The Acquisition of Intensifiers: Emphatic Reflexives in English and German Child Language 9783110197655, 9783110185911

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The Acquisition of Intensifiers

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Studies on Language Acquisition 22

Editor Peter Jordens

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

The Acquisition of Intensifiers Emphatic Reflexives in English and German Child Language by Insa Gülzow

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin · New York

Mouton de Gruyter (formerly Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gülzow, Insa, 1967⫺ The acquisition of intensifiers : emphatic reflexives in English and German child language / by Insa Gülzow. p. cm. ⫺ (Studies on language acquisition ; 22) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-3-11-018591-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 3-11-018591-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. German language ⫺ Reflexives. 2. English language ⫺ Reflexives. 3. German language ⫺ Acquisition. 4. English language ⫺ Acquisition. 5. German language ⫺ Grammar, Comparative ⫺ English. 6. English language ⫺ Grammar, Comparative ⫺ German. I. Title. II. Series. PF3315.R4G85 2006 4351.6⫺dc22 2005034186

ISBN-13: 978-3-11-018591-1 ISBN-10: 3-11-018591-1 ISSN 1861-4248 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the Internet at ⬍http://dnb.ddb.de⬎. 쑔 Copyright 2006 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design: Sigurd Wendland, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Für meine Großmutter, Grete Finger To my grandmother, Grete Finger

Contents

Chapter 1 Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions 1. The aim of the study 2. Intensifiers from a cross-linguistic perspective 2.1. Morphosyntactic properties 2.2. Use types and contexts of occurrence 2.2.1. Adnominal intensifiers 2.2.2. Adverbial exclusive intensifiers 2.2.3. Age effect 2.2.4. Implied competence 2.2.5. Adverbial inclusive intensifiers 2.2.6. Summary 3. Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns 3.1. Formal identity versus formal distinctness 3.2. Non-referential use of reflexives 3.3. Reflexives in subject position 3.4. Summary 4. Agent-sensitive expressions 4.1. Basic notions 4.1.1. Selbst/allein versus von selbst/von allein 4.1.2. Causative relations 4.1.3. Compositionality of the AGENT proto-role 4.1.4. Von selbst/von allein and volition 4.1.5. Causativity and volition 4.1.6. Von selbst/von allein with inanimate referents 4.1.7. Summary 4.2. Inner structure and overview of syntax 4.3. Selbst/selber and x-self 4.4. Allein, by x-self and on one’s own 4.5. Von selbst/von allein, by itself and on its own 4.6. Von sich aus, aus eigenem Antrieb/Willen and of one’s own accord 5. Framework for child language data analysis

1 1 4 5 7 8 9 11 12 13 15 15 16 18 20 21 22 24 25 26 28 29 31 34 36 36 42 46 51 52 53

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Chapter 2 The expression x-self in acquisition studies 1. Reflexive x-self and binding theory 1.1. Binding condition A and the acquisition of the adnominal intensifier 1.2. Children’s knowledge of principle B 1.2.1. Pragmatic principle P 1.2.2. Sentence-level and discourse-level anaphora 1.2.3. Lexical failure 1.2.4. The subset principle 1.3. Summary 2. Logophoric reflexives 2.1. Logophoric reflexives and intensifiers 2.2. The acquisition of logophoric reflexives 3. Children’s early systems and historical development of x-self 4. The expression x-self in production data 5. Research questions 5.1 The emergence of intensifiers and related agent-sensitive expressions 5.2. Intensifiers versus reflexive pronouns Chapter 3 Intensifiers in German and English production data 1. The data and coding procedure 1.1. The data 1.2. Coding procedure 2. Three use-types of intensifiers in the data of the children 2.1. Proportions of adnominal, adverbial exclusive and adverbial inclusive intensifiers 2.2. Inclusive intensifiers and additive focus particles auch and too 2.3. Inclusive intensifiers in contexts of independent agency 2.3.1. Kerstin’s use of adverbial inclusive selbst/selber 2.3.2. Adam’s use of adverbial inclusive x-self 2.3.3. Summary 3. Intensifiers versus related agent-sensitive expressions 3.1. The German children 3.1.1. Caroline: selbst/selber and allein 3.1.2. Kerstin: selbst/selber and allein

54 55 57 60 61 64 68 71 73 75 76 79 82 85 88 92 93 94 94 94 97 100 101 103 104 105 110 112 112 114 115 117

Contents

3.1.3. Simone: selbst/selber and allein 3.1.4. Julia, Daniel and Mathias: allein 3.1.5. Summary 3.2. The English children 3.2.1. Ross, Nina and Shem: x-self and by x-self 3.2.2. Adam, Abe and Sarah: x-self and by x-self 3.2.3. Summary 4. The development of non-nominative means of encoding agency 4.1. Quantitative considerations 4.2. The German children’s use of allein: Caroline 4.2.1. Caroline’s use of allein: 0;10-1;9 4.2.2. Caroline’s use of allein: 1;10-2;0 4.2.3. Caroline’s use of allein: 2,1-2;3 4.2.4. Caroline’s use of allein: 2,4-2;6 4.2.5. Caroline’s use of allein: 2;7-2;9 4.2.6. Summary 4.3. Kerstin’s use of allein 4.3.1. Kerstin’s use of allein: 2;7-2;9 4.3.2. Kerstin’s use of allein: 2;10-3;3 4.3.3. The category ‘other’ and Kerstin’s use of allein: 3;4-3;6 4.3.4. Summary 4.4. Simone’s use of allein 4.4.1. Simone’s use of allein: 1;9-2;0 4.4.2. Simone’s use of allein: 2,1-2;3 4.4.3. Simone’s use of allein: 2;4-2;6 4.4.4. Simone’s use of allein: 2;7-3;0 4.4.5. Simone’s use of allein: 3;1-3;6 4.4.6. Simone’s use of allein: 3;7-4;0 4.4.7. Summary 4.5. Julia’s, Daniel’s and Mathias’ use of allein 4.6. The German children’s use of selbst/selber: Caroline 4.6.1. Caroline’s use of selbst/selber: 2;1-2;3 4.6.2. Caroline’s use of selbst/selber: 2;4-2;6 4.6.3. Caroline’s use of selbst/selber: 2;7-2;9 4.6.4. Summary 4.7. Kerstin’s use of selbst/selber 4.8. Simone’s use of selbst/selber 4.8.1. Simone’s use of selbst/selber: 1;10-2;0

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4.8.2. Simone’s use of selbst/selber: 2;7.2;9 4.8.3. Simone’s use of selbst/selber: 2;10-3;0 4.8.4. Simone’s use of selbst/selber: 3,1-3;3 4.8.5. Simone’s use of selbst/selber: 3;4-3;9 4.8.6. Summary 4.9. The English children’s use of by x-self: Ross 4.9.1. Ross’s use of by x-self: 2;6-2;9 4.9.2. Ross’s use of by x-self: 2,10-3,0 4.9.3. Ross’s use of by x-self: 3;1-3;9 4.9.4. Ross’s use of by x-self: 4;1-4;3 4.9.5. Summary 4.10. Nina’a use of by x-self 4.10.1. Nina’s use of by x-self: 2;4-2;9 4.10.2. Nina’s use of by x-self: 2;10-3;0 4.10.3. Nina’s use of by x-self: 3,1-3;3 4.10.4. Summary 4.11. Shem’s use of by x-self 4.11.1. Shem’s use of by x-self: 2;4-2;6 4.11.2. Shem’s use of by x-self: 2;7-2;9 4.11.3. Shem’s use of by x-self: 2;10-3;0 4.11.4. Shem’s use of by x-self: 3;1-3;3 4.11.5. Summary 4.12. Adam’s use of by x-self 4.12.1. Adam’s use of by x-self: 2;1-3;0 4.12.2. Adam’s use of by x-self: 3;1-4;0 4.12.3. Adam’s use of by x-self: 4,1-4;6 4.12.4. Summary 4.13. Abe’s use of by x-self 4.13.1. Abe’s use of by x-self: 2;7-2;9 4.13.2. Abe’s use of by x-self: 2;10-3;0 4.13.3. Abe’s use of by x-self: 3;1-3;3 4.13.4. Abe’s use of by x-self: 3;4-5;0 4.13.5. Summary 4.14. Sarah’s use of by x-self 4.15. The English children’s use of x-self: Ross 4.16. Nina’s use of x-self 4.17. Shem’s use of x-self 4.18. Adam’s use of x-self 4.18.1. Adam’s use of x-self: 2,1-4;0 4.18.2. Adam’s use of x-self: 4,1-4;3

177 178 180 181 182 183 184 184 186 187 188 188 189 190 192 192 193 193 194 195 196 196 197 197 198 201 202 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 211 212 214 214 215

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4.18.3. Adam’s use of x-self: 4;4-4;6 4.18.4. Adam’s use of x-self: 4;7-4;9 4.18.5. Adam’s use of x-self: 4;10-5;0 4.18.6. Summary 4.19. Abe’s use of x-self 4.20. Sarah’s use of x-self 5. The German and English children’s systems of agent-sensitive expressions 5.1. The German children 5.1.1. Allein 5.1.2. Selbst/selber 5.1.3. Summary 5.2. The English children 5.2.1. By x-self 5.2.2. X-self 5.2.3. Summary 5.3. Similarities and differences 5.3.1. Allein and by x-self 5.3.2. Selbst/selber versus x-self 5.3.3. Rejections 5.3.4. Summary 6. Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns 6.1. The order of emergence of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns 6.1.1. Shem 6.1.2. Ross 6.1.3. Nina 6.1.4. Adam 6.1.5. Abe 6.1.6. Sarah 6.1.7. Summary 6.2. The expression x-self in subject position 7. Implications for future research Notes References Index

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Chapter 1 Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

1. The aim of the study In this study, the acquisition of intensifiers by children acquiring German or English as their first language is analyzed. The longitudinal production data of six German-speaking and six English-speaking children will be examined with regard to when and in which contexts intensifiers appear in their data. The intensifiers German selbst/selber and English x-self (myself, yourself, himself, etc.) can be differentiated into three use types: an adverbial exclusive, see (1), an adverbial inclusive, see (2), and an adnominal use type, see (3), (König 1991). (1) I always grow tomatoes myself. (2) I have had a wonderful childhood myself. (3) President Bush himself had lunch with the major. The two basic properties of intensifiers are that they evoke alternatives to the referent of their focus and that they relate a central referent to more peripheral alternative referents (König 2001). Intensifiers can serve as a means to structure the participants of a child’s discourse. By integrating intensifiers into their utterances, children can identify themselves or others as central in relation to the other members of their discourse. The notion of being included or excluded in a certain state of affairs is relevant for children when interacting with their parents and/or other children. In the course of development, children acquire a number of both linguistic and non-linguistic skills that characterize them as increasingly independent and competent agents. In this process, intensifiers are an important linguistic device with which children can negotiate and comment on their participation in a given event. In both English and German, intensifiers are the core members of a class of expressions that are all related, but distinct in their function. In German, besides the prototypical representative selbst/selber, expressions such as von selbst, von allein, allein, von sich aus are members of the class of intensifiers. In English the intensifier x-self is the core member of a group

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

of expressions such as by x-self, of one’s own accord, on one’s own, etc. The close relationship between the German intensifier selbst/selber and the expression allein, and in English the close relationship between the intensifier x-self and the expression by x-self in utterances relating to telic event structures, present the child with a situation in which two forms can serve a very similar function. In the present study the data of the children will be analyzed with regard to which form-function correspondencies initially are documented in the children’s data and how these relationships develop in the course of acquisition. In theoretical linguistics and in language acquisition studies, much research has centered on the question how the concept of agentivity is realized in a given language. In language acquisition studies it is agreed upon that the linguistic marking of the concept of agentivity is important from early on, especially in utterances relating to activities that involve the children themselves as agents (e.g. Slobin 1985). While the marking of different degrees of agentivity has been described to link up with different pronominal and nominal forms (Budwig 1989, 1995), non-nominative means of marking agentivity have not received a lot of attention. Given the close relation of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns in English, intensifiers, if mentioned at all, are dealt with as a secondary phenomenon occurring sometime during or even after the acquisition of reflexive pronouns (e.g. McDaniel, Smith Cairns and Hsu 1990; Thomas 1994). Based on the approach of König (2001) an account of intensifiers will be given that focusses on the relevant aspects of the semantic and pragmatic properties of intensifiers (chapter 1). After a brief description of the morphosyntactic properties of intensifiers, the three use types will be distinguished with regard to the contexts in which the expressions appear. On this basis the functions that are encoded when children begin to use intensifiers will be identified. A recurrent topic will be the fact that in English, intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are formally identical. In this respect, languages may belong to two types. Either a language displays formal identity of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns, as is the case in English, or the two kinds of expressions are distinct as German selbst/selber and mich/dich/sich/uns/euch. For a child acquiring English as his/her first language, the formal identity of the expressions is an interesting aspect as it can be expected that there is some kind of interaction between the two kinds of expression in the acquisition process. From a typological perspective, one of the structures that correlates with the formal identity of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns is the appearance of the expression in subject position. As this is also a frequently attested non-

The aim of the study

3

target structure in child language, the question will be pursued what children are aiming to encode with utterances such as myself has to park.1 In the second part of chapter 1 intensifiers and related expressions in German and English will be contrasted with regard to the correspondencies of forms and functions and with regard to the way in which these expressions relate to different event structures. It will be shown that all expressions discussed interact with the agentive properties of the referent of a given subject noun phrase. As was already mentioned, studies dealing with the acquisition of intensifers are rare, and most studies on the acquisition of the expression xself concentrate on how children come to use x-self as a reflexive pronoun. Despite this fact, these studies include some implicit information about what kind of knowledge may contribute to English children’s acquisition of the expression x-self when not functioning as a reflexive pronoun. In chapter 2 it will be discussed what linguistic properties characterize the children’s use of x-self in early phases of language development. The empirical part of this study rests both on the analysis of the semantic and pragmatic properties of the expressions as illustrated in chapter 1 and on positions formulated in previous research such as presented in chapter 2. The research questions derived in these chapters will serve as a guideline for the analysis of the production data presented in chapter 3. In the first part of this chapter focus will be on the emergence of intensifiers and related expressions in the language systems of the twelve children of the study. A description of which of the three use types of intensifiers are documented in the children’s data will be followed by a quantitative analysis of the different forms in relation to the event structures that the respective utterances relate to. Given the similarities of some formfunction pairings in the two languages, a quantitative analysis is a first step in answer to the question which form(s) children primarily rely on when first using these kinds of expressions. In the last step of the analysis, an investigation into the nature of the children’s form-function pairings in the course of the recording is carried out, specifically paying attention to the contexts that the children relate the expressions to. The data of the six German and the six English children will be analyzed individually before the similarities and the differences among the children acquiring the same language are compared. Then, the similarities and differences among the German and English children as a group will be discussed. The aim of a contrastive analysis of German and English children’s acquisition of intensifiers and related expressions is to draw attention to the way in which

