Language Development 9783110854817, 9783110130805

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LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

A VT PUBLICATIONS AVT Publications is a s e r i e s sponsored by t h e Algemene Vereniging voor Taa/wetenschap ( L i n g u i s t i c Society of the Netherlands). In addition t o t h e annual p u b l i c a t i o n of Linguistics in the Netherlands f u r t h e r p u b l i c a t i o n s , r e s u l t i n g f r o m other activities p r o m o t e d by t h e Society, m a y appear in t h i s series.

Peter Jordens Josine Lalleman (eds)

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Jordens, Peter Language Development / Peter Jordens & Josine Lalleman. - Dordrecht [etc.] : Foris. - (AVT publications; 5) Papers presented at the second summer school of the Algemene Vereniging voor Taalwetenschap (Linguistic Society of the Netherlands), Amsterdam June 1987. ISBN 90-6765-401-9 SISO 803.3 UDC 800.7 Subject heading: language development.

ISBN 90-6765-401-9 © 1988 Algemene Vereniging voor Taalwetenschap seer.: J. Lalleman, Dutch Studies, Univ. of Leiden, P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright owner. Printed in The Netherlands by ICG Printing, Dordrecht.

Contents

Editorial Preface List of contributors Josien Lalleman The study of child language acquisition: a survey and a discussion of some recent developments Steven Gillis, Floriert Koopmans-van Beinum and Jeannette van der Stelt The prelinguistic stage Anne E. Mills The language of blind children: normal or abnormal Paul P. Goudena Two perspectives on egocentric speech Li Ping Acquisition of spatial reference in Chinese Ger J. de Haan and Κ. Tuijnman Missing subjects and objects in child grammar Harald Vlahsen Critical phases of grammar development. A study of the acquisition of negation in children and adults Peter Jordens The acquisition of word order in L2 Dutch and German

Editorial We would like to thank the following people for their invaluable help in acting as referees for the papers included in this volume

Melissa Bowerman Aafke Hulk Uriel Schuurs

Preface This volume contains a number of papers presented at the second summer school of the Linguistic Society, held in Amsterdam in June, 1987. The annual summer school aims to provide members of the Society with an opportunity to be informed of recent developments in a field related to their own field of research. The first chapter of this volume, "The study of child language acquisition: a survey and a discussion of some recent developments", contains a general overview by Lalleman. In the second chapter Gillis, Koopmans - van Beinum, & van der Steh evaluate "The prelinguistic stage". They argue that although children in their first year do not use language as a means to have social contacts, this stage is nevertheless of crucial importance for the development of language acquisition. The third chapter, "The language of blind children: normal or abnormal?", contains a discussion by Mills of a number of topics in the study of blind children's language development. She deals with findings relating to preverbal communication, sound production, lexical development, reference and input. Mills concludes that in many respects the language acquisition of blind children is deviant when compared to that of sighted children. Tnis finding, she argues, contradicts Chomsky's claim that there are no differences between sighted and blind children. The fourth chapter of this volume, "Two perspectives on egocentric speech", broaches the relation between language development and cognition. Goudena gives a survey of the different opinions of two well-known researchers, Piaget and Vygotsky, on the subject of egocentric speech. Piaget's and Vygotsky's ideas diner with respect to the origins of intellectual functioning, and the relation between egocentric speech and type of activity the child is engaged in. Goudena concludes that there is no clear empirical basis to favour either point of view, and that both approaches are important in the endeavour to establish the role of cognitive abilities in the acquisition of language. Li Ping reports the findings of an experimental study on the "Acquisition of spatial reference in Chinese". It is shown that children do not learn meanings of particular words one by one. Rather children use strategies and perspectives with respect to groups of words. In the acquisition of the words qianbian ('in front o f ) and houbian ('behind') in Chinese, children start using the aligned strategy and later on change to the facing strategy. Li Ping argues that this change of strategies is linked the cognitive process of decentering. The paper by de Haan & Tuijnman on "Missing subjects and objects in child grammar" deals with a particular case of ellipsis in children acquiring LI Dutch. The authors found evidence for the cooccurrence of missing subjects and objects on the one hand, and of utterances with a verb in sentence-initial position, i.e utterances with an empty-topic position on the other. This observation is accounted for by the hypothesis that phonetically empty topics can identify empty subject and object categories. Furthermore, it is argued that the identification of empty topics is possible on the basis of a discourse rule. It is a question of parameter setting, i.e. it is a question of discourse or sentence orientation, whether or not languages have such a discourse rule.

χ In his paper "Critical phases of grammar development. A study of the acquisition of negation in children and adults" Qahsen investigates developments in child first language acquisition and in natural second language acquisition. It is argued that only children have access to innate linguistic knowledge. Initially, children have two possibilities for the expression of negation, i.e. a syntactic and a morphological option. Both options are determined by principles of Universal Grammar. In LI German and Swedish the child does not fix either one of these options initially. This is reflected in the use of two negation patterns. For L2 acquisition (of German), however, Clahsen claims that L2 learners develop mterlanguage systems which cannot be described as possible grammars in terms of principles of Universal Grammar. L2 learners of German initially use negation only preverbally. The special NEGplacement rules that are acquired later on show that the grammar of a second-language learner cannot be described as a possible grammar. Finally, in his paper "The acquisition of word order in L2 Dutch and German", Jordens investigates the acquisition of the positioning of verbal elements. The data that have been evaluated lead to the conclusion that L2 learners are initially confronted with two word order possibilities in Dutch and German main clauses: SVO and SOV. The problem for L2 learners is that they have to find a way in which they can deal with both patterns, i.e. they have to figure out how SVO and SOV order are related. The acquisition of the distinction between the finite (INFL) and the non-finite verb categories (V) leads to the acquisition of the positioning of both verbal categories and to underlying OV order. At the final stage of the developmental process, the underlying word order of L2 German has to be restructured with regard to the positioning of INFL. For this process of restructuring to take place L2 learners have to learn the relevance of COMP for the positioning of INFL.

Peter Jordens Josine Lalleman

List of contributors H. Clahsen Universität Düsseldorf, Department of Linguistics, Universitätsstraße 1, D - 4000 Düsseldorf / Germany S. Gillis University of Antwerp, Department of Linguistics - GER, Universiteitsplein 1, B2610 Wilrijk / Belgium P. P. Goudena Department of Social Sciences / Child Studies, Heidelberglaan 1,3584 CS Utrecht G. J. de Haan University of Utrecht, Department of Linguistics, Trans 10, 3512 JK Utrecht P. Jordens Free University of Amsterdam, Department of Applied Linguistics, De Boelelaan 1105, 1007 MC Amsterdam F. Koopmans - van Beinum University of Amsterdam, Institute of Phonetic Sciences, Herengracht 338, 1016 CG Amsterdam J. Lalleman University of Leiden, Dutch Studies, P.N. van Eyckhof 3, 2300 RA Leiden Li Ping Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen A. E. Mills University of Amsterdam, Department of General Linguistics, Spuistraat 210,1012 VT Amsterdam J. van der Stelt University of Amsterdam, Institute of Phonetic Sciences, Herengracht 338, 1016 CG Amsterdam Κ. Tuijnman University of Utrecht, Department of Linguistics, Trans 10,3512 JK Utrecht

Josten Lalleman

The study of child language acquisition: a survey and a discussion of some recent developments

0. Introduction Through the centuries, language development has puzzled philosophers, psycholinguistists, linguists and indeed anyone who has witnessed the emergence of language in his own environment. How do children learn language? In what way is this learning process connected to universale of language structure and to the overall development of a human being? What is the nature and course of learning and how can this be explained? It seems obvious that the need for answers to these questions can explain why language development is studied. 1 In this chapter I will deal with the ways in which linguists have tackled these questions, and I will survey some important topics in linguistic studies of child development. Three questions form the core of this chapter: m How to describe language development (2^ How to study language development (3) How to explain language development In dealing with the first question, I will summarize some facts of the relative order in which English and Dutch are acquired by native children. The following topics are addressed in the course of this discussion: the acquisition of word meaning, the transition from single word utterances to word combinations, the nature of two word utterances, and the linguistic input to children. The debate on the innateness of language is touched upon as well. The second section examines some methodological issues on child language studies, such as possible data collection procedures, and a number of problems in the interpretation and generalization of data. In the final section of this chapter some important explanatory models are introduced, which aim to explain the relevant findings of child language studies.

2 1. How to describe language development? 1.1. A general survey of child language development In this section I will summarize the findings of studies on child language development, with special focus on the acquisition of English and Dutch. Schaerlaekens & Gillis (1987) distinguish four phases in the acquisition of Dutch. They indicate the approximate age at which each of the stages may start, and the average period during which a child is considered to be in that specific stage. Brown (1973) distinguishes developmental stages in the acquisition of English on the basis of MLU (mean length of utterance) rather than on the basis of chronological age. Brown chooses the MLUs associated with his stages arbitrarily, in order to be able to segment a continuous flow of data for analysis. Nevertheless, the phases he distinguishes are relatively similar to those Schaerlaekens & Gillis found for the acquisition of Dutch 2 (read scheme). In order to clarify these phases, I shall give a hypothetical example of a longitudinal study in which the major characteristics of each phase are exemplified. First, an example of the babbling phase: Hypothetical conversation 1 Context: Boy of 8 months playing with his father, with a ball. Father: Barry: F: B: F:

here you are, here is the ball! baba Yes, it is a ball, a ball. babababa dadadada baby gives the ball to daddy, there's a good boy!

The boy produces babbling sequences of CV(consonant, vowel) structures, which the father interprets as words, ball and daddy for baba- and dada- respectively. In this phase the boy does not actually refer to the ball or to his father or to any other aspect of the situation. He may, however, point to the ball, and use a specific sequence as a "request" form. At the age of one year and two months (1.2), the boy would be in the middle of the single-word phase (Early Linguistic Period), and would, for example, produce the words ball, daddy and foot with reference to the situation in which he is engaged. Using various intonation patterns (questions, exclamations, declarations), he manages to have a dialogue with his father:

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CT) »— c •ren c c 4) -ιΟ. Ό Ο C 3 ·— Ο 9 V) HΦ V) uο m ν Ο — 4Ο C 73 C +-» ίβ Οί •Γσ> s c er •Ρ«λ σ> ο c ο Ν

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.— — · /k/, /x/, /h/). The division into these two groups was based on a study with German adults (see Mills & Thiem 1980). The study showed that, in their production of target sounds which have a visible articulation e.g. / b / , / m / or / f / , the visually-handicapped children made more errors than the sighted children: 41% compared with 21%. The difference between the two groups in their production of target sounds with non-visible articulation was, however, not significant. The lack of difference between the two groups of children with the non-visible articulation sounds shows that blind children do not have a general delay in sound acquisition, but only a delay with those sounds for which seeing the articulation can give information about the articulation.

60 Comparing the production of the sounds with visible articulation and the sounds with non-visible articulation, it is apparent that the sighted children were significantly better at producing the sounds with visible articulation than the sounds with the non-visible articulation: 79% correct compared with 49% respectively. For the blind children, on the other hand, there was no significant difference between the two groups of sounds. The seen information about articulation clearly gives the sighted child an advantage in production. An analysis of the actual sounds substituted in the errors the children made shows that sighted children rarely substitute a sound from the other visual category; for example they rarely produce / n / instead of /m/, but rather another labial. Blind children make such cross-category substitutions much more frequently: 34% compared with only 10% in the sighted children. They will produce /de d/ for Baby or / f u / for Schuh. These findings have been supported by subsequent work (Dodd 1983, and Wilson quoted in Mulford in press). It is also evident from an analysis of the vocabulary of the children studied that the blind children produced far fewer words including a sound with a visible articulation than the sighted children. This finding was confirmed by an analysis carried out on the early lexicons of nine English-speaking children (Mulford in press). As Mulford points out, it has been previously observed that front-articulated consonants are predominant in the early lexicon but the explanations have been based on the distributional bias in languages (see Vihman et al. 1985 for a summary) or on physiological factors (Smith in press). The evidence from blind children indicates that these explanations are not correct since they would applpy to blind children equally. The findings confirm the view that the child, sighted or visually-handicapped, actively selects the vocabulary to be produced on the basis of the acquired accuracy.·5 Visually impaired children are clearly different in their early phonological acquisition, but it is not the case that this difference will necessarily result in a disordered phonology. None of the children in the Mills study, who were followed up to age of 2;6 showed any sign of such problems; some blind children seem to have sound systems equivalent to those of sighted children by the age of five years. Several studies have however reported a higher incidence of articulation problems in visually-impaired children (e.g. Miner 1963, Lezak & Starbuck 1964, Elstner 1983). To summarize: blind children follow a different and slightly slower path in their acquisition of phonology. This abnormal route does not however lead necessarily to an abnormal result in the long term, although lack of vision may compound with other factors to lead to a disorder. From what we know of sighted children's behaviour, a model of phonological acquisition must include the role of visual information from the articulation enmeshed with other aspects such as acoustic properties and articulatory features. In such a model, the alternate route becomes predictable when the visual information is missing and blind children's behaviour conforms to general principles.

5. Lexical development 5.1 Over- and Underextension In this area there is a significant difference between sighted and visually-handicapped children: underextension is more frequent in blind children and correspondingly overexten-

61

sion is more rare. That is blind children will more frequently use a term to refer to one specific object only, rather than generalizing it to a class of objects, such as one child in my observation group saying bear for a particular toy bear, but not for any other furry bear (see also Bigelow 1981). Sighted children at the early stage of lexical acquisition are prone to overgeneralize a term, quite incorrectly, to other obejcts on the basis of some common property (e.g. Clark 1973, Nelson 1973). Overextension is less frequent in blind children (Dunlea 1982) and where it does take place, it is based, not unexpectedly, on features perceptible mainly in the haptic-kinaesthetic mode (Compare the two examples below). Sigted child: from d a r k 1973 lexical item: mooi first referent: moon domain of application: cakes, round marks on windows, letter 'o' Blind child: from Dunlea 1982 lexical item: cookie first referent: cookie (eating) domain of application: feeding herself small bits of food, putting loquat leaf in mouth, touching pieces of paper The differences in the kind of overextensions that blind children make indicate for example that shape is not a salient feature for children per se (see Nelson 1973) but that visual properties are salient. A general principle underlying over-extensions must refer to salient modalities of perception. Behaviour here can be extremely complex, however, and dependent on the learning situation of the individual child; for example, a German-English bilingual child extended the term mouth to the moon, because of her confusion of the phonetically similar words in German Mund 'mouth' and Mond 'moon'. With regard to the frequency of over-extensions, researchers do not so much disagree that a difference exists here between sighted and blind children but on its significance. Andersen et al. (1984) wish to relate a lack of frequency of over-extension to a delay in cognitive development, namely the capacity to sort. This is part of their general theoretical stance that language development and cognitive development are closely related. They argue, on the basis of observing no sorting play in the blind children, that: 'the absence of visual input has a detrimental effect on category formation, a cognitive difference that leads to a language difference, since categorization schemata are thought to underlie extension' (655). Landau & Gleitman (1985), on the other hand, consider the underextension and lack of overextension as unimportant for language acquisition, since they reject a position in which such a close link is made between the development of cognition and language. Blind children are certainly abnormal in the smaller amount of overgeneralization they produce and in the kind of overgeneralization. The latter can be explained on the basis of a general principle referring to salient modalities of perception but the interpretation to be given to the relative lack of overgeneralization depends on the theoretical standpoint of the researcher. More data are required on the cognitive development and language of both sighted and blind children before the significance of overgeneralization as a process can be evaluated.

62 5.2 Use of Sighted Terms It must be obvious that the meaning of terms with a large visual component cannot be the same for visually-handicapped children as for sighted children. Landau & Gleitman (1985) investigated the use of some of the verbs of vision in one blind child, Kelli. They found that Kelli used and interpreted the verbs see and look as if they meant 'haptically be aware of and 'haptically explore' respectively. So, when Kelli was asked to look behind her, she explored the floor behind her with her hand. When she was asked whether she could see an object, she would reach out and touch it and then answer 'Yes'. These responses indicate that the terms have meaning for her and reflect her awareness of the diff:erence in agentivity between the two verbs: look see

— —

action of feel action of touch

Landau & Gleitman also show that Kelli was aware of different features when the verbs were used with a sighted person as agent. So, for example, by the age of five they have some evidence that she did not interpret see as touch if a sighted adult was doing the seeing. The conclusion is that blind children will transfer the visual verbs into the modality next dominant which. Landau & Gleitman maintain, is the haptic modality. On the basis of personal; observation of blind children I would argue that it is not correct to say that the haptic modality is always the next dominant: I have observed blind children using the verb see with the meaning of 'to hear', as the following example illustrates. Lisa (3;3) is playing with her mother and other adult on the floor. The tape recorder is running. Lisa had previously asked about the noise it made. She starts to move away from the game. Mother: where are you going? Lisa: I can't see it. Mother and adult do not understand. Lisa moves so that her mother is no longer between her and the tape recorder and orientates herself so that she has binaural input but with her back tot the tape recorder. Lisa: now I can The transfer to one modality or another seems to be dependent on the situation but there is possibly also individual variation in the hierarchy of modalities. The meaning of the visual verbs is clearly different for blind children and therefore, at one level, not normal. On the basis of Kelli's performance with the visual verbs and her use of some colour terms, Landau and Gleitman argue strongly that the aquisition of lexical concepts in blind children must not be seen as deficient. The vehemence of their argument has its roots in the fact that some researchers (e.g. Cutsforth 1932, 1951) have described blind children's use of any terms with a strong visual component as meaningless. The visual terms clearly do have meaning for blind children but the meaning is different. It is also a related, but as yet unclarified question, what the meaning of such verbs for blind adults is. It could be the case here, as in other areas of language, that the endstate for the blind child is different. However the meaning of visual terms for the blind children appears to conform to a general principle of dominant modality. This principle emerges from the observations with blind children and is further testable in that it makes predictions about the meanings of, say, aural terms for the profoundly deaf child.

63 5.3 Locational Terms The acquisition of locational terms is delayed in blind children, but it is not clear as yet whether acquisition follows a different route. Bigelow & Bryan (1982) investigated the acquisition of in, on and under in blind children and noted that the children were able to place an object in relationship to themselves more quickly than two objects in relation to one another. This appeared to be different from acquisition in sighted children but a follow-up study of sighted children in fact found the same sequence. Orientation to self appears to dominate familiarity with the objects (compare Clark 1973, Li Ping this volume). Here the work with the handicapped group has led to a more accurate description of 'normal' development. The abnormal delay in this area of language in blind children appears to be related to a well documented delay in the locomotor development of blind children. A certain level of locomotor development is necessary for the discovery of the relationships between objects. An ongoing research project by the author is pursuing the acquisition of locational terms, in order to assess the role of vision in the factors of orientation to self, familiarity with the object and perspective (see Cox 1986 on sighted children). Initial observations indicate that a locomotor strategy is learned for the first terms acquired and that the acquisition of orientation with fronted objects will be significantly delayed due, in part, to the problem of determining the front features of an object (Mills 1988b)

6. Reference 6.1. Personal Pronouns Several researchers have noted that blind children appear delayed in their acquisition of first and second person pronouns. Fraiberg & Adelson (1976) explained this through a delayed learning of a self-concept and related this delay in turn to a delay in symbolic play. However the link between the use of pronouns and the development of self-concept should also be evident in sighted children which it is not. Secondly, if a self concept is delayed, it would also be expected that blind children show a general delay in the use of proper names to refer to themselves, not only in the use of pronouns in this function. A delay in the use of the child's own name to refer to herself has not been reported and, in fact, blind children continue to use proper names for self reference where the first person pronoun would be more appropriate (Mulford 1981). Mulford suggests that the explanation of a delay, where it occurs in a blind child, lies rather in the problem of determining shifting roles for which the sighted child can use visual information. Loveland (1984) argued with data from sighted children that the control of the personal pronouns depends on the cognitive ability to understand different spatial points of view. If this dependence is correct, the acquisition of blind children can be seen as abnormal in that it is delayed but normal in the sense that acquisition in this area depends on acquisition of the cognitive concept, which as was shown above, is delayed in blind children.

64 7. Language input In one small area Landau & Gleitman (1985) recorded a significant delay in the syntax of the three blind children that they investigated. All three children were slow to acquire the verbal auxiliary in English, although no major delay was seen with any other construction. Landau & Gleitman (p.48-49) found that this delay was immediately related to the structure of the maternal input which contained fewer instances of the verbal auxiliary. This was the case because the adults were using more imperative forms, which in the positive form in English contain no verbal auxiliaries, and fewer declarative and questions which do contain auxiliaries. The more frequent use of imperatives was due to the situation between the adult and blind infant in which the adult more frequently tells the child what to do or how to do it. This complex chain of cause has been found also to apply to sighted infants (Newport et al. 1977). The blind children are abnormal in being delayed but normal in that the factor of input influences them in the same way. This result raises the important question of input as a factor in acquisition. Here the influence is a delay in the acquisition of a part of speech but there is no indication that the children suffer any permanent damage from this delay4.

8. Summary and conclusions From the restricted number of areas covered here, it is clear that blind children are different in some aspects of their language development, for example in their acquisition of phonology, in the pre-verbal interaction, in the structure of the early lexicon. Some of these differences involve a delay compared with sighted children, others an alternative path. In some areas, it must be added, it is not clear where the end-point of development lies, since there is not enough information about the competence of the blind adult; therefore it is difficult to evaluate the child's acquisition. At the descriptive level many differences have been noted between blind and sighted children, which would lead to a categorisation of the acquisition of these aspects as abnormal. The blind children's acquisition of speech sounds, for example, is abnormal in that the acquisition of labial sounds is delayed and abnormal in that the pattern of substituted sounds is different. Some researchers have made much of this distinction between delay and deviance; I am content in this context to refer to these aspects of acquisition as abnormal. At this level of description the evidence I have presented is clearly in contradiction to Chomsky's claim that there are no differences between sighted and blind children in their language development and that blind children are often in advance of their sighted peers, a claim made in his debate with Piaget (reported in Piatelli-Palmarini 1980:171). Chomsky wished to argue the point that cognitive development is unrelated to language development and that therefore children with severe problems in cognitive development are unaffected in their language development. Chomsky's claims about blind children's language not being different to that of sighted children and possibly in advance of sighted children are obviously incorrect and a statement that cognitive and language development are not related has in future to be documented in a more precise and accurate way.

65 It is not my intention here to enter in on a debate about the relationship between cognitive and language development. What I want to focus my attention on is the fact that it has been possible to find general principles of acquisition which cover the data we have from blind children. That is not to say that such general principles were always in existence. In some cases, as with the research on the use of locative prepositions, the work with blind children instigated a careful re-examination of the facts with sighted children. In many of the other areas I have mentioned the data from blind children have required a reformulation of an existing principle or the formulation of a new principle, which will explain behaviour in acquisition with and without vision. This, it seems to me, is the challenge of working with a handicapped group: it is necessary at the descriptive level to detail the differences between the handicapped and non-handicapped population and to assess the function of these differences, with at least the one very practical goal of establishing possible means of compensating for difficulties. At the explanatory level we must look for principles of acquisition which cover the data from both groups. The data I have discussed have shown how the principles of acquisition have been extended in their generality through this endeavour. This approach is part of the search for general principles of acquisition which in recent years has been propelled forward, as I mentioned at the outset, through cross-linguistic comparison and the work on individual variation: whatever happened to the 'missing 10%'? This kind of work is of course much harder to do; but I consider it to be the more fruitful approach. I do not think it is correct to deal with the 90% first and postpone consideration of the rest till later. This principle of course applies in all areas of linguistics, and scientific investigation in general. I wish therefore to argue for a consideration of blind children as normal sources of data at this level despite the abnormalities found at the descriptive level.

Notes *

Some of the material in this paper was first published in Griffiths P.G., Mills A.E. & Local J. (eds) Proceedings of the Child Language Seminar. University of York 1987.

1.

See Gill (1983,1987) for a register of research on visual handicap.

2.

See Mills (1988a) for a discussion of the methodological problems in work with blind children.

3.

It is a question of interpretation whether this finding is described as the sighted child actively preferring frontal consonants or the visually handicapped child actively avoiding them.

4.

For a cross-linguistic perspective see Mills (1986,158-162) and Schieffelin (1986).

66 References ALS, J., Ε. TRONICK, & Τ. BRAZELTON 1980 Affective reciprocity and the development of autonomy: the study of a blind infant. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 19,22-40. ANDERSEN, E.E., & L.S. KEKELIS 1982 The role of visual perception in early caregiver-child communication: some input from the blind. Paper to the Seventh Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. BATES, E. 1979 l l i e emergence of symbols. Academic Press, New York. BATES, E., L. BENIGNI, & I. BRETHERTON et al. 1977 From gesture to the first word: on cognitive and social prerequisites. In M. Lewis & L. Rosenblum (eds.), Interaction, conversation and the development of language. John Wiley, New York, 247-307. BIGELOW, A. 1981 Early language of a blind child. Paper to the Canadian Psychological Association Conference, Toronto. BIGELOW, Α., & A. BRYAN 1982 The understanding of spatial prepositions 'in', 'on' and 'under' in blind and sighted preschool children. Paper to the Canadian Psychological Association Conference, Montr6al. BRUNER, J.S. 1978 From communication to language: a psychological perspective. In I. Markova (ed.), The social context of language. John Wiley, New York, 17-48. BURLINGHAM, D. 1961 Some notes on the development of the blind. Psycholinguistic Study of the Child 19, 121-145. CLARK, E.V. 1973 What's in a word? On the child's acquisition of semantics in his first language. In T.E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. Academic Press, New York, 65-110. COX, M.V. 1986 The child's point of view. Harvester, London. CUTSFORTH, T.D.of words to the blind. The Teachers Forum 4, 86-89. 1932 The unreality 1951 The blind in school and society. American Foundation for the Blind, New York. DODD, B. 1983 The visual and auditory modalities in phonological acquisition. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child: normal and deficient Croom Helm, London, and College Hill, San Diego, 57-61.

67 DUNLEA, Α. 1982 The role of visual information in the emergence of meaning. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Southern California. 1984 The relation between concept formation and semantic roles; some evidence from the blind. In L. Feagans, C. Garvey, R. Golonkoff (eds.), The origins and growth of communication. Ablex, Norwood NJ. 224-243. ELSTNER, W. 1983 Abnormalities in the verbal communication of visually-impaired children. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child: normal and deficient. Croom Helm, London, and College Hill, San Diego, 18-41. FRAIBERG, S. 1974 Blind infants and their mothers: an examinination of the sign system. In M. Lewis & L. Rosenblum (eds.), The effect of the infant on its caregiver. John Wiley, New York, 215-232. 1977 Insights from the blind: comparative studies of blind and sighted infants. Basic Books, New York, and Souvenir Press, London. FRAIBERG, S., & A. ADELSON 1973 Self-representation in language and play: observations of blind children. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 42: 539-562. Reprinted in E.H. Lenneberg & Ε. Lenneberg (eds.), Foundations of language development A multidisciplinary approach, Vol. 2. Academic Press, New York, 177-192. GILL, J.M. 1983 and 1987. International register of research on visual disability. Research Unit for the Blind, Brunei University, Uxbridge, GB. GÖLLESZ, V. 1972 Über die Lippenartikulation der von Geburt an Blinden. In S. Hirschberg, G.Y. Sz6pe, G.Y. & E. Vass-Kovoics (eds), Papers in interdisciplinary speech research: proceedings of the Speech Symposium, Szeged. Akad6miai Kiadö, Budapest: 85-91. GOLDFIELD, B.A., & C.E. SNOW 1985 Individual differences in language acquisition. In J. Berko Gleason (ed.), The development of language. Merril, Columbus. HASPIEL, G.S. 1965 Communication break down in the blind emotionally disturbed child. New Outlook for the Blind 59, 98-99. LANDAU, B., & L. GLEITMAN, 1985 Language and experience: evidence from the blind child. Harvard University Press, Harvard. LEZAK, R.J., & H.B. STARBUCK 1964 Identification of children with speech disorders in a residential school for the blind. The Education of the Blind 31, 8-12. LI PING 1988 (this volume) LOVELAND, K.A. 1984 Learning about points of view: spatial perspective and the acquisiton of 'I/you'. Journal of Child Language 11, 535-556.

68 MILLS, A.E. 1983 Acquisition of speech sounds in the visually-handicapped child. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child: normal and deficient. Croom Helm, London and College Hill, San Diego, 45-56. 1986 The acquisition of German. In D.I. Slobin (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale NJ, 141-254, and as Monograph. 1987 The acquisition of phonology in the blind child. In B. Dodd & R. Campbell (eds.), Hearing by eye: experimental studies in the psychology of lipreading. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale NJ, 145-161. 1988a Visual handicap. In K. Mogford & D. Bishop (eds.), Language development in exceptional circumstances. Churchill Livingstone, London. 1988b The acquisition of spatial expressions in blind children. Paper to the Third European Conference on Developmental Psychology, Budapest. MILLS, A.E., C. MEINECKE, Η. HÄTTIG et al. 1983 Die Rolle der visuellen Information im Spracherwerb. DFG Abschlußbericht, University of Tübingen, FRG. MILLS, A.E., & R. ΊΉΙΕΜ 1980 Auditory fusions and illusions in speech perception. Linguistische Berichte 68/80, 85-108. MINER, L.E. 1963 A study of the incidence of speech deviations among visually-handicapped children. New Outlook for the Blind 57, 10-14. MULFORD, R.C. in press First word of the blind child. In M.D. Smith & J.L. Locke (eds.), The emergent lexicon: the child's development of a linguistic vocabulary. Academic Press. NELSON, K. 1973 Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monograph of Society for Research in Child Development 38, Stanford. NEWPORT, E.L., H. GLEITMAN, & L.R. GLEITMAN 1977 Mother, I'd rather do it myself: some effects and non-effects of maternal speech style. In C.E. Snow & C.A. Ferguson (eds.), Talking to children: language mput and acquisition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 109-149. ROWLAND, C. 1983 Patterns of interaction between three blind infants and their mothers. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child: normal and deficient Croom Helm, London, and College Hill, San Diego, 114-132. SCHIEFFELIN, B.K. 1986 The acquisition of Kaluli. In D.I. Slobin (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Volume 1: the data. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale NJ, 524-594, also as Monograph. SLOBIN, D.I. 1986 Introduction: why study acquisition crosslinguistically. In D.I. Slobin (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition. Vol. 1. The data. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1-24.

69 SMITH, B.L. in press The emerging lexicon from a phonetic perspective. In M.D. Smith & J.L. Locke (eds.), The emergent lexicon: the child's development of a linguistic vocabulary. Academic Press, New York. URWIN, C. 1978 The development of communication between blind infants and their parents: some ways into language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge. VIHMAN, M.M., M.A MACKEN, R. MILLER et al. 1985 From babbling to speech: a re-assessment of the continuity issue. Language 61/2: 397-445. WARREN, D.H. 1977 Blindness and early childhood development. American Foundation for the Blind, New York. WELLS, G. 1979 Varation in child language. In P. Fletcher & M. Garman (eds.), Language acquisition: studies in first language development Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2nd. ed. 109-140.

Paul P. Goudena

Two perspectives on egocentric speech

1. Introduction Most people will be familiar with the following situation: a child of about three or four years old appears to be talking to herself while trying to complete a task on her own. For example, returning a puzzle piece to the table, the child says: "Doesn't fit". An interested observer of the foregoing scene may ask what the child is actually engaged in. The answer to this question is connected with a long-standing controversy within developmental psychology: the Piaget-Vygotsky debate about the relation between cognitive and linguistic development. More specifically, the discussion is about the nature and functional value of speech produced by a child in the course of his or her activities. The analysis of this kind of speech was carried out by Piaget (1923/1955) in the twenties. About ten years later, Vygotsky's (1934/1962) point of view was published. The following utterances, produced by a three years old boy while drawing, may serve as another illustration of the land of speech Piaget and Vygotsky were interested in: "... It's a waterworks. Here I must draw the water. Now the water. I'll make a boat too. A little boat and an Indian, a man and a woman, two men and a woman. Two men and an Indian" (Piaget, 1959:242). Piaget (1959:243) notes that the child does not ask questions to the mother, who is present during the drawing activity. Also, the child does not seem to expect to be reacted to while speaking. Piaget (1923/ 1955) labeled such a kind of speech, apparently not addressed to others, as egocentric speech. In this paper I will outline Piaget's and Vygotsky's conceptualizations of egocentric speech and I will discuss the import of their opposing theories on the relationship between cognitive and linguistic development. In sections 2.1 and 2.2 Piaget's and Vygotsky's positions will be discussed more extensively. In section 3. a comparative overview of the two approaches will be given and some general conclusions will be presented.

