The Acquisition of Modal Auxiliaries in the Language of Children 9783110812664, 9789027926647

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JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA MEMORIAE N I C O L A I VAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda curai C. H. V A N Indiana

SCHOONEVELD University

Series Minor, 195

THE ACQUISITION OF MODAL AUXILIARIES IN THE LANGUAGE OF CHILDREN

by DIANA MAJOR University

of Utah

1974

MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS

© Copyright 1974 in The Netherlands Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-85562

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., The Hague

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Learning About and Learning From Children's Language

7

2. On Defining Modals: The Literature

14

3. On Defining Modals: Formal Criteria

27

4. Description of the Study

40

5. Results

47

6. Discussion Group I: Group II: Group III: Group IV: Group V: Group VI :

57 57 65 75 84 89 94

Should, Would, Could, Will, Can Shall, May, Might, Ought to Must, Must Be, Must Have 'D rather, 'D better Need, Dare Have to, Be Going to

7. Conclusions Utility of Tasks Classification of Modals Achievement of Purposes Recommendations

97 98 102 106 110

References

112

Appendix

114

Author and Subject Index

120

1 LEARNING ABOUT AND LEARNING F R O M CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

Tn the past few years, a growing number of linguists trained in transformational-generative grammar have turned their attention to children's acquisition of their native languages in hopes of gaining insights into developmental sequence, strategies for achieving adult grammars, adult grammars themselves, and even language universals. Their emphasis, rather than being on the "mistakes" made in terms of a standard adult grammar, has been on the productivity of the internalized grammars of children at given stages in the language acquisition process. As a consequence, linguists speak of sequential modifications of the rules operating in the syntactic constructions of beginning speakers as a series of stages which become less and less divergent from the norms of the educated adult. In other words, on the assumption that children's language is governed by sets of rules, each stage in a child's linguistic development is isolated and described as a grammatical system. Language development is thus a series of rule changes. In order to arrive at this series of abstract systems (competence) underlying children's speech at various stages, investigators have sampled the language performance of children from the appearance of their first words through about their tenth year. The sampling methods are essentially of two types: observational, in which the spontaneous language of young children is recorded and analyzed; 1 For example, Ursula Bellugi, "The Development of Interrogative Structures in Children's Speech", The Development of Language Functions, ed. Klaus F. Riegel ( = University of Michigan Center for Human Growth and Development,

8

LEARNING ABOUT AND FROM CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

and elicited response, in which children are given specific verbal tasks, often with the aid of pictures or props. In the second method, a child could be shown a picture of an object and told, "Here is a "; he is then shown a picture containing two of the objects and asked to complete the statement: "Here are two ." If nonsense syllables are used, as in Jean Berko's morphological test, 2 the items test the child's ability to form normal English plurals without regard to vocabulary. While the observational studies have focused on the language production of children, the elicited response studies are concerned with both comprehension and production under controlled conditions. Carol Chomsky, for example, tested children's comprehension of the structure easy to see by placing a blindfolded doll in front of the child and asking, "Is this doll easy to see or hard to see?" Depending on the child's response, she then asked, "Would you make her easy/hard to see?" 3 The question involves understanding of the deleted subject of the infinitive to see. If the child answered, "Hard to see", and made the doll easy to see by removing the blindfold, he erroneously assumed that doll was the deleted subject. In the easy to see test, only the comprehension of the item was at issue. In her ask/tell interviews, however, comprehension was indicated by verbal production, that is, the evidence was linguistic rather than physical. "Ask Laura her last name", for example, versus "Tell Laura her last name", requires that the child comprehend the distinction between ask and tell in order to produce an acceptable response. 4 Report No. 8) (November 30, 1965), pp. 103-37; Lois Bloom, Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammars (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1970); Roger Brown and Ursula Bellugi, "Three Processes in the Child's Acquisition of Syntax", New Directions in the Study of Language, ed. Eric H. Lenneberg (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1964); and Wick R. Miller and Susan Ervin, "The Development of Grammar in Child Language", The Acquisition of Language, eds. Ursula Bellugi and Roger Brown ( = Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, No. 29) (1964), pp. 9-34. 2 Jean Berko, "The Child's Learning of English Morphology", Word, 14 (1958), pp. 150-77. 3 Carol Chomsky, The Acquisition of Syntax in Children from 5 to 10 (Cambridge, Mass. : The M.I.T. Press, 1969), p. 24. 4 C. Chomsky, The Acquisition of Syntax ..., p. 47.

LEARNING ABOUT AND FROM CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

9

Studies such as these suggest a general outline of language acquisition: the speakers of any language acquire that language in a series of steps beginning with one-word utterances and progressing through "telegraphic" sentences and regular inflectional patterns to a relatively complete phrase-structure and some single- and doublebase transformations before they enter school. While no one would deny that children are remarkable linguistic creatures, the most recent evidence suggests that earlier statements to the effect that they have mastery of the syntax of their language by entering school age are oversimplified. The developmental patterns are not quite as neat as they appear: within the progression is some overlap of stages, some regression to earlier stages, some nonproductive "ritual" constructions, and certain "preferred" deviations which roughly correlate with age. Thus, though all major grammatical constructions may be found in samples of children's language, it is clear that children do not produce them with consistency, nor do they produce transformations in all possible sentence positions or in combinations. 5 One source of oversimplification is that most child language studies have been mainly concerned with the broad outlines of language acquisition, i.e. the major steps, the grammars of entire sentences produced at various ages. A few have dealt with specific features, such as inflections, 6 questions and negations, 7 passives,8 and particular instances of embedding. 9 Even these, however, have focused on whole sentence processes or inflectional features. What 6 Paula Menyuk, Sentences Children Use (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1969), pp. 39-41,75-76. • Berko, "The Child's Learning ..."; also, Courtney B. Cazden, "The Acquisition of Noun and Verb Inflections", Paper delivered before the Speech and Hearing Society of the Province of Quebec, Montreal (May, 1967). 7 Bellugi, "The Development of Interrogative Structures ..."; Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, pp. 70-76. 8 Dan I. Slobin, "Grammatical Transformations and Sentences Comprehension in Childhood and Adulthood", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5 (1966), pp. 219-27; E. Turner and R. Rommetveit, "Experimental Manipulation of the Production of Active and Passive Voice in Children", Language and Speech, 10 (1967), pp. 169-80. • Chomsky, The Acquisition of Syntax ...,pp. 24-32.

10

LEARNING ABOUT AND FROM CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

has not been investigated is the development of the membership of a given grammatical category, such as modals, determiners, or prepositions. The present study is an item-by-item survey of the members of a limited grammatical class, the modal auxiliaries, in the language of children in the early elementary grades, kindergarten through third. These modals (can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, must, and perhaps others) constitute a single category of English grammar which enters into the most common sentence transformations: if a sentence is negated, it requires a modal or other auxiliary (be, have, or do) to accommodate the negative particle (* I not go); if a question is formed, the subject noun or pronoun inverts with the modal or other auxiliary (Can I go?); if a sentence is followed by a tag question, the modal or other auxiliary is repeated as affirmative or negative, depending on the presence or absence of negation in the main clause (He can go, can't hel versus He can't go, can hel). It has been established that children of early school age are able to perform the above transformations with the auxiliaries be, have, and do, and with the modals can, could, will, and would.10 How far their facility extends to other members of the modal class in all theoretically possible grammatical constructs is the subject of this study.

PURPOSES OF THIS STUDY

The major purpose of the present study was to assess the status of the English modal system in a group of children, ages (approximately) five, six, seven, and eight (kindergarten through third grade), to determine if there are measurable differences in the exploitation and comprehension of this system at these age levels. The procedure was to elicit verbal responses from the children by means of carefully constructed verbal cues, the concern being not so much with 10

Bellugi, "The Development of Interrogative Structures ...", pp. 120-22; Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, p.89.

LEARNING ABOUT AND FROM CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

11

what children of these ages do produce spontaneously as with what they can produce under controlled conditions. Specifically, the areas of investigation were as follows: 1. Does the acquisition of modals parallel that of inflections, for example, in which irregular forms are regularized by analogy with the most common suffixes (e.g. foot-foots\ go-goed)? It was anticipated that the younger children would manipulate modals in transformational tasks on the pattern of the most frequent and regular modals, and that the older children would have learned the irregularities. 2. At what age and in what order do children acquire individual members of the modal class? Child language studies posit acquisition of the auxiliary node of the phrase-structure by about age three, 11 with the appearance of can, do, and will ('//) as transformable auxiliaries. Prior to this stage, can't, don't, and won't occur as vocabulary items, but the presence of auxiliary as a grammatical feature is improbable because of the absence of negative contraction with other items and the absence of auxiliary inverted questions. If, as Menyuk states,12 grammatical competence consists of two steps — first, acquisition of the category, and second, expansion of the category by acquisition of additional members — one is justified in stating that children of entering school age have accomplished step one for the auxiliary category, including the modal. Step two, however, is apparently not complete. The class membership may be limited by semantic and cognitive features, or, as in the case of inflections, by "irregularities" in the system. The expansion of the modal class may also be influenced by frequency of use in adult grammars. 3. Do syntactic or transformational restrictions on modals influence children's facility with them, or does inclusion of a modal in the auxiliary insure its transformability into negatives, tags, and yes/no questions? For example, the only occurrence of shall in my productive grammar is in first person questions, such as Shall we gol 11

Bellugi, "The Development of Interrogative Structures ...", pp. 104-05; Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, pp. 72-75. " Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, p. 57.

12

LEARNING ABOUT AND FROM CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

or Shall / get you some coffee) — although I respond to it in any appropriate grammatical context. Are there similar limitations on modals among children? Do certain transformations preclude certain modals (e.g. *Must Sam have been late?)! The intent here is to ascertain, if possible, the influence of regular grammatical rules in an irregular system. 4. Do children regularly omit or substitute for particular modals? For example, have to is often cited as a suppletive of must; do children at given stages perform such substitutions? 5. To what extent do children of these ages accommodate modals in auxiliary expansions in terms of formalized abstract rules? Or do certain modals fail to occur in progressive or perfect constructions? 6. Where the children produce deviant sentences (deviant in terms of formal regularity), can patterns of deviation be discerned? Menyuk has catalogued types of deviations in base strings as omissions, substitutions, and redundancies, which roughly correlate with ages four, five, and six, respectively.13 Does performance with modals follow similar patterns? 7. Do some modals enter into more deviancies than others? Are those modals which most frequently result in deviancies among children the same ones that are irregular in adult speech? 8. Can the tasks required of the children be ordered according to difficulty? Straight imitation, of course, should be less difficult for all children than tasks which involve transformations: negation, tag questions, and yes/no questions. The answers to these and other questions that arise in the course of the discussion may shed some light on the actual status of modals in current American English. They might also enlighten us about the reactions of school children to a focused portion of adult grammar, perhaps suggesting procedures for those who prepare elementary materials for classroom teachers and those who work in English as a Second Language program. In selecting and preparing instructional materials for secondlanguage classrooms, for example, the convenience of an abstract 13

Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, pp. 41,50-51.

LEARNING ABOUT AND FROM CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE

13

model of grammar and one's native-speaker intuition should be supplemented by attention not only to the actual usage of the adult speech community, but also to the usage of the target age-group. Is it legitimate to ask an eight-year-old learning English as a second language to produce sentences that eight-year-old native speakers do not and cannot use? Finally, the degree of control of the various modals exhibited by native-speaking children may provide some insights into effective selection and sequencing of second language material. Those items that are most difficult for young native speakers and infrequent in adult speech can easily be foregone in favor of greater emphasis on actual language practice. Those which are selected for inclusion in a program should, of course, be presented only in carefully controlled, natural linguistic contexts. The degree to which English speakers of the target age group control a construction is, in effect, a measure of how "natural" it is.

2 O N D E F I N I N G MODALS: THE LITERATURE

The initial task in any grammatical study is to delimit the area of grammar under consideration. The modal system was selected in the first place because it constituted, I thought, a closed class of nine — maybe twelve — items with well-defined syntactic properties, which would thus be well-suited to an item-by-item survey. Further, native speakers of English use modals automatically (Joos says that their meanings are "axiomatic"). 14 Thus the task would be simply to determine whether or not the child's performance indicated control of individual modals.

DISAGREEMENTS AMONG GRAMMARIANS

Trying to find a clearly stated formal framework in which to work, I found only confusion. No one, it seems, has described the modals of English as a class of items with a number of shared features but with a number of exceptions as well. In fact, the scholarly works dealing with modals treat them either as a consistent formal system subject to regular rules or as a group of semantic categories with individual variations of meaning. The inconsistencies among grammarians become apparent even at the level of definition. Modals are sometimes defined in terms of "modal meaning", i.e. "willingness, desire, resolution and the like" ;15 14

Martin Joos, The English Verb: Form and Meanings (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), p. 148. 16 Robert Livingston Allen, The Verb-System of Present-Day American English (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), p. 132.

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

15

"possibility, constraint, and desire"; 16 and "ability", "possibility", "permission", "necessity", "obligation", "prediction". 17 They are sometimes defined in terms of syntactic characteristics, as, for example, Ehrmann's summary: that closed class of verbs which may occupy the first position of a verb phrase, which may not be immediately preceded by another verb, which may invert with the subject in interrogation, and which are negated directly by not;18 and they are sometimes defined merely by their presence on a list labeled "Modals". 19 In fairness, part of the discrepancy results from differing theoretical approaches. The orientation of R. L. Allen, Madeline Ehrmann, Martin Joos, and William Diver is frankly semantic, either on a hypothetical-to-actual scale or on an earlier-to-later time reference scale. Fries, in his analysis of more than two thousand handwritten letters, ties meaning to etymology, frequency, and usage level;20 those linguists who treat the syntactic behavior of modals in more detail either neglect the peculiar formal features of modals 21 or neglect the exceptional behaviors of individual modals. 22 The most balanced and thorough treatment in all respects is that of Palmer — a combined formal and semantic analysis with formal variations corresponding to the specific meaning of the modal in a given context (e.g. would as the past-time analogue of will in its meaning of "insistence"; will have as the past of will in its meaning " Ralph B. Long, The Sentence and Its Parts (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 138. 17 W. F. Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1963), p. 13. 18 Madeline Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals in Present-Day American English (The Hague: Mouton, 1966), p. 9. " Charles Carpenter Fries, American English Grammar (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1940), pp. 172,175. 20 C. C. Fries, American English Grammar, pp. 172-82. 81 For example, Long, The Sentence ..., p. 36, mentions that seven verbs (modals) have neither -s forms nor "gerundial" forms, yet he classifies them as "defectives" in an otherwise regular system, rather than accepting those formal features as criteria for another class of items. On page 130, he concludes that "it seems best not to recognize any modal auxiliaries at all". M For example, Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries.

16

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

of "probability"). 2 3 The greatest difficulty with Palmer is his distinct British bias in such constructions as daren't have and He usedn't to do that, which makes his conclusions less than reliable for students of American English. Differing

Interpretations

O n e is tempted to juxtapose certain remarks f r o m these works to illustrate the state of confusion that surrounds scholarship concerning the modals of English. Long, for example, writes: A category of modal auxiliaries is often set up for modern English, to include various verbs expressing

ideas of possibility,

constraint,

and

desire.

... But we will have a neater analysis of contemporary English ... if we recognize no modal auxiliaries at all. We will then have to say of such a verb as can that it is a transitive whose complement must be infinitival, somewhat as we have to say of such a verb as pride that it is a transitive whose first complement must be reflexive. We will still need to give special notice to verbs expressing

meanings of possibility,

constraint,

and

volition,M

The emphasis is mine; and the question is: What has he gained by eliminating modals if the result is that he must still account for modals? Also, how does his elimination of modals explain the syntactic features which distinguish them from ordinary verbs (e.g. no third person singular present tense marker)? Palmer, on the other hand, emphasizes formal features of modals: It is not their use in the expression of futurity, potentiality, obligation, etc., that makes the auxiliary verbs a class apart from the full verbs of the language, though relying on such notional categories some traditional grammars have treated some of the forms we are now considering as 'tense auxiliaries,' others as 'modal auxiliaries' and yet others as 'full verbs.' On the contrary there are four clearly statable formal characteristics of the auxiliary verbs, their use in what I shall call 'negation,' 'inversion,' 'code' and 'emphatic affirmation.' 25 Thus, while Long both excludes and includes the modal category on purely semantic grounds, Palmer denies (though he uses them) the 23 F. R. Palmer, A Linguistic Study of the English Verb (London: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1965), p. 128. 21 Long, The Sentence ..., p. 138. 25 Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 20.