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

structural differences between languages surface in the acquisition data of children. The second part of the result section illustrates the emergence of English intensifiers in comparison to reflexive pronouns. The main objective for this kind of analysis is that the specific properties of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns may contribute to the child’s use of x-self at different points in development. The results of the present study are related to findings reported in two comprehension studies on the acquisition of reflexive pronouns (Chien and Wexler 1990; McDaniel et al. 1990). Children’s systematic misinterpretation of reflexive x-self under an age of four and the claim that the acceptance of x-self in subject position at about the same age is an effect of the ongoing acquisition of the adnominal intensifier will be discussed in the light of the findings of the present study. 2. Intensifiers from a cross-linguistic perspective The aim of this study is to provide an analysis of how German-speaking and English-speaking children acquire intensifiers. The empirical part of this study will rest on a description of the semantic and pragmatic properties of intensifiers and related expressions and the contexts in which they occur. The first part (section 2) of this chapter provides a desciption of the basic properties of intensifiers. The second part (section 3) of the chapter will give a basic overview of how intensifiers and reflexive pronouns can vary along the lines of morphosyntax. Emphasis will be on the German and the English systems as these are most relevant in the subsequent analysis of the child language data. Following the semantic description of intensifiers, in the third part (section 4) an analysis with respect to expressions that are closely related to the German and the English intensifier will be given. The last part of this chapter (section 5) will set a framework for the analysis of the production data. Among the different semantic analyses which are available at present, the approach of König (2001) and Siemund (2000) will serve as the basis for the study. The outlines of the meaning of intensifiers will be given with emphasis on the contexts in which these expressions can occur. As was mentioned in the introduction, this study is mainly focussed on how children begin to use intensifiers as a means to structure the referents of their discourse in terms of their own and other’s agentive involvement in activities. While not all contexts that intensifiers can relate to are relevant in young children’s discourse, it will be shown that some contexts seem

Intensifiers from a cross-linguistic perspective

5

ideal in the sense that they match the child’s desire to negotiate her/his own competence and control in certain situation types. For a full command of German or English intensifiers the child has to integrate the discourse functions of these expressions with their morphosyntactic and semantic properties. While differences in the morphosyntactic complexity of intensifiers will no doubt play a role in the process of their acquisition, the general development of the morphological and syntactical system of the two languages cannot be a part of the present study. The discussion of the morphosyntactic properties of intensifiers will therefore focus on aspects that are relevant within the system of intensifying expressions. Moreover, more formal approaches to the semantics of intensifiers will not be discussed in depth here as the question of how the formal semantic properties of intensifiers can be integrated into a theory of language acquisition is not a central issue in this approach. 2.1. Morphosyntactic properties Expressions like German selbst/selber and English x-self (my-/your-/him/her-/it-/one-self, our-/your-/them-selves) represent a universal kind of expression and can be shown to display very specific syntactic and semantic properties (König 2001). Typically, these expressions are not the only representatives of their kind, but a lexical field of expressions exists of which this member is least restricted in terms of syntactic and semantic flexibility and can be regarded as the core representative of the class. For German, König (2001) lists a number of related expressions, see (4a). A similar group of expressions can be found in English, see (4b). (4) a. eigen, leibhaftig, persönlich, höchstpersönlich, von selbst, von sich aus, an sich, etc. b. personally, by x-self, own, of one’s own accord It will be shown later in this chapter that German selbst/selber and English x-self are not only the core members of the lexical field of intensifiers, but also central with regard to a subclass of adverbial exclusive expressions. These expressions, amongst them von selbst and by x-self, are related to the adverbial exclusive use type of intensifiers and interact with the agentive properties of the referent of the subject noun phrase. Syntactically, intensifiers can be adjoined both to noun phrases or verb phrases. Depending on which is the case, it is possible to distinguish

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between an adnominal use type, see (5), and an adverbial use type, see (6), use type. (5) Dumbledore himself is seeing to Harry Potter’s safety. (6) Harry Potter cleaned his Thunderbolt himself. Some tests can be used to show that a noun phrase or verb phrase form a larger constituent together with the intensifier. For the adnominal use type it can be shown that if adjoined to the noun phrase, intensifiers permutate together with that noun phrase (7) or can be coordinated with other noun phrases (8). Similar tests are available for the adverbial use type. (7) The one who is seeing to Harry Potter’s safety is Dumbledore himself. (8) Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore himself are seeing to Harry Potter’s safety.2 Some languages, including German and English, further distinguish the adverbial use into an adverbial inclusive (9) and an adverbial exclusive (10) use type. (9) Harry knows what it means to be an orphan, he has lost his parents himself. (10) Harry knows that he can’t be helped by Ron and Hermione, … …he has to face Lord Voldemort himself. While the inclusive use type can be paraphrazed by ‘too’ or ‘also’, the exclusive use type can be paraphrazed by ‘without help/without assistance’ or ‘alone’. It will be illustrated later in this chapter that, to a certain extent, the two adverbial use types correlate complementarily with the telicity or aktionsart of the encoded event and definiteness. That there are plenty of examples that are ambiguous between an adverbial exclusive and an adverbial inclusive reading can be interpreted as evidence for the fact that the difference between the two adverbial use types is not merely an effect of the syntactic differences, see (11) and (12). (11) You are not the only one who has seen Hagrid, I have seen him myself. (12) I haven’t been told that Hagrid is a giant, I have seen him myself.

Intensifiers from a cross-linguistic perspective

7

While the context in (11) calls for an inclusive reading of myself, the context provided in (12) only allows an exclusive reading of myself in the otherwise identical phrase I have seen him myself. Morphologically, intensifiers may agree in person, number, case and gender with the noun phrase they interact with. In the examples given in Table 1, German uses an invariant form in all positions of the paradigm. English makes person and number distinctions, and in the third person singular also gender distinctions. Table 1. Intensifiers in two different languages singular plural

1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd

German selbst/selber selbst/selber selbst/selber selbst/selber selbst/selber selbst/selber

1st 2nd 3rd 1st 2nd 3rd

English myself yourself himself, herself, itself, oneself ourselves yourselves theirselves

If intensifiers are used adnominally, intensifiers can be adjoined to any noun phrase. In their adverbial use intensifiers usually interact only with the subject noun phrase which is typically human in the case of inclusive intensifiers and an agentive subject in the case of exclusive intensifiers. 2.2. Use types and contexts of occurrence The central interest of this study is what children’s form-function pairings look like when they first enter the system of intensifiers as a means to structure their discourse. For this purpose, the basic outlines of the meaning of intensifiers together with the contexts in which they occur will be descibed in the following. The semantic properties of intensifiers manifest in recurrent and specific types of contexts. While it can be predicted that not all contexts that can be identified for the use of adnominal and adverbial intensifiers are relevant for a young language learning child, it will be illustrated that especially those contexts in which adverbial exclusive intensifiers and related expressions tend to occur are of central interest in child discourse. The two basic facts of meaning that the three types of intensifiers subsume are, first, that they evoke alternatives to the referent of the noun phrase they interact with. Second, they structure the set of referents into a

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

center-periphery scenario (König 2001). For each of the three uses of intensifiers different manifestations of the structuring of entities in terms of center and periphery exist. In the following, these recurrent contexts together with the kind of referents that are evoked by adnominal, adverbial exclusive and adverbial inclusive intensifiers will be illustrated. It will be shown that in the case of adnominal intensifiers, the recurrent contexts within which the expressions are used are unlikely to be relevant in a young child’s discourse. Adverbial exclusive intensifiers and related expressions on the other hand present the child with semantic means to negotiate his/her involvement in a specific action. Adverbial inclusive intensifiers occur in very complex contextual conditions which makes it functionally and meaning-wise very implausibe that they should be used in early stages of language acquisition. As was already mentioned above, the two most basic semantic facts about intensifiers are that they evoke alternative referents and structure the set of referents in terms of center and periphery. For the adnominal use of intensifiers the kind of referent of the noun phrase the intensifier interacts with and the evoked alternative referents are not restricted regarding thematic roles. All kinds of animate (13) and inanimate (14) referents of both subject and object noun phrases are possible candidates for the interaction with an intensifier. This is an interesting point to note as there are some restrictions on the kind of referent of the subject noun phrase for the use of exclusive intensifiers and even more for the use of inclusive intensifiers. (13) a. Everybody enjoyed the class. The teacher himself thought it was awful. b. He didn’t want to talk to the whole class, but to the teacher himself. (14) a. The castles in Potsdam are beautiful; Potsdam itself is even nicer. b. She loved the park of Sanssouci and especially the castle itself. 2.2.1. Adnominal intensifiers In following Baker (1995), König (2001) lists four different manifestations of how adnominal intensifiers structure a referent and the evoked alternative referents in terms of center and periphery. Although Baker presents a somewhat different analysis of adnominal intensifiers and treats them as markers of discourse prominence,3 the important point to note is

Intensifiers from a cross-linguistic perspective

9

that Baker’s four different manifestations of adnominal intensifiers can also be regarded as the four typical contexts in which they tend to occur. The centrality of referent X in relation to more peripheral referents Y is achieved on the basis of social-hierarchical, situational, relational or logophoric contexts, see (15). In these contexts, adnominal intensifiers relate the referent X to the evoked referents Y such that... (15)

a. b. c. d.

...X has a higher rank than Y in a real-world hierarchy; ...X is more important than Y in a specific situation; ...Y is identified relative to X (e.g. kinship, part-whole); ...X is the subject of consciousness, centre of observation, (logophoricity).

Examples illustrating these four contexts are given below, see (16). The figure Lord Voldemort is conceived as high-ranking, see (16a), the team manager Oliver Wood is of central importance in the game of Quidditch, see (16b). In (16c) Harry Potter is identified in relation to his parents and in (16d) he is the subject of consciousness. (16)

a. Lord Voldemeort himself killed Mr Potter. b. Oliver Wood’s team was in low spirits before the match, … …Oliver Wood himself was sure that they were going to win. c. Harry Potter’s parents were killed in the attack; Harry himself survived. d. Harry couldn’t think of anything to comfort him; … …he knew Neville, like himself was dreading the dawn.4

2.2.2. Adverbial exclusive intensifiers In comparison to adnominal intensifiers, the referents that adverbial exclusive intensifiers can interact with are more restricted. While sentences like (17) and (18) evoke alternative referents just as adnominal intensifiers do, sentences become odd or semantically impossible if exclusive x-self is in association with a referent that is not human, see (19), or inanimate, see (20). (17) (18) (19)

At an age of 87, Mrs. Dylan still managed her household herself. Sue changed the bike’s tire herself. The seaweed crossed the bay ?itselfadv. excl.

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

(20) The car crossed the bridge *itselfadv. excl. Exclusive adverbial intensifiers relate to agents and evoke other agents as possible alternatives with regard to the action described by the predicate. Contextual alternatives that are evoked by a sentence like (17) involve alternative agents that might either help Mrs. Dylan with her household or manage it for her. Possible contextual alternatives for (18) are similar in that Sue could either have someone help her change the tire or have someone change the tire for her. The sentence given in (19) is odd unless the seaweed is seen as a personified creature. An inanimate referent in (20) is an imposssible referent of the subject noun phrase when interacting with the adverbial exclusive intensifier itself. It will be shown later in this chapter that given the different semantics of the expression the same sentences with by itself are possible sentences in English. The contexts which can be identified for the use of adverbial exclusive intensifiers can be characterized as anti-assistive, anti-delegative, or antiinstrumental.5,6 Examples illustrating the three contexts are given below. (21) a. Last week his brother had helped him, this week… …Jan mowed the lawn himself. b. Last week he had asked his brother, this week… …Jan mowed the lawn himself. c. His dishwasher broke down yesterday, so… …Peter had to do the dishes himself. In (21a), himself interacts with the agent Jan and relates to alternative contexts in which Jan received help in mowing the lawn. In the given example, one possible assistive agent, Jan’s brother, is named, but generally the sentence with himself can also relate to contexts with other helping agents. The context given in (21b) shows that the identical sentence can also relate to contexts in which the whole task was delegated by Jan to an alternative agent.7 In the example in (21c) the alternative referent named, the dishwasher, is an inanimate entity that contrasts with the agentive subject Peter. This kind of use of an adverbial exclusive intensifier is restricted to contexts in which an inanimate entity can act in the same way as an agent. The example below illustrates this restriction in that no agent can act in the same way as the inanimate entity tree. (22) The old apple tree was finally dying, so …*Peter had to grow the apples himself.

