With respect to the emergence of definite and indefinite articles, the two children who have the lowest MLU (Christos and Spiros) pass through a stage in which they use definite articles but not indefinite articles. This indicates that definite articles emerge earlier than indefinite articles in the speech of children acquiring MG. The use of determiners by children in early stages of development does not necessarily imply that they have acquired the corresponding functional category. Children may use determiners as impostors. An analysis of the early use of definite articles in the speech of Christos has revealed that he is initially using definite articles in a lexically based fashion. This process lasts for four months
Chapter 4
(from 1;8 to 1;11). After four months of using a very small number of definite articles with a restricted set of nouns, Christos starts to use definite articles in a more productive way. The percentage of definite articles used in obligatory contexts increases at the age of 2;0 significantly, indicating the presence of the FP-layer. Additional evidence for a productive use of definite articles is provided by the use of definite articles with several noun types. Finally, the change from the use of articles in a lexically based fashion to a productive use is signalised by a U-shaped curve in the use of definite articles in obligatory contexts. With respect to the acquisition of the syntax-semantics mapping, Chierchia’s Nominal Mapping Parameter Hypothesis has been tested on the data for all five children. The predictions deriving from this model have been supported by the data. The youngest child (Christos), who also has the lowest MLU, does not initially use any definite articles at all. This has been taken as evidence that the feature specification of nouns is initially [+arg, –pred]. All five children pass through a stage, in which they use definite articles optionally in the sense that there is a relative high omission of definite articles. This has been taken as evidence that the feature specification of nouns in MG is at this stage targetlike, i.e. [–arg, +pred], however, children have to figure out which nouns are mass and which are count and which are the licensing conditions for bare arguments in MG. The use of bare arguments in Christos’ speech reveals that the licensing conditions for the use of bare objects are obeyed from the age of 2;0 onwards, i.e. from the onset of productive use of definite articles. Moreover, it has been shown that light verbs initially take as complements only bare nouns and only later DPs with definite articles. This observation indicates that lexical learning may control the use of verbs with bare objects. Finally, the early use of definite articles with PNs and KTs can be taken as evidence that the contrastive frame vocative versus non-vocative may provide the relevant information for the target-like feature specification of nouns in MG. With respect to the acquisition of morphological marking, case and number marking are acquired simultaneously. The degree of syncretism is not important for the emergence of case marking. Case marking in nouns with a two-way distinction emerges simultaneously with case marking in nouns with a three-way distinction. In contrast, case type seems to play a crucial role in the acquisition of inflectional paradigms. Nominative case is used consistently prior to genitive case in both definite articles and nouns and in nouns with both a two-way and three-way distinction. This data can best be accounted for within the Weak Continuity Hypothesis and supports a minimalist view of the language faculty.
Acquiring the DP in MG
Notes . However, note that the number of obligatory contexts was very low [N=2]. . The few cases of indefinite article omission represent ungrammatical sentences, such as in the example in (1) below, in which the indefinite article is required. Child:
(Christos 2;8.7) Echo na paro edho karotsi tsixles . . . have prt.-subj take here push-chair chewing-gums Echo na paro edho ena karotsi tsixles . . . have prt.-subj take here a/one push-chair chewing-gums ‘I have to get from here a push-chair with chewing-gums . . . ’
. However, this is in contrast to findings from Varlokosta (2000). . Stephany refers here to the speech of three children, Mairi (1;10), Janna (2;4 and 2;10) and Maria (2;4). . For discussion on this issue, see Chapter 2. . NP-type nouns are nouns like ‘camp’ and ‘church’ that cut across the categories of count and mass nouns, as they can take count-selective determiners (‘She is at a camp’), but they can also be used bare nouns (‘She is at camp’). When used as bare nouns, they are not acting as mass nouns, e.g. in contrast to mass nouns they cannot be used with mass noun determiners (*‘She has been to too much camp’), and they cannot be modified by prenominal adjectives (*‘This is nice camp’) (Soja 1994: 268). . Interestingly, Moore & Roeper (1998) make a similar prediction with respect to the initial hypothesis of children for the classification of nouns. According to Moore & Roeper, the first assumption of the child is that all nouns are mass until they encounter positive evidence from plural morphology for the countability of a noun. . An anonymous reviewer notes that it is unclear why the child should hypothesise that nouns in Greek are [+arg, –pred], as they will have definite and indefinite articles in the input. One of the advantages of the Nominal Mapping Parameter is that it makes general predictions that hold across languages and specific predictions that hold within specific languages. The prediction that Greek children will start with a [+arg, –pred] specification is a general prediction that holds for children acquiring any language and it does not contradict the language specific input. This setting relates to their behaviour before they are able to extract the language specific information needed for the setting of the specification of the language they are acquiring. They will hypothesise that Greek has the setting [+arg, –pred] when they are not able to identify definite and indefinite articles from the input. Of course when they are able to identify and analyse definite and indefinite articles, Greek children will abandon this hypothesis and they will move to the next specification, that is [–arg, +pred]. . An anonymous reviewer mentions that uncertainty in these aspects might also lead children to use definite articles all the time instead of optionally. From a theoretical point of view, this is of course a possible hypothesis. However, language acquisition across several languages and phenomena show that children exhibit a rather conservative behaviour in the case of uncertainty (see Weissenborn 1994).
Chapter 4 . It also does not imply that they will use definite articles with PNs and KTs most of the time, as for this to happen children have to acquire the licensing conditions of PNs and KTs. Identifying the minimal pair +argument = definite article vs. –argument = bare noun in some PNs and/or KTs does not mean that they can generalise this to all PNs and KTs. . For the relation between Early Non-Finite Forms and Clitic Omission in MG, see Marinis (2000). . An anonymous reviewer questioned Christos’ knowledge of the licensing conditions of bare arguments on the face of a large percentage of definite article omission. In spite of the high omission rate, the subject-object asymmetry attested suggests that Christos has some knowledge of the licensing conditions for bare arguments. . According to Theophanopoulou-Kontou, the first appearance of the singular case markings is almost simultaneous to the acquisition of the plural markers (TheophanopoulouKontou 1973: 38). . These studies were within the framework of Natural Morphology. Within this framework, Christos’ speech between 1;7 and 1;10 corresponds to premorphology, 1;11 to 2;4 corresponds to protomorphology and the phase after 2;7 corresponds to modularised morphology (Kilani-Schoch et al. 1997). . Theophanopoulou-Kontou (1973) studied the acquisition of nominal inflection on the basis of experimental data from 21 children between 2;0 and 6;6 years. . Interestingly, this development coincides with the emergence of numerals in his speech. . This table does not include the number of definite articles in the unmarked form, as this form does not show case marking.
Chapter 5
The acquisition of the possessive construction
This chapter is concerned with the acquisition of the possessive construction. The possessive construction is cross-linguistically one of the main topics of interest within the study of the acquisition of the DP because: 1. as children express possession relations from very early on, the possessive construction emerges relatively early in child speech, 2. in many languages the possessive construction involves movement, consequently, the emergence of the possessive construction has been thought to provide evidence for the availability of movement in child language, and 3. the possessive construction involves morphological marking in both languages with rich morphology, like MG, and languages with poor morphology, like English. Hence, acquisition of the possessive construction provides insight not only into the acquisition of syntax, but also into the acquisition of morphology and into the relation between the acquisition of syntax and morphology. The possessive construction in MG has some properties that are unique to this language. These are: (1) the use of multiple definite articles, and (2) the availability of two distinct word orders one of which involves movement and focalisation. Data on the acquisition of the MG possessive construction can, therefore, provide evidence as to when children acquire language specific knowledge such as the use of multiple definite articles, when they acquire focus and also when they acquire EPP that forces displacement. This chapter is organised as follows. Section 5.1 presents the properties of the possessive construction in MG and Section 5.2 is concerned with current syntactic analyses of the MG possessive construction. Section 5.3 presents the development of the possessive construction in MG and Section 5.4 evaluates the results with respect to acquisition theory. Finally, the results of this chapter are summarised in Section 5.5.
Chapter 5
. The properties of the MG possessive construction This section provides a descriptive overview of the properties of the possessive construction in MG. Consider example (1a) below. (1) a.
Pira to vivlio tu Niku. took the-acc book-acc the-gen Niku-gen ‘I took Nikos’ book.’
In example (1a) Nikos is the possessor and the book is the possessum. As illustrated in this example, both the possessor and the possessum have to be preceded by the definite article. Hence, one of the properties of the MG possessive construction is that it involves the use of multiple definite articles. As far as morphological marking on the possessor is concerned, the glosses in example (1a) show that the possessor is marked with genitive case, which appears on both the article and the noun. With respect to word order, example (1a) shows that the possessor follows the possessum (possessum > possessor).1 However, an additional word order is possible, namely an order in which the possessor precedes the possessum (possessor > possessum), as illustrated in example (1b) below. (1) b. Pira TU NIKOU to vivlio took the-gen Niku-gen the-acc book-acc ‘I took Niko’s book.’
This word order involves focalisation of the possessor as the capital letters indicate. The properties of the possessive construction are summarised below: a. both the possessor and the possessum must be preceded by the definite article, b. the possessor is case marked with genitive case, c. the possessive construction displays two linearisations, i.e. possessum > possessor and possessor > possessum, d. the order possessor > possessum involves focalisation.
. Syntactic analyses of the MG possessive construction This section will present a review of the main analyses of the possessive construction in MG from the introduction of the DP for MG by Horrocks & Stavrou (1986; 1987) until the present day. This consists of the analyses con-
The acquisition of the possessive construction
ducted by Horrocks & Stavrou (1986; 1987), Alexiadou & Stavrou (1998) and Alexiadou (2001). Additionally, an analysis of the possessive construction will be implemented within the model of Chomsky (2001). As already discussed in Chapter 3, Horrocks & Stavrou (1986; 1987) were the first to implement the DP Hypothesis for MG. With respect to DPs in genitive, Horrocks & Stavrou argued that all types of genitive NP-complements (including possessors) are base-generated post-nominally. Pre-nominal genitives result in this analysis from movement of the possessor to the specifier of the DP. Thus, within this analysis, the possessor in (1a) above occupies its baseposition, as illustrated in (2a), whereas the possessor in (1b) above occupies the specifier of the DP, which is a derived position. This is illustrated in (2b) below. (2) a.
b.
DP NP
D to the
DP D’
DPi
N
DP
vivlio book
tu Niku the Niku
tu Niku the Niku
NP
D to the
N
ti
vivlio book
According to this analysis, nouns properly govern their complements and assign genitive case to them. Movement of the possessor to Spec,DP, as in (2b) above is not motivated for case assignment, but is rather the result of focalisation of the possessor.2 In this analysis, under the assumption that possessors receive case in their base position and move optionally to Spec,DP for focalisation, the landing site of the moved constituent, i.e. Spec,DP, is a non-argument position and the movement, A’-Movement. As we already saw in Chapter 3, focalisation of the possessor, exemplified in (1b) and (2b), is parallel to focalisation of constituents in the clausal domain, as shown in (3a)–(3c) below. The specifier of the DP in MG is, therefore, on a par with the specifier of the CP. (3) a.
Edhose to vravio stin Afrodhiti. gave-3sg the prize to-the Afrodhiti ‘He gave the prize to Afrodhiti.’ b. STIN AFRODHITI edhose to vravio. to-the Afrodhiti gave-3sg the prize ‘He gave the prize TO AFRODHITI.’
(non-focalised)
(focalised)
Chapter 5
c.
(focalised) TO VRAVIO edhose stin Afrodhiti. the prize gave-3sg to-the Afrodhiti ‘He gave THE PRIZE to Afrodhiti.’ (from Horrocks & Stavrou 1987: 86–87)
Along the same lines as Horrocks & Stavrou (1987), but within the minimalist framework, Alexiadou & Stavrou (1998) suggest that ‘the genitive argument in the nominal clause, much like the nominative argument in the clause structure, does not raise to the functional domain in Greek’ for checking of genitive case (Alexiadou & Stavrou 1998: 126). In the analysis of Alexiadou & Stavrou (1998), as in that of Horrocks & Stavrou (1987), DPs do not move in order to check genitive case, they check genitive case in their base position. This analysis parallels Alexiadou & Anagnostopoulou’s (1995) analysis of case assignment in the clausal domain according to which DPs in MG in general are not required to move in order to check their case feature, i.e. they check their case feature in the base position.3 More recently, Alexiadou (2001) proposed a new analysis of the MG possessive construction, which distinguishes possessors from thematic arguments of nouns. Alexiadou’s reason for proposing a new analysis was that she wanted to account for the possessive construction cross-linguistically. In her new analysis she puts forward the idea that alienable possessors have a different structural representation than inalienable possessors. Alienable possessors are licensed by an external functional head, i.e. Poss, as illustrated in (4a) below, whereas inalienable possessors occupy a lexical phrase (LP), as in (4b). Evidence for the different syntactic representation of the two types of possessors comes from their different syntactic and semantic properties.
The acquisition of the possessive construction
(4) a.
b.
DP D’
Spec D
LP possessor
AgrP Spec
L
L’ possessum
Agr’ PossP
Agr
possessor
Poss’
Poss
LP possessum
(from Alexiadou 2001)
This study will be concerned only with alienable possessors, due to the lack of data from inalienable possessors in the corpora used. Hence, the rest of this section will deal only with this type of construction and the word possessor will refer, hereafter, only to alienable possessors. Within this analysis, cross-linguistic variation of the position of possessors is captured through the availability of more than one structural position within the DP, in which possessors may appear. Possessors are base-generated/merged cross-linguistically within a functional projection (PossP), as illustrated in (5) below. (5)
DP D’
Spec derived position English
D
AgrP Spec
derived position Italian
Agr’ Agr
PossP
possessor
base position Poss post-nominal possessors Modern Greek
Poss’ LP
Chapter 5
In languages like Italian, in which the possessor co-occurs with the definite article, the possessor moves to Spec,AgrP, as shown in (5) above. In languages, in which possessors cannot appear together with the definite article, like in English, possessors move to Spec,DP, as illustrated in (5) above. Finally, in MG the possessor does not move out of its base position. The two word orders of the possessive construction in MG, as in (1a) and (1b) at the beginning of this section, are derived in this analysis in the following way: the possessor is base-generated/merged within the functional projection, PossP, and the possessum within the lexical projection, LP, as shown in (6a) below. (6) a.
b.
DP D
to the
D
AgrP Agr
to the
PossP
possessor tu Niku the Niku
DP
Poss’ Poss
AgrP
vivlioi book LP
PossP
Agr
possessor tu Niku the Niku
Poss’ Poss
ti
vivlio book
In this analysis, the base word order is the opposite of the analyses of Horrocks & Stavrou and Alexiadou & Stavrou, i.e. possessor > possessum, and it does not correspond to any surface word order. The possessum moves to the head of AgrP in order to check number, as shown in (6b) above. This functional layer corresponds to NumP (see Chapter 3). The result of this movement is the order possessum > possessor, which is the unmarked order in the MG possessive construction.4 The order possessor > possessum results from a subsequent movement of the possessor to the specifier of the DP for focalisation, as shown in (7) below. This last movement is similar to movement in Horrocks & Stavrou and Alexiadou & Stavrou.
The acquisition of the possessive construction
(7)
DP possessorj tu Nikuj the Niku
D’ D to the
AgrP PossP
Agr vivlioi book
tj
Poss’ Poss
LP ti
The analysis of possessors developed by Alexiadou is consistent with Zubizarreta (1987), and Szabolcsi (1994). According to Szabolcsi (1994), possessors are licensed by the presence of certain syntactic-semantic features, like the genitive suffix -s in English. The thematic role of the possessor is related to some head, which is external to the projection containing the head noun. Thus, possessors parallel external arguments in the verbal domain. PossP is similar to light v: PossP introduces the possessor like light v introduces the Agent. If we translate the analysis of Alexiadou (2001) in the framework of Chomsky (2001), the following modifications have to be made. As this system does not involve checking operations and agreement does not involve movement, an EPP feature has to be stipulated on an uninterpretable feature of Agr that forces movement of the noun to Agr0 . Similarly, an EPP feature has to be stipulated on an uninterpretable feature of D0 that forces movement of the possessor to the specifier of the DP.5
. Acquiring the possessive construction in MG This section presents data on the acquisition of the possessive construction in MG. The focus will be on the acquisition of the two word orders, possessum > possessor and possessor > possessum, the acquisition of definite articles within the possessive construction and the marking of genitive case. The developmental patterns will be based on Christos’ speech (Christofidou Corpus), as this corpus is the largest of the two and has no gaps between the recordings. The data from the other children will then be matched to Chris-
Chapter 5
tos’ data and the developmental pattern will be discussed in relation to the acquisition stages based on the MLU of the children. .. Word order in the possessive construction The acquisition of word order in the possessive construction can be divided into three phases on the basis of the first use of each one of the two possible word orders in Christos’ speech. The pattern that emerges in his speech has the following scheme: Phase 0: possessor in isolation Phase 1: possessum > possessor Phase 2: possessor > possessum
Phase 0: Possessor in isolation The initial phase in the use of the possessive construction in Christos’ speech consists of the possessor in isolation, which is well-formed in adult Greek when the possessum is present in the discourse. This phase covers his speech between 1;8 and 1;11. Consider example (8) below. (8) Child: Ato mama! this mummy-un afto ine tis mamas this is the-gen mummy’s-gen ‘This is mummy’s.’ Adult: Afto ine tis mamas? this is the mummy’s ‘Is this mummy’s.’?
(Christos 1;10.9) (target-utterance)
As shown in this example, Christos expresses possession with the possessor in isolation. In this phase, his MLU is lower than 2.0, that is he is still at Stage I in the development of his speech. As illustrated in the example, the definite article that should precede the possessor is missing and he uses the unmarked form of the noun instead of the genitive form. This phase is also represented in two children from the Stephany Corpus, namely Janna and Mairi. Possessive constructions in Janna’s speech at the age of 1;11 and in Mairi’s speech at the age of 1;9 consist only of the possessor in isolation. This is illustrated in examples (9) and (10) below. (9) Child: Ine nanula. is Anula
(Janna 1;11)
The acquisition of the possessive construction
ine tis Anulas is the-gen Anula’s-gen ‘It is Anula’s.’ Adult: ine tis Anulas is the-gen Anula’s-gen ‘It is Anula’s.’
(target-utterance)
(10) Child: i Mairis ine. the-nom Mairis-gen is tis Mairis ine the-gen Mairis-gen is ‘They belong to Mairi.’
(Mairi 1;9.25) (target-utterance)
Janna is like Christos at Stage I, with respect to the form of the possessive construction. In Janna’s speech, the possessive construction consists of a bare possessor, the definite article has been omitted and the possessor is not marked with genitive case. At the age of 1;9, Mairi is already at Stage II. As the example illustrates, although she uses only possessors in isolation, the possessor is preceded by the definite article and it is marked for genitive. As far as word order in the possessive construction is concerned, due to the lack of overt use of the possessum it is not possible to draw any conclusions as to which word order the children use in this phase. Therefore, this phase has been dubbed as Phase 0.
Phase 1: Possessum > Possessor Phase 1 has been defined by the first use of the possessive construction consisting of both the possessor and the possessum. The first instance of a possessive construction with both possessor and possessum present in Christos’ speech appears at the age of 1;11.19. The word order of the possessor and the possessum is possessum > possessor, as illustrated in example (11) below. (11) Adult: Afto ti ine? this what is ‘What is this?’ Child: Lululi flower to luludhi tis the flower the-gen ‘Mummy’s flower.’
mamach. mummy-gen mamas mummy-gen
(Christos 1;11.19) (target-utterance)
Chapter 5
Christos is still at Stage I. He does not use definite articles with the possessor or the possessum. However, as shown in the gloss, he uses genitive case marking on the possessor. The first instances of the possessive construction in the speech of all the children in the Stephany Corpus show the word order possessum > possessor. Consider example (12) below. (12) Child:
Tetao notebook to tetradhio tis the notebook the-gen ‘Ulas’s notebook.’
Ullos. Ullas-gen Ullas Ullas-gen
(Spiros 1;9.11) (target-utterance)
Spiros is at Stage I and, like to Christos, does not use any definite articles with the possessor and the possessum. However, again like Christos, he uses genitive marking on the possessor. The other three children, Janna, Mairi and Maria, are in later developmental stages. Janna is aged 2;9 and at Stage IV, Mairi aged 2;3 and at Stage III and Maria is aged 2;3 and also at Stage III. As a consequence, their speech is more elaborate and they use definite articles and genitive marking, as illustrated in example (13). (Mairi 2;3) (13) Child: Tha pai ti thesi ti ghatas. fut-prt go the position the-un cat-gen (target) tha pai sti thesi tis ghatas fut-prt go to-the position the-gen cat-gen ‘It will go the position of the cat.’ Adult: To papaki den beni sti thesi tis ghatas. the duck-dim not go to-the position the cat ‘The small duck doesn’t fit to the position of the cat.’
In this example, Mairi is using definite articles both with the possessor and the possessum. The possessor is marked with genitive case, however, the definite article preceding the possessor is in the unmarked form of the feminine. Although Janna, Mairi and Maria are in a different developmental stage compared to Christos and Spiros, what is important is that the first occurrences of the possessive construction attested in the corpus display the word order possessum > possessor. None of the children under investigation showed the word order possessor > possessum prior to the word order possessum > possessor.
The acquisition of the possessive construction
Phase 2: Possessor > Possessum Phase 2 is defined by the first use of the order possessor > possessum in Christos’ speech. Christos uses the order possessor > possessum for the first time at the age of 2;0.07. Consider example (14) below. (14) Child:
Iko Niku-un tu Niku i the-gen Niku-gen the-nom ‘Niko’s BMW.’ Adult: I Beemve tu thiu Niku the BMW the uncle Niku ‘Is this uncle Nikos’ BMW?’
Bebe. BMW BMW BMW
(Christos 2;0.7) (target-utterance)
ine afti? is this
At the age of 2;0, Christos goes through a transition period from Stage I to Stage II, that is his MLU goes beyond 2. As shown in example (14) above, Christos still does not use definite articles with the possessum and the possessor and the possessor is not marked with genitive case. However, as far as the word order of the possessive construction is concerned, from this point onwards both word orders are attested in his speech. In the Stephany Corpus, two of the four children, Spiros and Janna, use only the word order possessum > possessor. In the recordings of Janna there are very few instances of the possessive construction (number of tokens = 4). This does not mean that Janna expresses possession very rarely. Instead of using the possessive construction, she uses the possessive pronoun when she wants to express possession.6 From the first recording in the corpus, at the age of 1;11, she uses the possessive pronoun in the 1st person singular, as shown in example (15) below, which she overgeneralises for the 2nd and 3rd person singular and plural. (15) Adult: Ke tora sti tsanda. and now to-the bag ‘And now (let’s put them) in the bag.’ Child: Tola dzada mu. now bag my tora stin tsanda mu now to-the bag my ‘Now (let’s put them) into my bag.’
(Janna 1;11.0) (target-utterance)
From the age of 2;5 onwards she uses possessive pronouns in all three persons in the singular and from the age of 2;9 onwards she uses possessive pronouns
Chapter 5
also in the plural. Lack of the possessive construction in the word order possessor > possessum in Janna’s speech is likely to be due to sampling as she uses possessive pronouns more often than the possessive construction involving the possessor and the possessum. Spiros is the only child, for whom we do not have any recordings after Stage I. All children that are at the same developmental stage, i.e. Christos until the age of 2;0 and Janna at the age of 1;11 use at that stage only the word order possessum > possessor. Consequently, lack of the word order possessor > possessum in the speech of Spiros is likely to be due to the absence of recordings at a later age and stage of development. As far as the other two children from the Stephany Corpus are concerned, Mairi and Maria, both show the word order possessor > possessum in the last recordings available, that is at the age of 2;9. Consider example (16) below from Mairi. (16) Adult: Ke pu kimate? and where sleeps ‘And where is he sleeping?’ Child: Ti ghiaghias in-the-un grandma-gen stis ghiaghias in-the-gen grandma-gen ‘In grandma’s bed.’
to the-acc to the-acc
kevati. bed-acc krevati bed-acc
(Mairi 2;9.15) (target)
In this recording, Mairi is at Stage III. Maria is at Stage IV when the first instance of the possessive construction with the word order possessor > possessum is attested. The speech of both Mairi and Maria is much more advanced than Christos’ speech. In example (16) above, unlike example (14) from Christos, Mairi uses definite articles with both the possessor and the possessum. The possessor is marked with genitive case; however, the definite article preceding the possessor is in the unmarked form of the feminine. Considering that there is a gap of 6 months in the recordings of Mairi and Maria, and given that their speech is much more advanced than Christos’ speech, it is very likely that the delayed emergence of the word order possessor > possessum in their speech is the result of sampling. It is also important, though, that in the speech of these two children the word order possessum > possessor is attested prior to the word order possessor > possessum. A summary of the phases in the acquisition of word order in the MG possessive construction are shown in Table 5.1.