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

17

validity of semantic categories. In his words, "What we think are purely semantic, notional or even logical categories are really no more than reflections of formal features of our own language". 26 The formal and semantic points of view merge in a peculiar fashion in R. L. Allen's semantic discussion, in which he criticizes the apparent inconsistencies of Twaddell, whose emphasis is formal: Twaddell states that 'the fact that the modals do not co-occur suggests that there are elements of incompatibility in their meanings.' And yet elsewhere he states that'have to, have got to are stylistic alternatives to must.'' Since Twaddell lists the auxiliary will under the modals, and since it is possible to say We will have to do that tomorrow, it seems that there are, in fact, no elements of incompatibility in the meanings of at least will and must.2''

The same argument, he continues, applies to may and can ("be able to"). The necessity of suppletives in the "co-occurrences", however, supports the grammatical fact that modals do not appear together in standard English {might could and should ought are nonstandard), though not, apparently, for semantic reasons. What Allen has illustrated, in fact, is his semantic orientation which assumes that suppletion equals identity, regardless of formal features. A further limitation of Allen's study is his failure to account for the contribution of context to the meaning of modals. He states, for example, that Twaddell gives as meanings for will, 'prediction; inherent futurity,' and adds later that 'will has no meaning beyond prediction per se.' But in the sentence John won't let me play with him, the meaning of 'willingness' would seem to be more pronounced than any suggestion of prediction.28

In the first place, Twaddell calls his brief semantic outline a "suggestive formulation (by no means the only one that has been pro26 27 28

Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 7. Allen, The Verb-System ..., p. 75. Allen, The Verb-System ..., pp. 75-76.

18

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

posed)". 89 In the second place, Allen's "proof" is ambiguous; in specific contexts, the same sentence can be interpreted as either prediction or willingness: Prediction:

Why don't you go out and play? John won't let me play with him. (Before the fact)

Willingness: Why did you come back in so soon? John won't let me play with him. (After the fact)

Allen states, though, that differences in meaning for his analysis are restricted to verb forms alone, not to other elements in the sentence, much less to elements outside the sentence. That is, context is irrelevant. Restriction of the modals to a sort of abstract, central meaning which can be applied at will to any occurrence of a modal is also characteristic of the semantic analysis of Martin Joos. With a system of binary features (casual/stable; adequate/contingent; assurance/ potentiality), 30 he defines the modals as: shall (includes should) — contingent casual assurance31 must — adequate stable assurance32 ought to — contingent stable assurance33 dare — adequate stable potentiality34 need — contingent stable potentiality35 His extended definition of may-might (casual contingent potentiality) is: archaic, the event is authoritatively allowed, and the assertion is worded with this modal to signify that the actor is hardly free to desist. modern: the event is allowed by some but not all circumstances, and the assertion is worded with this modal to allow for contrary circumstances to perhaps prevail.36 "

,0

Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 13.

Joos, The English Verb ..., pp. 149-50.

" Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 161. "* Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 191.

»* Joos, The English Verb ...,p. 191. "

Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 192.

"

Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 180.

"

Joos, The English Verb ...,p. 192.

ON DEFINING MODALS : THE LITERATURE

19

Such definitions are both too general and too specific to accurately reflect spoken English. For example, Joos calls shall and should different forms of the same item, while he defines ought to separately from should. In my language, should and ought to mean essentially the same thing, and shall is a formulaic question marker indicating a suggestion (to eat, to go, etc.) with first person plural and a polite, softened request with first person singular. Assuming that we speak the same language, I find it remarkable that Joos can say that "the meanings of those eight modals are learned ... extremely early — necessarily before the child is ready for kindergarten" ; that their sense is "as axiomatic to (the child) as ... to his father"; and that their meanings cannot be "paraphrased, for English has no more elementary words" with which to paraphrase them. 37 Yet attempts by Joos and others, to paraphrase them, reveal little agreement as to their "axiomatic" meanings. Joos also shares with Allen the limitation of assuming that the definition of a term is absolute and independent of context (syntactic, semantic, or social). For example, in his discussion of need, he says: 'You don't need to wait' means that your waiting is not technically requisite. ... 'You needn't wait' carries two social messages: either 'I'm indulgently excusing you' or 'I'm firmly dismissing you.' 38 When another main verb is substituted for wait — You needn't type your papers, for instance, or even You needn't wait for me — no such social ambiguity obtains. Madeline Ehrmann, another speaker of English, considers the distinction between needn't and don't need to stylistic, since three of her four examples of modal needn't occur in technical texts and most of the catenatives (constructions with to) are in narrative or dialogue. 39 In contrast to and more abstruse than Joos, William Diver arranges the modals on a Scale of Likelihood, in which the meanings of can-may-should-must-do (sic) shade into one another from merely *' Joos, The English Verb ..., pp. 147-48. '» "

Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 192. Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 72.

20

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

"possible" to "certain". 40 There is, in addition, an "archi-modal", which, among other things, combines with certain members of the Scale of Likelihood to operate on the device of incompatibility. The signal consists of a modal form that ordinarily means Past, in combination with a meaning Non-Past. Thus the form might as a complete signal has the meaning Past. ... Put into a Non-Past context, such as that in which may ordinarily occurs, might + Non-Past forms a signal with the meaning that the event is somewhat less likely to occur than is one indicated by may.41 Unraveled, Diver claims that might indicates weaker probability than does may. The most disturbing feature of Diver's article, however, is that he has constructed a system from which he produces sample sentences which he then accepts as "real" English. For example, he provides the sentence: He is aware that they might not have arrived tomorrow, "where the meaning Non-Before is produced by the fact that tomorrow is not before the Present indicated by is".*2 He continues by stating that could have, should have, ought to have, and must have can replace might have in the sentence, the only differences being the degree of likelihood of the event. In the case of must have (or must not have), 1 find the resulting sentence impossible: *He is aware that they must not have arrived

tomorrow,

since must have, indicating a present conclusion based on prior evidence, is incompatible with tomorrow. Among his other marginal sentences are those which present conditional inversion with do ; for example, Did they start tomorrow, he might intercept them.43 Madeline Ehrmann completely dismisses Diver and she questions Joos's "symmetrical or exceptionless semantic arrangements" as overlooking the facts of present-day usage. 44 She then proceeds to a 40

William Diver, "The Modal System of the English Verb", Word, 20 (1964), p. 330. 41 Diver, "The Modal System ...", p. 335. 42 Diver, "The Modal System ...", p. 334. " Diver, "The Modal System...", p. 337. 44 Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 9.

ON DEFINING MODALS : THE LITERATURE

21

modal-by-modal discussion of "basic meanings" and "overtones". For example, the basic meaning of will is that "the occurrence of the predication is guaranteed". 46 Will has, in addition, the overtones of logical or chronological sequence in double-base sentences, and of volition, ranging from "slight willingness to command". 48 In all cases, the overtones accompany the basic meaning. With will, of course, the description is reasonably clear ; as she progresses, however, Ehrmann subdivides meanings more than necessary, I think, and includes so many exceptions, ambiguities, and contrived explanations as to make one wonder about her basic assumptions. 47 Corpora for These Studies Of the studies based on samples of written English, only Madeline Ehrmann's mentioned that her corpus may not accurately reflect all varieties of usage, particularly spoken usage. Using 300,000 words of printed prose, including biblical and textbook material, she counted only twenty-three occurrences of ought to in, she reports, the same types of sources and the same verbal environments as should. Recognizing the limitation of her sample, however, she adds: All this might seem to support the moribundity of ought to. However, there seems to be no evidence for such a conclusion in my speech or that of my associates. As far as I can tell, normative should and ought to are in free variation except in certain kinds of constructions made awkward by the 'to,' instances where hypothesis is important to the meaning of should, and perhaps some cases where sentence rhythm is significant.48 Joos and Allen also used written corpora, but without mentioning possible divergences from spoken English. Joos, in particular, analyzing an account of a murder trial in semi-formal British English, 49 might have been more cautious in his claims of universal applicability. Diver, it seems, invented his language as he wrote. Only 46 46

"

48 48

Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 34. Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., pp. 37-39. For example, Ehrmann's discussion of hypothetical would, pp. 51-53. Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 66. Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 6.

22

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

Twaddell and Palmer specifically refer to speakers of English, though the sources of their examples are not identified. Coincidentally, Palmer and Twaddell also write lucid prose. In some cases, notably Joos, Ehrmann, Long, and Diver, the jargon was so overwhelming (e.g. "mixed noncommital-rejected condition sentences") 50 or the theoretical assumptions so contrived that assessing the agreement or disagreement among the various writers became rather difficult. My impression, however, was that Ehrmann's volitional overtone of will ("volitional overtones specify the 'something' which contributes to assuring occurrence") 51 is merely another esoteric way of stating Joos's definition of will ("adequate casual assurance of eventual occurrence"), 52 in other words, they seem to be saying essentially the same thing in this and other instances. It appears from a review of current conflicting studies of the English modal system that the most reliable statement yet made was written by Fries in 1940: "In respect to the later developments of meaning carried by these words (the modals), the situation is exceedingly complex and no rules yet formed seem adequate to mark out precisely their areas of use." 53 As of 1971, the picture seems no clearer.

IDENTIFICATION OF THE MODALS

The disagreements among these grammarians, unfortunately, do not end with orientation, interpretation, sources, and clarity. When the specific items they discuss are listed, there is ordinarily some overlap, but never complete unanimity as to which are and which are not modals. When any list of items is compared to the grammatical characteristics they supposedly share, the sharing is found to be at best partial. so 51

"

M

Long, The Sentence..., p. 134. Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 39. Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 156. Fries, American English Grammar, p. 175.

23

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

For example, the following items are treated in detail in various books and articles which specifically focus on modals: Modals Ehrmann 54 Long 65

Twaddell 66

Diver 57

Allen 68

Palmer5»

will [would

will! would

will/would

can/could

can/could

can/could

shallj shouldl ought to

shall

shall/should

may/might

should may ¡might

may/might

must

must

will would can could shall

will would can could shall

will would can could shall

should may might must ought* need* dare'

should may might must

should may might must ought need dare90

need have to

•

need dare do

must ought need dare used*

Cited as "marginal" by the writer.

N o two lists are the same. All lists include the nine "classical" modals, but even here their analyses differ: Are will and would the same word? Can and could? Shall and shouldl May and might? Or are their differences deeper than simple tense distinctions? H o w binding should the historical origin of a form be in terms of its description in modern English? Note further that near the bottom of the lists the divergences are even greater. Long's have to and Palmer's used are more frequently listed among another class of expressions which behave in many ways like the modals but in other ways are quite different. Unlike 44

Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 10. Long, The Sentence ..., p. 129. " Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 2. 67 Diver, "The Modal System ...", p. 330. Allen, The Verb-System ..., p. 114. " Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 15. ,0 Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 13; need and dare are listed separately, though labeled "modals". 66

24

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

obvious modals, most require to before the following verb, and most require subject-verb agreement. Some, like need and dare, occur both with and without to and agreement; some, in spite of their form, occur as suppletives for modals. Thus, while there seems to be a shading from modal to almost modal to obvious catenative (with to), the sources invariably make a two-way distinction between modals and "others", called variously "catenatives", "secondary auxiliaries", 61 "quasi-modals", 62 and "quasi-auxiliaries". 63 Their numbers, furthermore, range from six to infinity. Tn Palmer's words: There is no theoretical limit on the number of verbs that may occur in a complex phrase... / got him to persuade

her to ask him to change his

mind.

... The verbs that may be followed by other verbs in this way are all (apart from the auxiliaries) catenatives. Every verb in sequences such as those illustrated here, apart from the last one, must be (if it is not an auxiliary) a catenative.64 Other writers, however, have been more conservative with the concept, but again without agreement. The items mentioned as related to modals are as follows: Modal-like Ehrmann 65 Long 66

Twaddell 67

like want wish

want

61

Constructions Diver 68

Allen 6 '

want (NP) to

Palmer70

want

Allen, The Verb-System ..., p. 116. To add to the confusion, Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 15, used the same term, "secondary auxiliaries", to refer to the classical modals. 62 Allen, The Verb-System ..., p. 256. 63 Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 140. 64 Palmer, A Linguistic Study..., p. 15. 65 Ehrmann, The Meanings of Modals ..., p. 51. 66 Long, The Sentence ..., p. 129. 67 Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 22. 68 Diver, "The Modal System ...", p. 344. 66 Allen, The Verb-System ..., p. 256. 70 Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 15.

25

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE Ehrmann be willing mind rather seem expect prefer

Long

Twaddell

Diver

Palmer

'd rather

would rather

begin start come (to) get (to) take (to) keep keep (on) go (on) used (to) used to stop + ing quit + ing let's have got to be bound to be bound to had better be to be to be supposed be supposed to to be expected to be going to be going to have to be about to

Allen

keep

keep go + ing used to

(see Modals)

let's have got to

have to

'd better be to

better be to

be going to have to be about to be able to ought to

going to

Certain of these items, notably ought to, appear on both lists and are considered by some to be modals, by others to be nonmodals. Need and dare, while placed on the modal list if included at all, are usually explained as transitional, i.e. in a process of decay from true modal status to the more regular (in terms of the inflections of main verbs and insertion of tense-carrier do in transformations), productive subclass of catenatives. 71 Have to, as the suppletive of must in negatives and questions, is included on Long's modal list, but because of " Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, pp. 13-14; Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., pp. 71 -72.

26

ON DEFINING MODALS: THE LITERATURE

the characteristic to of catenatives, it is considered nonmodal by most writers. Similarly, where ought to is listed as a nonmodal, it is because the to of catenation is required in its constructions. It is precisely in this borderline area where an insistence on either a semantic or a formal analysis causes most difficulty, yet grammatical analyses are compartmentalized in that way. If, for example, one wishes to state that modals form questions without the necessity of tense-carrier do, have to must be eliminated; but if one states the negative of must as don't have to, or its past as had to, the modal discussion must include have to as a suppletive of must, even though its transformational behavior is more akin to regular verbs than to modals. In short, the confusion is not merely in the analyses, but in the system itself. Rigid compartmentalization fails to lessen the confusion because it ignores exceptions, just as individual listings ignore similarities. Further, defining a class exclusively in terms of the meanings of its members does not reflect the formal features they might share, just as a purely formal definition fails to reflect the near-synonymity of certain modal and modal-like expressions.

3

O N D E F I N I N G MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

Modals are generally considered to be a group of words which, whatever else they may be or do, function as auxiliary verbs in English sentences. As auxiliaries, they are generated as a subsystem of the first syntactic category following the subject in formalized phrase-structure rules. If one assumes, moreover, that the rule for auxiliary expansion which appears in modern grammars is indeed representative of the language of native speakers, one would conclude that this portion of English grammar is among the neatest and least troublesome of the formal systems to be acquired. The rule as generally stated, Aux -»• Tense (Modal) (have-PP) (¿e-PrP) is unassailable so long as the discussion is restricted to nonmodal sentences. Its applicability to modals is most often supported by the use of can and will as examples which effectively demonstrate the descriptive accuracy of the rule. When other modals are added to the paradigm, however, the apparent regularity disappears; when can and will are considered in certain contexts (e.g. can + have-PP), even their inclusion in the rule may be questioned. Thus, this general rule must be considered as no more than suggestive of the behavior of modals as a class. Could, would, will, and should are, as far as I can determine, the only exceptionless modals — and even they are not adequately represented in that their co-occurrence with tense is debatable. 72 ' 2 Bruce L. Liles, An Introductory Transformational Grammar (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971), p. 22.

28

ON DEFINING MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

The following criteria for a formal definition of modals as a class were compiled f r o m the sources (no one of which includes all of them) cited in the notes to this chapter. Since modals are auxiliaries, those features they share with other auxiliaries are described first.

AUXILIARIES IN GENERAL

All auxiliaries, modals included, potentially function in four major transformations: 1. Sentence negation, in which the negative particle not immediately follows or contracts with the modal or other auxiliary present. 73 2. Inversion with the subject, both in questions and in formal conditional or restrictive uses. 74 3. "Emphatic affirmation", 7 5 in which the main stress of the sentences falls on the auxiliary to signal insistence on the truth of the statement, whether affirmative or negative. 4. "Echo-substitute" functions, 7 6 as in tag questions, short answers, and conjunction with and so. As Twaddell notes, their functions are not mere 'privileges' for auxiliaries; an auxiliary is an indispensable component in any English construction of sentence negation, interrogation, stress for insistence, and echo-repetition. The semantic categories are surely among the most pervasive to emerge from any global survey of the syntaxes of the world. The peculiar English focus upon the auxiliaries as their carriers is thus a source of up to four major conflict points in any teaching of English as a foreign language, or of a foreign language to English speaking learners.77 73

Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals . . p . 9; Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 16; and Palmer, A Linguistic Study of the English Verb, p. 21. ,4 Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 9; Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 16; and Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 21. 76 Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 26, uses this term; Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 17, calls the same phenomenon "insistence on truth value". '* Twaddell, TheEnglish Verb Auxiliaries,}?. 17; Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 24, calls it "code,... avoidance of repetition". 77 Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 18.

