Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

In some other languages (e.g. Hungarian), we find possessive structures of the form POSSESSOR+DETERMINER+POSSESSUM (where the possessum is

the possessed object), so that in such languages the counterpart of Daddy’s car would be a structure which can be translated literally as Daddy’s the car. Suppose that (as Steven Abney has argued in his influential work on the syntax of DPs) the same is true of English, and that an English DP like Daddy’s car has the structure: (471)

DP

D'

DP D N

Daddy’s

ϕ +FIN

car

An expression such as Daddy’s car is interpreted as having definite reference (in the sense that it is paraphraseable as ‘the car belonging to Daddy’, not as ‘a car belonging to Daddy’), and this can be accounted for by assuming that the null determiner heading a possessive structure is definite in interpretation. Suppose that (as happens overtly in some languages) D agrees in person and number with its specifier – albeit invisibly in English. We can then say that D (by virtue of its definiteness and agreement properties) is finite in a structure like (471) – as indicated by the subscript +FIN feature on D in (471). Suppose that we now revise our earlier case assignment conditions in (461) along the following lines (replacing 461b by 472b):

(472)

Case assignment conditions in English (revised)

A noun or pronoun expression is assigned

a.

nominative case if the specifier of a finite T (i.e. the subject of a finite clause) b.

genitive case if the specifier of a finite D which marks possession

c.

accusative case otherwise (by default, if ineligible for nominative or

genitive case)

We can then say that the possessor Daddy’s in (471) is assigned genitive case under condition (472b) by virtue of being the specifier of a finite D which marks possession.

In the light of Hyams and Hoekstra’s claim that young children sometimes use a non-finite D in contexts where adults require a finite D, now consider what would happen if D in a structure like (471) were non-finite, as in (473): (473)

DP

D'

DP D N

Daddy

ϕ –FIN

car

Children’s sentences

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The answer is that the possessor in spec-DP would no longer be eligible to receive genitive case (since this can only be assigned by a finite D under condition 472b)

and would instead receive accusative case by default (under condition 472c).

Accordingly, the possessor would be spelled out as the accusative form Daddy rather than as the genitive form Daddy’s. It should be clear how the analysis sketched above could be extended to deal with the alternation between genitive my/his possessors and accusative me/him possessors in (468) and (469) (exercises 2, 3 and 4).

What our discussion here shows is that just as children alternate between finite and non-finite clauses, so too they alternate between finite and non-finite DPs.

One way in which this has been described is to say that children sometimes leave functional categories underspecified with respect to the features they encode. So, for example, T can be underspecified for its tense/agreement features, and D can likewise be underspecified for its definiteness/agreement features. An underspecified functional category will be null where children have no suitable overt item in their lexicon which can fill the relevant slot – as we can see from the fact that D

and T are null in (467). For obvious reasons, this proposal is generally known as the underspecification analysis of child grammars (see section 6 for a similar sense of underspecification in child phonology).

The overall conclusion we arrive at in this section is that there is essential structural continuity between child and adult grammars. Innate principles of Universal Grammar determine that clauses are universally CP+TP+VP structures, and that nominal expressions are D-projections; and we have evidence that

children as young as two years of age are able to produce CP and DP structures.

There is also evidence that parameters like the Head Position Parameter and the Null Subject Parameter are correctly set from the very earliest stages of acquisition (with apparent null subject sentences found in child English being instances of either truncation or sentences with PRO subjects). The principal difference between adult and child structures is that children sometimes omit functional elements in obligatory contexts (e.g. they omit auxiliaries, determiners and tense/

agreement inflections where adults require them). They thus alternate between finite and non-finite clauses, and between finite and non-finite nominals. As we noted, one way of describing this is to say that functional categories in child grammars may optionally be underspecified (i.e. they may lack some of the

features they have in adult grammars) (exercise 5).

Exercises

1.

The sentences below illustrate typical null subject sentences which

English children do and don’t produce (a star indicates a non-occurring

structure):

(a) Can’t find it (= I can’t find it)

(b) Goes in there (= It goes in there)

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senten ces

(c) Raining (= It’s raining)

(d) Gone home (= He’s gone home)

(e) What doing? (= What are you doing?)

(f) *Has gone home? (= Has she gone home?)

(g) *What are doing? (= What are you doing?)

(h) *Daddy says can fetch me (= Daddy says he can fetch me)

Discuss the nature of the null subject in each case, and say why the

subject can be omitted in some of the sentences but not others. What

conclusions about parameter-setting can we draw from the relevant data?

Model answer for (1a) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nina Hyams argued that two-year-old children acquiring English

initially treat English as a null subject language which (like Italian)

allows any finite verb or auxiliary to have a null pro subject.

Accordingly, one possibility is that (1a) has an (Italian-style) null pro subject, and so is of the form pro can’t find it: this would mean

that English children go through an initial stage when they misanalyse

English as a null subject language. However, since (as Luigi Rizzi

pointed out) adult English allows a subject pronoun to be truncated

when it is unstressed and not preceded by any other overt constituent

within the same sentence, a more plausible possibility is that the child

in (1a) simply truncates the subject pronoun I in the same way as adult English speakers sometimes do, so that the sentence has the structure

I can’t find it, where strikethrough indicates that the pronoun I is

present in the syntax, but not pronounced in the phonology. This

second view offers the advantage that it obviates the need to say that

children sometimes mis-set parameters.

2.

The sentences below illustrate ways in which two-year-olds typically

do (and don’t) use case-marked pronouns (adult equivalents are given

in parentheses where these differ from their child counterparts; a star

marks a structure which children don’t generally produce):

(a) I’m driving my car

(b) Him driving Daddy car (= He’s driving Daddy’s car)

(c) They wanna play with me

(d) Her like me shoes (= She likes my shoes)

(e) *Me am helping he (= I am helping him)

(f) *Him likes we (= He likes us)

(g) *Them aren’t playing with my (= They aren’t playing with me)

(h) *Her is driving I car (= She can drive my car)

Analyse each of the sentences, and say why children do or don’t

produce them. Are such sentences consistent with the view that by

two years of age children have generally acquired the adult case