The acquisition of the possessive construction
Table 5.1. Emergence of word order in the MG possessive construction
Phase 0 Phase 1 Phase 2
word-order
Christos
Spiros
Janna*
possessor possessum > possessor possessor > possessum
1;10.09 1;11.19 2;0.07
1;9
1;11 2;9
Maria
Mairi
2;3 2;9
1;9 2;3 2;9
*The recordings of Janna at the age of 2;5 are not indicated here because in these recordings there were no possessive constructions attested in her speech.
The phases have been defined on the basis of Christos’ speech, as his data covers the age of 1;7 to 2;8 and there are no gaps in the recordings of his speech. The data for the children in the Stephany Corpus have been matched to the phases identified in Christos’ speech. None of the children used the word order possessor > possessum prior to the word order possessum > possessor. Three out of five children, i.e. Christos, Maria and Mairi, used both possible word orders. However, they initially used only the word order possessum > possessor and only later did they start using the word order possessor > possessum. .. Word order and the use of definite articles in the possessive construction This section is concerned with the use of definite articles with the two word orders in the possessive construction. As shown in Section 5.1, both the possessum and the possessor in MG must be obligatorily preceded by the definite article. However, the previous section has shown that children at Stage I and II often omit definite articles in the possessive construction. The present section will consider the emergence of the two word orders in the possessive construction in relation to the use of definite articles. Taking into consideration the presence/omission of the definite article, a distinction will be made between the use of an incomplete possessive construction in which definite articles are missing as opposed to the use of the complete possessive construction with both definite articles present. As in the previous section, the developmental pattern has been defined on the basis of Christos’ speech. Subsequently, the data for the children in the Stephany Corpus have been matched to the phases identified in Christos’ speech. The developmental pattern of Christos’ speech has the following scheme:
Chapter 5
A: Incomplete possessive construction – – – –
Phase 0: (def. article)7 possessor Phase 1: possessum > (def. article) possessor Phase 2a: possessor > (def. article) possessum Phase 2b: (def. article) possessor > possessum
B: Complete possessive construction – –
Phase 3a: (def. article) possessum > (def. article) possessor Phase 3b: (def. article) possessor > (def. article) possessum
Use of an incomplete possessive construction Initially, Christos omits definite articles when he uses the possessive construction, that is the possessive construction is incomplete. This period can be divided into four sub-phases, Phase 0 with the word order (def.art.) possessor, Phase 1 with the word order possessum > (def.art.) possessor, Phase 2a with the word order possessor > (def.art) possessum and Phase 2b with the word order (def.art) possessor > possessum. These four phases will be discussed in turn. Phase 0: (def.art.) Possessor This phase corresponds to Phase 0 in the previous section. In the earliest recordings, Christos uses the possessor in isolation. Moreover, definite articles are missing from possessors. This phase is also attested in Janna’s speech. Omission of the definite article with the possessor reflects the general omission of definite articles in obligatory contexts in the speech of these two children. The overall percentage of definite articles in obligatory contexts in their speech in this phase is very low (Christos = 13%), (Janna = 15%). Examples (17a) and (17b) below illustrate cases in which Christos and Janna use the possessor omitting the definite article. (17) a.
Child: Ie papa. is daddy-un ine tu baba is the-gen daddy-un ‘They belong to daddy.’ Adult: Tu baba ine afta? the daddy are these ‘Do these belong to daddy?’ b. Child: Ine nanula. is Anula-un
(Christos 1;10.9) (target-utterance)
(Janna 1;11.10)
The acquisition of the possessive construction
ine tis Anulas-gen is the-gen Anula ‘It is Anula’s.’
(target-utterance)
In this phase both Christos and Janna are in Stage I, as their MLU is lower than 2.
Phase 1: Possessum > (def.art.) Possessor This phase corresponds to Phase 1 in the previous section. When both the possessor and the possessum start to be overtly realised in Christos’ speech, there is still a high percentage in definite article omission. The overall definite article omission in his speech in this phase is 96%. As far as the use of definite articles in the possessive construction is concerned, when definite articles appear, they are used in the medial position, i.e. between the possessum and the possessor, and preceding the possessor, as shown in example (18) below. (Christos 1;11.27) Ghiala o Picioch. ears the-nom Christu-nom (target-utterance) st’ aftia tu Christu to-the ears the-gen Christu-gen ‘To Christos’ ears.’ Adult: Ela na to valume st’ aftia! Tu Christu. come prt-subj it put to-the ears! Christu-gen ‘Come, in order to put it to Christos’ ears.’
(18) Child:
Similar instances of the possessive construction are also attested in Spiros’ speech at 1;9 (Stage I), and in Maria’s speech at 2;3 (Stage III). In the speech of all three children (Christos, Spiros and Maria) there were no utterances, in which both the possessor and the possessum are preceded by the definite article. Moreover, there were no utterances, in which the possessum is preceded by the definite article but not the possessor.
Phase 2a: Possessor > (def.art.) Possessum This phase corresponds to Phase 2 in the previous section and it is attested only in Christos’ speech. Here, the word order is the opposite from Phase 1, that is possessor > possessum. However, as in Phase 1 Christos uses definite articles only in the medial position and omits them in the initial position. This is illustrated in example (19) below.
Chapter 5
(19) Child:
Dedeli baba Vangeli-un daddy-un tu Vangeli tu baba the-gen Vangeli-un the-gen daddy-un ‘The book of daddy Vangeli.’ Adult: to vivlio ine tu Vangeli tu baba. the book is the Vangeli the daddy ‘The book belongs to daddy Vangeli.’
to the to the
lilio. book vivlio book
(2;0.7) (target)
Taken together in Phase 1 and Phase 2, as far as the use of the definite article in the possessive construction is concerned, Christos seems to have the tendency to omit definite articles from the initial position irrespective of the word order of the two nouns.
Phase 2b: (def.art.) Possessor > Possessum This phase is also attested only in Christos’ speech and it is defined by the first use of the definite article in the initial position of the possessive construction, as shown in example (20) below. (20) Adult: boris na perpatas # Christo, me ta paputsia tu Perikli? ‘Can you walk, Christo, with the shoes of Periklis?’ (Christos 2;1.26) Child: . . . ti Kikli papucia. the-acc Perikli-un the shoes tu Perikli ta paputsia (target-utterance) the-gen Perikli-un the shoes ‘. . . Periklis’ shoes.’
In example (20) above, the linearisation is possessor > possessum, as in Phase 2a. However, here, unlike Phase 2a, the definite article precedes the initial noun, which is the possessor and it is omitted in the medial position. During this phase, the percentage of overall definite articles present in obligatory contexts is 43% in Christos’ speech. There are no instances of the linearisation possessum > possessor with the definite article preceding the possessum.
Use of the complete possessive construction The complete possessive construction is attested in the speech of all children whose recordings go beyond Stage I. This applies to 4 out of 5 children, i.e. Christos, Janna, Maria and Mairi. The only child who does not show any instances of the complete possessive construction is Spiros, whose recordings are from Stage I only. Consequently, lack of the complete possessive construction
The acquisition of the possessive construction
in the speech of Spiros is most likely due to the unavailability of subsequent recordings.
Phase 3a: (def.art.) Possessum > (def.art.) Possessor The complete possessive construction initially emerges in Christos’ speech with the word order possessum > possessor. This is illustrated in example (21) below. (21) Child: To cicinito the car to aftocinito the car ‘Mike’s car.’
(Christos 2;2.14)
o Maik. the-nom Maik tu Maik the-gen Maik
(target-utterance)
At the age of 2;2, Christos is at Stage II with an MLU of 2.2. The overall definite article omission at this age is 37%. As illustrated in example (21) above, he uses the definite article with both the possessum and the possessor. However, he does not use genitive marking on the definite article preceding the possessor. Janna and Mairi, like Christos, use the word order possessum > possessor in the recording, in which the complete possessive construction is attested first. Consider example (22) below. (22) Child: Tha pai ti thesi ti prt-fut go the position the-une tha pai sti thesi tis prt-fut go to-the position the-gen ‘It will go to the position of the cat.’
ghatas. cat-gen ghatas cat-gen
(Mairi 2;3.17) (target)
Mairi is 2;3 and is at Stage III. Her overall omission of definite articles at this age is 12%, but as shown in example (22) above, like Christos, she does not always use genitive case on the definite article preceding the possessor. Janna is 2;9 and is at Stage IV with an MLU over 3.0. She uses definite articles more than 90% of the time in obligatory contexts and as shown in example (23) below, the definite article preceding the possessor has genitive case marking. (23) Child: Ta luludhacia tis ghiaghias. the flowers the-gen grandma-gen ‘Grandma’s flowers.’
(Janna 2;9.9)
Crucially, none of the children use the word order possessor > possessum prior to the word order possessum > possessor when the complete possessive construction is attested in their speech for the first time.
Chapter 5
There is only one child that uses both word orders in the first recording involving the complete possessive construction. This is Maria at the age of 2;9. However, as there were no recordings between 2;3 and 2;9, it is possible that the emergence of both word orders in the same recording is the result of sampling.
Phase 3b: (def.art.) Possessor > (def.art.) Possessum This phase has been defined by the first use of the complete possessive construction involving the word order possessor > possessum in Christos’ speech. This is first attested in his recording at the age of 2;6.14. Consider example (24) below. (24) Child: Ne tu Pitu is the-gen Christos-gen ine tu Christu is the-gen Christos-gen ‘It is Christo’s Innocenti.’
(Christos 2;6.14) tu Seti. the-gen Seti (target) to Innocenti the-un Seti
As illustrated in this example, the definite article preceding the possessor is in the genitive. However, the definite article preceding the possessum also has genitive marking instead of being in the unmarked form ’to’. Christos is at Stage III here and his overall definite article omission is 9%. Mairi, like Christos uses the complete possessive construction with the word order possessor > possessum only after she has used it with the order possessum > possessor. Consider examples (25) and (26). (25) Adult: Pu echi pai o likos? where has gone the wolf ‘Where has the wolf gone.’ Child: Stis ghiaghias to spiti. to-the-gen grandma-gen the-acc house-acc ‘To grandma’s house.’
(Mairi 2;9.14)
(26) Child: I mama ti Kokinokufitsa. (Mairi 2;9.14) the-nom mummy-nom the-un Little Red Riding Hood-un (target) i mama tis Kokkinoskufitsas the-nom mummy-nom the-gen Little Red Riding Hood-gen ‘Little Red Riding Hood’s mummy.’
In this recording Mairi is like Christos at Stage III and her overall definite article omission of 9% is also as low as that of Christos. As shown in the glosses in example (25), she uses genitive marking on the definite article preceding the possessor, whereas this is not true in example (26) above. Thus, although both
The acquisition of the possessive construction
Table 5.2. Emergence of word order and the definite article in the MG possessive construction
complete
incomplete construction
Phase
word-order & use of definite articles
Phase 0: (def.art.) possessor
Christos Spiros Janna* Maria Mairi 1;10.09
Phase 1:
possessum > (def.art.) possessor 1;11.19 1;9
Phase 2a:
possessor > (def.art.) possessum 2;0.7
Phase 2b: (def.art.) possessor >
1;11
1;9 2;3
possessum 2;1.26
Phase 3a: (def.art.) possessum > (def.art.) possessor 2;2.14 Phase 3b: (def.art.) possessor > (def.art.) possessum 2;6.14
2;9
2;9
2;3
2;9
2;9
*The recordings of Janna at the age of 2;5 are not indicated here because in this recording there were no possessive constructions attested in her speech.
children show genitive marking on the possessor, they also show errors of overgeneralisations of genitive, as in example (24) above and use of the unmarked form, as in example (26) above. A summary of the phases of the acquisition of word order in relation to the use of the definite article in the possessive construction is shown in Table 5.2. Crucially, as shown in Table 5.2, in the speech of all children that use one word order prior to the other the word order possessum > possessor is attested prior to the word order possessor > possessum in both the incomplete and in the complete possessive construction. Furthermore, the general omission rate of definite articles seems to correlate with the rate of definite article omission in the possessive construction and with MLU. Children at Stage I (Christos until the age of 2;0.7, Spiros at the age of 1;9 and Janna at the age of 1;11) show optional use of definite articles in the possessive construction. This is also true for children at Stage II (Christos from 2;0.15 until the age of 2;5 and Mairi at the age of 1;9). More consistent use of definite articles in the possessive construction is attested in the recordings of children at Stage III (Christos from 2;6 onwards, Maria at the age of 2;3 and Mairi at 2;3 and 2;9). However, at that stage there is no consistent marking of genitive case on the possessor. This happens only at Stage IV (Janna at the age of 2;9 and Maria at the age of 2;9). As the Stephany Corpus is relatively small and there are considerable gaps between the recordings, it was not possible to make quantitative analysis of the
Chapter 5
use of definite articles in the possessive construction and genitive marking on the article preceding the possessor. In contrast, this was possible for Christos’ data. Quantitative analysis of the use of the definite article with the possessor and genitive marking on the article preceding the possessor will be presented in the next section. .. Quantitative analysis of the use of definite articles and genitive marking on the possessor The previous two sections have focused on the developmental patterns attested in the acquisition of word order in the possessive construction. This has been based on the criterion of the First Use (see Chapter 2). Additionally, the developmental patterns have been related to the stages of acquisition based on the children’s MLU. This section presents quantitative analyses of the use of the definite article and genitive case marking on the possessor. As the data from the children in the Stephany Corpus was quantitatively small and with large gaps between the recordings, quantitative analyses have been carried out only on Christos’ data.
Definite article omission in the possessor As shown in Chapter 4, prior to the age of 2;0, that is at Stage I, Christos uses very few definite articles and only with specific nouns. His production of definite articles is lexically based rather than productive. Consider Table 5.3. Table 5.3 shows the percentage of the overall use of definite articles in obligatory contexts, as shown in Chapter 4 compared to the use of the definite article with the possessor and genitive marking on the definite article preceding the possessor. At Stage I, the percentage of overall definite articles is very low. At first glance, the percentage of definite articles with the possessor seems to be high. However, the number of definite articles with the possessor is so low (N = 1) that the percentages are not interpretable. A substantial number of definite articles with the possessor appear no earlier than at Stage II, at the age of 2;3. In fact from the age of 2;2 onwards, the developmental curve for the use of definite articles with the possessor is very similar to the one for the overall definite articles. This is illustrated in Figure 5.1. As shown in Figure 5.1, the percentage of definite articles with the possessor reaches 100% earlier than the percentage of overall definite articles, that is at the end of Stage II, at age of 2;5. In contrast, the percentage of overall definite articles reaches 90% at Stage III, at the age of 2;6. This shows that overall
The acquisition of the possessive construction
Table 5.3. Use of definite articles with the possessor in the speech of Christos Genitive marking
Stage I
Definite articles on the possessor
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
0% 11% 6% 11% 3%
[N=0/28] [N=2/18] [N=2/31] [N=6/54] [N=4/147]
Stage II
Overall definite articles
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
32% 47% 63% 75% 66% 77%
[N=83/256] [N=206/592] [N=155/246] [N=318/325] [N=174/262] [N=159/207]
20% 8% 56% 88% 72% 100%
[N=2/10] [N=2/26] [N=5/9] [N=29/33] [N=21/29] [N=9/9]
50% 50% 40% 48% 38% 67%
[N=1/2] [N=1/2] [N=2/5] [N=14/29] [N=8/21] [N=6/9]
Stage III
Age
2;6 2;7 2;8
91% 97% 95%
[N=187/205] [N=212/219] [N=310/325]
100% 100% 95%
[N=24/24] [N=15/15] [N=18/19]
92% 100% 94%
[N=22/24] [N=15/15] [N=17/18]
100%
[N=1/1]
0%
[N=0/1]
25% 14%
[N=1/4] [N=1/7]
0% 0%
[N=0/1] [N=0/1]
definite article omission from the age of 2;3 onwards is not due to omission of the definite article with the possessor.
Genitive marking on definite articles preceding the possessor A different picture emerges if we consider genitive marking on the definite article preceding the possessor. Table 5.3 above shows that Christos does not mark definite articles with genitive case at Stage I. At the beginning of Stage II, he uses genitive marking only sporadically between 2;0 and 2;2. Similar to the use of definite articles with the possessor, more systematic use of genitive marking starts at the age of 2;3. However, the percentage of genitive marking is much lower than the percentage of use of definite articles with possessors until 2;7. This is illustrated in Figure 5.2. The curve for genitive marking is parallel to the curve for the use of definite articles with the possessor, but the percentage is much lower until Stage III. This shows that the error rate of genitive marking at Stage II is higher than for definite article omission with the possessor – Christos runs through a phase, in which he uses definite articles, but with non-target case marking. Thus, the acquisition of definite articles in the context of the possessor is mastered earlier than genitive marking. What type of errors does Christos make when he does not mark the definite article with genitive case?
Chapter 5 100%
80%
60%
overall
40%
Stage II
Stage I
Stage III
with the possessor
20%
7 2;
2;
2;
5
3
1 2;
11 1;
9 1;
1;
7
0% Age
Figure 5.1. Overall definite articles vs. definite articles with the possessor
100%
80%
60% definite articles
40%
20%
Stage II
Stage I
Stage III
7 2;
5
2;
2;
3
1 2;
11 1;
9 1;
1;
7
0% Age
Figure 5.2. Definite articles with the possessor and genitive marking
genitive marking
The acquisition of the possessive construction
Table 5.4. Error analysis gen>un
1;7 1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11
0 0 0 0
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
1 1 2 14 8 6
[50%] [50%] [40%] [48%] [38%] [67%]
1 0 2 15 11 3
2;6 2;7 2;8
22 15 17
[92%] [100%] [94%]
2 0 1
Stage III
Stage I
gen>gen
Stage II
Age
0 0 0 0
gen>other 1 0 1 1
[50%] [40%] [52%] [52%] [33%] [8%] [6%]
0 1 1 0 2 0
[50%] [20%] [10%]
0 0 0
An error analysis has revealed that the majority of errors involve the use of the unmarked form of the article instead of the genitive form. This is illustrated in Table 5.4. The column gen>gen shows the number of definite articles preceding the possessor that are marked with genitive case, the column gen>un the number of definite articles used in the unmarked form and the last column the number of definite articles used in some other form. At Stage I there are no definite articles in the genitive. Definite articles in the genitive emerge at Stage II. However, during the whole period of Stage II, definite articles in the genitive are used only 38% to 67% of the time. Most of the errors consist of the use of the unmarked form. Only at Stage III does Christos use definite articles in the genitive more than 90% in obligatory contexts. To summarise, Stage I is characterised by definite article omission and a total lack of genitive marking on the possessor. At Stage II, the percentage of definite articles increases dramatically and reaches 100% in obligatory contexts, however, genitive case marking lags behind. Genitive case marking on the possessor goes over 90% at Stage III, in which the use of definite articles converges with genitive case marking.
Chapter 5
. Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory This chapter has shown that the possessive construction in MG does not get acquired in one step. Instead, the properties of the possessive construction are acquired incrementally. This applies to the two different word orders available in the target language, the use of multiple definite articles and the marking of the possessor with genitive case. What are the implications of the incremental acquisition of the possessive construction for the acquisition of the DP and which are the implications for acquisition theory? These two questions will be discussed in turn. The properties of the possessive construction that are acquired incrementally are word order, the use of multiple definite articles and genitive marking on the possessor. The unmarked word order (possessum > possessor) emerges prior to the word order involving focalisation (possessor > possessum). Stage I is characterised by the use of the possessive construction without definite articles and Stage II by the use of the possessive construction with definite articles. However, definite articles preceding the possessor at Stage II are used in the unmarked form. Only at Stage III does genitive marking on definite articles with the possessor get acquired. All three properties of the possessive construction seem to be in place no earlier than at Stage III. As full acquisition of the DP entails the availability of all three properties, incremental acquisition of these properties shows that the DP is not acquired in an all-or-nothing fashion. This indicates that children pass through a stage in which they have some knowledge of the DP, but they have not acquired it fully. Additionally, the data from Christos’ speech have shown a principled acquisition process. The possessive construction does not develop at random. The unmarked word order emerges prior to the marked word order and the unmarked form of the definite article emerges prior to the form in genitive. Furthermore, genitive case marking on definite articles is fully acquired after definite articles preceding the possessor have been established. This shows that although Christos passes through phases of optionality, optionality is not unconstrained. Finally, the emergence of the word order possessum > possessor prior to the word order possessor > possessum indicates that EPP related to movement for focalisation is acquired later than EPP that is related to movement of the noun. These results have important implications for linguistic theory. Incremental acquisition of the properties of the possessive construction and of the DP support a minimalist approach of the language faculty. Within the Principles and Parameters Theory, functional categories are primitives. This predicts that
The acquisition of the possessive construction
all properties of a functional category will be acquired when the functional category under discussion is acquired. In contrast, within the Minimalist Program, there is no fixed set of categories and also no fixed set of labels. Primitives are the features and not the categories. This predicts that some features may be acquired earlier or later than others which in turn predicts that properties related to specific features may emerge earlier or later than others. In the case of the possessive construction in MG, this can be exemplified by the acquisition of word order. The order involving focalisation emerges later than the unmarked word order. This shows that the feature relevant for movement involving focalisation, that is an EPP feature in the system of Chomsky (2001), is acquired later. Within the Principles and Parameters Theory, this developmental sequence remains unexplained. There is no principled explanation as to why movement to Spec,DP for focalisation should not emerge at a phase, in which the DP projection is present in the child’s grammar.
. Summary This chapter has investigated the acquisition of the possessive construction in MG. The language specific properties of the possessive construction in MG are two possible word orders (possessum > possessor and possessor > possessum), the use of multiple definite articles and genitive case marking on the possessor. Acquisition data have shown that these properties are acquired in an incremental way. The unmarked word order (possessum > possessor) emerges prior to the word order involving focalisation (possessor > possessum), definite articles preceding the possessor are acquired at Stage II and genitive marking on the possessor is acquired no earlier than at Stage III. Incremental acquisition of the properties of the possessive construction is relevant for both acquisition theory and linguistic theory. With respect to acquisition theory, the developmental pattern attested shows that the acquisition process is not random but influenced by markedness constraints. As far as linguistic theory is concerned, incremental acquisition of the possessive construction supports a minimalist view of the language faculty rather than a language faculty as described within the Principles and Parameters Theory.
Notes . > means prior to, e.g. possessum > possessor means possessum prior to possessor.
Chapter 5 . Horrocks & Stavrou attribute following characteristics to focalisation in both the clausal and nominal domain: (i)
the process is not ‘relation-dependent’, e.g. any maximal projection may appear in the initial position (ii) the movements involved have the appearance of being unbound, leaving behind a ‘gap’, (iii) the trace is case-marked, there is no question of case being assigned directly to the displaced constituents, given the variety of grammatical functions they may bear. (Horrocks & Stavrou 1987: 87) . However, this idea is not compatible with current views on case checking of NPcomplements involving movement to Spec,NP and Spec,DP or base generation in Spec,NP and movement to Spec,DP (e.g. see the analyses of Bhatt (1990), Lindauer (1995), Johnson et al. (1996) for the possessive construction in German, which argue that the possessor is generated in Spec,NP and moves to Spec,DP when no determiners are present). But for arguments in favor of the non-thematic status of Spec,NP in MG see Alexiadou & Stavrou (1998: 110–111, Note 12). . It should be noted that N-Movement to Agr0 does not occur only in the possessive construction; it is a movement that all nouns undergo, in order to check their number feature. . Note that in this system there is no distinction between A- and A’-Movement (Chomsky 2001: 8, Note 30). . The possessive pronoun is not only used by Janna, but by Spiros, Maria and Mairi as well, i.e. children express possession both with the possessive construction consisting of full DPs and with possessive pronouns. Janna, however, prefers to use possessive pronouns (tokens of possessive constructions with full DPs vs. tokens with possessive pronouns = 4/99). Christos, on the other hand, does not use any possessive pronouns until the age of 2;1.2. . Brackets indicate optionality of the definite article.
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Chapter 6
The acquisition of Determiner Spreading
This chapter is concerned with the acquisition of Determiner Spreading. Determiner Spreading (DS hereafter) is a type of adjectival modification that is attested only in MG. This construction involves multiple definite articles that precede the noun and the adjectives that modify the noun. In the presence of multiple definite articles, free word order within the DP obtains. Recently, a lot of theoretical research has been carried out on the structure of DS. However, there are no acquisition studies on this phenomenon. Hence, one of the main goals of this chapter is to describe the developmental sequence of the acquisition of this construction. The acquisition of DS is interesting because it can show when language specific knowledge is acquired, that is the use of multiple definite articles and free word order within the DP in MG. Additionally, the acquisition of multiple definite articles in DS can be compared to the acquisition of multiple definite articles in the possessive construction (see Chapter 5). This can show whether multiple definite articles are acquired at the same stage in a set of different constructions. Finally, as DS involves movement, it can provide evidence as to when children acquire EPP that imposes displacement. This chapter is organised as follows. The properties of DS are presented descriptively in Section 6.1. Section 6.2 is concerned with current analyses of DS. Data on the acquisition of DS is presented in Section 6.3 and it’s implications for language acquisition theories in Section 6.4. A summary of this chapter is provided in Section 6.5.