ON DEFINING MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

29

In the absence of an auxiliary in the base structure of the sentence, all four of these transformations require the insertion of do as a tense carrier and transformational signal. Further, as Palmer points out, do is required only in these four transformational operations and does not co-occur with other auxiliaries.78 To illustrate, given the rule as stated, Aux

Tense (Modal) (have-PP) (¿e-PrP),

the following sentence types can be described or produced: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary

goes/went. might go. might have gone. might be going. might have been going. has/had gone. haslhad been going. is/was going.

Negating the sentences by the formula of placing not (n't) after the first element of the auxiliary is also straightforward: 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary Mary

doesn't I didn't go. might not go. might not have gone. might not be going. might not have been going. hasn't Ihadn't gone. hasn't Ihadn't been going. isn't¡wasn't going.

The only sentences needing comment are the one lacking an explicit auxiliary ( # 9) and those containing a modal ( # 10, 11, 12, and 13). In the first case, a sentence without a formal auxiliary requires do as a tense carrier; in the second, contraction with the negative " Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 26. The exception he cites, "Do be quick", does not involve auxiliary be at all, but rather copulative be with a predicate adjective.

30

ON DEFINING MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

particle, while possible, is less likely to occur in American English than the uncontracted form, might not.19 With the question inversion transformation, certain modals present additional problems in terms of actual use. Here, too, differences between British and American English become apparent. The rule as generally stated, Modal Modal Noun Phrase—Tense have X=>Tense have Noun Phrase—X, be be where X represents the remainder of the verb phrase, produces the following: 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

Does/did Mary go? Might Mary go? Might Mary have gone? Might Mary be going? Might Mary have been going? Haslhad Mary gone? Has/had Mary been going? Is/was Mary going?

The might questions seem only marginally possible in American English. An equivalent, and probably more common, means of asking for identical information would be, Do you think Mary might go?, or perhaps even, Do you think Mary'11 go?, the prefatory Do you think expressing the notion of possibility or doubt ordinarily carried by the modal. Tag questions (echo-substitute), since they require both inversion and negative contraction, are even more problematic. The formula, as expressed informally by Twaddell,80 is: Sentence + Aux ( + n't) + Pronoun Subject, the presence of n't being determined by its absence in the main clause " Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 22. Also, Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 14. Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 17.

ON DEFINING MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

31

and vice versa (that is, the sign of negation is opposite to that of the main clause). The result of this transformation with might is highly suspect in American English: Mary might go, mightn't she? With may and shall, the results (mayn't she/may she not; shan't she! shall she not) are at least as foreign to the American ear as mightn't. Consider also the so-called "short answer" to yes/no questions. If the question is Can Mary go?, the possible answers are: 25. Yes, she can. 26. No, she can't. 27. Maybe she can. With might, on the other hand, given the question cited above, Do you think Mary might go?, the corresponding answers are: 28. 29. 30. 31.

Yes, (I think) she might (or will). No, I don't think she will. No, she won't. Maybe she will.

Substituting might for will in answers 29, 30, and 31 is not possible in my language, perhaps because no is too positive to accommodate the uncertainty of might and because maybe already expresses the uncertainty, making the inclusion of might redundant. At any rate, what is ordinarily described as a regular deletion process (the short answer formula) is, in this case, clearly not regular. A note regarding the relationship between modal and tense seems in order since might is often regarded as the past tense of may, yet the suppletion in the above short answers is accomplished with will, traditionally considered the future tense signal for English. The question and its answers can refer to nothing but a future event (which can be tested by adding the time adverbials tomorrow and yesterday to the question); the "present time" version of the modal, may, seems an unsatisfactory substitute in this context. Joos's state-

32

ON DEFINING MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

ment that all modals are connotatively "future" is perhaps applicable here. 81 Even when Tense is defined as Real/Unreal, Actual/Remote, or Actual/Hypothetical, the lack of distinction between may and might remains. Perhaps an even more convincing example for speakers of American English is the pairing of shall and should, for which no accounting for tense can alter the fact that shall is equivalent to will, and should is equivalent to ought to. Even in its legal and ritual uses, shall seems to be the third person alternative to the imperative will which occurs only with second person subjects, 82 rather than a formulaic equivalent to obligational must, and hence to the milder term to which it is etymologically related, should. Must, it seems to me, implies potential enforcement, usually in the form of social approval or disapproval 83 or desire for a favorable outcome, whereas legal shall implies actual enforcement imposed by superior powers. Similarly, the undeleted imperative (e.g. You will clean up your room — with will stressed) carries with it the threat of actual and present enforcement. The emphatic affirmation transformation likewise affects different modals in different ways. For example, any of the modals can accommodate major stress in declarative sentences, but the effects depend upon the particular modal. Twaddell remarks that the effect of such stress "signals insistence on the truth value (affirmative or negative) of the sentence as a whole", 84 but the influence of the emphasis seems, in some cases, restricted to the modal only: 32. We might go to the zoo next week. 33. Uncle Joe may fly in an airplane. 34. You'd better clean up your room. 81

Joos, The English Verb: Form and Meanings, p. 159. Edward S. Klima, "Negation in English", The Structure of Language, eds. Jerry A. Fodor and Jerrold J. Katz (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: PrenticeHall, Inc., 1964), pp. 258-59. 83 Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals ..., p. 67; Joos, The English Verb ..., p. 191. 84 Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 14. 82

ON DEFINING MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

33

In the first instance, the uncertainty, rather than the "truth", is emphasized, in the second, again the possibility. In both cases, the particular stress on the modal suggests that it is in response to someone who attributed a more positive intention (will, for example) to the speaker, who thus feels compelled to emphasize the indecision. With the third sentence, emphasis on better implies a stronger threat of enforcement than the unstressed version. Also, two additional transformations based on emphasis, insistence with too and contradiction with either, are possible with only a few of the modals (have, be, and do present no such problems) : 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

I am too going to watch TV. I'm not either going to watch TV. I can too throw a ball up to the ceiling. You can't either throw a ball... The teacher will too read another story. The teacher won't either ... Mommy could too see the ball game. Mommy couldn't either ... Spot would too come if you called him. Spot wouldn't either ... We should too drink some milk every day. We shouldn't either ...

Possibly also: 47. We shall too play games this afternoon. but not: 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

* We shan't either ... (perhaps British) * Uncle Joe may too fly in an airplane. * Uncle Joe may not either ... *We might too go to the zoo next week. * We might not either ... * You must too hurry home after school. You mustn't either hurry home ...

34

ON DEFINING MODALS : FORMAL CRITERIA

( # 5 4 strikes me as a possible English sentence, but a preferable alternative to it and # 53 would be suppletion with have to : You do too have to hurry home; You don't either have to hurry home.) 55. *Mike ought too to share his toys with me. 56. *Mike oughtn't either to share ... As with the simple emphasis, those modals which express uncertainty or which resist contraction with the negative also resist the insistence and contradiction transformations. Need and dare as catenatives are transformable with tense-carrier do, but as modals are at best marginal : 57. 58. 59. 60.

*The boys need too go home. *The boys needn't either ... *I dare too climb trees. *I dare not either ... Summary

It is clear, after applying these transformations one by one to the modals, that the regularity implied by such general rules does not, in fact, describe the modal system of English. In every case, can, could, will, would, and should behave in a manner comparable to the so-called primary auxiliaries, have (Perfect) and be (Progressive or Copulative). With the remaining "classical" modals and with borderline modal-like constructions, exceptions and irregularities are obtained with every combination of modal and transformation. Modals as Distinct from Other Auxiliaries As a class apart from other auxiliaries, modals share the following syntactic restrictions : 1. When a modal occurs in a sentence, it is the first element of the verb phrase, regardless of how much further the auxiliary is expanded. 85 That is, it is possible to have a Modal Progressive senTwaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 2; Ehrmann, The Meanings of the Modals..., p. 9 ; Palmer, A Linguistic Study ..., p. 106.

ON DEFINING MODALS: FORMAL CRITERIA

35

tence, a Modal Perfect, and a Modal Perfect Progressive. For example, could see, could be seeing, could have seen, and could have been seeing are equally possible in English. Note, however, that of the five "regular" modals, can is commonly restricted to Progressive expansion: Sally can have chased the dog is not a sentence in my language, though Diver 86 and Palmer 87 cite can have as a regular past form of can in its sense of possibility. Ehrmann found only one occurrence of this construction — in the negative — in her analysis of 300,000 words of prose. 88 In any case, it is a rare construction and I would prefer could in both the negative and affirmative, unless a particular combination of emphasis and surprise accompanied the utterance. 2. A modal requires a following verb (infinitive without to) to complete the meaning of the sentence. 89 For example, he can is possible only when the deleted verb is recoverable from elsewhere in the context. Normally, in undeleted sentences, a verb is required (e.g. He can go). If the to of catenatives is interpreted as marking the catenative rather than the following infinitive, they, too, observe this requirement. In many cases, there is phonological support for such an interpretation: ought to is ordinarily pronounced [ats]; have to as [haefta]; be going to as [biy gona], and so forth. In no case, however, does the infinitive marker to accompany the nine classical modals or 'd better and 'd rather. 3. Modals do not co-occur. 90 It is possible for modals and catenatives to co-occur, however, as in We will have to be leaving now, or We could be going to read poetry today. Should ought, might could, and the like are nonstandard. Further, Twaddell cites the occurrence of wouldn't dare and will need to as evidence of "the passage of dare (and need) from the modal to the catenative class". 91 Of the modallike constructions, ought to, V better, and ' Tns (M) {have-VP) (¿e-PrP), but which feels un-English. The children, apparently rejecting the sentence as impossible, found even such a short item beyond their ability or willingness to repeat. Only in third grade did more than half imitate accurately. Considering the shortness of the sentence — seven syllables, seven morphemes — especially in light of the much longer sentences the children repeated without difficulty, the unfamiliarity of the modal sequence can have seems to be the source of the errors. Can, in all of its other uses except with the tag in kindergarten and first grade, was imitated or manipulated with nearly 100 percent accuracy by all children. The poor performance of the children on this particular item, then, seems to reflect adult usage: the combination is not part of the standard adult repertory, thus the children tried in a variety of ways to made a "real" (to them) sentence out of it. The kindergartners utilized two major strategies to produce their sentences: omission of the modal and inversion of the auxiliary elements. As with the will have sentence, most of the kindergartners made two or more adjustments. Fully half the kindergartners omitted can, but only one adjusted have for agreement (her second adjustment was adding be -ing: Sally has been chasing the dog). Charles converted have -en to have to (Sally have to chase); and Lisa (K) and

60

DISCUSSION

Tracee (1) may have been compensating for their omissions by stressing -en (Lisa: Sally have chas-ed; Tracee: Sally could chaseri). Another child simply omitted the modal, while two others omitted the entire auxiliary (Sally chased the dog). The other popular adjustment among kindergartners was inversion of the auxiliary elements (have could, has can). Inversions occurred once each in first and second grades; only one child above kindergarten, a first-grader, omitted the modal. On the other hand, first-graders favored omission of have -en and substitution of could, while second-graders substituted could or replaced all or part of the perfect construction with be -ing (can be chasing, can have be chasing). The two third-graders who erred used have to instead of have -en. Although at least one kindergartner used each of these adjustments, usually in combination with another, the two which were involved in 75 percent of their responses — omission of can and inversion — faded out by first and second grades. Further, no two kindergartners produced the same version of the model. Conversely, the predominant changes of the other grades, while differing from each other, occurred in frequencies of two or more. In contrast to the can have sentence, no child inverted will have, and only one first-grader omitted will. With will have, omissions were generally limited to have -en, and where will was absent another modal replaced it. Only four will have responses were ungrammatical, as opposed to the majority with can have which ranged from disregarding subject-verb agreement to inversion of the auxiliary elements to doubling of the modal (Sally can might chase the dog). Three conclusions arise from comparison of these two items: first, that imitation is not an automatic parroting procedure, at least through second grade; second, that children's competence rejects an unfamiliar or deviant item before an acceptable alternative is available; and third, that patterns of response are not generalizable from one modal to another. The result of asking children to imitate unreal or unfamiliar constructions is to throw them into a state of

DISCUSSION

61

confusion, especially in the early grades where each child solves the problem his own way. Tags When a child is asked to add a tag question to an affirmative nonexpanded sentence, the possibilities of error include: distortion of the modal, omission of question inversion, omission of the negative, and an inappropriate pronoun. This task is understandably the most complex the children were asked to perform, and, understandably, their performance was less adept than with other tasks. In general, the performance of the children on tags with the Group I modals, should, would, could, will, and can, improved from kindergarten through third grade. The kindergartners, for example, made all of the possible errors — usually in combinations — while the third-graders most often responded with good form even when their modals were in error. An indication of the difficulty of the task for the younger children was the method of settling on a "standard" response for most of the items. Four kindergartners and six first-graders repeated the same auxiliary for more than half the items, as did one second and two third-graders. In addition, the number of failures to produce a tag at all — that is, huh?, okay?, very well, or no response — was in striking contrast to the willingness of the children to respond in the other tasks. No child failed to produce at least one appropriate tag, though one could ask whether this were accidental: Stephanie (K), for example, used a couldn't tag for seventeen of the nineteen responses, which means that one of her tags would have to be right, even if only by chance. Curtis (K), on the other hand, used haven't for eighteen of the items, couldn't being his only correct response. One of the first-graders who had a preferred response began with two appropriate tags, but on his third item substituted can't for couldn't, then used can't for the remaining items except his twelfth, will. Kip, incidentally, had the best overall performance among the first-graders; also, his is the only clear-cut case of one item influencing others.

62

DISCUSSION

The most frequent tag errors with Group I modals were substitutions of various types, with the incidence of formal lapses (omissions of transformations) varying according to the structure of the model sentence and the ages of the children. Where first-person pronouns occurred in the sentence, pronoun errors were more likely to occur than with third person; for the younger children, lack of inversion and negation often accompanied each other, while they more frequently occurred separately for the older children. That is, success with all three of the transformations required for a tag question, as well as repetition of the given modal, increases progressively with age. The older children, moreover, appear to have been as sensitive to the meanings of the sentences as to their structures. The best percentage performance of the kindergartners in tagging any sentence was with could; more of the total sample did well with could than with the other four modals of Group I. At the same time, more of the children who mis-tagged the could sentence erred formally, i.e. failed to negate or invert. With can and should, on the other hand, the predominant errors were in the pronouns. Since the subjects of the model sentences were already pronouns (/and we), no pronoun transformation was necessary; nonetheless, three kindergartners and two first-graders changed / to third person in the can tag, and five kindergartners and two first-graders changed we to second or third person, as though a pronoun change were required regardless of the model sentence. Thirteen of the nineteen tag items had third person subjects, which caused little difficulty in tag pronouns. The tendency for the younger children who made pronoun errors was from first or second person to third person, and for boys to substitute he while girls favored she. The other most frequent errors with can and should tags were substitutions of the modal. Could occurred six times for can, but no such concentration of replacements occurred with should: ten children replaced should with a total of six different auxiliaries, including have and do. In addition, one kindergartner and one firstgrader did not respond. Formally, the children's performance on will and would was better than with the other modals of this group in spite of the low per-

DISCUSSION

63

centages for the upper grades with will. Except for Mark S. (K), who said he would for wouldn't he, all the kindergarten children used appropriate negation, inversion, and pronouns for both of these sentences. In the other grades, question inversion was also without exception, though a pronoun error occurred with will in the third grade, and negation was omitted from the will tag once each in second and third grades and once in third grade from the would tag. Tag errors, thus, varied according to the modal and the construction of the model sentence. There is little connection, however, between the percentages of appropriate response and types of errors. For example, the children tagged will with won't she only slightly more than half the time, but substituted another modal in a formally sound tag. On the other hand, the overall conformity of could tags was higher, but a larger proportion of the children omitted transformations. The relationship between the content of the sentence and error type is evident in both the can and should tags in which the pronouns influenced the children's performance, and in the will tag in which the meaning of the sentence seemed to interfere. The only item in Group I for which percentages did not increase by grade level was the will tag, to which 41.7 percent of the kindergartners and 60 percent of the first-graders responded appropriately. In second grade, the percentage dropped to 54.5 percent, not an impressive reduction, but only 36.4 percent of the third-graders produced the proper tag to what is supposed to be a regular and early acquired modal. The sentence itself may have interfered with the older children: five children in the second and third grades said, The teacher will read another story tomorrow, shouldn't she? — which could be interpreted: the second and third-grade teachers in question are not in the habit of reading stories to their classes, but the children think they should. Put another way, the child receives the input, The teacher will read another story tomorrow, and while processing the transformations also applies a reality check ("My teacher doesn't — but she should"), and takes his cue for the tag from his unspoken application of the model to his own experience. Similarly, the response of couldn't she as a tag for will might result from an interior

64

DISCUSSION

monologue which recognizes no external obstacles to the teacher's reading to the children, even though she does not. The other faulty tag produced by two third-graders on this item, isn't she, may be the result of an internal substitution of is going to for will somewhere between repetition of the model and transformation of the tag. That is, the children who did this imitated the model sentence with will as modal, thinking, perhaps, is going to, and took the auxiliary for their tags from the phrase which is semantically equivalent in this context. The notion of constructing sentences close to the children's experience, it seems, can be of mixed value if the expressed situation is so immediate that it distracts the children from the grammatical task. If, in processing the sentences, the children find a conflict with their experience or their wishes, they seem to make adjustments. Another example is the response to the imitation of Mother would have thrown the ball', two second-graders, one first-grader, and two kindergartners negated the sentence. Elsewhere in the imitation task, negation was extremely rare, with no more than one child of the entire sample negating any other item than this. Further, with this particular item, no other errors occurred in the second grade. The children were perhaps reflecting their own experience with mothers who do not typically throw balls. Summary Performance on the five common modals was uniformly high with all but a few tasks. Sources of error on the problem items were, apparently: 1. subtlety of time expression (will have); 2. unlikely auxiliary construction (can have); and 3. complexity of the task (tags). In addition, other elements than the modal, both inside and outside the sentence, seemed to be instrumental in some instances: 4. first person pronouns in sentences to be tagged; and

DISCUSSION

65

5. conflict of the given sentence with the child's experience (will tag, would have imitation). Why the could tag should have been subject to lapses of inversion and negation is not clear. The grade levels were clearly reflected in problem items, with third-graders generally in agreement with each other and with the rules. Where kindergartners failed to conform to the rules, they also failed to agree with each other and erred in two or more ways at once. First and second-graders displayed a progressive reduction in the number of errors and a progressive agreement on responses. Grade levels were indistinguishable, however, in most tasks with Group I modals.