Intensifiers from a cross-linguistic perspective

11

2.2.3. Age effect The difference between the use of an adverbial exclusive intensifier that relates to anti-assistive contexts and the use of the same expression relating to anti-delegative contexts might seem marginal at first sight. It will be demonstrated in the results section that for a language-learning child the contrast between an agent who helps the child in a certain activity versus an alternative agent who completes the whole action without the involvement of the child is relevant in terms of the emerging independent agency of the child. Along these lines it is an important point to mention that, concerning the interpretation of sentences with an adverbial exclusive intensifier together with the contextual alternatives the expression relates to, an age effect can be observed. In the examples listed below, the age of the referent of the subject noun phrase is crucial information concerning the semantic contribution that the adverbial exclusive intensifier herself makes to the meaning of a sentence. (23) Sue is 40 years old and takes care of her neighbor’s dog, a. ...she washes the dog herself. b. ...she takes him for a walk herself. c. ...she feeds him herself. (24) Sue is 4 years old and takes care of her neighbor’s dog, a. ...she washes the dog herself. b. ...she takes him for a walk herself. c. ...she feeds him herself. If we compare the semantic effect of the use of herself in (23a-c) to that in (24a-c), herself in the first sentences enables a reading of the sort that Sue either did not receive assistance in the actions described or did not delegate them. If this time the adult Sue did everything herself, last time she may have done it together with her husband or her husband may have done it for her. The sentences in (24) are similar in that herself relates to contexts in which the child Sue was helped by an adult or the like to wash and feed the dog and take him for a walk, or the expression relates to alternative contexts in which the whole task was carried out by an adult. While the contexts that herself relates to in (23) and (24) are structured in fairly parallel ways, it does not seem adequate to talk about an antidelegative context in cases in which the adverbial exclusive intensifier xself interacts with a noun phrase that has a child as referent. It does not

12

Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

seem plausible to interpret herself in (24a-c) as relating to an alternative context in which Sue had an adult do the tasks. Rather it seems that a context in which an adult washed and fed the dog and took him for a walk instead of Sue seems more likely. The important parallel to anti-delegative contexts is that the adverbial exclusive expression relates to alternative contexts in which the whole action was carried out by an alternative agent. In anti-assistive contexts the use of an adverbial exclusive intensifier rules out that the referent of the subject noun phrase and the alternative referents act together. These contexts can be found both in typically adult-oriented and typically child-oriented discourse. In anti-delegative contexts, the use of an adverbial exclusive intensifier rules out that the referent of the subject noun phrase has an alternative referent carry out the action. In this fashion, these contexts will be expected to be less frequent in child discourse. However, it seems to make sense to expect scenarios in child-oriented discourse in which an adverbial exclusive intensifier is used to rule out the possibilitiy that an alternative agent carry out a certain action instead of the child. As these contexts cannot justifiably be called anti-delegative, such contexts will be called autonomous in the present study to highlight the fact that the child acts without any interference of adults. For the analysis of the child data in the present study, these two contexts for the adverbial exclusive use of German selbst/selber and English x-self will be regarded as relevant. Anti-assistive and autonomous contexts are expected to occur frequently in child discourse and should be ideal for the emerging use of adverbial exclusive expressions. 2.2.4. Implied competence The last aspect to be mentioned regarding the occurrence of adverbial exclusive intensifiers in child-oriented versus adult-oriented speech is the difference in the assumed competence of the involved or implied referents. If the sentences in (23a-c) are interpreted within an anti-assistive context, they mean that the woman Sue was not helped. The sentences contain no statement about whether Sue is competent to carry out the action, it is assumed that this is the case. Sue is believed to be capable of washing, walking and feeding the dog and so are the alternative referents that are excluded. The same is true for the interpretation of (23a-c) within an antidelegative context. In (24a-c) on the other hand, the fact that children need to learn almost all actions that adults are capable of is highly relevant. In both an anti-assistive and an autonomous context there is an assumed

Intensifiers from a cross-linguistic perspective

13

asymmetry concerning the competence of the child and the alternative referent. In both cases the achievement of the child is a central issue. In child-oriented speech the adverbial exclusive intensifier x-self can be used to highlight the fact that the child is becoming increasingly independent. Depending on whether the context is anti-assistive or autonomous, the child’s own activity is contrasted with actions in which s/he is either helped or which are being carried out for her/him. A similar effect can also be observed concerning the use of the German expression allein and English by x-self. It will be shown later in this chapter that in sentences with these expressions, inferences about the referents’ skills are similar to the ones described above. 2.2.5. Adverbial inclusive intensifiers The last type of use to be discussed is the adverbial inclusive use of intensifiers. The major difference to both the adnominal and the adverbial exclusive use is that the contexts in which these expressions occur are very complex. While the meaning of adverbial inclusive intensifiers can well be paraphrased by ‘also’ or ‘too’, there is little to be gained by the use of inclusive intensifiers instead of these expressions in the discourse and language of a young child. Another difference to the adnominal and exclusive use is that the referents of the noun phrases with which adverbial inclusive intensifiers can interact are even more restricted as they are in the majority of cases confined to interacting with human referents. The three major contexts in which adverbial inclusive intensifiers are found are interaction, empathy and reproaches (cf. Siemund 1999): (25) A: B: (26) A: B: (27) A: B:

Can I have an aspirin? I have a headache. Sorry, I have only one tablet and I have a headache myself. Liv’s sister drives me mad. I know, I have had her as a visitor myself. Lennard is a scumbag. How can you dislike him when you are an artist yourself?

The main effect of the use of an adverbial inclusive intensifier in (25)(27) is that the referent of the subject noun phrase is characterized as equally central regarding some alternative referent. In all three examples there is an assumed asymmetry that is rejected by the sentence with the inclusive intensifier. Siemund (2000) has shown that in many cases the

14

Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

assumed asymmetry is rooted in the referents’ beliefs and desires. In (25), A believes that B can give A an aspirin, possibly assuming that B has plenty. This is not the case as B only possesses one tablet and also suffers from a headache. In (26), A starts to tell B something, assuming that B does not know. In the answer B both expresses empathy and keeps A from telling the story. In (27), B is upset about A’s statement and rejects his reaction, which in B’s opinion should be the opposite. Adverbial inclusive intensifiers very often interact with propositions of the kind y believes that…, y wants that… with y being the other referent. All of the three examples involve inferred information about a referent’s beliefs and desires. While in the first two examples the different beliefs have an impact on the interaction, the last example is somewhat different in that no interaction is directly dependent on B’s reaction. Inclusive intensifiers can be used to make a statement about a referent’s inclusion in a certain state of affairs or activity. For the language-learning child situations in which s/he wants to be included are highly relevant. Much of the child’s development in terms of learning how to act as an independent agent is dependent on participating or claiming participation in activities. As simple inclusion can also be achieved by the use of additive particles such as English too, see (28a), or German auch, see (29a), the question remains why a child should use an inclusive intensifier in such cases. (28) a. b. (29) a. b.

I want some cookies too. I want some cookies myself. Ich möchte auch Kekse. Ich möchte selber Kekse.

While both sentences in (28) and (29) presuppose that there is at least one other referent who is in identical relation to the predicate as the referent of the pronoun I, the use of myself instead of too furthermore induces an ordering of the referents with the effect that an asymmetry is negated and the referents under consideration are regarded as equally central. A sentence like (28b) calls for a context in which the referent of the subject noun phrase I who has, for instance, bought some cookies is identified in relation to another referent who has been eating them. The rejected asymmetry in (28b) is then between the referent who bought the cookies and the referent who is eating them. The effect of too in (28a) on the other

Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns

15

hand simply includes the referent in the activity of cookie-eating and lacks any inferences about the referents ordering or centrality. The same statement can be made about the use of German auch and selber in (29). The semantic implications of sentences with adverbial inclusive intensifiers as listed above illustrate that it seems difficult and may in many cases be irrelevant for young children to relate an adverbial inclusive intensifier to the relevant context. 2.2.6. Summary Intensifiers in both German and English can be differentiated according to three use types. For each of the three use types recurrent contexts can be identified. It was argued that the four contexts within which adnominal intensifiers tend to occur are not necessarily expected to be relevant in young children’s discourse. On the other hand, two contexts could be identified that are expected to play a role in the acquisition of the adverbial exclusive use type: the anti-assistive context and the autonomous context. For the adverbial inclusive use of intensifiers it was shown that the child has to be able to relate the expression to very complex contexts and, in many cases, has to have special knowledge about other referent’s beliefs and desires. Although this type of intensifier relates to children’s attempts at participating in certain events and activities, for reasons stated above a full command of this expression is not expected in early stages of language acquisition. 3. Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns It has already been mentioned earlier in this chapter that there is a typological distinction between languages that display a formal identity of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns and languages that display a formal distinctness. This differentiation correlates with a number of other distinctions found in languages (König 2001). For the present analysis two such correlations are regarded as relevant for the language-learning child. These concern the non-referential use of reflexives and the occurrence of intensifiers with/without nominal versus pronominal heads. The following paragraphs will give a short insight into these parameters of variation as the morphosyntactic features of English x-self expressions are believed to lead to very specific analytic mistakes in the acquisition process which cannot

16

Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

be observed in German acquisition data. It has been recognized in studies dealing both with production data (e.g. Thomas 1994) and experimental data (e.g. McDaniel et al. 1990) that English children go through a phase in language development in which they produce and accept structures with a form of x-self in subject position. German children on the other hand use neither the intensifier nor a form of the reflexive pronoun in subject position. Both Thomas (1994) and McDaniel et al. (1990) argue that the English children’s behavior is due to a misinterpretation of the referential properties of reflexives in early stages of language acquisition. The fact that children as old as 5;0 and older still accept x-self in subject position is explained by McDaniel et al. by the fact that these children are in the process of acquiring the adnominal use of the English intensifier and allow it to occur without a preceding head. Before a more detailed discussion of these two claims is given in chapter 2, the following paragraphs will show that the typological types to which the German and the English language belong provide structural motivation for both the claim that x-self in subject position is a non-target use of a reflexive pronoun and that it is a non-target use of an intensifier. For German the non-occurrence of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns in subject position can also be shown to be structurally motivated. 3.1. Formal identity versus formal distinctness Many European languages, among them Slavic languages such as Slovak or Russian, Germanic languages such as German (Gast to appear), Romance languages such as French and Italian, and also many Bantu languages make a clear formal distinction between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns (cf. König 2001). The relevant paradigm for German is given in Table 2. Table 2. Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns in German German

intensifiers SG 1st selbst/selber 2nd selbst/selber 3rd selbst/selber

PL selbst/selber selbst/selber selbst/selber

reflexive pronouns SG PL mich/mir uns 1st 2nd dich/dir euch 3rd sich sich

While German uses an invariant form as an intensifier across all relevant morphosyntactic categories, the reflexive pronoun is marked for person and number and, in first and second person singular, also for case.

Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns

17

Other European languages like Finno-Ugric with Estonian or Finnish, Turkic languages like Turkish and also English make no such formal distinction of the two kinds of expressions. According to König (2001) there is reason to believe that the formal identity of intensifiers and reflexive pronouns is the predominant pattern among the world’s languages. The distinction of the expressions in these languages is impossible only by judging their formal characteristics, but is a matter of their syntactic distribution. While intensifiers occur in adjunct positions, reflexive pronouns are only found in argument positions. English intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are marked for person, number and gender, see Table 3. Table 3. Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns in English intensifiers SG 1st myself 2nd yourself 3rd himself herself itself oneself

PL ourselves yourselves themselves

reflexive pronouns SG myself 1st 2nd yourself 3rd himself herself itself oneself

PL ourselves yourselves themselves

English intensifiers and reflexive pronouns are morphologically complex, they consist of a genitive determiner and the nominal element self. The third person forms himself and themselves are an exception to this and combine the objective pronouns him and them with nominal self. As will be discussed in more detail below, the transparency of the English expressions’ morphology may have an impact on the process of their acquisition. For the children acquiring German as their first language no such effect can be expected. For the English child there is little evidence against an analysis of English x-self in (30a) parallel to other noun phrases, see (30b). (30) a. Don’t hurt yourself! b. Don’t hurt your leg! In the present study, child language data of each of the two patterns described above will be analyzed. It is expected that the typological difference will surface in the paths the children follow when acquiring intensive expressions in German and English. The input that English

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

children receive regarding intensifiers and reflexive pronouns differs from that of children acquiring German as their first language in so far as English children hear an identical form be used both as a referential and as a nonreferential expression. The German children hear referential and nonreferential uses of mich/dich/sich etc., but the intensifier and the reflexive pronoun are distinct. 3.2. Non-referential use of reflexives A typological feature correlating with the pattern of either formal identity or formal distinctness of intensive and reflexive expressions in a given language is the non-referential use of reflexives. In addition to their referential use, reflexive pronouns are also used as aspectual markers or markers of intransitivity in languages that use clearly distinct expressions for intensifiers and reflexive pronouns. The examples from Slovak illustrate some of the most frequent non-referential uses of reflexives, see (31):8 (31) a. Pavol si zobral život. referential Paul REFL.DAT take.PAST life.ACC.SG ‘Paul killed himself’. b. Pavol sa postavil. bodily motion Paul REFL.ACC getup.PAST ‘Paul got up’. c. Situácia sa zhoršila. anti-causative situation.NOM.SG REFL.ACC detoriorate.PAST ‘The situation deteriorated’. d. Tu sa žúije pohodlne. facilitative here REFL.ACC live.3.SG comfortably ‘One lives here comfortably’. e. Všetok þaj sa vypil. passive all tea.NOM.SG REFL.ACC drink.PAST ‘All the tea was drunk’. f. Tu sa hovorí po slovensky. impersonal here REFL.ACC speak.PART after Slovak ‘Slovak is spoken here’. g. Chce sa mi spat’. aspectual it.wants REFL.ACC me sleep ‘I would like to go to sleep’.

Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns

19

König (2001) proposes an implicational scale that orders the types of non-referential uses of reflexives to the effect that if a language uses a reflexive in a construction at some point to the right of the scale, it will also use the reflexive in all constructions that can be found higher up on the scale, see (32): (32)

referential > bodily motion > anti-causative > facilitative > passive > impersonal > aspectual

German translations involving a reflexive include the first four constructions of the scale but no passive, impersonal or aspectual uses, see (33). (33) a. Paul hat sich umgebracht. Paul have REFL.3SG kill.PART ‘Paul killed himself’. b. Paul hat sich erhoben. Paul have REFL.3SG getup.PART ‘Paul got up’. c. Die Situation hat sich verschlechtert. the situation have REFL.3SG detoriorate ‘The situation detoriorated’. d. Es lebt sich gut hier. it live.3SG REFL.3SG well here ‘One lives here comfortably’.

referential bodily motion anti-causative facilitative

The fact that German allows a variety of non-referential uses of the reflexive is an important point to note regarding the fact that German children neither produce intensifiers nor reflexive pronouns in subject position. In contrast to the English children, they do not receive information that the form of the intensifier can also be used referentially, but receive information that the reflexive can also be used non-referentially. In languages which lack a clear distinction between intensifiers and reflexives, intensifiers are allowed to occur in argument positions without preceding head. In English such constructions are possible in argument positions other than the subject position, see (34).9 No comparable structures are possible in German. (34) Ian wandered about alone as everybody but himself seemed to be asleep.

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

The main point that is of interest with regard to the English acquisition data is that in the sentence in (34), an x-self expression can be used interchangeably with a personal pronoun and, therefore, referentially. For the language-learning child the use of x-self as demonstrated in (34) combines characteristics of reflexive anaphors with those of intensifiers. On the one hand, the expression has clear referential properties, a fact reflected in the discussion of cases of ‘long-distance binding’ in languages like English, Mandarin, Japanese, or Icelandic. The Mandarin example (35) below illustrates that the self-expression zìjí can be used to signal coreference both within a local and within a non-local domain (cf. Chomsky 1981, 1986): (35) ZhƗngsƗn rènwei LƯsì hèn zìjƯ.10 Zhangsan think Lisi hate SELF ‘Zhangsani thinks Lisij hates himselfj/himi’. On the other hand, the use of x-self in (34) exhibits specific characteristics of intensifiers in that the expression fulfills a perspectivizing function in terms of center and periphery: the referent of the subject noun phrase, Ian, is characterized as central and therefore the only possible referent for non-local himself.11 For the present analysis it is important to keep in mind that the English language has an expression that functions as reflexive anaphor, as logophor and as intensifier and, therefore, does not provide the child with unambiguous syntactical cues regarding the referentiality of instances of x-self. 3.3. Reflexives in subject position A last point to be mentioned is that languages without a formal distinction of reflexive pronouns and intensifiers quite frequently allow intensifiers in subject position without accompanying pronominal heads, see (36) for Turkish and Latin.12 (36) a. Kendisi operaya gitti. SELF.3.SG opera.DAT go.PAST ‘He himself went to the opera’. b. Ipse dixit. SELF say.PAST.3.SG ‘He himself (=Aristotle) said it’.