72 2. Two perspectives on egocentric speech 2.1. Piaget Piaget's (1923/1955) interest in children's speech concerns the development of the child's logical thinking. He bases his analysis on a large corpus of utterances, produced by two six year old boys during school activities. On the basis of these data, Piaget distinguishes two main categories egocentric and socialized speech. When a child produces utterances belonging to the first group, the following characteristics are considered relevant: "(....) he does not bother to know to whom he is speaking nor whether he is being listened to. He talks either for himself or for the pleasure of associating anyone who happens to be there with the activity of the moment. This talk is ego-centric, partly because the child speaks only about him self, but chiefly because he does not attempt to place himself at the point of view of his hearer. Anyone who happens to be there will serve as an audience. The child asks for no more than an apparent interest, though he has the illusion (except perhaps in pure soliloquy if even then) of being heard and understood. He feels no desire to influence his hearer nor to tell him anything; not unlike a certain type of drawing-room conversation where everyone talks about himself and no one listens" (Piaget, 1923/1955:32). The following examples of egocentric speech, produced by Lev (one of the boys) are given by Piaget (1959): Talking to himself as he draws: "First I shall do the fingers, so as to make another round" (283). Having picked up a piece of wood, Lev makes it roll on the table: "Now then, the van is going to start - the van has arrived - the van is going to start" (285). According to Piaget, socialized speech is mainly characterized by an exchange of thoughts, the speaker directs himself to a specific hearer. For example: Lev helps Go to play lotto. He takes a card which Go does not know where to put and places it: "I think it goes here" (283). Lev picks up a pencil which has been dropped and hands it to Bur: "Burny, take the pencil" (285). Having assigned all the verbal utterances produced by the two boys to the categories1 of egocentric and socialized speech, Piaget calculated the coefficients of egocentrism (i.e., the proportions of egocentric speech to the sum of the child's spontaneous speech) for the two subjects. The figures were 0.47 and 0.43. In other words, approximately 50% of all spontaneous speech produced was judged to be egocentric. Piaget's approach to child language was motivated by his interest in the child's cognitive development. In order to understand Piaget's evaluation of the results of his studies of child language, first an outline must be given of Piaget's theory of cognitive development. According to Piaget, a child's cognitive development must be understood as an increasingly complex form of adaptation to environmental demands. Consider the following observation, made by Piaget of his one month old son Laurent:

73 "Having learned to direct his glance, Laurent explores his universe little by little (...). As soon as he is held vertically in the arms of his nurse, he examines successively the various images before him. First he sees me, then he raises his eyes and looks at the wall of the room, then turns to a dormer window" (Piaget, 1952:68). Another observation of Piaget's four month daughter Lucienne, is also relevant here: "Lucienne looks at a rattle with desire, but without extending her hand. I place the rattle near her right hand. As soon as Lucienne sees rattle and hand together, she moves her hand closer to the rattle and finally grasps it" (Piaget, 1952:111). These two observations illustrate the child's increasingly differentiated interaction with the environment. Although Piaget conceived of the progressive differentiation of the child's interaction with the environment as a continuous process, he distinguished several stages of cognitive development. The two examples given above were taken from the first stage: the sensorimotor period, which corresponds in time to the first two years of life. The sensorimotor stage is characterized by the child's acquisition of skills needed to perform types of behavioral activities. Thus, the baby learns to look to the place where a sound is coming from, to put his finger in his mouth, or to set a mobile in motion with his hands. Piaget (1952) emphasizes the fact that even in the case of reflex-like behaviors (e.g. the sucking reflex) adaptation plays a role. Before being able to suck, the child must learn to correctly adjust the position of her head to the nipple. In the course of the second year, the child starts to experiment with objects: putting a sponge in water and squeezing it in different ways, taking a stick and using it to move a distant object.In this respect, the following observation, made by Piaget of his 1 1/2 year old daughter Jacqueline, is relevant: "Jacqueline is seated on an adult's bed having in front of her a big slanting quilt. I place a little wooden lamb on the peak of this mountain and, striking the lower part of the quilt, I made the animal descend several centimeters at each shake. Jacqueline at once profits from this observation and brings the animal back to her each time I put it again on the summit of the quilt" (Piaget, 1952:329). This example may not only show the child's intentional use of striking to reach a certain goal but also the phenomenon of imitation. According to Piaget, when a child imitates an action some time after it has been done by another person, it follows that the child has some kind of mental representation. The child must be able to retain a memory of the observed event, before she can imitate someone's action. Starting at the age of 1 1/2 years old, the child becomes gradually more able to generate an image of something that is not present, or as Piaget calls it, the child uses "interiorised imitation" (Piaget, 1962a:77). This capacity is clearly shown in the child's emerging skill to find hidden objects. For example, an adult may hide an object, first visible to the child, under a cushion. Even though he has seen the adult perform the hiding activity, the one year old may not react after the object has disappeared. In the course of the second year, however, the child begins to search under the cushion. As indicated earlier, the sensorimotor stage is characterized by the child's acquisition of behavioral skills. Piaget (1971:121) shows that in the first year a child has "very short distances between subject and objects". In other words, the child is not yet able to transcend the immediately given context of time and place. In the course of the second year, however, the child's delayed imitation and the capacity to find hidden objects shows a kind of mental representation. The end of the sensorimotor stage is marked by this ability to transcend the immediately given spatio-temporal context.

74 There is another aspect of the child's functioning that becomes important during the second year: the child's increasing use of language. According to Piaget, the child's first use of words is based on the capacity to imitate words spoken by others. For example, the child may repeat "cat" immediately after the caregiver has produced that word while pointing to the animal. However, it is only at the end of the sensorimotor stage that the child becomes able to use words detached from the context in which they were first imitated. In Piaget's view, this use of words is only possible when the child is capable of "interiorised imitation". This term was discussed earlier in connection with the child's capacity to imitate an action, performed by another person, some time after it had been observed by the child and in connection with the child's emerging skill to find hidden objects. Interiorised imitation, according to Piaget, should be conceptualized as the active use of mental images of perceived objects (Piaget, 1971:126). To return to the child's mastery of language: also in this domain the active use of mental images is important. The child has to learn that one thing (e.g., a chair) is represented by another (the word "chair"). Such learning can only take place when the child is capable of mental representation, which - according to Piaget - is a form of imitation. Symbolic play is another form of (interiorised) imitation. For example, the child may use a piece of wood as a tiger, although the child is aware of the fact that the piece of wood "is not a tiger". The child must have a mental image of a tiger in order to be able to play in such a way. In Piaget's analysis, symbolic play is an expression of the child's ideosyncratic interaction with the environment. The equation wood = tiger is chosen by the child. On a more general level, Piaget (1955) considers the young child's approach to the world as governed by self-interest, controlled by the law of immediate satisfaction. Because of the young child's ideosyncratic attitude, as shown in symbolic play, Piaget assumes that the child will have difficulty in acquiring language as a conventional sign system. In such a system, there is an arbitrary connection between a sign (e.g.,"chair") and the object the sign refers to. However, in symbolic play, the connection between symbol (e.g., a piece of wood) and the object the symbol refers to (e.g., a tiger) is chosen by the child. According to Piaget, the child will be able to use language as a conventional sign system in a socially acceptable way only after the child has been capable of decentering. In order to understand the concept of decentering, it is necessary to return to Piaget's investigations of egocentric speech. Piaget shows how egocentric speech is the beginning of the child's conceptualization of the world. The child's thinking, as determined by his actions, shows a progression from "undirected or autistic thought" to "directed or intelligent thought" (Piaget, 1955:63), moving from an ideosyncratic conceptualization of the world to a way of thinking dominated by (adult) logic. The main transition point in the development of thought is marked by the emergence of the capacity to decenter, which takes place when the child is about seven years old. Centering refers to the child's capacity to focus exclusively on a certain object from one perspective (i.e., the child's own point of view). However, centering prevents the child from taking any other point of view. When a child is able to temporarily adopt a viewpoint other than his or her own, the child is said to be capable of decentering. For example, a child might be sitting behind an object and still be able to describe what someone can see from a different angle. According to Piaget, in the first years of life the child is essentially self- centered, approaching the world to satisfy his or her own needs, in short: an autistic attitude. Not only action, but also speech serves self-interest. According to Piaget, the central characteristic of egocentric speech is the absence of a real exchange of thoughts between the child and someone else. Thus, when the child says, while drawing, "First I shall do the fingers, so as to make another round" the child is not explicitly addressing anyone else, although other people may be present as potential interlocutors.

75 Recall that the coefficients of egocentrism (i.e., the proportions of egocentric speech to the sum of the child's spontaneous speech) of the two boys studied by Piaget were 0.47 and 0.43, this means that approximately 50% of all spontaneous speech produced by the two boys was socialized. These figures should be considered in the light or the decentering capacity of a six year-old. According to Piaget, it is still difficult for a child of that age always to take the perspective of another person while talking. One should expect the coefficient of egocentrism to be lower when a child is seven or eight years old, and to be higher when a child is three or four years old. The two six year olds studied by Piaget are on their way to a more consistent use of taking the perspective of the other while talking, which will be reflected by a proportional increase of socialized speech. It is only after the age of seven or eight - when egocentric speech is judged to cover 25% of all spontaneous speech produced - that the real communication of thoughts is said to begin (Piaget, 1955:68). Thus, the disappearance of egocentric speech marks the emergence of the capacity to decenter. It will be clear by now that Piaget analyzed children's use of speech from the viewpoint of intellectual cooperation. In other words: does this utterance contribute to a real exchange of thoughts between two or more people? The capacity to take the viewpoint of the other and to participate in a genuine conversation is dependent on the child's level of cognitive development. According to Piaget cognitive development always precedes language development. Such a position contrasts with the view that progressive mastery of linguistic skills enables the child to reason and to solve problems. Vygotsky (e.g., 1962, 1978) supports this view that there is a qualitative change brought about in the child's cognitive development as shown by increasing mastery of language.

2.2. Vygotsky Vygotsky's view of the relationship between cognitive and linguistic development is radically different from Piaget's. Vygotsky formulated his views, which were directed, in part, against Piaget's ideas, in Myshlenie i Rech' ("Thinking and Speech"), originally published in Russia in 1934. The main purpose of the book was to present a theoretical and experimental study of the interrelation of thinking and speech. According to Vygotsky, the phenomenon of egocentric speech may serve as an empirical example of the relationship between thinking and speaking. However, in this and later work Vygotsky (1934/1962) hardly presents concrete examples of children's egocentric speech, but rather pursues a mainly theoretical line of argumentation. One of the very few examples Vygotsky discusses is the following, in which a child is confronted with a problem: "Where's the pencil? I need a blue pencil. Never mind, I'll draw with the red one and wet it with water; it will become dark and look like blue" (Vygotsky, 1962:16). During his observations of children, Vygotsky had noted an increase in the production of egocentric speech when children were confronted with a difficulty during problem solving, as the example given above illustrates. Vygotsky found a functional value of egocentric speech during problem solving: speaking helped the child to solve a problem. This value had not been emphasized by Piaget, who analyzed egocentric speech from the point of view of intellectual cooperation.

76 Vygotsky assigned importance to the functional value of egocentric speech in an attempt to develop a theory about the relationship between thinking and speaking. More specifically, Vygotsky wanted to analyze the development of the relation between thinking and speaking. In order to be able to do so, he searched for a unit of analysis that would catch aspects of speaking as well as of thinking. According to Vygotsky word meaning is the right unit to analyze this relationship, as it is closely related to the primary function of speech, i.e., communication. This is where Vygotsky differs fundamentally from Piaget, who considers verbal signs as the principal means for individual representation. Vygotsky also discusses word meaning in relation to cognitive processes, but always within a communicative framework. To illustrate the dual nature of word meaning further, let us consider the following example. Suppose you would like to inform someone that you are cold. You might inform the other person by means of gestures, but real communication or social interchange is only possible when you can name the experience. This means that you assign the feeling experienced to a certain class of events, known to the hearer. In speaking to a child, who does not yet have this generalized concept, real communication is not possible. In this case only words are present, but the corresponding concept is not.2 The use of words by a child is always communicative· On the other hand, the young child mastering a language is not immediately capable of grasping the generalized concept that a word stands for (e.g., the word "chair" presupposes the existence of a class of chair-like objects). As word meaning is the focus in which thinking and speaking merge, a developmental analysis of word meaning implies a study of the development of the relationship between thinking and speaking. According to Vygotsky, thought and speech spring from different roots, and merge later. In the development of thinking a prelinguisüc phase and in the development of speaking a pre-intellectual phase can be distinguished. This sequence is thought to occur in phylogeny and ontogeny, i.e., in the human evolution and in the development of the individual child. Human ancestors must have had intellectual capacities, although they did not have yet the refined communication system - language humans possess. Vygotsky was heavily influenced in this line of reasoning by W. Köhler's (1921) experiments with primates. Köhler showed how apes, for example, were able to solve simple problems, using a stick to get something that would otherwise be out of reach. The level of intellectual functioning of apes remains rudimentary, or, to use Piaget's term, of a sensorimotor level. Before the appearance of speech the young child possesses an "ape-like" intelligence. However, after 1 1 / 2 - 2 years of age, language begins to fulfill a role of increasing importance. Vygotsky and his group investigated the role of speech in the course of a child's problem-solving activity. The following observations were made by Levina (1981), one of Vygotsky's collaborators. She describes the problem-solving method of a 4 1/2 year old girl who tried to obtain a piece of candy, located on a cupboard. A chair and a stick were available for the child. "(She stands on the chair and silently reaches along the cupboard) "On the chair". (She glances around at the experimenter. She reaches with the other hand). "Is this the right way?" (She stops.) "I could drop it down to that chair. I could climb up and drop it". (She brings a second chair, stands up and reaches). "No, I can't get it .... I could get it with the stick". (She picks up the stick and touches the candy). "I'll move it now". (She pulls the candy down). "I moved it and made it drop. If I had tried from the chair I wouldn't have got it, but I got it with the stick" (Lovina, 1981:291).

77 According to Vygotsky, the young girl shows a capacity to regulate her behavior by means of speech, thereby fundamentally surpassing Köhler's primates. The temporal relation and correspondence between speech and action (e.g., "I'll move it now", followed by pulling the candy down) - at least according to Vygotsky - point to a planning function of egocentric speech. Based on these observations, Vygotsky argues that egocentric speech is not epiphenomenal to the child's actions, but rather influences the quality of the child's task performance. By means of speech the child is able to go beyond the concrete features of the task setting. In the first phase of the gradual intertwining of thinking and speaking, which Vygotsky assumed to start at approximately the age of two, egocentric speech occurs after the action has been completed. For example, having constructed a tower consisting of cubes, the child says: "Done". The second phase which testifies to the process of the progressive merging of speaking and thinking shows the child's actions accompanied by egocentric speech. For example, the child utters: "Red" several times, while drawing in that color. Finally, egocentric speech fulfills a planning role, as shown in Levina's (1981) example. In sum, the functional value of egocentric speech shifts from a concluding to a planning role during problem solving. According to Vygotsky, egocentric speech is not only of great functional value during problem solving, it is also a convincing sign of the gradual intertwining of thinking and speaking. Vygotsky emphasizes that a theory about the relationship between thinking and speech should include the phenomenon of inner speech. Inner speech is described by Vygotsky as follows: "Inner speech is not the interior aspect of external speech - it is a function in itself. It still remains speech, i.e., thought connected with words. But while in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words die as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings" (Vygotsky, 1962:149). Although the phenomenon of inner speech may be familiar to most people, or become clear upon introspection, it is difficult to give an exhaustive definition of inner speech. Vygotsky tried to give some characteristics of inner speech, as the quotation, given above, shows. Another aspect of inner speech that is emphasized by Vygotsky concerns the abbreviated character of inner speech. More specifically, Vygotsky points to the predicative form inner speech usually takes. In inner speech, the subject of a sentence may be omitted, because "we always know the subject and the situation" (Vygotsky, 1962:145). It is this abbreviated nature of inner speech that led Vygotsky to conclude that egocentric speech (which is observable) is the precursor of inner speech (which is not observable). Vygotsky had noted that between the ages of three and seven egocentric speech tended to become more abbreviated. Vygotsky also stressed the functional similarity of egocentric and inner speech. Both are directed at solving a problem.Thus, Vygotsky considers the "problem of inner speech" to be solved by postulating that it is the final phase of the internalization of egocentric speech. Thus according to Vygotsky the primary function of speech is communication: at the age of two, the young child uses speech to talk to others. This type of speech is called social speech. Soon, however, the child also begins to use speech when confronted with a task or a problem: speech begins to serve an intellectual function. This speech is labeled egocentric. First, egocentric speech occurs after an action has been completed, but gradually - between three and seven years - a shift may be observed from concluding, via accompanying, to planning speech. When the child is three years old, the form of

78 egocentric speech is identical to that of social speech. Gradually, however, egocentric speech becomes more abbreviated, finally - at about the age of seven years - "going underground" as inner speech. Vygotsky's efforts to construct a theoretical framework for the relationship between thinking and speech must be appreciated within a larger context. Vygotsky not only opposed the Piagetian approach to egocentric speech, but also the materialistic and idealistic approaches to thinking, which conceptualized thought as speech minus sound (e.g., behaviorism) or as some pure entity unrelated to language (e.g., the Würzburg School). Vygotsky based his own approach on the tenets of Marxism-Leninism, with particular emphasis on the Hegelian concept of mediated activity (Vygotsky, 1978:52-58), both working tools and signs can be used by man as mediators. Human activity is lifted to a qualitatively higher level by the inclusion of tools and signs. According to Vygotsky, the principal difference between tool and sign is that the tool is externally oriented, whereas the sign is internally oriented: "The tool's function is to serve as the conductor of human influence on the object of activity; it is externally oriented; it must lead to changes in objects. It is a means by which human external activity is aimed at mastering, and triumphing over, nature. The sign, on the other hand, changes nothing in the object of a psychological operation. It is a means of internal activity aimed at mastering oneself; the sign is internally oriented" (Vygotsky, 1978:55). As indicated earlier, the appearance of new forms of mediation, like the use of signs, was analyzed by Vygotsky both phylogenetically and ontogenetically. With respect to ontogenesis, language - the human sign system par excellence - is made available to the developing child on the basis of social interaction, i.e., within the caregiver-child format. The child's progressive mastery of language allows "the combination of tool and sign in psychological activity" (Vygotsky, 1978:55), as the production of egocentric speech during problem solving shows. According to Vygotsky, the child's psychological processes are brought to a qualitatively higher level by the use of egocentric speech.

3. Concluding remarks In this section Piaget's and Vygotsky's perspectives on egocentric speech will be compared on several points. Also, some trends in recent empirical research with respect to egocentric speech will be discussed. To illustrate more fully the relationship between Piaget's and Vygotsky's conceptualizations of egocentric speech, first some attention will be paid to remarks made by Piaget (Piaget, 1962b) on the occasion of the publication of the English translation of Vygotsky's book (Vygotsky, 1962). Piaget distinguishes the topics of (cognitive) egocentrism and egocentric speech. With respect to the first topic, Piaget emphasizes that his main interest in coining this term was to highlight the child's inability to decenter, to take the viewpoint of the other. With respect to the second topic, Piaget agrees with Vygotsky that the production of egocentric speech can be functionally connected with difficulties encountered during task performance. He is also in agreement with Vygotsky's hypothesis that egocentric speech is a precursor of inner speech. Their main disagreement, according to Piaget, concerns the status of the concept of (cognitive) egocentrism and consequently the meaning of the concept of socialization. The following citation succinctly states Piaget's point of view:

79 "If an individual A mistakenly believes that an individual Β thinks the way A does, and if he does not manage to understand the difference between the two points of view, this is, to be sure, social behavior in the sense that there is contact between the two, but I call such behavior unadapted from the point of view of intellectual cooperation. This point of view is the only aspect of the problem which has concerned me but which does not seem to have interested Vygotsky (Piaget, 1962b:8). As Zivin (1979) has pointed out, Piaget's (1962b) remarks on the one hand elucidate the differences between Piaget's and Vygotsky's views of egocentric speech, but on the other hand veil them. Piaget is quite clear about his interest in intellectual cooperation and about his definition of "socialized". However, the agreement between Piaget and Vygotsky about the functional value of egocentric speech is more apparent than real. Whereas Piaget might accept the position that egocentric speech may be helpful during problem solving, Vygotsky would insist on the necessary and sufficient contribution of egocentric speech to bring the child's task performance to a higher level. The following quotation illustrates Piaget's later opinion, which attributes more importance to the (social) value of language than Piaget's view in the twenties, but nonetheless remains consistent with respect to the final analysis: "It is in this dual sense of symbolic condensation and social regulation that language is indispensable to the elaboration of thought. Thus language and thought are linked in a genetic circle where each necessarily leans on the other in interdependent formation and continuous reciprocal interaction. In the last analysis, both depend on intelligence itself, which antedates language and is independent of it" (Piaget, 1972:179). In sum, Piaget's and Vygotsky's positions remain different (cf. Bronckart & Ventouras-Spycher, 1979; Zivin, 1979) with respect to the supposed origins of intellectual functioning. Piaget maintains that children acquire knowledge of the world by acting on it, and that thinking is internalized action. Vygotsky emphasizes the essential contribution of language to thinking, which not only brings the child's intellectual functioning to a higher level, but also fundamentally grounds the social-communicative basis of human intellectual functioning. There is another contrast with respect to Piaget's and Vygotsky's views on egocentric speech that is relevant here (Goudena, 1983) and that is the type of activity both theoreticians are interested in. Because Piaget's main interest was in child logic and in the development of intellectual cooperation, Piaget not only studied egocentric speech, but also conversations between children and conversations between a child and an adult, across different situations and activities. Piaget analyzed situations involving symbolic play, artistic activity, and problem solving, focusing on the child's capacity to decenter while speaking. Vygotsky, however, was mainly interested in problem-solving activities, during which the functional value of egocentric speech could be analyzed. This interest may be traced back to Vygotsky's focus on the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the combination of tool and sign in psychological processes. A third point of comparison concerns the question whether the emphasis in the study of the child's development is on the child or on the interaction between the child and the social environment the child functions in. This question is relevant because the answer reveals an important difference between Piaget and Vygotsky with respect to the conceptualization of social speech. As Wertsch (1985) has pointed out:

80 "He (Vygotsky) was reaching outside the realm of individual psychology into the realm of social interaction or interpsychological functioning when he wrote of social speech. The fundamental assumption that one must go outside psychology if one wishes to carry out a complete genetic analysis of the psychology of the individual is a crucial issue over which Vygotsky's and Piaget's approaches disagree" (Wertsch, 1985:115). Although Piaget focused on the child's capacity to participate in the conventional turn-taking of adult discourse, he nonetheless analyzed the child within an individual line of development: from ideosyncratic to decentered thinking. Vygotsky, however, started from the assumption that the young child has a basic social orientation towards the environment, and analyzed the child's progressive appropriation of language as a psychological tool. Vygotsky studied the child as part of a social context. Thus, one may say that Piaget's and Vygotsky's approaches to egocentric speech may be compared with respect to assumptions about: - the origin and nature of intellectual functioning - the relationship between egocentric speech and type of activity - the level of analysis needed for the study of child development. As was pointed out above, Piaget and Vygotsky turn out to have different assumptions about these three topics (cf. Zivin, 1979). Finally, it is interesting to evaluate whether recent empirical research of egocentric speech has anything to offer to decide in favor of or against Piaget's or Vygotsky's view of egocentric speech. And, as is shown, results of empirical research are not sufficient to refute Piaget's or Vygotsky's approach to egocentric speech as a whole, because the two positions represent different paradigms. However, on one point a crucial comparison between the two points of view is possible, i.e. the influence of the absence or the presence of egocentric speech on the quality of task performance. With respect to this point, Fuson's (1979) review of empirical studies of egocentric speech shows that young children, when working on a task, produce on the average less than two utterances per minute. Such a small frequency finding is not expected when one conceives of egocentric speech as a central regulator of non-verbal task behavior, as one would do from a Vygotskian point of view. However, as Frauenglass and Diaz (1985) have pointed out, the type of task used in these studies mainly taps performance of children on perceptual tasks (as in puzzle tasks), whereas semantic tasks (e.g. classification and story-sequencing tasks) are hardly used. Another complication is that the production of egocentric speech has been found to covary with social context factors, without negatively influencing the child's level of task performance (Goudena, 1983,1987). With respect to cognitive functioning in general, it is important to note that research with deaf children (e.g., Furth, 1971) has shown that these children - albeit without normal language development - are able to solve problems above the sensorimotor level. Moreover, verbal adult-child interaction during tasks is rare or non-existent in some cultures (Wertsch, personal communication). Such verbal interaction is assumed to form the basis for the child's use of egocentric speech. Findings like these force adherents of the Vygotskian point of view to reconsider the universality of the speech internalization hypothesis. Apparently, advanced non-verbal problem solving is possible. In sum, there is no clear empirical basis to decide in favor either of the Piagetian or the Vygotskian view of egocentric speech. It might be more fruitful to consider both approaches as important theoretical frameworks, each with their own corollaries.

81 Notes *

Preparation of this chapter was facilitated by a travel grant (R56-315) of the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (Z.W.O.). I am indebted to the editors and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive criticism of an earlier draft of this contribution.

1.

Within the two main categories, Piaget distinguished subcategories which will not be discussed here.

2.

This example has been taken from Wygotski (1964:13), the complete German translation of the 1934 work. The English (Vygotsky, 1962) translation is abridged.

References BRONCKART, J.P. & M. VENTOURAS-SPYCHER 1979 The Piagetian concept of representation and the Soviet-inspired view of self-regulation. In G. Zivin (ed.), The development of self-regulation through private speech, Wiley. 99-131 FRAUENGLASS, M.H. & R.M. DIAZ 1985 Self-regulatory functions of children's private speech: a critical analysis of recent challenges to Vygotsky's theory. Developmental Psychology 21, 357-364 FURTH, H.C. 1971 Linguistic deficiency and thinking: Psychological Bulletin 76, 58-72

research with deaf subjects,

1964-1969.

FUSON, K.C. 1979 The development of self-regulatory aspects of speech: a review. In G. Zivin (ed.), The development of self-regulation through private speech, Wiley. 135-217 GOUDENA, P.P. 1983 Private speech. An analysis of its social and self-regulatory functions, unpublished doctoral dissertation, State University of Utrecht 1987 The social nature of private speech of preschoolers during problem solving. International Journal of Behavioral Development 10, 187-206 KÖHLER, W. 1921 Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenaffen, Springer. LEVINA, R.E. 1981 L.S. Vygotsky's ideas about the planning function of speech in children. In J.V. Wertsch (ed.), The concept of activity in soviet psychology, M.E. Sharpe Inc. 279-299

82

PIAGET, J. 1952 The origins of intelligence in children, International Universities Press 1955 The language and thought of the child, Meridian Books (originally published 1923) 1959 The language and thought of the child (third edition), Routledge & Kegan Paul 1962a Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood, Norton 1962b Comments on Vygotskv's critical remarks. In L.S. Vygotsky, Thought and language, M.I.T. Press (Appendix) 1971 The psychology of intelligence, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1972 Language and thought from the genetic point of view. In P. Adams (ed.), Language in thinking, Penguin Books. 170-179 VYGOTSKY, L.S. 1962 Thought and language, M.I.T. Press (originally published 1934) 1978 Mind in society, Harvard University Press WERTSCH, J.V. 1985 Vygotsky and the social formation of mind, Harvard University Press WYGOTSKI, L.S. 1964 Denken und Sprechen, Fischer Verlag

ζινίΝ,α 1979 Removing common confusions about egocentric speech, private speech, and self-regulation. In G. Zivin (ed.), The development of self-regulation through private speech, Wiley. 13-50

Li Ping

Acquisition of spatial reference in Chinese

1. Introduction Research on the acquisition of spatial reference has in recent years become a major enterprise in the study of language development. This is not surprising: space plays a very important role in human life, and reference to space is pervasive throughout language use. Studies in this domain have provided us with many insights into children's semantic development and the relationship between cognitive development and language acquisition. In this chapter, I will report some preliminary results on children's acquisition of spatial reference in Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) that are part of a larger project on the semantics and pragmatics of Chinese spatial reference (Li Ping, forthcoming).

2. Perceptual properties of space and linguistic encoding 2.1. Three dimensionality and intrinsic features of objects As human beings, we perceive our environment as three-dimensional. From an egocentric point of view, our understanding of three dimensionality is first reflected in our concept of the human body (cf. Clark 1973): a vertical dimension, with its axis running from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet; a first horizontal dimension, with its axis running from the front side to the back side of the body; and a second horizontal dimension, with its axis running from the left side to the right side. These three dimensions differ in symmetricality. The upper part of the body is drastically different from the lower part both in form and function; therefore, the vertical dimension is asymmetrical. The first horizontal (front-back) dimension is also asymmetrical since the head, face, chest, knees, feet, etc., of the front side are different formally as well as functionally from body parts of the back side. In contrast, the left and right sides of the body are typically symmetrical, although there may be functional differences as reflected in, for example, handedness. Although the left-right dimension is symmetrical, one can identify the two poles of this dimension by reference to poles in the other two dimensions, given the framework of three dimensionality. By analogy with the human body, inanimate objects are conceptualized as either having or lacking certain intrinsic orientational features in a certain dimension, as a function of their symmetricality in that dimension. For example, a car is asymmetrical in its vertical and front-back dimensions, so it is seen as having orientational features in three

84 dimensions, with each dimension characterized by two poles: top vs. bottom, front vs. back, and left vs. right. As with people, one can identify the left and right of a car by reference to the intrinsic features of the other two dimensions. In the following discussion, when I refer to something as having intrinsic features (or, alternatively, as a 'featured object'), I mean that it has orientational characteristics in both the vertical dimension and the front-back dimension, and that its third dimension can therefore be identified. This excludes objects that have intrinsic features only along the vertical dimension but not the other two, e.g., a tree, which is asymmetrical in its vertical dimension, but symmetrical in its horizontal dimensions. Some objects may have no intrinsic features in any of the three dimensions, for instance, a ball. However, one can still refer to the three dimensions of a ball, using criteria other than symmetricality. For example, when the ball is in a fixed position, the speaker can refer to its top or bottom by using the vertical axis of gravity. He can also refer to its front side or back side with respect to his own point of view. But this kind of reference is obviously dependent on the context. Imagine the situation in a space shuttle, where objects float and continuously change their orientation: an astronaut would probably have difficulty referring to 'the front' or 'the top' of a ball.

2.2. Theme, relatum, speaker, and perspectives Languages do not differ essentially in the way they make spatial reference with respect to three dimensionality. In order to locate an object (the theme, cf. Carroll 1988) in space, the speaker introduces a point of reference (the relatum), and relates the theme to the relatum with reference to a particular dimension. For example, in English we can say that Τ is above or below R (relations in the vertical dimension), Τ is in front of or in back of or behind R (the front-back dimension), or Τ is to the left of or to the right of R (the left-right dimension). The same is true of other languages. There are three parameters involved in making such references: the theme, the relatum, and the speaker. The spatial relationships between the theme and the relatum and between the speaker and the relatum are crucial to making spatial reference. The purpose of the present study is to see how the Chinese child makes spatial reference in situations in which his relation to the relatum and the relation between the theme and relatum vary. Objects may or may not have intrinsic orientational features, as mentioned earlier. Consequently, relata and themes are of two kinds: those with intrinsic features and those without. However, investigators have concentrated on the role of the intrinsic features of the relatum in spatial reference, in part because of a belief that only the features of the relatum, and not those of the theme, are used in locating an object. In the following, we observe this tradition and speak of intrinsic features only in connection with the relatum, although it is recognized that the intrinsic features of the theme may in fact also play some role in establishing spatial reference (this point is discussed in more detail in Li Ping, forthcoming). In situations where the relatum has intrinsic features, the speaker has the option of choosing between two different perspectives: his own perspective and that of the relatum. The speaker's perspective is typically used in situations in which the relatum has no intrinsic features, but it can also be used when the relatum does have such features if the speaker chooses to ignore them. Obviously, the position of the speaker is of particular importance when making references from this perspective. Changes in the speaker's position relative to that of the relatum will lead to the selection of different locative words, even though the relative positions of the theme and the relatum remain unchanged.

85 When reference is made from the perspective of the relatum, in contrast, the theme is located by means of the intrinsic features of the relatum, regardless of the position of the speaker. Thus, when a speaker says that Τ is in front of R, he may mean either that (a) Τ is near the intrinsic front of R, regardless of where the speaker is standing in relation to Τ and R (in this case he is using the perspective of the relatum); or (b) Τ is between R and himself, regardless of whether R has an intrinsic front or not, and regardless of where the intrinsic front is if R has a front (he is using his own perspective). These two interpretations may, but need not, coincide. The situation in which meanings (a) and (b) coincide is called the canonical encounter (H. Clark, 1973). This is a situation in which the speaker and the relatum confront each other a short distance apart (the speaker faces the front side of the relatum). Originally, 'canonical encounter' referred to a situation in which two interlocutors face each other a short distance apart. By 'canonical' Clark meant that this is the optimal and most typical situation in which human beings communicate. In discussing spatial reference, Clark extended this notion to situations in which one of the interlocutors is replaced by the relatum. In a canonical encounter, the front side of the relatum faces the speaker's front side. Thus, meaning (a) that Τ is near the intrinsic front of R is just the same as meaning (b) that Τ is between the speaker and R. In other words, the use of the two perspectives — the perspective of the speaker and that of the relatum — coincide in the front-back dimension, so utterances like Τ is in front of/behind R can be interpreted in only one way. However, when the encounter changes from canonical to non-canonical, meaning (a) no longer coincides with (b). In a non-canonical encounter, the front-back dimension of the speaker is perpendicular to that of R, which makes the two perspectives distinct in referring to polarity of the front-back dimension. There are essentially two different front-back dimensions that intersect in such a case. Τ may be 'in front' according to either dimension, depending on which perspective the speaker uses. Therefore, the listener would have to determine which perspective is used in order to arrive at the correct interpretation. Miller & Johnson-Laird (1976) suggest that when the two perspectives conflict, English speakers tend to use the perspective of the relatum (the intrinsic system, in their ter minology). The picture becomes more complicated when we examine the speaker's perspective in more detail. Two different approaches are possible for the speaker's perspective: the aligned strategy and the facing strategy (Hill, 1982). In both strategies, the speaker views himself and the relatum as each being in a 'field'. In the aligned strategy, these fields are imagined to be aligned facing in the same direction, whereas in the facing strategy, they are imagined to be facing in opposite directions toward each other. Hill proposes that languages differ in their choice of conventional strategy, with English taking the facing strategy and Hausa (an African language) taking the aligned strategy, though the picture is complicated by other factors such as whether the theme is hidden by the relatum and whether the speaker is moving or stationary. For example, in a situation where the theme is between the speaker and the relatum, English speakers say that the theme is in front of the relatum, but Hausa speakers say that the theme is baya (behind) the relatum. Conversely, when the theme is on the far side of the relatum, English speakers use behind, and Hausa speakers use gaba (in front of). Adult Chinese speakers use the facing strategy in the same way as English speakers. According to Hill, the distinction between the aligned vs. the facing strategy applies only to the front-back dimension, not to the other two dimensions. Different languages exclusively use the aligned strategy for the vertical and the left-right dimension. With this analysis of the speaker's perspective, it is clear that the coincidence of the two perspectives in canonical encounter holds only for languages that take the facing strategy as the speaker's perspective, e.g., Chinese and English. For languages that take the aligned strategy, like Hausa, the two perspectives would conflict in situations of

86 canonical encounter: the speaker's perspective assigns the front to the far side of the relatum, whereas the perspective of the relatum assigns it to the near side of the relatum.