. The properties of Determiner Spreading DS is one type of adjectival modification. Attributive adjectives in MG are used pre-nominally, as shown in examples (1a) and (1b) below.
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Chapter 6
(1) a.
Aghorasa to meghalo spiti. bought the big house ‘I bought the big house.’ b. Aghorasa ena meghalo spiti. bought a/one big house ‘I bought a big house.’
Post-nominal adjectives are licit only in indefinite DPs, as in example (2a) below. They are illicit in definite DPs, as shown in example (2b) below. (2) a.
Aghorasa ena spiti meghalo. bought a/one house big ‘I bought a big house.’ b. *Aghorasa to spiti meghalo. bought the house big ‘I bought a big house.’
As this chapter focuses on the acquisition of DS, which is a type of adjectival modification that occurs only in definite DPs, the structure and acquisition of attributive adjectives with indefinite articles, as well as the pre- and postnominal position of attributive adjectives, will not be discussed further.1 The rest of this section will discuss the properties of DS. Those properties are based on the work of Androutsopoulou (1994; 1995), Alexiadou & Wilder (1998) and on my own intuitions. DS has the following properties: 1. Multiple definite articles precede every adjective that modifies the noun, as shown in example (3) below. (3) To meghalo to petrino to spiti. the big the stone-made the house ‘The big house, made of stone.’
2. In the presence of extra definite articles, more than one order of constituents of the nominal phrase is possible, as shown in examples (4a) to (4e) below. (4) a.
To the b. To the
meghalo big meghalo big
to the to the
petrino to spiti. stone-made the house spiti to petrino. house the stone-made
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The acquisition of Determiner Spreading
c.
To petrino to spiti to meghalo. the stone-made the house the big d. To spiti to meghalo to petrino. the house the big the stone-made e. To spiti to petrino to meghalo. the house the stone-made the big ‘The big house, made of stone.’
3. In the absence of extra definite articles, the order of constituents is rigid, as shown in example (5a) versus (5b) below. (5) a.
To meghalo petrino spiti. the big stone-made house b. *To spiti meghalo petrino. the house big stone-made ‘The big house, made of stone.’
4. In the presence of some but not all possible definite articles, word order variation is restricted: ungrammaticality obtains in examples (6a) and (6b) below, in which the noun precedes adjectives which are not preceded by a definite article. (6) a. *To spiti meghalo to petrino. the house big the stone-made b. *To spiti to meghalo petrino. the house the big stone-made ‘The big house, made of stone.’
5. The noun can be used without an extra definite article, when it does not precede the adjectives, as shown in example (7a) below, and when it is in a medial position (i.e. when it precedes some but not all adjectives) and the adjectives are preceded by extra definite articles, as in example (7b) below. (7) a.
To meghalo to petrino spiti. the big the stone-made house b. To meghalo spiti to petrino. the big house the stone-made ‘The big house, made of stone.’
6. DS occurs only in definite nominal phrases. The indefinite determiner may appear only once within the same nominal phrase, as shown in examples (8a) and (8b) below.
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Chapter 6
(8) a.
Ena meghalo petrino spiti. a big stone-made house b. *Ena meghalo ena petrino ena spiti. a big a stone-made a house ‘A big house, made of stone.’
Nevertheless, word order variation is possible in indefinite noun phrases as with DS. This is illustrated in examples (9a)–(9e) below. (9) a.
Ena meghalo petrino spiti. a/one big stone-made house b. Ena meghalo spiti petrino. a/one big house stone-made c. Ena petrino spiti meghalo. a/one stone-made house big d. Ena spiti meghalo petrino. a/one house big stone-made e. Ena spiti petrino meghalo. a/one house stone-made big ‘A big house, made of stone.’
7. Finally, as Kolliakou (1998) notes, adjectival modification involving DS is not semantically identical to adjectival modification with a single definite article. Adjectives with a single definite article may have either a restrictive or a non-restrictive interpretation; DS on the other hand, has only a restrictive reading, i.e. DS ‘‘narrows down’ a given pool of referents by picking out a proper subset of it’ (Kolliakou 1998: 4).2 This is shown in examples (10a) vs. (10b) below. (10) a.
O dhiefthindis dhilose oti i ikani erevnites the director declared that the competent researchers tha eprepe n’ apolithun. prt-fut should prt-subj fired. ‘The director declared that the competent researchers should be fired.’ (restrictive and non-restrictive meaning) b. O dhiefthindis dhilose oti i ikani i erevnites the director declared that the competent the researchers tha eprepe n’ apolithun. prt-fut should prt-subj fired ‘The director declared that the competent researchers should be fired.’ (only restrictive meaning) (Kolliakou 1998: 5)
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The acquisition of Determiner Spreading
Example (10a) above, which involves a single definite article, may have two interpretations: a non-restrictive interpretation and a restrictive one. In the non-restrictive interpretation we have information about only one group of researchers, those who are competent and should be fired (possibly due to financial difficulties of the company). There are no clues as to whether there is another group of researchers who should not be fired. In the restrictive interpretation, on the other hand, the competent researchers are singled out from a bigger group of researchers and only the competent ones should be fired (maybe because they have some secret plan against the company). In the restrictive interpretation it is implied that other researchers (who are not competent and are, therefore, not dangerous to the company) should not be fired. In (10a) above prosody disambiguates between the two interpretations. If the adjective is accented we get the restrictive interpretation; if the accent is on the noun we get the non-restrictive one. Example (10b) above, on the other hand, allows only for the restrictive interpretation. Thus, DS is felicitous in only a subset of the contexts of adjectival modification involving single definite articles. The main syntactic analyses of this phenomenon will be presented in the next section.
. Syntactic analyses of DS Currently there are three main analyses of the phenomenon of DS within the generative framework:3 two by Androutsopoulou (1994; 1995) and the third by Alexiadou & Wilder (1998). Section 6.2.1 is concerned with the analyses of Androutsopoulou (1994; 1995) and Section 6.2.2 with Alexiadou & Wilder’s (1998) analysis. Section 6.2.3 presents the analysis adopted in this book, which is a modification of Alexiadou & Wilder’s analysis and is based in Chomsky’s (2001) framework. .. Androutsopoulou (1994; 1995) According to Androutsopoulou (1994), the extra definite articles in the structure of DS are spell-outs of the feature [+def], for definiteness. The feature [+def] in this analysis is not a semantic feature, but a syntactic one. Extra definite articles are expletive elements in the spirit of Stowell (1989; 1991), Vergnaud & Zubizarreta (1992) and Longobardi (1994), i.e. they have no semantic import and cannot be claimed to be spell-outs of a semantic feature.
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Chapter 6
Androutsopoulou (1994) assumes a DP structure similar to that of Abney (1987), with adjectives as heads projecting within the extended projection of the NP. Every definite article heads its own functional projection, called DefinitePhrase (DEFP), as shown in example (11) below. DEFPs are agreement projections that host agreement features and the [+def] feature. However, they do not correspond to an agreement projection within the nominal domain, such as the one proposed by Karanassios (1990), Stavrou (1996) and Alexiadou & Stavrou (1997) (see Chapter 3). Although DEFPs host the feature [+def], the locus of definiteness and referentiality is D and not the heads of DEFPs. (11)
DP D’ D to
AP1 A1 meghalo
DEFP1 DEF1 (to)
AP2 A2 petrino
the
big
DEFP2 DEF2
NP
(to)
spiti
the stone-made the
house
‘The big house, made of stone.’
In this analysis the availability of the different orders in the structure of DS is due to the movement of DEFPs to the specifiers of higher DEFPs. This movement is motivated for checking of the [+def] feature, proceeds in a cyclic fashion, and may take place either overtly or covertly. The former possibility gives rise the various word orders. The DP-layer is in this analysis relevant for definiteness checking either in overt syntax or at LF. The possible movements in a structure like (11) above and the corresponding permutations are illustrated in (12) and (13) below.
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The acquisition of Determiner Spreading
(12) a. movement of DEFP1 to Spec,DP b. movement of DEFP2 to Spec,DEFP1 c. movement of DEFP2 to Spec,DEFP1 , and subsequently movement of DEFP1 to Spec,DP (pied-piping) d. movement of DEFP2 to Spec,DEFP1 , and subsequently movement of DEFP2 to Spec,DP (13) a.
To petrino to spiti to meghalo. the stone-made the house the big b. To meghalo to spiti to petrino. the big the house the stone-made to meghalo. c. To spiti to petrino the house the stone-made the big d. To spiti to meghalo to petrino. the house the big the stone-made ‘The big house, made of stone.’
Since the feature [+def] is not a semantic feature, DS is a case of semantically vacuous movement. The type of movement is characterised as scrambling, which is related to the specificity of the scrambled constituent, which is in turn related to the movement of the constituent through an agreement projection. The position in which the definite article is generated and the motivation of the movement of DEFPs is slightly different in Androutsopoulou (1995). In this analysis, all definite determiners are generated as heads of DEFPs and D0 is empty, as shown in (14) below. In order for the definite determiner to acquire its semantic force, it has to move overtly or covertly to D0 . (14) [DP [DEFP0 to [AP1 meghalo [DEFP1 to [AP2 petrino [DEFP2 to[NP the big the stone-made the spiti]]]]]]] house ‘The big house, made of stone.’
Movement in this analysis is parallel to Androutsopoulou (1994), the difference being that DEFPs do not move ultimately to Spec DP, but to the highest Spec,DEFP. The proposed movement is motivated for the need of checking of one feature encoded in DEF. Androutsopoulou (1995) does not explicitly mention which feature triggers movement of the DEFP to the specifier of a higher DEFP. Such a feature, however, is not assumed to be deleted after checking since the movement is cyclic. Moreover, the possibility of pied-piping seems to indicate
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Chapter 6
that the relevant feature is not deleted from the head of the functional projection in which the checking takes place. Androutsopoulou concludes that under minimalist assumptions, DS should be a PF phenomenon. As the feature that triggers movement is not deleted after checking, she suggests that it must be a semantic feature and the movement should be driven for checking the θidentification relation (cf. Higginbotham 1985) holding between an adjective and the noun it modifies. Although the analyses of Androutsopoulou (1994; 1995) describe the phenomenon of DS adequately, both suffer from several conceptual and empirical drawbacks, which will be discussed in turn. Firstly, at the conceptual level, a crucial role in Androutsopoulou (1994) is played by the feature [+def], which is a syntactic and not a semantic feature. However, definiteness has also a semantic correlate. If this feature is not related to the semantics of definiteness, but is relevant only for the movement of a sub-constituent of the DP, it is not clear, a) why it should be called [+def] and b) why the definite article should be the spell-out of this feature, since definite articles do contribute to the definiteness of the DP. Another problem in this analysis is that DEFPs are always present in the presence of extra definite articles and movement triggered by the feature [+def] may be overt or covert. However, there is no principled way to define which type of movement should take place when, since the trigger for both types of movement is the same, i.e. checking of the feature [+def]. In Androutsopoulou (1995: 26), the trigger for movement in DS is checking of a semantic feature: ‘I want to suggest that the motivation of the proposed movement is indeed of semantic nature, and that it is the need for checking the θ-identification relation (Higginbotham 1985) that holds between an adjective (of the sort I deal with here, affirmative in the sense of Kamp 1975) and the noun it modifies that drives the movement’ (Androutsopoulou 1995: 26). Under this assumption, we would expect the movement observed in DS structures to be obligatory, since the formal requirement of θ-identification is not optional. However, this is not true, as movement in DS is optional. At the empirical level, Androutsopoulou’s analyses make clear predictions about which word orders are possible in MG and which are not. Nevertheless, some of these predictions do not hold:
Prediction 1 Adjectives shall not be pre-posed independently of the noun that follows them. In a sentence, like (15a) below, movement of the DEFP2 to Spec,DEFP1 , should pied-pipe DEFP3 , as shown in example (15b) below.
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The acquisition of Determiner Spreading
(15) a.
[DEFP1 to [AP1 meghalo [DEFP2 to [AP2 petrino [DEFP3 to [NP the big the stone-made the spiti]]]]]] house b. [DEFP1 [DEFP2 to [AP1 petrino [DEFP3 to [NP spiti]]]]i to [AP2 the stone-made the house the meghalo ti ]] big ‘The big house, made of stone.’
Another possibility is for DEFP3 to move to SpecDEFP2 , as shown in example (16a) below and consequently DEFP2 to move to SpecDEFP1 , pied-piping DEFP3 , as illustrated in example (16b) below. (16) a.
[DEFP1 to [AP1 meghalo [DEFP2 [DEFP3 to [NP spiti]]i to [AP2 the big the house the petrino t i ]]]] stone-made b. [DEFP1 [DEFP2 [DEFP3 to [NP spiti]]i to [AP2 petrino ti ]]j to[AP1 the house the stone-made the meghalo tj ]] big ‘The big house, made of stone.’
However, it should not be possible for DEFP2 to move to SpecDEFP1 , leaving DEFP3 behind, as in (17). This is predicted to be ungrammatical, because DEFP2 and DEFP3 form a constituent and DEFP2 c-commands DEFP3 . However, contra to this prediction, this sentence is fully grammatical. (17) To petrino to meghalo to spiti. The stone-made the big the house ‘The big house, made of stone.’
Prediction 2 A second empirical problem of this analysis involves the presence of some but not all possible definite articles. This should be disallowed in this analysis of DS. This is predicted from the fact that the presence of an overt [+def] feature requires the DEFP to move to the specifier of the next higher DEFP, in order to check its [+def] feature. If an intermediate DEFP does not have a definite determiner, the lower DEFP cannot move to its specifier. Movement of a DEFP
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Chapter 6
to the specifier of the next higher DEFP is only allowed, if both DEFPs share the feature [+def], so that feature checking can take place. This predicts that a DP as in example (18) below should be ungrammatical because DEFP3 has moved to Spec,DEFP2 although DEFP2 does not have the feature [+def], i.e. there is movement that is not driven by feature checking. (18) [DEFP1 to [AP1 meghalo [DEFP2 [DEFP3 [NP spiti]]i to [AP2 petrino ti ]]]] the big spiti the stone-made ‘The big house, made of stone.’
However, (18) above is fully grammatical. According to Androutsopoulou, this example is ungrammatical with an attributive interpretation, but grammatical with a predicative interpretation, in which the adjective can be paraphrased with a relative clause. But DS permutations involving movement of the noun have a predicative ‘flavour’ anyway, as also noted by Stavrou (1996). DS is indeed not restricted to an attributive interpretation of the adjectives; on the contrary, adjectives with a predicative reading are always compatible with DS. The same does not hold for adjectives that have only an attributive reading, as we will see in the next section. This fact has already been discussed by Alexiadou & Wilder (1998) and shows that the claim of Androutsopoulou that DS involves only attributive interpretation of adjectives is not valid. The next section is concerned with the third analysis of DS, namely the one by Alexiadou & Wilder. .. Alexiadou & Wilder (1998) Alexiadou & Wilder base their analysis on Kayne’s (1994) analysis of adjective modification as reduced relative clauses (RCs hereafter). According to Kayne (1994: 87), full RCs are analysed as clauses which are complements of a determiner, as shown in (19a) below. The ‘nominal’ head of the RC originates inside the RC and raises to Spec,CP. In this way it gets associated with the external determiner, as shown in (19b) and (19c) below. (19) a. [DP D0 CP] b. [DP D [CP DPj [ C0 [IP . . . tj . . . ]]]] c. the [NP picture ] [ that [ Bill saw [e]]]]
(Kayne 1994: 87) (Alexiadou & Wilder 1998) (Kayne 1994: 87)
The structure of reduced RCs is similar to the one of full RCs, with adjectives functioning as predicates, as shown in (20a) below. Attributive adjectives can be generated in a parallel fashion to reduced RCs, as predicates which move
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to Spec,CP resulting the sequence D-Adj-N, as shown in (20b) below. In this analysis, DP and AP stand in a subject-predicate configuration. (20) a. [DP D [CP [IP DP AP]]] (Alexiadou & Wilder 1997) (Kayne 1994: 101) b. the [CP [XP yellowj, ] [C0 [IP [book] [I0 [e]j
Extending Kayne’s analysis of reduced RCs, Alexiadou & Wilder analyse APs as full clauses with a CP and an IP projection; each subject DP stands in the specifier of the relevant IP, as already shown in (20b) above. The abstract structure of this system is illustrated in (21a) below. In this example, the AP is the predicate of a CP, CP being the complement of D. α represents the nominal subject of AP. Recursion involved in stacked APs can be represented by replacing α with the DP structure in (21a), resulting in the structure illustrated in (21b) below. (21) a. [DP D [CP α AP]] b. [DP1 D1 [CP1 [DP2 D2 [CP2 [DP3 D3 [CP3 α AP3 ]] AP2 ]] AP1 ]]
This analysis predicts that each adjective will be accompanied by its own determiner, a prediction which fits very well with the phenomenon of DS. The base order, given in (22a) below, does not correspond to any surface word order. The surface serialisation results through movement of the predicates (APs) to the Spec,CP position of each clause (predicate raising), i.e. AP1 to Spec,CP1 , AP2 to Spec,CP2 , etc., as shown in (22b) below. Movement of APs to Spec,CPs is an obligatory movement, which is driven by a strong A-feature of C that attracts the AP to Spec,CP. Spec,CP is an A’-Position and movement to SpecCP is an instance of A’-Movement. (22) a.
[DP3 to1 [CP1 [DP2 to2 [CP2 [DP3 to3 spiti] [AP2 the the the house meghalo]]] big b. [DP3 to1 [CP1 [AP1 meghalo]i [DP2 to2 [CP2 [AP2 the big the spiti] tj ]] ti ]] house ‘The big house, made of stone.’
petrino]]][AP1 stone-made
petrino]j [DP3 to3 stone-made the
The other possible permutations, corresponding to the derived ones, are the result of raising of DPs to the specifier position of higher DPs. DP movement to a higher Spec,DP is an optional movement driven by a strong D-feature of D. Determiners optionally acquire a D-feature. This movement is, thus, optional.
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Spec,DP is an A’-Position. Movement to Spec,DP is, also A’-Movement. This instance of movement is illustrated in examples (23a)–(23e) below. [DP1 to1 [CP1 [AP1 meghalo]i [DP2 [DP3 to3 spiti]k to2 [CP2 [AP2 the big the house the petrino]j tk tj]] ti ]] stone-made b. [DP1 [DP3 to3 spiti]k to1 [CP1 [AP1 meghalo]i [DP2 tk to2 [CP2 [AP2 the house the big the petrino]j tk tj]] ti ]] stone-made c. [DP1 [DP2 to2 [CP2 [AP2 petrino]j [DP3 to3 spiti] tj ]] ti ]]l to1 [CP1 [AP1 the stone-made the house the meghalo]i tl big d. [DP1 to1 [CP1 [AP1 meghalo]i [DP2 [DP3 to3 spiti]k to2 [CP2 [AP2 the big the house the petrino]j tk tj]] ti ]] stone-made e. [DP1 [DP2 [DP3 to3 spiti]k to2 [CP2 [AP2 petrino]j tk tj ]] m to1 [CP1 [AP1 the house the stone-made the meghalo]i tm ti ]] big ‘The big house, made of stone.’
(23) a.
In (23a) above DP3 moves to Spec,DP2 . Cyclic movement takes place in (23b) above, in which DP3 moves first to Spec,DP2 and consequently to Spec,DP1 . In (23c) above DP2 moves to Spec,DP1 pied-piping DP3 . In the last permutation, DP3 moves to Spec,DP2 , as in (23d) above and then DP2 moves to the Spec,DP1 pied-piping DP3 , as shown in (23e) above. One further feature of the analysis of Alexiadou & Wilder is the availability of different orders of the merging operation. Consider example (24) below. (24) To petrino to meghalo to spiti. the stone-made the big the house ‘The big house, made of stone.’
Example (24) above cannot be captured in Alexiadou & Wilder’s analysis,4 if the sequence of the merging operations results in a base structure such as the one in (22a) above, and repeated below as (25).
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(25) [DP3 to1 [CP1 [DP2 to2 [CP2 [DP3 to3 spiti] [AP2 petrino]]][AP1 the the the house stone-made meghalo]]] big
In this sentence, DP2 = to petrino = the stone-made should move to the Spec,DP1 , without pied-piping DP3 . However, it is not possible for DP2 to move without pied-piping DP3 , since DP3 and DP2 form a constituent. Alexiadou & Wilder treat (24) above as syntactically well-formed but ungrammatical in the unmarked reading. However, it is not clear what that means. This example is derived from the same numeration as the examples above, i.e. (22) and (23). According to Alexiadou & Wilder, however, it is derived through a different sequence of merge operations, as shown in (26) below. (26) [DP3 to1 [CP1 [DP2 to2 [CP2 [DP3 to3 spiti] [AP2 meghalo]]][AP1 the the the house big petrino]]] stone-made
In example (26) above, DP3 to spiti is merged first with meghalo = big and then with petrino = stone-made. Therefore, it also has a different interpretative route than (22)–(23) above. Example (26) picks out from the set of big houses, the house which is made of stones. Examples (22)–(23) above, on the other hand, specify from the subset of houses made of stone, the house which is big. The source of the marked reading is not a syntactic one, but the result of the cognitive hierarchy of Sproat & Shih (1988).5 Example (24) above is then derived as in the previous examples, through movement of the APs to Spec,CPs, illustrated in (27) below. (27) [DP1 to1 [CP1 [AP1 petrino]i [DP2 to2 [CP2 [AP2 meghalo]j [DP3 to3 the stone-made the big the spiti] tj ] ti ] ]] house
.. The analysis adopted in this book In this book, I adopt the analysis of DS as Determiner Complementation put forward by Alexiadou & Wilder. However, I will make some modifications to their analysis in order to dispense with the stipulation of an optional D-feature
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that drives the movement of DPs to the specifier position of higher DPs and in order to update the analysis into Chomsky’s (2001) framework. Movement of the DP to the specifier of a higher DP in the Determiner Complementation approach of Alexiadou & Wilder is driven by an optional strong D-feature in D. Postulating an optional strong D-feature is conceptually not very appealing because the problem of motivating the movement is not solved, as it is not clear when D-features are strong and when they are weak. This question has not been addressed by Alexiadou & Wilder. Moreover, it is not clear why D-features should trigger a movement which is related to focalisation. Under the assumptions that: 1. Spec,DP is an operator position, in which elements can be moved to as an instance of focus (cf. Giusti (1997), Horrocks & Stavrou (1987) for MG and Szabolcsi (1994) for Hungarian), and 2. A’-Movement is driven by P-features of the peripheral system (focus, topic, etc.) (see Chomsky 1998: 22). I have claimed elsewhere (Marinis 2002b) that movement of the DP to a higher Spec,DP is the result of a focus feature, which comes into the numeration only when focus is intended. This analysis dispenses with the stipulation of a strong D feature. Moreover, this is a type of movement that holds each time focalisation is involved. If we translate this analysis into Chomsky’s (2001) framework, some modifications have to be made. In this system, movement results from the presence of an EPP on an uninterpretable feature. Consequently, both movements in DS, that is movement of the predicates (APs) to the specifier of the CP and also movement of the DPs to the specifiers of higher DPs have to be the result of an EPP feature on an uninterpretable feature of C0 and D0 respectively. The second movement is similar to movement in the possessive construction involving focalisation of the possessor, as shown in Chapter 5. This final issue is important, as data on the acquisition of DS can show whether this type of movement is acquired at the same time with movement in the possessive construction involving focalisation. Finally, for simplicity reasons I will not refer to all three functional layers of the DP (see Chapter 3), but only to the DP layer, as movement to Spec,DP is relevant for DS.
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. Acquiring Determiner Spreading This section provides data on the acquisition of DS. The focus will be on the emergence of DS and on the availability of the two possible word orders in child speech. As the analysis adopted in the study involves a CP within the DP, the data on the acquisition of DS will be compared with data on the acquisition of the CP in the clausal domain. Moreover, as DS involves multiple use of definite articles and movement to the specifier of the DP, the data on the acquisition of DS will be compared with data on the acquisition of definite articles and the possessive construction. Finally, as DS is also possible with pronouns, data on DS with contrastive pronouns and errors of overgeneralisation of DS with demonstratives will be presented at the end of this section. All the children who took part in this study started to use adjectives very early. However, as DS is an optional construction, instances of DS are not attested in all of the children’s speech. .. The emergence of DS Christos uses adjectives from the very first recording, i.e. at the age of 1;7.11. At that age adjectives occur only in one-word-utterances. The first use of DS in his speech is found eight months later, at the age of 2;3.21 when Christos is at Stage II with a MLU above 2.0 and below 2.5. In the same recording, there are two utterances involving DS, which are shown in (28) and (29) below. (28) Child: Ta kani bu to palio to Bede. prt-fut do bu the old the Mercedes ‘The old Mercedes will fall down.’