Intensifiers and reflexive pronouns

21

Although English has no comparable structure in adult systems (but Irish English), it has already been mentioned that in child language x-self in subject position without an accompanying additional referential element is a common and well-documented structure. The position that children’s non-target language systems might encode similar concepts as the varying structures that can be observed in related language types will be discussed in more detail in chapter 3. 3.4. Summary With regard to the relation of intensifiers to reflexive pronouns in both German and English, the following aspects will be assumed to be of importance in explaining why children acquiring the two languages choose a structural pattern in certain stages of language development. First, German and English are representative of two variants found in the languages of the world; while German uses formally distinct expressions for intensive and reflexive constructions, English uses an invariant form. It follows from this that in English the same expression that is used as an intensifier is also used referentially. In German a somewhat different situation exists in that the same expression that is used as a reflexive pronoun can also be used non-referentially. It was already mentioned above and will be discussed in more detail below that these structural differences may serve as an explanation for the fact that, contrary to children learning German as their first language, children acquiring English pass through a phase in which they produce and accept structures with an intensive/reflexive expression in subject position. Additional structural evidence for the children’s acceptance of such structures comes from the fact that in argument positions other than the subject position, x-self can occur without a head for perspectivizing purposes which is impossible in German. The fact that in English pronouns cannot be combined with intensifiers in argument positions other than the subject position and pronouns and x-self can alternate in sentences discussed above might lead the child to expect that this is also the case in subject position, or more generally speaking, that both personal pronouns and x-self have invariant referential properties. It will be argued that an erroneous analysis of the referential properties of x-self as can be triggered by the expressions’ morphological and syntactical properties should lead the children to produce a whole array of non-target structures. The lack of appearance of some of these non-target structures will be taken as evidence for the

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

position that not only analytical processes or processes of functional reanalysis can be made responsible for the children’s production of nontarget structures. To some degree the structural variability of a language type may surface in child language in the same way as it does in the adult systems. For the present study it is important to be aware of the fact that while not much difference can be found in the discourse functions of intensive and reflexive expressions in the two languages, the languagelearning child is confronted with language-specific information regarding the morphosyntactic properties of the expressions. Children’s development towards increasingly independent agents can be regarded as a universal aspect of socialization. In this respect not much difference is expected with regard to the child’s desire to find means in the target language with which the child’s involvement in activities can be negotiated. Regarding possible differences in the path of acquisition on the other hand, the typological or structural differences of the two languages are expected to be documented in the children’s early systems. 4. Agent-sensitive expressions In this section attention will be focused on the German and English targetsystems which provide not only nominative but also non-nominative means to express agency. While much has been said about how children deal with the nominative encoding of agency using nominal and pronominal arguments (e.g. Budwig 1989, 1995; Deutsch and Budwig 1983), less is known about the status of expressions such as selbst/selber and x-self which represent adjuncts rather than arguments. In linguistic theory a thorough account of intensifiers is provided (e.g. Edmondson and Plank 1978; König 1991, 2001; Baker 1995; Siemund 2000). How these expressions interact with related expressions such as allein, von selbst, by x-self, on one’s own, or of one’s own accord on the other hand is less wellknown. The following analysis will take König’s (2001) and Siemund’s (2000) approach to the semantics of intensifiers as a starting point from which an attempt will be made at describing the semantic contribution of expressions related to the adverbial exclusive use of intensifiers. It will be shown that together with the adverbial exclusive use of German selber/selbst and English x-self, expressions such as allein, von selbst, by xself, on one’s own, and of one’s own accord interact with the different

Agent-sensitive expressions

23

properties of an agentive subject. They will therefore be referred to as agent-sensitive expressions. An analysis of the semantic contributions that agent-sensitive expressions can make to the meaning of a sentence seems a necessary basis for the study of children’s acquisition of these expressions. What are the semantic properties that define their early systems when using non-nominative ways of expressing agency? The comparison of the German and the English system will reveal that while the contexts that the above expressions relate to are similar, the languages differ with regard to which form can serve which function and with regard to the morphosyntactic properties of the expressions. Apart from a large semantic overlap of the expressions German selbst/selber and English x-self there are no further one-to-one correspondences. This raises interesting questions concerning the developmental paths that the children acquiring either German or English can follow. The child will need to integrate the semantics of the expressions with their morphosyntactic properties and, given the differences between the German and the English system, it is expected that not only individual differences within the two systems but also systematic differences between the systems to be acquired will occur. This section aims at creating a basis for explaining why a child begins to use a form x rather than a form y or why the particular semantic contribution that a construction can make is preferred over that of a different construction. It will be illustrated in the following that compared to German von selbst/von allein and English by x-self, the German expressions von sich aus/aus eigenem Antrieb and English of one’s own accord relate to specific contexts which may not be frequent in child-oriented discourse. They were included in this section as the children will integrate these expressions into their systems eventually, and it is of theoretical interest which expressions and, thereby, which properties are relevant in the children’s earlier systems. In the following section a description of the basic notions is given regarding the contexts of occurrence and the semantic contribution that the expressions allein, von selbst/von allein, by x-self, on one’s own and of one’s own accord can make to the meaning of a sentence. It will be shown that all expressions discussed in this section interact with the properties of an agentive subject and, thereby, both with the degree of transitivity encoded and with the notions of volitionality and causativity.

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

4.1. Basic notions The use of selbst/selber by the German children and x-self by the English children is by far not the only possibility that the two languages provide in order to express an adverbial exclusive meaning. If children wish to express that they as opposed to some other participant of their discourse want to carry out a certain activity, or if they wish to comment on an activity that they have carried out without the help or assistance of an adult, several expressions are at the children’s disposal. Children can, for instance, use German allein (37) or English by x-self (38). (37) Ich habe meine Schuhe allein angezogen. I have.1SG my shoePL alone put.on.PART ‘I put on my shoes by myself’. (38) I put on my shoes by myself. It will be illustrated in the following section that a group of expressions exists in both German and English and most probably in a wide variety of other languages that function in a way similar to the exclusive use of the core member of the group of intensifiers. All of these expressions make similar semantic contributions to the meaning of a sentence, function in a syntactically similar way and interact with the agentive properties of the subject noun phrase. Although a prototypical agent in the sense of Dowty (1991) is the most likely candidate for the subject in sentences such as (37) and (38), sentences with inanimate non-agentive subjects are also common, see (39a) and (40a). It will be argued here that the meaning of such sentences is achieved by a specific way of interaction of the expressions von selbst/von allein and by itself with the inanimate subject noun phrase in a way that compared to identical sentences without these expressions, see (39b) and (40b), the cause for the process is unknown. (39) a. Die Tür ist von selbst/von allein zugefallen. the door be.3SG by.itself close.PART ‘The door closed by itself’. b. Die Tür ist zugefallen. the door be.3SG close.PART ‘The door closed’. (40) a. The door closed by itself. b. The door closed.

Agent-sensitive expressions

25

The English expressions x-self, by x-self, on one’s own, of one’s own accord and German expressions selbst/allein, von selbst/von allein, von sich aus, aus eigenem Antrieb can all be used adverbial exclusively. These expressions can interact with either the whole concept of an agent or with selected properties of an agentive subject. Depending on which properties are involved, the expressions display various degrees of specification. Parallel to adverbial inclusive and adnominal intensifiers, agent-sensitive expressions are sensitive to semantic parameters of transitivity which interact with the semantic contribution that the expressions make to the meaning of a sentence.13 Before the individual expressions are discussed in more detail, some examples will be given in order to illustrate what is meant by the term agent-sensitive and how the expressions clustering around the adverbial exclusive use of intensifiers are interrelated. For a start their semantic contribution to transitive sentences will be illustrated by some German and English examples. How the meaning of a sentence involving an agent-sensitive expression interacts with different degrees of transitivity is demonstrated in the sections on the individual expressions further below. 4.1.1. Selbst/allein versus von selbst/von allein Sentences (41) and (42) illustrate how selbst/allein in comparison to von selbst/von allein can interact with different aspects of an agentive subject noun phrase. (41) a. Jan hat den Garten selbst/allein umgegraben. ‚Jan dug up the garden himself/by himself’. b. Jans Bruder hat Jan nicht geholfen, den Garten umzugraben. ‘Jan’s brother did not help him to do it’. c. Jans Bruder hat den Garten nicht für Jan umgegraben. ‘Jan’s brother did not dig up the garden for him’. *d. Jans Bruder hat ihm nicht gesagt, dass er es tun soll. ‘Jan’s brother did not tell Jan to dig up the garden’. (42) a. Jan hat den Garten von selbst/von allein umgegraben. ‘Jan dug up the garden of his own accord’. *b. Jans Bruder hat Jan nicht geholfen, den Garten umzugraben. ‘Jan’s brother did not help him to do it’. *c. Jans Bruder hat den Garten nicht für Jan umgegraben. ‚Jan’s brother did not dig up the garden for him’.

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

d. Jans Bruder hat ihm nicht gesagt, dass er es tun soll. ‚Jan’s brother did not tell Jan to dig up the garden’. Roughly speaking, sentence (41a) states that nobody but Jan dug up the garden or that nobody helped him do it and sentence (42a) states that it was Jan’s own idea to dig up the garden. The contexts given in (41b) and (41c) illustrate the two relations ‘anti-assistive’ and ‘anti-delegative’ (see above). If (41b) is an appropiate context for (41a), Jan did not receive help in digging up the garden; if (41a) is embedded in a context like (41c) Jan did not successfully delegate someone to dig up the garden for him.14 Antiassistive and anti-delegative contexts are not compatible with the expressions von selbst/von allein, see (42b) and (42c). These expressions relate to contextual alternatives in which an agent makes the agent named in the sentence act according to the predication, see (42d), and will be referred to as anti-causative. Likewise the expressions selbst/allein cannot relate to anti-causative contexts, see (41d). The major difference between the semantic contribution of selbst/allein in (41a) and von selbst/von allein in (42a) can be examined by a closer look at the relation of the alternative agents to the action that is performed by the subject referent. The alternative referents that the use of selbst/allein evokes in (41a) are relevant in terms of carrying out the same action that Jan is performing, namely digging up the garden. The alternative referents evoked by the use of von selbst/von allein, however, are not directly relevant considering the action that is carried out. Even if they participated in the completion of the action in terms of making Jan do it, Jan is still the one who digs up the garden. 4.1.2. Causative relations Causative relations like that in (42a) are a well-known phenomenon. Peter is performing one kind of action that results in Jan performing another kind of action. While the nature of what Peter did to Jan is left more or less unspecified in the example given above, it is also possible to create scenarios in which a more specified action is described that causes the agent Jan to dig up the garden, see (43). (43) a. Letztes Jahr musste Peter Jan fünfmal erinnern, ...dieses Jahr hat Jan den Garten von selbst15 umgegraben. ‘Last year Jan had to be reminded five times, …this year Jan dug up the garden of his own accord’.

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b. Letztes Jahr musste Peter Jan drohen, ihm kein Geld zu geben, ...dieses Jahr hat Jan den Garten von selbst umgegraben. ‚Last year Peter threatened Jan, …this year Jan dug up the garden of his own accord’. c. Letztes Jahr hat Peter Jan geschlagen, ...dieses Jahr hat Jan den Garten von selbst umgegraben. ‚Last year Peter hit Jan, …this year Jan dug up the garden of his own accord’. d. Letztes Jahr musste das Unkraut erst einen Meter hoch werden, ...dieses Jahr hat Jan den Garten von selbst umgegraben. ‚Last year the weeds grew very high, …this year Jan dug up the garden of his own accord’. The examples suggest that von selbst/von allein do not exclude the possibility that the action was successfully delegated or carried out with assistance as selbst and allein do, but that the expressions exclude the possibility of an external cause like being reminded (43a), threatened (43b) or hit (43c) being identified as the reason for the action to take place. Sentence (43d) illustrates that it need not be the action of another agent that serves as an external cause, but that the cause can also be some other process. The expression von selbst in (43) relates to alternative causative contexts that are excluded as a possible cause for the agent Jan to carry out the action. The following paragraphs will briefly discuss two approaches that link the notion of causativity or causation to that of willfullness and/or volition in delineating the concept of agentivity.16 While many studies have successfully shown that children contrastively employ linguistic devices to refer to prototypical instances of agency or mark deviations thereof (e.g. Slobin 1985; Budwig 1989, 1990), the present study is interested in how children acquire linguistic means that interact with referents that already have an agentive status. In this respect, the notions of causation and volition are relevant in sentences in which an agent-sensitive expression relates to an anti-causative context. The interesting difference to studies generally dealing with the linguistic marking of agency is that children have to become aware of the fact that causation and volition cannot only be part of a larger cluster of properties that are characteristic of agentive referents, but that they can interact more specifically with a sentence’s predication if an agent-sensitive expression is present that relates to an anticausative context.