3. Children's acquisition of spatial reference in English There has been a number of studies of children's acquisition of spatial reference in English. One important line of theorizing that inspired much early work on the acquisition of spatial terms was Clark's Semantic Feature Hypothesis (E. Clark, 1973). On the basis of studies of children's acquisition of nouns, verbs and pairs of relational adjectives that have common semantic features, E. Clark (1973) proposed that in the acquisition of word meaning, the child at first assigns only general semantic features to a word, and then increasingly adds specific features in the lexical entry until the meaning of the word finally corresponds to that of the adult. According to this hypothesis, it is not surprising if the child would at first use the unmarked member of a pair of antonyms to cover the meaning of both terms, because in the input language a general feature (e.g., 'length') shared by a pair of words (e.g, long vs. short) is best represented by the meaning of the unmarked term (i.e., long). For example, one could ask 'How long is the bench?', meaning a neutral question about the length of the bench, but not 'How short is the bench?' in the same meaning; only later would the child realize that there are additional feature(s) associated with the marked term, and readjust the meaning of both terms toward the correct usage. In line with this hypothesis, H. Clark (1973) suggested that members of spatial antonym pairs such as on top of-underneath, above-below, in front of-in back of should develop differently depending on whether they have a positive or negative value. In an analysis of the perceptual properties of space, Clark pointed out that there are asymmetries between the two poles in the vertical and the front-back dimensions. The upward and forward poles are perceptually prominent (visible, audible, touchable, etc.), whereas the downward and the backward poles are less salient. Therefore, the former should be considered positive and the latter negative. Such properties, Clark argued, are encoded in the structures of language. This analysis, together with the 'Semantic Feature Hypothesis', predicts that spatial terms for the positive poles should be acquired before terms of their antonyms. This prediction was not borne out in a study by Kuczaj & Maratsos (1975). In 'placement' tasks in which children were asked to place a doll in front of or in back of a relatum, children did not perform better on the front questions than on the back ones. These authors suggested that very young children might only have acquired the notion that front and back are words denoting opposite poles in the front-back dimension, without knowing exactly which word is used for which pole. In accordance with H. Clark's predictions was, however, the finding that knowledge of side is acquired consistently later than that of front and back. According to H. Clark (1973), side is defined negatively as denoting just those sides that are neither the front nor the back, and therefore it is conceptually more complex than front and back. Kuczaj & Maratsos also found that the children knew their own front and back well before they knew the front and back of other objects, and that that they were better at placing a theme in front of or in back of their own body than with respect to other relata. lliey propose, therefore, that the correct use of front and back may ultimately come from generalizations children make on the basis of their own front and back. The children in their experiment were also better at touching the front or the back of an object on request than at placing a theme in front of or in back of it.

87 Studies by Johnston & Slobin (1979), Johnston (1984), and Tanz (1980) show still a different picture. Contrary to H. Clark (1973), these authors propose that it is not the front but the back that is more salient. They argue that children focus on disappearing or inaccessible objects, and that in daily communication one is much more likely to ask about the location of something that is not visible than of something that is visible. As an empirical support for this claim, Tanz (1980) reported a study by Jones & Wepman (1966) which found that back and behind were more frequent than front and side in adult English. According to this new characterization of prominence, children should acquire in back of before in front of. This prediction was confirmed in Johnston & Slobin's (1979) cross-linguistic study of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish, in Cox's (1979) experiments with British children and in Tanz's (1980) experiments with American children. Moreover, Johnston & Slobin (1979) found that beside for non-featured relata was among the earliest locatives acquired by children in various languages. Johnston & Slobin discussed the interaction between conceptual complexity and linguistic complexity. They argue that time of acquisition of locative terms is determined not only by the conceptual difficulty associated with the terms but also by their linguistic complexity. For example, front and back for featured relata were acquired relatively early in Turkish. This may be because locative words are postpositions in Turkish, but prepositions in the other languages in their study: in general, if meaning is held constant, postpositions appear to be easier to acquire than prepositions (Slobin 1973).

4. Spatial reference in Chinese Spatial reference is made in Chinese with the use of about ten locative nouns (alternatively, Chao, 1968 suggests that these should be viewed as postpositions). They have two forms: monosyllabic and complex. The monosyllabic forms include qian (front), hou (back), zuo Heft), you (right), pang (side), shang (up), xia (down), li (inside), wai (outside), zhong (middle), etc. The complex forms are the monosyllables suffixed by bian (side) or mian (face) or tou (end).1 The monosyllabic forms are bound morphemes. They must occur together with nouns denoting relata. Complex forms are also usually, although not obligatorily, attached to nouns denoting relata. In general, monosyllabic forms are used with monosyllabic relata, while complex forms are used with disyllabic relata (Li & Thompson 1981). In the following discussion, I will only use the complex forms, since they are more frequent than the monosyllables in spoken Chinese (with certain exceptions such as shang 'up')/ In Chinese, the general pattern for indicating the spatial relation between theme and relatum is "T + zai + R + locative noun," as indicated in the following example:

'or'

Cangying zai qiche qianbian fly at car front the fly is in front of the car the fly is on the front of the car

This example shows that Chinese is structurally different from English in encoding spatial relations between the theme and the relatum. English encodes the relation in "T + relation + R", by using relational prepositions such as in front of. In contrast, Chinese expresses it as a combination of a generic location of the theme (by using the preposition zai) plus the specific relationship between the theme and the relatum (by using the locative noun). Zai does not specify the dimension according to which the theme and relatum are related. It only indicates that Τ is located in the area of R. 3

88 The spatial reference in the example is also semantically different from that of its English counterpart. As indicated by the translation, the sentence has two possible meanings. This is because Chinese locative phrases can be used to denote either the intrinsic orientational part of an object or the region adjacent to that part. Therefore the sentence is ambiguous: it can mean either that the fly is on the intrinsic front of the car, or that the fly is between the car and the speaker himself (although this meaning may be complicated by the two perspectives, see above).

5. Acquisition of strategies 5.1 From the aligned strategy to the facing strategy We are now in a position to look at children's acquisition of spatial reference in Chinese. The present study uses the concepts of perspective and strategy to interpret children's use of certain Chinese spatial locatives, i.e., qianbian (front), houbian (back), and pangbian (side) when asked to respond to the investigator's questions in a variety of situations. The research problems the present chapter addresses include: What perspectives and what strategies do children use? What differences are there between children's and adult's usage? How do children finally come to use locatives the way adults typically use them? In order to investigate these questions, three experiments were carried out with 21 children aged from 2;8 to 3;6 at a kindergarten of the University of Peking. They were divided into three age groups: Group A consisted of five subjects from 2;8 to 2;11; Group Β consisted of eight subjects from 3;0 to 3;3; and Group C consisted of eight subjects from 3;4 to 3;6. (Group A also originally comprised eight children, but three of them were unable to understand the task.) In the first experiment, the child was presented with eight configurations of toys, which differed in how the theme and the relatum were arranged with respect to the child's front-back dimension when he was sitting next to the experimenter at a table. Instead of requiring the child to place the theme in a particular relationship to the relatum (as in Kuczaj & Maratsos 1975), the present experiment required the child to describe the relationship verbally. This procedure was similar to that used by Johnston & Slobin (1979), except that in the present study the child was presented with a pair of words from which he was to choose. Specifically, he was asked for each arrangement of the toys to say whether the "theme" was zai "relatum" qianbian (in front of) or houbian (behind) (the order of the two locatives in the questions was counterbalanced). The theme was either a toy thermos bottle or a square plastic block. The relata included a round toy table, an oblong toy table, and a square plastic block, all of which were non-featured objects. Each subject received a total of eight trials. Half of the themes were placed on the near side of the relatum (between the child and the relatum, qianbian, in front of), and half were placed on the far side of the relatum from the child (houbian, 'behind'). The order of presentation was counterbalanced. In the data analysis, a subject was assigned to the 'aligned strategy' if he selected qianbian (front) at least three times in the four situations when the theme was on the far side of the relatum and houbian (back) at least three times in four when the theme was on the near side. Conversely, he was assigned to the 'facing strategy' if he selected qianbian (front) at least three times in the four situations when the theme was on the

89 near side of the relatum and houbian (back) at least three times in four when the theme was on the far side. Only two children responded randomly (labeled as 'unstable strategy' in Table 1); the rest all showed a consistent pattern in selecting qianbian and houbian. The results, shown in Table 1, were surprising: the youngest children consistently reversed the adult Chinese pattern of using qianbian and houbian. This corresponds to the aligned strategy that is conventional in Hausa, as noted earlier. The older two groups of children showed a shift toward the facing strategy of adult Chinese. Strategies

Group A Group Β Group C

Aligned Strategy Unstable Strategy Facing Strategy

.80(4) .20(1) .00(0)

.50(4) .13(1) .37(3)

.37(3) .00(0) .63(5)

* Ν = 5, 8, 8, respectively for Group A, B, and C. Table 1:

Qianbian and Houbian for Non-featured Relata (Proportion and number of subjects who consistently adopted a certain strategy*)

To extrapolate from these cross-sectional data, we can see that children tend to shift from the aligned strategy to the facing strategy over time. In Group A, none of the subjects used the facing strategy, whereas in Group C, five out of the eight subjects consistently used the facing strategy. Although this does not necessarily mean that the oldest children in this study had acquired the adult use of these locative words, another experiment done with 24 still older children, in which picture materials were used, showed that by about four years of age almost all of the children used the facing strategy.4 These results do not conform to the predictions of the Semantic Feature Hypothesis. They support instead Kuczaj & Maratsos's proposal that young children may know the contrastive value between front and back without knowing exactly which side is front and which is back. According to the Semantic Feature Hypothesis, children should at first respond correctly to qianbian (front), but incorrectly to houbian (back), because they would take houbian to mean the same as qianbian. Later they should also begin to respond correctly to houbian, as they come to realize that it refers to the pole with a 'negative value'. However, children in the present experiment did not confuse the two words, nor did the younger children respond to qianbian more correctly than to houbian (back). The younger children's responses were incorrect for both words from the adult point of view, and the shift to the correct usage also occurred simultaneously for both words. In other words, if the child interpreted houbian (back) as meaning front, he also interpreted qianbian (front) as if it meant back. Tanz (1980) has argued that H. Clark's (1973) claim about front as positive and back as negative is not made on linguistic grounds as he had claimed. She points out that if there is any discrepancy between front and back in terms of 'positiveness' or 'negativeness', it must be conceptual, not linguistic. Unlike unmarked vs. marked adjectives (e.g., long vs. short), front and back are linguistically symmetrical in that there are no constructions that permit one to be used but not the other. In this case, it is difficult to maintain, as Clark has proposed, that there is an isomorphism between the perceptual properties of space and the linguistic structures that encode the spatial relations. It is even questionable whether there are necessarily conceptual differences between the notion of front and back. Like H. Clark (1973), one may argue that, for perceptual reasons, the direction in front of us is positive, and the one behind us is negative, but

90 for a non-featured object, there is no evidence for a bias to consider the region adjacent to its side facing us as positive, and the region adjacent to its side away from us as negative, if the two regions are both visible and in front of us. These are two symmetrical regions with reference to the non-featured object. One piece of information that disproves the the assignment of front as positive or back as negative in such cases comes from cross-linguistic findings: while Chinese and English refer to the former region as qianbian or front and the latter region as houbian or back, Hausa reverses these assignments. The finding that Chinese children recognize the opposition between front and back from a very early age is consistent with results from some studies of how English-speaking children acquire pairs of adjectives. For instance, in a study of marked-unmarked adjectives, Townsend (1976) reported that some children consistently reversed the meanings of the marked term lower and the unmarked higher, i.e., if they interpreted lower as if it meant higher, they also interpreted higher as if it meant lower. Brewer & Stone (1975) found that children around four years old are significantly better at distinguishing different poles referred to by spatial antonym pairs than at distinguishing different dimensions referred to by these words. They suggested a modified semantic feature hypothesis in which polarity features are learned before the features underlying the particular dimension. Carey (1978) found similar results with 3- to 4 year-old children. One possible explanation of this finding, as she suggested, is that the polarity distinction is binary, and thus simpler than the distinctions between specific dimensions (e.g., length, height, width, depth). In an experiment with English-speaking children, Tanz (1980) also found that some of her subjects used the aligned strategy (Pattern Β in her terms) in situations with non-featured relata. Although the use of the facing strategy (Pattern A) prevailed over that of the aligned strategy in her study (13 subjects to 3), Tanz argued, on the basis of cross-linguistic evidence (i.e. Hausa uses the aligned strategy), one should not simply treat pattern Β as 'errors', but as a genuine variant for front and back. Therefore, according to Tanz, it is reasonable to credit children who consistently apply either Pattern A or Pattern Β with knowledge of a deictic system of spatial relations. Although Kuczaj & Maratsos (1975) did not discuss their results in terms of strategies, it is likely that some of the children in their study used the aligned strategy in interpreting front and back In their 'nonfronted object placement task', children were asked to place the theme (a small doll) in front, in back, 'and at the side of a non-featured relatum. Group 1 subjects (2;6-3;l) responded correctly to about 22% of both the in front of and in back of questions, whereas Group 3 subjects (3;8-4;2) responded correctly to 68% of the in front of questions, and 73% of the in back of questions. 22%, 68% and 73% represent children's use of the facing strategy, which is correct from the adult point of view. But what about the children's errors? According to these authors, the children made two types of errors: 'Type A', in which they responded to an inappropriate part (e.g., placing the theme in back of the relatum when asked to place it in front); and 'Type B',in which they put the theme on top of or inside the relatum. Error types A and Β occurred with about equal frequency, and subjects were consistent in making errors of the same type across tasks. 22% correct response to front and back implies 78% of errors. It seems likely that many type A errors represent uses of the aligned strategy, although no detailed information is given in Kuczaj & Maratsos's error analyses. The Semantic Feature Hypothesis claims that children should acquire front before back, whereas Cox (1979), Johnston & Slobin (1979), and Tanz (1980) argue that back is acquired before front. In the present study, no such asymmetry in the acquisition of these terms was found. Children learning Chinese seem to acquire qianbian (front) and houbian (back) at the same time. Although the young children's meaning of qianbian and houbian did not correspond to that of the adult from the start, they did, however, start out using the aligned strategy in interpreting these terms, and then change over to the facing strategy of the adult system. In cross-linguistic perspective, the 'nt' of the child approach to

91

the meanings of front and back is largely determined by the conventions of the adult system. If the Hausa child, like the Chinese child, initially adopts the aligned strategy, he will be correct from the outset in his grasp of gaba (front) and baya (back), since the adult use of these terms conforms to the aligned strategy.

5.2 Strategies and early egocentrism It has been shown that Chinese children undergo a change of interpretive strategies en route to an adult understanding of qianbian (front) and houbian (back) in situations with non-featured relata. But why do they use the aligned strategy to begin with instead of the adult's facing strategy? Does this mean that the aligned strategy is conceptually easier than the facing strategy? The present suggestion is that it is the child's early egocentrism (here used in the Piagetian sense, see Piaget 1959) that contributes to his use of the aligned strategy. According to the concept of egocentrism, the young child looks at the outside world differently from adults: he sees things only from his own point of view, and is unable to take other perspectives on the events and objects in his environment. The use of front and back in the aligned strategy is in accord with his own point of view. In the aligned strategy, the child views the relatum as aligned in the same direction as himself. Along the axis of this direction, the theme is more in front than the relatum, when it is on the far side of the relatum. In contrast, when the theme is on the near side of the relatum, the relatum is more in front (implying that the theme is in back of the relatum). Unlike the aligned strategy, the facing strategy requires the child to imagine that the frontward direction of the relatum is counter to his own frontward direction. In this case, the object that is more in front is not the object that is farthest along the axis of the child's frontward direction, but rather between the child and the relatum. The change from the aligned strategy to the facing strategy may reflect a later cognitive development of decentering, the process by which the child begins to look at things from other points of view. Young Chinese children's acquisition of qianbian (front) and houbian (back) seems to reflect such a process, in that they first use the aligned strategy, a more egocentric strategy, and then change to the facing strategy, a strategy requiring decentration. The child's growing sensitivity to linguistic requirements of the adult system (i.e., use of the facing strategy), together with the cognitive development of decentration, are factors that may shape his acquisition process of qianbian and houbian. Hill (1982) has characterized the two strategies in an opposite way to the above suggestion: the facing strategy is observer-centered, while the aligned strategy is object-centered, and it is the aligned strategy that involves greater decentering than the facing strategy. According to this characterization, one would predict, given the reasoning of egocentric development, that children should use the facing strategy earlier than the aligned strategy, if the latter strategy would ever be used. However, this prediction goes counter to what has been found with the Chinese children, so the argument that the aligned strategy requires more decentering is suspect. It is implausible that young children first use a strategy that requires more decentering instead of the strategy that requires less decentering, especially given that the supposedly easier strategy is the one used by the adult language.

92 6. Acquisition of perspectives Although the aligned strategy seems to fit better with children's point of view than the facing strategy, both strategies reflect the speaker's perspective because they are both based on the speaker's orientation. That is, front and back, according to these strategies, always refer to two opposite points along the speaker's own front-back dimension. In contrast, the perspective of the relatum always makes use of the intrinsic features of the relatum, irrespective of the speaker's orientation. The speaker's perspective is typically used when the relatum has no intrinsic features, as noted earlier. However, use of the speaker's perspective does not require a non-featured relatum: even when the relatum has intrinsic features, the speaker may ignore the intrinsic features of the relatum and take his own perspective. Earlier, we looked at children's acquisition of strategies in Chinese; in the following, we turn to the Chinese children's acquisition of using perspectives in making spatial reference.

6.1 Learning criteria for intrinsic features of objects In order to use the perspective of the relatum, the speaker has to be able to differentiate the relatum's intrinsic orientational features. Young children seem to have little trouble distinguishing the front of an object from its back, even at a very early age (Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1975). This by itself is a surprising fact, since there seems to be no general criterion for distinguishing the front and the back (cf. Fillmore, 1975; Lyons, 1977; Miller & Johnson-Laird, 1976): criteria vary from case to case, depending on the nature of the object. For example, the front can be the side where the main perceptual organs are situated (animates, i.e. human beings and animals), or the side that in normal situations faces the user (inanimates, especially machines, e.g. telephone, typewriter). It may also be the side that leads when the object moves (e.g., car, arrow). Usually these criteria do not conflict, but when they do, the location-of-organs criterion seems to outweigh the direction-of-movement criterion (thus in the case of the crab, we assign the 'front' to the side with eyes, not to the side that leads when it moves, see Fillmore, 1975). In a second experiment, children's ability to differentiate intrinsic features of objects were tested. The subject was shown toy objects with intrinsic orientational properties of some kind: a car, a boat (mobile objects), a telephone, and a washing machine (immobile objects). He was first asked to identify the object and its function, and then tell the experimenter which side of the object was 'qianbian' (the front), which was 'houbian' (the back), and which was 'pangbian' (the side) by pointing to the appropriate part of the object. Each subject was asked four times for each of the three sides with the four toys ('pangbian' refers to either the left side or the right side), a total of twelve questions. A subject was considered capable of distinguishing a certain side if he responded at least three times correctly to the four questions for that side.

93

Table 2:

Questions

Group A Group Β Group C

Qianbian (front) Houbian (back) Pangbian (side)

.80(4) .80(4) .00(0)

1.00(8) 1.00(8) .25(2)

1.00(8) 1.00(8) .75(6)

Differentiation of 'Qianbian', 'Houbian' and 'Pangbian' of Featured Objects (proportion and number of subjects who consistently distinguished the side in question)

Congruent with the findings by Kuczaj & Maratsos (1975) for English-speaking children, the present study found that the Chinese children could differentiate the front and back of objects at a very early age, but could not identify the sides until much later. Table 2 shows that even the youngest children (four out of the five subjects in Group A: 2;8 to 2; 11) could differentiate 'qianbian' and 'houbian' of objects very well, but did not know which side was 'pangbian'. Group Β children (3;0 to 3;3) also had no problem identifying the front and the back of an object; their understanding of 'pangbian', although increasing, was still at a low level (two of the eight subjects). Allthe Group C children (3;4 to 3;6) succeeded on questions about 'qianbian' and 'houbian', and six subjects out of the eight succeeded on 'pangbian'. The discrepancy between correct responses to qianbian/houbian and pangbian might be due to perceptual factors: the front and the back of objects are perceptually prominent because of the asymmetry along the front-back dimension, whereas the two sides are less distinct, i.e., they are symmetrical along the left-right dimension. Young children may first attend to the differences between their own front and back sides and those of other animals (e.g., notice that the perceptual organs are on the front, and tails on the back), and then extend this concept of front and back to inanimate objects (although the way it works across different types of objects is still a mystery, as noted by Kuczaj & Maratsos). For the sides of objects, however, there are no easy criteria such as the location of the main perceptual organs. The notion 'side' must be defined negatively as the polarity of a dimension that is perpendicular to the front-back dimension, which suggests that it is conceptually more complex than the notion of 'front' and 'back' (H. Clark, 1973).

6.2 Using the perspective of the relatum It is not really children's ability to identify the intrinsic orientational features of objects but rather their ability to use these features for spatial reference that interests us most. Even very young children are able to distinguish the front and the back of featured objects. But are they able to make use of these features, taking the perspective of the relatum to express the location of a theme? The children in Kuczaj & Maratsos's study were better able to follow instructions to touch the front or back of a featured object than to place another object in front or in back of it. In their scoring, responses reflecting the speaker's perspective (here, the facing strategy) were considered incorrect for featured relata; for example, putting a small doll in front of a dog's head was counted as a correct response to in front of, but putting it between the speaker and the dog near the intrinsic side of the dog was counted as an error. The results show that even when the children know where the front of an object is, they are not always able to draw on this knowledge when the object is functioning as a relatum.

94 In a third experiment, the child was asked to respond to a situation by saying whether the theme was in front of (qianbian), behind (houbian) or at the side of/beside (pangbian) the relatum. Each subject was shown a set of twelve situations in which the relatum was always a featured object (car, boat, telephone, chair), and the theme was either a toy thermos bottle or a square plastic block. Relata and themes were arranged in four canonical encounter (CE) situations (i.e., the front of the relatum facing the subject) and eight non-canonical encounter (NCE) situations (the front of the relatum turned sideways to the subject). In the CE situations, the theme was placed twice on the near side of the relatum and twice on the far side. In the NCE situations, the theme was placed twice near the front of the relatum (the qianbian of the relatum), twice near the back (the houbian of the relatum); twice on the side nearest the subject, and twice on the side farthest from the subject (both the pangbian of the relatum). The results are shown in Table 3. With respect to deciding which perspective the children were using, note that although the speaker's perspective and the perspective of the relatum are distinct in NCE situations, they partially coincide in CE situations. That is, in Chinese, as in English, use of the speaker's perspective in the facing strategy coincides with use of the perspective of the relatum for front and back. In NCE situations one can see clearly which perspective the subject is using, but in CE situations this is unclear unless the speaker adopts the aligned strategy. Thus, in Table 3, "speaker's perspective in CE" was applied only to children who used the aligned strategy. In Table 3, a subject was assigned to the "speaker's perspective in CE" if he responded at least three times consistently to the four situations using the aligned strategy for qianbian (front) and houbian (back), and assigned to the "perspective of the relatum in NCE" if he responded at least three times consistently to the four situations using the intrinsic orientational features of the relatum for cjianbian/houbian (front/back) and at least three times to the four situations for pangbian

Perspectives in situations

Group A Group Β Group C

Sp. Persp. in CE (qian/houbian) .40(2) Re. Persp. in NCEfqian/houbian) .20(1) Re. Persp. in NCE(pangbian) .00(0) Table 3:

.13(1) .50(4) .00(0)

.13(1) .75(6) .63(5)

Qianbian, houbian and pangbian for Featured Relata (proportion and number of subjects who consistently used a certain perspective)

In Table 2 it was shown that even the youngest children (those in Group A) had no roblem distinguishing the front and back of featured objects in the second experiment, ut, as shown in Table 3, only one of the five subjects in group A and only four of the eight in group Β made use of these features in using qianbian and houbian in 5the NCE situations, even though the subjects and the stimulus objects were the same. It sounds peculiar prima facie that the children can know where the front or back of an object is but not use this information when the object functions as a relatum. On closer inspection, however, this discrepancy is not inexplicable. From a very early age, children have experience with the varying characteristics of different objects (e.g., dogs have heads in front and tails in back, cars move ahead, chairs should be sat on in a certain posture). However, they rarely have the experience of being asked to locate something in a spatial relation with respect to the intrinsic features of these objects. As for pangbian (side), it was not until the age of 3;4 (Group C) that the children started using the

E

95 relatum's perspective. Note that there is also a discrepancy between qianbian/houbian on the one hand and pangbian on the other in the perspective of the relatum in NCE situations. The fact that pangbian (side) was less often used in the perspective of the relatum than qianbian/houbian (front/back) is correlated with the fact that the concept 'pangbian' was acquired later than 'qianbian' and 'houbian' (see the analysis of table 2). Table 3 also shows that even in a canonical encounter situation some children used the aligned strategy, in effect ignoring the intrinsic features of the relatum. However, the use of the aligned strategy in these situations was much rarer than in situations where the relatum had no intrinsic features (see table 1). This may be due to children's early knowledge about the intrinsic features of objects (see table 2). In a canonical encounter, the relatum has its front toward the speaker (the child), and the child knows that this art is called the front of the object. When he tries to use the aligned strategy just as e does in situations with non-featured relata, he may feel an inner conflict: the aligned strategy assigns the front of the relatum to its far side, whereas the intrinsic front of the relatum is on the nearer side. This conflict may lead the child to stop assigning qianbian (front) to the far side of a featured relatum before he adopts the facing strategy in situations with non-featured relata.

Ε

7. Conclusions Since this book is designed as a somewhat general introduction to the field of language acquisition, I have given an overview of the problems associated with studying the acquisition of Chinese spatial reference, rather than simply specifying orders of acquisition along with proposed explanations. This study, together with others (Kuczaj & Maratsos, 1975; Tanz, 1980), has shown that the fourth year is a critical period for children's development of spatial reference. It was during this period that the Chinese children in this study acquired the correct use of the needed strategies and perspectives, a development that is crucial for the acquisition of spatial reference. Since a relatively small number of children were tested, however, the conclusions should be regarded as tentative. One problem has come up repeatedly in the discussion: theories differ in the way they order lexical items in terms of the relative conceptual complexity. Whereas one theory argues that A is conceptually more complex than Β and should therefore be acquired later than B, another argues that A is conceptually easier than Β and A should be consequently acquired earlier than B. This problem can arise even within a single theory, in that the tenets of the theory allow conflicting predictions to be made. For example, according to the Semantic Feature Hypothesis, beside presupposes two dimensions whereas front and back presuppose only one dimension (H. Clark, 1973). Thus, beside is conceptually more difficult than front and back and should be acquired later, as was found by Kuczaj & Maratsos and the present study. However, one could argue along the same lines that since beside is not marked for polarity, as are front and back (i.e., beside refers neutrally to either side in the left-right dimension), it is conceptually less complex, and should be acquired earlier. In fact, Johnston & Slobin (1979) found that beside was acquired consistently before front and back in the four languages that they studied. Still another argument is possible: if polarity features are higher in the feature hierarchy than specific dimensional features (cf. Brewer & Stone, 1975; Carey, 1978), front and back and perhaps side should all be acquired simultaneously. At this point, it seems clear that if language acquisition studies are to be psychologically more firmly grounded, there is an urgent need for deeper insights into what constitutes conceptual complexity with respect to word meaning.

96 The research on children's acquisition of spatial reference in Chinese presented here has shown that instead of learning the meaning of individual locative words one at a time, children acquire strategies and perspectives that apply to groups of words. The youngest children started with the aligned strategy, and then changed to the facing strategy. This change, it was argued, reflects a decentermg process in cogmtive development. In concluding let me raise two problems with this analysis that need to be resolved. First, if the shift from the aligned strategy to the facing strategy reflects the process of decentering, it would seem to mean that children complete this process at a very young age (during the fourth year). But according to Piagetian theory, decentering takes place after the preoperational period, at about seven or eight years of age (Piaget 1959, Piaget & Inhelder 1973). It is possible that children are able to take other spatial perspectives earlier than Piagetian theory claims, as some studies have shown (e.g. Flavell et al, 1981). Given the framework of Piagetian theory, however, perhaps the ability to use different perspectives in making spatial reference does not require the child to have completed the overall process of decentering. It could, instead, reflect children's decentration at a certain level. As Piaget (1955) proposed, egocentrism and decentration are recurrent over different developmental stages, and the same phases of developmental trend are reproduced. Thus, the ability to decenter in the sensorimotor period does not insure the child's decentration in the preoperational period. The second problem is that if Chinese children's initial use of the aligned strategy is due to egocentrism, which is supposedly a universal characteristic of early childhood, then children learning other languages should also start out with the aligned strategy, only shifting to the facing strategy later, if this is what their language conventionally requires. But this pattern has not been reported. However, as pointed out earlier, investigators of the acquisition of spatial reference in English have typically treated responses that might reflect use of the aligned strategy for front and back as incorrect, so they may have overlooked this strategy as a consistent pattern (Tanz, 1980 is a notable exception). This could be due to the fact that adult English conventionally uses the facing strategy and the child must end up with this strategy. However, the aligned strategy can also be the conventional strategy, as in Hausa. Thus for a Hausa investigator, the problem may go the opposite direction. He may instead expect children to use the aligned strategy, and overlook their use of the facing strategy as a possible consistent pattern. Further research is clearly needed if we are to solve these problems.

Notes *

I would like to thank Melissa Bowerman for her instructive discussions and comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. I have benefitted greatly from discussions with Wolfgang Klein, Jürgen Weissenborn, Maghiel van Crevel, and Lee Ann Weeks, to all of whom I am very grateful.

1.

Zhong is not suffixed by any of these. The compound form is zhongjian. Mian and tou are more restricted in usage than biaa In the following I will consistently use bian for the complex forms.

2.

Modern Chinese shows a tendency to move toward dissyllabic word structures (cf. Li & Thompson, 1981).

97 3.

Zai in the sentence is actually a verb meaning 'to be at'. It may function as a preposition, though, when there is another main verb in the sentence (cf. Chen, 1978). Historically, Chinese prepositions have an intimate relationship with verbs, but this is not at issue in the present discussion.

4.

The picture experiments are to be discussed in a separate report. In the present study I did not try to to test the children with pictures because I assumed that their ability to interpret pictures might not be well developed until about three and a half.

5.

The toy washing machine of the second experiment would have hidden the theme completely if it were a relatum, so it was replaced by a toy chair in the third experiment in order to avoid possible confounding from a new factor - visibility.

References BARTLETT, E.J. 1976 Sizing things up: the acquisition of the meaning of dimensional adjectives. Journal of Child Language 3,205-219 BOWERMAN, M. 1977 The acquisition of word meaning: an investigation of some current concepts. In P.N. Johnson-Laird & P.C. Wason (eds.), Thinking. Cambridge University Press, 239-253 1985 What shapes children's grammars? In D. Slobin (ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2, Lawrence Erlbaum, 1257-1319 BREWER, W„ & J. STONE 1975 Acquisition of spatial antonym pairs. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 19, 299-307 CAREY, S. 1978 'Less' may never mean 'more'. In R.N. Campbell & P.T. Smith (eds.), Recent advances in the psychology of language, Plenum Press, New York, 109-131 CARROLL, M. 1988 Reference to space: frame of analysis. In A. Becker, M. Carroll, & A. Kelly (eds.), Reference to space, Final report Vol. 4 of the European Science Foundation Project in Second Language Acquisition by Adult Immigrants, Strasbourg and Heidelberg. CHAO, R.Y. 1968 A grammar of spoken Chinese. University of California Press CHEN, CHUNG-YU 1978 Aspectual features of the verb and the relative positions of the locatives. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 6, 76-103

98 CLARK, E.V. 1973 What is in a word? On the child's acquisition of semantics in his first language. In T.E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press, 65-110 1980 Here's the 'top': Nonlinguistic strategies in the acquisition of orientational terms. Child Development 51,329-338 1987 The principle of contrast: a constraint on language acquisition. In B. MacWhinney (ed.), Mechanisms of language acquisition, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1-32 CLARK, H.H. 1973 Space, time, semantics, and the child. In T.E. Moore (ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press, 27-62 COX, M.V. 1979 Young children's understanding of 'in front of and 'behind' in the placement of objects. Journal of Child Language 6,371-374 COX, M.V. (ed.) 1980 Are young children egocentric? New York: St. Martin's Press FILLMORE, C.J. 1975 Santa cruz lectures on deixis. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club FLAVELL, J.H., E.R. FLAVELL, F.L. GREEN, & S.A. WILCOX 1981 The development of three spatial perspective-taking rules. Child Development 52, 356-358 HARRIS, L.J. & E.A. STROMMEN 1972 The role of front-back features in children's 'front,' 'back,' and 'beside' placements of objects. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 18,259-271 Hill, C. 1978 Linguistic representation of spatial and temporal orientation. Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society 4 524-539 1982 'Up / down^uont/back', 'left/right'. In J. Weissenborn & W. Klein (eds.), Here and there. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 13-42. JOHNSTON, J.R. 1984 Acquisition of locative meanings: 'behind' and 'in front of. Journal of Child Language 11, 407-422 JOHNSTON, J.R. & D.I. SLOBIN 1979 The development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish. Journal of Child Language 6,529-545. KLEIN, W. 1986 Reference to space: A frame of analysis. ESF working paper. Nijmegen KUCZAJ, S.A. & M.P. MARATSOS 1975 On the acquisition of 'front', 'back', and 'side'. Child Development 46, 202-210. LEECH, G.N. 1969 Towards a semantic description of English. London: Longman LI, C.N. & S.A. THOMPSON 1981 Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. University of California Press

99 LI, PING (in press)

Hanyu kongjian fangweici-de yuyong kaocha (A Pragmatic study of Chinese locative words). Yuyanxue Luncong (Forum on Linguistics) 18. Beijing: Commercial Press

LÜ, SHU-XIANG (ed.) 1980 Xiandai Hanyu Baibai Q (800 words of contemporary Chinese). Beijing: Commercial Press LYONS, J. 1977 Semantics, Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press MILLER, G.A. & P.N. JOHNSON-LAIRD 1976 Language and perception. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press PLAGET, J. 1955 The child's construction of reality. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1959 The language and thought of the child. Third edition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul PIAGET, J. & B. INHELDER, B. 1973 The psychology of the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul RICHARDS, M. 1979 Sorting out what's in a word from what's not: evaluating Clark's semantic features acquisition theory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 27,1-47 SLOBIN, D.I. 1973 Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In C.A. Ferguson & D.I. Slobin (eds.), Studies of child language development Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 175-208 1985 Crosslinguistic evidence for the Language-Making Capacity. In D. Slobin (ed.), The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, Vol. 2. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1157-1249. TANZ, C. 1980 Studies in the acquisition of deictic terms. Cambridge University Press TOWNSEND, D J . 1976 Do children interpret 'marked' comparative adjectives as their opposites? Journal of Child Language 3, 385-396 YE, XUN & FANG, YUN-QIU 1958 Xuqian ertong fangwei zhijue-de chubu shiyan yanjiu (A preliminary experimental study of pre-school children's spatial conception). Xinli Xuebao (Journal of Psychology) 1. Beijing ZHU, ZHI-XIAN 1964 Ertong zuo-you gainian fazhan-de shiyan yanjiu (A study of the development of children's left and right conception). Xinli Xuebao (Journal of Psychology) 3. Beijing.