(Christos 2;3.21)
(29) Child: To xxx to puli to meghalo o Pitsos. (Chr. 2;3.21) to xxx to puli to meghalo o Christos (target) the xxx the bird the big the Christos ‘Christos should/will xxx the big bird.’
These two examples represent the two word orders of DS, D-A-D-N and DN-D-A. Thus, both types of DS are attested from the recording in which DS emerges in Christos’ speech as shown below in Table 6.1. In Table 6.1 we also see that the same pattern emerges in the speech of the other two children, that make use of DS, Mairi and Maria. Mairi uses adjectives from the age of 1;9.19 onwards. However, the first instances of DS in her speech are found at the age of 2;9.15, as shown in examples (30) and (31) below.
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Table 6.1. Emergence of DS
Christos Mairi Maria
D-A-D-N
D-N-D-A
2;3.21 [N = 20] 2;9.15 [N = 1] 2;9.12 [N = 1]
2;3.21 [N = 8] 2;9.15 [N = 1] 2;9.12 [N = 1]
(30) Child: O mik(r)os o likos pu ine? the small the wolf where is ‘Where is the small wolf?’
(Mairi 2;9.15)
(31) Child: O likos o mik(r)os pu ine? the wolf the small where is ‘Where is the small wolf?’
(Mairi 2;9.15)
In this recording, Mairi is at Stage III, that is her MLU is above 2.5 and below 3. As in Christos’ speech, these examples involve both types of DS. Example (30) is an instance of D-A-D-N and example (31) above has the D-N-D-A word order. A similar development is attested in Maria’s speech. Adjectives are found in her speech from the first recording in the corpus – at the age of 2;3.9. However, DS appears much later in her speech, at the age of 2;9.12.6 Consider examples (32) and (33) below. (32) Child: Thelo na pao athino to to kabine to athino. (Maria) thelo na pao s-ton kabine ton alithino (target) want prt-subj go true the to-the toilet the true ‘I want to go to the real bathroom.’ (33) Child: Ke a vro ke ton meghao ton liko. (Maria 1;9.13) ke tha vro ke ton meghalo to liko (target-utterance) and prt-fut find and the big the wolf ‘And I will find the big wolf.’
In example (32) above, Maria makes a self-repair in the middle of the DS. She starts with DS involving the word order D-A-D-N and then she corrects herself by using DS with the word order D-N-D-A (to kabine to athino = the toilet the true = ‘the true toilet’). Following Stephany (1997: 266), I take the self-repair in example (32) above to provide evidence for the availability of both possibilities in the speech of Maria.7 In this example Maria is at Stage IV with a MLU above 3.0. The number of utterances involving DS in Mairi and Maria’s speech is very low. This is not the case with Christos, whose corpus is considerably larger. If
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we take into consideration the optionality of this construction, it is not possible to exclude the fact that the children could have been using the structure of DS before we find it in the corpus. Nevertheless, the presence of this construction indicates that the children are able to construct this structure at the time when they appear in the corpus. To summarise this section, DS emerges in the speech of Christos, Mairi and Maria later than the first use of adjectives. Importantly, in all the children’s speech both word orders emerge at the same recording. The number of utterances involving DS is very low for Mairi and Maria. However, given the optionality of this structure, Christos uses a considerable number of DPs involving DS. In the children under investigation, DS is attested not earlier than at Stage II. .. DS compared to other structures involving the CP and the DP layer As DS involves the use of multiple definite articles, it should emerge after children start to use definite articles productively. In Chapter 3 we saw evidence for a productive use of definite articles at the age of 2;0 in Christos’ speech, at the age of 1;9 in Mairi’s speech and at the age of 2;3 in Maria’s speech. This is illustrated in Table 6.2 below. Table 6.2 shows that DS emerges after the productive use of definite articles, which is the expected acquisition sequence. Moreover, out of all the utterances involving DS in Christos’ speech, there is only one in which a definite article is missing, as shown in (34) below. (34) Child: Thelo nero. want water ‘I want water.’ Adult: Apo to meghalo potiri? ‘From the big glass?’ Child: Apo to potiri meghalo. apo to potiri to meghalo from the glass the big ‘From the big glass.’
(Christos 2;8.18)
In this example, which comes from Stage III, the definite article preceding the noun is retained, while the one preceding the adjective is missing. As there is only a single one utterance with a missing definite article, this error is very likely to be attributed to performance reasons rather than to structural reasons.
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Table 6.2. DS vs. productive use of definite articles DS Christos Mairi Maria
2;3 2;9 2;9
definite articles 2;0 1;9 2;3
As the structure of DS involves the availability of the CP layer, the next question is whether the CP layer is available in the clausal domain prior or simultaneously to the CP layer in DS. Evidence for the availability of the CP layer can be provided from the emergence of wh-movement. When do wh-words and wh-movement emerge in the speech of the children who use DS? The first wh-word attested in Christos’ speech appears at the age of 1;8.21 the wh-word ti = what, as shown in example (35) below. (35) Child: Ti ’ne? what is ‘What is it?’
(Christos 1;8.21)
In this recording, Christos repeats the same question several times and he uses the wh-word ti = ‘what’ fused with the copula ine = ‘is’. Moreover, he uses this wh-word only with the copula, i.e. with no other verbs and he does not use any other wh-words. Therefore, it is very likely that the question ti ’ne = ‘what is it’ represents an unanalysed chunk. At the age of 1;10.1, there is one instance of the wh-word pu = ‘where’, at the age of 1;11.19 one instance of the wh-word pchio = ‘which’ and at the age of 2;0.15 one utterance involving the wh-word ‘pu = where’, with the whword fused with the copula, as in example (35) above. These utterances can in no way provide evidence for the availability of wh-movement in the speech of Christos, as the wh-words are used either in isolation or fused with a verb. Note that here Christos is still at Stage I, that is his MLU is below 2.0. Evidence for a more productive use of wh-words and wh-questions comes at the age of 2;1.14, when Christos uses the wh-word ti = ‘what’ in two utterances, once in isolation and crucially once in the wh-question given in (36) below. (36) Child: Ti kani [. . . ] o Picioch? ti kani o Christos what does the Christos ‘What does Christos do?’
(Christos 2;1.14)
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As this utterance includes a verb and the subject, it suggests that wh-movement has taken place. Additionally, at the age of 2;2.18, Christos uses for the first time the wh-word ghiati = ‘why’ in three utterances with the verb kleo = ‘cry’, referring to a seal which was wet, as shown in the dialogue in (37) below. Since the verb is used with different person marking and the utterances are not identical to one another, this provides unambiguous evidence that these are not instances of unanalysed chunks. (37) Child: Ghiati klei (af)ti? why cries-3sg this ‘Why is she crying?’ Child: Ghiati kles? ghiati klei (target-utterance) why cry-2sg ‘Why are you crying?’ Adult: Dden klei. Vreghmeni ine. not cries wet is ‘She is not crying. She is wet.’
(Christos 2;2.18)
Finally, at the age of 2;3.18, Christos uses the wh-word ti = ‘what’ with the copula ime = ‘be’ and exo = ‘have’ and in the next recording, at 2;3.21, with the verb kano = ‘do’. The use of this wh-word with several verbs provides unequivocal evidence for its productive use. At the age of 2;3, Christos is at Stage II in his development. His MLU is over 2.0 and he uses definite articles productively. As Stephany mentions, by 1;10 in her corpus, ‘children already use yes/no questions as well as interrogative sentences introduced by an interrogative pronoun or adverb’ (Stephany 1997: 313). At the age of 1;9, Mairi uses whquestions with the wh-word ti = ‘what’ and pu = ‘where’ productively. Consider example (38) below. (38) Child: Pu tha to valume? where prt-fut it put ‘Where are we going to put it?’
(Mairi 1;9.17)
Note that at this age, Mairi is already at Stage II, that is at the same stage in which Christos also shows evidence of wh-movement. Maria uses wh-questions with the wh-word pu = ‘where’, ghiati = ‘why’ and ti = ‘what’ from the first recording available in the corpus, that is at the age of 2;3.9, as illustrated in example (39) below.
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(39) Child: Ato pu pai? afto pu pai (target-utterance) this where goes ‘Where does this go¿
(Maria 2;3.9)
Maria is already at Stage III, as her MLU is over 2.5. The relation between the first use of DS and the use of wh-questions in the speech of the children under investigation is shown in Table 6.3 below. Table 6.3 shows that DS emerges in all of the children’s speech later than wh-movement. This shows that availability of the CP in the clausal domain does not entail that children will use CPs also in the nominal domain. However, from the data analysed in this study it is not possible to make a strong claim for the sequence of the availability of the CP layer in these two domains. The reason is that DS is an optional construction. It is possible that children use this construction before it appears in the corpora. Further research with elicitation techniques has to be conducted in order to clarify this issue. The next issue to discuss is the emergence of DS involving the word order D-N-D-A in relation to the possessive construction involving focalisation. This is of interest, as both constructions involve movement to the specifier of the DP. If this type of movement is available to the child we would expect children to start using both constructions approximately at the same time. As already shown in Chapter 5, the word order possessor > possessum emerges in Christos’ speech at the age of 2;0. This is prior to the emergence of DS. However, the complete possessive construction (involving multiple definite articles) appears for the first time at the age of 2;2 and with the word order possessor > possessum four months later, at the age of 2;6. This shows that multiple definite articles emerge in Christos’ speech in both the possessive construction and in DS approximately at the same time and at the same developmental stage (Stage II). Moreover, although movement to the specifier of the DP in the possessive construction is attested slightly earlier than in DS, this is at the same developmental stage. This is once more what we expected if the availability of movement to the specifier of the DP and the use of multiple definite articles are general properties of MG that manifest in different conTable 6.3. First use of DS vs. use of wh-movement DS Christos Mairi Maria
2;3 2;9 2;9
wh- movement 2;1 1;9 2;3
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Table 6.4. First use of DS vs. the order Possessor > Possessum DS Christos Mairi Maria
2;3 2;9 2;9
Possessor > Possessum 2;0 2;9 2;9
structions, such as the possessive construction and DS. At the stage in which children have the knowledge of these properties of MG, they start using them in various constructions that require them. Further support comes from Mairi and Maria’s speech. In their data, the order Possessor > Possessum emerges simultaneously with DS involving movement to the specifier of the DP. This is illustrated in Table 6.4. To summarise this section, productive use of definite articles starts in the speech of all children prior to the emergence of DS. The same is true for whmovement within the clausal domain. The use of multiple definite articles is also attested in both the possessive construction and DS at the same developmental stage in the speech of all children. This shows that when children acquiring MG have the knowledge that MG involves the use of multiple definite articles and movement to the specifier of the DP, they start using both across different constructions, such as the possessive construction and DS. .. DS involving pronouns DS is also possible by using pronouns instead of adjectives. In Christos’ data there are some utterances that involve DS with the contrastive pronoun allos = ‘other’ and the demonstrative pronoun aftos = ‘this’. The contrastive pronoun allos = ‘other’ inflects like an adjective, and may be used between the definite article and the noun like adjectives do. However, its distribution is not identical to the distribution of adjectives, as shown in (40) below.8 (40) Aghorasa allo ena vivlio tu Radford. bought other one book the-gen Radford. ‘I bought one more book of Radford.’
Stephany (1997) reports that Janna and Mairi use the pronoun allos = ‘other’ with nouns for specific indefinite reference which is adult-like (see Stephany 1997: 261). At the age of 2;7.7, Christos uses DS with the pronoun allos = ‘other’ in the distribution of adjectives, which is grammatical in MG. The utterance involv-
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Chapter 6
ing this pronoun in DS is illustrated in the dialogue under (41) below, in which Christos and his mother are talking about several toys that represent mothers. (Christos 2;7.7) (41) Child: Pu ine i ali i mama? where is the other the mummy ‘Where is the other mummy?’ Adult: Pu in’ i ali i mama? where is the other the mummy ‘Where is the other mummy¿ Adult: Mesa ston kuva sto dhomatio su ine malon. inside in-the bucket in-the room your is probably ‘It is probably in your room in the bucket.’ Adult: Na ci’ afti i mama in’ edho cita sto here and this the mummy is here look in-the aeroDromio nati! airport here-it-is ‘Look and this mummy is here, look in the airport, here it is.’
The combination of an adjective and the pronoun allos = ‘other’ appears in 2;8.7. In example (42) below, Christos is talking about some other black colour. (42) Child: Pu ine i mavri i ali i boghia? where is the black the other the colour ‘Where is the other black colour?’
In this example, both the adjective and the pronoun precede the noun, i.e. DS does not involve movement to Spec,DP. However, the ordering of the adjective and the pronoun is not the unmarked one. The adjective, being a colour term, should be in the unmarked word order closest to the noun.9 In the same recording, we find another example of DS involving a pronoun. However, in this second example, which is illustrated in (43) below, Christos uses a demonstrative pronoun. (43) Child: . . . tha vatso tora to ble to afto to prt-fut paint now the blue the this the (Christos 2;8.7) palio.10 old ‘. . . now, I will paint this blue old one.’
This is ungrammatical in MG, as demonstrative pronouns do not have the same distribution as adjectives. Demonstratives may not be preceded by the definite article, but crucially, they must be obligatorily followed by the definite article, as shown in example (44) below.
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(44) Afto to vivlio. this the book ‘This book.’
Example (43) above shows that Christos overgeneralises the use of multiple definite articles. The position of the demonstrative pronoun is on a par with the position of the contrastive pronoun in (42) and also on a par with adjectives in DS.11 Non-target like use of demonstrative pronouns has been reported by Stephany (1997) and Marinis (1998; 1999). However, in the reported cases, children use demonstrative pronouns and omit the definite article, as shown in example (45). (45)
Ati tipa beni. this hole goes-in s’ afti tin tripa beni (target utterance) in this the hole goes-in ‘It goes into this hole.’
(Spiros 1;9.11)
Stephany analyses demonstratives as in example (45), as a loose syntactic construction, ‘in the midway between pronouns and determiners’, in which the noun is not determined by the demonstrative but rather functions as an apposition (Stephany 1997: 261). Marinis on the other hand, discusses these constructions from a learnability perspective, and traces the lack of definite articles to the triggering mechanism operative and possibly to a lack of a functional layer in the extended projection of the noun (see Marinis 1998: 182). To summarise, this section has shown that Christos uses DS not only with adjectives, but also with the contrastive pronoun allos = ‘other’, which is grammatical in MG. Additionally, he uses the demonstrative pronoun in the same distribution, which is not grammatical in the target language. This data shows that when Christos has the knowledge that MG involves the use of multiple definite articles, he makes use of them across the board and he even overgeneralises them in contexts that are inappropriate, that is with the demonstrative pronoun.
. Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory This chapter has shown that although children use adjectives from Stage I, DS does not emerge before Stage II, that is when children start using definite arti-
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Chapter 6
cles productively. Both possible word orders of DS (D-A-D-N and D-N-D-A) appear simultaneously. DS emerges at the same developmental stage with the possessive construction and Christos uses DS also with the contrastive pronoun. Interestingly, he overgeneralises the use of multiple definite articles with demonstratives, which can be taken as an indication of productivity of the use of multiple definite articles. The implications of these findings for acquisition theory and linguistic theory will be discussed in turn. We have seen thus far that the properties of the DP are acquired incrementally. This process starts at the beginning of Stage II and it is completed at the end of the same stage. As DS involves the use of multiple definite articles, DS is expected to emerge at Stage II. Moreover, both word orders are expected to emerge at the same stage if the DP is fully acquired by the end of this stage. These two predictions have been supported in Christos’ data. DS emerges at Stage II in his speech and both word orders are attested for the first time within the same recording session. The data for the other two children that make use of DS, Mairi and Maria, are quantitatively very low and due to the long gaps between the recordings it is difficult to define the point of emergence of DS in their speech. However, as with Christos, both word orders of DS appear simultaneously in their speech. What are the implications for acquisition theory? The use of multiple definite articles is a language specific property. If children have the knowledge that MG involves the use of multiple definite articles, the prediction is that they will use several constructions involving multiple definite articles approximately at the same time. This has been confirmed by the data. DS and the possessive construction involving multiple definite articles emerge at the same developmental stage in the speech of all three children. Additionally, Christos uses DS also with pronouns and overgeneralises the use of multiple definite articles with demonstratives. This indicates productivity in the use of multiple definite articles. This data shows that knowledge of a language specific property, such as the availability of multiple definite articles, triggers the emergence of several distinct constructions involving this property at the same developmental stage. Finally, the acquisition of DS provides interesting implications for linguistic theory. This is related to the simultaneous emergence of both word of DS. In the analysis adopted in this book, the word order D-A-D-N involves one movement, whereas the word order D-N-D-A involves two movements. Within the PPT, the two movements are of a different type, A and A’ movement. Consequently, the prediction deriving from this model is that the two word orders will emerge in different phases if the two types of movement (A and A’ move-
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The acquisition of Determiner Spreading
ment) are not acquired simultaneously. On the other hand, within the MP as in Chomsky (2001), the difference between A and A’ movement has been eliminated. Displacement is in both cases the result of EPP on an uninterpretable feature. This predicts that both word orders of DS will emerge simultaneously, if the machinery for displacement is available to the child. Hence, data on the acquisition of DS support a minimalist approach to the language faculty.
. Summary The present chapter has dealt with the acquisition of DS, which is a type of adjectival modification that is specific to MG and involves the use of multiple definite articles. In the presence of multiple definite articles more than one word order is possible. A prerequisite for the acquisition of DS is the productive use of definite articles and the availability of the CP. Acquisition data has shown that DS emerges when children start to use definite articles productively, that is not earlier than at Stage II. This provides additional evidence that the DP is acquired within Stage II. A comparison to the acquisition of the CP in the clausal domain has shown that DS emerges not before there is evidence for the CP within the clausal domain. As far as word order is concerned, both word orders of DS are attested simultaneously. Given that the minimalist approach unifies the trigger of displacement, this data can be better captured within a minimalist view of the language faculty than within the PPT. Finally, comparison of the acquisition of DS and the acquisition of the possessive construction has shown that both constructions emerge at the same developmental stage. This shows that knowledge of a language specific property (use of multiple definite articles) triggers the emergence of several constructions involving this property at the same developmental stage. Additional support for this comes form the use of DS with contrastive pronouns and from the overgeneralisation of multiple definite articles with demonstratives, which is ungrammatical in the target language.
Notes . For the analysis of attributive adjectives, see Horrocks & Stavrou (1986), Horrocks & Stavrou (1987), Karanassios (1990), Tredinnick (1992), Mouma (1994), Alexiadou & Stavrou (1997), (1998), (to appear). For the acquisition of attributive adjectives, see Stephany (1997: 266).
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Chapter 6 . But according to an anonymous reviewer, some Greek speakers do not share Kolliakou’s intuitions regarding the different interpretations of (10a) and (10b). As my intuitions are in agreement with the intuitions of Kolliakou, this issue will not be further discussed. . But see also Horrocks & Stavrou (1986) and Tredinnick (1992) for different analyses, which will not be discussed here. For the analysis of DS within the framework of HPSG, see Kolliakou (1998). . Note that this order could not be captured in the analysis of Androutsopoulou either. . Sproat & Shih (1988) observe strict ordering restrictions in prenominal adjectives in terms of semantic classes, which they interpret in terms of a cognitive hierarchy, as shown in (i). (i)
QUALITY>SIZE>SHAPE/COLOUR>PROVENANCE
Ordering of adjectives deviating from this pattern leads to ungrammaticality. . However, note that there were no recordings between 2;3 and 2;9 for Maria in the Stephany Corpus. . An anonymous reviewer commented that it is difficult to suggest on the basis of one example of self-repair that Maria has productive use of DS. It is true that on the basis of one example it is impossible to make any claims about productivity. This is the reason why the discussion focuses on the emergence of DS and not on its productive use. Taking the discussion about productivity aside, in my view this particular example of self-repair is very revealing of Maria’s capability to construct DS with the word order D-N-D-A. Initially she starts constructing a D-A-D-N word order omitting the initial definite article and in the process of correcting herself, she produces the D-N-D-A word order. Were she not able to use this word order, then she would have retreated to the D-A-D-N word order she started using on the first place. . For the distributional properties of allos = ‘other’, see Holton, Mackridge & PhilippakiWarburton (1999: 334–336). . For the order to adjectives, see Note 5. . Note that in example (43) Christos does not use a noun, something which is grammatical in MG. . An anonymous reviewer commented that example (43) is possibly a performance error and it does not indicate that Christos has not acquired the distributional properties of demonstratives. As there are no other utterances attested with the same type of error, this is a possibility. However, even so, this does not contradict the idea that Christos is overgeneralising the use of multiple definite articles in a context that this is illicit.
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Chapter 7
The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names
This chapter is concerned with the acquisition of two structures involving proper names and kinship terms that traditionally belong to the class of close appositions and are similar to English examples, such as King George VI (see Matthews 1981: 227). Relatively little work has been done on the structure of appositive constructions as opposed to the phenomena investigated in the last two chapters, namely the possessive construction and adjective modification. Consequently, one of the aims of this chapter is to discuss current analyses of these constructions in MG and to propose a new analysis that treats one type of appositive construction in the same way as Determiner Spreading. In addition, cross-linguistically very few, if any studies have been undertaken on the acquisition of appositive constructions. This chapter is, therefore, novel in that it presents acquisition data that is unique. As one of the appositive constructions under investigation involves the use of multiple definite articles, data on the acquisition of this construction will add to the discussion of the acquisition of multiple definite articles started in Chapter 5 and extended in Chapter 6. It can show whether this particular construction is acquired at the same developmental stage as other constructions involving multiple definite articles. Finally, as this construction involves movement, as in the acquisition of the possessive construction and Determiner Spreading, the acquisition of appositive constructions can elucidate as to when children acquire EPP that triggers displacement. This chapter is organized as follows. Section 6.1 is concerned with the properties of close appositions in MG. Analyses of appositive constructions in MG and the analysis that is adopted in this book are presented in Section 7.2. Section 7.3 presents data on the acquisition of appositive constructions. The implications of the acquisition data for acquisition theory and linguistic theory are discussed in Section 7.4. Finally, a summary is provided in Section 7.5.
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Chapter 7
. The properties of close appositions in MG This section descriptively presents the appositive constructions that will be discussed in this chapter. Various structures have been described in the literature as instances of apposition. The examples in (1) to (3) below illustrate some of these structures in English, German, and Greek. (1) I met your brother, the poet.
(Matthews 1981: 224)
(2) Ein Liter Bier. ‘One litre beer.’
(Eisenberg 1986: 243)
(3) O piitis Solomos. ‘The poet Solomos.’
(Stavrou 1994: 258)
According to Matthews (1981), appositive constructions, like the examples in (1) to (3) above have the following properties: 1. both nouns refer to the same individual, 2. there is a pause between the two nouns, 3. either noun may be dropped without changing the syntactic structure of the sentence, and 4. the order of the two nouns may be reversed. The limitations of Matthew’s criteria are apparent. For example the second property is not valid in examples (2) and (3) and the fourth is not valid in any of the three examples. The properties of all types of appositions are beyond the scope of this chapter. This chapter will focus only on one type of appositions, the class that has been defined in Bhatt (1990), Löbel (1986; 1988; 1991) and Lawrenz (1993) as Close Apposition (hereafter CA).1 In MG, this construction consists of the sequence Def.Art.1 + Noun1 + (Def.Art.2 ) + Noun2 and one of its functions is to name, as exemplified in (4a) to (4c) below. (4) a.
To psari glossa. ‘The fish sole.’ b. To plio Minos. ‘The ship Minos.’ c. I proghiaghia Nivea. the great-grandmother Nivea ‘Great-grandmother Nivea.’
(from Stavrou 1994)
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The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names
Within the class of CAs in MG, two types of constructions can be distinguished based on the agreement relation between the two nouns. In the one type the two nouns agree in case, as illustrated in example (5) below, whereas in the second type the two nouns do not agree, as shown in example (6) below. (5) O piitis Solomos ezise stin Zakintho. the-nom poet-nom Solomos-nom lived in-the Zakinthos ‘The poet Solomos lived in Zakinthos.’ (6) I nea siskevasia ton makaronion Melissa. The new package the-gen spaghetti-gen Melissa-un ‘The new package of the spaghetti Melissa.’