Group II: Shall, May, Might, Ought to

The three areas in which the children's performance with shall, may, might, and ought to lacked conformity to the rules of transformational grammars — negation, questions, and tags — are identical to the restrictions on these modals outlined in Chapter 3. Negation It will be recalled that these four modals are unlikely to contract with the negative in American English. That the first grade percentages often exceeded those of the other grades in negation of Group II modals is a feature of their tendency to carefully enunciate the uncontracted negative particle, even with the common modals. Kindergarten children also did this with might. Thus, they were not faced with the problem of an unfamiliar contraction. Third-graders, on the other hand, displayed a definite preference for contraction and frequently chose substitute modals where regular contraction would have been awkward. Four of them, for example, contracted mustn't (as opposed to one first-grader and no kindergartners), while all of their substitutions for shall not and most for may not and ought not were contractions.

66

DISCUSSION

While the children negated shall, may, and might with accuracy more than half the time, their performance with ought to was less impressive. The difference is of degree rather than kind, however. For example, kindergartners typically replaced the given modal with an unrelated auxiliary, each child making a different choice, while for all four modals, the third-graders' replacements were limited to one or two alternatives, each with some semantic justification. With may, each of the nine kindergartners who erred formed a different negative; the third-graders, on the other hand, used might not three times and won't three times. In between, the first-graders were most often formally regular, but used might not and won't once each; in second grade, the popular nonformal response was won't. Similarly, the kindergartners formed their negatives for ought to nine different ways, including two with shouldn't; the first-graders used shouldn't three times, with five other nonformal negatives; the second-graders produced seven negatives with shouldn't and four others, including doesn't have to\ and the third-graders used ought not and shouldn't, twice and nine times, respectively. Put another way, the percentages of semantic approximation in negation of ought to are: kindergarten, 25 percent; first grade, 50 percent; second grade, 63.6 percent; and third grade, 90.9 percent — not only considerably improved over the formal percentages, but clearly demonstrating an age progression as well. Negatives with shall were slightly different in that the choices the children made were divided between a semantic alternative, won't, and a phonological or morphological alternative, shouldn't. To further illustrate that awareness of the meaning of an item seems to increase with age, however, the incidence of each choice differs by grade level: kindergartners used shouldn't four times and will not once, first-graders one of each, second-graders two of each, and third-graders one of shouldn't and three of won't. While the predominant errors in negation were substitutions of another modal, may and ought to also produced some structural deviancies. One kindergartner negated Uncle Joe may fly in an airplane with Uncle Joe not fly in an airplane, comparable to the Mike not share his toys of another kindergartner. In addition to

DISCUSSION

67

these omissions of modals, placement of the negative varied with these two modals: not may occurred in kindergarten, and not ought to in both kindergarten and second grade. Ought to not appeared in kindergarten and first grade. The uncertainty of these few children with negative placement is more understandable for ought to than for may, since the former consists of two elements which must be separated by the negative particle in adult usage. It is notable, however, that problems with negative placement occurred only with these two modals and dare, which suggests that these items were unfamiliar enough to these children to disrupt one of their most thoroughly controlled transformations. This phenomenon resembles the children's treatment of the can have sentence in Group 1 in that the less likely a construction is in normal adult speech the more likely it is to result in an ungrammatical response from the children. In summary, the first-graders negated Group II modals more regularly than any other grade because they preferred uncontracted negation generally. Where the negations deviated from expected formal norms, the children most frequently substituted another modal for the one given. Further, the substitutions varied widely in kindergarten and first grade, but narrowed to one or two possibilities in second and third, since the older children based their choices largely on semantic proximity. In Group II, as opposed to Group I, the discussion focuses more on the meanings of items, since these modals normally do not appear in formally regular transformations. Consequently, few of the children at any age conform to the rules in their responses; thus, the differences in their responses by age become differences in how well they retain the sense, if not the form, of the sentences. Kindergartners, although they imitated Group II modals with little difficulty, seem to have only vague notions of their meanings in transformations. Tags Since tags are dependent both on negative contraction and on interrogative inversion, the fact that the four modals of Group II gen-

68

DISCUSSION

erally defy both in adult American usage precludes their availability in tags. For the most part, the tags were formally adequate, with only a few failures — primarily among the younger children — to invert, negate, or transform the pronoun. The modals substituted for those given corresponded impressively with those substituted in negation and question tasks: won't and shouldn't for shall; won't, can't and shouldn't for might (the notion of "going to the zoo" perhaps influencing the choice); can't for may; and shouldn't for ought to. The general direction of the children's performance was similar to that with other modals — from a scattering of individual responses among the kindergartners to an almost total concentration on one or two alternatives by second and third-graders. Also, the older children most often substituted a semantically justifiable item, while the younger children rarely retained any sense of the original modal in their responses. The importance of near synonyms appears not only in the substitutions chosen by the children, but also in their adherence to the formal requirements for tags. Among the younger children, tag form was less secure, but there was also a progression of formal conformity among the modals: 1. 2. 3. 4.

shall: seven nonformal tags or no responses; ought to: eight non-tags; may: nine non-tags; might: fourteen non-tags.

The availability of the more familiar modals can, will, and should for may, shall, and ought to, respectively, explains the lower incidence of formal lapses among the children than for might. It further demonstrates that when a child is faced with an unlikely sentence and has no ready alternatives, his confusion extends as deeply as the syntactic level. In theoretical terms, this might be phrased as an intimate interaction between the semantic and syntactic components of a grammar: confusion in one results in confusion of the other. The older children, of course, had acquired some alternatives.

DISCUSSION

69

Questions The four modals of Group II occur in questions only rarely in American English, and generally in a formal, adult context. To the extent that the children avoided inverting them in questions, they were reflecting adult usage, even though their alternatives were not always grammatical. At any rate, the unfamiliarity of the question patterns is evident from their performance. Shall and may, of course, are more frequent and less ceremonious as question openers in questions such as Shall we/Igo? or May I go?, as opposed to the dignified character of Might we? or Ought you? This, too, is reflected on Table 2. Questions formed from the command Ask him if you shall stay with him are different in two major respects from those of the other modals of this group. First, except for this item, pronouns were invariably he in the command to be converted to you in the question; and second, redundancy never occurred with the shall question (i.e. the modal was never doubled). As Carol Chomsky's study demonstrated, pronoun reference in embedded sentences is not always clearly understood by elementary school children. 107 One quarter of the children in my sample, including two kindergartners and three in each of the other grades, retained you as the subject of their questions, even though it should have been transformed to I. That the kindergartners did slightly better in this respect than the older children is perhaps explained by the fact that three of them neglected the question transformation, as though avoiding one transformation made the other possible. The other consistent adjustment made by the children was in modal substitution, by far the most popular being should, resulting in questions beginning Should I stay. Curiously, of the seven children who substituted will — which was more appropriate than substitution of should in negation though not in questions — six of them, two each in kindergarten, second, and third grade, also failed to transform the pronoun. The other most frequent question was Can I stay, apparently asking permission rather than asking for the 10

'

Chomsky, The Acquisition of Syntax in Children from 5 to 10, pp. 107-11.

70

DISCUSSION

addressee's preference, or shifting from the question Do you want me to stay with you to I want to stay; will you let me? Questions with can occurred in first, second, and third grades, but not in kindergarten. The other modals of Group II , may, might, and ought to, presented no pronoun difficulties, though the production of formally determined questions dropped to zero for might and ought to and near zero for may. The most interesting feature of the children's attempts to form questions with these modals is the pattern that emerges, roughly from kindergarten to third grade, in their deviant responses. This pattern corresponds almost exactly to the developmental sequence of question formation outlined by Bellugi108 and Menyuk, 109 which suggests that the sequence of acquisition does not occur once and only once, but that it may be repeated for individual modals or, perhaps, groups of modals. Approached from another direction, since these were elicitations rather than observations, it may be that unfamiliar item causes a child to revert to an earlier, more comfortable stage. Tables 7, 8, and 9 display the question types the children used for may, might, and ought to, respectively, arranged in the apparent order of maturity. TABLE 7 May Questions Grade

Question No Inversion

3

2

1

K 1

You may go home Redundancy Do you may go Can you may go Could you may go Will you may go Would you may go 108

1 1 1

1

1 1

1

4 2

Bellugi, "The Development of Interrogative Structures in Children's Speech", pp. 122-23. 10 '' Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, pp. 73-74.

71

DISCUSSION Substitution Could you go Can you go Would you go Will you go

2 1 2

3

1 1 1 1

2

1

K

1

1

1

2 2 2

2

TABLE 8 Might Questions Question No Inversion

Grade 3

You might play Redundancy Are you going to might play Will you might play Would you might play

1

2

1

1 3 1

1

3

4 2 1

2 3

1 1 3 1

1

K

1

1

Substitution Would you like to play Will you play Would you play Can you play Could you play Are you going to play

1 3 2 1 1 1

Addition Do you think you'd play

1 TABLE 9 Ought to Questions Grade

Question No auxiliary You fix your lunch

3

2 1

No Inversion You ought to fix your lunch

72

DISCUSSION Redundancy

Do you ought to fix Do you got to fix Would you ought to fix Should you ought to fix Would you have to fix

2

2

2 1 2

1 2

1

1

5 1 2 1 1

Substitution Can you fix Will you fix Have you fixed Are you going to fix Do you have to fix Should(rit) you fix

1 1 1 1 1 4

3

1 2

Addition Do you think you should fix Do you think you ought to

1 1

The concentration of redundancies in kindergarten and first grade, and the concentration of substitutions in second and third grades indicate something of a progression of transformation skills. Menyuk's stages, based on observational data, are repeated in these tables but with a few substages. Stage one, according to Menyuk,110 indicates interrogation by conjoining a simplified sentence (one lacking an auxiliary or copula) with rising intonation; that is, the only means of identifying the utterance as a question is its intonation. One of my second-graders who formed twelve of the twenty-two questions perfectly reverted to this stage with ought to: You fix your lunch (rising intonation). The second stage includes auxiliary, but lacks inversion, again with rising intonation to indicate the question. Three children, one each in kindergarten, first, and second grades, asked, You might play tomorrow (rising); two children, a kindergartner and a first-grader, said, You ought to fix your lunch (rising); and one kindergartner 110

Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, pp. 73-74.

DISCUSSION

73

asked, You may go home (rising). For a few children, stage two was the rule for all but the most common modals. Menyuk's third stage involves a redundant auxiliary in that, while inversion now occurs, in her examples tense is marked both before and after the subject (Is this is the powder? Where does the wheel goes?).111 The redundancy of tense was precluded by the presence of uninflected modals, yet double modals occurred in twenty-one of the forty-four responses with ought to, thirteen of the forty-four with may, and twelve of the forty-four with might. Within the stage of redundancy, moreover, there seem to be three stages of maturity. First, do you ought to fix your lunch, do you got to, do you may, in which the modal is treated as a regular verb, form their questions with do — the children reveal no awareness of their modal status, but form the questions on a parallel with do you want to or do you have to. Do you might did not occur, perhaps indicating a greater awareness of the modality of might or a greater sense of alternatives to might in formally structured questions. An intermediate stage of redundancy appears when the child begins his question with a regular modal, but repeats the given modal in its normal declarative position: willlwould you might; would you ought to; willlwould/can/could you may. The final stage of redundancy consists of an extra modal to begin the question, but unlike the previous stage, the addition shares semantic features with the modal provided. Five children asked, Should you ought to fix your lunch. Here, even though the structural problem is not yet solved, the semantic import of the modal seems to be withm the control of the child. Between redundancies and Menyuk's final stage of formally appropriate questions, two additional stages are suggested by performance on these three modals: first, replacement of the modal with a nonmodal auxiliary, as in the second-grader's version of ought you to fix as have you fixed; and second, replacement of the modal with another modal or near-modal with no semantic similarity, as in the questions can you/will youjare you going to fix your lunch. 111

Menyuk, Sentences Children Use, p. 73.

74

DISCUSSION

Menyuk's fourth stage is the removal of redundancies to produce the adult version of the question. If the adult version requires formal regularity, none of these children achieved it with these items, except for a few with may. Instead, nine of them from first through third grades said, Should you fix your lunch, substituting a semantically approximate, formally regular modal for the difficult ought to. Ten in all four grades said, Will you play tomorrow for might; eight said, Will you go home with me, and seven Can you go home with me for may. In addition, two substituted do you have to for ought to, and one are you going to for might. Three prefaced the ought to and might questions with Do you think (Do you think you should, Do you think you ought to; Do you think you'd).

Summary Performance of the children on modals such as ought to, may, and might suggests that they are acquired later than can, for example, perhaps because of their relative infrequency in adult usage, particularly in conjunction with transformations (few children had difficulty with these items in straight imitation). Further, the stages of refinement which accompanied can at ages 2-4 may be repeated for Group II modals at ages 5-9. That is, the process of acquiring a grammar does not consist simply of developing a phrase-structure then automatically dropping new items into established categories: it is an ongoing process which may repeat itself as new items are acquired. Presumably, this does not continue indefinitely, but the child eventually commands his grammar to the extent that redundancies need not accompany each acquisition. Even teachers of college English, however, often encounter such redundancies as to which the student must get used to. If the stages outlined above indeed reflect the maturity of the children's behavior with modals, shall questions were at a higher level of maturity than any others of Group II. Counting only redundancies, since the instances of noninversion were so few, the ordering of these modals in questions is:

DISCUSSION

75

1. shall: not only did children in each grade produce shall questions without error, but there were also no redundancies. 2. may : a smaller number of children produced accurate may questions; of those who altered the command, thirteen produced redundancies (none in third grade). 3. might: no questions beginning with might; thirteen redundancies (one in third grade). 4. ought to: no questions beginning with ought; twenty-four redundancies (four in third grade). That such a large number of questions were ungrammatical with these modals is particularly significant compared to the children's behavior with the modals of Group I. Of the two hundred and twenty questions (five modals times forty-four children), two hundred and sixteen of the Group I responses were of grammatical question form, whether or not the modal was a substitution. With Group II modals, on the other hand, fifty-six responses (one third of the total of one hundred and seventy-six) were ungrammatical, i.e. lacked inversion or contained redundant modals.