Ger J. de Haan and K. Tuijnman

Missing subjects and objects in child grammar

0. Abstract In this paper we will argue for an approach to the elliptic nature of child language that makes use of phonetically empty categories. The discussion is based on a fragment of Dutch child language, and takes place within the framework of the parametric perspective of language development. Some general conclusions will be drawn. The paper is organized as follows. In section 1, some general remarks are made on the Chomskyan view on language development. In section 2, four treatments of ellipsis in child language are briefly discussed. In section 3, a first analysis of the child language fragment is presented. In section 4, this analysis is integrated into independently motivated analyses of other languages, including adult Dutch. In section 5, some conclusions are drawn with respect to parameter theory in general. Finally, the main results are summarized.

1. The logical and empirical problem of language acquisition The central problem of Chomskyan linguistics is the learnability problem: how is it possible that children master then· native language, given the deficient nature of their language experience. That language experience is deficient, may be obvious: - children project knowledge about an infinite set of sentences from a finite set of language experience ('primary data'); - children acquire knowledge about grammatical properties, for which no evidence exists in their language experience; that is, native speakers attain knowledge about unwellformedness, paraphrase, ambiguity, phrase structure, categorial properties, etc. whereas this knowledge is not present in the language environment. This learnability problem addresses itself to the question of how language acquisition is possible inprinaple, not to the question of how knowledge of language is acquired in real time. Tne former problem is referred to as the logical problem of language acquisition. The latter we might call the empirical problem. A preliminary answer to the learnability problem is the assumption that language acquisition is determined by a biological innate capacity for language, the language acquisition device (LAD). The LAD is reflected in (universal) properties of the grammars of natural languages. In principle every grammar of a natural language is relevant for the study of the LAD. This implies that the logical learnability problem can, at least partly, be solved by investigating adult states of linguistic knowledge. Child grammars are of direct interest

102 for this kind of research too, if one assumes that they belong to the set of possible grammars defined by the LAD. This assumption is called the Continuity Hypothesis. 1 In principle child language is a source for (dis)confirmation of theories about the LAD. But data from this domain are not easy to obtain. As far as data are concerned, we believe that the considerable progress that has been made in Chomskyan linguistics is to a large and significant extent due to the use of introspection by (linguistically) educated informants. The success of this kind of linguistics shows that for the time being experimental methods, the use of corpora and quantitative methods have proven to be less useful for the discovery of deep grammatical principles than the use of intuitions of language users. We would go sofar as to claim that Chomskyan linguistics is (almost) mother tongue linguistics. From this point of view, it is understandable that for those areas where (near-)native intuitions are difficult to obtain, or are limited to wellformedness judgements, relatively little progress has been made. TTiis is not only the case in child language, but also in historical linguistics and language typology, it comes as no surprise that these domains, although in principle relevant for the specification of LAD properties, have gained less attention. Why study the properties of the LAD in domains with severe data-limitations, if domains are available that have almost completely free data access? We think that there have to be extra reasons to turn to the study of these 'difficult' domains. We would like to point out that these reasons exist, at least in the case of the study of child language. 2 The LAD belongs to a set of systems that must explain how the child gets into the linguistic system of its environment. Different theories about the LAD make different claims here. So we can, in principle, compare LAD theories on this point and choose among them against the background of what actually happens in the first stage of language acquisition. That is, there is a body of evidence from child language that is relevant to a LAD theory as a theory that contributes to the explanation of how the child enters the language system. This evidence is, in principle, not available from the adult state. Another reason for studying child language is the following. Let us assume that the LAD contains no principles that impose a particular ordering upon the acquisition process. Let us assume furthermore that LAD principles are not maturationally conditioned. The stages of acquisition in real time are then a function of changes in the data presented to the child, or of changes in the child's perception of the data. The latter may be due to increasing memory, attention span or other maturational factors. In this view the developmental stages of language acquisition are a consequence of the interaction between the LAD, data and extragrammatical factors. Although a LAD theory aims at solving the logical problem of language acquisition, it also contributes, automatically, be it indirectly, to the solution of the empirical problem. Theories about the LAD can be evaluated in terms of the criterion of how well they fit in with those extragrammatical factors to give a satisfying overall explanation of language acquisition in real time. For this kind of evaluation of LAD theories, developmental data of child language are a prerequisite. This implies that data from the actual course of language development are crucial for this kind of evaluation of theories about the LAD. Our state of knowledge about child grammar, based on available developmental data, is such that it can not be expected to influence the course of hypothesizing about the LAD at this moment. As we will indicate below, there are nevertheless some changes in the general approach that might be influenced by considerations from the actual course of language acquisition. The first ideas about the LAD, cf. Chomsky (1965), were that it consisted of a set of universal conditions on the form of grammatical systems, and a criterion for the notion 'simplicity', the evaluation measure. This approach pictures 'the child as a little linguist': the child constructs a grammar by generating rules in accordance with the formal conditions.

103 This rule writing strategy was constrained by the restriction that the rules had to be compatible with the primary data and, furthermore, they had to be the highest valued in terms of the evaluation measure. The idea was that, in principle, such a strategy could give exactly one grammar for a given set of data. It is fair to say, we think, that as far as the notion 'evaluation measure' is concerned, this model has had very little success (cf. Williams (1987)). The idea of grammar selection by means of an evaluation measure did not appear to be a source of inspiration for research, especially not in the field of syntax, although the reasons why are unclear. Furthermore, the view of language acquisition as rule generation and rule evaluation did not directly translate to the real language acquisition process, except for the point that language acquisition was looked upon as a kind of hypothesis testing. However, this image of the language learning child as a kind of hypothesis maker and tester, the language learning child as a little linguist, does not seem to fit in with the overall impression one gets from language development. Of course there is development, but there are hardly any drastic changes in the surface structures that are produced by the child. On the contrary, it is remarkable that in general child language makes such a veiy 'adultlike' impression from the very beginning. Language acquisition appears to be a rather deterministic process. This may have been one of the reasons, why this first model of the LAD has been replaced by the parametric model of language acquisition, a model that involves the making of choices with little or no hypothesis testing. One of the essential characteristics of the parametric model of language acquisition is that it is not a rule generating system. The grammatical rules are no longer supposed to be created in agreement with a priori formal conditions; the rules themselves are specified as part of the LAD. These specifications are not necessarily complete in all respects; that is, rules are partly imderspecified; certain parameters are left open for fixation in correspondence with the input language. A parametrized theory about the LAD is attractive in as far as it is possible to formulate parameters that range over a significant number of apparently unrelated phenomena. A theory which postulates as many parameters as there are differences between languages is not very illuminating. Parameters with a significant scope are of particular interest for language development: such parameters imply that the set of data that the child can use to fix the parameter is large, and that consequently parameter setting is relatively easy.

2. On the nature of ellipsis One of the most debated characteristics of early language development is the elliptic nature of child language. Here we call utterances elliptic, if there are reasons to suppose that the phonetic elements of an utterance express more than the (alleged) literal meaning of those elements. This definition does not tie ellipsis exclusively to child language, ana this is correct: ellipsis is also a well known phenomenon in adult language. It is frequently assumed that a difference between adult and child language in this respect is that ellipsis is a systematic property of early child language. Several attempts have been made to explain this property. We will briefly sketch four approaches. It is important to stress that these approaches are not necessarily incompatible.

104 Suppose that a fragment of child language contains the following sequence: (1)a. b.

papa kijken daddy look' boekje kijken 'booky look'

Suppose further that the context of this sequence indicates that the meaning of (lb) is as in (2): (2)

PAPA BOEKJE KIJKEN 'daddy booky look'

A first approach ascribes ellipsis to the limited short term memory capacity of the child.3 The number of phonetically present elements would reflect the number of short term memory cells available during sentence production or perception. This approach locates the factor that is responsible for ellipsis in performance, and not in the system of grammatical competence, which does not involve memory limitations. This means that the grammatical knowledge of the child consists of rules that can generate, in principle, non-elliptic grammatical representations for (la) and (b). This performance approach to ellipsis can be represented schematically as follows: GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE syntax/phonology

semantics

papa boekje - — —PAPA BOEKJE kijken KIJKEN 'daddy book look'

PERFORMANCE memory filter

output

boekje kijken, or papa kijken, or papa boekje A second approach involves an account of ellipsis phenomena by means of grammatical reduction rules. Quite a few years ago, researchers such as Bloom and Menyuk have tried to work out an approach that postulates grammatical rules generating enriched syntactic representations, whereas these representations were, possibly, reduced by other grammatical (i.e. transformational) rules. With respect to our example (lb-2), this yields the following picture:

105 GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE semantics

syntax papa boekje kijken

< -->

PAPA BOEKJE KIJKEN 'daddy book look'

transformational reduction rules

output

boekje kijken, or papa kijken, or papa boekje The idea that these ellipsis phenomena should be, at least partly, accounted for by transformational reduction rules has been much criticized. This set of reduction rules would constitute a rather complex aspect of child grammar that does not show up in that form and to that extent in adult grammar. So one had to assume that children would have to 'unlearn' these reduction possibilities. This assumption increases the learnability problem instead of contributing to its solution. It is also in conflict with the (at least strategically attractive) Continuity Hypothesis, which claims that child and adult grammars fall within exactly the same set of universal principles. Some researchers, for example Schaerlaekens (1977), have drawn from this transformational approach to ellipsis the much more general conclusion that a transformational theory about language development is not acceptable. This conclusion does not recognize that the postulation of transformational reduction rules of this kind is in no way an essential component of transformational grammar. 4 This is most clearly illustrated by the fact that within the transformational paradigm the necessity of this type of reduction rule has been the topic of debate, ultimately leading to the abandonment of such rules. A third approach to elliptic phenomena is also grammatical, like the approach just mentioned, but uses the interpretation of phonetically empty categories instead of reduction of lexical categories: GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE syntax [Npe] boekje kijken

semantics < -interpr etation- >

PAPA BOEKJE KIJKEN 'daddy book look'

Empty categories are categories that have syntactic and semantic, but no phonetic content. It is not the case that empty categories can be postulated arbitrarily: they have to fall within a general theory of empty categories that places heavy restrictions on their distribution. If the grammatical notion of 'empty category' is a valid one, it seems reasonable to assume that its occurrence in specific grammars is guided by the LAD. The abstract nature of such a notion makes it a plausible candidate for that part of grammar that is

106

not learned but determined by the LAD. But if empty categories are a consequence of LAD principles, it is to be expected under the Continuity Hypothesis, that they play a role in child grammars as well. That a theory of grammar makes empty categories available for child grammar, does not imply that every syntactic structure a child employs contains empty categories. Quite a few of the child's utterances will consist of independent words, especially when the child's attention is directed towards acquiring the lexicon. When a child says daddy it is not very plausible to assume, from a grammatical point of view, that the child is employing a grammatical representation consisting of a string of empty categories, even if the child intends to communicate more than just the literal meamng of daddy, for example 'you are daddy': (7)

* daddy < — > [ NP e] [ v e] daddy < — > YOU ARE DADDY

It is important to keep in mind that also in child language there is a difference between the literal meaning of a sentence (competence) and the non-literal communicative intention (performance). It is not a priori obvious whether a specific characteristic of child language belongs to the competence or the performance part (the same is true for adult language). The question is whether there is independent evidence for the postulation of empty categories in child grammar. It is important to emphasize that, just as in the case of the transformational reduction approach to ellipsis, the postulation of empty categories in child language is not crucial for the transformational theories about language development. This is clear from a fourth approach to elliptic phenomena, an approach that is proposed by Sturm (1986). Sturm's ideas fall within the generative paradigm but attempt to avoid empty categories for the cases under discussion. He proposes a strict grammatical approach to ellipsis without empty categories. Sturm defends the idea that rules of grammar generate binary branching structures. To this he adds a proposal about the grammatical development of such structures: the child complicates hierarchical structures of phrases if and only if there is positive evidence for such a complication (see also Williams (1981)). It is predicted that a child starts language development with a grammar that generates only one word-sentences. In the next stage, a grammar is acquired that has an output of sentences with no more than two words, ana without empty categories being postulated. With respect to our example (lb), Sturm's approach looks like this:

Here (2) is not the grammatical meamng of (lb), but the non-literal communicative intention. In this approach there are no reduction processes of phonetically non-empty categories, nor interpretation process of empty categories; on the level of performance, there may be rules that provide for a non-literal interpretation of semantic representations.

107 3. A first analysis In this paper we will argue that the most insightful way to account for elliptic phenomena in early child language is with the postulation of phonetically empty categories. 4 As such it can be seen as an argument in favour of a grammatical approach to language development that admits such categories. In order to illustrate this, we will analyze a specific fragment of child language from Dutch and see whether this fragment has systematic characteristics that point to the necessity of phonetically empty categories. We will restrict the discussion to subjectless and objectless sentences. The material consists of spontaneous utterances of David. David was born on 16-9-1984, and the recording was made on 14-11-1986, when David was two years and two months old (minus two days). Recordings were made during the whole day, with a total recording time of 180 minutes. The material of these recordings contained 272 recoverable utterances with two or more words. It is in principle conceivable that a child uses, from his/her own point of view, elliptic, more specifically subjectless and objectless, sentences, if it produces such sentences in addition to complete sentences, i.e. in addition to sentences with subject and object. A first important observation is that the material under discussion contains a lot of sentences which have both a subject and an object: (9)a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. 1.

hij doet het 'he does it' hij heeft oren 'he has ears' voor Amsterdam moet ik ze sturen 'for Amsterdam must I them send' allemaal brieven moet ik sturen 'all letters must I send' moeten wij het weggooien 'must we it throw away' Kees deed het 'Keesdid it' dat kan ik niet doen 'that can I not do' papa doet het ook tanden poetsen 'daddy does it also teeth brush' moeder doet gordijnen dicht 'mother does curtains close' Daniel heeft niets geen tanden 'Daniel has nothing no teeth' Sterre heeft ook een konijntje in bed 'Sterre has also a rabbit in bed' papa moet ook poepluiers wassen papa must also dipers wash'

But even in a developmental stage that does not include complete sentences, it is in principle possible that the child is using subjectless and objectless sentences, if during that stage such combinations of utterances are produced that show that the child controls the thematic roles of a given verb. To give an example from the material under discussion: (10)a. b.

moet ik maken 'must I make' auto te maken 'car to make'

108 In this case, it is reasonable to assume that the child knows that the verb maken 'make' can be accompanied by phrases that fullfill agent and patient roles. The examples (lOa-b) make it clear that the child under discussion produces subjectless and objectless sentences and, as we will see in a moment, he does so systematically. We have looked at the possibility that the absence of subjects and/or objects has something to do with performance limitations on the length of utterances, or with a notion of syntactic complexity. This does not seem to be the case. Specifically, it is not the case that subjects/objects are more often absent in long sentences, cf. (9)-(10), or in sentences that are in some sense syntactically complex. Furthermore there appears to be no correlation between this type of ellipsis and the notion grammatical person or semantic notions such as agent or patient. If a child uses subjectless and objectless sentences such as (10), or subjectless and objectless sentences in combination with complete sentences such as (9), it is not certain that the child employs phonetically empty categories for ellipsis, but it also can no longer be denied beforehand that he does not. If a child employs phonetically empty, but syntactically realized categories, some way or another there must be some observable effects. If elliptic sentences are from the child's perspective sentences in which missing elements are indeed missing, i.e. they are not only phonetically, but also syntactically absent, then we expect that elliptic sentences are syntactically different from their complete counterparts. If elliptic sentences have phonetically empty, but syntactically realized categories, then they are equivalent to complete sentences. Let us look at the material and see whether subjectless/objectless sentences differ systematically from their complete counterparts, or not. Consider first examples of possible candidates for sentences with missing objects: (11) a. b.

NO OBJECT Anna, Anna heeft gekleurd 'Anna, Anna has coloured' naar Amsterdam moet ik sturen 'to Amsterdam must I send'

Assuming that the child's grammatical representations indeed have phonetically empty, but syntactically realized objects, we expect that the word order in sentences with empty objects corresponds to the word order of a complete sentence (of course abstracting away from the position of the realized object). On the basis of (11a), we expect complete sentences with the order as indicated in (11a)': (1 l)a. (1 l)a.'

Anna, Anna heeft gekleurd 'Anna, Anna has coloured' Anna, Anna heeft NP gekleurd

The data show that complete sentences do have the order 'subject-verb-object-(verb)': (9)a. b. f. h.

hij doet het 'he does it' hij heeft oren 'he has ears' Kees deed het 'Kees did it' papa doet het ook tanden poetsen 'daddy does it also teeth brush'

109 i. j. k. 1.

moeder doet gordijnen dicht 'mother does curtains close' Daniel heeft niets geen tanden 'Daniel has nothing no teeth' Sterre heeft ook een konijnq'e in bed 'Sterre has also a rabbit in bed' papa moet ook poepluieis wassen papa must also diapers wash'

The order of (11a) does not deviate from the order of a complete sentence abstracting away from the presence of a realized object. The same holds for (lib): (1 l)b. (1 l)b.'

naar Amsterdam moet ik sturen 'to Amsterdam must I send' naar Amsterdam moet ik NP sturen

Compare these with the following complete sentences from the recorded material: (9)c. e.

voor Amsterdam moet ik ze sturen 'for Amsterdam must I them send' moeten wij het weggooien 'must we it throw away'

In short, the properties of the sentences in (11) derive in all respects from complete sentences with empty objects. Hence there appears to be some motivation for the postulation of a syntactically realized, but phonetically empty object. Consider next examples of possible candidates for sentences with missing subjects: (12) a. b. c.

NO SUBJECT nou isse gevallen 'now is fallen' die moeten ook inwrijven 'those must also rub in' wassen zijn ook wel schoon 'wash are also clean'

Again examples of this kind lead us to the preliminary conclusion that phonetically empty categories exist in child language. If isse is considered to be a reduced form of is ze 'is she', as seems plausible, then (12a) is a complete sentence. Should isse be taken as a verb, then (12a) is a sentence without a subject and a non-object in first position: (12)a. (12)a.'

nou isse gevallen 'now is fallen' nou isse NP gevallen

(12a)' corresponds exactly to complete sentences in the recorded material with the order 'phrase-verb-subject': (9)c. d. g.

voor Amsterdam moet ik ze sturen 'for Amsterdam must I them send' allemaal brieven moet ik sturen 'all letters must I send' dat kan ik niet doen 'that can I not do'

110 The same is true for (12b-c). Die 'these' is most likely the object of inwrijyen 'rub in'.6 Here the subject in postverbal position is missing, while the object is in first position: (12)b. (12)b.'

die moeten ook inwrijven 'these must also rub in' die moeten NP ook inwrijven

(12c) could be taken as a subjectless sentence with a topicalized past participle wassen 'washed'. Again there appears to be some evidence for the assumption that phonetically empty, but syntactically realized categories occur in subject position: (12)c. (12)c.'

wassen zijn ook wel schoon 'washed are also clean' wassen zijn NP ook wel schoon

However if we consider some more examples of candidates for sentences with missing subjects, something remarkable seems to occur: (13) a.

NO SUBJECTS kan niet slapen op een schaap 'can not sleep on a sheep' b. ga die weer maken 'go these again make' c. is een trein, he 'is a train, he' d. kan niet meer rijden 'can not more drive' e. kan ook tussen 'can also between and many, many more The great majority of the sentences with no subjects have the verb in sentence-initial position. This differs crucially from sentences with a realized subject, which show both the verb in sentence initial and second position: (9)a. e.

hij doet het 'he does it' moeten wij het weggooien 'must we it throw away'

What is remarkable, is that sentences of the type (12) are systematically absent in the recorded material. Sentences such as (13) seem to be characteristic for the grammar under discussion, and not sentences such as (12). For example, in addition to a sentence such as (13a), kan niet slapen op een schaap 'can not sleep on a sheep', we do not find op een schaap kan niet slapen 'on a sheep can not sleep'. That sentences of the type (12) are systematically absent, is unexpected if sentences with no subjects are in all respects similar to complete sentences, compare: (13)a. 13)a.' 14) (14)'

kan niet slapen op een schaap 'can not sleep on a sheep' NP kan niet slapen op een schaap * op een schaap kan niet slapen 'on a sheep can not sleep' op een schaap kan NP niet slapen

If (13a) derives from (13a'), why not (14) from (14)'?

Ill There seems to be a difference here between sentences with a subject and subjectless sentences. What appears to be going on is that sentences with no subject have a verb in sentence initial position, while complete sentences do not have this property. Although the large number of subjectless sentences with 'verb first' indicates that something systematic is at stake, it is still possible to say that these sentences are syntactically equivalent to complete sentences except for the fact that in the former, subjects are not phonetically realized. The fact that examples such as (14) do not occur systematically, remains a mystery however. Consider next the following set of sentences with no objects: (15) a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. 1. m. n.

NO OBJECTS moeten we meemaken 'must we experience' heb ik gepakt 'have I taken' heeft papa voorgelezen 'has daddy read' kun je mee draaien 'can you with turn' moet ik maken 'must I make' heeft Anna geplakt 'has Anna glued' moet Anna weer maken 'must Anna again make' moet ik sturen 'must I send kan me vingers door 'can my fingers through' heeft Anna gebreid 'has Anna knitted' is, heeft Anna weer opgehangd 'is has Anna again hung up' heb ik kapot gemaakt 'have I broken' heeft Anna weer opgeplakt 'has Anna again glued kan die op 'can that on'

Here we have sentences with no objects cooccurring with 'verb first'. These examples are parallel to complete sentences with an object realized to the left of the verb: (9)d. g.

allemaal brieven moet ik sturen 'all letters must I send' dat kan ik niet doen 'that can I not do'

If we assume, however, that sentences with no objects are essentially identical to sentences with realized objects, then we do not only eroect (15a) moeten we meemaken, but also we moeten mee maken; not only (15b) heb ik gepakt, but also ik heb gepakt; not only (15n) kan die op, but also die kan op:

112

(15)a.

moeten we mee maken (16) *we moeten mee maken 'must we experience' 'we must experience' NP moeten we mee maken (16)' we moeten NP mee maken

(15)a.' (15)b. (15)b.' (15)n. (15)n.'

heb ik gepakt 'have I taken' NP heb ik gepakt

(17) *ik heb gepakt Ί have taken' (17)' ik heb NP gepakt

kan die op 'can that on' NP kan die op

(18) *die kan op 'that can on' (18)' die kan NP op

In our opinion, the recorded material indicates that the subjectless/objectless sentences of this child cannot simply be viewed as identical to complete sentences with missing, i.e. phonetically, and syntactically unrealized arguments. The crucial observation is that the superficial absence of subjects and objects systematically goes together with a verb in sentence initial position. People who know adult Dutch, may already have noticed that this property of the language of this child closely resembles the final state. Consider the following fragment of adult Dutch: (19)

QUESTION:

ga je mee naar 'De Lift' kijken? 'go you at 'The Elevator' watch'

ANSWER:

a.

heb ik al gezien 'have I already seen' b. *ik heb al gezien Ί have already seen'

ANSWER:

a.

ben daar al naar toe geweest 'am there already been' b. *daar ben al naar toe geweest 'there am already been'

So, also in the adult system, the superficial absence of subjects and objects is somehow linked to 'verb first'.

4. Topic prominence It is generally known that there exists a relation between the preposing of the finite verb and topicalization in adult Dutch: (20) a. b. c. d.

Wat heeft Harry gisteren gegeten? 'what has Harry yesterday eaten' hij heeft een dozijn escargots gegeten 'he has a dozen snails eaten' een dozijn escargots heeft hij gegeten 'a dozen snails has he eaten' hij een dozijn escargots 'he a dozen snails' *een dozijn escargots hij 'a dozen snails he'

113 (21)a.

Harry moet de ramen lappen 'Harry must the windows clean' b. de ramen moet Harry lappen 'the windows must Hariy clean' c. Harry de ramen lappen? Kom nou! 'Hariy the windows clean? come on' d. *de ramen Harry lappen? Kom nou! 'the windows Harry clean? come on'

These examples indicate that topicalization is only possible, if a preposed finite verb is present: if there is topicalization, then there is a preposed finite verb, compare (20b) and (21b); if there is no preposed finite verb, then there is no topicalization, compare (20d) and (21d). A generally accepted analysis of adult Dutch embodies the claim that all phrases which occur in sentence initial position to the left of the finite verb are topicahzed elements, including subjects in the 'neutral' order 'subject-(finite) verb-...': (22)a. b. (23)a. b.

Harry heeft die film al gezien 'Harry has that picture already seen' hroPIcHarry;] heeft [NpeJ die film al gezien 'Harry; has ej that picture already seen' die film heeft Harry al gezien 'that picture has Harry already seen' [TOPiqdie fihnj] heeft Harry [^pej] al gezien 'that picturej has Harry ej already seen'

In attempting to explain the connection between topicalization and the preposing of the finite verb, some analyses claim that the topic is in, or closely related to, the specifier position of the preposed finite verb, which is claimed to be in a head position. I will not go into this here, but will simply assume that both phenomena are connected. A topicahzed element may be phonetically empty:7 (22)a.' b·' (23)a.' b

·'

heeft die film al gezien 'has that picture already seen' [TQPlc[NPei]] heeft [NpeJ die film al gezien 'e; has e; that picture already seen' heeft Harry al gezien 'has Harry already seen' [TOPldNPej]] heeft Harry al gezien 'ej nas Harry ej already seen'

However the counterparts of (22a)' and (23a)' with a lexical topic are not wellformed: (22)a." *die film heeft al gezien 'that picture has already seen' b" [TOPlc[die fflm]j] heeft [upe,] [upe;] al gezien 'tnat picture,· has e; e; already seen (23)a." "Harry heeft al gezien 'Harry has already seen' b" [TOPlcfHanyU heeft [NpeJ [ ^ j ] al gezien 'Harryj has ej e; already seen'

114 The question that has to be answered is: why are the subjectless and objectless equivalents of (22a-b) and (23a-b) not (22a-b)" and (23a-b)", respectively, but (22a-b)' and (23a-b)'? Let us first take a look at the unwellformedness of (22a-b)" and (23a-b)". The distribution of phonetically empty categories is heavily constrained. One of the requirements on such categories is, that they have to be recoverable. A reasonable assumption turns out to be that (22a)" and (23a)" are unwellformed, because the corresponding structures (22b)" and (23b)" can not fullfil this requirement of identification properly. In (22b)" the empty object is properly identified by the phrase in topic position. How about the empty subject? The only possible identifier appears to be, again, the topic phrase. But this phrase can not act as an antecedent for both the empty subject and the empty object because of a violation of the theta-criterion: both empty categories would be part of a chain with two theta-roles. In addition the sentence would get the wrong interpretation that 'Harry had already seen himself. (23a)" is out for the same reason: in structure (23b)" there is no proper antecedent for the empty subject due to the theta-criterion. According to Huang (1984), a number of languages have the possibility of identifying empty categories by means of an empty element in topic position. Such an empty topic is excluded in (22b)" and (23b)" however, since Dutch allows only one element in topic position and the topic position is already lexically filled, by die film and Harry; respectively. In short, there is no way in which the empty categories in (22b)" and (23b)" can be identified, hence these structures are filtered out correctly. Consider next (22b)' and (23b)'. These structures illustrate the possibility sketched by Huang: identification of an empty category by an empty topic. In these structures we do not have topicalization of lexical phrases as in (22b)" and (23b)", so there is room for an empty topic. Since the corresponding sentences are wellformed, Dutch is a language which apparently makes use of this strategy. This analysis follows, as noted, Huang (1984). Huang proposes that languages which allow identification of empty categories by an empty topic have at their disposal a discourse-rule that identifies such an empty topic on the basis of contextual information. Huang notes that in languages such as German - and we can add Dutch to his list - it is not possible to have a sentence with both an empty subject and object: (24) (24)'

*heeft al gezien 'has already seen' frppidNpe]] heeft [ ^ β ] [κρβ] al gezien 'e has e e already seen'

In order to license a structure such as (24)', we need two empty elements in topic position, but as we noted with respect to the examples (22b)" and (23b)", Dutch (like German) is a one topic language, hence the ungrammatically of (24). Turning back to our fragment of child language, it should be clear that Huang's analysis explains the distribution of subjects and objects in this fragment. It is very tempting to assume that the grammar of the child is such that it generates phonetically empty or non-empty subject and object categories, and that empty categories can be identified, both by lexical and empty topics. This explains the observation that the absence of subject and object categories goes together with 'verb first'. This verb 'projects' a structure that provides a specifier position for topics. This position to the left of this verb is phonetically empty, but not syntactically or semantically: it is occupied by an empty topic that identifies an empty category, and is identified itself contextually. The data of the fragment under discussion can be explained by the postulation of two types of empty categories: one in subject or object position, and one in topic position.

115

The only problems for this analysis are examples in (11) and (12), which we repeat for convenience: (1 l)a.

Anna, Anna heeft gekleurd 'Anna, Anna has coloured' b. naar Amsterdam moet ik sturen 'to Amsterdam must I send' (12)a. nou isse gevallen 'now is fallen' b. die moeten ook inwrijven 'these must also rub in' c. wassen zijn ook wel schoon 'washed are also clean' As discussed above, example (12a) can be explained away easily by assuming that isse is, in fact, a contraction of is ze 'is she'. Example (12c) is problematic if the structure corresponds to gewassen zijn ze ook wel schoon washed are they also clean'. The intention seems to be: ze zijn gewassen, ze zijn schoon 'they are washed, they are clean'. So the structure could be such that wassen does not belong to zijn ook wel schooa In that case, this example is not problematic for the theory. The other examples remain problematic. In summary: the child under discussion employs structures both with lexical and phonetically empty subjects and objects. Phonetically empty elements can be identified by lexical and phonetically empty topics, just as the case in adult Dutch. The connection between preposing the verb and topicalization is no coincidence: the sentence initial verb indicates that the structure for topicalized phrases is available.

5. Some considerations concerning a theory of parameters In this section, we will pay attention to the question how this fits in a parametric approach to language development as outlined in section 1. Huang (1984) observes that not all languages have a discourse rule that identifies empty topics. He assumes that this choice is guided by a parameter of the LAD. This parameter determines whether a language is more or less 'discourse oriented' or 'sentence oriented'. As for Dutch, we have argued that this parameter is fixed in such a way that Dutch is discourse oriented from its very early beginnings. Parameters should have a significant domain of application. According to Huang the parameter that determines discourse vs. sentence orientation clusters the following properties. The first property of 'discourse oriented' languages is the by now well known phenomenon of contextually identifiable empty topics. The second property is the possibility to form a topic-chain: one lexical topic can identify a number of empty categories in different clausal domains within the same sentence: (25) Jan, gaat naar zijn moeder; doet de afwas; werkt in de tuin 'John, goes to his mother washes the dishes works in the garden' Furthermore, 'discourse oriented' languages would be more 'topic prominent' than 'sentence oriented' languages. For example, the latter group does have obligatorily phonetically realized subjects, explaining the presence of lexical expletives such as it and there. Finally, anaphors in a 'discourse oriented' language can in principle be bound across

116

sentences, which is not possible in a 'sentence oriented' language, cf. did John send the man? *no, himself came. According to Huang (1984), German, and by the same reasoning, Dutch, belong to the 'discourse8 oriented' languages: both languages have the property of discourse bound empty topics. However both German and Dutch also have expletive elements, which points to 'sentence orientation'. Furthermore both languages do not allow discourse bound anaphors. The conclusion must be that Dutch and German seem to be less discourse oriented than, for example, Chinese. Since the differences in discourse orientation between these languages appear to be gradual, it is not clear to us, whether a single parameter such as Huang's can account for them. The parameters that have been proposed, are discrete. Fixing a parameter does not yield gradual effects. It is possible of course that differences in discourse orientation follow from the interaction of a number of grammatical principles and/or parameters. This illustrates a general problem of the parametric model of language acquisition: wellmotivated parameters hardly exist. Although it may be the case that discourse orientation has to be related to more than one principle or parameter, we continue to talk about the discourse/sentence orientation parameter as a single property of the LAD. Our analysis of a fragment of early Dutch shows that the parameter involved is fixed relatively early. This explains the adultlike impression that early Dutch makes on this point. Adult English, which according to Huang is not a discourse oriented language, apparently fixes the parameter differently. Hyams (1987: 9), however, draws attention to the fact that early English allows empty subjects. (26)a. b. c. d. e. f.

read bear book want go get it ride truck bring Jeffrey book want look a man see under there

These empty subjects receive a contextually bound interpretation. That is, early English also has at least one discourse oriented characteristic. So let us explore for a while the assumption that the discourse/sentence oriented parameter is fixed for both early stages of these languages in the same way. Consider the possibility that the analysis we have given for (early and adult) Dutch also holds for early English. We analyze sentences which appear to have a lexical subject as sentences with a lexical topic that binds an empty category in subject position (examples cited in Hyams (1987: 9)). (27)a. b. c. d. e.