In example (6) the definite article and the first noun are marked with genitive, whereas the second noun appears in the unmarked form.2 A second difference between the two constructions is that the use of multiple definite articles is licit in CAs, such as in example (5), but not in CAs, such as in (6). This is illustrated in examples (7) and (8) below. (7) O piitis o Solomos ezise stin Zakintho. the poet the Solomos lived in-the Zakinthos ‘The poet Solomos lived in Zakinthos.’ (8) *I nea siskevasia ton makaronion ton Melissa. The new package the spaghetti the Melissa ‘The new package of the spaghetti Melissa.’
A final difference between the two constructions is that they differ with respect to the noun classes that are licit in this construction. In CAs with case agreement between the two nouns, as in (5) above, only a fixed set of nouns is licit. The first noun has to be a noun denoting a profession, a kinship term or a geographical term. The second noun can only be a proper name. On the other hand, in CAs without agreement between the two nouns, as in (6) above, there are no restrictions as to the noun class of the nouns that can be used. This chapter will discuss both of the constructions mentioned above. However, the focal point will be on CAs, such as those in (5) above. The reason for focusing on only one of the two constructions is related to its availability with multiple definite articles, the acquisition of which is one of the central aspects of this book. Lastly, the focus will be on CAs whose first noun is a kinship term and the second a proper name because in the corpora used in this study children were using CAs only with this set of nouns.
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Chapter 7
. Syntactic analyses of CAs in MG This section is concerned with syntactic analyses of CAs in MG. The main analyses of CAs in MG, are those of Stavrou (1994; 1995). Stavrou (1994) analysed CAs such as the ones illustrated in example (6) above, in which the second noun remains morphological invariable, whilst CAs with case agreement, such as the one in (5) above, were analysed in Stavrou (1995). Section 7.2.1 will look at Stavrou’s analyses in more detail. The analysis of the two constructions developed in this study will be presented in Section 7.2.2. .. Stavrou (1994; 1995) Stavrou has analysed both types of CAs as instances of a single noun phrase, which is the extended projection of the first noun. The second noun is analysed as an N’ or DefP adjunct. In the case of CAs without case agreement, in Stavrou (1994) the second noun is not phrasal, but lexical, i.e. N and not NP. It has been analysed as an N´ adjunct, as shown in (9) below and it is not transparent for syntactic operations. (9)
N’ N’ N
N [+ nominative]
(Stavrou 1994:263)
This analysis parallels Löbel (1990; 1991) for CAs in German,3 which in turn is based on the analysis of Jackendoff (1977; 1984).4 CAs with case agreement, as in (10) below, have been analysed in Stavrou (1995). (10) O Solomos o piitis. the Solomos the poet ‘The poet Solomos.’
Here the analysis of Stavrou (1995) is based on the assumption made by Karanassios (1990) and Stavrou (1996), that definite articles in MG are basegenerated as heads of the functional projection DefP, as illustrated in example (11) below, an analysis that has been discussed in Chapter 3.
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The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names DP
(11)
DP D D [+ def]
DEFP DEFP
enas=a/one Ø aftos=this emis=we ego=I
DEFP
DEFP\DP
DEF’ DEF
NP
o/i/to=the Ø
NP N’ N
DP
(Stavrou 1995:236)
Within this analysis, the two definite phrases are constituents of a single DP and the second constituent is a DefP adjunct. Evidence that this structure involves one major DP comes from the syntax and semantics of this construction, the main properties of which are summarised in (12) below. (12) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
both definite constituents belong to the same intonational phrase, there is no co-reference between the two constituents, but synthesis, there is a single designated referent for both constituents, there are specific semantic relationships between the lexical heads of the two constituents, such as part/whole relationship, the discourse markers dhiladhi = namely and enoo = I mean cannot be inserted between the two constituents, the two constituents may only be noun phrases or prepositional phrases headed by the preposition se = to, infinite stacking or recursion is not possible, both constituents must be definite. (Stavrou 1995: 220–225)
The next section will show how these criteria apply to the two types of CAs that will be discussed in this chapter.
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Chapter 7
.. The analyses adopted in this book This section will present the analyses of the two types of CAs with proper names and kinship terms developed in this book. As shown in Section 7.1, the one type is licit with multiple definite articles and involves case agreement between the two nouns. This will be called CA-Type A. An example of a CA-Type A is given in (13) below. The second type involves one definite article and no case agreement between the two nouns. The second noun is used in the unmarked form. This type of CA will be dubbed CA-Type B. An example of a CA-Type B is given in (14) below. (13) CA-Type A To spiti tis thias tis Lenas. the house the-gen aunt-gen the-gen Lena-gen ‘The house of aunt Lena.’ (14) CA-Type B Ta paramithia tis thia Lenas. the fairy-tales the-gen aunt-un Lena-gen ‘The fairy-tales of aunt Lena.’
Building Stavrou’s idea (1994; 1995) that close appositions are instances of one DP, but departing from the adjunction analysis, CAs-Type A, as in (13) above will be treated in a similar way with DS as instances of Determiner Complementation (see Chapter 6). CAs-Type B, such as in (14) above, on the other hand, will be treated as phrasal compounds. The criteria used by Stavrou (1995) for the analysis of structures as instances of one major DP, which were presented in (12) above, are satisfied by both (13) and (14). The structures in (13) and (14) belong to the same intonational phrase (Criterion 1), there is no co-reference between the KT and the PN, but rather the synthesis of both (Criterion 2) and this synthesis refers to a single referent (Criterion 3). With respect to Criterion 4, there is a specific semantic relationship between the two nouns, namely naming. The discourse markers dhiladhi = ‘namely’ and enoo = ‘I mean’ cannot be inserted between the two constituents, as shown in (15) and (16) below (Criterion 5). (15) *Mu aresi to spiti tis thias dhiladhi tis Lenas. me like the house the aunt namely the Lena ‘I like the house of aunt namely Lena.’ (16) *Mu aresun ta paramithia tis thia dhiladhi Lenas. me like the fairy-tales the aunt namely Lena ‘I like the fairy-tales of aunt namely Lena.’
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The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names
The two constituents are noun phrases (Criterion 6). Infinite stacking or recursion is not possible (Criterion 7), in fact only the first noun may be modified by adjectives, as shown in example (17) below. Finally, both constituents must be definite in the CA-Type A (Criterion 8), as illustrated in example (18) below. (17) a.
Akuo sichna ta paramithia tis anepanaliptis thia hear often the fairy-tales the unique aunt ‘I hear often the fairy-tales of the unique aunt Lena.’ b. *Akuo sichna ta paramithia tis thia anepanaliptis hear often the fairy-tales the aunt unique ‘I hear often the fairy-tales of the unique aunt Lena.’
Lenas. Lena Lenas. Lena
(18) a.
To spiti tis thias tis Lenas. the house the aunt the Lena ‘The house of aunt Lena.’ b. *To spiti tis thias mias Lenas. the house the aunt a/one Lena ‘The house of aunt Lena.’
The satisfaction of criteria 1–8 provides evidence that the structures in (13) and (14) are headed by a single DP. CA-Type A shares the properties of the structure of Determiner Spreading (see Chapter 5). Consider examples (19) and (20) below. (19) I thia i Lena. the aunt the Lena ‘Aunt Lena.’ (20) To spiti to meghalo. the house the big ‘The big house.’
(CA-Type A)
(Determiner Spreading)
In both examples, (a) multiple determiners are present, (b) only definite articles are licit, as shown in examples (21) and (22) below, and (c) reference of the KT in (19) and the noun in (20) is restricted by the second constituent, i.e. in (19) the PN and in (20) the adjective. (21) *Mia thia mia Lena. an/one aunt a/one Lena ‘An aunt Lena.’ (22) *Ena spiti ena meghalo. a/one house a/one big ‘A big house.’
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Chapter 7
As both DS and CA-Type A share these properties, CA-Type A will be treated in the same way as DS, i.e. it is similar to reduced Relative Clauses. Consequently, the analysis of CA-Type A will be similar to the analysis of DS. Accordingly, the KT (like the adjective in DS) is base generated as a predicate of a CP, which is the complement of D. This is illustrated in (23) below.5 The target wordorder in DS is the result of movement of the adjective to the specifier of the CP. KTs are relational nouns and like adjectives they denote properties. Due to this adjective-like character, we can assume that they move to Spec,CP, as shown in (24) below, just like adjectives do in the case of DS. (23) (24)
Examples such as in (25) below can also be treated as CAs-Type A. (25) O thios Nikos. the uncle-nom Nikos-nom ‘Uncle Nikos.’
In example (25), only one definite article is present and both nouns are inflected and are in an agreement relation. This construction can be analysed as an instance of Determiner Complementation, parallel to CA-Type A with the difference that the PN is not embedded in separate a DP-layer. As far as CAs-Type B are concerned, although phonologically they behave like syntactic phrases, syntactically they behave like syntactic atoms (see Di Sciullo & Williams 1987) and they can be regarded as word constructs. The existence of phrasal compounds in MG has already been highlighted by Anastasiadi-Simeonidi (1986), Ralli (1992) and Ralli & Stavrou (1998). Phrasal compounds consisting of two nouns are illustrated in example (26) below. (26) Epistoli katagelia. letter accusation ‘Letter which is an accusation.’
(Ralli 1992: 169)
For the classification of (26) above as phrasal compound, Ralli (1992) has used the criteria summarised in (27) below.
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The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names
(27) 1. functional categories (e.g. determiners) are excluded from their internal representations, 2. normally, we do not find NPs following the head, 3. no syntactic operation can affect the internal structure by moving, inserting or replacing a constituent, 4. non-referentiality of the non-head. (Ralli 1992: 169)
Crucially, CAs-Type B satisfy Ralli’s criteria: 1. definite articles are disallowed between the KT and the PN, as shown in (28a) below, 2. arguments of the first noun may not intervene between the two nouns, as shown in (28b),6 3. movement of the second noun inside or outside the phrase is prohibited, as illustrated in (28c) and (28d) below. 4. The semantic criterion appears, at a first glance, not to be satisfied, since the second noun is always a PN and PNs denote individuals. However, in MG, PN that are used in argument positions must always be preceded by the definite article. This is indicated through the ungrammaticality in example (28e). On the other hand, PNs used as predicates, i.e. non-referential ones, are used without definite articles, as shown in (28f). As PNs in CAsType B are obligatorily used without definite articles, they match with PNs used as predicates. In other words, PNs in this construction are not referential, and thus, Criterion 4 is satisfied as well. (28) a. *Ta paramithia tis thia tis Lenas. the fairy-tales the aunt the Lena ‘The fairy-tales of aunt Lena.’ b. *I thia tu Niku Lena meni stin Ko. the aunt the Nikos Lena lives in-the Kos ‘Nikos’ aunt Lena lives in Kos.’ c. *I Lena thia meni stin Ko. the Lena aunt lives in-the Kos ‘Aunt Lena lives in Kos.’ d. *Lena i thia meni stin Ko. Lena the aunt lives in-the Kos ‘Aunt Lena lives in Kos.’ e. *Lena meni stin Ko. Lena lives in-the Kos ‘Lena lives in Kos.’
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Chapter 7
f.
I thia mu leghete Lena. the aunt my call Lena ‘My aunt is called Lena.’
CAs-Type B differ from the phrasal compounds discussed in Ralli (1992) in one respect: in CAs-Type B only the noun on the right is inflected, just like in word compounds, while in phrasal compounds, as in example (26) above, both nouns are inflected and are in an agreement relation. This difference shows that CAs-Type B have syntactically word properties and not phrasal properties, whereas phrasal compounds as in (26) have syntactically both word and phrasal properties (cf. Ralli 1992: 171).7 Interestingly, some phrasal compounds, such as the ones in (29) and (30) below, have exactly the same properties with CAs-Type B. (29) Ta ghlika tis kira Marias. the sweets the Mrs Maria ‘Mrs. Maria’s sweets.’ (30) O barba Nikos pezi tavli. the gaffer Nikos plays backgammon ‘Gaffer Nikos plays backgammon.’
In examples (29) and (30) above, only the last noun, which is a PN, is inflected and agrees with the definite article. The first noun ends on the stem vowel, which is the unmarked form of the noun. Thus, it seems that MG has two kinds of phrasal compounds: (a) phrasal compounds that have syntactically both phrasal and word properties, like the ones described in Ralli, and (b) phrasal compounds that have syntactically word properties, like the ones in example (29), (30) and CAs-Type B.8 To summarise this section, evidence has been provided that CAs-Type A are better treated in the same way as DS, while CAs-Type B are best described as phrasal compounds with word properties.9
. Acquiring CAs with KTs and PNs The focal point of this section will be data on the acquisition of CAs-Type A, as only this type involves the use of multiple definite articles. The data of CAsType A can provide evidence for the acquisition of the language specific property of MG that allows the presence of multiple definite articles movement and movement within the DP.
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The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names
Table 7.1. First use and number of utterances involving CAs with KTs and PNs First use Christos Mairi
Total nr. of utterances
1;11.13 2;03.18
109 20
Appositions are optional constructions and as such, they are not found in the speech of all the children under investigation, but only in the speech of two children, Christos and Mairi. In Christos’ speech, they emerge at the age of 1;11, that is at Stage I. Consider Table 7.1. Utterances involving CAs with KTs and PNs are attested throughout the corpus and the number of CAs involving KTs and PNs is relatively large [N = 109] considering their optional character. Consequently, the data from the speech of Christos can elucidate the development of the acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs. CAs with KTs and PNs emerge in Mairi’s speech as early as 2;3, that is at Stage III. Given that Mairi’s data in this corpus covers Stage II and Stage III, and no appositive constructions were attested at Stage II, it is not possible to look at developmental issues of these constructions in her data. Moreover, as there were no instances of CAs with KTs and PNs involving multiple definite articles, Mairi’s data covers only one developmental phase. As in the previous chapters, Christos’ data will be discussed first and will provide the developmental pattern of this construction. Mairi’s data will be matched on the developmental pattern attested in Christos’ speech. The pattern of development will be discussed in relation to the MLU of the children under investigation. .. The developmental pattern in the acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs This section will present the developmental pattern in the acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs. This will be based on the data from Christos’ speech. The data from the speech of Mairi will then be matched to the phases identified in Christos’ speech. Christos starts using appositive constructions at the age of 1;10.24. The first appositive constructions found in his speech are of the type: PN + X, i.e. they consist of a proper name and another word irrespective of the word class of the second word. For example, he uses the name of Mickey’s dog, i.e. Pluto, with
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Chapter 7
the word denoting the barking sound, i.e. ghav = woof, as shown in example (31) below. (31) Adult: Pchio ine to skilaki tu Miki? which is the dogie the-gen Mickey ‘Which is Mickey’s dog?’ Child: Puto Pav. Pluto woof ‘Pluto.’
(Christos 1;10.24)
Based on the word-order, the presence of the definite article and taking as a criterion the First Use, we can define five phases for the development of CAs involving KTs and PNs in Christos’ speech. The pattern that emerges has the following scheme: Phase 1: Phase 2: Phase 3: Phase 4: Phase 5:
PN + KT KT + PN def.art.-PN + KT / def.art.-KT + PN KT-def.art.-PN def.art.-KT-def.art.-PN
These five phases will be discussed in turn.
Phase 1: PN + KT The first use of appositive constructions involving KTs and PNs appears in Christos’ speech at the age of 1;11.13. In this recording, the MLU of Christos is below 2.0, i.e. he is at Stage I. In the appositive constructions attested in this recording, Christos refers to his grandfather and grandmother, as illustrated in examples (32) and (33) below.10 (32) Adult: Nati i ghiaghia. here the grandma ‘Here is grandma.’ Child: Ruro ghiaghia. (ghiaghia Rinula = target utterance) Rinula-un grandma-un ‘Grandma Rinula.’ (Christos 1;11.13) (33) Child: Iko papus. (papus Nikos = target utterance) Nikos-un grandpa-nom ‘Grandpa Nikos.’ (Christos 1;11.13)
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Christos does not use any definite articles in this construction. As far as wordorder is concerned, all appositive constructions in this phase [N = 4] have the word-order PN+KT. Interestingly, this word order is ungrammatical in adult MG, but it corresponds to the word order prior to movement for CAs-Type A. As far as case marking is concerned, the PN remains in both examples mentioned above uninflected. The KT in example (32) has the unmarked form, whereas in example (33) it has the masc/nom/sg suffix -s. Crucially, it is not the case that Christos always uses the PN Nikos uninflected that would provide evidence for the unanalysed use of this form. During the same recording he uses the nominative suffix when the PN is used without the KT, as shown in example (34) below.11 (34) Child: Kakani12 Nikos. na kanis to Niko (target utterance) prt-subj do the Niko ‘(I want you) to draw Nikos.’
(Christos 1;11.13)
As example (33) is the only example in which Christos uses a case marked form in this construction, it does not provide evidence that all CAs in his speech belong to Type B. Nevertheless, it shows that Christos case marks only the second noun when he uses case marking in this construction and it shows that CAs-Type B are attested in his speech as young as 1;11. This phase has not been attested in Mairi’s speech. This is probably due to the lack of data from Stage I in her speech.
Phase 2: KT + PN Phase 2 has been defined by the first use of CAs with the target word-order, i.e. KT>PN. The first CA with the target-like word-order appears in Christos’ speech at the age of 2;0.7, as shown in example (35) below. (35) Child: Mama Souli. ‘Mummy Souli.’
(Christos 2;0.7)
The MLU of Christos in this recording is 1.9 and this is the last recording before Stage II. In this phase, Christos does not use definite articles in this construction [N = 5] and all nouns are in the unmarked form. As with Phase 1, this phase has also not been attested in Mairi’s speech.
Phase 3: def.art.-PN + KT / def.art.-KT + PN Phase 3 has been defined by the first use of definite articles with CAs. Christos uses definite articles with CAs for the first time at the age of 2;0.16. Definite
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articles are used with CAs in both word orders, the target KT>PN, as shown in (36) and the non-target PN>KT, as shown in (37). (Christos 2;0.16)
(36) Child: I mama Souli. the mummy Souli ‘Mummy Souli.’
(37) Adult: Pchios na odhighisi? who prt-subj drive ‘Who should drive?’ (Christos 2;0.16) Child: O Pitsi tu Niko papu. the Christos the-gen Niko-un grandpa-gen ‘Christos (should drive the car) of grandpa Nikos.’
At the age of 2;0, Christos shows productive use of definite articles and he is in a transition from Stage I to Stage II. In the recording at 2;0.16, his MLU is above 2.0. Example (37) shows that Christos treats CAs with KTs and PNs as compounds. Evidence for the compound character of this construction comes from noun inflection. Christos inflects only the second noun, i.e. the KT papu = ‘grandpa’, which agrees with the definite article in case, number and gender. The PN, on the other hand, remains uninflected.13 Mairi uses CAs with KTs and PNs for the first time at the age of 2;3.18. In this recording, she addresses the experimenter as thia Ulla = ‘aunt Ulla’, as illustrated in example (38) below. (38) Child: I tsia Ulla ine the-nom aunt-un Ulla-un is tis thias Ullas ine the-gen aunt-gen Ulla-gen is ‘This bag belongs to aunt Ulla.’
ekini this ekini this
i the i the
tsada. bag tsada (target) bag (Mairi 2;3.11)
In example (38) above Mairi uses the definite article preceding the first noun, that is the KT. In this example, Mairi is at a later developmental stage than Christos. She is at Stage III. However, as far as case marking is concerned, she uses the nominative form of the article and the unmarked form of both the KT and the PN, although this is a context requiring genitive marking.
Phase 4: KT-def.art.-PN Phase 4 has been defined by the use of definite articles within the CA construction, i.e. between the KT and the PN, which is the precursor of the use of
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multiple definite articles. The first use of definite articles between the KT and the PN in the speech of Christos is at the age of 2;1.14, see example (39) below. (39) Child:
Mama to Chiouli papali14 mummy the Souli prt-subj-take i mama i Souli na pari the mummy the Souli prt-subj take ‘Mummy Souli should take the bag.’
ti the tin the
kiana. bag tsanda (target) bag (Christos 2;1.14)
Christos is still at Stage II and his MLU is 2.1. The use of definite articles between the KT and the PN may be taken as evidence for an incomplete structure of CAs-Type A. This phase is very similar to Phase 1 and Phase 2a of the possessive construction (see Chapter 5). In those two phases Christos omitted the definite article of the first noun and used only the medial definite article, as in example (39) above. As mentioned at the beginning of section 7.3, there are no instances of multiple definite articles in Mairi’s speech. Consequently, Phase 4 and 5 are not represented in her data. As her MLU is not lower than that of Christos, lack of data with CAs involving multiple definite articles is likely to be the result of optionality of the construction and/or sampling.
Phase 5: def.art.-KT-def.art.-PN Phase 5 has been defined by the first use of the complete construction with multiple definite articles. For the first time, Christos uses multiple definite articles in this construction at the age of 2;2.14, as shown in example (40) below. (40) Adult: Eki sta tuvlakia ine i mama i Souli? there in-the bricks-dim is the mummy the Souli ‘Is mummy Souli there at the bricks?’ (Christos 2;2.14) Child: I mama i Souli tulakia. the mummy the Souli bricks-dim ‘Mummy Souli (is at the) bricks.’
Example (40) above is an instance of repetition. Nevertheless, this is an important example because it is the first time that Christos uses multiple definite articles with CAs, even as an instance of repetition. In previous recordings there were instances of repetition of an utterance involving multiple definite articles. However, unlike example (40) above, Christos did not use multiple definite articles in any preceding recordings. The first productive use of multiple definite articles in CAs appears at the age of 2;3.18, as illustrated in example (41) below.
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(41) Child: xxx na fai o Pitso ke na maghietsi prt-subj eat the Christos and prt-subj cook (Christos 2;3.18) i mama i Souli. the mummy the Souli ‘Christos should eat and mummy Souli should cook.’
After the first use of CAs with multiple definite articles, there are still utterances with the initial definite article missing, like in example (39) in the previous phase. However, such CAs are attested only until the age of 2;5.6. From this age onwards, there are no examples of the structure of CAs with multiple definite articles, in which the initial definite article is missing; all instances of CAs are complete. A summary of the phases of the acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs are illustrated in Table 7.2. The word order attested in the first instances of CAs involving KTs and PNs is not a possible word order in adult MG. Crucially, this word order (PN + KT) represents the underlying word order, that is the word order prior to movement. This word order in attested in Christos’ speech at Stage I, that is when his MLU was below 2.0 and he did not use definite articles productively. The target-like word order emerges one month later (2;0.7), but Christos still does not use definite articles productively, and thus, this construction is found with definite article omission. Definite articles are attested for the first time at Stage II (2;0.16), when Christos starts using definite articles productively. CAs with multiple definite articles are attested for the first time one month later (2;1.14), again Christos is still at Stage II. As with the first use of multiple definite articles in the possessive construction, initially an incomplete construction is attested with the initial definite article omitted and the medial definite article present. The complete construction emerges one month later (2;2.14), which is still at Stage II. The next two sections will provide quantitative and qualitative data on the acquisition of word order in CAs with KTs and PNs in Christos’ speech. Table 7.2. The development of CAs with KTs and PNs Age Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5
from 1;11.13 from 2;0.7 from 2;0.16 from 2;1.14 from 2;2.14
First Use PN + KT KT + PN def.art.-PN + KT, def.art.-KT + PN KT-def.art.-PN def.art.-KT-def.art.-PN
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.. Quantitative analysis of word order in CAs with KTs and PNs The previous section has shown the developmental pattern in the acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs in Christos’ speech based on the criterion of First Use. This has been related to his MLU and the general developmental stages. This section will go one step further and will present a quantitative analysis of CAs with KTs and PNs, in means of presenting the number and percentage of CAs with KTs and PNs with the two word orders per month. In this way, it is possible to identify the increase and decrease of the use of the two word orders in Christos’ speech. As mentioned in Section 7.3.1, the first instances of CAs with KTs and PNs involve a non-target word order. This is at Stage I. The non-target word order corresponds to the underlying word order prior to movement. The target word order emerges one month later, at Stage II. Does Christos use from this phase onwards only the target word order (KT + PN) or does he keep using the reversed word order (PN + KT)? In order to answer this question an analysis has been conducted, in which CAs with KTs and PNs with the two word orders have been analysed per month. The result is illustrated in Table 7.3. Table 7.3 shows that Christos uses the reversed word order throughout Stage II and there are two instances even at Stage III. However, there is a dramatical drop in the use of this word order at the age of 2;2, in which the target-like word order appears more than 90% at a time. This shows that from this point onwards Christos has fully acquired the word order of this construction.15 Table 7.3. The development of word order in CAs with KTs and PNs Age Stage I
1;11
Stage II
2;0 2;1 2;2 2;3 2;4 2;5
Stage III
2;6 2;7 2;8
KT + PN 0%
PN + KT
[N = 0]
100%
[N = 5]
36% 50% 97% 96% 75% 100%
[N = 4] [N = 6] [N = 30] [N = 25] [N = 9] [N = 4]
64% 50% 3% 4% 25% 0%
[N = 7] [N = 6] [N = 1] [N = 1] [N = 3] [N = 0]
75%
[N = 0] [N = 0] [N = 6]
25%
[N = 0] [N = 0] [N = 2]
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The next section provides a qualitative analysis on the acquisition of word order in CAs with KTs and PNs. .. Qualitative analysis of word order in CAs with KTs and PNs The previous two sections have shown that (a) the initial phase of CAs with KTs and PNs involves the reversed word order and (b) Christos acquires fully the target-like word order at Stage II. The next question to be asked is whether or not there are lexical effects in the use of the two word orders. As the number of KTs is relatively small, the question is whether Christos uses specific KTs with a specific word order or whether the two word orders are evenly distributed across KT. If he uses only specific KTs with a specific word order, this provides evidence for a lexically based acquisition process, similar to the one attested in the acquisition of definite articles (see Chapter 4). In order to address this question, the more frequent KT + PN combinations have been analysed separately with respect to word order. These are the combinations involving the KTs mama = mummy, baba = daddy, papu = grandpa and ghiaghia = grandma.16 The combinations involving those four KTs will be discussed in turn. KT + PN combinations involving the KT grandma appear for the first time in Christos’ speech at the age of 1;11.13 with the reversed word order. From 1;11.13 until 2;1.26, Christos uses eight CAs with the KT grandma and a PN. All eight utterances have the non-target order PN + KT. The first instance of a target-like word-order of CAs involving a grandmother of Christos appears at the age of 2;1.26, as shown in example (42) below. From this age onwards, 43 out of 46 utterances involving CAs with the KT grandma have the target-like word order. (42) Child: Ghiaghia Ghialani to foch. ghiaghia Eleni to fos grandma Eleni the light ‘Grandma Eleni, turn on the light.’ or ‘Grandma Eleni should turn on the light.’