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

4.1.3. Compositionality of the AGENT proto-role The alternative scenarios evoked by selbst or allein contrast with the whole concept of an agentive subject. In sentences with von selbst/von allein on the other hand, the contextual alternatives contrast with only some aspects of an agentive subject. Dowty’s theory of thematic roles gives an account of the compositionality of two basic thematic proto-roles: that of an AGENT and that of a PATIENT. It will be used here to illustrate how German von selbst/von allein and English of one’s own accord can relate to alternative causes which are excluded. It will be shown that in the case of an animate agentive subject noun phrase this leads to the effect of asserting an internal cause for the process. Inanimate subjects or subjects with the semantic role of THEME are more complex in that an alternative cause is also denied, but the identification of an internal cause is impossible. An action can consist both of a cognitive process or a more concrete or bodily act.17 In sentences like Jan hat den Garten von selbst/von allein umgegraben (Jan dug up the garden of his own accord) the cognitive part of an action can be identified as the cause of the action by the use of such expressions as von selbst/von allein. Jan did not only carry out the motions necessary to complete the act, he also decided to do so. In contrast to the same sentence without an agent-sensitive expression Jan hat den Garten umgegraben (Jan dug up the garden), alternative referents are evoked who could have caused Jan to carry out the task. Jan’s wife or brother could have done something that resulted in Jan mowing the lawn. Dowty (1991) has shown that the thematic role of AGENT (and also that of PATIENT) is best described not in terms of a discrete category but as a prototypical concept. He lists four properties that he believes to be crucial for the concept AGENT, see (44).18 (44) a. volitional involvement in the event or state b. sentience (and/or perception) c. causing an event or change of state in another participant d. movement (relative to the position of another participant) These properties are defined in terms of being likely entailments of the predicate. The subject of a given sentence can be more or less prototypical depending on which of the properties are present. A thematic role such as AGENT is thus defined by such a set of shared entailments about the nominal in subject position of various predicates.

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4.1.4. Von selbst/von allein and volition Regarding the sentences discussed here, the first of the properties Dowty lists is of special interest. The use of von selbst/von allein does not invoke an agent who features as an alternative regarding the completion of the task, but the use of these expressions invokes agents that function as alternative causers of the action to take place. In highly transitive sentences with a human agent such as Jan, see (45), it is generally assumed, but not explicitly stated, that Jan displays all of the properties (44a-d). (45)

Jan hat Peter geschlagen. ‘Jan hit Peter’.

Sentences such as (46) illustrate that contexts can be constructed in which one or more of the properties are missing regarding the referent Jan. (46) a. Am frühen Abend war Jan noch im Besitz all seiner Kräfte, ...da hat er Peter von selbst geschlagen. ‚Early in the evening, Jan was still in control of himself, …he then hit Peter of his own accord’. b. Nachdem er drei Ecstasy-Tabletten geschluckt hatte, war Jan noch bei Bewusstsein, konnte sich aber nicht mehr willentlich steuern, ...da hat er Peter *von selbst geschlagen. ‚After swallowing ecstasy, Peter was still conscious, but lost control over his movements, …he then hit Peter *of his own accord. c. Als Jan schon bewusstlos war, hat er sich noch einmal ruckartig bewegt, ...da hat er Peter *von selbst geschlagen. ‚After Jan had lost consciousness, he moved involuntarily, …he then hit Peter *of his own accord. d. Als Jan schon bewusstlos war, hat er sich noch ruckartig bewegt und ...da hat er wild *von selbst um sich geschlagen. ‚After Jan had lost consciousness, he suddenly moved, …he then kicked about *of his own accord’. In sentence (46a) all of the four properties listed above are present regarding the agent Jan, sentence (46b) is lacking the property of volition and sentence (46c) is lacking both the properties of volition and sentience. Sentence (46d) finally only displays the property of movement. The sentences show that only if the property of volition can be attributed to the

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referent of the subject noun phrase can the agentive subject be linked up with the expressions von selbst/von allein or of one’s own accord. When the agent of a sentence lacks volition, the sentences in (46) become unacceptable if used together with von selbst/von allein or of one’s own accord. The interesting point to be noted about the sentences in (46) is that it seems unusual but not impossible to negate the property ‘volition’ considering an agentive subject. The use of von selbst/von allein or of one’s own accord, on the other hand, makes the absence of the property ‘volition’ semantically impossible and the sentences become odd. The four expressions rule out an external cause and assign the property ‘volition’ to the human referent of a subject noun phrase. A human agent can make a decision to carry out an action which implies that the action is both volitional and conscious. In contrast to selbst/selber and allein, the expressions von selbst/von allein are not agent-sensitive in that they interact with the whole concept of an agentive subject noun phrase, but in that they interact mainly with one property of an agentive subject noun phrase. In the sentences discussed here, the expressions von selbst/von allein highlight the property of volition. The discussion of the individual expressions will show that examples can be found where the referent of the subject noun phrase is clearly not a candidate for exerting volition. In many cases the subjects of sentences with these expressions are not agents. The important point to be made about von selbst/von allein is that the alternative causes which are invoked by the use of these expressions are relevant in terms of (not) initiating the action to happen. The difference of von selbst/von allein to the expressions selbst/selber and allein becomes especially clear if the respective sentences are negated. As Siemund (1997) has argued, the effect of negation as in (47) does not affect the truth conditions in terms of whether the action was carried out or not. Rather sentence (47) seems to express that the action was successfully delegated in parts or as a whole. (47) Jan hat den Garten nicht selbst/allein umgegraben. ‚Jan did not dig up the garden himself/by himself’. Another observation that Siemund makes is that the negation in sentences like (47) interacts with the subject noun phrase. Disregarding the possibility that allein can be interpreted as an adverb meaning alone, it follows from (47) that it was not (only) Jan who dug up the garden. While in (47) negation does not influence whether the action is executed or not,

Agent-sensitive expressions

31

but makes a statement about who did the digging, negation in (48) does not affect the fact that Jan carried out the action. (48) Jan hat den Garten nicht von selbst/von allein umgegraben. ‚Jan did not dig up the garden of his own accord’. 4.1.5. Causativity and volition In terms of alternative agents it follows from (48) that someone else made Jan dig up the garden, but it was still Jan who did it. The previous example illustrates that the notions of causation and willfullness play a substancial role in the sentence’s semantic analysis. While most attempts at the decomposition of words into a finite set of semantic primitives like the analysis of the verb kill into CAUSE TO BECOME NOT ALIVE have failed at some level (e.g. Katz 1966; Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976), causation is recognized as a crucial factor considering the relation of sentences like those in (49) and (50). (49) a. b. (50) a. b.

Peter closed the door. The door closed. Peter made Jan read a book. Jan read a book.

In (49a) and (50a) Peter is identified as the cause of an action to take place. In (49b) and (50b) the cause of the action is left unidentified. In contrast to inanimate referents as in (49b), Jackendoff (1993) points out that prototypical agents can act both intentionally and unintentionally. A sentence like (51) is therefore ambiguous between a reading in which John acted on purpose and a reading in which he did not act purposefully. (51) Jan rolled down the hill. (52) [CAUSE ([JOHN], [GO([JOHN], [DOWN THE HILL])])] If the action described in (51) is not the result of John’s willfulness, he rolls down the hill because he has stumbled or is pushed, much the same as a stone would be rolling down the hill. In the intentional reading, John rolls down the hill because he wishes to do so. Jackendoff (1976) has proposed a semantic representation like (52) for the intentional reading of (51). In his discussion of compositional event structures, Jackendoff (1993) has argued

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

that the CAUSE function may either have a [THING] or an [EVENT] as its first argument. In the examples given below, either the noun phrase Peter or the noun phrase Peter’s blowing bubbles represents the first argument of the formal representations given, see (53b) and (54b). Representations of the examples used in this section are given in (55)-(58). (53) a. Peter made us laugh. b. [Event CAUSE ([Thing PETER], [Event WE LAUGH])] (54) a. Peter’s blowing bubbles made us laugh. b. [Event CAUSE ([Event PETER BLOW BUBBLES], [Event WE LAUGH])] (55) a. Peter made Jan dig up the garden. b. [Event CAUSE ([Thing PETER], [Event JAN DIG])] (56) a. Peter’s threatening made Jan dig. b. [Event CAUSE ([Event PETER MAKE THREAT], [Event JAN DIG])] (57) a. Peter’s hitting Jan made Jan dig. b. [Event CAUSE ([Event PETER HIT JAN], [Event JAN DIG])] (58) a. The growth of the weeds made Jan dig. b. [Event CAUSE ([Event WEEDS GROW], [Event JAN DIG])] For a sentence like (59a), and parallel to (51) and the examples given above, it seems tempting to insert Jan as a first argument, see (59b). (59) a. Jan dug up the garden of his own accord. b. [CAUSE ([Jan], [Event JAN DIG]) As Jackendoff (1993) himself has pointed out, the problem with this kind of solution is that the intentional reading of (51) would be something like John rolled himself down the hill which entails the claim that the intransitive verb roll and other such verbs are lexically ambiguous. Thus (59b) would be the semantic repesentation of (59a) and an intentional reading of the sentence Jan dug up the garden. In an attempt to find a more elegant solution to this problem, Jackendoff (1993) presents a semantic representation of different kinds of events and actions in which he relates the notion of willfulness not generally to the notion of an actor or causation but describes willfulness as a possible feature of actions. Action sentences are analyzed into containing both an [EVENT] and an [ACTION] constituent. The modifier WILLFULL appears in the verb phrase and is not attached to the [ACTOR] in [ACTOR]-[ACTION] pairs. According to

Agent-sensitive expressions

33

Jackendoff, an analysis that attaches the marker WILLFULL to the [ACTION] constituent is to be preferred since syntactic expressions of willfullness are attached to the verb phrase and not the subject. In sentences like (60) expressions of willfullness like deliberately or on purpose are attached to the verb phrase of the sentence and not to the subject John. Note that at first glance sentences like (60) seem to have much the same meaning as the sentence in (61). (60) What John did was roll down the hill deliberately/on purpose/accidentally. (61) What John did was roll down the hill of his own accord. It could be argued that of one’s own accord is a manner adverb much in the same way as it could be argued that intensifiers belong to the word class of adverbs. While there are some arguments in favor of a categorization of the intensifiers selbst/selber and x-self as adverbs, the same objection that can be made against it (cf. Siemund 2000) holds true for a rejection of treating other agent-sensitive expressions such as English of one’s own accord and German von selbst/von allein as manner adverbs. Adverbial exclusive intensifiers evoke alternative referents which contrast with the referent of the subject noun phrase which is characterized as central. Agentsensitive expressions do the same in evoking a set of alternative causes that are characterized as peripheriphal with regard to the referent of the subject noun phrase. This feature is completely absent from expressions like deliberately, on purpose or accidentally. As the term ‘manner adverbs’ suggests, deliberately, on purpose and accidentally describe the manner in which the action was carried out by the referent Peter. The expressions do not interact further in any obvious way with actual or associated referents of the discourse in which they appear. Apart from this, Jackendoff’s analysis goes well with the observation made here, namely that expressions like von selbst/von allein and of one’s own accord are sensitive to whether an action is carried out willfully or not, and that the willfulnesss of an action is a conceptually independent entity that can be separated from the agent who completes the action in terms of the physical motions necessary. As was already illustrated above, it is not without difficulties that sentences with agent-sensitive expressions can be adapted to a formal representation. Despite this fact an attempt has been made to show that the expressions discussed here interact both with the notion of causativity and the willfullness of an agent. It is an interesting point to note that in his analysis, Jackendoff only permits AGENTS and THEMES to fill the

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

position of ACTOR in ACTOR-ACTION pairs. It is impossible to appreciate the implications of his theory in more depth here, but the next point to be discussed is how the expressions von selbst and von allein interact with subjects that are not AGENTS but THEMES. 4.1.6. Von selbst/von allein with inanimate referents The expressions von selbst/von allein and by x-self can also interact with inanimate subjects, see (62). (62) Das Buch ist von selbst/von allein vom Regal gefallen, ...niemand hat es heruntergeworfen. ‘The book fell of the shelf by itself, …nobody pushed it’. This raises the question how the semantic analysis offered above will fit such cases. While it seems unproblematic to construct anti-causative contexts for such sentences, the claim that the expressions assert an internal cause is highly problematic. How can an expression be said to highlight the property of volition of the referent of a subject noun phrase if this referent is inanimate? First of all note that the first claim can be argued for by providing a suitable context. In a sentence with an inanimate subject, von selbst and von allein function to rule out an external cause which is illustrated by the context given in (62). The same context is unsuitable for an identical sentence which is lacking the expression von selbst or von allein, see (63). (63) Das Buch ist vom Regal gefallen, ???...niemand hat es heruntergeworfen.19 The book fell of the shelf, … ???...nobody pushed it. Regarding the exclusion of an external cause, the interaction of von selbst and von allein with an inanimate referent resembles that with an animate referent. On the other hand, the question of whether the expressions also highlight the volitionality of the action must be negated. It is of course impossible to argue that a book fell off a shelf because it just decided to do so. However, many speakers claim about sentences like (62) that a supernatural force seems to be involved, thereby attributing some agentive properties to a referent like the book. While it is tempting to argue

Agent-sensitive expressions

35

that these speakers show some awareness of the semantic impact of von selbst and von allein with an animate subject, if pressed, most informants declare that the sentence in (62) means something like it is unclear what caused the book to fall down the shelf. An interesting point to note here is that the German expression wie von selbst relates even more readily to the notion of a supernatural force, see (64). (64) Das Buch ist wie von selbst vom Regal gefallen, ...als wäre es von Geisterhand geschoben worden. ‚The book fell of the shelf as if of its own accord, …as if pushed by a ghost’. One attempt at explaining the similar intuitions of German and English speakers concerning the meaning of a sentence like (62) can be made by examining the impact of the syntactic properties of the expression within the whole sentence. A possible hypothesis is that the quasi-agentive properties that seem to be associated with the inanimate subject in a sentence like (62) are due to the syntactic structure of the agent-sensitive expressions which for instance makes them similar to the by-phrase in passives. While all agent-sensitive expressions are adjuncts, selbst and allein differ from von selbst/von allein in that the latter two have the structure of prepositional phrases. Unlike most prepositional phrases, however, von selbst and von allein do not have a noun phrase as a complement, but the intensifier selbst and the adverb allein. The same is true for the corresponding expression English by itself, although it could be argued that itself represents a reflexive pronoun rather than an intensifier. Generally, by-phrases are not limited to a specific thematic role; they very often introduce the agent of an action in a sentence with a non-prototypical subject. In (65b) the by-phrase ‘von Peter’ introduces the agent which appears in subject position in (65a) and represents the agent of the action. (65) a. Peter rollt den Ball. ‘Peter is rolling the ball’. b. Der Ball wird (von Peter) gerollt. ‘The ball is being rolled by Peter’. (66) Der Ball ist von selbst gerollt. ‘The ball rolled by itself’.