Mommy throw it away I want take this off foot goes over there papa change pants mama take a nap

Such an analysis is along the lines of Gruber (1967), who argues that early English sentences have a topic-comment structure. Correspondingly sentences such as (26) are analyzed as sentences with an empty topic that binds an empty subject category. This analysis predicts that early English, like early Dutch, also has missing objects, i.e. empty objects identified by an empty topic. According to Hyams, this prediction is not borne out; there is a subject-object asymmetry here. This false prediction is of course not necessarily problematic for the assumption that early English is discourse oriented. The non-occurrence of empty topics as antecedents for objects need not be related to the

117

discourse/sentence oriented parameter, especially since lexical topics that bind objects are also absent in this stage, compare (27b) with (28): (28)a. b.

*this I want take off *I want take off

There seems to be an independent factor that is responsible for the fact that, in early English, objects can not be identified by elements in topic position. If the discourse orientation of early English can be upheld, despite the subject-object asymmetry concerning missing elements, then the question arises, how the final, sentence oriented, stage is arrived at. Apparently, this approach requires a resetting of the parameter for English. Parameters have to be fixed and reset on the basis of positive evidence. Suppose that the values of a parameter are such that the alternative fixations of the parameter generate languages which stand in a subset relation to each other, i.e. language A includes language B. The discourse/sentence oriented parameter illustrates what happens in this case. If a child begins with the (minimal) hypothesis that a language only has lexical topics, then this hypothesis can be refuted on the basis of positive evidence, namely by sentences with empty topics. If a child begins with the (maximal) option that a language has both lexical and empty topics, then a transition to a stage with only lexical topics is not possible. The maximal option can not be changed on the basis of language input with exclusively lexical topics. The child would have to derive the ungrammaticality of sentences with empty topics from the non-occurrence of such sentences. This is in violation with the idea that language development can not make use of negative evidence. The prohibition on negative evidence forces the child to start with the value of the parameter that generates the subset language. This is known as the Subset Principle (see for discussion, Berwick & Weinberg (1982)). If this principle is obeyed, resetting the parameter becomes an option. It is important to note that the hypothesized transition in English is in conflict with the Subset Principle: according to this principle, it is not possible to go from a stage with both lexical and empty topics to a stage with only lexical topics. Hyams (1987) suggests a general escape route for such a problem. She proposes that the Subset Principle should not be treated in isolation, but relativized to specific data. A value of a parameter possibly generates an included (sub-)language with respect to a certain set of data, but an including one with respect to another set. This makes it possible, at least in principle, for a parameter to begin with a maximal option with respect to a given set of data, while resetting remains an option as long as there are data which can act as a trigger. If the discourse/sentence oriented parameter is first fixed in such a way that lexical and empty topics are generated, then resetting the parameter may be possible on the basis of data that have nothing to do with empty topics. After all, a parameter ranges over a set of independent facts. However if we look at the facts Huang tries to relate to the discourse/sentence oriented parameter, then the maximal option always goes together with discourse oriented languages. It is true for all these phenomena that there is no positive evidence on the basis of which the child can discover that it has chosen the 'wrong' value of the parameter. So it remains unclear how the English-learning child can go from a system with both lexical and empty topics to the adult system with only lexical topics. In our opinion, there is a more general objection to resetting this parameter. As we already pointed above, a parameter is of interest in as far as it ranges over a significant set of independent data. Fixation of a parameter has consequences for different areas of the grammar. If we allow parameter resetting, then this will also be reflected in those

118 areas. Consequently parameter resetting involves changes in quite a number of independent output data of the grammar. This perspective on language development does not go together well with the overall adult-like impression of language acquisition. The language learning child does not seem to be involved in a process of conjectures and refutations of linguistic hypotheses that give rise to surface strings that differ significantly from the adult's. A parametric model of language acquisition that allows for parameter resetting has in this respect the same conceptual disadvantage as the model that portrayed the child as a little linguist. If a parametric model wants to overcome this conceptual problem, then it has to disallow the resetting of parameters. 9 For the time being, it appears to be wise to treat analyses that make use of parameter resetting with some scepticism. The idea that parameters are symmetrical, is much more attractive: alternative values of a parameter are equivalent i.e. symmetrical parameters will be fixed on the basis of the language of the environment. This perspective on parameters does better justice to the impression that early stages of language acquisition are surprisingly akin to the adult state. On the assumption that early English starts, like early Dutch, as a discourse oriented language, we speculated over the notion 'parameter resetting' in order to account for the fact that this discourse orientation, an option of the LAD, is no longer observable in the adult grammar of English. Now that we have rejected the notion of 'parameter resetting', it appears that we have to look for a solution in another direction. Because this requires more information about the facts of early English, solving this problem is outside the scope of this paper. I would like to conclude this section with the following two suggestions. First: A possibility is to look for a non-parametric solution. This possibility will have to be explored, if the assumption that early English is discourse oriented is to be maintained. Since, in a modular approach, the output of a grammar is considered to be the result of the interaction of a set of principles and parameters, we can never be certain if the disappearance of a phenomenon is caused by the resetting of a parameter or not. It is possible that an option of the LAD is blocked by other, nonparametric principles. It could be the case that the fact that English loses the possibility of empty topics is due to an independent factor in the grammar of English. Second: If the discourse oriented nature of early English can not be upheld, a parametric approach to English and Dutch becomes a possibility again. Within this approach, it could be claimed, that the discourse/sentence oriented parameter is differently fixed for these two languages. Early Dutch contains empty and lexical topics, while early English only shows lexical topics. This fits in with the idea that the values of a parameter are in principle equivalent. It depends entirely on the language of the environment, which value is chosen, since parameters have to be fixed on the basis of positive evidence. As for Dutch and English, the case could happen to be: the Dutch-learning child observes that lexical and phonetically empty topics are allowed; the English-learning child only observes lexical topics.

6. Final remarks The fragment of Dutch child language we studied here shows systematic properties that can be accounted for by the postulation of an empty topic identifying an empty subject or object. We argued that this analysis is somehow related to Huang's discourse/sentence oriented parameter, although many points remain to be clarified, not in the least the status of the parameter itself. This is true for parameter theory in general.

119 The parameter approach to language acquisition has given a new impulse to the study of child grammars. It seems to us, nevertheless, that too much enthousiasm is a little premature. The theoretical status of parameters is unclear at the moment. There is no theory of parameters. Furthermore, the parameters that are proposed, are not reliable in the sense that they have not received sufficient support from adult grammars that they can be applied to the study of child grammars. The only possible exception is perhaps the Pro-Drop Parameter. However, Hyams' (1983; 1987) attempt to interpret developmental data in terms of this parameter has not been quite successful (cf. de Haan (1987), Lebeaux (1987)). We believe that at the moment, the best we can say is that the parametric model is conceptually an improvement over the child-as-a-little-linguist approach.

Notes * We thank Jacqueline Frijn, Charlotte Koster, Fred Weerman and an anonymous reviewer of this volume for comments on earlier version. 1.

See Pinker (1984).

2.

The remarks made below also hold for another 'difficult' domain, i.e. historical linguistics, see Weerman (1988) for discussion.

3.

See for discussion Fodor, Bever & Garret (1974: 487), Chomsky (1981: Ch.2 and White (1982: 43).

4.

See for an interesting discussion of the fundamental misinterpretations on which such conclusions are based, Klein (1982).

5.

We leave open the possibility that several factors including short term memory limitations play a role in ellipsis in child language.

6.

Another possibility is that inwrijven 'rub in' has a passive, or intransitive interpretation. If so, then die 'these' is the surface subject and (12b) is a complete sentence hence irrelevant to the discussion.

7.

Although we discuss here topicalized arguments, topicalization of non-arguments is also possible, and consequently, we expect topicalized, phonetically empty non-arguments. This turns out to be the case: gaat hij lopen 'goes he walk'; gaat hij Piet helpen 'goes het Peter help'. This type of sentences also show up in child language.

8.

See for a similar approach to early French, Hulk (s.d.)

9.

This does not imply that restructuring of grammars is not possible, in our view. What is at stake, is the plausibility of restructuring via changes in parameters that are already fixed.

120 References BERWICK, Β. & A. WEINBERG 1982 Parsing efficiency, complexity, and the evaluation of grammatical theories. Linguistic Inquiry 13,165-191 CHOMSKY, N. 1965 Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge 1981 Rules and representations. New York FODOR, J., T. BEVER & M. GARRETT 1974 The psychology of language. New York GRUBER, J.S. 1967 Topicalisation in child language. Foundations of Language 3,37-65 de HAAN, G J . 1986 De rol van morfologie en syntaxis in de ontwikkeling van het werkwoord. GLOT 9, 28-41 1987 A theory-bound approach to the acquisition of verb placement. In GJ. de Haan & W. Zonneveld (eds.), Formal parameters of generative grammar. Yearbook III, Utrecht HUANG, J. 1984 On the distribution and reference of empty pronouns. linguistic Inquiry 15, 531-574 HULK, A. s.d. L'acquisition du frangais et le param6tre pro-drop', ms. Universitd Libre d'Amsterdam HYAMS, N. 1983 The acquisition of parametrized grammars, Ph.D. CUNY 1987 The theory of parameters and syntactic development. In T. Roeper & E. Williams (eds.), Parameter setting. Dordrecht. 1-22 KLEIN, S. 1982 Syntactic theory and the developing grammar. Ph.D. UCLA LEBEAUX, D. 1987 Comments on Hyams. In T. Roeper & E. Williams (eds.), Parameter setting. Dordrecht. 23-40. PINKER, S. 1984 Language learnability and language development. Cambridge ROEPER, Τ. & E. Williams (eds.) 1987 Parameter setting. Dordrecht SCHAERLAEKENS, A. 1977 De taalontwikkeling van het kind. Groningen STURM, A. syntactische structuren in het Nederlands, Ph.D. University of Nijmegen 1986 Primaire

121

TUUNMAN, C.T. 1987 Topicalisatie en lege categorieen in kindertaal, doctoraal scriptie ATW/RUU WEERMAN, F.P. 1988 Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utrecht WHITE, L. 1982 Grammatical theory and language acquisition. Dordrecht WILLIAMS, E. 1981 Language acquisition, markedness, and phrase structure. In S. Tavakolian (ed.), Language acquisition and linguistic theoiy, Cambridge. 8-34 WILLIAMS, E. 1987 Introduction. In T. Roeper & E. Williams (eds.), Parameter setting. Dordrecht, vii-xix

Harald Clahsen

Critical phases of grammar development. A study of the acquisition of negation in children and adults

0. Summary This paper investigates the development of negation in child first language acquisition (LI) and in natural second language acquisition in adults (L2). A learnabinty account is given for the LI data, in which several principles from grammatical theory relevant to the syntax of negation are applied to LI acquisition data from structurally differing languages. It will be shown that this analysis cannot be transferred to L2 acquisition by adults. L2 negation acquisition can, however, be reconstructed by means of general problem solving strategies. The results are consistent with the idea that the language learning device which children possess is no longer available to adults learning a second language.

1. Introduction At the centre of investigations into grammar acquisition is the question as to what means humans possess in order to learn language structure. Most attempts to answer this question are shrouded in controversy. In learnability theory (e.g. Pinker 1984, Hyams 1986, Roeper & Williams 1987) it is argued that the acquisition of grammar is guided by a task-specific, innnate mechanism, which Chomsky (1965) calls the Language Acquisition Device (LAD). The LAD functions independently of other cognitive systems. Psychological approaches, such as the functionalist approach of Bates et al. (1983), try on the other hand to explain grammar acquisition in the framework of general learning strategies which are also used for acquiring non-linguistic abilities and for general problem-solving. I want to deal with a specific aspect of this theoretical controversy, and that is the question of possible alternations of the language acquisition device in the course of ontogenesis. I will argue for the hypothesis that child LI acquisition is mainly guided by the LAD and adult L2 acquisition mainly by general learning strategies. Similar conclusions have been reached by Bley-Vroman (1987) with his fundamental difference hypothesis, and Felix (1987) with his idea of competing cognitive systems. The assumption of qualitative differences between the language acquisition of children and of adults goes back to the idea of critical phases, cf. Lenneberg (1967) and to findings in neurolinguistics according to which the learning mechanisms which specialize in the acquisition of language structure are no longer available in the same way after a particular age. This hypothesis is consistent with the often observed difference between LI acquisition and L2 acquisition by adults, e.g. the generally limited success of L2 acquisition and greater variation (cf. Bley-Vroman

124 1987). General observations of this type do not, however, suffice as evidence for the hypothesis. Comparative linguistic analyses in which qualitative differences between child and adult language learning are described in detail are also required. I conducted a number of investigations (some with Pieter Muysken) into several different areas of grammar acquisition from a comparative perspective. In Clahsen & Muysken (1986) we investigated the development of verb placement. It was shown that all grammars constructed by children in the course of first language acquisition are possible grammars in terms of the principles of Universal Grammar (UG), whilst in adult second language acquisition, rule systems arise which cannot be formulated as grammatical rules in the sense of UG. However, they can be derived from general learning- and problem-solving strategies. The second area looked into is verb inflection, in particular the development of subject-verb-agreement (Clahsen 1985). In LI acquisition developmental links could be seen between position and inflection of verbs. This can be understood in the framework of the parameter model of language acquisition (Hyams 1986) and the theory of lexical learning (Pinker 1984). Developmental links of this kind do not occur in adult foreign language learning. The acquisition of verb placement rules and the construction of an agreement system are quite separate learning tasks. It was concluded that the parameter model cannot be transferred to the L2 acquisition of adults. This chapter investigates the development of negation. First, I will discuss a number of principles relevant to negation in UG. Then I will look at LI acquisition data from structurally different languages. It will be shown that the grammatical systems of negation developed by the children are possible in terms of UG principles. In the last section, I will consider the development of negation in natural second language acquisition, using data from adults who have learned German outside the classroom. The results of the investigation are consistent with the hypothesis that adults no longer possess UG principles as learning mechanisms.

2. Some principles of negation syntax.1 The following examples indicate the most important positions of nicht ('not') in German: (l)a. a', b. b'. c. c'.

Peter kauft [nicht dieses Haus] (sondern jenes) Peter buy not this house but that 'Peter does not buy this house (but that one)' [nicht dieses Haus] kauft Peter Peter steigt [nicht auf diesen Baum] Peter climb not on this tree 'Peter does not climb this tree' [nicht auf diesen Baum] steigt Peter Peter hat seine Schwester [nicht nach Hause begleitet] Peter has his sister not to home accompany 'Peter did not accompany his sister home [nicht nach Hause begleitet] hat Peter seine Schwester

125 d.

Die Kinder sind ihrem Vater [nicht dankbar] The children are their father not grateful 'The children are not grateful to their father d'. * [nicht ihrem Vater dankbar] sind die Kinder We see that nicht is introduced in NPs and PPs as the sister of maximal projections, while in verbal categories (APs and VPs) it occurs as the sister of non-maximal projections. These observations are sketched in (2): (2)a. if

[-V], then

Xmax

(see

l a

l b

)

/ \ NEG X m a x b. if

[+V], then

X1

(see lc, Id)

NEG ^ X 1 In terms of negation syntax, German is an exception because the differentiation in (2) is not required in most other languages. Put simply, there are two different solutions to the introduction of negation. The first is syntactic, the second morphological. In the first NEG is introduced as a free morpheme, and it is associated with maximal projections; this solution occurs in English (see 3). In the second NEG is an affix, introduced in the same way as other morphological inflections. Turkish is an representative example (see 4). (3) John has [not [bought the house]] (4) bugün §ok galis-ma-di-m today a lot work-NEG-Pret.-l.Sg. 'Today I have worked a lot.) The peculiarities of negation can be derived from two components of UG: (i) compositionality, and especially principles of predicate-argument structure (Williams 19811 and (ii) principles of lexical projection, and especially X-bar theory (Jackendoff 1977). Negation can be taken as an operator on predicates which itself does not have access to the internal arguments of the predicate, but only to the predicate as a whole. See principles (5a) and (5b) below and also the percolation principle (5c) (Selkirk 1982) from X-bar theory: (5)a. NEG operates on predicates. b. When predicates are constructed, all internal arguments have to be saturated. c. Features of X° can be projected on to X max . Two preferred choices for the introduction of negation arise from (5a) and (5b), namely (6a) and (6b). In both cases homomorphy occurs between the semantic representation and the syntactic structure, i.e. the semantic scope of the negator corresponds to the syntactic structure. This is given directly in (6a) and indirectly in (6b) by means of the percolation principle (5c). (6)a. NEG is the sister of maximal projections. b. NEG is a feature of the lexical head. In this way, large parts of negation syntax can be derived, as we see in examples (3) and (4) and the German example shown in (la). Only (6a) is needed for the syntactic solution. The morphological solution as typified by Turkish is introduced by means of (6b); principle (5c) determines that the negator is available at the level of maximal projections even in this case.

126 The remaining problems in the data arise from examples like (lc), in which NEG is neither a sister of the maximal projection nor a feature of the head. Webelhuth and den Besten (1987) offer a solution for this problem within the framework of Chomsky's Government-Binding (GB) theory. They suggest a supposedly universal scrambling-theory which, inter alia, should explain the particular position of NEG in German. Scrambling is an adjunction possible in languages with head-final VP in order to derive the word order in (7b) from (7a). Scrambling is understood as an instance of 'move alpha', because similar extraction constraints are valid, as they are with wh-movement. Let us look at examples (7c) through (7f). The extraction of a wh-phrase from the NP in (7c) and from the PP in (7e) is not possible, and in neither case is scrambling allowed. (7)a b c. d. e. f.

..„vp[der Frau [die Blumen bringen]] the woman the flowers bring 'to bring the woman the flowers' ....ypfdie Blumen, yp[der Frau [e], bringen]] * Wessen, wurde [e, Auto] gestohlen Whose was car stolen *...daß [meines Bruders], gestern [e, Auto] gestohlen wurde that my brother's yesterday car stolen was *'that my brother's yesterday car was stolen' * [Wessen Freiheit], haben die Leute lange [für e j gekämpft Whose freedom have the people long for fought "Whose freedom have the people long fought for' *...daß [ihre Freiheit], die Leute lange [für ej] gekämpft haben ""that their freedom the people have long fought for'

In their analysis of negation, Webelhuth and den Besten (1987) take (8a) as the underlying structure; (8a) is motivated by the compositionality principles (5a) and (5b). The other examples are derived by means of scrambling (cf. e.g. 8b, 8c). (8) a b c

daß er yp[nicht yp[dem Jungen ein Buch gab]] that he not the boy a book gave 'that he did not give the boy a book' vp[ vp[de m Jungen], [nicht e; ein Buch gab]] vpE vpfaem Jungen], [ein Buch]j [nicht e; ej gab]]

According to Webelhuth and den Besten's analysis, German no longer has a special status with regard to negation. The differentiation in (2) can be retracted and examples like (lc) can be analysed using scrambling.2

3. The development of negation in first language acquisition The development of negation has often been investigated in empirical language acquisition research; a summary of important empirical results can be found in Slobin (1985). Although there are already many descriptions and plenty of data on this subject, as far as I know there has not yet been an analysis of negation acquisition in terms of the learnability theory approach. The aim of the following is to provide an analysis which makes use of the principles mentioned in the last paragraph.

127 3.1. Early phases of negation development Wode (1977:100) suggested a universal sequence in the development of negation. It consists of the following stages: (9) stage I: one-word negation with nein, no, non, etc. stage Π: two- and more-word negation with nein, no, non, etc. Ha: for so-called anaphoric negation3 Hb: for non-anaphoric negation stage ΙΠ: sentence internal negation (in German by means of nicht), whereby errors in word order can appear stage IV: acquisition of correct NEG-placement By and large this sequence is correct. However, it is not specific enough especially with regard to the more advanced stages, ΙΠ and IV. It cannot therefore serve as the empirical basis for a grammatical analysis. Wode's statement that the development of negation begins with elements of the nein-type (no-type) remains undisputed, but the suggested order of (Ha) before (üb) is controversial. (See Park 1979, 1981, for a qualitative analysis of this early phase in German child language.) To illustrate this, let us look at the examples in (10), which come from my material (Clahsen 1982), and at the data in (11) which come from English child language: (10)a. b. c. d. e. f.

(11)a. b. c.

platz, nein M(26.2)4 place, no (M. says there is no more room for him.) nein, nein bauch harke M(26.2) no no tummy rake (After Daniel hit him with a rake in the tummy.) Julia, nein M(27.1) (As J. is crawling over his railway.) nein essen J(24.3) no eat (To the question whether she would like to eat a pretzel.) nein, da D(26.2) no there (To the question whether he wants a spade; he takes another.) nein, naß D(25.4) no wet (M. sprayed D. with water; D. is looking at his wet hand.) no Daddy hungry no I see truck no the sun shining

(from Bloom 1970) (dito) (from Wode 1977)

All the data show that the child first identifies negation elements of the nein-type (cf. Tab. 45-47 in Clahsen 1982, 166-168). This is probably due to the fact that the negator nein occurs in isolation in the input and in perceptually salient positions at the beginning or end of an utterance. Furthermore, nein is a free morpheme and a stressed element. All this contributes to the child being able to extract nein from the input more easily than other negation elements. On the other hand, Wode's suggested order for stages (IIa) and (üb) (1977) must be rejected. In Park's (1979) data, cases of non-anaphoric negation can be found before there is evidence of anaphoric negation. That is the reverse of Wode's sequence. In my data, both types of negation occur at the same time (see 10a, 10b, 10c, lOd vs. lOe and

128

lOf). It appears that the differentiation between anaphoric and non-anaphoric in the analysis of negation development is not very useful. In any case, clear stages of development cannot be formulated in terms of that distinction. Moreover, it is often very difficult to make the distinction in the course of analyzing the data. In addition, the data show that the NEG-type nein almost always occurs utteranceexternally, usually at the beginning of the utterance though sometimes at the end. In Park's (1979) data, for instance, there are altogether only two instances (out of 64), in which nein occurs within an utterance. This is similar to my material for negation (see 10). Utterances such as (11) from English child language also fit into this picture. (12) obviously applies to cases of this type: (12)

NEG+S

In adult language, the negator nein is not syntactically integrated. In fact, this type of negation is best defined as utterance negation. If a question is answered with nein, then the speaker is referring to a previous utterance and not necessarily to a syntactic unit such as a question. In child language on the other hand, nein is initially a generalised negator which is also used as a sentence operator. In this way the instances with nein as non-anaphoric negation (see also 11) can occur. These can be described by (12). The next stage in the development of negation is more interesting. It can be seen that the children are able to construct a sentence-internal position for NEG as soon as they have extracted the negators such as nicht from the input. The data show that nicht does not occur in the same positions as nein. Nicht appears VP- externally but not utterance-externally. These observations are consistent with the idea that syntactic differentiations are triggered by lexical learning. The Unique Entry Principle (Pinker 1984), which is relevant for lexical learning, can be applied in this area. Given this principle, the child assumes that the negator nicht, when it is newly extracted from the input, cannot be identical to the element nein, which is already available in the child's grammar. The NEG-type nein can thus be limited to utterance negation. Equipped with the Unique Entry Principle the child can learn the difference between anaphoric and non-anaphoric negation, as soon as s/he has identified the elements of the nicht-type. In English child language we now find examples such as (13a) and (13b), (Bloom 1970), which can be analysed by (13c): (13)a. b. c.

Kathryn not quite through I don't open it NEG+X m a x

Not, didn't, can't etc. are not placed utterance-externally, that is not in the position reserved for no, but internally, and these negators are sisters of the maximal verb projection. At this stage the auxiliaries can be regarded as NEG-elements, because they do not yet occur in a non-negated form (see Klima & Bellugi 1966). (13c) is one of the possible UG options for the introduction of negation (see 5, 6). Through these principles, children learning English are able to reconstruct large parts of the negation syntax of this language. What is required crucially is that the children have extracted the appropriate negation elements from the input. The subsequent development of German child language is more complicated. The main reason is that NEG in German must be associated with a projection of the non-finite verb (V°) and not with the finite verb (INFL0). Since German children are initially unable to differentiate between finite and non-finite verbs, they can be expected to have problems with the placement of NEG in relation to the verb. I will look into this in more detail in the following.

129 3.2. On the development of nicht in German child language No precise information on the more advanced phases of negation acquisition can be obtained from the developmental sequence suggested by Wode (1977). He simply states that word order errors can occur now and then. Therefore, more exact analyses are required. The data I will examine in the following come from my longitudinal study (Clahsen 1982)5 and from the to date largely unpublished study on German child language by Max Miller 6 ; see also Miller (1976). Several distributional analyses have already been carried out on my own data (Clahsen 1983). In addition, the descriptive results obtained will be checked against Miller's extensive data. As mentioned above, the position of the negator in a German sentence is linked with the verb position and that is in turn linked with the type of verbal element. The development of negation in German child language must therefore be investigated in connection with the acquisition of other parts of child grammar, in particular with verb position and the agreement system. As a descriptive framework for this I will use the developmental profile suggested for German LI acquisition in Clahsen (1986). Here, several areas of child grammar acquisition were investigated and described in the form of a general developmental sequence. It should account for the stages which children learning German grammar go through. As far as the development of negation is concerned, the distinction between the early child grammars of phases II/III and those of the later phase IV (cf. Clahsen 1987) is especially relevant. In phases II/III the children do not yet possess the correct subject-verb agreement system of German. There are still many verb placement errors and the children prefer the verb-final pattern. Obligatory elements, subjects and verbs as well as grammatical function words, are often missing in the children's utterances. Phase IV characterizes a crucial point in grammar development and is reached at the age of approx. 3 years; some children reach it a lot earlier, however. The paradigm for subject-verb-agreement can now be considered to be acquired and verb placement is nearly always correct. The development of negation will be described within these general phases. A brief summary of the results is given in (14). A detailed description of the development follows. The examples in (15) and (17), which come from my material, illustrate the patterns in phases Π/ΙΙΙ and those in (16), phase IV. 7 (14)

Phase II/III a. b. c. d. e.

NEG + X m a x , where X = { Ν, V, A Ρ } post- and preverbal negation; immediate postverbal negation predominates postverbal negation mostly with inflected verbs: [INFL NEG] no separation of the negator from the verb in postverbal negation preverbal negation mostly with non-inflected verbs: NEG yp[...V] Phase IV

f. g.

NEG postverbal separation of the negator from the verb in case of postverbal negation

130 (15)a.

nicht gut not good b. Maxe nich nuckel Max not dummy c. is nich heiß be (3rd sing.) not hot d. baby nich nuckel habe baby not dummy have e. mone nich das Eis habe Mone (=Simone) not the ice have f. mag nich kuche backe like (1st sing.) not cake bake g. brauche nich lala need not dummy 'S. does not need the dummy' h. macht nich aua make (3rd sing.) not ouch 'It doesn't hurt' i. nich aua mache not ouch make j. hund geht nich dog go (3rd sing.) not k. nich buttmache lumlum! not burst balloon 'Don't burst the balloon!' 1. das auch nich schmeckt nich that also not taste (3rd sing.) not 'That also doesn't taste good' m. geht nich gar nich work (3rd sing.) not at all not 'This doesn't at all work'

(16)a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h.

das darfst du nich that may (2nd sing.) you not 'You are not allowed to do this' simone darf des net S. may (1st sing.) this not 'Simone isn't allowed to do this' das kann jetzt nich mehr laufe this can (3rd sing.) now no longer walk da kommt das nich there come (3rd sing.) that not 'That doesn't belong there' ich mach das gar nich putt I make (1st sing.) that not at all break Ί won't break that at all' so geht das nich so go (3rd sing.) that not 'It doesn't work like this' das fällt gar nich um that fall (3rd sing.) not at all over 'That doesn't fall over at all' ich brauch keine Kette I need (1st sing.) no chain Ί don't need a chain'

S(22.3) S(24.0) S(24.2) S(24.0) S(24.2) S(22.3) S(24.2) S(22.3) S(22.3) S(22.3) S(24.0) S(24.0) S(24.0)

S(26.3) S(26.3) S(26.3) S(28.3) S(28.3) S(28.3) S(28.3) S(28.3)

131

(17)a. b. c.

hier nich reingemalt J(28.3) here not painted (P.Part.) 'This part hasn't been painted' Julia schere nich darf M(33.1) J. scissors not may (3rd sing.) 'M. is cutting paper; he says that J. may not do it' kann nich das zumachen J(28.3) can (1st sing.) not that close (Inf.) Ί can't close this'

On Phases II/III: The first possibility of introducing negation is (14a) which was previously defined as the syntactic solution. NEG is treated here as a sister of maximal projections. Instances of so-called constituent negation, for example (15a), (15b) and (15c), can be analysed like this, and so can instances where NEG occurs in front of the VP; see (15d) and (15e). However, (14a) alone does not suffice for the early phases, because from the start the children make use of two order patterns for nicht, namely pre- and postverbal negation. The frequencies of usage vaiy from individual to individual, but postverbal negation is the preferred pattern according to the data available so far; cf. Table 1 in Clahsen (1983) and section 5.2. in Mills (1985). More important to a grammatical analysis of negation development are several qualitative differences between the two negation patterns, see (14c)-(14e): (i)

Preverbal negation typically occurs in connection with non-inflected verbs, while postverbal negation occurs with inflected verbs. See, for example (15h), as opposed to (15i).

(ii)

In preverbal negation, NEG can be separated from the verb, e.g. (15d), whilst in postverbal negation NEG comes directly after the verb, even when German requires separation from the verb, as in (15g).

These observations indicate that distinct grammatical structures, which cannot be derived from one another, underly the two surface negation patterns. In preverbal negation the (usually non-finite) verb occurs in the head position of the VP. NEG, according to (14a), is the left sister of VP. Hence instances like (15d) and (15e) occur. From this, instances of immediate preverbal negation, such as in (17a) and (17b), can be derived through scrambling. In contrast NEG always occurs immediately after the verb in postverbal negation. Instances such as ich brauche den schnuller nicht (Ί don't need the dummy') or ich mag den Kuchen nicht backen (Ί don't want to bake the cake') do not occur in the early phases; instead we find (15f) and (15g) (see also example (17c) from my material). Thus scrambling is not possible in postverbal negation, whereas in preverbal negation it is. From this we see that instances with postverbal negation cannot be derived from underlying structures such as (14a). If that were the case, then scrambling would be possible in (17a) and (17b) as well as in examples such as (15g) and (15h). However, in phases II/III this is not the case, and instead the verb and the postverbal negator form a unit which cannot be disrupted by means of syntactic rules such as scrambling. It is also interesting to note that postverbal negation virtually only occurs with inflected verbs and modal verbs as can be seen from the examples taken from Simone. Consider too the contrast between (15h) and (15i).8

132 From these observations we can conclude that children in phases II/III have, in addition to (14a), access to a second possibility for the introduction of negation. Let us call this the morphological solution. Like verb inflections, NEG is here connected to INFL elements and is inserted into the syntactic position provided for this (14c). Sequences of the type [INFL NEG] are syntactic islands, to which movement rules do not have access. Given this analysis, the asymmetries observed between pre- and postverbal negation can be explained, including the fact that in postverbal negation, NEG always occurs directly after INFL, and scrambling, although in principle available, cannot produce the correct structures at this point. Both possibilities for introducing negation, syntactic and morphological, are offered to the child through the availability of U G principles (cf. (5) and (6) from paragraph 2). In the acquisition of German, the child does not initially stick to one of the two solutions. The child finds instances of post- and preverbal negation in the input. The instances of preverbal negation can be analysed by the child as special cases of (14a) and scrambling; the correct structure of German is thereby already available in phases II/III. Nevertheless, at this point the child cannot yet recognize that in German postverbal negation is derived from fundamental preverbal negation through verb-movement, cf. paragraph 2. To analyse the input with postverbal negation the child choses [INFL NEG] as a temporary solution for phases II/III; this possibility is reanalysed as a derived structure as soon as the child has access to verb-movement. On Phase IV: The position of nicht is now basically correct. Instances of preverbal negation disappear and NEG is now also separated from the verb in postverbal negation as required by German (cf. examples in (16)). In phase IV there is also considerable developmental progress in the area of verb inflection and verb placement (cf. Clahsen 1987). The children have now acquired the correct German verb placement (in main clauses), which they did not have in phases II/III. The syntactic position for inflected verbs was already there in the early phases and could be filled by e.g. modal verbs, but since the agreement paradigm was not available in phases II/III so that differentiation between finite verbs and non-finite verbal elements was not clear, the children were unable to recognize that in German all finite verbs have to be inserted into the syntactic INFL position. This is, however, a precondition for the correct placement of the negator in German, which is fulfilled in phase IV. This allows the children to reanalyse the cases of postverbal negation as derived structures, which arise through verb movement. The morphological solution can be rejected and the INFL-NEG sequence need no longer be treated as a syntactic island. 9 In the following section I will investigate the development of some aspects of Swedish negation syntax, as an example of a language structurally related to German.