(Christos 2;1.26)
A similar development is attested in CAs involving the KTs grandpa and daddy. Until the age of 2;2.18 Christos uses the reversed word-order [N = 6] when he uses the KT grandpa. From 2;2.18 onwards, 7 out of 9 examples involving a CA with this KT have the target-like word-order.
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As far as the KT daddy is concerned, Christos uses it for the first time in a CA at the age of 2;0.7. The word order in all utterances involving CAs with this KT [N = 3] is the reversed one, as shown in example (43). (43) Child: Dedeli papa! (baba Vangeli = target utterance) Vangeli daddy ‘Daddy Vangeli!’ (Christos 2;0.7) Adult: Fonazis to baba tora? call the daddy now ‘Are you calling daddy now?’
The target-like word-order appears for the first time in the next recording at the age of 2;0.16. From this recording onwards, 6 out of 8 utterances involving CAs with this KT are in the target-like word order. The KT mummy is used from the very first time with the target-like word order. This is at the age of 2;0.7, when Christos refers to his mother, as shown in example (44) below. (44) Child: Mama Souli. ‘Mummy Souli.’
(Christos 2;0.7)
In the whole corpus he uses the target-like word order in 25 out of 27 utterances involving a CA with this KT. The results of this analysis have been summarised in Figure 7.1. Figure 7.1 shows that Christos does not use the reversed word order just with one KT, but with 3 out of the 4 KTs. This shows that the use of the reversed word order is not limited to one lexical item, but it represents a general phenomenon.
Figure 7.1. Word-order in CAs with KTs and PNs
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A second observation is that the developmental pattern is identical in all KTs with the exception of the KT mummy. In three out of the four KTs, the first word order attested is the reversed word order, i.e. PN + KT. Moreover, in all KTs after the first use of the target-like word order the vast majority of CAs has the target-like word order. Considering these results, the next question to be addressed relates to the structure of reversed CAs with KTs and PNs. Do reversed CAs represent a random word combination or do they demonstrate a developmental stage, in which the underlying structure, otherwise invisible in the target language, comes to light? As the reversed word order corresponds to the underlying structure prior to movement, it is plausible that this word order captures a developmental phase that lacks movement. If this hypothesis is true, the prediction is that the reversed word order will appear at a very early developmental stage, in which there is no evidence for the structures involved in the movement operation. This prediction is borne out by the data. The reversed word order is attested at a very early stage, at Stage I and at the beginning of Stage II. At this age, there is no evidence for the presence of the CP layer. As far as the DP layer is concerned, there is no evidence that Christos makes use of the DP layer at Stage I and at the beginning of Stage II, there is a very high rate of definite article omission. This demonstrates the optionality of the DP layer. Additional evidence that the reversed word order represents the underlying structure prior to movement is provided by the lack of other constructions that involve the same type of movement in Christos’ speech. DS emerges not earlier than at the age of 2;3. However, the data discussed in this section seems to show that Christos acquires the target-like word order in an item-by-item fashion. The target word-order emerges first with the KT mummy (2;0.7), then with the KT daddy (2;0.16), later with grandma (2;1.26) and finally with grandpa (2;2.18). This is very similar to the acquisition process of definite articles and noun morphology. As already shown in Chapter 4, Christos used the target structure initially with one lexical item for a certain period of time. At the same time he retained the non-target structure with other lexical items. Subsequently, he generalised the target structure to other lexical items in an item-by-item fashion. To summarise, this section has shown that the reversed word order does not appear in CAs involving only one KT. This shows that the reversed word order is not limited to a particular lexical item. Instead it is used in three out of four KTs. The reversed word order is attested at the very early developmental stage (Stage I and the beginning of Stage II). As there is no independent ev-
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idence that Christos makes use of the CP layer and the DP layer is used only optionally, the reversed word order represents a stage prior to movement of the KT to the specifier of the CP. Finally, the separate development of word order in the four KTs shows that upon acquiring movement of the Spec,CP, Christos starts using the target-like word order in an item-by-item fashion. This process resembles the acquisition process of definite articles, shown in Chapter 4.
. Implications for acquisition and linguistic theory This chapter has shown that CAs involving KTs and PNs are acquired incrementally. Moreover, Christos uses initially a word order that is ungrammatical in the target language, but corresponds to the underlying structure prior to movement. What are the implications of these findings for acquisition theory and linguistic theory? Incremental acquisition of the properties of CAs with KTs and PNs resembles the incremental acquisition of the possessive construction. In both constructions, the first utterances involving the relevant construction lack definite articles and multiple definite articles emerge only later. Finally, in the possessive construction, the word order involving movement to Spec,DP is acquired at a later stage and in CAs with KTs and PNs the word order involving movement to Spec,CP does not appear from the outset. This data supports the idea that the DP is not acquired in an all-or-nothing fashion. Instead, the properties attributed to the DP are acquired gradually. In both constructions incremental development of the construction is not unconstrained, but follows a principled process. In the case of CAs with KTs and PNs the non-target like word order without movement emerges prior to the target-like word order with movement. This has important implications for the acquisition process. Principled development of CAs with KTs and PNs shows that development is structurally driven. The target-like word order emerges only when the required structure is available (DP) and when the required movement is available to the child (movement to Spec,CP). Finally, the results of this chapter have important implications for linguistic theory. As in the development of the possessive construction, incremental acquisition of CAs support a minimalist view of the language faculty, in which functional categories do not represent primitives. If this were the case, we would expect an all-or-nothing acquisition process, which is not supported by the data. Apart from the data on word order, within the PPT it remains unexplained why the child may use articles and the target-like word order, which
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indicates knowledge the DP, FP and CP layer, and at the same make case errors on definite articles and use the unmarked form of nouns.17 As case within the PPT is a property of the FP in MG, acquisition of the FP should result in the acquisition of case marking. Consequently, use of definite articles and target-like word order, but lack of case marking remain unexplained within the PPT. On the other hand, this data is fully compatible with the MP, according to which the features are primitives and not the layers. Use of definite articles is related to the acquisition of the FP layer, whereas case marking is related to the feature of case. Within the MP, lack of case marking in the presence of definite articles shows a successive acquisition of the properties of functional layers.
. Summary This chapter has examined the acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs in MG. CAs with KTs and PNs in MG involve the use of multiple definite articles and movement, as the underlying word order is not visible in adult MG. Moreover, productive use of the DP, FP and CP layer are necessary for the target-like use of CAs with KTs and PNs. The acquisition data has shown that CAs with KTs and PNs are acquired in an incremental way. Initially, definite articles are omitted and CAs appear with the word order reversed which is ungrammatical in adult MG. This phase appears at Stage I, in which there is no evidence for the DP, FP and CP layers. Definite articles and the target-like word order of this construction emerge at Stage II, at the stage in which independent evidence has been provided for the acquisition of the DP, FP (see Chapter 4) and CP layer (see Chapter 6). These results are relevant for the acquisition of the DP, acquisition theory and linguistic theory. Incremental acquisition of CAs shows that the DP is not acquired in an all-or-nothing fashion. Emergence of the word order that involves movement after the word order without movement shows a principled structurally based acquisition process. Finally, incremental acquisition of CAs with KTs and PNs remain unexplained within the PPT and, rather, support a minimalist approach of the language faculty.
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Notes . For a discussion about the definition of the term Apposition and for a critique of some of the criteria used in the literature, such as Matthew’s criteria, as well as for the distinction between Close and Loose Apposition, see Lawrenz (1993) and Stavrou (1995). . See Chapter 3 for a discussion about the unmarked form of nouns. . For different analyses of CAs in German, see Bhatt (1990) and Lawrenz (1993). Bhatt (1990: 164) analyzes CAs as compounds, created through an incorporation mechanism in the spirit of Baker (1988), as shown in (i). Lawrenz (1993: 37), on the other hand, analyses CAs as N0 adjuncts in the spirit of Radford (1988: 258), as shown in (ii) below. (i)
(ii)
NP
N0 N0
N’
N0
(Lawrenz 1993:37) N0
NP
N0
N0
Sohn
Jensi
son
Jens
ti
DP
unserer
Nachbarin
our
neighbor
‘Jens our neighbor’s son.’
(Bhatt 1990:165)
. According to Jackendoff (Jackendoff 1977; 1984), the second element in the appositive structure belongs to category E, i.e. free expression, and not to category N because this position can host not only nouns, but also whole phrases, meta-language, etc. . As far as word-order is concerned, CAs-Type A differ from DS. In DS, as already shown in Chapter 6, more than one word order is possible. In CAs-Type A, on the other hand, the word-order is rigid. The rigidity of the word-order in CAs-Type A is likely to be the result of selectional restrictions of KTs, as CAs that do not involve KTs do not have a rigid word-order. This is illustrated in examples (i) and (ii) below. (i)
O piitis o Solomos ezise sti Zakintho. the poet the Solomos lived in-the Zakinthos ‘The poet Solomos lived in Zakinthos.’ (ii) O Solomos o piitis ezise sti Zakintho. the Solomos the poet lived in-the Zakinthos ‘The poet Solomos lived in Zakinthos.’ . Stavrou (1994: 264) argues, that arguments of KTs may intervene between the two nouns, as in (i). (i)
I kori tis Efthas Klitia the- nom daughter-nom the-gen Eftha-gen Klitia-nom ‘Efthas’ daughter, Klitia.’
(Stavrou 1994: 264)
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However, as shown in the English translation, there is a pause between the argument of the KT and the PN, indicated by comma, showing that in fact examples like in (i) do not belong to the class of close appositions, but represent instances of loose appositions (cf. Löbel 1990; Lawrenz 1993). Consequently, this type of example does not bring evidence against the proposed compound analysis. . Phonologically, both CAs-Type B and phrasal compounds have phrasal properties. . One anonymous reviewer has commented that it is not clear in what respect examples (29) and (30) differ from CAs-Type B. However, I do not analyse these examples differently from CAs-Type B. The point I want to make here is that examples (29) and (30) and CAsType B have the same underlying structure. . It is not clear, if there is a derivational relation between CAs-Type A and Type B. It is possible that CAs-Type B are ‘frozen’ structures deriving from a structure as in (i), in which both nouns are inflected, as suggested by Ralli (p.c.). (i)
O thios Nikos. the uncle-nom Nikos-nom ‘Uncle Nikos.’
. It should be noted that it is not the case that Christos refers to his grandparents only by using the appositive construction. Most of the time he still uses only the KT when he addresses them or talks about his grandparents. . The nominative suffix in this example is most probably ungrammatical, because the PN Nikos seems to be the object of the verb kano = do. . In the verb kano = do, there is a reduplication of the first syllable, which has been analysed by Christofidou & Kappa (1998) as a mechanism for replacement of the subjunctive particle na. For more details, see Christofidou & Kappa (1998). . As this is a single example with this pattern, it is not possible to claim that all CAs with KTs and PNs have the status of compounds. However, as it is the only example of CAs with KTs and PNs that shows case marking, it shows that during this phase when applicable, case marking appears only on the last noun. . The form papali is a further instance of reduplication, replacing the subjunctive particle na, see Note 12. . At the age of 2;4 and 2;8 the percentage of target-like word order drops to 75%. However, given that the number of CAs with KTs and PNs is very low, it is not clear as to whether this represents a relapse or whether these are performance errors. . These were 107 out of 109 utterances. There was one utterance involving an uncle and one involving the godfather, which have not been analysed, as each KT was used only once throughout the whole corpus. . This has been shown in Phase 3 in Mairi’s speech.
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Chapter 8
Summary and conclusion
The aim of this book was threefold: (a) to describe the development of the acquisition of the DP in MG, (b) to discuss and evaluate predictions deriving from current theoretical analyses of the DP, and (c) to provide an insight into general aspects of the language acquisition process and their implications for linguistic theory. The main issues that have been addressed relate to: – – – – – –
the acquisition of the functional layers of the Greek nominal domain, whether or not properties attributed to the DP are acquired simultaneously or incrementally, the relationship between the acquisition of syntax and morphology, the acquisition of language specific properties of the Greek DP such as the use of multiple definite articles, the emergence of complex DPs involving the possessive construction, Determiner Spreading and appositive constructions, the acquisition of the core system of the nominal domain compared to the Left Periphery of the DP.
This chapter will summarise the main findings of this book and discuss them in connection to the acquisition of the DP cross-linguistically, acquisition theory and linguistic theory. Finally, it will draw some general conclusions concerning the organisation of the language system and point to directions for future research. Section 8.1 will summarise the main findings of this study and Section 8.2 will compare them with findings from studies in the acquisition of the DP in English, German, Swiss German and Hebrew. Sections 8.3 and 8.4 will discuss the implications of these results for acquisition theory and linguistic theory. Finally, Section 8.5 will consider the results of this book in connection to the structure of the language system in general and it will discuss open question for future research.
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. Putting the pieces together This book has focused on the acquisition of the DP in MG in the domains of syntax, semantics and morphology and has investigated simple DPs consisting of articles and nouns and complex DP constructions consisting of more than one DP (possessive construction, DS, appositive constructions with KTs and PNs). Analysis of longitudinal data from five monolingual Greek children has revealed an incremental acquisition of the nominal domain, which is in relation to the development of MLU. In the earliest stage of development, noun phrases consist of bare nouns. In this phase, articles are missing altogether and nouns do not show number and case marking. In the speech of the children with the lowest MLU, definite articles emerge at Stage I prior to indefinite articles which emerge at Stage II. The rate of definite article omission at Stage I is initially very high and definite articles are used in a lexically-based fashion. At the same stage, there is no number and case marking on either nouns or definite articles. The change from using articles in a lexically based fashion to a productive use is signalled by a U-shaped curve in the use of definite articles in obligatory contexts. A significant increase in the use of definite articles in obligatory contexts and the use of definite articles with a larger number of lexical items indicates the productive use of definite articles. Additionally, at the transition to Stage II there is evidence for number marking on nouns and case marking on nouns and definite articles. Simultaneous productive use of definite articles and consistent number and case marking shows that there is a close relationship between the acquisition of syntax and the acquisition of morphology. Moreover, this provides evidence that the two functional layers NumP and FP emerge simultaneously in children’s grammar. The use of bare arguments in the speech of Christos reveals that the licensing conditions for the use of bare objects are obeyed from Stage II onwards, i.e. from the onset of productive use of definite articles. Moreover, light verbs initially take as complements bare nouns and only later DPs with definite articles, indicating that lexical learning may initially control the use of verbs with bare objects. Finally, the early use of definite articles with PNs and KTs provides evidence that the contrastive frame vocative versus non-vocative may provide the relevant information for the target-like feature specification of nouns in MG. However, it is not the case that all aspects of the nominal domain are acquired simultaneously. Consistent marking of genitive case takes place much later than consistent marking of nominative case on both definite articles and
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nouns. Language specific properties of the MG nominal domain concerning complex DPs are also acquired later. Multiple definite articles in the possessive construction, in DS and in appositive constructions emerge in the middle of Stage II and the order possessor > possessum with multiple definite articles involving focalisation emerges at the beginning of Stage III. This shows that some of the properties of the DP are acquired incrementally. The properties that are acquired later relate to marked structures or structures that involve movement. Genitive case is the most marked case in MG. As far as morphological marking is concerned, this shows that marked structures are acquired later than less marked ones. All complex DP constructions discussed in this book involve movement operations. Later acquisition of the possessive construction, DS and appositive constructions with KTs and PNs shows that structures involving movement operations are acquired later than structures without movement. The word order possessor > possessum with multiple definite articles, which involves an extra movement for focalisation, emerges even later. This shows that the Left Periphery of the DP is available to the child later than the Core Domain of the DP. This is further supported by word order errors with appositive constructions at Stage I and at the beginning of Stage II.
. Comparison to the acquisition of the DP cross-linguistically This section will compare the results from the acquisition of the nominal domain in MG with the acquisition of the DP across languages. The aim is to view the results of this book from a cross-linguistic perspective and see which of the results hold across languages and which are due to language specific properties of Greek. The results from Stage I in the acquisition of MG are parallel to findings from children acquiring English (Radford 1990a; 1990b), German (Bittner 1998; Eisenbeiss 2000; Penner & Weissenborn 1996) and Swiss German (Penner 1994; Penner & Weissenborn 1996). Children in these languages pass through a phase, in which their noun phrases consist of bare nouns and this reflects a pre-functional stage in the acquisition of the DP.1 The use of definite articles in a lexically based way attested in this book is similar to the use of articles as impostors attested in child English (Radford 1990a; 1990b) and German (Eisenbeiss 2000). Moreover, the U-shaped curve in the transition from the use of articles as impostors to the productive use of articles is very similar to the findings of Eisenbeiss (2000) on the acquisition of
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the DP in German. This shows that the transition from a pre-functional phase to a functional phase is similar across languages. As far as the acquisition of morphological marking is concerned, the delayed acquisition of genitive case attested in this book is similar to the acquisition of the possessive marker -s in English (Radford 1990a; 1990b), German (Clahsen, Eisenbeiss, & Vainikka 1994; Penner & Weissenborn 1996; Eisenbeiss 2000) and Swiss German (Penner 1994; Penner & Weissenborn 1996) and shel in Hebrew (Armon-Lotem 1998). However, some of the findings of this book show significant differences when compared to the acquisition of the DP in other languages. These relate to the emergence of the indefinite article later than the definite article and the word order in the possessive construction. Chapter 4 has shown that the indefinite article in MG emerges later than the definite article. This pattern is exactly the opposite from the one attested in German (Bittner 1998) and it is very likely to be the result of language specific properties of the indefinite article in MG at the level of prosody, lexicon and semantics. At the prosodic level, indefinite articles in Greek are disyllabic, they are one syllable longer than definite articles. Definite articles are clitics whereas indefinite articles are not. If in early stages of development there is a constraint on the number of syllables of children’s utterances as illustrated in several languages (see Fikkert 1994; Gerken 1996; Demuth 2000 among others) and in MG (Kappa 1998), then it is very likely for children to use definite articles but not indefinite articles, as indefinite articles are one syllable longer than definite articles. At the lexical level, indefinite articles have two different lexemes, one for masculine and neuter (enas, ena) and one for feminine (mia) whereas definite articles consist of a vowel or a t- followed by a vowel. In order for children to start using the indefinite article they have to identify these two lexical items in the input and make two entries in the lexicon that correspond to the same category (indefinite article). The process of identifying and storing the two lexical items is likely to contribute to the late emergence of indefinite articles. Finally, at the level of semantics, indefiniteness in MG can be expressed either with the indefinite article or with bare nouns. Chapter 3 has shown that apart from bare nouns in the plural, also bare singular count nouns are licit under specific conditions in MG. Given the possibility of using bare nouns in order to express indefiniteness, children acquiring MG may use this option at an earlier developmental stage, as this is the most economical way to express indefiniteness (cf. Weissenborn 1994).
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As far as the acquisition of the possessive construction is concerned, children acquiring MG initially do not use genitive marking on the possessor. This is similar to results on the acquisition of the possessive construction in German and Hebrew (see Clahsen, Eisenbeiss & Vainikka 1994; Penner & Weissenborn 1996; Eisenbeiss 2000 for German and Armon-Lotem 1998 for Hebrew). However, there are differences in the acquisition of the word order in the possessive construction across these three languages. Children acquiring MG start with the unmarked order of the possessive construction (possessum > possessor). In a later phase they use the word order involving focalisation (possessor > possessum). In contrast to that, in both child German and child Hebrew, the word order attested first is the order possessor > possessum, which is ungrammatical in Hebrew. Children start to use the linearisation possessum > possessor only later. What are the differences in the possessive construction across these three languages? In German the base word order is possessum > possessor (see among others, Bhatt 1990; Löbel 1990; Olsen 1991; Lindauer 1995; Johnson et al. 1996; Penner & Weissenborn 1996) whereas in Hebrew and MG the base order is possessor > possessum (see Ritter 1991; Borer 1994 and Siloni 1996 for Hebrew & Alexiadou 1999 for MG). In German and MG the word order attested first is the derived one. Interestingly, the derived word order is the unmarked order in both German and MG. Consequently, for children acquiring German and MG markedness seems to affect the emergence of word order in the possessive construction and not derivational complexity manifested through movement. In Hebrew, on the other hand, the base word order (which is ungrammatical in the target language) emerges prior to the derived word order, which is the only possible word order in Hebrew. Derivational complexity is, thus, more important in Hebrew than in MG and German.2
. Maturation vs. continuity This section will discuss the implications of the results of this study for acquisition theories. Does the data presented in this book support the Maturation Hypothesis or the Continuity Hypothesis? As discussed in Chapter 1, the main difference between the two hypotheses relates to the issue of development. Language development within the Maturation Hypothesis is the result of biologically determined maturation. Changes from the Initial State to the Final State are caused by maturation in biological terms. Within the Continuity Hypothesis, on the other hand, development is
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caused from the interaction of the LAD with Primary Linguistic Data, i.e. the input to the child. Within the Maturation Hypothesis, maturation has been claimed to involve functional categories (see Radford 1990a; 1990b; 1995; Guilfoyle & Noonan 1992; Tsimpli 1992/1996 among others), A-chains (Borer & Wexler 1987), or Tense (Wexler 1994; 1996). What are the predictions of the Maturation Hypothesis for the acquisition of the DP in MG? The Maturation Hypothesis makes three predictions for the acquisition of the DP in MG. If functional categories undergo maturation, the first prediction is that it will be possible to identify a developmental stage, in which children’s grammar lacks the properties associated with functional categories. More specifically, elements and features hosted in functional layers should be absent from children’s speech. Such a stage has been identified in the youngest child in this study who also had the lowest MLU. Indefinite articles hosted in D0 , definite articles and case marking hosted in F0 and number marking associated with NumP are missing at Stage I. The second prediction concerns the emergence of words, features, and properties that are associated with functional categories. The properties associated with functional categories should emerge all at the same time if all functional categories mature simultaneously (Radford 1990a; Tsimpli 1992/1996). Alternatively, according to the Structure Building Hypothesis, functional categories and the properties associated with them should emerge bottom up (Radford 1990b; 1995; Guilfoyle & Noonan 1992). The data from the acquisition of articles, number and case marking is not compatible with Radford’s (1990a) and Tsimpli’s (1992/1996) maturational account, according to which maturation of all functional categories takes place simultaneously. In contrast, this data is compatible with the Structure Building Hypothesis. Definite articles start being used productively at the same time with consistent marking of number and case. However, indefinite articles that are associated with the highest functional layer (DP) emerge later than definite articles that are associated with the FP. The third prediction is that constructions involving movement should emerge when the relevant functional layer is available to the child. This book has investigated three constructions that involve movement to the specifier of the DP (and/or CP), the possessive construction, DS and appositive constructions with KTs and PNs. These constructions should emerge together with the emergence of the indefinite article, as they involve the same functional layer. This prediction is not supported by the data. Indefinite articles emerge prior
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to all three constructions. This remains unexplained within the Maturation Hypothesis. Finally, it remains unexplained why genitive marking is acquired later than nominative marking. The Maturation Hypothesis does not make any predictions for the acquisition of one case later than another nor can it explain the developmental sequence attested in the data. In contrast to this, the data presented in this book is fully compatible with the Continuity Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, language development is the result of interaction of the LAD with the input to the child. The Continuity Hypothesis does not predict lack of words/properties associated to functional categories. However, it is not incompatible with the unavailability of words and properties belonging to functional categories. Consequently, the data that could be accounted for within the Maturation Hypothesis (productive use of definite articles when children use number and case marking consistently) does not pose a problem for the Continuity Hypothesis.3 The last question to be addressed is whether the data on the acquisition of the DP supports the Strong or the Weak Continuity Hypothesis and how the data that posed a problem for the Maturation Hypothesis can be accounted for within the Continuity Hypothesis. The main difference between these two hypotheses relates to the properties of functional categories in child grammar. Within the Strong Continuity Hypothesis, functional layers in child grammar do not differ from functional layers in the target grammar. In contrast to this, the Weak Continuity Hypothesis predicts that functional layers in child grammar may be underspecified for some of the features of the target grammar. Data on the acquisition of case and word order in the possessive construction cannot be accounted for within the Strong Continuity Hypothesis. Within this hypothesis it remains unexplained why the word order possessor > possessum emerges five months later than the DP layer evinced from the emergence of indefinite articles. Moreover, it remains unexplained why genitive case marking is acquired later than nominative case. In contrast, this data is fully compatible with the Weak Continuity Hypothesis. As the word order possessor > possessum is the result of displacement due to an EPP feature, later emergence of this word order can be the result of an underspecified functional layer. As far as the later emergence of genitive case marking is concerned, this can be accounted for within the Weak Continuity Hypothesis in a similar way. Later emergence of genitive case can also be the result of a non-fully-specified functional projection in child grammar.