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The subject bears the thematic role of THEME in (65b) and is thus nonprototypical in nature. In (66) the prepositional phrase does not introduce a further argument, but is in association with the subject that is also nonprototypical bearing the thematic role of THEME. While in the passive sentence (65b) an agent is introduced by the by-phrase, the semantic effect of von selbst in (66) is somewhat similar in that many speakers’ intuitions are that the referent of the subject noun phrase the ball is somehow involved in the completion of the action. It is thus conceived as more agentive as in the identical sentence in which the expression von selbst is missing. The same is true for the English expression by itself in (67). (67) The door opened by itself. 4.1.7. Summary Agent-sensitive expressions can be differentiated into two groups. Either the expression used relates the referent of the subject noun phrase to contexts in which alternative referents carry out the relevant action, or the alternative contexts feature referents that are relevant in causing an action to happen. For the language-learning child scenarios of the latter sort (anticausative contexts) can be expected to become important at a later phase in development than expressions of the former sort (anti-assistive contexts and autonomous contexts). Regarded from a perspective of discourse function, it seems plausible to assume that before the child acquires linguistic means to express that his/her agency is not caused by an external agent, s/he will acquire means to express that s/he wants to carry out an action instead of someone else or without the interference of someone else. It can be expected that the children in the study develop their use of intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions mainly within anti-assistive and autonomous contexts. 4.2. Inner structure and overview of syntax English and German agent-sensitive expressions display various degrees of morphological and syntactic complexity. In English, all expressions are either morphologically or syntactically complex, expressions like by x-self are both. Since all English agent-sensitive expressions involve either x-self or a possessive pronoun, they all agree in person, number and gender with

Agent-sensitive expressions

37

the corresponding subject noun phrase. In German, some of the expressions are syntactically complex, but von sich aus is the only one that agrees in person and number with the corresponding subject noun phrase since it involves the pronouns mich/dich/sich/uns/euch. All of the agent-sensitive expressions listed here are stressed and bear the sentence accent, see (68) and (69). (68) Er hat den Kuchen SELBST/alLEIN gebacken. ‚He made the cake himSELF/by himSELF/on his OWN’. (69) Er hat den Kuchen von SELBST/von alLEIN/von SICH aus/ aus EIgenem ANtrieb gebacken. ‚He made the cake of his own acCORD’. Syntactically the expressions tend to appear behind the finite verb, which in English is most often sentence-final. There is a tendency to interpret sentences in which the intensifier selbst/selber or x-self appears behind the finite verb as adverbial inclusive. For the inclusive reading of (70) the whole statement made by the verb phrase is relevant. The sentence states that the speaker has also used a whole bottle of shampoo washing the dog. (70) Ich habe SELBST den Hund mit einer ganzen Flasche Shampoo gewaschen. ‚I have myself washed the dog using a whole bottle of shampoo’. The exclusive reading of sentence (71) rests predominantly on the meaning of the verb, the result of the action is a washed dog, irrespective of the amount of shampoo used. (71) Ich habe den Hund mit einer ganzen Flasche Shampoo selbst gewaschen. ‚I have washed the dog myself using a whole bottle of shampoo’. The syntactic position of an intensifier is not the only factor that influences whether an inclusive or an exclusive reading of an intensifier is favored. Later in this section it will be shown that if a sentence with an intensifier scores high on a number of transitivity parameters, that is, if a sentence can be characterized as a typical instance of a transitive sentence, it is more likely to have an exclusive reading. König (1991) and Siemund (1997) have argued that intensifiers belong to the class of focus particles

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and can hence be regarded as a special kind of adverb. There are a couple of features that characterize intensifiers as being different from other focus particles, like their ability to inflect, but on the whole, adverbial intensifiers syntactically and semantically function in many ways parallel to the class of adverbs and are part of the verb phrase. All of the agent-sensitive expressions listed here can be classified as verb phrase adjuncts. As the examples below show, clefting does not affect agent-sensitive expressions; the relative position of the expressions is not changed, see (72). (72) It was Peter who made the cake by himself/on his own/of his own accord. The same is true for topicalization of the verb phrase, see (73), or verb phrase anaphora, see (74). (73) Making cakes by himself/on his own/of his own accord, Peter likes to do. (74) Peter made a cake by himself/on his own/of his own accord and I did so too. In the case of topicalization (73) the position of the verb phrase is filled by the pro-form do and the entire verb phrase includig the agent-sensitive expression is moved to the left. In (74) do again substitutes the entire verb phrase, parallel to the previous example the agent-sensitive expression behaves as a co-constituent. Agent-sensitive expressions tend to occupy the same positions as adverbs do. In German this is either behind the auxiliary, see (75), or in a pre-final position, see (76). The pre-final position is favored both by adverbs and agent-sensitive expressions. (75) Ich bin von selbst/schnell aufgestanden. ‚I got up of my own accord/quickly’. (76) Auf einmal hat sich der Computer von heruntergefahren. ‚The computer has switched off by itself/silently’.

selbst/lautlos

In English, adverbs usually occur in sentence-final position, see (77), and this is also the preferred position for agent-sensitive expressions. While the position behind the auxiliary is possible, it is clearly dispreferred. In

Agent-sensitive expressions

39

this position the occurence of the intensifier x-self is often problematic, the other agent-sensitive expressions are clearly not allowed, see (78). (77) The computer has switched off by itself/silently. (78) The computer has quickly/*itself/*by itself switched off. It should be mentioned that German selbst, allein and English by x-self can also function as focus particles, see (79)-(81). Although this use is clearly related to the function of allein and by x-self that is central in the present study, it is of marginal interest here, as none of the children in the investigated age range used the expressions in the function of a scalar particle. (79) Selbst Emma hatte keinen Hunger. ‚Even Emma wasn’t hungry’. (80) Allein der Kreditbedarf für das laufende Jahr beträgt gut vier Mill. Mark.20 (81) Doubt by itself is not the final test of truth.21 In the following, the semantic contribution of the German agentsensitive expressions allein, von selbst, von allein, von sich aus and aus eigenem Antrieb and of the English expressions by x-self, on one’s own and on one’s own accord will be examined. Table 4 and Table 5 list the expressions and intensifiers in relation to the telicity of the situation and the range of application. From top to bottom the expressions are listed according to their specificity: the further to the bottom of the list an expression occurs, the more specific the referent of the subject noun phrase has to be in terms of a high position in the animacy hierarchy. Note that the tables are meant to illustrate the similarities and differences of the relevant expressions. The fact that the degree of animacy of the referent of the subject noun phrase appears on both axes illustrates that both the notions of aspectuality and animacy contribute to the description of a phenomenon that is largely prototypical in nature. A two-dimensional model can therefore pick out only the most relevant factors that influence the way in which these expressions contribute to the meaning of a sentence. From a syntactic point of view, both the English and the German system of agent-sensitive expressions include complex and simple constructions. In the case of German, the six expressions can be ordered into three groups: the two syntactically simple expressions selbst/selber and allein, which

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Intensifiers and agent-sensitive expressions

readily interact with both telic and atelic situations albeit with a shift in meaning and, in the case of allein, also in word class when atelic situations are described. The four remaining expressions are syntactically complex, all of them having the form of prepositional phrases. While two of the expressions, von selbst and von allein, can be used with inanimate subjects, von sich aus and aus eigenem Antrieb do not take subjects that are inanimate unless the contexts are highly specific. Table 4. Agent-sensitive expressions in German Telic exclusive/inclusive22 Er hat den Garten selbst umgegraben./Er hat selbst Gärten umgegraben.

Atelic inclusive/(exclusive) Sie fährt selbst Auto./ (Sie schwimmt selbst)

State inclusive Sie hat selbst Familie.

exclusive/predicative Er hat den Garten allein umgegraben.

predicative/(exclusive) Sie fährt allein Auto. (Sie schwimmt allein.)

predicative Sie ist allein.

anti-causative: animate referents Er hat den Garten von selbst umgegraben.

anti-causative: animate referents Sie schwimmt von selbst.

anti-causative: inanimate referents Die Tür ist von selbst zugefallen.

anti-causative: inanimate referents Das Rad dreht sich von selbst.

anti-causative Er hat den Garten von sich aus umgegraben.

anti-causative Sie schwimmt von sich aus.

anti-causative Er hat den Garten aus eigenem Antrieb umgegraben.

anti-causative Sie schwimmt aus eigenem Antrieb.

Sie [Kirchenmusik] ist von sich aus ökumenisch.23

Table 5 shows that the English system is somewhat denser in that fewer expressions exist. Therefore, some of the expressions take over several functions compared to those of the German system.

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Table 5. Agent-sensitive expressions in English Telic exclusive/inclusive He dug up the garden himself./ He dug up gardens himself.

Atelic inclusive/(exclusive) She drives her car herself./ (She swims herself.)

State inclusive She has a family herself.

exclusive/predicative: animate referents He dug up the garden by himself./ He went to the shop by himself.

predicative/(exclusive) She drives her car by herself./ (She swims by herself.)

predicative She is by herself.

anti-causative: inanimate referents The door closed by itself.

anti-causative: inanimate referents The wheel turns by itself.

predicative The tree stands in the middle of the lawn by itself.

exclusive/predicative: animate referents He dug up the garden on his own./ He went to the shop on his own.

adverb/(exclusive): animate referents She swims on her own./ (She drives on her own.)

predicative: animate referents She is on her own.

anti-causative: inanimate referents The door closed on its own.

anti-causative: inanimate referents The wheel turns on its own.

predicative: inanimate referents The tree stands in the middle of the lawn on its own.

anti-causative She left the convent of her own accord.24 The lift went down of its own accord.25

anti-causative He never acted of his own accord.26 The boat rocked gently of its own accord.27

As will be illustrated in more detail below, the German intensifier selbst/selber corresponds to the English intensifier x-self in all contexts. German allein can be translated into English by x-self or on one’s own when the noun phrase the expression interacts with has an animate referent. In cases of inanimate referents by itself and on its own behave like German von selbst and von allein in the majority of contexts. In contrast to by itself and on its own, von selbst and von allein cannot be used for states as the German expressions are not polysemic in a sense that they can also mean

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‘alone’ or ‘without company’. German von sich aus and aus eigenem Antrieb correspond to English of one’s own accord and mostly interact with human referents in telic and atelic event structures but not states. 4.3. Selbst/selber and x-self The core members of the group of agent-sensitive expressions are German selbst/selber and English x-self. By and large these expressions function in fairly parallel ways when used as adverbial exclusive intensifiers. Syntactically a few differences stem from the fact that German is a V2 language. If the intensifier of a sentence is topicalized, subject and verb must be inversed in German, see (82). In English, this is not the case, but the adverbial interpretation of the intensifier is lost, see (83). (82) a. Ich habe den Garten nicht selbst umgegraben. b. Selbst habe ich den Garten nicht umgegraben. (83) a. I did not dig up the garden myself. b. Myself, I did not dig up the garden. The most obvious difference between German selbst and English x-self is the morphological complexity of the English term. It blocks ambiguity in sentences that can have both an adnominal and an adverbial exclusive reading in German, see (84), since in English the agreement markers signalling number, person and gender can be used to identify the noun phrase with which the intensifier interacts, see (85a) and (85b). (84) Ich habe den Papst selbst gesehen. (85) a. I saw the pope himself. b. I saw the pope myself. It is also usually impossible in English to combine a reflexive pronoun with an intensifier which is an option in German, see (86). (86) a. Ich habe mich selbst im Spiegel gesehen. b. I saw myself *myself in the mirror. As illustrated in Table 4 and Table 5, the less telic a sentence becomes, the more likely the intensifier is interpreted not as adverbial exclusive but as adverbial inclusive. Recall from earlier in this chapter that the syntactic

Agent-sensitive expressions

43

position of the intensifier also has some impact on its interpretation as adverbial exclusive or adverbial inclusive. Considering the semantic contribution of adverbial exclusive intensifiers on sentences, it only seems natural that the linguistic structure of a situation in which an action could theoretically be carried out by someone else is a transitive sentence with a human or an animate subject. In the following, the German and English sentences with selbst and x-self as displayed in Table 4 and Table 5 will be discussed. In most cases the examples provided function in largely parallel ways in the two languages. The digging up of a garden in (87a,b) is a prototypical example of a transitive event, the adverbial exclusive interpretation of the intensifier in both languages is evident without further context. (87) a. Er hat den Garten selbst umgegraben. b. He dug up the garden himself. In order to give the same sentence an inclusive reading, it is better to embed the sentence in a richer context (88a,b) or an indefinite object has to be used (89a,b). The use of an indefinite object in sentence (89) has an effect of detransitivizing the sentence since it is no longer telic in the sense of sentence (87). (88) a. She is not the only one who knows how to dig up her garden; yesterday, he dug up the garden himself. b. Sie ist nicht die einzige, die weiß, wie man diesen Garten umgräbt; er hat den Garten selbst umgegraben. (89) a. Don’t tell him what to do. He dug up gardens himself. b. Du brauchst ihm keine Tips zu geben. Er hat selbst Gärten umgegraben. A decreasing degree of transitivity goes hand in hand with an adverbial inclusive reading. In many cases, adverbial intensifiers in atelic situations have either a purely inclusive reading or are ambiguous between an inclusive and an exclusive reading. Atelic situations can only have an exclusive reading when the action can be carried out with help from someone else or if it can be delegated completely. While it is possible to receive help or assistance when being transported by the means of a car, see (90a), it is rather unlikely that the same kind of help can be received in the act of swimming, see (91a). On the other hand, both atelic events are easily

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compatible with an inclusive reading of the intensifier, see (90b) and (91b). For states, only an inclusive reading is possible, see (92). (90) Sie fährt selbst Auto, ... ‘She’s driving her car herself’, ... a. ...sie lässt sich nicht fahren. ...’she’s not having someone drive her’. b. ...du brauchst ihr nicht zu erklären, wie man die Handbremse anzieht. ...’she doesn’t need instructions’. (91) Sie schwimmt selbst, ... ‚She swims herself’, ... a. ...??? du brauchst ihr nicht zu helfen. ...??? ’you don’t have to assist her’. b. ...sie weiß, dass Wasser nass ist. ...’she knows that water is wet’. (92) Sie hat selbst Familie. ‚She has a family herself’. It will be discussed in more detail in the results section that for the language-learning child, an adverbial exclusive reading of intensifiers is less restricted as there is quite a difference between which kind of process can be appropiately assisted when the agent is a child compared to when the agent is an adult. Hopper and Thompson (1980) describe transitivity not in terms of a general property of an entire clause in which an agent acts upon a patient, but as a number of component parts that are encoded by different grammatical means in the languages of the world. As transitivity is not seen as a discrete category but as a prototypical entity, sentences can be transitive to varying degrees. Table 6 lists the different components that add to the transitivity of a clause. A (agent) and O (object) are used for the referents in a two-participant clause without further grammatical implications about the relation of the arguments to the verb. Regarding the sentences discussed here, Er hat den Garten selbst umgegraben (He dug up the garden himself), ranks high on the scale of semantic parameters of transitivity. Only naming some of the transitivity parameters, the sentence features two participants and describes a telic action that is volitional, the sentence is also affirmative.