3.3. On the development of inte in Swedish child language Let us look at the examples (18) in order to illustrate the position of inte in Swedish. According to Platzack's analysis (1985) all instances can be derived if the following assumptions are made for Swedish: (i) the underlying structure (19), (ii) V-to-INFL movement and (iii) INFL-to-COMP movement.

133 (18)a. b. c. d. e.

...att Eva inte hade stickat tröjan '...that Eva had not knitted the pullover' Hade Eva inte stickat tröjan? Eva hade inte stickat tröjan Jonas gillade inte honom 'Jonas did not like him' Honom gillade Jonas inte

(19)

In (18a) the verb movement rules (ii) and (iii) were not applied and NEG occurs in the sister position to INFL 1 . In (18b), rule (iii) was applied; NEG did not change position and occurs superficially directly in front of the non-finite verb. In (18c) the subject Eva was inserted into the X m a x position and rule (iii) was applied to the auxiliary, whereby inte appears between the two verbs. In (18d) the subject again occurs in the X m a x position. In addition rules (ii) and then (iii) were applied to the verb. Finally, in (18e) the object was brought into X m a x and the verb via INFL into COMP. The subject and the negator do not alter their position. Hence instances arise where inte appears superficially separated from the verb. The analysis shows that the position of NEG within the syntactic structure is the same in all instances and that the differing surface-order patterns arise through verb movement. As far as the position of NEG relative to the verb is concerned, one would expect the acquisition of Swedish to develop in a way similar to that of German. The Swedish child finds instances of postverbal and preverbal negation in the input. However, as long as it does not have access to verb movement, the child cannot recognize that both negation-patterns are based on just one underlying structure. Given the results from German child language, it is to be expected that the Swedish child initially uses two structures: the syntactic solution for preverbal negation and the morphological solution for postverbal negation. As far as I know, there are only a few data available for Swedish from Larsson investigation (1973), and those relate to the early developmental data on negation can be compared with those from phases II/III of the German. (20) provides examples from Lange & Larsson's investigation on a the twentieth and twenty-fifth month:

the Lange & phases. Their acquisition of child between

134

(20)

I. NEG + X a. b. c.

inte gul 'not yellow" inte juice 'not juice' inte där 'not there'

II. NEG + VP d. e. f. g. III.

inte gömma barnet 'not nide-Inf. the-child' inte gätt sönder 'not broken' Embla inte ha täcket Έ . (=name of the child) not got blanket' Embla inte maken Έ . not do' INFL+NEG

h. jag vill inte Ί don't want' i. vill inte tvätta häret 'not want to wash hair' j. älg säger inte muh 'Elk says not "muh"' k. gör inte det 'do-Imp. not that'; standard: 'Do that not' IV. NEG + IP 1.

inte mamma tvätta 'not Mama-Subj. wash' m. inte mamma hjälpa Embla 'not Mama-Subj. help Embla' Basically, the negation patterns in German child language described above "can also be recognised here. (I) and (II) from (20) correspond to type (14a), apart from the fact that in Swedish the VP is head-initial. In these instances the syntactic solution for the introduction of negation is chosen, and NEG can be analysed as the sister of maximal projections. Pattern (ΠΙ) is also documented in German child language as in (14c). In these instances inte appears directly after inflected verbs and modal verbs. Like German child language, there are no instances where NEG is separated from the verb in the early Swedish data, not even when this is required by Swedish; examples such as (18e) do not appear in the available data. In instances of type (III), it is the morphological solution, where NEG is introduced as a suffix on INFL, that is chosen. Consequently, the sequence [INFL NEG] cannot be split up by syntactic rules. Only negation pattern (IV) does not occur in German child language. In (IV) NEG can be analysed as a sister of the maximal projection of INFL. The fact that in Swedish NEG can be linked with projections of INFL goes back to the input (cf. for example 18e). The structure NEG + IP, which is chosen by the Swedish child, cannot, however, be obtained directly from the input, but results instead from UG option (6a) by which NEG should preferably be associated with maximal projections.

135 In sum, we found that the available data from Swedish child language could be analysed in the proposed theoretical framework. The child links NEG with maximal projections and s/he can introduce NEG as a head feature (on INFL). As expected, the child acquiring Swedish does not initially fix either one of the two possible options, as is the case in German. There are no data on the further development of negation in Swedish. However, given the previous considerations and the results from German one might expect, that as soon as the child has access to correct verb movement the morphological solution for Swedish would be rejected and the postverbal negation patterns reanalysed as derived structures.

3.4. On the development of negation in Japanese child language For the acquisition of negation in a non-Indo-European language, I will be looking briefly at some data from Japanese child language. I shall be referring to Clancy (1985), who summarizes the information available on this topic. Apart from several negated adverbs, na- is the usual negator in Japanese. It is suffixed to verbs and also to adjectives. Within inflected verbal elements, na- appears after the word-stem, but before temporal morphemes (tabe-na-i 'eat-not-[-PastJ', tabe-na-katta 'eat-not-[+Past]'). The data described in Clancy (1985) show that Japanese children identify and produce nai as a negation element quite early. At this stage the form nai which occurs most frequently in the input is used as an unanalysed unit, m addition functional limitations on the use of nai are not heeded, especially in the one-word phase. Hence, in utterance (21a) by a 23 month-old child for example, the element chigau was actually required; cf. Clancy (1985, 395). It can be seen here that nai is initially also used for so-called anaphoric negation. This has to do with the fact that nai in adult Japanese also occurs as the negation of aru (existence). In this function it is used quasi anaphorically as a negation of yes/no-questions with the verb aru. This use of nai certainly plays an important role for children in the input; examples like (21a) could be based on this. In the two-word phase, we find the pattern X+nai, where X can be occupied by a noun, verb, adjective, etc. Thus utterance (21b), for example, produced by a 25 month-old child (cf. Clancy, 396), is not possible in adult Japanese; what is actually required is the copula form ja as a carrier of the negation suffix (hikooki ja-nai 'plane COP + TOP-NEG'). At first, however, this form is not internally analysed by children (see also (21c) in Clancy, 401) and can occasionally be completely absent as in (21b). The crucial point is that the children categorize nai as a verb suffix quite early, see (21d) to (21f). Errors occur only in the position of NEG in relation to other verb morphemes. In contrast to adult Japanese we find that the children sometimes place the negator after the modal or temporal suffixes. See also examples (21e) and (21f). (21)a.

b.

mother: kowashi-chatta Yotchan 'break Y.' Ύ. (=name) did you break it?' Yotchan: nai hikooki nai yo plane NEGEMP That's not a plane'

136 c. d. e. f.

Suupaaman da ja -nai Superman COP COP+TOP-NEG 'That's not S.' naka-nai cry-NEG 'I'm not crying' tabe-ru -nai eat [-Past] NEG 'I'm not eating' deki-ta -nai can [+Past] NEG Ί couldn't'

The data on Japanese child language can be analysed within the UG principles which are relevant to negation. (See (5) and (6) from paragraph 2). In particular, the data show that the morphological solution is easily accessible to the children when the input is unequivocal. Japanese children quickly discover that negation must be introduced as a verb suffix. They do initially have problems, though, in establishing whether NEG should be associated with the verb stem or with the inflected verb, as can be seen from errors such as (21e) and (21f). There are, however, no indications in the data that Japanese children choose the syntactic solution and associate NEG with verb phrases. Hence there are no instances of preverbal negation and, more importantly, nai cannot be separated from the verb by other constituents. In these two respects, the children's utterances correspond to the target language from the very start. These results are consistent with the idea that principles (5) and (6) provide children with two options for the introduction of negation, the syntactic and the morphological solutions. Obviously neither of these two possibilities has an absolute priority in development. Instead, they are both available to the children. If the input is unequivocal, then the child can decide on one of the two options at an early stage, the syntactic one in English and the morphological one in Japanese. If the child finds several different kinds of structural patterns and is not yet able to analyse them completely, as is initially the case in Swedish and German child language, then s/he employs both possibilities. As they continue to develop, the children can fix the syntactic solution and reanalyse the instances previously introduced morphologically as being derived syntactic structures as soon as they have access to the preconditions for verb placement.

4.

On the development of negation in the acquisition of German as a second language.

In the following I will be investigating the development of negation in natural second language acquisition of adults. I will make use of available data and compare these with negation development language. The analysis is mainly concerned with the development of the placement of nicht in L2 acquisition of German. There are several sets of data from the ZISA-project (Zweitspracherwerb italienischer und spanischer Arbeiter (= L2 acquisition of Italian and Spanish workers), cf. Clahsen, Meisel, Pienemann 1983) available on this topic. The data come from cross-sectional and longitudinal studies on Italian, Spanish and Portuguese learners who have acquired their knowledge of German outside the classroom 10. Data on Turkish learners will also be looked at.

137 4.1. Developmental phases in German L2 acquisition Adult L2 learners have early access to several different kinds of negation elements. In the available data, instances of nein and forms of nicht can be found almost from the start. No phase occurs corresponding to Stages I and II in the developmental sequence (9). That is, there is no phase in which only nein is used as a negator and placed sentence-externally. Instead, the learners can easily identify the different negators from the input. On the other hand, L2 learners do have problems acquiring correct NEG placement, especially that of nicht in relation to the verb. This area of negation development has been investigated in detail in the ZISA- projects. The basic results are represented schematically in (22) and (23); a more thorough description follows. In (22) three developmental phases of the acquisition of NEG placement are 11 distinguished; in (23) developmental correlations with other areas of word order are shown: (22) I: II: III:

preverbal negation immediate postverbal negation NEG-separation

(23) Phase I: Phase II: Phase III:

SVO discontinuous verb placement Inversion, ADV VP

- preverbal negation - postverbal negation - NEG-separation

On Phase I: In the earliest developmental phase, adult L2 learners construct an SVO system for German. Preverbal negation is characteristic of this phase, which can be found in learners in both the cross-sectional and the longitudinal studies.12 As an illustration of the patterns in phase I, consider 13the examples in (24), which are from two of the learners in the ZISA longitudinal study. Unlike German child language, there are no examples of postverbal negation here. Instead, NEG, which can be nein and/or nicht, occurs preverbally. In addition, it can be seen that learners in the early phase develop a VO word order system. (24)a.

nich sprechen italien not speak (Inf.) Italian 'He doesn't speak Italian' b. nis sagen in deutsche not say (Inf.) in German Ί can't say that in German' c. ich nee sagen wieviel kilometer I no say how many kilometres Ί don't know how many kilometres it is' d. ich nein kauf I no buy (Inf.) Ί haven't sold any cars' e. ich nix komme in Spanie I nothing come (1st sing.) in Spain Ί don't come from Spain'

Lina I. Lina I. Lina I. Bon-Giovanni I. Bon-Giovanni I.

138 f.

nein, en matina nix essen Bon-Giovanni I. no in the morning (Italian) nothing eat (Inf.) 'In answer to the question whether he wants anything to eat'

Examples like this, if they come from Italian, Spanish or Portuguese learners, could well be traced back to interference from the mother- tongue. In Clahsen/Muysken (1986), however, it has been shown that Turkish learners also construct an SVO word order system at a particular point in their L2 acquisition of German. Hence interference cannot be used as a possible explanation, because Turkish is strictly verb-final Consider also examples (25) and (26), which stem from elementary Turkish learner varieties. 14 Like phase-I learners with a Romance mother-tongue, Turkish learners only produce utterances with preverbal negation. There are no examples in which the negation is treated as a verb suffix as in Turkish. (25)a. b.

d. e. f.

(26) a. b. c. d. e. f.

ich nich lesen I not read (Inf.) Ί can't read' aber nich helfen hier but 'not 1 (Inf.) here '· help .. . .

,,

not give (Inf.) forester's accomodation 'They do not give me the forester's accomodation' aber nicht geben bei mir buy not give with me 'But they do not give it to me' aber nicht gefunden wohnung but not find (P.Part.) flat 'But I didn't find a flat' vielleicht andere türke nicht helfen maybe other Turk not help (Inf.) (andere Türken = Subj.) 'Other Turks might not help' nich geben maske not give mask '...didn't give mask' bier nich trinken beer not drink (Inf.) Ί don't drink beer' nich bier trinken aber ich nich gesagt schwer but I not say (P.Part.) difficult 'But I didn't say it was difficult' aber ich bin nich krank but I am not ill aber frau nich verstehn but wife not understand (wife = Subj.) 'But my wife doesn't understand'

On Phase II: In the second developmental phase, immediate postverbal negation occurs. In addition, the learners now produce instances of discontinuous verb placement. Separable prefix verbs as well as auxiliary- and modal-verb constructions occur with discontinuous word order as required in German main clauses. The examples in (27) are characteristic of phase II;

139 they come from learners in the ZISA longitudinal study. It can be seen that NEG is not initially separated from the verb, not even when separation is required by German, as in (27c) and (27d). It is also interesting to note that the negator in auxiliary- and modal-verb constructions appears between the two verbal elements and not - as in Italian or Spanish - in front of auxiliaries and modals. This observation is even valid for some learners in phase I, see (28). It provides further evidence against the role of interference in L2/negation development. (27)a. b. c. d. e.

(28)a. b.

ich will nich mit sie gewohnt I want (1st sing.) not with they live (P.Part.) Ί don't want to live with them' und meinen eitern will nich bei mir gewohnen and my parents want not at me live (P.Part.) 'And my parents don't want to live with me' aber Stefan will nich diese lokal but St. want not this pub 'But St. doesn't want this pub' aber er hat nich die papier but he have (3rd sing.) not the paper 'But he hasn't got the papers' wenn ich glaube, ich kann nich eine sache machen if I believe (3rd sing.) I cannot one thing do (Inf.) 'If I believe that I can't do a thing' die familie is nich gekomm von Spanie the family is not come (P.Part.) from Spain 'The family didn't come from Spain' wollen nix arbeit want (plur.) nothing work 'Don't want work'

On Phase III: In the third developmental phase there are patterns in which verb and negator are separated by other constituents. This correlates developmentally with the acquisition of (i) subject-verb-inversion and (ii) new order patterns of the elements within the VP (cf. ADV VP). See the examples in (29) from Bruno. The position of nicht is now correct in all instances. Moreover the subject appears (as required in German) after the finite verb after preposed objects and in questions. See (29a) and (29e). Finally, object and verb can now be separated from one another by adverbials, as in (29f) and (29g). Within the VP, V+PP+OBJ is now also possible and no longer only V+OBJ+PP as in earlier phases. (29)a. b. c. d.

schaffst das nich? manage (2nd sing.) that not 'Don't manage that?' ich versteh Michael wirklich nich I understand (1st sing.) M. really not Ί really don't understand Michael' wenn interessierte dir nich if interest you not 'If it didn't interest you' ich wollte mich nich bloßstellen I want (Past, 1st sing.) me not expose Ί didn't want to expose myself

140 e. f. g.

das hättest du mir nich sagen gebraucht that have (2nd sing.) you me not tell (Inf.) need (P.Part.) 'You needn't have told me' weil das ist für mich eine schlechte Übersetzung because that is for me a bad translation 'Because that is a bad translation for me' ich soll aus Italien eine apparat bringen I am supposed from Italy a device bring (Inf.) Ί am supposed to bring a device from Italy'

All in all, preverbal negation seems to be the characteristic pattern in L2 acquisition, particularly in elementary learner varieties. Postverbal negation and NEG-separation are not possible until later developmental phases have been reached. This contrasts with the results from German (and Swedish) child language, where it was shown that the children used both patterns, preverbal and postverbal negation, from the start and that they do not have to develop special rules for the placement of NEG. Instead, the correct structures arise indirectly from developmental progress made in the area of verb placement. An appropriate theoretical analysis should be able to explain these differences between first and second language acquisition.

4.2. Two explanations of the L2 sequence Investigations into the development of negation syntax suggest that there are differences between LI acquisition and natural L2 acquisition. There is an ongoing debate in language acqusition research on the question as to how differences of this land are to be explained. Basically, two approaches can be distinguished. The first is the identity hypothesis, according to which the same learning mechanisms operate in first and second language acquisition (cf. White 1985, Flynn & Espinal 1985). The second is the hypothesis of qualitative differences (cf. Bley-Vroman 1987, Clahsen & Muysken 1986), according to which adults have to employ different mechanisms for grammar acquisition from those used by children acquiring their first language. In the following, several problems relating to the first hypothesis will be pointed out, using the development or negation as an example. Consequently I will argue for an analysis of negation acquisition confirming to the second hypothesis. According to the identity hypothesis the differences observed between LI and L2 acquisition cannot be traced back to qualitative differences in the learning mechanisms available. Alternatively, the peculiarities of L2 acquistion can be credited to the influence of interference from the learner's first language. Furthermore, it is assumed that the learner's grammar is more or less completely restructured at certain points in development and gradually brought into line with the target language grammar. In order to explain the development of word order in German L2 acquisition, several different analyses have been suggested within the identity hypothesis, cf. Bongaerts & Jordens (1985), duPlessis et al. (1987), Felix (1984), Jordens (1987), Zobl (1986). These studies deal particularly with the developmental sequence sketched in (23). The individual analyses differ on several points, which can be ignored here 15 . Basically, however, all these studies emphasize the fact that the development of phase II and the acquisition of discontinuous verb placement in particular is decisive in the construction of the correct phrase structure in German.

141

It is assumed that the learners initially (i.e. in phase I) construct a VO-system for German, due to interference from the mother-tongue. In phase II this initial system is then restructured into an OV-system, which means that the learners would already have access to the basic properties of German verb placement in this phase. The VP would be head-final and verbal elements could occur in discontinuous positions, with inflected verbs in the front (INFL)-position and non-inflected verbs in the final (V)-position. In later developmental phases other areas of word order are said to be restructured, e.g. the position of the subject in phrase structure and the VP-internal order patterns in phase ΙΠ from (23). Given this analysis, the development of negation in German L2 acquisition can be depicted schematically as follows.16 (30)a. b. c.

NEG vp[V...] INFL NEG vp[-V] without scrambling INFL NEG ypt-V] with scrambling

(30a) describes the negation data for phase I: the VP is head-final and NEG is the left sister of the maximal verb-projection. The data (see 27) for phase II can be described by (30b): the position of the verb in the VP has changed in comparison to phase I, but the position of NEG remains the same. Cf. Klein (1984, 117-120). It must also be assumed that in phase II the learners do not yet have access to scrambling because, as mentioned, the verb and the negator cannot be separated from one another by any other constituents. According to this analysis the acquisiton of scrambling would take place in phase III. The examples in (29) clearly show that the negator can be separated from the verb in phase III. Examples of this type suggest that various word order patterns within the VP, made possible by scrambling, are available to the learners in phase III. Thus, the correct word order patterns could arise in negated sentences without having to assume a new phrase structure position for NEG. Given analysis (30), all the grammars constructed by L2 learners during development would fall under UG principles. This would be in accordance with the identity hypothesis. On the other hand analysis (30) is problematic in many ways and cannot be maintained in the form suggested above. Firstly, there is no independent evidence in the L2 data that phase Π learners completely restructure their grammar from an SVO to an SOV system. The restructuring assumption would be more plausible if in phase Π verb-final patterns were dominant - as in the corresponding phase of first language learning. In adult L2 acquistion, however, the SVO pattern is still used predominantly in phase II. Cf. the distributional analyses from Clahsen (1987a). In additions, having constructed an SOV system for German, the learners would have to have scrambling at the same time. At least this would be expected on the basis of Webelhuth and den Besten's theory (1987) and the assumption that L2 learners construct possible grammars (in the UG sense). The empirical results do not bear this out. Instead the negation data indicate that learners in phase II do not yet have access to scrambling. Secondly, crucial features of the developmental sequence of L2 acquistion cannot be explained in terms of the identity hypothesis and analysis (30). The negation data from hase II can be analysed by means of (30b), that is by an OV-system without scrambling, ut not the word order patterns within the VP which the learners use simultaneously. If (30b) were to describe the learner's grammar in phase II correctly, word order patterns like (31a) would have to be found in the data. However, we would not find (31b), because the sequential order of the elements in (31b) can only be derived (from underlying OV -order) by means of scrambling.

E

142

(31)8. B-

V; P P NPQBJ [e]; V ; NPQBJ PP[e]i

The data show quite the opposite, however. In phase II, patterns like (31b} are used exclusively. Structures like (31a) occur only in phase III. (See 'ADV VP'in (23)). Learners would always be assumed to use scrambling in the non-negated structures of (31b) whilst never using scrambling in negated sentences, even when required in German. This contradiction cannot be resolved under the given grammatical analysis.17 Finally I want to sketch briefly an alternative analysis for L2 word- order acquisition. This analysis is based on the idea that adults can no longer use UG principles as learning mechanisms and that they have to apply general learning strategies in order to learn grammar. Such an analysis of L2 word-order acquisition has been suggested in Clahsen (1984). Here the canonical word order strategy was shown to be especially relevant, as in (32): (32)

In syntactic structures of the form XP[XIX2...XJ Y P [ Y I Y 2 - Y J

ZP[ZIZ2...ZJ

in which each element Χ 1; X2,...Xn contains information on the internal structure of XP, no elements from ΥΡ,.,.ΖΡ should be brought into XP. This constraint is based on well-known results from language processing research (cf. for example Bever & Townsend 1979) in which it was shown that the processing complexity of a sentence increases if the canonical word order is destroyed. Thus, the processing load increases for sentences containing center-embeddings. (32) can be understood as an output-limitation on linguistic structures: movements into external positions are permitted by (32), but not reorganisations of the internal structure. In adult L2 acquisition, the constraint (32) is in operation as a imitation on possible linguistic structures, particularly in the early phases I and II. In these phases the learners can bring certain elements into external positions, but word-order patterns in which the internal structure of the constituents has to be reorganised do not, however, occur. Sentences with inversion of the subject and verb for instance are not produced until later on in the development. Initially, object and verb form a unit which cannot be intruded upon by other constituents. Of the two patterns (33a) and (33b) possible in German, learners only use (33a) at first. (33b) is excluded by (32). This is also the case if the learner's mother-tongue offers a corresponding structure, such as (33c) in Spanish. (33)a. b. c.

Peter kauft Aspirin in der Apotheke 'Peter buys aspirins at the chemists' Peter kauft in der Apotheke Aspirin Pedro compra en la farmacia aspirinas

In phase III the learners can employ order variants in the VP, as in (33b), just as they can employ subject-verb inversion. Both are acquired at about the same time. The observations show that the processing constraint (32) eases off at a certain point in development, and that at the same time several linguistic structures from the input become available to the learner. In this respect phase III represents a decisive point in L2 word-order development. The development of NEG placement can also be represented within this approach. Consider the structures in (34):

143 (34)a. b. c.

NEG vp[V...] *vp[.»NEG V '[-V]] *VP[V'[V[VNEG]...]]

Structures in which NEG is placed outside constituents (34a) are not constrained by (32). The data show (see 4.1) that in the learner's language there are instances of this kind from the start. In contrast, there are cases in which NEG is associated with non-maximal projections, as in structures (34b) and (34c). In (34b) the position of NEG in German is shown (see (2) from paragraph 2), and (34c) is one of the possibilities in early German child language (see 3.2). Structures of this kind are excluded by constraint (32). As long as (32) is in operation, these two structures should not occur in adult L2 acquisition. The results of the data analysis tally with this hypothesis. The first occurrences of the correct negation pattern (34b) can be found in phase III, that is at a point in development at which structures (Inversion, 'ADV VP') are produced (in other areas of word order too) which were excluded in earlier phases by constraint (32). As soon as this constraint is eased, the learners can acquire the correct structures for several areas simultaneously. This example illustrates how developmental progress in natural L2 acquisition can be made through increasing possibilities for processing. The results from negation development show that there are differences between LI acquisition and adult L2 acquisition. As far as LI acquisition is concerned, we found that as soon as the child has identified the particular negators, there are two choices for the introduction of negation, the syntactic and the morphological solution. In the LI acquisition of German (and Swedish) children initially use both options in order to be able to analyse both the preverbal and the postverbal patterns in the input. The correct negation structures arise in later phases through developmental progress in other areas, without the child having to learn particular rules for the position of NEG. On the other hand, adults learning German as a second language do not use the morphological solution, not even when this is chosen in their mother-tongue. L2 learners do not initially have a solution for the postverbal part of the negation data in the input. This is the basic empirical difference between LI and L2 acquisition of negation. Children use pre- and postverbal negation from the start, while adults only use preverbal negation. Later on, the L2 learners have to acquire special NEG placement rules in order to match their grammar with that of the language being learned, for example for the separation of the negator from the verb. Furthermore, the results provide indications that adults develop systems when learning a second language which cannot be described as possible grammars in terms of UG principles. This has been shown here with respect to scrambling phenomena, particularly in phase II of German L2 acquisition. We found that within scrambling theory there was no possible rammatical analysis for the L2 data, from which the available word-order patterns could e derived. Based on this, an alternative analysis in terms of general processing strategies was suggested for L2 acquisition of negation.

G

All in all, the results are in accordance with the hypothesis that the innate language acquisition device can only become effective within a limited, 'critical' period, and that the learning mechanisms which specialize in grammar acquisition are no longer available to adults learning a foreign language.

144 Notes *

Parts of this study were presented at the summer school of the Dutch Linguistics Society (Algemene Vereniging voor Taalwetenschap) at the University of Amsterdam (in June 1987). An earlier version of this paper has been published in German: Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 7 (1988), 3-31. I would like to thank Manfred Bierwisch, Sascha Felix, Sebastian Löbner and especially Dieter Wunderlich for valuable ideas for this study. The completion of the manuscript was supported by a grant from the Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen (Holland).

1.

Here I do not want to provide a complete analysis of negation in a developed language. I just want to make use of some general principles which play a role in the acquisition of NEG placement.

2.

Cf. Haider (1987) for a critical discussion of the scrambling analysis.

3.

Using Bloom (1970) as a basis, Wode calls instances in which there is no negation relation between NEG and another element in the utterance anaphoric negation. In adult language the negator nein is used in such instances.

4.

The initials identify the children; here Μ stands for Mathias, D for Daniel and J for Julia. The child's age in months and weeks is given in brackets.

5.

In this study the monolingual LI acquisition in a pair of fraternal twins (Daniel and Mathias) and their younger sister (Julia) was continuously observed through video recordings over a period of two years. The period of observation for the twins was from the age of 18 months to 42 months and for Julia from 14 months to 29 months. More precise information on the data and its recording can be found in Clahsen (1982, Ch. 2).

6.

My thanks to the Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik and especially to Jürgen Weissenborn for enabling me to work with the Miller Corpus. The material consists of regular and quite lengthy tape recordings of spontaneous speech with Miller's daughter, Simone, and occasional recordings of two other children (Meike and Kerstin); see also Anders (1980) for a review of relevant parts of the Miller Corpus. The data for age groups up to 22 months were investigated in Miller (1976); they have already been analysed with regard to negation by Mills (1985). In the following, I look at the data for Simone up to the age of 28 months. At this point she has acquired the correct placement for nicht in German.

7.

As mentioned, the general phases II, III and IV of German grammar acquisition, to which I refer in (14), are basically determined by verb placement and verb inflection. By these criteria, Simone can be assumed to be in phase II/III up to the age of 24 months, and in phase IV from the age of 26 months.

8.

In phases II/III, the children already have access to the verb inflection -t; Macht (makes) in (15h) is an inflected verb which occupies the syntactic INFL-position (see Clahsen 1987). For Simone schwa in (15i) is a variant of the non-finite verb form η as is usual in South German dialects.

145 9.

T h e development of negation in German child language partly corresponds to that of separable prefix verbs. (Clahsen,1987). These, too, are treated like syntactic islands in the early phases II/III. Typically the prefix and the verb are not separated, but appear usually in the order Ρ + V in the head position of the VP. In the early phases prefix verbs have the internal structure [[yPref V] INFL], As soon as the children (in phase IV) have access to the subject-verb agreement paradigm, they recognize that only the finite verb has to be moved to the front verb position. Thus, the child can reanalyse the internal structure of prefix verbs and categorize the prefix as a separate word. This allows the child to separate prefix and verb from each other as required in German. A similar course of development can be found in the acquisition of negation syntax.

10. These data are spontaneous language samples which took place in free conversation and were taped. All of the data have been transcribed. A closer description of the material can be found in Clahsen, Meisel & Pienemann (1983). 11. For empirical justification of this developmental sequence I refer the reader to the analysis of the cross-sectional data in Clahsen et al. (1983) and to the analysis of the longitudinal data in Clahsen (1984,1987a). 12. Just one learner (Ana) uses immediate postverbal negation (without separation) from the start, in addition to preverbal negation. Ana has possibly reached a more advanced point of development at the time of the investigation. All the other learners used only the preverbal negation pattern initially. 13. T h e examples stem from the earliest interviews with Lina and Bon- Giovanni, which took place in the 7 t h and 12 th week of residence, respectively. 14. My thanks to Christiane von Stutterheim for providing me with her data. The examples (25) come from Sevinc (period of residence 9 years), those in (26) from Karaman (period of residence 17 years); cf. Stutterheim (1987). 15. Jordens argues for the approach suggested by Bowerman (1985) for L I acquisition. T h e other authors argue with the parameter model (cf. Hyams 1986). 16. Eubank (1987) proposes a similar analysis for LI and L2 acquisition, except that verb placement is not yet assumed to be fixed at his phase I. This appears problematic to m e when given the available empirical research. Note that in both types of acquisition the position of the verb is fixed from the start; it is only differently fixed in L I acquisition on XV and in L2 acquisition on VX. In any attempt to provide an analysis fitting both types of acquisition, this difference should not be overlooked. 17. Similar problems arise when trying to explain later phases of development of word order using the restructuring theory. See Clahsen (1985, footnote 4).

146

References ANDERS, Κ 1980 Von Worten zur Syntax: Spracherwerb im Dialog. Diss.: Universität Frankfurt BATES, Ε., Β. MACWHINNEY & S. SMITH 1983 Pragmatics and syntax in psycholinguistic research. In S. Felix & H. Wode (eds.), Language development at l i e crossroads. Tübingen: Narr, 11-30 BEVER, Τ. & D. TOWNSEND 1979 Perceptual mechanisms and formal properties of main and subordinate clauses. In W. Cooper & D. Walker (eds.), Sentence processing. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum Press, 159226 BLEY-VROMAN, R. 1987 The logical problem of foreign language learning. To appear in Linguistic Analysis BLOOM, L. 1970 Language development: form and function in emerging grammars. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press BONGAERTS, T. & P. JORDENS 1985 Ontwikkelingen in tussentaal. Tweede-taalontwikkeling als herstructureringsproces. Tijdschrift voor Taal- en Tekstwetenschap 5,231-245 BOWERMAN, M. 1985 What shapes children's grammars? In D. Slobin (ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum Press 1257-1320 CHOMSKY, N. 1965 Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass: ΜΓΓ Press 1981 Lectures on goverment and binding. Dordrecht: Foris 1986 Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: ΜΓΓ Press CLAHSEN, H. 1982 Spracherwerb in der Kindheit. Eine Untersuchung zur Entwicklung der Syntax bei IQeinkindern. Tübingen: Narr 1983 Some more remarks on the acquisition of German negation. Journal of Child Language 10, 465-469 1984 The acquisition of German word order. A test case for cognitive approaches to second language development. In R. Andersen (ed.), Second Languages. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 219-242 1985 Parameterized grammatical theory and language acquisition. A study of the acquisition of verb placement and inflection by children and adults. To appear in S. Flynn & W. O'Neill (eds.), Linguistic theory and second language acquisition. Dordrecht: Reidel 1986 Die Profilanalyse. Berlin: Marhold-Verlag 1987 Normale und gestörte Kindersprache. Linguistische Untersuchungen zum Erwerb von Syntax und Morphologie. Habilitationsschrift. Universität Düsseldorf (published 1988). Amsterdam: John Benjamins 1987a Connecting theories of language processing and second language acquisition. In C. Pfaff (ed.), First and second language acquisition processes. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 103-116

147 CLAHSEN, H„ J. MEISEL & Μ. PIENEMANN 1983 Deutsch als Zweitsprache. Der Spracherwerb ausländischer Arbeiter. Tübingen: Narr CLAHSEN, H. und P. MUYSKEN 1986 The accessibility of universal grammar to adult and child learners. A study of the acquisition of German word order. Second Language Research 2, 93-119 CLANCY, P. 1985 The acquisition of Japanese. In D. Slobin (ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum Press, 373-524 DUPLESSIS, J., D. SOLIN, L. TRAVIS & L. WHITE 1987 UG or not UG, that's the question: a reply to Clahsen and Muysken. Second Language Research 3, 56-75 EUBANK, L. 1987 Linguistic theory and the acquisition of German negation. Unpublished Ms., University of Texas, Austin FELIX, S. 1984 Maturational aspects of Universal Grammar. In A. Davies, C. Criper & A. Howatt (eds.), Interlanguage. Edinburgh University Press, 133-161 1987 Cognition and language growth. Dordrecht: Foris FLYNN, S & I. ESPINAL 1985 Head-initial/head-final parameter in adult Chinese L2 acquisition of English. Second Language Research 1, 93-117 HAIDER, H. 1987 Topicalization and other puzzles of German syntax. Unpublished Ms., Universität Wien HYAMS, Ν. 1986 Language acquisition and the theory of parameters. Dordrecht: Reidel JACKENDOFF, R. 1977 X-bar syntax: a study of phrase structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press JORDENS, P. 1987 The acquisition of verb categories and word order in Dutch and German. Evidence from LI and L2 development. Paper presented at the seventh Second Language Research Forum, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Feb. 20-22,1987 KLEIN, W. 1984 Zweitspracherwerb. Eine Einführung. Frankfurt/M.: Athenäum KLIMA, Ε. & U. BELLUGI 1966 Syntactic regularities in the speech of children. In J. Lyons & R. Wales (eds.), Psycholinguistic papers. Edinburgh University Press, 181-208 LANGE, S. & K. LARSSON 1973 Syntactical development of a Swedish girl Embla, between 20 and 42 months of age. I: age 20-25 mo. Unpublished Ms., University of Stockholm LENNEBERG, Ε. 1967 Biological foundations of language. New York: Wiley

148

MILLER, Μ. 1976 Zur Logik der frühkindlichen Sprachentwicklung. Stuttgart: Klett MILLS, A. 1985 The acquisition of German. In D. Slobin (ed.), The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition. Hillsdale, ΝJ.: Erlbaum Press, 141-254 PARK, T.-Z. 1979 Some facts on negation: Wode's four-stage development theory of negation revisited. Journal of Child Language 6,147-151 1981 The development of syntax in the child with special reference to German. Innsbruck PINKER, S. 1984 Language learnability University Press

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PLATZACK, C. 1985 The Scandinavian languages and the null subject parameter. Working papers in Scandinavian syntax ROEPER, Τ. & E. WILLIAMS (eds.) 1987 Parameter setting. Dordrecht: Riedel SELKIRK, Ε 1982 The syntax of words. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press SLOBIN, D. (ed.) 1985 The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum Press STUTTERHEIM, C. 1987 Temporalität in der Zweitsprache. Berlin: DeGruyter WEBELHUTH, G. & H. DEN BESTEN 1987 Remnant topicalization and the constituent structure of the VP in the Germanic SOV languages. Paper presented at the Tenth GLOW-colloquium, Venice, March 30April 1,1987 WHITE, L. 1985 The pro-drop parameter in adult second-language acquisition. Language Learning 35, 47-62 WILLIAMS, E. 1981 Predication. Linguistic Inquiry 11,206-260 WODE, H. 1977 Four early stages in the development of Ll-negation. Journal of Child Language 4, 87-102 ZOBL, H. 1986 Word order typology, lexical government, and the prediction of multiple, graded effects in L2 word order. Language Learning 36,159-183

Peter Jordern

The acquisition of word order in L2 Dutch and German

L2 learners of Dutch particular acquisitional word order patterns of have to find out what can be related to this.

and German are confronted with word order rules which pose problems. This is because in Dutch and German there are several which it is not easy to discover how they are related. L2 learners pattern constitutes the basic word order and how other patterns

One way of establishing the basic word order in a particular language is in terms of the relation between the head of the VP and its complements. For Dutch and German there is strong evidence that basic word order is SOV. See, for example, Köster (1978), Thiersch (1978), Den Besten (1983), Koopman (1984). This basic word order is present in main clauses with modal and time auxiliaries as in (1), in embedded sentences with finite verbs as in (2) and in sentences with non-finite embeddings as in (3). (1)

Karel wil Hans een boek geven (D) Karl möchte Hans ein Buch geben (G) ('Charles wants John a book to give') Karel heeft Hans een boek gegeven (D) Karl hat Hans ein Buch gegeben (G) ('Charles has John a book given')

(2)

Ik zie dat Karel Hans een boek geeft (D) Ich sehe, daß Karl Hans ein Buch gibt (G) ( Ί see that Charles John a book gives')

(3)

Karel is van plan Hans een boek te geven (D) Karl hat die Absicht Hans ein Buch zu geben (G) ('Charles intends John a book to give')

In these constructions the head of the verbal group is right-peripheral and determines SOV as the basic sentence structure of Dutch and German. In Dutch and German there are, however, also sentences such as (4), (5) and (6). (4)

Karel geeft Hans een boek (D) Karl gibt Hans ein Buch (G) ('Charles gives John a book') Karel neemt voor Hans een boek mee (D) Karl nimmt für Hans ein Buch mit (G) ('Charles brings for John a book with')

150 (5)

Geeft Karel Hans een boek? (D) Gibt Karl Hans ein Buch? (G) ('gives Charles John a book?')