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. Implications for linguistic theory Within the PPT, functional layers are primitives and their acquisition entails acquisition of all properties associated with them. The prediction deriving from the PPT is that all properties associated with each functional category should emerge simultaneously. Within the MP, on the other hand, primitives are the features and not the functional layers. Children have to identify which of the features are grammaticalised in the target language and they have to map them to the lexical items of the language they are acquiring. The prediction deriving from the MP is that children are likely to use some but not all of the features of the target language. This will result in non-target-like utterances. This book has shown that children acquiring MG at Stage II pass through a phase in which they make use of some but not all properties associated with the DP layer. Children make use of indefinite articles, but they do not use constructions involving complex DPs such as the complete possessive construction, DS and appositive constructions with KTs and PNs. This remains unexplained within the PPT. On the other hand, this data is fully compatible with the MP, as the structures involving complex DPs investigated in this book involve movement to Spec,DP. This movement is forced by an EPP feature on an uninterpretable feature of D0 . Later emergence of the possessive construction, DS and appositive constructions with KTs and PNs can be accounted for within the MP in a straightforward way. The EPP feature or the uninterpretable feature of D0 may be identified and acquired by the child later than the definiteness feature of the DP layer. Additional support for the MP is provided from the acquisition of case marking. The emergence of genitive case later than nominative case remains unexplained within the PPT. If case is associated with one functional layer (FP in MG), acquisition of this layer entails acquisition of case over the board. Emergence of genitive later than nominative remains unexplained within this model. This data, on the other hand, is fully compatible with the MP and can be explained in the following way: the child has identified (and mapped into inflectional suffixes) the feature for nominative case earlier than the feature for genitive case. If the discrepancy between the emergence of nominative and genitive case is the result of identification (and mapping) of the relevant feature, this predicts that this discrepancy will hold across lexical items. This was indeed the case in the acquisition of case on definite articles and nouns. In both definite articles and nouns nominative shows up earlier than genitive. This provides further support for a minimalist view of the acquisition process and the language faculty.
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. General conclusions This chapter has summarised the main findings from this book and compared them with studies in the acquisition of the DP in English, German, Swiss German and Hebrew. Moreover, it has discussed the implications of the findings of this book for acquisition theory and linguistic theory. The present section will draw some general conclusions concerning the issue of development of different domains within the DP. In addition, it will point to directions that are open for future research. This book has studied development in different domains of the Greek DP – syntax, semantics and morphology. Does development take place simultaneously in all three domains or does each one of these domains develop independently of the others? Analyses of the acquisition of definite articles, number and case marking and the licensing conditions of bare arguments have shown that certain aspects of syntax, semantics and morphology develop simultaneously. Definite articles and number and case marking are used productively from Stage II onwards. In addition, data on the acquisition of the licensing conditions of bare nouns has shown that at the beginning of Stage II children have some knowledge of the licensing conditions of bare arguments. However, some properties of the DP in Modern Greek are acquired at a later stage. Language specific syntactically complex constructions involving movement operations, such as the possessive construction involving focalisation, DS and appositive constructions emerge at a latter phase. At the domain of semantics, light verbs initially take as complements only bare nouns and only later DPs with definite articles. Finally, in the domain of morphology, genitive case, which is the most marked case in Greek, is acquired later than nominative case. This data shows that some of the properties of the DP are acquired later than others. However, this applies to all domains under investigation – syntax, semantics and morphology. Hence, this book has shown that all three domains develop in parallel and none of the domains develops independently from the others. Research in the acquisition of Greek has started at the beginning of the 70s. However, our knowledge on the acquisition of Greek is still sparse. Although many studies have been undertaken in several aspects of the acquisition of Greek in particular during the last decade, the big picture is still missing. With the exception of Stephany’s work, most of the studies to date have investigated single phenomena in the area of syntax, semantics, morphology or phonology without trying to look at one phenomenon from different perspectives and also without trying to integrate knowledge of these different domains.
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One of the aims of this book was to study the acquisition of different constructions involving DPs and also different domains of the Greek DP in order to establish the baseline for the acquisition of the DP in this language. For doing this, this study has used longitudinal data. The use of longitudinal data has many advantages over other methodologies. It enables quantitative analyses, it can capture developmental aspects of the acquisition process, it can be used to investigate the interaction of different phenomena and domains of language. However, it also has several limitations. It is very difficult to investigate phenomena that are infrequent or optional in children’s speech and it is sometimes not easy to identify the intention of the children’s utterances, in particular in early stages of development. Given that this book has established the baseline for the acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek, the next step is to make use of experimental methodology in order to investigate optional constructions and phenomena that are infrequent in children’s speech. For example, the use of elicitation tasks can bring insight as to whether the emergence of indefinite articles later than definite articles in the data studied in this book is because children acquire indefinite articles later than definite articles or whether children prefer more economical means to express indefiniteness – bare nouns. Additionally, cross-sectional data from many children are necessary in order to see whether the acquisition patterns attested in this book are typical for child Greek. Finally, although this book has investigated more than one different domains of the DP, it has neglected two domains that might be relevant for the development patterns attested – the domains of prosody and phonology. Definite article omission may be the result of constraints on the number of syllables children can utter and the development of morphology may relate to the acquisition of phonology. The acquisition of the DP from the perspective of prosody and phonology are two areas that are open for future research and can help us understand better the developmental patterns attested in this book.
Notes . However, research carried out in language comprehension has revealed that children are sensitive to closed-class elements before they start to use them, at the age of 10 and a half months (see for example Höhle & Weissenborn 1998a; Höhle & Weissenborn 1998b; Höhle & Weissenborn 2000 for German). Does this provide evidence that children at this age have the syntactic representation of DPs? Children may have the knowledge of some properties of articles at this age, and therefore they may be able to identify definite articles. However, it is not clear whether these results should be taken as evidence for the representation of
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the DP-layer in child grammar. More research on early perception is needed as well as studies on the relation between the acquisition of perception compared to the acquisition of production in order to understand if the syntactic representation of child grammar contains functional projections at a stage, in which children do not produce words belonging to functional categories. . A more detailed discussion about the differences between the two languages needs an indepth discussion about the syntax of the DP in these languages and is beyond the scope of this book. . The emergence of indefinite articles later than the emergence of definite articles can also be accounted for within the Continuity Hypothesis. As indefiniteness can be expressed in MG with both indefinite articles and bare nouns, children opt for the most economical structure that is compatible with the adult system (see Weissenborn 1994).
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References
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References Thomadaki, E. (1994). MορφολογικαÜ προβληÜ µατα της NεοελληνικηÜ ς (H κλÜHση του ουσιαστικουÜ ) [Problems of the Modern Greek Morphology (Noun Inflection)]. Ph.D. University of Athens. Tredinnick, V. (1992). Movement in the Modern Greek Noun Phrase. Penn Review of Linguistics, 17, 194–207. Tsimpli, I.-M. (1992/1996). The Prefunctional Stage of First Language Acquisition: A crosslinguistic study. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCL. New York: Garland. Tsimpli, I.-M. (2001). LF-interpretability and Language Development: A study of verbal and nominal features in normally developing and SLI Greek children. Brain & Language, 77, 432–448. Tsimpli, I.-M. & S. Stavrakaki (1999). The effects of a morphosyntactic deficit in the determiner system: The case of a Greek SLI child. Lingua, 108, 31–85. Tzartzanos (1945). NεοελληνικηÜ ΣυÜ νταξη [Modern Greek Syntax]. Thessaloniki: Kiriakidis. Vainikka, A. (1993/1994). Case in the Development of English Syntax. Language Acquisition, 3, 257–325. Varlokosta, S., A. Vainikka, & B. Rohrbacher (1996). Root Infinitives without Infinitives. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press. Varlokosta, S., A. Vainikka, & B. Rohrbacher (1998). Functional Projections, Markedness, and ‘Root Infinitives’ in Early Child Greek. The Linguistic Review, 15, 187–207. Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics in Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Vergnaud, J.-R. & M. L. Zubizarreta (1992). The Definite Determiner and the Inalienable Constructions in French and in English. Linguistic Inquiry, 23, 595–652. Verrips, M. (1990). Models of Development. Linguistische Berichte. Weinberg, A. (1987). Comments on Borer and Wexler. In T. Roeper & E. Williams (Eds.), Parameter Setting (pp. 173–187). Dordrecht: Reidel. Weissenborn, J. (1994). Constraining the child’s grammar: Local wellformedness in the development of verb movement in German and French. In B. Lust, M. Suñer, & J. Whitman (Eds.), Syntactic theory and first language acquisition: Cross-linguistic perspectives. Vol. 1, Heads, projections, and learnability (pp. 215–247). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wexler, K. (1994). Optional Infinitives, Head Movement and the Economy of Derivations. In D. Lightfoot & N. Hornstein (Eds.), Verb Movement (pp. 305–350). Cambridge: CUP. Wexler, K. (1996). The Development of Inflection in a Biologically Based Theory of Language Acquisition. In M. L. Rice (Ed.), Toward a Genetics of Language (pp. 113–144). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wexler, Kenneth (1999). Very Early Parameter Setting and the Unique Checking Constraint: A new explanation of the optional infinitive stage. Lingua, 106, 23–79. Wexler, K. & M. R. Manzini (1987). Parameters and Learnability in Binding Theory. In T. Roeper & E. Williams (Eds.), Parameter Setting (pp. 41–76). Dordrecht: Reidel. Zubizarreta, M. L. (1987). Levels of Representation in the Lexicon and in the Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.
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Appendix 1
Table 1. File name, age and number of utterances in the speech of Christos File
Age
hri1_la hri2_1b hri3_2a hri4_2a hri5_2a hri6_2b hri7_2b hri8_3a hri9_3b hri10_3b hri11_4a hri12_4a hri13_4b hri14_4b hri15_5a hri16_5a hri17_5b hri18_6a hri19_6a hri20_6b hri21_6b hri22_7a hri23_7b hri24_7b hri25_8a hri26_8a hri27_8b hri28_8b hri29_8b hri30_9a hri31_9b hri32_9b
1;7.11 1;8.21 1;9.3 1;9.12 1;9.24 1;10.1 1;10.9 1;10.24 1;11.0 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;0.4 2;0.7 2;0.15 2;0.16 2;1.2 2;1.9 2;1.14 2;1.22 2;1.23 2;1.26 2;1.27 2;2.12 2;2.14 2;2.18 2;2.24 2;3.1–2 2;3.5 2;3.9 2;3.11
Utterances 145 136 32 82 124 81 206 91 139 86 81 109 105 105 183 129 92 139 125 290 71 231 177 92 67 151 122 185 28 265 22 73
File
Age
hri33_9b hri34_10a hri35_10a hri36_10a hri37_10b hri38_10b hri39 _l1a hri40_11b hri41_12a hri42_12a hri43_12a hri44_12a hri45_12b hri46_12b hri47_13a hri48_13a hri49_13a hri50_13b hri51_13b hri52_14a hri53_14b hri54_14b hri55_15a hri56_15a hri57_15b hri58_16a hri59_16b hri60_16b hri61_17a hri62_17a hri63_17b hri64_17b
2;3.14 2;3.18 2;3.21 2;3.26 2;3.27 2;4.1 2;4.9 2;4.12 2;4.19 2;4.21 2;4.22–24 2;5.6 2;5.10 2;5.15–16 2;5.19 2;5.23 2;5.25 2;5.26 2;6.3 2;6.11 2;6.14 2;6.21 2;7.1–2 2;7.7 2;7.16 2;7.26 2;8.1 2;8.7 2;8.13 2;8.18 2;8.23 2;8.25
Utterances 88 104 194 184 213 132 216 339 149 96 76 248 116 137 146 135 58 241 188 328 194 261 206 250 429 331 169 354 202 298 99 340
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Appendix 1
Table 2. File name, age and number of utterances in the speech of Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria
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Appendix 1
Table 3. Codes for the marking of word classes Nouns
$N:PROP $N:KINS $N:COUN $N:MASS $N:UNIC $N:ABST
Proper Name Kinship Term Count Noun Mass Noun Unicum Abstract Noun
Adjectives
$ADJ
Adjective
Articles
$DET:DEF $DET:1NDEF
Definite Indefinite
Pronouns
$PRO:PERS $PRO:POSS $PRO:DEM $PRO:INDEF $PRO:EMPH $PRO:REFL $PRO:WH $PRO:REL
Personal Pronouns Possessive Pronouns Demonstrative Pronouns Indefinite Pronouns Emphatic Pronouns Reflexive Pronouns Wh-Pronouns Relative Pronouns
Ambiguous
$ OTHER
ambiguous
Table 4. Codes for the marking of missing articles $0DET:DEF $0DET:INDEF $00DET $#0DET $?0DET
Missing Definite Article Missing Indefinite Article no determiner present = grammatical no determiner present = ambiguous Missing Definite or Indefinite Article
Table 5. Codes of the syntactical line $SUBJ $OBJECT $PP $POSS $PN $VOC $ OTHER $PADJ $AADJ $V $COMPV
Subject Object within a Prepositional Phrase within a Possessive Construction Predicative Noun in Vocative ambiguous Predicative Adjective Attributive Adjective Simple Verb Complex Verb
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Appendix 1
Table 6. Number of noun phrases analysed in the speech of Christos File
Age
hri1_la hri2_1b hri3_2a hri4_2a hri5_2a hri6_2b hri7_2b hri8_3a hri9_3b hri10_3b hri11_4a hri12_4a hri13_4b hri14_4b hri15_5a hri16_5a hri17_5b hri18_6a hri19_6a hri20_6b hri21_6b hri22_7a hri23_7b hri24_7b hri25_8a hri26_8a hri27_8b hri28_8b hri29_8b hri30_9a hri31_9b hri32_9b
1;7.11 1;8.21 1;9.3 1;9.12 1;9.24 1;10.1 1;10.9 1;10.24 1;11.0 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;0.4 2;0.7 2;0.15 2;0.16 2;1.2 2;1.9 2;1.14 2;1.22 2;1.23 2;1.26 2;1.27 2;2.12 2;2.14 2;2.18 2;2.24 2;3.1–2 2;3.5 2;3.9 2;3.11
NPs/DPs 58 50 10 32 52 42 98 45 73 56 68 75 64 89 145 123 117 100 60 160 39 151 152 73 33 134 91 93 20 161 13 64
File
Age
hri33_9b hri34_10a hri35_10a hri36_10a hri37_10b hri38_10b hri39_l1a hri40_11b hri41_12a hri42_12a hri43_12a hri44_12a hri45_12b hri46_12b hri47_13a hri48_13a hri49_13a hri50_13b hri51_13b hri52_14a hri53_14b hri54_14b hri55_15a hri56_15a hri57_15b hri58_16a hri59_16b hri60_16b hri61_17a hri62_17a hri63_17b hri64_17b
2;3.14 2;3.18 2;3.21 2;3.26 2;3.27 2;4.1 2;4.9 2;4.12 2;4.19 2;4.21 2;4.22–24 2;5.6 2;5.10 2;5.15–16 2;5.19 2;5.23 2;5.25 2;5.26 2;6.3 2;6.11 2;6.14 2;6.21 2;7.1–2 2;7.7 2;7.16 2;7.26 2;8.1 2;8.7 2;8.13 2;8.18 2;8.23 2;8.25
NPs/DPs 53 70 174 97 91 76 125 183 62 31 50 110 37 56 51 56 19 78 76 96 75 87 105 67 123 87 79 129 52 91 35 141
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Appendix 1
Table 7. Number of noun phrases analysed in the speech of Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria Child
File name
Age
NPs/DPs
Spiros
Spi21a1.cha Spi21a2.cha
1;9.2 1;9.11
143 100
Janna
Jan23a1.cha Jan23a2.cha Jan29b1.cha Jan33c1.cha
1;11.0 1; 11.6–10 2;5.12–15 2;9.9–11
96 81 121 202
Mairi
Mai21a1.cha Mai21a2.cha Mai21a34.cha Mai21a56.cha Mai27b1.cha Mai27b2.cha Mai27b3.cha Mai27b4.cha Mai33c1.cha Mai33c2.cha
1;9.17 1;9.19 1;9.25 1;9.26 2;3.16–17 2;3.17 2;3.18 2;3.11–22 2;9.14 2;9.15–27
25 140 275 405 98 62 145 172 214 272
Maria
Mar27b1.cha Mar33c1.cha Mar33c2.cha
2;3.9–11 2;9.12 2;9.13
123 49 118
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Appendix 1
Table 8. MLU per file in the speech of Christos File
Age
hri1_la hri2_1b hri3_2a hri4_2a hri5_2a hri6_2b hri7_2b hri8_3a hri9_3b hril0_3b hri11_4a hri12_4a hri13_4b hri14_4b hri15_5a hri16_5a hri17_5b hri18_6a hri19_6a hri20_6b hri21_6b hri22_7a hri23_7b hri24_7b hri25_8a hri26_8a hri27_8b hri28_8b hri29_8b hri30_9a hri31_9b hri32_9b hri33_9b hri34_10a hri35_10a hri36_10a hri37_10b hri38_10b hri39_11a hri40_11b hri41_12a hri42_12a
1;7.11 1;8.21 1;9.3 1;9.12 1;9.24 1;10.1 1;10.9 1;10.24 1;11.0 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;0.4 2;0.7 2;0.15 2;0.16 2;1.2 2;1.9 2;1.14 2;1.22 2;1.23 2;1.26 2;1.27 2;2.12 2;2.14 2;2.18 2;2.24 2;3.1–2 2;3.5 2;3.9 2;3.11 2;3.14 2;3.18 2;3.21 2;3.26 2;3.27 2;4.1 2;4.9 2;4.12 2;4.19 2;4.21
Utterances 145 136 32 82 124 81 206 91 139 86 81 109 105 105 183 129 92 139 125 290 71 231 177 92 67 151 122 185 28 265 22 73 88 104 194 184 213 132 216 339 149 96
Words
MLU
SD*
173 153 36 90 151 98 260 136 175 107 126 153 147 158 351 288 219 338 264 629 134 512 363 231 120 435 299 403 55 620 37 156 163 230 625 414 407 324 451 701 276 199
1.193 1.125 1.125 1.098 1.218 1.210 1.262 1.495 1.259 1.244 1.556 1.404 1.400 1.505 1.918 2.233 2.380 2.432 2.112 2.169 1.887 2.216 2.051 2.511 1.791 2.881 2.451 2.178 1.964 2.340 1.682 2.137 1.852 2.212 3.222 2.250 1.911 2.455 2.088 2.068 1.852 2.073
0.516 0.428 0.331 0.335 0.616 0.514 0.557 0.747 0.597 0.456 0.816 0.768 0.698 0.830 1.314 1.378 1.232 1.889 1.454 1.444 1.284 1.666 1.232 1.684 0.939 2.513 1.660 1.317 1.052 1.677 0.762 1.446 1.082 1.838 1.963 1.352 1.116 1.597 1.157 1.235 1.077 1.293
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Appendix 1
Table 8. (continued) File
Age
hri43_12a hri44_12a hri45_12b hri46_12b hri47_13a hri48_13a hri49_13a hri50_13b hri51_13b hri52_14a hri53_14b hri54_14b hri55_15a hri56_15a hri57_15b hri58_16a hri59_16b hri60_16b hri61_17a hri62_17a hri63_17b hri64_17b
2;4.22–24 2;5.6 2;5.10 2;5.15–16 2;5.19 2;5.23 2;5.25 2;5.26 2;6.3 2;6.11 2;6.14 2;6.21 2;7.1–2 2;7.7 2;7.16 2;7.26 2;8.1 2;8.7 2;8.13 2;8.18 2;8.23 2;8.25
*SD = Standard deviation
Utterances 76 248 116 137 146 135 58 241 188 328 194 261 206 250 429 331 169 354 202 298 99 340
Words
MLU
SD*
130 687 243 321 358 318 113 581 490 872 553 663 659 653 1071 791 468 1021 529 921 249 1072
1.711 2.770 2.095 2.343 2.452 2.356 1.948 2.411 2.606 2.659 2.851 2.540 3.199 2.612 2.497 2.390 2.769 2.884 2.619 3.091 2.515 3.153
1.098 2.046 1.266 1.778 1.688 1.448 1.224 1.478 1.593 1.794 1.571 1.537 1.891 1.741 1.586 1.679 1.985 1.987 2.046 2.363 1.760 1.996
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Appendix 1
Table 9. MLU per file in the speech of Spiros, Janna, Mairi and Maria Child
Filename
Age
Spiros
Spi21a1.cha Spi21a2.cha
1;9.2 1;9.11
Janna
Jan23a1.cha Jan23a2.cha Jan29b1.cha Jan33c1.cha
Utterances
Words
MLU
SD
233 204
395 331
1.695 1.623
0.827 0.840
1;11.0 1;11.6–10 2;5.12–15 2;9.9–11
311 242 385 423
457 394 1008 1310
1.469 1.628 2.618 3.097
0.721 0.767 2.080 2.231
Mairi
Mai21a1.cha Mai21a2.cha Mai21a34.cha Mai21a56.cha Mai27b1.cha Mai27b2.cha Mai27b3.cha Mai27b4.cha Mai33c1.cha Mai33c2.cha
1;9.17 1;9.19 1;9.25 1;9.26 2;3.16–17 2;3.17 2;3.18 2;3.11–22 2;9.14 2;9.15–27
68 330 645 753 375 228 345 255 461 711
143 713 1373 1661 946 554 829 663 1168 2079
2.103 2.161 2.129 2.206 2.523 2.430 2.403 2.600 2.534 2.924
1.319 1.071 1.024 1.175 1.469 1.442 1.390 1.538 1.464 1.600
Maria
Mar27b1.cha Mar33c1.cha Mar33c2.cha
2;3.9–11 2;9.12 2;9.13
331 220 259
828 662 854
2.502 3.009 3.297
1.494 1.926 2.033
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Appendix 2 Table 1. Def Articles in the speech of Spiros File
Age
01 02
1;09.02 1;09.11 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 95 58 153
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 11 24 35