G r o u p III: Must, Must Be, Must Have

In imitation, unexpanded must, in its sense of duty or obligation, was among the two or three modals repeated perfectly by all children, the single exception being substitution of should by one secondgrader. As with Group II modals, however, performance on tags and questions was near zero by formal criteria. Must is complicated by the semantic change attendant upon auxiliary expansion: add be -ing or have -en, and the meaning becomes evidential rather than obligational. For example, Sam must hurry means simply that he is required, now or in the near future, by some duty or fear of consequences, to do so, whereas Sam must have hurried implies that all evidence indicates that he has already done so. All of the first, second, and third-graders, including the first-grader who repeated inaccurately with Sam has maybe hurried, demonstrated understanding of the semantic value of this expansion, while

76

DISCUSSION

the three kindergartners in error indicated otherwise: Sam must hurried this morning (one negated as well). Even so, the semantic shift had little effect on imitation, though it proved significant in the transformations. The regularity of must is also distorted by the number of other obligational modals and modal-like constructions which are roughly interchangeable with must in certain contexts. In statements, should, ought to, have to, 'd better, and need to share the sense of obligation with varying degrees of compulsion or fear of threat. In other contexts, however, as with the addition of be -ing or have -en, the semantic proximity disappears: should have, with its implications of nonperformance in spite of advantages (unspecified) which might have resulted from performance, is in no way similar to must have with its implications of performance in the past. Further, the infrequency of questions beginning with must provides children with few models on which to base their own performance. In my grammar, for example, the only must questions are on the order of Must you do that?, usually accompanied by exasperation and roughly equivalent to Stop it! — not, in fact, a true question at all. The children in my sample were, except for two firstgraders, completely unable to form yes/no questions with must, which suggests that, as with Group II modals, transformations are based to some extent on exposure to adult usage rather than entirely on an abstract model of Subject-Auxiliary inversion. Negation Negation of the simple modal was relatively easy for first through third-graders, again the only formal deviations being the semantically approximate substitution of shouldn't by two first-graders and don't have to by one second-grader. The kindergartners with deviations in the negative were those with "standard" responses: Curtis, I will not; Julie, He did not \ Lisa, She doesn't — all of which altered the second person pronoun as well as the modal — and Carolee, whose response of You better not, would look like a semantic substitution were it not for the fact that she negated eight sen-

DISCUSSION

77

tences, including can, be going to, shall, and dare, in the same way. A further feature of the negation task was the incidence of contraction: kindergarten, none; first grade, one; second grade, three; third grade, four. While the single contraction in first grade is in keeping with the preference for noncontraction at that level, four contractions in third grade was atypically low. Ordinarily, thirdgraders contracted wherever possible, even when they had to substitute another modal, as they frequently did with Group IT; yet none substituted for must. Negation with must have, on the other hand, was problematical at all levels, with seven of the eleven third-graders saying something other than Sam must not have hurried this morning (two said mustn't've, and two must not've — the appropriate ones). No firstgraders, two kindergartners, and three second-graders also provided an acceptable negative, though Marni (K) indicated lack of understanding of the sentence by adding He didn't have to hurry this morning. The favored strategy among kindergartners and first-graders was to omit one part or the other of the auxiliary: Sam mustn't hurry or Sam hasn't hurried. Two kindergartners omitted both: Sam not hurry; and one omitted have while replacing must with may. Two first-graders, four second-graders, and one third-grader placed the negative particle after the complete auxiliary: must have not; and one kindergartner put it before: not must have. Thus, children at all levels demonstrated both semantic and formal confusion when confronted with the task of negating must have. In addition, negating this sentence resulted in three redundancies which were extremely rare outside of the question task. One kindergartner said, must didn't, and two second-graders said, must've not've and must have didn't. In a sense, the redundancies with didn't are comparable to the third stage of redundancy in questions in which the given modal is accompanied by a semantic approximate, as in should you ought. Three third-graders, for example, used didn't as the sole auxiliary in negating this item. Semantically, the negative must not have indicates that the evidence shows that Sam did not hurry. The children

78

DISCUSSION

who responded with didn't omitted the evidential nature of the statement in favor of a more positive alternative. If this is the case, then must have didn't appears to be expression of both the form and a paraphrase. Treatment of must and must have as two separate items seems justified, considering the differences in response among the children in the negation task. From 66.7 percent to 100 percent of the children in each grade negated unexpanded must without difficulty, while the range for must have was 8.3 percent to 36.4 percent. Further, the responses to must have included a number of syntactic irregularities which not only contrast with the total absence of ungrammaticality with the must negation, but also demonstrate the depth of confusion, especially of the younger children. That the children perceive these as different items can be concluded from their failure to attach the negative particle to must in both instances. From a purely formal point of view, negation of both items is identical: the negative follows must, contracted or not. Without the expansion, the task was easy — comparable, in fact, to Group I modals; but with the addition of have, the percentage of formally appropriate negation dropped significantly below that for shall, may, and might of Group II. Tags Tags with unexpanded must produced a scattering of responses among the kindergartners, the only possibility shared by two children being no response. Suzanne, after considering the item, said, "I can't say it." Otherwise, the errors consisted of five wrong pronouns, all with inappropriate auxiliaries as well; three replacements with the given pronoun; one you must have, which avoids the transformations and adds have; and one semantic substitution, shouldn't you. In contrast, five of the kindergartners used didn't as the tag auxiliary for must have, showing some sort of agreement. However, since Julie and Lisa tagged most of the items with some form of do, assuming a semantic process with this item is questionable.

DISCUSSION

79

With unexpanded must, the first-graders were as confused about tagging as the kindergartners. Seven produced the wrong pronoun and one failed to respond. Further, not one used any form of must in the attempted tag, and only one said, shouldn't you. As for the kindergartners, each child produced his own version of the task, no two being the same. Difficulty with the pronouns extended into the higher grades where three second-graders and two third-graders said something other than you. The facility of the children with must tags thus appears to have been somewhat distorted by the inclusion of the second person pronoun in the test item. Since the children generally had more difficulty with first and second person than with third, and since three second-graders had otherwise reasonable tags with shouldn't, one would think that a third person must item would produce different results, though more frequent occurrence of mustn't would be unlikely. Only two children in the entire sample included the given modal in their tags: a second-grader who omitted the inversion and negation transformations (you must), and a third-grader whose tag was formally appropriate. In contrast to the kindergartners and firstgraders whose responses differed from child to child, nine secondgraders and eight third-graders (three of the second-graders who substituted should used the wrong pronoun) settled on shouldn't as an alternative to must in tags. In general, though tag form was observed in all but a few instances, the major problems with tagging the must sentence for the younger children were pronouns and the availability of a contracting, inverting substitute for the modal. The performance of the secondgraders suggests that pronouns remain a problem even after a semantic substitute is found. While substituting should was a reasonable alternative in tagging unexpanded must, it was not appropriate for the must have sentence. Nonetheless, five third-graders, two second-graders, one first-grader, and one kindergartner tagged must have with should. Two children attempted to include have as well: shouldna he? and shouldn't he have?; and the kindergartner anticipated her tag with should by

80

DISCUSSION

substituting should have in the main clause. For these children, the substitutability of must and should has been carried over into inappropriate contexts. Another popular tag for the must have item was with some form of have, often without agreement with the pronoun. One kindergartner, for example, said, haven't he, as did three second-graders. Two first-graders, one second-grader, and two third-graders used hasn't he, one of the third-graders omitting have from the main clause. Third grade tags were divided among didn't he (four times), shouldn't he (four times), shouldna he (once), and hasn't he (twice). In contrast, the ten first-graders used eight different tags, and the kindergartners, in spite of the five occurrences of didn't, had seven different tags — i.e. every child who did not say didn't produced an isolated tag. Further, except for didn't, shouldn't, and hasn't ¡haven't, the kindergarten and first grade responses did not agree with each other. Curiously, in spite of all the variety of response, the incidence of formal lapses was negligible, as it was with unexpanded must. One kindergartner failed to negate, one used a wrong pronoun, and a first-grader missed all three transformations. Considering the high frequency of formal problems with Group II modals, it appears that must is more familiar to the children than may, might, or ought to, even when the semantic value of must + Perfect is not understood. Questions Questions with the must group were similar in general outline to those of Group II, the most frequent departure from formal regularity being redundancies. As with Group II modals, the redundancies were of three types, though the particular auxiliaries supplied differ from must to must be to must have, indicating again that these three items are perceived as separate entities by the children and that specific patterns are not generalizable from one modal to the next. Two children, both first-graders, produced formally appropriate questions in response to the command, Ask him if he must eat

DISCUSSION

81

spinach: Must you eat spinach. The other children neglected question inversion (two in kindergarten); replaced must with can (kindergarten) or would (second grade); or substituted should (three times in first grade, once in second), do you have to (second and third), or do you need to (third). With these nonredundant productions, a progression towards semantic proximity is evident from kindergarten through third grade. A large group of responses must be accounted for differently. While fully half the first-graders either produced the formally appropriate question or a formally and semantically parallel substitute {should you), the most popular response for all other grades was Do you eat spinach?, which at first seemed to be simple avoidance of the modal. Considering that this behavior was unusual for third-graders, however, that explanation appeared superficial. It may be that the four second-graders and four third-graders concerned interpreted must as evidential rather than compulsory; i.e. the embedded sentence, he must eat spinach, equals it appears that he does (the puppet, incidentally, was a bright green frog). Thus, the command, Ask him if he must, becomes Ask him if what appears to be so is, in fact, true. An appropriate question, if this is the case, is Do you eat spinach? The three kindergartners who also asked this question, on the other hand, seem to have been simplifying the task by ignoring the modal. Curtis, for example, omitted inversion for ought to, must have, need, a n d ' d better, and replaced the modal with do for must, should, and might, only the first of which lends itself to a different semantic interpretation. Stephanie and Carolee said, Would-do you ... for both must and should. An alternative interpretation, however, is that they perceived the obligation of the command and were asking if the puppet did what he was told, that is, eat spinach or drink milk. In other words, the sequence might be: Ask him if he must eat spinach; he must eat spinach; you must eat spinach; do you? It is possible, of course, that the second and third-graders processed the item in a manner identical to the kindergartners. On the basis of the general differences in performance between the younger and older children, though, it would seem that the older children would have a more subtle semantic basis for their responses.

82

DISCUSSION

The children's must be questions were similar in many respects to those with unexpanded must, the predominant version in all but first grade being Are you (just) (about)/(almost) six years old? Absence of inversion, however, was more frequent, occurring twice each in kindergarten and second grade and once in first, exceeding the frequency of noninversion for any of the Group II modals. Further, four of the five noninversions with must be retained / / f r o m the command, i.e. if you must be about six years old. The difficulty of the question is thus illustrated by the rather elementary procedure adopted by a number of children. In addition, a third-grader refused to respond. At a more advanced level, one first-grader substituted would you be, and another, should you be, which is, again, a faulty extension of the obligational meaning of must into inappropriate contexts. A third-grader produced the formally regular question, Must you be about six years old — the same child, incidentally, produced the only mustn't you tag. The remaining children were redundant. In contrast to must and must be questions, for which the most frequent responses omitted the modal portion of the auxiliary, the popular version for must have was an additional auxiliary element Have you must have been asleep?, a redundancy which occurred twice each in kindergarten and third grade, and three times each in first and second. Three other children (kindergarten, second, third) omitted the second have, which might have been a rearrangement of elements on their part. Most of the third-graders said either have you been asleep or were you asleep (three each), the former also occurring twice in kindergarten and once in first grade, and the latter occurring one other time in second grade. Two replacements accompanied by the omission of have (should you be, would you be) and one omission of have (must you be) account for the remainder of the nonredundant errors. The greatest variety of redundancies occurred with unexpanded must, and the greatest frequency with must have. Redundancies with a replacement modal occurred only with must be. Table 10 illustrates the degree to which nonformal questions of the must group differ from one another both in frequency and in kind.

83

DISCUSSION

TABLE 10 Group III Questions Must

Must Be Grades

Question Omissions No No No No

inversion must have must or have

Must Have

3 2

1 K

4 4

2 3

3 2

1 K

2 1 2 7 6 2 7

3 2

1 K

1

1 4 1 2 1

3 3 1

Redundancies Was you must been Do you must Have you must Had you must Have you must been Will you must Would you must Do you must have to Should you must

1 1 3 1 1

1 1

1

2 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1

1 1

1 1

2 4

3 2

1 Is

1

1 1* 2*

Redundancy and Replacement Would you might Are you might be Do you ought to be

1 1 1

Replacements Can you Would you Should you Do you have to Do you need to

1 1 1 3 1 1 1

1 1

1* 1" 1» 1

" Also omitted have. As with Group II modals, the redundancies follow a progression from addition of do to semantic doubling. If redundancies are an index of the child's ability with modals in questions, then must be

84

DISCUSSION

was a more successful question for the children. At the same time, the responses clustered heavily around the Are you six years old version. If the measure is noninversions, however, must be is not as impressive. By either count, must have was the most difficult of the three. Summary Results of the children's performance with Group III, must, must be, and must have, are somewhat distorted by two problems in the items themselves: first, the choice of pronoun for the unexpanded sentence used for tags; and second, my initial failure to distinguish between must be and must have, since both carry an evidential meaning. For this reason, must be was not included in the negation and tag tasks. After noting the differences in the children's performance with must be and must have in questions, however, it became apparent that the two constructions were different enough to have warranted separate treatment in all tasks. In general, however, all of the must constructions were treated in a manner similar to modals of Group II. On formal grounds, unexpanded must seems to be as well controlled as any modal in Group II. Imitations of all three sentences were as good as imitations with Group I, the easiest modals. Transformations with expanded sentences, however, produced a variety of nonformal, nonsemantic responses, indicating that the three constructions are perceived differently by the children and that the semantic shift of must, both in time reference and in basic meaning, is a source of difficulty for children. MODAL-LIKE CONSTRUCTIONS Group IV: 'D rather, 'D better

Because 'd rather and 'd better each contain two elements, the first of which is a regularly transformable auxiliary in some but not all of the items (e.g. would inverts in questions, inverts and contracts with negative for tags, but does not acceptably contract with the

DISCUSSION

85

negative in negative statements), and which is ordinarily contracted or elided in statements, the children experienced difficulties with these which were not encountered with other modal-like constructions. For example, the 'd of 'd better is usually not pronounced in either affirmative or negative statements (You better go now; You better not do that), and its questions are normally in the negative (Hadn't you better) or prefaced by Don't you think (Don't you think you better). The 'd of 'd rather, on the other hand, is perceived as the first element of an initial consonant cluster by many of the children, an interpretation suggested by the frequency of such responses as wouldn't drather and would you drather. Though these two constructions seem quite similar on the surface, the performances of the children reveal two interesting differences: first, the first element o f ' d better when expanded is inflected for past tense, even though the reference is to future action in unexpanded verb phrases; and second, the near-synonymity of should provides a ready substitute for 'd better in transformations in which 'd better would be awkward. Neither of these is true for 'd rather. The significance of these two differences is evidenced by the performance of the children on imitations of the 'd better and 'd rather items: first, second, and third-graders repeated exactly 100 percent of the time with 'd rather and only slightly less well with 'd better, but 66.7 percent of the total errors on 'd better consisted of expanding 'd in the present tense {has better, have better), and the other 33.3 percent involved substitution of should. Further, negations o f ' d better included shouldn't in all four grades, doesn't need to and shouldn't better in second grade, and has not better, has better not, and hasn't better not in first. That the kindergartners' negation errors utilized won't, couldn't, and didn't suggests that the least mature strategy is simply to provide whatever negative carrier comes to mind. The first-graders in error attended to the auxiliary given, but without the tense marker; older children were more concerned with the meaning of the item in their substitution of the almost synonymous shouldn't. The same direction from apparent randomness to formal to semantic occurs with some consistency with other modals as well.

86

DISCUSSION

Negating 'd rather was different to the extent that tense was not at issue and rather was frequently dropped, allowing wouldn't or won't to carry the entire auxiliary function. Omitting rather occurred in all four grades, but more frequently in kindergarten and first grade. On the other hand, first and second-graders substituted a somewhat synonymous phrase, won't¡wouldn't want to, which coincides with the concentration of semantic substitutions in second grade with 'd better. Two final features of the children's negation of these items concern the problem of analyzing 'd better and 'd rather into their respective parts. For example, wouldn't drather and drather wouldn't occurred once each in second and third grades as negatives of 'd rather. Further, the placement of the negative particle depends to a large extent on isolating the elements of which these constructions are composed. Perhaps because t h e ' d of 'd better is so lightly enunciated, if at all, in normal speech, the children most often placed the negative in its uncontracted form after the entire construction, even though a choice between hadn't better a n d ' d better not is available in adult usage. The first-graders' difficulty with the tense inflection of had is indirectly indicated in their zero percentage in the hadn't better column of Table 4 (page 51) in that the three children who attempted this alternative inflected have for present tense. Thus, the second alternative,'d better not, especially i f ' d i s not enunciated, is simpler formally. In contrast, even though two alternatives for 'd rather are not equally permissible in adult speech, they are formally possible: wouldn't rather and 'd rather not. The third-graders and kindergartners favored the less acceptable version, wouldn't rather, while the first and second-graders more frequently said, d' rather not. Obviously, the assumption that the older the child the more closely his language approximates adult standards does not account for the third-graders' performance, since two-thirds of those who formally negated'd rather chose the less mature alternative. Another possibility is that the third-graders' general preference for negative contraction when asked to negate a sentence influenced their choice.