(6)

Morgen geeft Karel Hans een boek (D) Morgen gibt Karl Hans ein Buch (G) ('tomorrow gives Charles John a book') Dat boek geeft Karel morgen aan Hans (D) Das Buch gibt Karl morgen dem Hans (G) ('the book gives Charles tomorrow to Hans')

Here V or part of it is not right-peripheral. In this position V is restricted to finite verbs in main clauses and is accounted for by rules which are referred to with the term Verb Second. As far as these word order patterns are concerned, L2 learners of Dutch and German have to find out about the relation between SVO, SOV and VSO, viz. SVO in main clauses such as (4), SOV in main and subordinate clauses such as (1), (2), (3) and VSO in yes/no questions as in (5). Furthermore, L2 learners have to find out that in main clauses the subject occurs after the finite verb if an object NP or an adverbial is used in sentenceinitial position. Examples are given in (6). Hence, the acquisitional problems that 12 learners of Dutch and German are confronted with concern the relationship between structural patterns such as SVO, SOV, (ADV)VSO and OVS. Research on L2 acquisition has to deal with the question of how L2 learners (who already have acquired their native language) accomplish this task. That is, we have to discover how, given the structure of their native language, these learners eventually acquire the knowledge that SOV is the underlying word order in Dutch and German. In the following I will evaluate the research that has been carried out on the acquisition of word order properties in L2 Dutch and German by native speakers of Romance languages such as Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, by native speakers of Moroccan and Turkish and by native speakers of English. The situation can be described as follows. Dutch and German are both languages with underlying SOV and Verb Second. The acquisitional data stem from learners with native languages which differ with respect to their structural properties and relatedness to Dutch and German. As a Germanic language English is closely related to Dutch and German. However, unlike Dutch and German, English has SVO as underlying word order. Romance languages and Arabic are also SVO languages but they are typologically less related to Dutch and German. Turkish is typologically less related to Dutch and German, too; however, as in Dutch and German, Turkish also has SOV as underlying word order. The data that are available from these different acquisitional settings cover the process of both foreign and second language acquisition. So there are data from native speakers of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese ana Turkish acquiring German in a migrant situation, from native speakers of Moroccan and Turkish acquiring Dutch in a migrant situation as well, and from native speakers of English learning German in a foreign language school setting.

151

1. Native speakers of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese acquiring L2 German Research on the acquisition of word order in L2 German by native speakers of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese has been reported in Clahsen and Meisel (1979), Pienemann (1980, 1981), Meisel, Clahsen and Pienemann (1981), Clahsen, Meisel and Pienemann (1982), Clahsen (1984) and Clahsen (1985). From these studies it is clear that Italian, Spanish and Portuguese speakers initially assume that German sentences have SVO structure just as in their LI. Examples are given in (7) and (8). (7)

faule deutsche drink kakao ('lazy Germans drink cocoa') ich mötte eine söhn ( Ί want-to-have a son') die kinder spielen mim ball ('the children play with the ball')

(8)

mein vater hat gekaufen ein buch ('my father has bought a book') ich habe verstehen auch nix ( Ί have understood also nothing')

At this stage negatives are used before the predicate as in (9). (9)

nickes drink kakao ('not drink cocoa') ich vielleicht nich kenne die richtig deutsche ( Ί probably not know the correct German')

After the acquisition of a rule which is referred to as Adverbial Fronting Romance speakers of L2 German produce sentences such as (10). (10)

dann ich schreiben ('then I write') da kinder spielen ('there children play') un einmal die war in garderobe ('and once she was in entrance hall') sonntag autopolizei sun da ('sunday car-police are there') erste jähre ich habe gesproche mit deutsche freunde ('first years I have spoken with German friends')

These sentences deviate from equivalent structures in the target language with regard to the positioning of the subject relative to the verb. As (6) shows in German the subject has to be placed after the finite verb when an adverbial or a topicalized object occurs in sentence-initial position. At a following stage learners try to accommodate their interlanguage towards the target norm. They try to comply with the fact that in German main clauses there can only be one constituent before the finite verb. In order to obey this restriction they have two kinds of approximations at their disposal: deletion of the pronominal subject as in (11) and extraposition of the subject as in (12).

152

(11) was spielen? ('what play [they]') warum machen aua? ('why do [they] pain?') dann gehn in de wasser ('then go [they] in the water') und dann hab meine kollega gesproche ('and then have [I] to my colleague spoken') aber dies jähr haben richtige urlaub gemacht ('but this year [we] have real vacation had') (12)

warum spanisch sprechen die zwei ('why Spanish speak the two') jetzt liest ein buch Susanne ('now reads a book Susanne')

Both these possibilities seem to have been induced by the LI. The fact that the Lis are pro-drop languages may have lead to utterances as in (11). Structures such as in (12) also have equivalents in Romance languages, for example in Spanish as in (13). (13)

Son muy attractivos los nifios de Juan ('are very attractive the children of John')

This explains why utterances such as (11) and (12) do not occur in the interlanguage of Turkish and Moroccan learners of German and Dutch. For the further development of the acquisitional process the so-called Particle Rule plays a crucial role. The Particle Rule discriminates between the finite and the non-finite part of the predicate. In main clauses it leads to the placement of the non-finite part of the predicate in sentence-final position. The non-finite part of the predicate can be a past participle, a non-finite verb form, or a particle. After the Particle Rule has been acquired L2 learners produce sentences such as (14). (14)

deutsche leute haben mir hier gebracht ('German people have me here brought') alle kinder muss die pause machen all children should the pause make') ich kann nix bezahle (Ί can nothing pay') die schmeisst mi schon jetzt aus ('this person throws me already now out')

The acquisition of the Particle Rule constitutes an important development towards the acquisition of the target norm. This is because after the Particle Rule has been acquired, word order rules are generally used correctly. This, firstly, means that inversion is applied where necessary, i.e. the subject occurs after the finite verb in sentences with adverbials and topicalized objects. See tor example (15) and (16). (15) jez muss ich essen ('now have-to I eat') jetzt sind wir also nur drei italienische familie ('now are we thus only three italian family') gestern abend war die polizei gekomm ('yesterday evening was the police come') jetzt kann sie mir eine frage machen ('now can she me a question ask')

153 (16) was wolls du trinken ('what want you drink') was soll ich damit ('what should I with it') Furthermore, adverbials are placed between the finite verb and the object-NP in utterances such as (17). (17) und krieg ich jetzt auch noch ein kinde ('and get I now also another child') die bringen jedes jähr ein wunderbares zeugnis ('they bring every year an excellent report') Finally, negation is now used directly after the finite verb as in (18). (18)

ich kenne nich die welt ( Ί know not the world') aber er hat nich die papier ('but he has not the paper') ich saben nich die nummer ( Ί have not the number')

and later on correctly before the non-finite part of the predicate or, if there is no such constituent, in final position, as in (19). (19)

dä darf du nicht ('that allowed-to you not') sie kennen sie sowieso nich ('they know them for-sure not') wenn ich a eine andere fabrik gehen dann geben mir diese geld nicht ('when I another factory go then give me this money not')

As appears from the developmental data, the Particle Rule plays a crucial role in the acquisition of correct word order. Acquisition of the Particle Rule means that in addition to SVO word order, 12 learners now use a rule which leads to S-Vf-O-Vnf. Instead of (i) they use (ii). (i)

(ϋ)

mem vater faule deutsche ich deutsche leute faule deutsche die

V hat gekaufen drink

Ο ein buch kakao an Wuppertal

ankomme hier Vf haben drink schmeisst

Ο mir kakao mi

hier schon jetzt

Vnf gebracht aus

The Particle Rule plays a crucial function in resolving the structural ambiguity of the resulting surface pattern. When we look at S-Vf-O-Vnf structures in (ii) without taking into account their developmental history, it is clear that they can be interpreted in two ways, either as related to SVO through a rule such as the Particle Rule, or as related to

154 SOV with a rule which places the Vf in fronted position. From structures with S-Vf-OVnf L2 learners are able to restructure basic word order in L2 German, i.e. SVO can be given up in favor of SOV. For an explanation of the developmental process, the crucial question is why the restructuring of underlying VO to OV as in (i) and (ii) should be necessary for L2 learners in order to be able to acquire inversion as in (15) and (16). Here, structural differences between Romance languages and German are relevant. Comparing underlying structure in Romance languages and German, one finds two main differences. Firstly, the ordering between the object and the lexical verb as either VO or OV, and secondly, the positioning of INFL, i.e. the finite part of the predicate as either internal or external to IP (or S). So Ll-speakers of Romance languages who initially hypothesize that German has the same underlying structure as their LI, have to restructure their interlanguage grammar in two respects. A representation of both the initial (a) and the target structure (b) is given in Figure 1. CP Spec

C'

COMP/INFL IP (or S) NP

(a)

Γ

(b)

Figure 1: The initial SVO structure of Romance languages and the target SOV structure of German The developmental process as described in (7) through (19) can be explained if we assume that Romance learners initially hypothesize that German has an underlying structure as in Figure 1 (a). In this initial developmental stage INFL constitutes a category which contains Tense and Agreement markers. This analysis of L2 German is the most simple one if only main clauses with finite lexical verbs are taken into account. Furthermore, if native speakers of Romance languages also analyze modal and tense auxiliaries as Tense markers, i.e. as instances of INFL, it can be explained why these learners typically use utterances such as (7) and (8) in the initial stages of the L2-acquisition process. (7)

faule deutsche drink kakao ('lazy Germans drink cocoa') ich motte eine söhn ( Ί want-to-have a son') die kinder spielen mim ball ('the children play with the ball')

(8)

mein vater hat gekaufen ein buch ('my father has bought a book') ich habe verstehen auch nix ( Ί have understood also nothing')

155 Π) and (8) are evidence for the use of both simple and complex predicates as drink ('drink'), mötte ('want'), spielen ('play'), and hat gekaufen ('has bought') and habe verstehen ('have understood') in second constituent position. At the next developmental stage, this analysis is apparently reconsidered. Most importantly INFL is reanalyzed. Due to the acquisition of agreement rules L2 learners discover that modal and auxiliary verbs themselves have inflectional elements. Consequently modal and auxiliary verbs will not be considered as Tense markers any more but as inflected verb forms which together with the inflected lexical verb constitute the finite verb category. This reanalysis of INFL means that from now on inflected verb forms are functioning as a linguistic category which is morphologically distinct from non-finite verb forms. The acquisition of the distinction between tne finite and the non-finite verb category is a prerequisite to the acquisition of the positioning of both verbal categories. Therefore L2 learners are now able to acquire the rule that the non-finite part of the predicate has to occur in sentence-final position. Above this has been referred to as the acquisition of the Particle Rule. As has been pointed out the use of the non-finite part of the predicate sentence-finally enables L2 learners to acquire OV as underlying word order instead of VO. The result of this restructuring is represented in Figure 2. Characteristic of this second stage is the fact that INFL is still part of the IP (or S)-structure. CP Spec

C' C

IP (or S) NP

Γ INFL

VP NP

V

Figure 2: Restructuring to SOV in the L2 German of Romance learners Evidence for this developmental stage are interlanguage utterances as in (14) and (19). (14)

deutsche leute haben mir hier gebracht ('German people have me here brought') alle kinder muss die pause machen all children should the pause make') ich kann nix bezahle ( Ί can nothing pay") die schmeisst mi schon jetzt aus ('this person throws me already now out')

(19)

dä darf du nicht ('that allowed-to you not') sie kennen sie sowieso nich ('they know them for-sure not') wenn ich a eine andere fabrik gehen dann geben mir diese geld nicht. ('when I another factory go then give me this money not')

156

Both types of utterance have OV order. Furthermore, as opposed to (7) and (8), learners here seem to differentiate between finite and non-finite verb forms. See, for example, (7) faule deutsche drink kakao ('lazy Germans drink cocoa') vs. (14) deutsche leute haben mir hier gebracht ('German people have me here brought') and die schmeißt mi schon jetzt aus ('this person throws me already out'). At the final stage of the developmental process, the underlying word order of L2 German has to be restructured with regard to the positioning of INFL. In main clauses this position should be external to IP (or S). For this process of restructuring to take place it is essential that L2 learners acquire the relevance of COMP for the positioning of the finite verb. This will be the case as soon as 12 learners discover that the positioning of the finite verb is different for main and subordinate clauses. The acquisition of this regularity implies that L2 learners have been able to find out about the relationship between the positioning of the finite verb in main and embedded clauses on the one hand, and the absence or presence of a complementizer on the other. In fact this means that COMP has become relevant for the positioning of the finite verb, so that if a complementizer is present, the finite verb is placed in final position. Discovering that COMP is relevant for the positioning of INFL also means that the positioning of INFL in main clauses will be reinterpreted as a realisation of COMP. In main clauses therefore INFL occurs external to IP (or S), i.e. in second-constituent position. A representation of the result of this restructuring process in terms of underlying structure is given in Figure 3. CP Spec

C'

COMP/INFL IP (or S) NP

I' VP

NP

INFL V

Figure 3: Verb Second in German We claim that in this final developmental process the acquisition of the positioning of the finite verb in embedded sentences is a prerequisite to the acquisition of Verb Second. This means in effect that word order rules that are to be related to Verb Second can only be acquired in connection with the acquisition of the positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses. The data presented in the study by Clahsen, Meisel and Pieneman (1982) indeed show that both inversion phenomena and final positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses are acquired more or less simultaneously. The idea of L2 learners restructuring SVO to SOV entails the claim that the interlanguage systems at both the SVO and the SOV stage are instances of possible ;rammars. Hence, before and after the interlanguage grammars have been restructured, L2 earners apply word order rules which are part of the grammar of SVO and SOV languages respectively. Clahsen (1988, this volume) criticized this idea of restructuring in L2 acquisition. For particular stages in the acquisition of L2 German word order by native speakers of Romance languages he claims that the interlanguage rules do not belong to the set of possible grammars. As I pointed out earlier, for the process of restructuring VO to OV word order the use of the so-called Particle Rule is crucial. Here the non-finite part of the predicate is correctly placed in sentence-final position. After

f

157 the Particle Rule has been acquired, L2 learners first use the negation incorrectly directly after the finite verb fas in *20a), and later on correctly before the non-finite part of the predicate as in (20b). Clahsen (1988) points out that together with the acquisition of NEG-placement another developmental process is taking place. So when the negation element is placed directly after the finite verb (as in *20a), prepositional phrases occur between Ο and V (as in 21a). *(20a) Ich kann nich eine sache machen ( Ί cannot a thing do') (21a) ich soll eine apparat aus Italien bringen ( Ί should a machine from Italy bring') Later on, i.e. when the negation is placed correctly before the non-finite part of the predicate (as in 20b), PPs are used before OV (as in 21b). (20b) ich kann eine sache nich machen ( Ί can a thing not make') (21b) ich soll aus Italien eine apparat bringen ( Ί should from Italy a machine bring') According to Clahsen, these data constitute evidence contrary to the Restructuring Hypothesis. After the Particle Rule has been acquired and restructuring to underlying OV has taken place, L2 learners should also apply 'Scrambling', i.e. object-NPs should be placed outside the VP. Now, whereas in (20b) Scrambling has been applied, in *(20a) it apparently has not. Furthermore, in (21a) it seems as though Scrambling has been used in sentences with PPs, whereas later on (as in 21b) it seems as though it has not. According to Clahsen these data are counterevidence to the theory that 12 learners are capable of restructuring their interlanguage system, thereby applying rules of 'possible grammars' throughout the process of 12 acquisition. In Clahsen's view L2 learners are only capable of acquiring the L2 grammar on the basis of general learning strategies. These learning strategies lead to a rule system which may not be qualified as an instantiation of 'possible grammar': "... the 12 learners have to acquire special NEG placement rules in order to match their grammar with that of the language being learned ..." (Clahsen 1988, this volume). Although I agree with Clahsen's representation of the data, I disagree with his interpretation. Clahsen points out that within the Restructuring Hypothesis using verbal elements discontinuously, both in *(20a) and (21a) and in (20b) and (21b), should indicate that 12 learners have restructured their interlanguage grammar. From now on, 12 learners of German take SOV to be the underlying structure. However, contrary to Clahsen, I would claim that the use of the non-finite part of the predicate in sentencefinal position is a prerequisite to the acquisition of SOV as the underlying structure of L2 German. It does not necessarily have to be interpreted as evidence for the fact that restructuring has already taken place. According to my interpretation, the data of *(20a) and (21a) have to be evaluated as an intermediary stage in which basic word order is still SVO. However, this stage has an additional rule which is usually referred to as the Particle Rule. This rule implies that there is a relation between SVO and the non-finite part of the predicate which occurs in sentence-final position. The occurrence of a rule of particle movement together with basic SVO is not uncommon. Modern English also has a rule of particle movement. This rule optionally moves article to the right over one constituent. Examples are given in (22a), (22b), (23a), * (22a) The man gave away his car (22b) The man gave his car away

158

(23a) The man gave his car away to his brother *(23b) The man gave his car to his brother away Although it is clear that there are language-specific restrictions as to what may be moved to what position, the important thing is that SVO languages allow parts of the predicate to be moved to the right of the verb. This interpretation is in agreement with Clahsen's observation according to which at this point of the developmental process adult learners use the SVO pattern: "Beim L2-Erwerb von Erwachsenen wird das SVO-Muster auch in Phase II noch dominant verwendet". Clahsen's Phase II refers to the stage in which L2 learners produce both 'unmittelbare postverbale Negation' and 'Verbklammer' as in *(20a) and (21a). On the other hand, with respect to the data of (20b) and (21b), I would claim that restructuring to underlying OV has taken place. Here the positioning of the finite verb is seen as relative to underlying OV. If this interpretation is correct, it is interesting to see how the positioning of the negation may fit into this two-stage restructuring process. From a comparison of LI Italian, Spanish and Portuguese with L2-German input structures, L2 learners will recognize that Neg + V in their LI may constitute a language specific realisation of a more general principle according to which Neg has to occur next to V, i.e. either before or after V. As long as German is seen as an SVO language, this principle is realized as V + Neg. It explains the positioning of nicht in *(20a) directly after the finite verb kann. However, as soon as restructuring has taken place, the principle of 'Neg next to V' is realized as Neg + V. This explains the positioning of nicht in (20b) directly before the non-finite verb machen. The positioning of Neg relative to V is therefore more evidence for the fact that utterances with the non-finite verb in sentence final position, such as in *(20a), still have underlying SVO. In utterances such as (20b), however, the positioning of Neg shows that restructuring to SO V has taken place. From this I think it is reasonable to conclude that the data presented in Clahsen (1987) do not constitute a counterargument to the Restructuring Hypothesis. Restructuring has not taken place as early as Clahsen claims it has. The Particle Rule should only be seen as a prerequisite to it. Therefore I would claim that the developmental progress in the use of word order rules by Romance learners of L2 German can still be explained as a consequence of a process of restructuring by which underlying SVO is given up in favor of underlying SOV.

2. Native speakers of Turkish acquiring L2 German According to Clahsen & Muysken (1986) Turkish learners of German appear to be using SVO structure in L2 German, both in main and embedded clauses. Examples of L2 sentences with SVO structure are given in (24). These examples are taken from Von Stutterheim (1982,18) und Clahsen & Muysken (1986, 109). (24)

aber ich habe arbeit ('but I have work') dann nachher ich gehen andere firma ('then afterwards I go to another firm') ich will nicht heiraten, weil diese jungen sind nicht nett ( Ί want not marry because these boys are not nice') wenn ich geh zurück ich arbeit elektriker in türkei ('if I go back, I work as an electrician in T')

159 Since basic word order in Turkish is SOV, Clahsen & Muysken argue that the LI does not play a role in the acquisition of German word order. According to Clahsen & Muysken (1986) this "may tentatively be interpreted as providing evidence against the role of transfer in word order acquisition and as supporting [the] claim that L2 learners make use of SVO order irrespective of their language background, even in those cases in which SOV is suggested by the target and the source language" (110). It should substantiate the idea that in L2 acquisition "the canonical arrangements of the syntactic categories S, V and Ο (...) is not affected by LI transfer" (110). In order to evaluate Clahsen & Muysken's (1986) observations properly, it should be pointed out in the first place that the relative use of SVO vs. SOV structure is highly correlated with the level of L2 acquisition. Clahsen & Muysken's observations are relevant for Turkish learners who are certainly not beginners any more. Beginning learners typically have very few SVO utterances and many OV utterances. So only the Turkish learners of German who are more advanced may be found to use SVO utterances more often. Secondly, in the study by Clahsen & Muysken (1986) transfer is interpreted as transfer from Turkish main-clause structure, which is SOV, to main-clause structure in L2 German. However, although Turks do not use SOV in those contexts where SVO is correct, it would be wrong to conclude that L2 acquisition is not affected by LI transfer. As has been demonstrated for Dutch (see Jansen et al., 1981), transfer of the Turkish SOV pattern occurs relatively often in those contexts that can be interpreted as precursors of the SAUX-O-Vnf pattern in L2 Dutch. Therefore transfer leads to the correct placement of the lexical verb. Evidence for the relevance of the S-AUX-O-Vnf pattern in L2 Dutch is the fact that in those instances in which Turkish learners use OV structures the lexical verb very frequently has a non-finite form. As there is no reason why Turkish learners of Dutch should behave differently from Turkish learners of German, it can safely be assumed that in L2 German Turks will also use the LI SOV order in those contexts in which the target language has the S-AUX-O-Vnf pattern. Clahsen & Muysken are correct, I think, in stating that Turks do not transfer SOV to those contexts where SVO has to be used. The question, however, is whether this is due to the acquisition of "the canonical arrangement of the syntactic categories S, V and O" in particular or to reasons which are less specific in nature. It has been pointed out in studies on transfer such as in Schachter (1974) and Jordens & Kellerman (1981) that L2 learners need to have some indication that the use of Ll-structural devices in the L2 may lead to a result which is in agreement with the target norm. This means that L2 learners have to have the impression that at least with regard to the structure that they are dealing with the L2 has some similarity to the LI. From a structural point of view, however, there is no similarity between those sentences in German which have the lexical verb in second position, i.e. main clauses with S-Vf-O structure, and the equivalent utterances in Turkish which have S-O-V structure. Therefore, in these contexts, there is no reason for Turks to transfer SOV. As a consequence the structure of these main clauses can only be acquired on the basis of L2 input. In addition to the fact that Turks do not transfer SOV to those contexts in which SVO has to be used, there is something to be said about the arrangement of S, V and Ο in the L2 German of Turkish learners. In Dittmar (1981) an analysis is given for data which originate from a study carried out by Von Stutterheim. This study was based on interviews with nine Turkish adults who were beginning learners of German. It appears that "more than half of the sentences have the verb at the end" (Clahsen & Muysken 1986, 108). More specifically, these Turkish learners of German show relative preference for XV and XSV patterns in which the verb has non-finite morphology. Examples are given in (25).

160 (25)

vor personalrat auch meine helfen ('[a turkish colleague] helped me in the personnel office') warum türkin schwester helfen? ('why do [you] help the Turkish nurse?') meine bruder er helfen ('he helps my brother')

A relatively rare case in which a finite verb-form is used in sentence-final position is given in (25)'. (25)' dann kinder frau alles hier kommt ('then the children and my wife came here') According to Dittmar utterances such as (25) and (25)' are clear evidence for transfer from LI. Clahsen & Muysken (1985), however, state that these utterances "could equally well be described by a complement preposing rule, leaving the verb in a superficial find position". They argue that "even learners with a Romance language as LI very often produce utterances of this type, especially during the initial stages". For these learners, however, SVO is the dominant pattern. Therefore, Clahsen & Muysken conclude "that the XV and XSV patterns could be regarded as derived from SVO together with a complement-preposing rule". Since this should be the case for LI speakers of Romance languages, they claim that "a similar description appears to be valid even for Turkish learners" (109). Contrary to Clahsen & Muysken, I think there is no reason for this interpretation of the data. As has been stated above, utterances such as (25) are not to be related to SVO structures. The input rather contains sentences with an auxiliary and a non-finite main verb in final position, such as in (25a). (25a) Beim Personalrat wird er auch mir helfen ('in the personnel office will he also me help') Warum willst du die Türkische Schwester helfen? ('why help you the Turkish nurse?') Meinem Bruder wird er helfen ('my brother will he help') Beginning L2 learners may reproduce these utterances as verb-final structures, because for perceptual and referential reasons modals and auxiliaries are not easy to identify. There is another reason why the verb-final pattern is likely to occur at the initial stages of L2 German. Utterances with a non-finite verb as the only predicate do occur in the L2 input. These utterances are used by Germans as part of a simplified register both to fellow native speakers and possibly more often as foreigner talk to foreign immigrants. Examples of this kind of register can be found in Roche (1982, 1986). Roche (1986, 92) states that utterances with XV order such as (26) are quite commonly used by native speakers of German interacting with foreign immigrants. (26)

Hier aussteigen und andere ubahn "Sie müssen hier aussteigen und mit der anderen ubahn weiterfahren") 'Here [you should] get of the train and [take] another subway') Milch trinken? "Wollen Sie Milch trinken?") '[do you want] milk drink?')

161

In der früh anrufen "Sie müssen in der Früh anrufen") '[you should] in the morning phone') Wann fahren? "Wann wollen Sie fahren?") 'when [do you want to] leave?') From these observations on the use of both SVO and SOV-type utterances in L2 German, it can be concluded that Turks are influenced by two patterns of German main-clause structure simultaneously: S-Vf-O and S-AUX-O-Vnf. Since S-AUX-O-Vnf can be related to basic word order in Turkish, this explains why it also serves as a pattern for the production of main clauses in German. On the other hand, the acquisition of the SVO attern, which is certainly highly frequent in 12 input, is likely to take place independently om the LI. This means that at some point at the beginning of L2 acquisition Turkish learners have two word order patterns at their disposal which are syntactically not yet related. The two structures that Turkish learners of German use are represented in Figure 4.

E

S' Spec

S' S

NP

Spec VP

NP Ll-based

S NP

V

VP V

NP

L2-induced

Figure 4: Two underlying structures in the L2 German of native speakers of Turkish Since initially both the SVO and the SOV structure are used independently from each other, the acquisitional problem consists of figuring out how both the Ll-based and the L2-induced structure are to be related in terms of derived and basic word order.1 It can be predicted that native speakers of Turkish will be able to establish this relation as soon as they have been able to analyze differences between finite and non-finite morphology in terms of agreement and verb placement. If the relative frequency of verb-final utterances in Turkish learners of German is explained with regard to input structures with S-(AUX)-0-V, it is also clear why learners with a Romance LI sometimes produce similar utterances. Native speakers of Romance languages, too, are confronted with S-(AUX)-0-V in their German input. Therefore there is no reason to assume some sort of a "complement preposing rule" to emlain the use of SOV-type structures in the L2 German of Romance learners. The difference, however, with native speakers of Turkish is that in Romance languages there is no equivalent to S-(AUX)-0-V. Therefore verb-final utterances are less frequent in the L2 German of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese speakers than they are in the L2 German of Turks. Since Turkish learners of German have both S-V-O and S-O-V at the initial stages of L2 acquisition, it is easy to see why they never use structures such as in (8).

162

(8)

mein vater hat gekaufen ein buch ('my father has bought a book') ich habe verstehen auch nix ( Ί have understood also nothing')

As soon as auxiliaries and modals are being acquired, it is the S-O-V pattern that these verb forms will become part of. Consequently, when the S-AUX-O-V pattern is used, the S-O-V pattern is given up. With regard to the two sentence patterns in the initial L2 German of Turkish learners there may also be expected to be more distributional differences between both the S-V-0 and the S-O-V patterns initially. As long as L2 learners are not able to establish a structural relation between both patterns they will look for evidence with which both patterns can be discriminated either semantically and/or syntactically. The study by Jansen et al. (1981) shows that this is indeed the case. Turkish learners of Dutch seem to differentiate between utterances with a subject and a finite verb (S-Vf-O) on the one hand, and subjectless utterances with a non-finite verb (O-Vnf) on the other. This differentiation can easily be related to the input conditions as described above. On the one hand, there is the canonical main-clause structure with a subject in first-constituent and a finite verb in second-constituent position, on the other hand, as has been mentioned with respect to (26), there are subjectless utterances with a non-finite verb as the only predicate. Foreign immigrants can be expected to be exposed to this latter type of utterance relatively frequently since these utterances are part of a simplified register. On the basis of the hypothesis that Turkish learners of German initially use two different types of word order patterns, it should be investigated whether other features are used to discriminate between both patterns. Since utterances with a finite verb can be used with and without objects, whereas utterances with a non-finite verb usually occur with an object, one may expect a preference for the use of, on the one hand, an S-Vf-(X) pattern in which the finite verbform is intransitive and, on the other hand, an (X)-Vnf pattern in which the non-finite verb is dominantly transitive. A first look at the data seems to provide evidence for this, see for example (24) and (25). However, more detailed research should substantiate this claim. Turkish learners of German who use two underlying structures in their L2 German are faced with the acquisitional problem of identifying the relationship between the S-Vf-0 pattern and the S-O-Vnf pattern. For this the acquisition of auxiliaries and modals as well as agreement may prove to be crucial. The acquisition of auxiliaries and modals may lead to a reconsideration of the initial hypothesis as to what kinds of verbs may be used in the S-Vf-(X) pattern. The acquisition of modals and auxiliaries may cause the original distributional difference between the S-Vf-(X) and the S-O-Vnf pattern to be given up in favor of a differentiation between simple predicates (V) and complex predicates (AUX + V). This development necessarily leads to the identification of morphological differences between both types of predicate. This is because the same verbs are now used with differing morphology according to whether they are used with or without modal or auxiliary verbs. After learners have focussed on the morphological properties of verb forms used in different positions, they are also able to identify the morphological properties of simple verbs and auxiliaries and modals in terms of agreement rules, i.e. it is possible for L2 learners to find out that there is a verbal category for which the morphological features which are referred to as finiteness constitute the defining property. The acquisition of the relation between verbs that are finite and verbs that are non-finite leads to the acquisition of underlying OV order. Figure 5 represents the interlanguage structure at this point of the developmental process.