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 84 34 118
% present in obligatory contexts 11.6% 41.4%
Table 2. Def Articles in the speech of Janna File Age 01 02 03 04
1;11.00 1;11.6–10 2;05.12–15 2;09.9–11 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 31 29 72 149 281
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 3 7 67 144 221
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 28 22 5 5 60
% present in obligatory contexts 9.7% 24.1% 93.1% 96.6%
Table 3. Def Articles in the speech of Mairi File Age 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
1;09.17 1;09.19 1;09.25 1;09.26 2;3.16–17 2;3.17 2;3.18 2;3.11–22 2;9.14 2;9.15–17 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 18 65 121 180 48 28 65 90 130 154 899
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 14 45 91 144 41 26 45 73 111 147 737
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 4 20 30 36 7 2 20 17 19 7 162
% present in obligatory contexts 77.8% 69.2% 75.2% 80% 85.4% 92.9% 69.2% 81.1% 85.4% 95.5%
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Appendix 2
Table 4. Def Articles in the speech of Maria File Age 01 02 03
2;03.9–11 2;09.12 2;09.13 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 48 53 91 192
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 32 52 81 165
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 16 1 10 27
% present in obligatory contexts 66.7% 98.1% 89%
Table 5. Indef. Articles in the speech of Spiros File Age 01 02
1;09.02 1;09.11 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 2 0 0
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 0 0 0
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 2 0 2
% present in obligatory contexts 0%
Table 6. Indef. Articles in the speech of Janna File Age 01 02 03 04
1;11.00 1;11.6–10 2;05.12–15 2;09.9–11 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 0 5 5 1 11
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 0 4 3 1 8
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 0 1 2 0 3
% present in obligatory contexts 80% 60% 100%
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Appendix 2
Table 7. Indef. Articles in the speech of Mairi File Age 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10
1;09.17 1;09.19 1;09.25 1;09.26 2;3.16–17 2;3.17 2;3.18 2;3.11–22 2;9.14 2;9.15–17 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 0 5 15 16 3 7 5 9 4 10 74
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 0 5 14 15 3 7 5 7 3 10 69
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 1 0 5
% present in obligatory contexts 100% 93.3% 93.8% 100% 100% 100% 77.8% 75% 100%
Table 8. Indef. Articles in the speech of Maria File Age 01 02 03
2;03.9–11 2;09.12 2;09.13 Total =
Nr. of obligatory contexts 20 1 4 25
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 19 1 4 24
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 1 0 0 1
% present in obligatory contexts 95% 100% 100%
Age
1;07.11 1;08.21 1;09.03 1;09.12 1;09.24 1;10.01 1;10.09 1;10.24 1;11.00 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;00.04 2;00.07 2;00.15 2;00.16 2;01.02 2;01.09 2;01.14 2;01.22 2;01.23 2;01.26 2;01.27 2;02.12 2;02.14 2;02.18 2;02.24 2;03.1–2 2;03.05 2;03.09 2;03.11 2;03.14
File
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
28 18 5 6 20 11 22 21 37 17 30 38 25 30 66 87 73 56 37 91 28 93 102 35 15 110 56 65 14 116 8 32 14
Nr. of obligatory contexts
0 2 0 1 1 2 3 1 2 0 0 0 2 7 18 30 28 37 9 48 10 56 36 10 8 73 31 43 12 86 5 27 10
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 28 16 5 5 19 9 19 20 35 17 30 38 23 23 48 57 45 19 28 43 18 37 66 25 7 37 25 22 2 30 3 5 4
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts
Table 9. Definite articles in the speech of Christos
0% 11.1% 0% 16.7% 5% 18.2% 13.6% 4.8% 5.4% 0% 0% 0% 8% 23.3% 27.3% 34.5% 38.4% 66% 24.3% 52.7% 35.7% 60.2% 35.3% 28.6% 53.3% 66.4% 55.4% 66.2% 85.7% 74.1% 62.5% 84.4% 71.4%
% present in obligatory contexts 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 Total =
File
2;03.18 2;03.21 2;03.26 2;03.27 2;04.01 2;04.09 2;04.12 2;04.19 2;04.21 2;04.22–24 2;05.06 2;05.10 2;05.15–16 2;05.19 2;05.23 2;05.25 2;05.26 2;06.03 2;06.11 2;06.14 2;06.21 2;07.1–2 2;07.07 2;07.16 2;07.26 2;08.01 2;08.07 2;08.13 2;08.18 2;08.23 2;08.25
Age
37 127 34 43 50 50 100 24 13 25 73 13 21 24 31 12 33 43 41 52 69 61 47 76 35 51 71 38 61 20 84 2.865
Nr. of obligatory contexts 34 85 27 32 35 37 62 17 9 14 56 7 16 22 22 10 26 41 32 49 65 60 45 72 35 47 68 37 57 19 82 1.818
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 3 42 7 11 15 13 38 7 4 11 17 6 5 2 9 2 7 2 9 3 4 1 2 4 0 4 3 1 4 1 2 1.047
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts 91.9% 66.9% 79.4% 74.4% 70% 74% 62% 70.8% 69.2% 56% 76.7% 53.8% 76.2% 91.7% 71% 83.3% 78.8% 95.3% 78% 94.2% 94.2% 98.4% 95.7% 94.7% 100% 92.2% 95.8% 97.4% 93.4% 95% 97.6%
% present in obligatory contexts
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Appendix 2
Age
1;07.11 1;08.21 1;09.03 1;09.12 1;09.24 1;10.01 1;10.09 1;10.24 1;11.00 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;00.04 2;00.07 2;00.15 2;00.16 2;01.02 2;01.09 2;01.14 2;01.22 2;01.23 2;01.26 2;01.27 2;02.12 2;02.14 2;02.18 2;02.24 2;03.1–2 2;03.05 2;03.09 2;03.11 2;03.14
File
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Nr. of obligatory contexts
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts
Table 10. Indefinite articles in the speech of Christos
100%
% present in obligatory contexts 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64
File
2;03.18 2;03.21 2;03.26 2;03.27 2;04.01 2;04.09 2;04.12 2;04.19 2;04.21 2;04.22–24 2;05.06 2;05.10 2;05.15–16 2;05.19 2;05.23 2;05.25 2;05.26 2;06.03 2;06.11 2;06.14 2;06.21 2;07.1–2 2;07.07 2;07.16 2;07.26 2;08.01 2;08.07 2;08.13 2;08.18 2;08.23 2;08.25 Total =
Age
0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 4 0 5 1 0 0 2 6 10 7 4 1 3 0 1 54
Nr. of obligatory contexts 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 4 0 5 1 0 0 0 6 10 7 3 1 3 0 1 50
Nr. present in obligatory contexts 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 4
Nr. missing in obligatory contexts
100%
0% 100% 100% 100% 75% 100% 100%
100% 100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
50
% present in obligatory contexts
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/09/2003; 15:17 F: LALD31A2.tex / p.5 (735-735)
Appendix 2
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/09/2003; 15:17
F: LALD31A2.tex / p.6 (735-735)
Appendix 2
Table 11. Use of definite articles with CNs, PNs and KTs in Christos’ speech from 1;7.11 to 2;2.24 File
Age
with CNs
with PNs
with KTs
Total
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
1;07.11 1;08.21 1;09.03 1;09.12 1;09.24 1;10.01 1;10.09 1;10.24 1;11.00 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;00.04 2;00.07 2;00.15 2;00.16 2;01.02 2;01.09 2;01.14 2;01.22 2;01.23 2;01.26 2;01.27 2;02.12 2;02.14 2;02.18 2;02.24 Total =
0 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 13 5 17 34 5 19 4 15 14 2 6 29 12 10 192
0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3 4 16 6 0 3 19 5 31 19 6 1 28 8 17 170
0 1 0 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 9 5 3 1 7 1 6 3 2 1 14 4 16 79
0 2 0 1 1 2 3 1 2 0 0 0 2 7 17 30 28 37 9 45 10 52 36 10 8 71 24 43 441
JB[v.20020404] Prn:12/09/2003; 15:17
F: LALD31A2.tex / p.7 (735-735)
Appendix 2
Table 12. Use of definite articles in the subject vs. object position in Christos’ speech from 1;7.11 to 2;2.24 File
Age
Subject
Object
Total
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
1;07.11 1;08.21 1;09.03 1;09.12 1;09.24 1;10.01 1;10.09 1;10.24 1;11.00 1;11.10 1;11.13 1;11.19 1;11.27 2;00.04 2;00.07 2;00.15 2;00.16 2;01.02 2;01.09 2;01.14 2;01.22 2;01.23 2;01.26 2;01.27 2;02.12 2;02.14 2;02.18 2;02.24 Total =
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 5 11 5 6 4 24 4 18 10 8 1 25 23 11 158
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 5 0 5 1 12 2 10 5 0 4 10 2 2 60
0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 7 16 5 11 5 36 6 28 15 8 5 35 25 13 218
Index
A A-chains 11, 220 adjectival modification 165, 166, 168, 169, 189 adjectives 25, 36, 43, 44, 54, 60, 61, 64–66, 82, 165–170, 172, 174, 175, 179–181, 185–187, 189–191, 197, 198 attributive adjectives 44, 65, 66, 165, 166, 174, 189 post- nominal adjectives 60, 61, 64–66, 166 predicative adjectives 44, 66, 70, 81, 174 pre-nominal adjectives 65 Alexiadou 67, 72, 73, 141, 142, 144, 145, 174–178 Anastasiadi-Simeonidi 73, 198 Androutsopoulou 61, 166, 169–172, 174, 190 apposition 192–217, 220, 222, 223 close apposition 13, 191, 192, 196, 214 loose apposition 213 Articles definite articles 17–22, 25, 30, 33, 34, 40–42, 46, 47, 51–53, 55–57, 61–68, 74–77, 80–82, 85–89, 91–113, 116–118, 124–140, 144–173, 179, 181–191, 193, 194, 196–206, 208, 210–212, 215–218, 220–225 expletive definite articles 17–19, 21, 22, 33, 34 indefinite articles 11, 25, 33, 40, 43, 47, 56, 57, 60, 61, 64–66, 68, 81,
82, 85–90, 92, 98, 99, 130–135, 137, 166, 216, 218, 220–222, 224, 225 multiple definite articles 11, 12, 139, 140, 162, 163, 165, 166, 181, 184, 185, 187–191, 193, 196, 200, 201, 205, 206, 211, 212, 215, 217 substantive definite articles 18, 19, 21, 22, 33, 34 Arabic 6, 7 B bare arguments 70, 74, 81, 102, 104–108, 111, 136, 138, 216, 223 bare objects 72, 104–111, 136, 216 bare subjects 105–107, 109, 110 Bare Singular Count Nouns 13, 71–73, 82,102, 104, 105, 109–112 Binding 4, 12, 13 Borer 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 33, 219, 220 Brown 29, 33, 45, 48–53 C case marking 6–9, 12, 13, 20–22, 25, 29–33, 42, 43, 47, 48, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 61, 66, 68, 70, 76–78, 80–82, 85, 86, 88, 90–92, 99, 112–118, 120–138, 140–142, 145, 147–150, 155, 157–159, 161–164, 193, 194, 196, 198, 203, 204, 211, 212, 214, 216–218, 220–223 Chierchia 12, 55, 68–70, 73–75, 81–83, 100, 103, 112, 136
Index
Chinese 69, 70, 74, 101, 102 Chomsky 3, 4, 6–9, 23, 26, 27, 31, 33, 67, 68, 79, 141, 145, 163, 164, 169, 178, 189 Christofidou 9, 37–40, 47, 48, 51, 54, 86, 92, 113–115, 118, 145, 214 Christofidou Corpus 37–40, 47, 51, 86, 92, 118, 145 Clahsen 7, 9, 10, 15, 22, 24, 29, 33, 218, 219 classifiers 69, 101, 102 cognitive hierarchy 177, 190 complex NPs 58, 59 Continuity Hypothesis 2, 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 17, 22, 26, 31, 33, 134–136, 219, 221, 225
D data diary data 33, 35 experimental data 35, 36, 88, 90, 138 longitudinal data 35, 36, 216, 224 definiteness 29, 31, 33, 61, 67, 68, 81, 131, 169, 170, 172, 222 Determiner Complementation 177, 178, 196, 198 Determiner Spreading 11, 12, 47, 52, 61, 165, 179, 191, 197, 215 determiners 11–13, 17, 21, 22, 24, 25, 40, 42, 47, 52, 55–57, 61, 62, 69, 74, 82, 90, 101, 131, 135, 137, 164, 165, 167, 171, 173–175, 177–179, 187, 191, 196–199, 215 see also Articles see also Pronouns
E Economy of Projection 23 Eisenbeiss 7, 15, 22, 24–26, 34, 91, 92, 217–219 English 6, 7, 10, 12, 15, 21, 25, 30, 32, 33, 58, 66, 69, 70, 74, 82, 91, 92, 139,
144, 145, 191, 192, 214, 215, 217, 218, 223 EPP 9, 13, 31, 67, 68, 139, 145, 162, 163, 165, 178, 189, 191, 221, 222 extended projections 13, 17, 23, 24, 82, 170, 187, 194
F features
7–9, 13, 15–16, 21, 23–32, 34, 43, 48–49, 55, 61, 62, 67–69, 73, 76, 79, 81–83, 85, 100–104, 131, 135, 136, 145, 163, 164, 169–174, 176, 178, 189, 212, 216, 220–222 feature identification 26–28, 31 feature projection 26, 30, 31 feature rejection 27, 30, 31 feature-checking 27 formal features 8, 13, 26, 27, 29 interpretable features 8, 9, 26, 158 strength 26, 27 uninterpretable features 8, 9, 31, 145, 178, 189, 222 Felix 11, 14, 33 Final State 3, 10, 11, 219 see also Initial State focus 8, 40, 55, 70–72, 76, 81, 82, 102, 104, 112, 124, 125, 135, 139, 145, 178, 179, 192, 193 focalisation 59, 60, 65, 72, 82, 139–141, 144, 162–164, 178, 184, 217, 219, 223 formulaic expressions 25, 35, 45–47, 53, 90, 91 functional categories 3, 5–7, 12–14, 24, 26, 29, 31, 33, 55, 57, 76, 90, 92, 111, 135, 162, 199, 211, 220, 221, 225 functional layers 11, 12, 23, 24, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 64, 66, 67, 81, 85, 134, 135, 144, 178, 187, 212, 215, 216, 220–222 Functional Module 12, 14 Functional Parameterisation Hypothesis 6, 7, 12
Index
G gender marking 8, 9, 18, 21, 29–31, 34, 43, 47, 48, 56, 61, 73, 76–78, 83, 113, 115–117, 204 German 10, 11, 15, 17–19, 21, 24, 32–34, 48, 69, 92, 164, 192, 194, 213, 215, 217–219, 223, 224 Germanic Languages 69, 70, 74, 101, 102, 112 Grimshaw 23 H Head-Direction Parameter 3–5, 32 head-driven projections 22, 23 I Icelandic 4, 5, 32 impostors 13, 25, 90–92, 94, 96, 97, 131, 135, 217 inflectional classes 13, 77–80, 114, 115, 120, 122, 123, 124 Initial Hypothesis of Syntax 27 Initial State 2, 3, 10, 11, 219 see also Final State iota operator 75 J Jackendoff 45, 194, 213 K Karanassios 57, 60, 61, 63, 65–67, 170, 189, 194 Kayne 174, 175 L Language Acquisition Device 1, 13 Language Faculty 1, 2, 10, 14, 15, 135, 136, 162, 163, 189, 211, 212, 222 Lebeaux 6, 9, 26, 27 lexical categories 7, 12, 13 Lexical Learning 15, 22, 24–26, 29, 33, 136, 216
Lexical Parameterisation Hypothesis 4, 5 lexicon 6, 8, 31, 218 light verbs 44, 71, 81, 82, 104, 105, 108, 109, 111, 136, 145, 216, 223 Löbel 192, 194, 214, 219 Local Well-formedness Constraint 17 Longobardi 18, 68–70, 74, 83, 169 M Manzini 4, 5, 32, 100 Maturation 2, 7, 10–12, 14, 31–33, 55, 134, 219–221 Merge 8, 9, 26, 28, 177 External Merge 8 Internal Merge 8, 9 Minimal Projection 23 Minimalist Program 2, 3, 7, 9, 12, 13, 26–28, 31, 32, 135, 163, 189, 212, 222 MLU 12, 13, 44, 48–51, 53, 86–88, 98, 103, 135, 136, 146, 149, 153, 155, 157, 158, 179, 180, 182–184, 201–207, 216, 220 morphological bootstrapping 22, 24 movement 9, 12, 17, 18, 31, 52, 59, 64–68, 72, 73, 82, 83, 112, 139, 141, 144, 145, 162–165, 170–179, 184–186, 188, 189, 191, 198–200, 203, 206, 207, 210–212, 217, 219, 220, 222, 223 A-Movement 164 A’-Movement 63, 141, 164, 175, 176, 178 wh-movement 182–184 N narrow syntax 8, 9, 26, 31 negation 73, 81, 105 Nominal Mapping Parameter 12, 55, 68–70, 81, 82, 85, 100, 101, 103, 104, 111, 112, 136, 137 nouns common nouns 18, 22, 69, 73, 75, 91, 95
Index
count nouns 13, 40, 68–71, 74, 81, 91, 101, 102, 108, 112, 218 kinship terms 12, 13, 17, 21, 22, 40, 41, 79, 95, 191, 193, 196 mass nouns 40, 70, 71, 75, 81–83, 89, 91, 102, 108, 137 proper names 12, 13, 17, 21, 22, 40, 41, 73–75, 79, 91, 191, 193, 196, 201 number marking 8, 12, 13, 18, 21, 29–31, 43, 52, 55, 56, 61, 67, 68, 76, 77, 81, 112, 113, 115, 116, 118–120, 130–132, 134, 136–138, 216, 220, 221, 223 numerals 56, 89, 101 O Ouhalla 6, 32 P Parameter 2–5, 10, 11–16, 15–17, 19, 26, 32, 55, 68–70, 81, 82, 85, 100–104, 111, 112, 136, 137, 162, 163 Parameterisation 3–7, 12, 32 Penner 15–22, 33, 34, 91, 217–219 peripheral system 178 phonological component 8, 9, 31 phrasal compounds 196, 198, 200, 214 pied-piping 171, 173, 176, 177 Pinker 1, 2, 92 placeholders 116 Platzack 26, 27 Possessive Constructions 11, 12, 18, 20, 25, 47, 52, 53, 133, 139–142, 144–158, 162–165, 178, 179, 184, 185, 188, 189, 191, 205, 206, 211, 215–223 alienable possessor 142, 143 inalienable possessor 142, 143 possessor raising 19, 21 Powers 9, 23, 26–29, 32–34, 40, 44 Principles and Parameters Theory 2, 3, 9, 10, 12, 13, 28, 31, 32, 55, 135, 162, 163, 188, 189, 211, 212, 222
pro-drop 15, 16 pronouns 4, 5, 13, 17–21, 26, 32–34, 40, 43, 53, 54, 61, 90, 149, 150, 164, 179, 183, 185–189 demonstrative pronouns 13, 40, 56, 57, 60–64, 66, 68, 81, 88, 126, 179, 185–190 contrastive pronouns 185, 187, 188 expletive possessive pronouns 18–21 Q quantifiers 17, 56, 57, 101, 112 R Radford 7, 11–14, 21, 90, 185, 213, 217, 218, 220 Ralli 43, 77, 198–200, 214 recursion 175, 195, 197 relative clauses 13, 174, 175, 198 reduced relative clauses 174, 198 Roeper 9, 15, 16, 26–31, 82, 103, 137 Romance Languages 69, 70, 74, 81, 101, 102, 112 Root Infinitives 108 S scrambling 171 Sioupi 71, 72, 83 Speas 23, 24 specificity 82, 171 Specifier Parameter 3, 4 Stavrou 9, 57–61, 63, 65–67, 75, 140–142, 144, 164, 170, 174, 178, 189, 190, 192, 194–196, 198, 213 Stephany Corpus 36–40, 47, 51, 86, 92, 98, 104, 116, 146, 148–151, 157, 158, 190 Strong Continuity 9, 15, 17, 26, 134, 221 structural economy 22, 23 structure building 9, 13, 26, 135, 220 subjacency 58, 59 subject-object asymmetry 105, 107, 111, 132, 138
Index
Subset Principle 30, 100 Swiss German 10, 15, 17–19, 21, 33, 215, 217, 218, 223 syncretism 43, 76–81, 113, 120, 122, 124, 136 syntax-semantics mapping 55, 68, 81, 85, 100, 136 Szabolcsi 68, 83, 145, 178 T tense 8, 12, 29, 30, 92, 220 Theophanopoulou-Kontou 115, 138 Triggers 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 33, 34, 103, 112, 134, 171, 172, 178, 188, 189, 191 Accessibility Hierarchy of triggers 16 canonical triggers 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 26, 33, 34 Hierarchy of Triggers 16, 18, 22 triggering frames 16, 18 Unique Trigger 15, 16, 103
Tsimpli 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 26, 33, 71, 77, 82, 220 U underspecification 7, 24, 25, 26, 29, 34, 221 Unique Maximal Projections 9, 28, 30 Universal Grammar 2, 12, 13 U-shaped curve 25, 92, 94, 97, 136, 216, 217 W Weak Continuity 7, 15, 22, 134–136, 221 Weissenborn 9, 15–22, 33, 34, 91, 103, 137, 217–219, 224, 225 Wexler 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 26, 32, 33, 100, 220 X X-bar Theory
3, 11, 28
In the series LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND LANGUAGE DISORDERS (LALD) the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. WHITE, Lydia: Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition. 1989. 2. HUEBNER, Thom and Charles A. FERGUSON (eds): Cross Currents in Second Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory. 1991. 3. EUBANK, Lynn (ed.): Point Counterpoint. Universal Grammar in the second language. 1991. 4. ECKMAN, Fred R. (ed.): Confluence. Linguistics, L2 acquisition and speech pathology. 1993. 5. GASS, Susan and Larry SELINKER (eds): Language Transfer in Language Learning. Revised edition. 1992. 6. THOMAS, Margaret: Knowledge of Reflexives in a Second Language. 1993. 7. MEISEL, Jürgen M. (ed.): Bilingual First Language Acquisition. French and German grammatical development. 1994. 8. HOEKSTRA, Teun and Bonnie SCHWARTZ (eds): Language Acquisition Studies in Generative Grammar. 1994. 9. ADONE, Dany: The Acquisition of Mauritian Creole. 1994. 10. LAKSHMANAN, Usha: Universal Grammar in Child Second Language Acquisition. Null subjects and morphological uniformity. 1994. 11. YIP, Virginia: Interlanguage and Learnability. From Chinese to English. 1995. 12. JUFFS, Alan: Learnability and the Lexicon. Theories and second language acquisition research. 1996. 13. ALLEN, Shanley: Aspects of Argument Structure Acquisition in Inuktitut. 1996. 14. CLAHSEN, Harald (ed.): Generative Perspectives on Language Acquisition. Empirical findings, theoretical considerations and crosslinguistic comparisons. 1996. 15. BRINKMANN, Ursula: The Locative Alternation in German. Its structure and acquisition. 1997. 16. HANNAHS, S.J. and Martha YOUNG-SCHOLTEN (eds): Focus on Phonological Acquisition. 1997. 17. ARCHIBALD, John: Second Language Phonology. 1998. 18. KLEIN, Elaine C. and Gita MARTOHARDJONO (eds): The Development of Second Language Grammars. A generative approach. 1999. 19. BECK, Maria-Luise (ed.): Morphology and its Interfaces in Second Language Knowledge. 1998. 20. KANNO, Kazue (ed.): The Acquisition of Japanese as a Second Language. 1999. 21. HERSCHENSOHN, Julia: The Second Time Around – Minimalism and L2 Acquisition. 2000. 22. SCHAEFFER, Jeanette C.: The Acquisition of Direct Object Scrambling and Clitic Placement. Syntax and pragmatics. 2000. 23. WEISSENBORN, Jürgen and Barbara HÖHLE (eds.): Approaches to Bootstrapping. Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition. Volume 1. 2001. 24. WEISSENBORN, Jürgen and Barbara HÖHLE (eds.): Approaches to Bootstrapping. Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition. Volume 2. 2001. 25. CARROLL, Susanne E.: Input and Evidence. The raw material of second language acquisition. 2001.
26. SLABAKOVA, Roumyana: Telicity in the Second Language. 2001. 27. SALABERRY, M. Rafael and Yasuhiro SHIRAI (eds.): The L2 Acquisition of Tense– Aspect Morphology. 2002. 28. SHIMRON, Joseph (ed.): Language Processing and Acquisition in Languages of Semitic, Root-Based, Morphology. 2003. 29. FERNÁNDEZ, Eva M.: Bilingual Sentence Processing. Relative clause attachment in English and Spanish. 2003. 30. HOUT, Roeland van, Aafke C.J. HULK, Folkert KUIKEN and Richard J. TOWELL (eds.): The Lexicon-syntax Interface in Second Language Acquisition. 2003. 31. MARINIS, Theodoros: The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek. 2003. 32. PRÉVOST, Philippe and Johanne PARADIS (eds.): The Acquisition of French in Different Contexts. Focus on functional categories. n.y.p. 33. JOSEFSSON, Gunlög, Christer PLATZACK and Gisela HÅKANSSON (eds.): The Acquisition of Swedish Grammar. n.y.p. 34. OTA, Mitsuhiko: The Development of Prosodic Structure in Early Words. Continuity, divergence and change. n.y.p. 35. SÁNCHEZ, Liliana: Quechua-Spanish Bilingualism. Interference and convergence in functional categories. n.y.p. 36. BARTKE, Susanne and Julia SIEGMÜLLER (eds.): Williams Syndrome across Languages. n.y.p.