DISCUSSION

87

Kindergartners also contracted more frequently than first and second-graders when common and regular modal (such as would) appeared in the model sentence, and almost invariably substituted have, do, or one of the Group I modals when contraction would be awkward or uncommon with the modal given. Thus, a formal factor may be responsible for the lack of progression by age. Tags As well as the children performed the would tags, and as much as they indicated awareness of would as the first element of 'd rather, the tags for She'd rather watch television after school primarily asked permission or affirmation (can't she: 3, 1, K), predicted (won't she: 3, I, K), or sought affirmation of the propriety of the activity (shouldn't she : twice in 3, four times in 2). Tags for 'dbetter, though, were both more scattered and more concentrated than with 'drather: four third-graders, six second-graders, one first-grader, and two kindergartners tagged 'd better with shouldn't she, but the remaining responses included will, can, could, do, and have in grades kindergarten through second. While the incidence of formally deficient tags was relatively low for both constructions (three each), the overall performance of the children on tags was appreciably better with 'd rather, perhaps because of the regularity of would in this construction with this task. On the other hand, only a few third-graders tagged 'd better with hadn't she, again reflecting the tense problem and the apparent lack of awareness of the first element, had, as a transformable auxiliary. Curiously, a number of children at all levels clearly enunciated had with its full value (had better) in imitations, but as a total group, the children seemed not to recognize the separate elements in transformations. With respect to tags and questions, 'd better was treated more like a unitary modal comparable to those of Group II than like a two part construction with a regular nonmodal auxiliary as its first element.

88

DISCUSSION

Questions The children displayed facility with questions with 'd rather that was comparable to their performance with modals of Group I. In fact, if would you drather had been included in the percentage figures, the second and third grade figures would increase to 90.9 percent. Further, if Ronnie's equivalent question, Do you want to be a dog instead?, were counted, the second-graders would have a perfect score. Three kindergartners and one first-grader substituted will for would in this question, just as they did with the simple would question. In this case, however, the result is inappropriate, though the exchange of will and would in requests makes little difference. Nevertheless, ten of the seventeen errors on this item consisted of will substitution or repeating'd as part of a consonant cluster on drather. Thus, while the children indicated a lack of refinement with this modal-like item, there seems little question that they understood the meaning of the item and the nature of the tasks assigned to them. The meaning of the 'd better item seems not to be in question, though the formal requirements of question formation were beyond the skills of most of the children. The following table contains the types of questions produced and the frequency of each type by grade. Since the distribution and types of formal strategies, ranging from no inversion through various redundancies (empty do, double modal without semantic relationship, double modal with semantic relationship) to substitutions of a semantically approximate modal or catenative (should, have to, need to), are almost identical to those utilized in question formation with Groups II and III modals, it appears that the children perceive V better as a modal — at least to a greater extent than they do fd rather. Their performance with tags and negatives further supports this — insertion of the negative particle after the entire construction, and the almost total absence of had from tag questions. Their awareness of had seems to increase with age, but it cannot be said that the third-graders of my sample have "mastered" this construction.

89

DISCUSSION TABLE 11 'D Better Questions

Question N o Inversion

Grade 3

2

1

You better go

K 2

Redundancy Do you better go Would you better go Have you better go Should you better go

1

2

3 3

2 2

1 1 1

1

1

1

1

3

5 2 1

Substitution Should you go Do you have to go Do you need to go

1

Addition Do you think you better

Group V: Need, Dare

The poorest imitation by all the children occurred on "artificial" items, those utilizing need and dare as modals. According to Palmer, 112 need and dare exist both as auxiliaries and as full verbs, with some overlap. In questions and negation, for example, needn't or daren't and need you or dare you are possible. Twaddell cites variations from speaker to speaker, with or without to, depending on question versus statement and negative versus affirmative. 113 While fully aware that need and dare as catenatives are more frequent in American speech, I constructed the sentences on the modal pattern for two reasons: first, to avoid prejudicing the children in favor of the catenative construction, assuming that the 112 118

Palmer, A Linguistic Study of the English Verb, p. 37. Twaddell, The English Verb Auxiliaries, p. 14.

90

DISCUSSION

presence of to in the model would preclude needn't, daren't, need you, and dare you in the negation and question tasks; and second, to see if the children would, in fact, reproduce sentences which felt "foreign". The first reason was answered by a single occurrence of need not and a total absence of daren't, need you, and dare you, in spite of the model, which suggests that for these children at least, need and dare have no modal status whatsoever. Whenever they were asked to perform transformations with these items, they automatically and almost unanimously used the catenative forms. The second consideration was answered by an overwhelming preference for the catenatives, even in such short, nonexpanded sentences as The boys need go home now and Jim dare touch a grasshopper. All of the kindergartners added to to need, as did half the first and third-graders and three quarters of the second-graders. Counting catenative responses as acceptable, percentages for the need sentence increase to: K, 91.7 percent; 1, 100 percent; 2, 100 percent; 3,90.9 percent. With dare, however, the responses were more confused, even though the incidence of perfect imitation was higher. Only one kindergartner, three first-graders, and four second-graders added to to the sentence. In addition, one second-grader and one third-grader inflected touch for past tense (dare touched). Two kindergartners omitted dare (Jim touched a grasshopper), and one substituted may (Jim may touch). Two first-graders added an extra auxiliary (Jim is dare touch; Jim dare may touch), and the elements of three kindergarten responses were unrecognizable. The occurrence of ungrammatical attempts to imitate the sentence indicates that for many of the children this was a nonsense task. The performance of the children on need and dare imitations is especially interesting in comparison to observations of others that children "process" model sentences through their internalized grammars rather than simply parroting them. With both expanded and unexpanded need, to was added by the great majority of children, and where other modifications occurred, they were in the direction of simplicity. With dare, the majority of adjustments in all grades were substitutions of other modals (will, could, may, must, need to),

DISCUSSION

91

redundancies (dare will, shall dare, dare may, dare must, be dare), or replacements of dare with a phonologically similar nonmodal (dear, there, day), all indicating a lesser degree of understanding of the model sentence and of control of the modal. Tags The models for the tag task were the same unexpanded sentences the children had imitated, with their additions, in the first part of the test. Curiously, fewer children added to in the same sentences when they were presented for the tags than they had in imitation. Perhaps the concentration on the transformations diverted their attention from the imitation portion of the task. The performance of the children differed widely between need and dare, even though none of them formed a tag with the given catenative. However, because need belongs semantically to that group of modals and catenatives expressing necessity, obligation, or compulsion, the children had some formally regular alternatives to a tag with needn't. In second and third grade, for example, shouldn't they occurred three times each, compared to five times each for don't they. Conversely, dare has no equivalent constructions; thus, those children who attempted to substitute another form in the tag had no possibility of semantic proximity — unless the two instances in first grade and one in third of won't he qualify. In addition to the lower frequency of acceptable or nearly acceptable tags with dare, all but four children produced an isolated response; that is, two third-graders tagged with didn't he and two with shouldn't he, but otherwise there was no identity of tags. The same is somewhat true of need, but with the heavy concentration on don't they and shouldn't they among the second and third-graders, the scattering of responses was not so broad. It appears that tagging either of these catenatives is problematic for the younger children, but that agreement on one or two alternatives is more likely for need than for dare.

92

DISCUSSION

Negation Negations of need narrowed from very scattered in kindergarten to entirely within semantic range in third, the heaviest concentration of don't need to being in first and, especially, second grades. Thirdgraders used don't need to, don't have to, won't need to, and need not, all acceptable, demonstrating the variety of alternatives available to speakers of English. Kindergartners, on the other hand, included some ungrammatical sentences among their individualized responses, though four of them said, don't need to. The range of responses with dare negation did not narrow towards third grade as it did with need, in spite of the greater incidence of modal-like negations (dare not) in the lower grades. On the contrary, the number of different responses per grade was: kindergarten, nine; first grade, nine; second grade, seven; and third grade, eight. Furthermore, the difficulties the children had with time reference and placement of the negative, even with the presence of do, suggest that they were performing a formal task rather than relating the model sentence to similar sentences from their own experience. The most noticeable differences between negations of need and dare were the lower frequency of omissions and substitutions with dare, the greater frequency of modal-like negations with dare, and the greater variety of negations utilizing dare (eleven different versions containing dare, compared to four for need). In addition, ten children representing all grades, but half of them third-graders, permuted dare and the negative-carrier do, as though the position were determined by the modal nature of the item, while the do was necessitated by its catenative features. For example, dare did not and dare don't were more frequent in third grade than any other responses. Finally, even when do was included in its appropriate position in dare negation, the to of catenation was as often as not missing. Neither of these possibilities occurred with need: except for two children, all those who used do also included to; and all but four who used need at all included both do and to.

DISCUSSION

93

Questions In a similar fashion, while most of the questions for both need and dare included the given auxiliary, none of the children used either as a modal, and the frequency of substitution was greater with need than with dare. The only omissions of the auxiliary or of inversion occurred with need in second grade and kindergarten, respectively; the only unusual redundancies were with dare (could you dare, K; has you dare, 2). Otherwise, all questions for both these items were formally acceptable, and replacements for both were at a minimum — one for dare, three for need. The remaining children asked a total of three questions for dare, all of which seem acceptable: would you dare climb trees'? (K: 1; 2:1; 3: 1); do you dare to climb trees(K: 1; 1: 3; 2: 2; 3: 2); and do you dare climb trees? (K: 7; 1: 7; 2: 7; 3: 8). The remaining need questions were also well-formed, with the marginal exception of one kindergartner's Did you need to. The primary difference between dare and need in questions was the substitution of have to by four children. Since no synonymous expression is available for dare, that possibility was excluded. Do you need to go and Do you need go were the questions asked by all but ten of the children. Even though their questions almost exclusively began with do, the children's treatment of these items as catenatives or modals differs. For these children, dare is in an intermediate position between modal and catenative, while need is definitely catenative. The addition of do to the questions was overwhelmingly preferred with both items, but while the addition of to to dare was relatively infrequent, need rarely occurred without it. Summary Though treated as a pair by all grammarians who discuss them at all, need and dare were not handled with equal facility nor even in similar ways by the children. Further, these two forms bore little similarity to any of the traditional modals in any of the tasks, reinforcing the notion that these are indeed catenatives in American English, with the status of dare less certain.

94

DISCUSSION Group VI: Have to, Be Going to

Have to and be going to, certainly among the most frequent of the modal-like constructions, produced the highest percentages of accurate questions of any items in this study. In fact, the children as a total group demonstrated a nearly perfect command of them in all but two categories: imitation of the perfect constructions and tagging, which are both more difficult for all of the children. With these two catenatives, the perfect constructions are cumbersome at best, if not impossible, and the tag for the be going to sentence, which includes a first person singular pronoun, requires the irregular aren't II The sentence, Fm going to watch television today, was most frequently tagged without any form of be, though one kindergartner actually said, aren't 1?, the only child below second grade to do so. In first grade, the only occurrence of be in the tag was in isn't I, while in second grade, aside from the two acceptable responses, be appeared in isn't he (wrong pronoun) and amen't I (Rosalyn was thoughtful and precise as she said this). One third-grader said, ain't I, but otherwise be was not part of the tag even though every child in all grades repeated the model sentence exactly. The most frequent deviation among tags on this item was the replacement of the auxiliary with another — often a modal — usually with no semantic similarity and, in kindergarten and first grade, with no grouping of the replacements. That is, each child in the lower grades solved the problems of the task in his own way, choosing his own replacements. The result is a rather scattered collection of responses. In the second and third grades, on the other hand, the responses clustered around constructions expressing approval (shouldn't / ) or permission (can't I), with, of course, an increasing number of children using the adult tag, aren't I. Two tags, aren't I and shouldn't /, were used by more than half (54.5 percent) of the second-graders, while aren't / and can't / make up 72.7 percent of the third-graders. Also, formal problems disappeared for the older children, with just one second-grader omitting negation. Third-graders used only proper tag form.

DISCUSSION

95

The difficulty with this item, it seems, is with the combination of I and be, the tag for which violates standard agreement rules. The children seemed to recognize that the "regular" tag, amn't I, was not appropriate, but were largely unable to find a suitable alternative. Tags with have to, on the other hand, were not expected to be difficult because they are formed with the early acquired empty do: The children have to read their books, don't they') A large number of children, however, seemed to consider have to as a modal-like structure rather than as a verb requiring do. This conclusion is based on two relatively frequent responses: shouldn't they and hasn't I haven't they. In the first case, substituting a regular modal for the catenative implies that the children view them as belonging to the same syntactic category; in the second, have is perhaps treated in its invertible, contracting auxiliary function, inappropriate to the have to construction. A curious feature of the kindergartners' tags is that more of them used shouldn't with have to than did with should. Shouldn't also occurred once in first grade, three times in second, and twice in third. Rather than substituting, first-graders either did not produce a tag (four children) or treated have as a regular auxiliary (two children). The only other appearance of have as auxiliary was in kindergarten. It is possible, however, that the have tags are insignificant, since the three children who produced them used some form of have for the majority of their tags. Other indications of the difficulty of this item were the number of children who failed to respond (K: 1; 1: 2; 3: 1), the number of wrong pronouns even in the third person (one each in K, 1, 2), and the number of non-tag additions: they better (one each in K and 1) and they sure do (1). The children ordinarily attempted the tasks, and the structural requirements of tags were generally observed except with very difficult items. The causes of the problems with be going to and have to tags seem to stem from different sources: with be going to, the subject pronoun / ; and with have to, there was a confusion of the functions of have and the semantic proximity of should. If the substitutions of shouldaxe added to the appropriate don't they's, the percentages increase some-

96

DISCUSSION

what: third grade, from 54.5 percent to 72.7 percent; second grade, from 63.6 percent to 90.9 percent; first grade, from 20.0 percent to 30.0 percent; and kindergarten, from 8.3 percent to 33.3 percent. The lower figures for third grade are accounted for by two substitutions of can't they in which ability rather than obligation is stressed. Confusion among younger children about the status of have to in English sentences may also be responsible for the poor performance of the kindergartners with its negative. Don't have to escaped all but two of the kindergartners whose responses varied from omission of have to without a negative carrier (The children not read), omission of the catenative with do or did as carriers (The children don't read; The children didn't read), to treatment of the catenative as a regular modal (have to not read, Stephanie doubled have to: The children have to not have to read), and to replacement with will and substitution of should. The first-graders were considerably more adept with this item, two of their three errors being replacements: shouldn't and better not. The third error was Nathan's ungrammatical The children have not /riyd/. To illustrate the separation of transformations in the children's grammars, not even the kindergartners had difficulty adding the empty do in questions, nor did any of the children omit or substitute another item for have to. Even though previous studies have demonstrated that negation and question skills appear in a child's grammar at approximately the same time, the children of my sample suggest that the transformability of an item in one task does not guarantee its transformability in the other.

7 CONCLUSIONS

A major source of difficulty in a study of this sort is the lack of a systematic framework within which items and tasks could be selected. The membership of the modal category consists of a welldefined, reasonably regular core, can, could, will, would, and should, which shades off in various directions towards traditional modals which are restricted to specified syntactic contexts, towards catenative constructions which function as suppletives for certain modals, and towards borderline constructions which seem to be modals in some contexts but not in others. The tasks selected for this survey were determined by the most consistent statements of grammarians regarding the functioning of modals in English sentences. If, for example, a word is a modal, it should be the crucial element in negation, questioning, and tagging. Considering the restrictions on at least half the traditional modals, however, a new classification is needed to correspond to the possible transformations. The tasks, in short, were determined by a formal framework which does not truly reflect English sentences. The transformational rules produced deviant sentences, which were, in their own way, indicative of the children's awareness of the language around them, but which proved inadequate to answer the questions posed at the outset of this study. Further, the difficulty of analysis results from the tenuous relationship between elicited response surveys and language acquisition. On the one hand, performance of a given transformation indicates control of that process, but is less conclusive in terms of specific items; that is, inserting the negative particle after must suggests that

98

CONCLUSIONS

the child can negate, but is inconclusive regarding his control of must in his productive grammar. On the other hand, low percentages of success on specific items have been interpreted as evidence that the given construction is not a part of the grammar at a given age level, for example, the almost unanimous conversion of need go to need to go. Nevertheless, some general characteristics of the children's performance can be identified, along with what they seem to reveal about language learning in young children. For purposes of discussion, these are arranged according to the relative utility of the tasks in studies of children's language, a subclassification of the modals in light of the children's performance, and the achievement of the original purposes of this study.