163 CP

NP

V

FigureS: Integration of SVO and SOV into underlying SOV by Turkish learners of German From now on, i.e. after OV has become the underlying word order, the developmental process is basically identical to the L2 acquisition process of Romance learners of German. It has been pointed out that with Romance learners Verb Second, i.e. COMP as the position for the finite verb in main clauses, can only be acquired after it has been discovered that in embedded clauses, i.e. when a complementizer is present, the finite verb has to occur in final position. This is because the acquisition of the relation between the positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses and the occurrence of a complementizer makes learners realize that COMP is relevant for the positioning of INFL. Once the relation between COMP and the positioning of INFL has been acquired, it is also possible to reinterpret the position ο f INFL in main clauses as a realisation of COMP. In order to substantiate this claim also for Turkish learners of German more empirical evidence is needed.

3. Native speakers of Turkish and Moroccan acquiring L2 Dutch Two research projects have dealt with the acquisition of L2 Dutch by native speakers of Turkish and Moroccan. In a study reported on by Jansen et. al (1981) and Lalleman (1983) data were collected from 30 to 45 minute informal interviews with 8 Turkish and 8 Moroccan adults acquiring L2 Dutch. The L2 acquisition process was investigated crosssectionally. The informants were classified into three levels of proficiency according to the mean number of words per T-unit and the acquisition of syntactic features such as agreement, use of pronominal subject and use of determiners. In another research project funded by the European Science Foundation data were collected from movie story retellings by 2 Turkish and 2 Moroccan adults. L2 informants were studied at two moments during the L2-acquisition process. Each session had between 50 and about 150 analysable utterances. Results of this project are presented in Coenen & Van Hout (1987) and Coenen (1988). Both studies deal with word order patterns in L2 developmental processes. They differ with regard to the kinds of constituents that are discriminated. In Jansen et. al. (1981) and Lalleman (1983) constituents are referred to with respect to their syntactic function, i.e. verb (V), subject (S), and X. In Coenen & Van Hout (1987) and Coenen (1988) constituents are referred to with respect to their semantic function, i.e. predicate (Pred), argument (AG1 or AG2), discourse operator (OP). The term 'discourse operator' refers to those constituents, mostly adverbs, which "mark the time and place orientation of the utterance in the plot-line of the discourse" (43). In both studies developmental processes are described in terms of increasing and decreasing frequencies. Explanations are given

164 for why certain patterns are used more frequently whereas others become less well represented. In both studies researchers come to the conclusion that the data can be explained in terms of an interaction between L2 input and LI knowledge. Initially, L2 learners appear to use those L2 structures most frequently which are similar to patterns of the LI. This is what is referred to with the term "Alternation Hypothesis" in Jansen et. al (1981). "Assume that in a target language A there is an alternation between two surface structures, and that in source language Β only one of these two surface structures occurs. Then speakers of source language Β acquiring language A will overgeneralize in their interlanguage grammar the structure which corresponds most closely to the structure in their own language." (315f.) Coenen & Van Hout (1987) refer to the same phenomenon in their concluding remarks. "... the differences found between our Moroccan and Turkish informants are not only caused by source language differences, but by an interaction of the source language structure and the ambivalent structure of Dutch regarding the position of the verb. It is this ambivalence which may trigger the emergence of source language structures." (49) This generalization explains the increase and decrease with which different patterns are used over time. It does not, however, take into account the way in which L2 learners establish the relation between the patterns they use. That is, it does not take into account how certain patterns are developing as part of the interlanguage system. In order to be able to give such an account it is necessary to define the acquisitional problem first. It has to be clear what kind of knowledge L2 learners have to acquire in order to achieve a correct representation of word order rules in German. In the following I will evaluate the data from this perspective and show that it is essential for L2 learners to acquire the knowledge that in Dutch SOV constitutes the basic word order to which utterances with inversion and topicalization have to be related as a derived patterns. In Jansen et al. (1981) utterances with and without subjects are analyzed separately. However, Jansen et al. do not explicitly deal with the question in what way this distinction may be of relevance for the acquisition of word order in Turkish and Moroccan learners of Dutch. As has been pointed out earlier, Turkish learners of German clearly distinguish between SOV and SVO structures. This distinction is due to structural differences between LI and L2. SOV structures in L2 Dutch and German can be related to LI underlying word order in Turkish, whereas SVO structures can only be acquired on the basis of L2 input. In agreement with the way the input is structured, SOV utterances have non-finite verb forms whereas SVO utterances have finite forms. As has been argued with respect to the examples in (26), input conditions also cause SOV utterances to be often realized without a subject (see 26). This explains why in the interlanguage of Turks many SOV utterances are subjectless. Consequently the distinction that is primarily relevant for the acquisition of word order rules in L2 Dutch is SOV vs. SVO. The fact that SVO usually occurs with a subject, whereas SOV is often subjectless, is only of secondary importance. With regard to the positioning of the verb, Jansen et al. (1981) discriminate between VI, V2, V3 and Verb-final. V2-type utterances have subjects both before, i.e. in first-constituent position, and after the verb. Furthermore, there are also V2 examples with a deleted subject and V in initial position. The study by Jansen et al. gives percentages for the use of each of these patterns, but it does not provide examples. Therefore, in order to be able to illustrate these patterns with utterances from Moroccan (M) and Turkish (T) learners, the following examples are taken from Lalleman (1983), Coenen & van Hout (1987) and from Coenen (1988).

165 Verb-final: (S)-X-V (27) niet betalen (T) ('not pay') meisje roepen (T) ('gkl call') andere man goed hollands praten (T) ('other man good Dutch speak') ik zo zelf zoeken (M) ( Ί so myself look for') ik niet betalen (T) ( Ί not pay') dan die meisje ook komt ('then that girl also comes') Verb-initial VI: V-S-X (28) moet jij weg (Μ) ('must you away') mag ik die stuk? (M) ('may I that piece') V2: (S)-V-X / X-V-S (29) praat met bakkerman (M) ('talk with bakerman') die man pakt die meisje (M) ('that man takes that girl') politie komt (M) ('police comes') die dinges komt hoofd (T) ('that thing comes head') ik heb geen geld (M) ( Ί have no money') die ander vrouw komt die broodbaas (T) (['that other women comes that breadboss') ik moet werk (Τ) ( Ί must work/job') jij komt niet? (T) ('you come not?') hij loopt in die straat (ΤΊ ('he walks in that street') en toen kwam die politieauto (M) ('and then came that policecar')

166 V3: X-S-V-X (30)

toen hij heeft ontslag (M) ('then he has dismissal') dan die meisje ook komt (T) ('then that girl also comes')

From the data as presented in Jansen et. al. (1981) it is clear that the types of utterance as in (27) through (30) are typically used by both Turks and Moroccans. Turks, however, use the utterances with a non-finite verb much more frequently than Moroccans. This may be explained as the result of an interaction between the LI basic word order and the alternative possibilities for verb placement in L2 Dutch. Due to their LI Turks seem to be more sensitive to SOV structures than Moroccans. Both the verb-final and the verb-initial utterances, however, are precursors of different structures in the target language. This explains why they coexist in the interlanguage of both Turks and Moroccans. With regard to utterances as in (27) they may be expected to be replaced by utterances with a modal or auxiliary verb and an infinitival complement. Examples are given in (31) and (32). (31) (32)

dan moet die hamer halen hö (Τ) ('then must that/he hammer get') die man heeft niks gedaan (M) ('that man has nothing done')

As Turks and Moroccans both appear to be using two main types of utterance in the initial stages of L2 acquisition, they are confronted with the problem of how to establish a relation between both patterns. Furthermore, as they are also using different patterns of verb-initial sentences, i.e. sentences with a Vf in either VI, V2 or V3 position, an explanation must be found for how these patterns are related to one another. As has been stated above, Jansen et al (1981) discriminate between three patterns with a finite verb in initial position: VI, V2, V3. Utterances in which the subject occurs after the finite verb (moet jij weg 'must you go') and in which the first-constituent position is empty, are categorized as VI utterances. Among V2 structures there are utterances with subject-verb (politie komt 'police comes') and verb-subject order (en toen kwam die politieauto 'and then came that police car') and utterances that are subjectless (praat met bakkennan 'talk with bakerman'). Utterances which are categorized as V3 (en toen kwam die politieauto 'and then came that police car') indicate that L2 learners use the SVO pattern without having been able to deal with the problem of inversion. In order to be able to discover the underlying processes of L2 acquisition, it is necessary to categorize the data from the perspective of the learning problem that L2 learners are confronted with. Developmental data should reveal how L2 learners eventually acquire this knowledge. From the acquisition perspective it makes a difference whether V2 utterances are used with or without inversion. Furthermore, in utterances in which the verb occurs sentence-initially it makes a difference whether there is no subject or whether the subject occurs after the verb. In order to account for these differences, the data from Jansen et. al (1981) - their Tables 5 and 6 - are recategorized in Table 1. Here five patterns of differing word order are discriminated. These five patterns describe all positions that the finite verb may occur in sentence-initially. Relevant for the classification of each of these patterns, except for those cases where there is no subject (VX), is the positioning of the subject relative to the finite verb. If there is a subject, it can occur either directly before (SVX) or after (VS/XVS) the finite verb, and if it occurs before the finite verb it may be preceded by an adverbial (XSV). The percentages for the use of these types of utterance are presented in Table 1.

167 Turks I

Moroccans

II

III

VX 2,7 svx 2

7 15,6

6 23,8

xsv 2

12,3

6,0

XSV

5

9,6 4,7

8,3 26,5

VS XVS

4,3 2,3

vs 1,5 XVS 0 Table 1:

I VX 21,7 SVX 19,7

II

III

10 27

6 39,6

3,5

4,0

14,5 7

6,3 17,7

Word order patterns with finite verbs in initial position. Percentage of use at three levels of proficiency. I, II and III refer to different levels of proficiency.

If cross-sectional differences are interpreted as developmental trends, Turks apparently use both S-V-X (or V-X) and X-V-S (or V-S) with increasing frequency. For X-S-V there is an increase at level II and a decrease at level III. The decrease of the X-S-V pattern from 12,3% to 6% seems to be negatively correlated to the increase of the X-V-S pattern from 4,7% to 26,5%. From this it seems justified to conclude that within the period which covers the development from level II to level III the X-S-V pattern is being replaced by the X-V-S pattern. This means that instead of utterances such as (33) utterances such as (34) will be used from level II to level ΠΙ. (33)

X S V toen hij heeft ontslag ('then he has dismissal')

(34)

X V S en toen kwam die politieauto ('and then came that policecar')

In other words, between level II and level ΠΙ Turks have succeeded in finding out that in Dutch underlying word order is SOV and that the finite verb occurs in second constituent position. As has been pointed out for Turkish learners of German, here, too, it can be predicted that this development correlates with the acquisition of verbal inflection, i.e. with the acquisition of morphological rules of agreement and with the acquisition of the relevance of COMP for the positioning of INFL. Although this interpretation of the Turkish data seems to be more or less obvious, it does not hold for Moroccans. For Moroccans there is no negative correlation between XSV and XVS. As opposed to Turks, however, Moroccans show a negative correlation for the frequencies with which they use the V-S and the X-V-S pattern. So, whereas there is a decrease of 14,5% to 6,3% in the use of utterances with a V-S structure, there is an increase from 7% to 17,7% in the use of utterances with an X-V-S structure. This means that from level II to level ΙΠ instead of utterances such as (35) utterances such as (36) will be used. (35)

V S moet jij weg ('must you go')

(36)

X V S en toen kwam die politieauto ('and then came that policecar')

168 Furthermore, utterances with an X-S-V pattern appear to remain stable at a relatively low level. These differences between Turks and Moroccans acquiring L2 Dutch provide us with the key to understanding why it is that Moroccans "had more trouble with true V2 order" after "the initial advantage [they] had in knowing a language natively with frequent subject-verb order" (Jansen et. al. 1981, 329). At level II Moroccans seem to be using two patterns dominantly: S-V-X and V-S. When they acquire utterances with an adverbial in sentence-initial position, this X-V-S pattern is seen as an extension of and an alternative to the V-S pattern. For LI reasons Turks, however, do not use the V-S pattern as frequently as Moroccans do. With regard to utterances with a finite verb in initial position, Turks only use one basic pattern in their L2 Dutch, i.e. S-V-X. Therefore as soon as they start using adverbials sentence-initially, these adverbials are simply added to S-V-X, which means that they are placed before S-V-X. Since this is not in agreement with the L2 input, Turks have to find another way to relate the different patterns they are confronted with. It will be easier for them than for Moroccans to find out that this can be done through Verb Second. This is because due to their LI they are still using structures with non-finite verbs in final position. Thus it may be hypothesized that on level III Turks have been able to restructure their interlanguage grammar to the extent that from now on S-V-X is seen in relation to basic S-O-V order. Establishing this relation on the basis of Verb Second means that from now on next to S-V-X they also use X-V-S instead of X-S-V. Since Moroccans seem to be able to acquire the use of adverbials in sentenceinitial position as an extension of the V-S pattern they use, it will be harder for them to find out that the positioning of the finite verb is determined by Verb Second on the basis of underlying SOV. In order to substantiate this claim, independent evidence should be found that Turkish learners of Dutch do indeed restructure their interlanguage grammar on the basis of underlying S-O-V at the moment when they use the X-V-S pattern as in (36). (36)

X V S en toen kwam die politieauto ('and then came that policecar')

The acquisition of main clauses with auxiliaries may provide this evidence, since the acquisition of this type of main clause is a prerequisite to the acquisition of underlying S-O-V. As has been claimed for Turkish learners of German, the acquisition of modals and auxiliaries may cause the original distributional difference between the S-Vf-O and the S-O-Vnf pattern to be given up in favor of a differentiation between simple predicates (V) and complex predicates (AUX + V). This development leads to the identification of morphological differences between both types of predicate. L2 learners will identify the morphological properties of simple verbs, auxiliaries and modals in terms of agreement rules as opposed to the morphological properties of lexical verbs that are part of an AUX + V structure. This means that L2 learners find out that there are two verbal categories which are defined by morphological features that are usually referred to as finite and non-finite. In Jansen et. al. there are no data on the acquisition of modals and auxiliaries. Lalleman (1983, 52f.), however, found that structures with auxiliaries and non-finite lexical verbs, i.e. structures which show S-AUX-O-V word order, are acquired before finite lexical verbs occur regularly in verb-second position.2 This is exactly what was to be expected. Furthermore, the data from Lalleman (1983) show that it is only for Turks that the acquisition of the S-AUX-O-V pattern functions as a prerequisite for the acquisition of inversion, i.e. the use of utterances with XVS structure.

169

The data presented in Coenen & Van Hout (1987) show that for one of the Turkish informants there is an increase in the use of utterances with auxiliaries and non-finite lexical verbs, whereas there are still quite a few instances with both an adverbial and the subject before the finite lexical verb. This can be interpreted as evidence for the fact that the acquisition of main clauses with auxiliaries and non-finite lexical verbs is just a prerequisite for the acquisition of Verb Second and not the immediate cause. Furthermore, one of the Moroccan subjects in Coenen & Van Hout (1987) appears to be using utterances with auxiliaries and non-finite lexical verbs simultaneously with preposed adverbials in XVS structures. This indicates that here there is no relation of acquisitional order between both patterns, i.e. this Moroccan subject has acquired the X-V-S pattern independently from utterances which have S-AUX-O-V. In conclusion, it can be said that Turks and Moroccans approach the Dutch system in different ways. This is because they both seem to try to interpret Dutch input in terms of their Ll-structural knowledge. Only if this is not possible, Dutch input is acquired in its own terms. The driving force behind the developmental process is the identification of a basic structure to which the alternative structures can be related in a principled way. In the end, Turks apparently have less difficulty in reaching this goal because both Turkish and Dutch have basic SOV structure. Comparing Turks and Moroccans on the one hand with Romance learners on the other we find an interesting difference. Whereas Romance learners of L2 German use interlanguage forms in which the finite and the non-finite part of the predicate are not split up, as in (8), such forms never occur in the interlanguage of Turks and Moroccans. (8) mein vater hat gekaufen ein buch ('my father has bought a book') ich habe verstehen auch nix ( Ί have understood also nothing') With regard to Turkish and Moroccan learners of Dutch Lalleman (1983, 51) notes that "auxiliaries appear separated from the lexical verb as soon as both are present". This remarkable difference reveals that Romance learners apparently feel much more comfortable using LI categories and Ll-word order in L2 Dutch and German. For Turks and Moroccans, however, the LI does not have such a direct influence on the way they structure their interlanguage. For them the positioning of the lexical verb in both SVO and SOV structures seems to be their first concern. Only after this has been acquired are auxiliaries and modals used in the position in which they occur in the input. As (30) shows, Turkish learners of German regularly use the X-S-V-X pattern in which adverbials are preposed and in which the verb occurs in third position. On the other hand, there are also utterances in which an object is used sentence-initially. In these cases, however, preposing "nearly categorically results in correct word order" (Lalleman 1983, 49). In other words, whereas there are many examples of incorrect *ADV-S-V-X order, there are hardly any instances of incorrect *OBJ-S-V-X order. From the frequencies with which different word order patterns are used, it appears that the correct OBJ-V-SX pattern occurs as soon as the incorrect *ADV-S-V-X order is being replaced by the correct ADV-V-S-X order. So L2 learners apparently start using OBJ-V-S-X when they find out about Verb Second. However, why is it that L2 learners do not prepose objects before they have acquired Verb Second? This question can be answered in connection with the positioning of the finite verb in the underlying structure (see Figure la).

170

Figure la:

The initial SVO structure

As long as INFL is part of IP (or S), the canonical main-clause structure is maintained, but as soon as INFL is positioned external to IP (or S), the relation between S, V and Ο is disrupted. The consequence of this development is that now both the subject- and the object-NP can occur in SPEC position.

4. Native speakers of English acquiring L2 German DuPlessis et al. (1987) carried out a cross-sectional study on the acquisition of German and Afrikaans in LI speakers of English. In their explanation of the results they argue against Clahsen & Muysken (1986) who claim that L2 learners do not have access to UG and therefore have to create a rule system on the basis of "principles of information processing and general problem solving strategies" (llOff). According to Clahsen & Muysken this rule system is not only "far more complicated than the native system, but also one which is not definable in linguistic theory" (116). DuPlessis et al. (1987), however, argue that adult learners "do still have access to UG" although they "may initially assume the wrong parameter settings for the L2 either because of misleading properties of the L2 input or because they transfer settings from the LI" (57). Furthermore, they state that "L2 learners do not necessarily set all of the (...) parameters correctly at the same time" (57). The intermediate grammars which result do fall "within the range of options permitted by UG" and therefore "there is no need to assume that adults can only rely on general learning strategies in L2 acquisition" (57). The discussion between Clahsen & Muysken and DuPlessis et al. focusses on the acquisition of verb placement in L2 German. In the DuPlessis et al. study, advanced learners of L2 German and L2 Afrikaans were studied. These learners showed the same interlanguage behavior. In the following this will be illustrated with examples from L2 learners of German. These L2 learners were students who were enrolled in an advanced German language course. They were tested on a written composition task with the instruction to focus both on content and grammatical correctness. As far as main clauses are concerned, these L2 learners of German did not seem to have problems with sentences such as (37), (38), (39), and (40). In other words they did not produce incorrect utterances such as *(37a), *(38a), *(39a), and *(40a).

171

(37)

Die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen ('the children have the bread eaten') *(37a) Die Kinder haben gegessen das Brot ('the children have eaten the bread') (38) Was haben die Kinder gegessen? ('what have the children eaten') *(38a) Was die Kinder haben gegessen ('what the children have eaten') (39) Das Brot haben die Kinder gegessen ('the bread have the children eaten') *(39a) Das Brot die Kinder haben gegessen ('the bread the children have eaten') (40) Wann haben die Kinder das Brot gegessen? ('when have the children the bread eaten?') *(40a) Wann die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen ('when the children have the bread eaten') On the other hand, they had difficulty with sentences such as (41), i.e. in about 16% of the relevant cases the L2 learners preferred *(41a). (41)

Gestern haben die Kinder das Brot gegessen ('yesterday have the children the bread eaten') *(41a) Gestern die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen ('yesterday the children have the bread eaten') Furthermore, embedded clauses also caused problems. In about 5% of the cases the L2 learners produced *(42a) instead of (42). (42) Ich glaube, dass die Kinder das Brot gegessen haben ( Ί believe that the children the bread eaten have') *(42a) Ich glaube, dass die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen (Ί believe that the children have the bread eaten') According to Clahsen & Muysken, these errors cannot be explained relative to what they assume to be the underlying structure in German. A representation of such an analysis, which is based on Thiersch (1978), is given in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Analysis of underlying structure in German sentences according to Thiersch (1978)

172 Within this account there is no linguistic reason why verb placement in sentences with an adverbial in first position as in (41) should be particularly difficult to acquire, i.e. more difficult than in sentences with a subject in first position as in (37). Furthermore, it cannot be explained how a finite verb can occur in second position in embedded clauses. Therefore, Clahsen & Muysken conclude that linguistic constraints on possible structures do not seem to be relevant for processes of L2 acquisition. DuPlessis et al.'s argument against Clahsen & Muysken is based on an alternative analysis of underlying structure in German. A representation of this analysis, which is based on Travis (1984), is given in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Analysis of underlying structure in German sentences according to Travis (1984) This account differs from the one given in Clahsen & Muysken in two respects. Firstly, root clauses with a sentence-initial subject have to be distinguished from root clauses with a non-subject in this position. According to DuPlessis et al. this should explain why within the process of L2 acquisition sentences such as (37) are different from sentences such as (41). Furthermore, at some point in the acquisition process, INFL may function as a landing site for verb placement in embedded clauses. This means that verb movement in embedded clauses is not absolutely prohibited. The use or non-use of the finite verb in second position depends on whether or not COMP already functions as a proper governor. Within this account it can be explained why in embedded clauses some L2 learners incorrectly place the finite verb in second position. Although Travis' analysis of underlying structure in German sentences seems to enable DuPlessis et al. to deal with the two major types of error in L2 German, there is no explicit reference to matters of acquisitional order. DuPlessis et al. only refer to three parameters which are supposed to be of relevance for the acquisition of L2 German by native speakers of English, i.e. the Head parameter, the Proper Government parameter and the Adjunction parameter. The Head parameter has to be reset from head-initial to head-final in order to produce utterances such as (37) and (42). As long as L2 learners häve not reset this Head parameter, they should produce utterances such as in *(37a) and *(42b). Like the equivalents in LI English (37c) and (42c), these utterances are still head-initial. (37) (42)

Die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen ('the children have the bread eaten') Ich glaube, dass die Kinder das Brot gegessen haben ( Ί believe that the children the bread eaten have')

173 *(37a) Die Kinder haben gegessen das Brot *(42b) Ich glaube, dass die E n d e r haben gegessen das Brot 37c) The children have eaten the bread 42c) I believe that the children have eaten the bread Felix (1977) has data from less advanced L2 learners of German with LI English. These learners do produce utterances with head-initial structure such as *(43) and *(44). *(43) *(44)

Ich kann essen das ( Ί can eat that') Ich hab sehen du ( Ί have seen you')

Resetting of the Proper Government parameter is necessary because in English COMP does not properly govern. This means that in embedded clauses, too, INFL cannot remain empty. In German embedded clauses, however, the verb cannot move into INFL because here COMP has Proper Government function. As (42) and (42c) show, these differences between German and English lead to a different positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses. This explains why LI speakers of English produce errors as in *(42a). Here, the Head parameter has already been reset to head-final, but the finite verb is still used in the INFL position. (42) Ich glaube, dass die Kinder das Brot gegessen haben (42c) I beiieve that the children have eaten the bread *(42a) Ich glaube, dass die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen Finally, the Adjunction parameter also has to be reset. This parameter is specified to be sensitive to only [-WH, -ARG] elements. It determines whether or not these elements, i.e. adverbials such as Yesterday, are allowed to occur in sentence-initial position. This is possible in English (as in 42c), but not in German (as in *42a). The German equivalent of *(42a) is (42). (42c) Yesterday, the children have eaten the bread *(42a) Gestern die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen (42) Gestern haben die Kinder das Brot gegessen On the other hand, utterances such as (38) and (40) are cases of topicalization. Here + WH-elements such as Was ('what') [+WH, +ARG] and Wann ('when') [+WH,ARG] are moved into SPEC position. Since this topicalization rule applies to both German and English (as in 38c and 40c), native speakers of English do not have difficulty applying this rule in L2 German too. (38) (40) (38c) (40c)

Was haben die Kinder gegessen? Wann haben die Kinder aas Brot gegessen? What have the children eaten? When have the children eaten the bread?

Although this explanation of the data may have an immediate appeal in view of its linguistic constraints on possible structures, it should be pointed out that the L2 data could also be accounted for simply in terms of surface-structural transfer. This means that errors can be expected in those cases where LI and L2 are structurally different and that the type of error is determined by the structure of the LI equivalent. In both explanations, however, there is no explicit account of the order in which structural properties of L2 German are acquired.

174

An adequate account of the acquisitional order can be obtained if structural differences between English and German are properly discriminated in the sense that it is assumed that English learners of German take the structural properties of their LI as the starting point and the structural properties of German as the target of the learning task. If we take Travis' (1984) analysis to be the adequate representation of underlying structure in German, two main differences between English and German can be observed. Firstly, English and German are different with respect to basic word order, i.e. English has VO and German has OV order. Secondly, English has INFL in IP (or S), whereas in German main clauses INFL is generated under COMP. See Figure 8.

Figure 8: Underlying structure in English and German At the onset of the acquisition process L2 learners take the structural properties of LI English to hold for L2 German as well. Errors such as "(43) and *(44) (see Felix 1977) are evidence for this. * (43) Ich kann essen das (Ί can eat that') *(44) Ich hab sehen du (Ί have seen you') With respect to the order of acquisition it is clear from the data that native speakers of English use underlying SOV structure as in (37) before they are able to produce utterances such as (42) and (41). Hence, at some point in their development native speakers of English produce both correct utterances such as (37) and incorrect utterances such as *(42a) and *(41a). (37) (42) *(42a) (41) *(41a)

Die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen Ich glaube, dass die Kinder das Brot gegessen haben Ich glaube, dass die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen Gestern haben die Kinder das Brot gegessen Gestern die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen

The underlying structure which accounts for this developmental stage is given in Figure 9.

175

Figure 9: Underlying structure in interlanguage German At a second developmental stage, i.e. after INFL in main clauses functions as a realisation of COMP, L2 learners appear to have acquired the appropriate structure for German. This means that instead of *(42a) and *(41a) both (42) and (41) are now used as the correct alternatives. As has been hypothesized for Romance learners of German, the developmental process described here represents two basic changes. Firstly, basic word order OV will be used instead of the Ll-induced VO order. Secondly, the positioning of INFL in root clauses is restructured in the sense that INFL is generated under 3COMP. This last developmental change leads to the acquisition of Verb Second in German. In the initial stages, native speakers of English appear to analyze modal and time auxiliaries as realisations of INFL. TTiis leads to utterances such as *(43) and * (44). Only after auxiliaries and modals have been reanalyzed as finite verb forms that are different from non-finite verb forms, can the positioning of non-finite verb forms be acquired. After the finite and non-finite verb categories have been discriminated both in terms of morphological and positional differences, VO order can be restructured to OV order. Having reached this developmental stage native speakers of English may not be willing to further accommodate their interlanguage system toward target L2 German. This is because, due to their LI, English learners tend to apply the same rules to both root clauses and embedded clauses, see (37), *(42a), and *(41a). However, when English learners have reached the point at which they use OV order in L2 German, the difference between their interlanguage and native input is most obvious in embedded clauses. Whereas in many root clauses, i.e. those root clauses in which the subject occurs before the finite verb, the IP (or S)internal positioning of the finite verb may seem to be correct, all the embedded clauses have incorrect placement of the finite verb. At this point the L2 learners are able to acquire the relevance of COMP for the positioning of the finite verb, i.e. the relationship between the positioning of the finite verb in main and embedded clauses on the one hand, and the absence or presence of a complementizer on the other. Hence, as soon as in embedded clauses L2 learners use the verb sentence-finally, these learners are forced to give up their original hypothesis on the relation between root and embedded clauses. Once the relation between COMP and the positioning of INFL has been acquired, the position of INFL in main clauses is reinterpreted as a realisation of COMP. The result of this restructuring process is the acquisition of the correct underlying structure in German as represented in Figure 3.

176 CP SpecT

C^

COMP/INFL IP (or S) NP

I' VP

NP^

INFL V

Figure 3: Verb Second in German The final developmental process as described above entails the claim that the acquisition of the positioning of the finite verb in embedded sentences is a prerequisite to the acquisition of Verb Second. Empirically this means that the word order rules that are to be related to Verb Second and for which inversion phenomena can be seen as evidence, can only be acquired in connection with the acquisition of the positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses. The data from the DuPlessis et al. (1987) study can be interpreted as supporting evidence. In L2 German, sentences such as *(41a) and *(42a) are used incorrectly to a similar degree. *(41a) Gestern die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen ('yesterday the children have the bread eaten') *(42a) Ich glaube, dass die Kinder haben das Brot gegessen ( Ί believe that the children have the bread eaten') Furthermore, there is evidence from studies by Pienemann (1984) and Ellis (1988) on classroom acquisition of German word order rules. Both studies revealed that the natural order in which word order rules in German are acquired, also holds for L2 acquisition in a classroom environment. Hence, OV order is always acquired before both the Inversion Rule and sentence-final positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses (Verb-end). It is particularly interesting that this order occurred even though the order of instruction differed. Ellis' (1988) data are well suited to evaluate my claim that inversion phenomena are acquired simultaneously with the positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses. Table 2 presents Ellis' data for the accurate use of the three word order rules by 39 native speakers of English learning L2 German. Word Order Rule Particle Inversion Verb-end

Time 1

Time 2

.78 .38 .32

.86 .52 .46

Table 2: Proportions of accurate suppliance. Ellis (1988) Table 2 not only shows that the Particle Rule, i.e. OV order, is acquired much earlier than both Inversion and Verb-end, but also that "the difference between the accurate suppliance of Inversion, i.e. Verb Second, and Verb-end is relatively small" (Ellis 1988, 21).

177 3. Conclusion The acquisition of the positioning of verbal elements in Dutch and German has been investigated from different perspectives. The acquisition process has been studied with native speakers of Romance languages, and with native speakers of Turkish, Moroccan and English in both natural and formal settings. The studies that have been evaluated lead to the conclusion that L2 learners are initially confronted with two possibilities of word order in Dutch and German main clauses. Main clauses with finite lexical verbs are related to underlying SVO, main clauses with auxiliaries and non-finite lexical verbs are related to underlying SOV. The data clearly show LI influence on the way in which both atterns are reflected in the different forms of interlanguage. The essential problem for 2 learners is that they have to find a way in which they can deal with both patterns, i.e. they have to figure out how SVO and SOV order are related.

E

At the first developmental stage it has to be acquired that Dutch and German have SOV as the underlying word order. Main clauses with a finite modal (or auxiliary) verb and non-finite lexical verb enable L2 learners to do this. L2 learners who had initially hypothesized that Dutch and German have basic SVO, have to restructure their interlanguage system. Due to the acquisition of agreement rules, INFL has to be reanalyzed such that modal and auxiliary verbs can function as instantiations of the finite verb category. The acquisition of the distinction between the finite and the non-finite verb category leads to the acquisition of the positioning of both verbal categories and to underlying OV order. From the L2 data that have been evaluated, it is clear that the degree of difficulty of the acquisition of the underlying OV order in Dutch and German depends on the underlying structure (SVO or SOV) in LI. At the final stage of the developmental process, the underlying word order of L2 German has to be restructured with regard to the positioning of INFL. For this process of restructuring to take place L2 learners have to acquire the relevance of COMP for the positioning of the finite verb. They do this as soon as they discover that the positioning of the finite verb is different for main and subordinate clauses. Having acquired this regularity, L2 learners are able to find out about the relationship between the positioning of the finite verb in main and embedded clauses on the one hand, and the absence or presence of a complementizer on the other. After L2 learners have discovered this relationship, they know that COMP is relevant for the positioning of INFL. Now they know that the use of a complementizer leads to sentence-final positioning of the finite verb in embedded clauses and that INFL has to be interpreted as a realisation of COMP in main clauses.

Notes 1.

This means that the acquisitional problem is similar to the one that children are faced with while acquiring German and Dutch as LI (see De Haan 1986, Jordens 1987).

178

2.

"... whereas none of the speakers categorically place the tensed lexical verb in second position in marked main clauses [i.e. main clauses with a preposed constituent], five [i.e. advanced] speakers do so with tensed auxiliaries" (Lalleman 1983, 53).

3.

The acquisition of basic word order and Verb Second at differing developmental stages reflects the fact that linguistically both phenomena are independent from each other. In Dutch and German for example Verb Second occurs with basic OV order, whereas in Swedish Verb Second occurs with basic VO order. Furthermore, Van Kemenade (1987) has found evidence for the independent status of both properties in English. She demonstrates that from Old English to Modern English the change from OV to VO took place much earlier than the loss of Verb Second.

References CLAHSEN, H. 1984 The acquisition of German word order: A test case for cognitive approaches to L2 development. In R. Andersen (ed.), Second languages: a cross-linguistic perspective. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. 219-242. 1985 Parameterized grammatical theory and language acquisition. A study of the acquisition of verb placement and inflection by children and adults. In S. Flynn & W. O'Neil (eds.), Proceedings workshop linguistic theory and second language acquisition, MIT (Ms.). 1988 (this volume) Critical phases of grammar development. A study of the acquisition of negation in children and adults. CLAHSEN, H. & J. MEISEL 1979 Eine psycholinguistische Linguistik 21,3-25.

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