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Table 6. Semantic parameters of transitivity28 participants kinesis aspect punctuality volitionality affirmation mode agency affectedness of O individuation of O

high 2 or more participants, A and O action telic punctual volitional affirmative realis A high in potency O totally affected O highly individuated

low 1 participant non-action atelic non-punctual non-volitional negative irrealis A low in potency O not affected O non-individuated

It is interesting to note that the sentence also ranks high concerning Hopper and Thompson’s last parameter that differentiates between individuated and non-individuated objects. The difference between individuated and non-individuated objects is based on the patient’s distinctness from the agent and its own background. In the examples given below, sentence (93) includes a definite O, sentence (94) an indefinite O. (93) John spilled the water. ‘John hat das Wasser verschüttet’. (94) John spilled water. ‘John hat Wasser verschüttet’. In (93) the action can be described as more effectively transferred in that no matter how much water John was carrying, it is implied that he spilled the whole amount. In (94), on the other hand, only some of the total amount of water was lost. It was mentioned above that the difference between a definite object in Er hat den Garten selbst umgegraben (He dug up the garden himself) and an indefinite object in Er hat selbst Gärten umgegraben (He dug up gardens himself) results in a less transitive sentence in the case of a sentence with an indefinite object. As a consequence, the intensifier in the sentence can more easily be interpreted as having an adverbial inclusive meaning. The sentences in (90) and (91), which are ambiguous between an adverbial exclusive and an adverbial inclusive reading, also rank lower in transitivity. In sentences like Sie fährt selbst Auto (She’s driving her car herself) the action cannot be described as being telic or punctual. In sentences like Sie schwimmt selbst (She swims herself) only one participant is present and and an adverbial exclusive reading is almost impossible.

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Sentences like Sie hat selbst Familie (She has a family herself) depict states that cannot be telic and are both non-punctual and non-volitional; an adverbial inclusive reading is the only possible interpretation. The adverbial exclusive intensifiers German selbst/selber and English xself are the core members of a group of expressions that are sensitive to semantic parameters of transitivity. Depending on whether a sentence is a prototypical example of a transitive sentence in this sense or not, the expressions selbst/selber and x-self favor either an adverbial exclusive or an adverbial inclusive interpretation. If a sentence ranks high on the transitivity scale, the expressions tend to have an adverbial exclusive meaning. If a sentence ranks low on the transitivity scale, the same expressions tend to have an adverbial inclusive meaning. Sentences that have neither very high nor very low values of transitivity are typically ambiguous. It was argued in the previous section that the contexts in which adverbial inclusive intensifiers tend to occur usually have a complex structure and are unlikely to be regularly represented in young children’s discourse. The adverbial exclusive use of intensifiers, on the other hand, relates to contexts that are attractive for a child that is developing towards an independent agent. 4.4. Allein, by x-self and on one’s own While the core members of the group of agent-sensitive expressions, selbst/selber and x-self function in very similar ways concerning their syntactic and semantic properties, German allein and English by x-self/on one’s own, overlap to a much lesser degree. The differences are due to both syntactic and semantic reasons. Concerning syntax, allein is a simple expression and consists of only one word while by x-self/on one’s own is syntactically more complex and represents a prepositional phrase. Similar to selbst/selber, allein occurs post-finite in syntactic positions that can be occupied by manner adverbs such as hervorragend, see (95). (95) Sarah hat die Hochzeit allein/hervorragend vorbereitet. Sarah has the wedding alone/well organize.PART ‘Sarah organized the wedding alone/well’. English by x-self/on one’s own can occupy those positions in which prepositional phrases occur, most often this is sentence-final, see (96a). Topicalization results in ungrammatical structures, see (96b).

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(96) a. Sarah prepared the meal by herself/on her own/in the kitchen/quickly. b. By herself/On her own/???In the kitchen/Quickly, Sarah prepared the meal. Note that with the use as an exclusive focus particle both allein and by x-self can also occur behind any noun phrase that they interact with, see (97) and (98). (97) Das schlechte Essen allein wäre kein Grund gewesen, abzufahren. (98) The bad food by itself would not have caused their departure. As the examples in Table 4 illustrate, the adverb allein can also be used adverbial exclusively. For English the examples in Table 5 illustrate that by x-self can also be used both as an adverb and adverbial exclusively. Parallel to the intensifiers selbst/selber and x-self, allein and by x-self shift function in relation to the degree of transitivity expressed. Additionally, by itself and by themselves overlap to a certain extent with German von selbst and von allein. When used with inanimate subjects, the expressions by itself and by themselves evoke alternative causes which would be an impossible interpretation of German allein. It should be mentioned at this point that the English adverb with the meaning of ‘without company’, alone, in contrast to German allein cannot replace an adverbial exclusive intensifier. The English expressions by x-self and on one’s own on the other hand can both mean ‘without company’ and ‘without help or assistance’. German allein and English by x-self and on one’s own when used as an adverb syntactically behave as such and preferably occur post-finite. It is possible to use the adverb allein in sentences that display various degrees of transitivity to the effect that the expressions mean that the referent of the subject noun phrase was without company, see (99b), (100b), (101b) and (102). (99) Er hat den Garten allein umgegraben, ‚He dug up the garden by himself/on his own’, a. …niemand hat ihm geholfen. …’nobody helped him’. b.…die anderen waren schon gegangen. ...’all others had left’. (100) Sie fährt allein Auto, ... ‚She drives her car by herself’, ...

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a. ...der Fahrlehrer braucht nicht mehr einzugreifen. ...’the driving teacher does not have to assist her any longer’. b....ihr Mitfahrer ist ausgestiegen. …’the others got out of the car’. (101) Sie schwimmt allein, ... ‚She swims by herself/on her own’, ... a. ...? sie braucht keine Hilfe. ...? ’she does not need assistance’. b. ...morgens mag sie keine Gesellschaft. …’in the morning she likes to be alone’. (102) Sie ist allein. ‚She is by herself/on her own’. Parallel to the adverbial intensifier, an exclusive reading of allein and by x-self/on one’s own is most likely in transitive sentences. While in (99) the interpretation of allein or by himself/on his own meaning ‘without company’ is possible, this reading is dispreferred. The adverbial exclusive interpretation of allein or by himself/on his own parallel to exclusive selbst/selber or by x-self seems much more natural in this example. In (100) an adverbial exclusive reading is possible when an appropiate context is given (100a). Thus, in (101) a predicative reading of allein or by herself/on her own is strongly preferred, unless a context is constructed that licenses assistance in the act of swimming. For (102) an adverbial exclusive reading of allein or by herself/on her own is clearly blocked. In the discussion of the possible uses of German allein and English by x-self it is implied that if used adverbial exclusively, the expressions relate to anti-assistive contexts. In contrast to the adverbial exclusive use of the expressions German selbst/selber and English x-self, which can relate both to anti-assistive and anti-delegative contexts, allein and by x-self do not relate to contextual alternatives that imply that one person had another person do something. The relatedness of predicative (anti-commitative) and adverbial exclusive (anti-assistive) allein and by x-self/on one’s own is also reflected by the fact that the two meanings are compatible. In (103a) allein or by herself can either mean that nobody assisted Julia in driving the mower, see (103b), or it is possible to interpret the expressions in a sense that while driving the mower, Julia is without company, see (103c). The interpretation of allein or by herself as an adverb entails the interpretation of allein or by herself as having an adverbial exclusive meaning. If Julia was alone while driving the mower, she also must do the job without assistance, see (103d). The reverse, of course, is not necessarily entailed.

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While it is possible that Julia carried out the action without assistance, it need not be the case that she was without company while doing so, see (103e). (103) a. Julia fährt den Mähdrescher allein. ‚Julia drives the mower by herself’. b. Es hat ihr niemand geholfen. ‘Nobody helped her’. c. Es war sonst niemand da. ‚Nobody else was present’. d. Es war niemand da, der ihr helfen könnte. ‚Nobody was present who could have helped her’. e. Niemand hat ihr geholfen, aber alle haben zugesehen. ‚Nobody helped her, but all watched her’. The situation described above is by no means surprising, as restrictive or exclusive focus particles that have developed from more concrete notions are a well-known phenomenon. In many cases focus particles undergo a process of semantic bleaching, allein, for instance, can be shown to have developed from the numeral ‘one’ (e.g. König 1991). The same is true for Dutch alleen that overlaps to a great extent with the meaning of German allein. The adverbial exclusive use of allein or by x-self reflects a further step towards the desemanticization of the expression. Similar situations also exist in other languages. The use of intensifiers in present day Slovak suggests that the process of semantic bleaching concerning an expression that can be used with the meaning of alone is further along than in German or English. In Yiddish, the intensifier is aleyn.29 The situation is different in comparison to German, English and Slovak, since aleyn is the core member of the lexical group of intensifiers and cannot be contrasted with another expression that also functions as an adverb with the meaning of ‘without company’. In German the situation is that allein means ‘without company’ when used as an adverb, but can also be used adverbial exclusively. English alone, on the other hand, behaves differently in that it can be used as an adverb but not adverbial exclusively. The expression by x-self both has the meaning of ‘without company’ and can function as an adverbial exclusive particle. Without doubt, other languages will present examples of similar relations between intensifiers and adverbs with an anti-comitative meaning. The interesting fact in the present analysis is that in English and German the language-learning child is presented with a semantic continuum in the case of allein and by x-self in which a more concrete use of an expression is

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still transparent along with the use of the same expression that has resulted from a semantic shift process. The question that needs to be answered here is how the child enters the system and if it can be shown that a child is sensitive to the different semantic layers of the expression as documented in the first instances of use. In a majority of cases, on one’s own can be used together with animate subjects in a fashion similar to by x-self. Regarding the sentences below, see (104)-(106), the parallelism of the two expressions on one’s own and by x-self when interacting with animate subjects is largely documented by the fact that both expressions display a continuum between an adverbial exclusive use meaning ‘without help’ or ‘without assisstance’ and a predicative use meaning ‘alone’. (104) He dug up the garden on his own/by himself. (105) He went to the shop on his own/by himself. (106) She is on her own/by herself. The major difference between the two expressions lies in the fact that on one’s own is used in contexts of loneliness or bereavement, see (107). (107) a. After her husband’s sudden death, she had to do everything on her own. b. After her husband’s sudden death, she had to do everything by herself. While the sentence in (107a) implies that the widow experiences loneliness while doing her usual tasks, the sentence in (107b) can be used to express that she does not receive the help any longer. Parallel to the examples discussed above, the interpretation of on one’s own is dependent on who is addressed. It was shown that in child-directed speech, the expression by x-self can be used with the meaning of ‘alone’ in a wider range of anti-assistive contexts when it relates to an achievement of the developing child. Similarily, on one’s own in (104)-(106) rather comments on an achievement when the referent of the subject noun phrase is a child than when it is an adult.

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4.5. Von selbst/von allein, by itself and on its own As was already mentioned earlier in this chapter, the use of German von selbst and von allein overlaps with by x-self or of one’s own accord when in association with animate referents. In cases of inanimate referents, von selbst and von allein must be translated into English by itself or of its own accord. Examples (108) and (109) illustrate that the overlap of the expressions’ meaning in anti-causative contexts holds for both telic and atelic event structures. (108) Die Tür ist von selbst/von allein zugefallen. ‚The door closed by itself’. (109) Das Rad dreht sich von selbst/von allein. ‚The wheel turns by itself’. Contrary to English by itself, German von selbst and von allein can also be used in anti-causative contexts when in association with an animate subject, see (110) and (111). In these cases von selbst and von allein must be translated into English constructions with of one’s own accord. (110) Er hat den Garten von selbst/von allein umgegraben. ‚He dug up the garden of his own accord’. (111) Sie hat das Kloster von selbst/von allein verlassen. ‚She left the convent of her own accord’. As was argued at the beginning of this section the use of agent-sensitive expressions in anti-causative contexts evokes alternative causes which are at the same time excluded. This is also true both for the sentences with inanimate referents, see (108) and (109), and for sentences with animate referents, see (110) and (111). In the case of animate referents the exclusion of an external cause usually implies an internal cause, that is, a mental decision for the action is assumed. If the agent-sensitive expression interacts with an inanimate referent the cause of the action is usually unknown.

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4.6. Von sich aus, aus eigenem Antrieb/Willen and of one’s own accord The last members of the group of agent-sensitive expressions that will be discussed here are most restricted in terms of which kind of subject they can occur with. All of the expressions can be used within anti-causative contexts, see (112) and (113). (112) Er hat den Garten von sich aus/aus eigenem Antrieb/Willen umgegraben, ... ...niemand hat ihn dazu gebracht. (113) He dug up the garden of his own accord, … ...nobody made him do it. German von sich aus, aus eigenem Antrieb/Willen and English of one’s own accord contribute to the meaning of a sentence in that an external cause for the action is excluded. Thereby the referents decision to act in the way s/he did is asserted. Especially the German expressions aus eigenem Antrieb/Willen, which have a relatively high lexical value, denote the mental decision of an agentive referent. The German expression von sich aus changes its semantic contribution when interacting with first and second person, see (114) and (115). (114) Von mir aus können wir heute abend ins Kino gehen. ‚I wouldn’t mind if we went to the cinema tonight’. (115) Hast du von dir aus etwas dagegen einzuwenden? ‚Is there anything against such a decision that you can think of’? As the English paraphrases show, the meaning of von mir aus/von dir aus in these sentences is somewhat similar to the anti-causative use as it also relates to a mental attitude of the referent. In contrast to the anticausative use, von mir aus/von dir aus do not function adverbial exclusively as all other expressions discussed so far do. An interesting example which shows that the generalizations described here must be taken as tendencies and not as absolute regularities comes from a newspaper article, see (116). (116) „Das Schöne an Kirchenmusik: Sie ist von sich aus ökumenisch.”30 While many speakers of German judge this example as awkward, others insist that the subject must be conceived of as personified if the sentence is

Framework for child language data analysis

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to be accepted. Be this as it may, all other examples found for the expression von sich aus in this corpus do not have inanimate subjects. 5. Framework for child language data analysis In this chapter a basic outline of the meaning of agent-sensitive expressions was given. Two contexts were identified that are believed to be relevant in early stages of the acquisition of agent-sensitive expressions. Both antiassistive and autonomous contexts seem ideal for the development of nonnominative linguistic means to negotiate a child’s involvement in activities. With the use of an agent-sensitive expression relating to an anti-assistive or an autonomous context, the child can decline either the assistance or the completion of an activity by an adult. It could be shown that not only the core representatives of the lexical class of intensifiers, German selber/selbst and English x-self can be used within an anti-assistive context but that the related expressions German allein and English by x-self can fulfill a similar function. The final three sections of this chapter dealt with expressions that mainly relate to contexts that were described as anti-causative. It was argued that the child needs to have some knowledge of a person’s state of mind before s/he can use these expressions in a target-like manner. While it is not impossible that contexts like these play a role in the linguistic and social development of a young child, it is expected that due to the more complex structure of both the expressions themselves and the greater complexity of the alternative contexts the expressions relate to, German von sich aus, English of one’s own accord and the like will occur at a later stage in language development than German selbst/selber and allein and English x-self and by x-self.