UTILITY OF TASKS

The order of difficulty of the six tasks was imitation of unexpanded modals, imitation of modal progressives, questions, negations, modal perfects, and tags, depending upon the ages of the children, the formal regularity of individual modals, and the number of transformations required for the tasks.

Imitation Imitation as a measure of child language apparently has a time limit. That is, the imitation skills of the third-graders had progressed beyond the "processing" stage so that they were generally able to retain enough cues from the model sentence to reproduce deviant sentences as given. The younger children performed with similar facility on all common unexpanded sentences and questions, some progressives, and occasional perfects such as must have; they imitated less well on most expansions and completely failed to repeat such unreal constructions as have to have seen, can have, and need go. This suggests that the kindergartners were attempting to reconstruct the model sentences by referring them to constructions in

CONCLUSIONS

99

their grammars, and that when no similar construction was available, they recited what they could remember of the model. Need go, for example, was corrected to need to go, that is, reconstructed according to the most frequent usage, while can have was often subject to reversal to have can, and have to have seen reduced to have to see. The latter two appear to be lapses of memory resulting from the lack of both the constructions and grammatical alternatives. The second and third-graders, on the other hand, seem to have retained both the elements and the order of elements in the model sentences so that they could repeat unlikely sentences, such as Sally can have chased the dog, with greater facility than the younger ones. Thus, for sentences of the length and complexity of those presented, the older children's memory skills were too well developed to reveal much about their grammars. It would be interesting to test the efficacy of imitation as an index of older children's facility with more complex sentences, such as sentences with multiple embedding. In the present study, however, imitation became generally less revealing beyond first grade. Problems with imitation of expanded sentences depended upon the combination of modal or modal-like construction and expansion. Few children experienced difficulties with progressives, but while 83.3 percent of the kindergartners repeated should have, a perfect, and 75 percent imitated must have, only 8.3 percent imitated can have, an unlikely construction. Similarly, all of the third-graders repeated might have, but only 36.4 percent succeeded with have to have. Mis-imitations of unfamiliar perfects were more likely to result in ungrammatical responses than with either of the other imitations, and the number of modals and modal-like constructions that do not regularly occur with perfects (can, have to, be going to, dare, etc.) further increased the difficulty of this task by providing unreal sentences for the children to imitate. In contrast, negating or forming yesjno questions seemed to be almost as easy for all the children as simply imitating. Even when the given modal was replaced, a well-formed response usually resulted. The incidence of noninversion in questions was small, and redundancies were limited to typically noninvertible constructions.

100

CONCLUSIONS

Negation While the kindergartners generally negated the given modal less frequently than did the other grades, their preference was for a commonly contracted negative, such as can't, couldn't, won't, didn't, or haven't, regardless of the modal. The major strategy of first-graders was to insert a stressed negative after the modal, frequently avoiding contraction even where it would be more likely in normal speech. The third-graders and many of the second-graders again contracted more frequently; when a particular modal was unlikely to be contracted in adult usage, these children often substituted one that was — hence the popularity of shouldn't as the negative of ought to, must, have to, and so forth. Thus, the kindergartners attended to the task of negation without consistent reference to the modal given, the first-graders seemed to focus on the formal requirements of the task, and the older children generally accommodated the formal feature of contraction to the essential meaning of the sentence. Questions Though imitation and negation were both valuable as indicators of the children's relative ability to handle problem items, the most informative task, in terms of developmental sequence, was the yes/no question transformation. For all common modals and catenatives, no age differences were apparent, but with unusual or potentially literary questions, the children differed considerably, roughly by age. From least mature to most mature, the stages are: a. omitting the inversion transformation, but using rising intonation; b. adding do, as though the modal were a regular verb; c. adding an unrelated modal, apparently recognizing modality as a formal feature of the item, but using can, could, will, or would (one of the most common modals) to supplement the given construction; d. adding a semantically related modal — e.g. should you better, can you may, etc. — recognizing both formal and se-

CONCLUSIONS

101

mantic features, but doubling the modal; e. dropping the given modal in favor of a formally regular, semantically similar alternative, as should f o r ' d better, will for might. To say that children repeat these stages for each modal separately would be claiming too much for the data, though one can say that the spontaneous strategies of young children first learning to ask questions remain available for older children asked to perform unfamiliar language tasks.

Tags While imitation, negation, and question formation revealed something of the children's skills with certain modals in language tasks, with particular information on what the children would not produce, the tags were less informative in terms of modals than in terms of increasing skill with transformations, i.e. kindergartners most often missed two or more of the required transformations, which may indicate only that the complexity of the task was responsible for alternations in the modals. In spite of the greater conformity to transformational rules from kindergarten through third grade, and in spite of the superior performance of all grades with the core modals of G r o u p I, I would eliminate tags from further studies with children this young for two reasons: first, the responses of the children were generally too scattered and dissimilar to reveal any patterns in the children's processing of the task; and second, two of the transformations critical to tag-formation, negative contraction and question inversion, were duplicated in the question and negation tasks, and the third, pronoun transformation, was essentially irrelevant to this study. In addition, the modals substituted by second and third-graders in tag questions were for the most part identical to those substituted in the yes j no questions —should for ought to, for example. Thus, tags were not only difficult for most of the children, but were also only marginally informative.

102

CONCLUSIONS

Though most children demonstrated some facility with all tasks, the tag was by far the most troublesome and the imitation of unexpanded modals the least. The relative order of the remaining tasks seems to have more to do with the children's ability with the particular modal than with the task itself. In other words, if a modal did not lend itself to a particular task or combination of tasks, such as questioning and negation, that item was difficult, no matter how easy the task may have been with other items. Whenever an item was difficult, it was progressively less difficult from kindergarten through third grade.

CLASSIFICATION OF MODALS

A single-category approach to the modal system is not adequate to describe the facts of this system in current American usage, and a strict adherence to the formal framework found in current transformational texts produces deviant sentences. Granted that a study of children's language was not necessary to reach this conclusion, it is interesting, nevertheless, that the children's performance more nearly reflected adult standards than any set of generalized rules yet formulated. That is, even the youngest children failed to produce or reproduce a modal construction unlikely to occur in adult usage, and the older the children, the more likely they were to produce a semantically suitable alternative, again avoiding a strange modal construction. Those modals which are most nearly described by the rules, can, could, will, would, and should, were handled adequately by a substantial majority of the children in most tasks. In addition to a smaller number of errors on these common items, the range and variety of errors was narrower than on the unusual items. With the other modals, may, might, shall, must, and ought to, the children performed comparably on all tasks in which the uses of these modals are comparable to those of Group I: imitation, both unexpanded and expanded. Negatives, however, were generally uncontracted or replaced, and tags and questions were unanimously

CONCLUSIONS

103

avoided. Again, whenever the anticipated response lacked adult models, the children predominantly failed to produce it and, furthermore, failed to agree on alternatives. The younger children, especially, were more individual in their responses. In view of the contrasting results with Groups II and III, as compared to Group I, and in view of what the children demonstrated about their awareness of adult usage of modals, it would appear that any abstract description of modals in American English must account for the following categories: 1. The core modals: can, could, will, would, and should, with restrictions on can + Perfect, and with clearly specified time context for will + Perfect. Otherwise, these are described by the rules as currently stated. 2. Shall and may, which are commonly replaced by will and by might or can, which have uncontracted negatives in American English, but which are invertible in first person questions, either singular or plural. 3. Might, must, ought to, and 'd better, which have uncontracted negatives and which do not commonly invert in questions. The latter three have near-synonyms available as substitutes in questions. 4. Must be and must have, which differ from must semantically, but whose differences are reflected formally in terms of difficulty, substitutions, and means of questioning. 5. Be going to, have to, and need to, three catenatives which alternate with core modals, and which have restrictions on Perfect constructions. 6. '/) rather, which may be regarded by the children as a modal, drather, which requires would in questions and negations. Alternatively, this may be considered, for instructional purposes, as would + rather, with the peculiarity that in the negative the particle does not contract with would. The second explanation, however, fails to account for the position of Progressive and Perfect constructions after the second element, rather.

104

CONCLUSIONS

7. Dare, which seems to function primarily as a catenative in statements, but as either a modal with do or as a catenative without to in negatives and questions. These categories are based on the performance of the children; those items which were handled similarly in the tasks are grouped together. In most cases, the categories correspond to informal groupings for discussion among writers who do not simply list the modals. Three exceptions should be noted, however. First, the separation of must be and must have from must is suggested by the children's treatment of them as formally different items as well as by their semantic distinctiveness. Second,'d rather and "d better are traditionally considered a pair, perhaps because of the similarity of their construction; yet V better entered into more deviancies than 'd rather, since few children recognized the separability of its unpronounced initial element. Further, the error patterns with questions {do you better, will you better, should you better, should you) were identical to those of the Group II and III modals, and V better is most often negated by placing the uncontracted negative particle after the entire construction. In contrast, the would of 'd rather was perceived clearly enough by the children to function in questions and negative contraction, even when the preferred negative is 'd rather not. For these reasons, I would abandon the traditional pairing. Similarly, need and dare are typically treated as a pair of marginal modals; however, dare is apparently more severely restricted in terms of expanded auxiliaries, at the same time that its unexpanded statements without catenative to seem to be more comfortable to the children than comparable sentences with need. Also, dare is frequently negated or questioned by the addition of would: Jim wouldn't dare touch a grasshopper; Would Sam dare touch it! On the other hand, need to, exclusively a catenative among these children, closely resembles have to both in form and meaning. Thus, these items also lack the similarity commonly attributed to them. An alternative classification, based on the frequent substitutions

CONCLUSIONS

105

among the older children, is to arrange these modals and modal-like constructions into semantic groups, specifying which of each group are suitable for transformed sentences. For example, 1. can, could, and may, which indicate ability or permission, may being restricted in negatives and questions to uncontracted and first person, respectively; 2. a. will, shall, and be going to, indicating future action; b. may and might, indicating future possibility, both of which are restricted in negatives and questions; 3. a. should, ought to, and need to, which indicate the desirability of the specified action; b. must, have to, and V better, which indicate the necessity of the specified action; 4. must be and must have, expressing a conclusion from evidence ; 5. Wrather, expressing preference; 6. dare, expressing courage. It is evident that neither a purely formal nor a purely semantic analysis is adequate to account for these constructions. There is, as yet, no analysis that will accommodate both the semantic facts and the formal facts of the modal system (which, of course, any full analysis must do); hence, there is as yet no satisfactory analysis of English modals. Nevertheless, the potential usefulness of the above classifications in language teaching situations arises from the fact that the three largest semantic groupings are headed by one of the formally regular core modals. Thus, one could teach the five regulars in all of their syntactic possibilities, then introduce the remaining constructions as alternatives in certain contexts only. For example, pattern practice in converting statements to questions could begin from a statement with ought to to be transformed into a question with should for elementary children, reserving the more formal question with ought for older students.

106

CONCLUSIONS

ACHIEVEMENT OF PURPOSES

1. At what age and in what order do children acquire individual members of the modal class? I do not believe that this question can be answered by studies of this sort, nor with observational studies, since recording a sufficient sample of the spontaneous language of school children would be an impossibility. One can, however, reach some conclusions about facility with transformational tasks and facility with various modals. The children's performance suggests that such facility is not a matter of acquiring new items to drop into previously learned categories and processes, but rather a matter of learning the degree to which adult usage of specific items conforms to regular rules, and what alternatives are available. In most cases, the children reflected adult usage of the modal in question, whether by manipulating it as an adult would or by avoiding a construction an adult would avoid. Conformity to adult usage, moreover, increases dramatically from kindergarten to third grade. For example, adults rarely, if ever, use oughtn't he as a tag. Third-graders typically substituted shouldn't he as an alternative, whereas the younger children used a semantic equivalent less frequently and were at all times less sure of the task and the modal. Thus, while the awareness that a construction is not part of normal adult speech seems as strong among the kindergartners as among the older children, suitable alternatives become increasingly available with age. In general, all of the modals and modal-like constructions investigated in this study seemed familiar to all children in some of their uses, and to second and third-graders in progressively more — at least to the extent that their substitutions generally made sense. What definitely come later than third grade, however, are the more dignified and literary usages of Group II and III modals, such as negating ought to with ought not or oughtn't, or beginning questions with ought or might. These were totally absent from the children's repertory of possibilities. 2. Do syntactic or transformational restrictions on modals influence children's facility with them?

CONCLUSIONS

107

The modals of Group I are those five, can, could, will, would, and should, which function smoothly according to the formal rules developed by linguists. The transformational restrictions on the other so-called classical modals are: a. they do not contract with the negative with great frequency; b. they do not begin questions, except in mature or literary situations; c. because of these two features, both of which are required for tag-questions, tags are rarely possible with them. For the modals of Groups II and III, the children displayed no conformity to the rules in tags and questions, and little with negation. That is, transformations are restricted by specific modals, even in the language of young children. Further, the transformational restrictions that occur in adult speech also occur in children's speech, even though the younger children have not yet achieved the adult version of the task. They did not know what to substitute for the modal or how to rephrase or rearrange a sentence to preserve its meaning, yet none of the children applied an abstract formula when the result would have been abnormal. Even more revealing in terms of facility, moreover, is the frequency of ungrammatical responses resulting from attempts to transform a sentence into a form not ordinarily accommodating its modal. For example, transformations of G r o u p I modals were usually well-formed, while those of Groups II and III included redundant auxiliaries, misplaced negatives, absence of tag transformations, and so forth. Thus, transformational restrictions influenced not only the child's facility with the modal, but also his facility with transformations which he had elsewhere performed adequately. 3. D o children regularly omit or substitute for particular modals? One of the things that impressed me most about the children in general was their willingness to attempt the tasks and their apparent consciousness of what was asked of them. A large majority utilized

108

CONCLUSIONS

the modal that was given, especially in imitations, and as far as possible in transformations — that is, unless it was impossible in normal American English, in which case they would ordinarily substitute another modal. Younger children frequently omitted expansions from the auxiliary phrase, but most retained the modal. The only item on this test that was fairly frequently replaced by something quite unrelated was dare, which became dear, there, day, or something similar when dare was used as a modal in imitation. In negation and questioning, however, few failed to use dare. When there was an omission or substitution otherwise, it seemed to be either a matter of the child's not knowing what to do and simply grasping at straws, as did the kindergartners, or making a substitution or omission that reflected in one way or another the meaning of the item in question, as the third-graders did. For example, must have was converted to didn't in negation and have you in questions by many of the older children; however, the modal was omitted only in expanded questions and negations (must be, must have), not from items with unexpanded must. The most frequent response to the unexpanded question with must was a substitution, should you? Avoiding must and other such modals in certain transformations is more likely related to the transformational restrictions of the modal than to the children's ignorance of or distaste for the modal. Thus, one could not say that any of these modals or modal-like constructions were specifically avoided. 4. To what extent do children of these ages manipulate modals in auxiliary expansions in terms of regular rules? Children's imitations of expanded auxiliaries with modals reflect formal rules to the extent that adult language does. For example, certain modals preclude other auxiliary features: can does not occur with the perfect, dare rarely occurs with either the progressive or perfect, and have to and be going to rarely occur with the perfect. The children reflect at all ages the irregularity of the system — the fact that regular grammatical rules do not apply in all instances to all modals and modal substitutes.

CONCLUSIONS

109

Although the older children tended to perform better with the unreal sentences than the younger children, this seems to be more a feature of their skills with memory tasks than with their acknowledging those items as grammatical English sentences. 5. Where the children produce deviant sentences, can patterns of deviation be discerned? With imitation, the most frequent deviation among the kindergartners was to omit either the modal or the expanded auxiliary, usually the latter. When the first-graders omitted, they tended to omit only the expansions; the second and third-graders imitated almost exactly in most cases. On tags, the youngest children often made two or three errors at the same time, but as the children grew older, the errors they made changed not only in kind, but also in the number of errors at a given time. For example, the possible errors in a tag question involve inversion, the pronoun, negation, and the modal or auxiliary itself. A number of the younger children erred in all four of these, whereas the number of errors decreased with age until the third-graders who used almost exclusively good tag form, even when the modal was replaced by something else. The first of the tag errors to disappear was the lack of pronoun agreement, except in the case of first and second persons; with third person pronouns, children above kindergarten used those which were generally in agreement with the noun of the main clause. Without the other transformations, the result would be a pronounmodal short assertion: Mike ought to share his toys with me; he should. Next, question inversion, sometimes without negation, was assured beyond first grade (e.g. should he); and finally, pronoun, inversion, and negation occurred regularly among third-graders. The fourth possible error — concerning the modal or auxiliary itself — appeared frequently among the younger children with all items. Beyond second grade, however, substitutions or replacements occurred primarily when the modal given was not invertible. The most striking pattern of deviancies is found in the questions

110

CONCLUSIONS

of 'd better and the modals of Groups II and III, where the least mature response was simply to avoid inversion. By third grade, the children were largely substituting another modal with similar meaning. The six items involved in this pattern were treated similarly in other tasks as well, i.e. with little formal regularity but with progressively more frequent substitution of a semantically related modal. Thus, these constructions are similar not only in their transformational restrictions in adult usage, but also in the strategies they evoke from children at different ages. 6. To what extent can deviations from an abstract norm be interpreted as attempts to avoid awkwardness? The modal constructions most frequently mishandled by children are those that are deviant (or at least rare) in adult speech. Adult speech patterns do not include all of the theoretical possibilities of the modal system; thus, asking children to produce those items is asking them to produce deviant, rare, or overly adult or literary sentences or questions which would not be a normal part of informal adult speech. Rather than "avoiding awkwardness" which implies a conscious choice, however, the children's behavior should perhaps be interpreted as confusion resulting from unfamiliar items. Thirdgraders who substituted transformable, near-synonymous constructions for rare or unreal items seemed to have made a choice to avoid, if not awkwardness, at least unfamiliarity, but the younger children indicated no such conscious choice.

RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Further studies of the modals in children's language should begin with the assumption that we do not yet know how to write the rules that would describe this system adequately. With this premise, items for examination should be selected for their similarities of transformational behavior or for their similarities in meaning. Smaller sets of modals with their similarities and dissimilarities outlined in advance would enable the examiner to isolate features of the children's responses with greater precision.

CONCLUSIONS

111

B. Unless pronouns are the specific items of investigation, first and second person pronouns should be severely limited, if not excluded altogether. My primary reason for including them was to create "natural" sentences, but the effect of their inclusion was an unnecessary complication of the already complicated tag task, and confusion on the only question item which required a change from second to first person. Third person pronouns were less troublesome at these ages. C. Items should be completely acceptable sentences. Creating sentences on the basis of an abstract model is more informative in terms of what children will not say than in terms of what they know. D. Tasks should be ordered, even within imitation. For example, the children of my sample were presented with unexpanded modals, modal progressives, and modal perfects shuffled into the same stack of cards. Although they performed rather well on most imitations, progressing from simple to difficult with the items might produce different results, if only by keeping the tasks separate. It is conceivable that omissions of auxiliary expansions were influenced by unexpanded preceding items. E. Contextual clues should be provided with the items. For example, the sentence with will have may have been less difficult for the children had the time reference been clearer. Also, where a modal may have more than one meaning (may, for instance, which can convey either possibility or permission), sufficient context should be included to clarify the examiner's intent. Items to be tested could even be arranged in a narrative sequence.

REFERENCES

THE MODAL SYSTEM Allen, Robert Livingston, The Verb-System of Present-Day American English (The Hague: Mouton, 1966). Diver, William, "The Modal System of the English Verb", Word, 20 (1964), pp. 322-52. Ehrmann, Madeline, The Meanings of the Modals in Present-Day American English (The Hague: Mouton, 1966). Fries, Charles Carpenter, American English Grammar (New York: D. AppletonCentury Company, 1940). Joos, Martin, The English Verb: Form and Meanings (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1964). Klima, Edward S., "Negation in English", The Structure of Language, edited by Jerry A. Fodor and Jerrold J. Katz (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964). Liles, Bruce L., An Introductory Transformational Grammar (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971). Long, Ralph B., The Sentence and Its Parts (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961). Palmer, F. R., A Linguistic Study of the English Verb (London: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd., 1965). Twaddell, W. F., The English Verb Auxiliaries (Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1963).

CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE Bellugi, Ursula, "The Development of Interrogative Structures in Children's Speech", The Development of Language Functions, edited by Klaus F. Riegel (= University of Michigan Center for Human Growth and Development, Report No. 8.) (Ann Arbor, November 30,1965). Berko, Jean, "The Child's Learning of English Morphology", Word, 14 (1958), pp. 150-77.

REFERENCES

113

Bloom, Lois, Language Development: Form and Function in Emerging Grammars (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1970). Brown, Roger, and Ursula Bellugi, "Three Processes in the Child's Acquisition of Syntax", New Directions in the Study of Language, edited by Eric H. Lenneberg (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1964). Cazden, Courtney B., "The Acquisition of Noun and Verb Inflections", Paper delivered before the Speech and Hearing Society of the Province of Quebec, Montreal (May, 1967). Chomsky, Carol, The Acquisition of Syntax in Children from 5 to 10 (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1969). Fraser, Colin, Ursula Bellugi, and Roger Brown, "Control of Grammar in Imitation, Comprehension, and Production", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2 (1963), pp. 121-35. Labov, William, "The Non-Standard Vernacular of the Negro Community: Some Practical Suggestions", Paper delivered at the Seminar in English and Language Arts, Temple University (May 17,1967). Lenneberg, Eric H., The Biological Foundations of Language (New York: Wiley, 1967). Menyuk, Paula, "A Preliminary Evaluation of Grammatical Capacity in Children", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 2 (1963), pp. 429-39. —, Sentences Children Use (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1969). Miller, Wick R., and Susan Ervin, "The Development of Grammar in Child Language", The Acquisition of Language, edited by Ursula Bellugi and Roger Brown ( = Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, No. 29) (1964). Slobin, Dan I., "Grammatical Transformations and Sentence Comprehension in Childhood and Adulthood", Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 5 (1966), pp. 219-27. —, "Imitation and the Acquisition of Syntax", Research Planning Conference of Project Literacy (Washington, D. C.: ERIC, 1964). —, (ed.), A Field Manual for Cross-Cultural Study of the Acquisition of Communicative Competence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). Turner, E., and R. Rommetveit, "Experimental Manipulation of the Production of Active and Passive Voice in Children", Language and Speech, 10 (1967), pp. 169-80.

APPENDIX A

SURVEY FORM

NAME

AGE

GRADE

Imitation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

I can throw a ball up to the ceiling The teacher will read another story tomorrow Mommy could see the ball game. I am going to watch television The boys need go home now Uncle Joe may fly in an airplane The children have to read their books. We shall play games this afternoon. Mike ought to share his toys with me Jim dare touch a grasshopper. We might go to the zoo next week. You must hurry home after school. We should drink some milk every day. I'd rather be in third grade this year. Jane'd better do her schoolwork Last summer, the boys would go fishing every day Spot would come if you called him. Mother may be baking cookies this afternoon Daddy is going to be working all day. The teacher could be telling a story. The girls need be going home now

SEX.

APPENDIX

22. That girl should be sitting on the chair. 23. We have to be going to our homes now. 24. Daddy will be coming home soon. 25. We can be reading stories today. 26. They must be eating dinner now. 27. We shall be going soon. 28. The boys dare be chasing bees. 29. The teacher would be reading a story now. 30. The other children might be drawing pictures. 31. He'd better be cleaning up his room. 32. She'd rather be watching television. 33. We ought to be listening to the teacher. 34. You might have colored the picture blue. 35. We could have gone to the show. 36. Uncle Tom may have left this morning. 37. The teacher has to have seen us today 38. They 're going to have stayed in school all day. 39. Sarah ought to have worn her mittens today. 40. He should have finished his breakfast. 41. They need have watered the lawn. 42. Mother would have thrown the ball. 43. John will have talked to his teacher. 44. We shall have gone pretty soon 45. Sam must have hurried this morning 46. 47. 48. 49.

Mary dare have climbed the tree today. Sally can have chased the dog. Dan could swim, but I couldn't. You'd better have finished your breakfast.

50. I'd rather have gone to the show.

Negation: 1. 2. 3. 4.

I can throw a ball up to the ceiling The teacher will read another story tomorrow. Mommy could see the ball game I am going to watch television today.

116 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

APPENDIX

The boys need go home now Uncle Joe may fly in an airplane. The children have to read their books We shall play games this afternoon. Mike ought to share his toys with me Jim dare touch a grasshopper. We might go to the zoo next week. You must hurry home after school We should drink some milk every day Last summer, the boys would go fishing every day. Spot would come if you called him Sam must have hurried this morning. Dan could swim, but I couldn't. Jane "d better do her schoolwork. She'd rather watch television after school

(The negation section was followed by the Grammatic Closure Test of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Ability, which was recorded on a separate form.) Tags: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

I can throw a ball up to the ceiling The teacher will read another story tomorrow Mommy could see the ball game. I am going to watch television today The boys need go home now Uncle Joe may fly in an airplane. The children have to read their books. We shall play games this afternoon. Mike ought to share his toys with me Jim dare touch a grasshopper. We might go to the zoo next week. You must hurry home after school. We should drink some milk every day. Last summer, the boys would go fishing every day Spot would come if you called him.

APPENDIX

16. 17. 18. 19.

Sam must have hurried this morning Dan could swim, but I couldn't Jane'd better do her schoolwork. She'd rather watch television after school.

Tense sequence (1): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

I know I can I know I can't T know I must I know I mustn't I know I shall I know I shan't I know I will I know I won't I know I should I know I shouldn't I think I may I think I might I think I may not I think I might not I know I could I know I need I know I needn't I know I am going to I know I ought to I know I have to I know I would I know I dare I know I daren't I know he must have I know I'd rather I know I'd better

Tense sequence (2): 1. If he fixes the car, it will run

. . .

. .

I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I thought I I thought I I thought I I thought I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew T I knew I I knew I I knew I I knew I T knew he I knew I I knew I

118

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

APPENDIX

If he fixed the car, it If he had fixed the car, it If we hurry, we can go If we hurried, we If we had hurried, we If the clouds come, it might rain If the clouds came, it If the clouds had come, it If we finish, we shall go If we finished, we If we had finished, we If the bell rings, we must go If the bell rang, we If the bell had rung, we If we want to, we may laugh If we wanted to. we If we had wanted to, we If the teacher comes, we should stop If the teacher came, we If the teacher had come, we If I try, I could reach If I tried, I If I had tried, I If I sleep, I would feel good If I slept, I If I had slept, I If we sing, we ought to dance If we sang, we If we had sung, we If it rains, I dare go If it rained, I If it had rained, I If we're hungry, we need eat If we were hungry, we If we had been hungry, we If he falls, he must be hurt

APPENDIX

If If 14. If If If 15. If If If 16. If If If

he fell, he he had fallen, he they're early, they must have hurried they were early, they they had been early, they we're tired, we'd better sleep we were tired, we we had been tired, we it snows, we'd rather stay indoors it snowed, we it had snowed, we

Questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask Ask

him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him him

if he has to sit here if you shall stay with him if he can see the playground if he ought to fix his lunch if he must have been asleep if he need go home soon if he could come to your house if he must eat spinach if he dare climb trees if he may go home with you if he should drink milk if he will sing a song if he might play tomorrow if he would talk louder if he is going to start school what he would do when he was little what he would do if he knew how what he could do if it rained what he could do that his friend couldn't if he must be about six years old if he'd rather be a dog if he'd better go home now

119

AUTHOR A N D SUBJECT INDEX

additions 58, 71, 72, 74, 90, 100 (See also Redundancy) adult usage, 12, 20, 35, 37, 48, 56, 69, 74, 76, 86, 89-90, 99, 102, 106, 110 age differences 58, 61, 65, 81, 85, 106, 109-110 Allen, Robert L. 15, 17-18, 19, 21, 36, 42 Auxiliary 10, 11, 28-29 Auxiliary expansion 12, 27, 34-35, 41, 46, 55, 75, 99, 104, 108 Auxiliary inversion 10, 28, 30, 37, 59-60, 82, 107, 109 (See also Questions) be going to 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 51, 54, 94-96 Berko,Jean 8

54-54, 84-89, 104 developmental sequence 7, 9, 11, 7274, 100-101, 109 deviant sentences 9, 12,45, 66-67,104, 109, 110 (See also Marginal Sentences) Diver, William 15, 19-20, 21, 35, 42 do 11,19,20,23, 25,26,29, 33, 34,47, 73, 83, 92, 93, 95, 100 do(n't) you think? 30, 74, 85, 89 'd rather 25, 35, 37, 38, 41, 47, 51, 5354, 84-89, 104 Ehrmann, Madeline 15, 20, 22, 35, 42 emphatic affirmation (stress) 10, 28, 32-33 Fries, Charles Carpenter 15, 22

can 11, 17, 19, 23, 27, 31, 34, 35, 37, 38, 49, 62 can have 35, 42, 53, 59-61 catenatives 24-25, 26, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41-42, 47, 54, 89-96, 104 Chomsky, Carol 8, 69 Classification of modals 26, 36, 38, 102-105 context 13,17-18,19,43,57,76,111 co-occurrence of modals 17, 29, 35, 41 (See also Redundancy) could 23,27, 34, 37, 38, 40,48, 62

have to 12, 17, 23, 25, 26, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41,47,51,54,94-96

dare 18, 23, 24, 25, 34, 35, 36, 41-42, 51, 54, 89-93, 104 'd better 25, 32, 35, 37, 38, 41, 47, 51,

marginal sentences 20, 30, 41-42, 5961, 89-91, 98-99, 109, 110, 111 may 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 31, 32, 37, 38,

imitation 12, 42, 44-46, 59-61, 85, 87, 89-91, 94, 98-99 imperative 32, 36 Joos, Martin 15, 18-19, 20, 21, 31-32 Klima, Edward S. 36 Long, Ralph B. 16

AUTHOR AND SUBJECT INDEX 49, 53, 65-75 (passim) Menyuk, Paula 11, 12, 45, 70, 72-74 might 18, 20, 23, 29-33, 37, 38, 50, 53, 65-75 (passim) might could 17, 35 "modal" meaning 14-15,16,18,20-21, 32-33, 36, 40-41, 53, 75, 81, 87, 84 morphology of modals 37-38 multiple errors 58, 59-60, 61, 62, 101, 109 must 12, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 26, 32, 37, 40, 47, 50, 53, 75-84 (passim) must be 40, 50, 53, 75-84 (passim) must have 20,40,50,53,75-84 (passim) need 18, 19, 23, 24, 25, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41-42, 51, 54, 89-93, 104 negation 10, 28, 29, 37, 47, 65-67, 7678, 85-87, 92, 100 negative contraction 11, 29-30, 37, 55, 65, 77, 86-87, 100, 107 negative placement 67, 86, 92 omissions 12, 58, 59-60, 67, 70-72, 77, 82, 83, 86, 92, 93, 107-108, 109 order of difficulty 12, 98,102,111 ought to 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 35, 37, 38, 41, 50, 65-75 (passim) Palmer, F. R. 15-16, 22, 24, 29, 35, 42 patterns of error 70-72, 83, 89, 100101, 104, 109-110 pronouns 46, 61, 62, 69-70, 76, 78-79, 8 4 , 9 4 , 9 5 , 101, 109, 111 questions 10, 28, 30, 37, 47, 69-74, 8084, 88-89, 93, 100-101 redundancy 12, 70-73, 74-75, 77, 80, 82-83,91,93,99, 100 replacement 82-83, 85,91,94,109 (See also Substitution)

121

restrictions on modals 11, 34-36, 41, 53, 65, 97, 103, 106-107, 108 semantic approximation 40, 50, 66, 68, 73, 77, 81, 88, 91, 95, 101, 108, 110 (See also Synonymity) semantic definition of modals 15, 16, 17,26, 36 shall 11-12, 18, 19, 23, 31, 32, 37, 49, 53, 65-75 (passim) should 19,21,23, 27, 32, 34, 37,48, 62, 69, 79 should ought 17, 35 substitution 12, 62, 66, 68, 69, 71-72, 74, 77-80, 85, 88, 90, 91 (See also Replacement) synonymity 21, 26, 68, 85, 92, 93, 103 (See also Semantic Approximation) syntactic definition of modals 15, 16 17,26, 34-36 tag questions 10, 28, 30-31, 47, 53, 6164, 67-68, 78-80, 87, 91, 101-102, 109 tasks 12, 44-46, 111 tense 23, 27, 31-32, 38, 85 transformational rules 30, 47, 97, 108 transformations 10, 11, 27, 29-34, 39, 46, 55, 84, 87, 91, 96, 101 Twaddell, W. F. 17, 22, 28, 32, 35, 42 types of errors 58, 59-60, 62, 63,64-65, 66, 68 ungrammatical responses 58-59, 60, 61, 75, 78, 90, 99, 107 will 11, 15, 17, 21, 23, 27, 31, 32, 34, 36, 38, 47, 49, 62-63 will have 53, 57-59 would 15, 23, 27, 34, 37, 38, 40, 48, 62-63