Chapter 2 The expression x-self in acquisition studies

This chapter provides a review of literature dealing with phenomena relevant to the acquisition of intensifiers. While no studies on the acquisition of intensifiers in German are available at present, for English a number of studies exist investigating children’s acquisition of x-self as a reflexive pronoun. In this respect two related theoretical approaches have contributed to the description of x-self in language acquisition studies: binding theory (Chomsky 1981, 1986) and adapted versions thereof with a more integrative perspective resting on the belief that an account of all possible occurrences of x-self cannot only be based on the formulation of syntactic principles but must incorporate the processing of pragmatic and discourse information (e.g. Reinhart and Reuland 1993). While the studies discussed aim at explaining the acquisition of x-self as a reflexive pronoun, the present approach will take on a more functional perspective with a particular interest in the early form-function pairings that children use in adverbial exclusive contexts. The discussion of previous findings will therefore focus on non-target treatments of the expression x-self to capture deviations which may be motivated by the children’s knowledge of the discourse properties of intensifiers. In their early productions not all functions that can be identified for the expression x-self are necessarily relevant to children. However, the possibility that the children’s sensitivity to related functions of x-self has an impact on their language development will be pursued. The discussion of binding theory will focus on studies that demand an interpretation not resting exclusively on the children’s syntactic knowledge. The findings concerning children’s knowledge of principle A and principle B will be interpreted from a perspective which integrates the children’s acquisition of the expression x-self as an intensifier. For instance, a study that puts forward the claim that the acquisition of the adnominal use of xself can be related to a target-like application of binding principle A will be reviewed (McDaniel, Smith Cairns and Hsu 1990). In studies testing both children’s knowledge of principle A and principle B attention will be drawn to children’s early non-target comprehension of x-self. In comparison to the non-target interpretation of the referential properties of personal pronouns,

Reflexive x-self and binding theory

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the question implicit in these studies is whether young children when interpreting reflexive x-self simply violate the syntactic principles underlying the use of reflexive pronouns, or if non-syntactic knowledge of the use of x-self can explain these instances. Together with findings from other languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean or Icelandic, occurrences of non-locally bound x-self are discussed as instances of longdistance binding. Avrutin and Cunningham (1997) offer an account of how the acquisition of logophoric reflexives integrates with the acquisition of locally-bound reflexives and make some predictions regarding children’s mastery of syntactic and discourse principles when interpreting the use of locally-bound versus non-locally bound reflexives. The results of Avrutin and Cunningham’s study will be briefly discussed here, as the discourse dependency that is relevant to the acquisition of logophoric reflexives is also relevant to the acquisition of intensifiers. The majority of studies reviewed here are experimental comprehension studies. Two studies examining longitudinal production data demonstrate however that the results of comprehension experiments match only some of the results that can be obtained from the analysis of production data (Tomasello 1992; Thomas 1994). 1. Reflexive x-self and binding theory Much research, both in linguistic theory and in language acquisition studies, has been stimulated by the formulation of Chomsky’s (1981, 1986) binding conditions. Referentially dependent expressions such as personal pronouns and reflexive pronouns are anaphoric expressions in that their reference depends on an antecedent that is given in the verbal context. While reflexive pronouns in this sense are bound by an antecedent that can be located in a local domain, see (1), personal pronouns find their antecedent in a non-local domain such as a higher clause, see (2). (1) Hermione thought that Harryi was talking to himselfi. (2) Hermionei thought that Harry was talking to heri. Chomsky’s binding conditions rest on the above observation that reflexive pronouns (anaphors) and (personal) pronouns are in complementary distribution. This relation is expressed by binding principle A, see (3), and binding principle B, see (4):

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The expression x-self in acquisition studies

(3) An anaphor is bound in its governing category. (4) A pronoun is free in its governing category. It has been demonstrated repeatedly in language acquisition studies that around the age of four children make few referential mistakes with locallybound reflexive pronouns. That is, if asked to act out sentences like (5a,b), the vast majority of children choose the correct referent for x-self even if other referents are provided in the linguistic or non-linguistic context. (5) a. Pippi Longstocking touches herself. b. Thomas touches himself. The interesting finding regarding the referential properties of pronouns is that children at the same age still make mistakes in about 50% of the cases and allow coreference between the referent of the subject noun phrase and the pronoun in sentences like (6a,b). In terms of Chomsky’s binding principles, children show early knowledge of principle A, but apparently violate principle B for a relatively long time. (6) a. Pippi Longstocking touches her. b. Thomas touches him. Most explanations given for the children’s behaviour rest on the assumption that the children do not have to learn the principles because they are innate. What the children have to come to terms with is either the possibility that the reference of the expressions may also depend on pragmatic or discourse related principles (e.g. Chien and Wexler 1990), or the grammatical implications of the lexical properties of referring expressions (e.g. Hestvik and Philip 2000). Although the majority of analyses shows an awareness of the fact that syntactic knowledge alone cannot be regarded as sufficient for a full command of the various occurrences of x-self in English, most studies do not fully explore the possibility that the different functions that x-self can serve apart from the reflexive function can also be documented in the way children use x-self in early phases of language acquisition. The position adopted here is that children’s non-target treatment of the expression x-self before obeying binding condition A may not only be explained by the children’s acquisition of the reflexive function, but can also mirror the children’s acquisition of x-self when functioning as an intensifier or a logophoric reflexive.

Reflexive x-self and binding theory

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1.1. Binding condition A and the acquisition of the adnominal intensifier McDaniel, Smith Cairns and Hsu (1990) tested children’s knowledge of the binding principles A, B and C in an experimental study. Their findings concerning principle A will be discussed here, as McDaniel et al. see an interdependence between the successful obeyance of principle A and the acquisition of adnominal intensifiers by the children.31 The data for the first part of the study was gathered from twenty children ranging in age from 3;9 to 5;4. For the second part of the study, nineteen children ranging in age from 2;9 to 6;7 were examined. In both parts of the study, children were confronted with sentences which they were asked to act out with toy figures or the grammaticality of which they were asked to judge. While it is generally accepted that children obey principle A around the age of four, in the first part of their study McDaniel et al. made the interesting observation that four of the older subjects (age 4;9, 4;10, 5;2 and 5;3) accepted sentences like (7) as grammatical. This is especially worthwhile noting since all but four children (these were all age 4;1 or younger) showed knowledge of principle A by both acting out sentences like (8) correctly and judging them as grammatical. (7) Himself is washing Grover. (8) Grover wants Cookie Monster to pat himself. The finding that children who obey principle A will not necessarily reject sentences like (7) led McDaniel et al. to hypothesize four different grammar types which children are supposed to pass through in the process of acquiring reflexive pronouns. The four grammar types account for the observation that very young children accept sentences like (7) and (9) as grammatical, while older children generally reject non-anaphoric x-self in object position, see (9), but not necessarily in subject position, see (7), before they reach adult judgements. (9) I am washing himself. For the second part of their study, McDaniel et al. distinguished the grammar types A, B, C and D with respect to the children’s obeyance of principle A. Grammar type B was divided into two subtypes B1 and B2. The nineteen children in the second study covered an age range from 2;9 to 6;7. Grammar type A was found in very young children (age 2;9 to 3;8). According to McDaniel et al. these children do not recognize reflexives as a

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separate category of noun phrase, but analyze reflexive pronouns as consisting of a possessive pronoun and the noun self. Therefore binding principle A will not apply. Grammar type B and C are found in children ranging in age from 3;7 to 6;7 (grammar type B) or 3;8 to 6;7 (grammar type C). These children categorize reflexives as noun phrases and obey binding principle A, but as McDaniel et al. claim, differ with respect to whether they are in the process of acquiring the adnominal intensifier or not. Grammar type B children have not yet acquired the adnominal intensifier. According to McDaniel et al. they therefore reject both sentence (7) and sentence (9) as ungrammatical. Grammar type C children are in the process of acquiring the adnominal intensifier. As long as they have only acquired it partially they accept it both with (see (7) and (10)) or without (see (11)) an overt noun phrase. (10) Himself is going to school. (11) He himself is going to school. Adult-like behaviour is represented by grammar type D. Grammar types B1 and B2 are distinct in that B1 children interpret reflexives in the right domain, himself can only refer to Bert in (12), while the domain is not correct for grammar type B2 children, himself can refer to either Grover or Bert or even external referents in (12). (12) Grover wants Bert to pat himself. McDaniel et al. regard grammar types A, B, C and D as a developmental sequence in which the child’s passing through is mainly characterized by whether or not self-expressions in subject position are rejected. Acceptance of self-expressions in subject position can be motivated either by the interpretation of reflexive pronouns as consisting of a possessive pronoun plus the noun self (grammar type A), or in a later phase by the partial acquisition of adnominal intensifiers once reflexive pronouns have been correctly categorized as noun phrases (grammar type C). In the intermediate stage when children conform to grammar type B, x-self in subject position is rejected. Figue 1 shows the ages and corresponding grammar types of the individual children tested by McDaniel et al. (1990). It should be noted here, and will be discussed in more detail together with the results of the production data analysis that the majority of children confirming grammar type B are older than 5;0 (60 months) while the majority of children confirming grammar type C are younger than 5;0.

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Thus the mean age of children conforming to a grammar type that is supposedly more advanced (type C) is below the mean age of children with a less advanced grammar (type B). In Figure 1 the age of the individual children in McDaniel et al.’s study is plotted against the grammar type they displayed. Additionally, the mean age of all children conforming to a grammar type is given.

84 72 60 48 36 24 Type A mean (A)

Type B mean (B)

Type C mean (C)

Type D mean (D)

Figure 1. Representation of grammar types32 McDaniel et al.’s finding that the acquisition data of English children under the age of 4;0 (48 months) might give little insight into their knowledge of binding principle A is in line with other studies where it is concluded that young English children do not seem to realize that reflexive pronouns represent anaphors (e.g. Thomas 1994). The children analyze expressions like myself as a combination of a possessive pronoun plus nominal self and thus seem to treat them parallel to constructions like my foot. This misinterpretation of English reflexive pronouns licenses several misuses which may occur in the acquisition data of the children. First, children may produce nominal self, see (13a,b). Second, overgeneralized forms such as hisself and theirselves, or other possessive expressions with

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nominal self may appear in the data, see (13c-e). Finally, self-expressions may appear in structures where they have no local antecedent, see (13f), and utterances with self-expressions in subject position may be produced by the children, see (13g). (13) a. Peter hurt the self. b. Peter hurt self. c. Peter hurt hisself. d. They hurt theirselves. e. Peter hurt John’s self. f. Peter hurt myself. g. Myself hurt Peter. All but the first, see (13a), and the fifth, see (13e), sentence types have been found in the productions of English children and will be discussed in the results section. The last three sentence types were tested in the comprehension study of McDaniel et al. (1990) and were all accepted as grammatical structures by children at different ages. 1.2. Children’s knowledge of principle B Some researchers take the delay of principle B phenomenon in English child language as an indicator that until a comparatively late age children overgeneralize or misinterpret the rare occurrences of a coreferential interpretation of a pronoun and a preceding noun phrase (cf. Chien and Wexler 1990; Grodzinsky and Reinhart 1993; Wexler and Chien 1985). Taking the acquisition of languages other than English into account, researchers also show that apart from the children’s pragmatic and discourse-related knowledge about (reflexive) pronouns, the lexical properties of these expressions must also be considered (Sigurjónsdóttir and Coopmans 1996; Philipp and Coopmans 1996; Hestvik and Philipp 2000). For example, Hestvik and Philipp (2000) argue that Norwegian children’s pronoun semantic identity errors can be explained independent from the discourse and pragmatic properties of pronouns and are a result of an incomplete representation of the expressions lexical features.

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1.2.1. Pragmatic principle P In following proposals made by Reinhart (1983a, 1983b, 1986), Chien and Wexler (1990) have argued that children know principle B but lack a pragmatic principle P. In (14b) both he and him are taken to be John, thus he and him are coreferential. The indexing in these sentences should be as represented in (15a) and (15b). (14) a. That must be John. b. At least he looks like him. (15) a. Thati must be Johnj. b. At least hei looks like himj. c. *At least hei looks like himi. The representation in (15c) is unacceptable as it suggests that him is referentially dependent on he which is also a violation of principle B. As the example in (15b) illustrates, if two noun phrases are non-coindexed, they may or may not corefer. The interpretation of he and him in a sentence like (15b) as coreferential is dependent on whether a pragmatic principle is in operation or not. With no specific context he and him in (15b) are interpreted as non-coreferential. If the sentence appears in a context like (15a) however, a pragmatic principle licenses the interpretation of he and him as coreferential even if the noun phrases are not coindexed.33 Regarding the acquisition of the referential properties of personal pronouns in English, Chien and Wexler (1990) argue that as long as children lack a pragmatic principle, they do not know that coreference of he and him in (14b) is only possible in very specific contexts. Therefore, they also allow non-target coreference. In a number of experiments Chien and Wexler have shown that children younger than four years of age have a great tendency to interpret sentences like (16a) as if they mean (16b). When shown a picture of the characters Goldilocks and Mama Bear in which Mama Bear is touching herself, children younger than four years of age tend to answer the question Is Mama Bear touching her? with yes. (16) a. Mama Bear is touching her. b. Mama Bear is touching herself. At the same age, children are as likely to interpret sentences like (16b) as if they mean (16a). If shown a picture in which Mama Bear is touching Goldilocks, children younger than four years of age tend to answer a

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question like Is Mama Bear touching herself? with yes.34 Table 7 shows the percentage of items that children reacted to in a non-target manner when confonted with a mismatch condition as described above. Table 7. Referential properties of her/herself in mismatch conditions35 Mama Bear is touching her. Bound interpretation Non-bound interpretation Mama Bear is touching herself. Non-bound interpretation Bound interpretation