Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

conditions outlined in (472) in the main text?

Children’s sentences

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Model answer for (2a) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Given the assumption that UG principles determine that child clauses

(like their adult counterparts) are CP+TP+VP structures, (2a) will have the following structure:

(i) [

φ

’

φ

CP [C

] [TP I [T m] [VP [V driving] [DP my [D ] car]]]]

If adult case conditions operate in child grammars, the subject I will be

assigned nominative case by virtue of being the specifier of the finite T

constituent (a)m, in accordance with condition (472a). If the null D

heading the DP my φ car is finite, the possessor my will be assigned

genitive case by virtue of being the specifier of a finite D, in accordance

with condition (472b). On this view, sentence (2a) shows adult-like case assignment, lending plausibility to the claim that children generally

acquire the adult case conditions by around two years of age.

3.

The sentences below illustrate the kinds of sentence structures in which

children do or don’t omit determiners in contexts where adults require them: (a) The boy’s eating popcorn

(b) The boy eating popcorn

(c) Boy eating popcorn

(d) The boy eats popcorn

(e) The boy eat popcorn

(f) Boy eat popcorn

(g) *Boy’s eating popcorn

(h) *Boy eats popcorn

How can we account for these data?

Model answer for (3a) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If UG principles determine that adult and child clauses alike are

CP+TP+VP structures, (3a) will have the following structure in both adult and child English:

(i)

[

φ

’

CP [C

] [TP the boy [T s] [VP [V eating] popcorn]]]

Since the head T constituent of TP is finite by virtue of containing the

third person singular present tense auxiliary (i)s, it follows from

Hoekstra and Hyams’s observation (that a finite T requires a finite DP

as its subject/specifier) that the subject of (i)s must be a DP like the boy headed by the finite determiner the, and not a DP like φ boy headed by a

non-finite null determiner.

4.

Corresponding to adult questions like What’s the man/he doing?,

two-year-olds typically produce structures such as the following:

(a) What’s the man doing?

(b) What the man doing?

(c) What man doing?

364

senten ces

(d) Man doing?

(e) What’s he doing?

(f) What him doing?

(g) What doing?

By contrast, they don’t generally produce questions like those below:

(h) *What’s man doing?

(i) *What’s him doing?

(j) *What’s doing?

Analyse the syntax of the child question structures in (a)–(g), and try to explain why children don’t generally produce sentences like

those in (h)–(j).

Hints -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear in mind that a finite T allows as its subject a finite DP such as

the man, or a nominative subject pronoun like he; whereas a

non-finite T allows as its subject a finite DP such as the man, or a

non-finite DP such as φ man, or a default accusative pronoun like him,

or a null PRO subject. Bear in mind also that children sometimes give

a sentence-initial wh-word a null spellout/realisation.

Model answer for (4a) and (4b) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sentence (4a) is derived as follows. The verb doing merges with the D-pronoun what to form the VP doing what. This VP is then merged

with the T-auxiliary is to form the T0 is doing what. The resulting T0 its

merged with the DP the man (itself earlier formed by merging the

determiner the with the noun man) to form the TP the man is doing

what. This TP is in turn merged with a strong interrogative C which

attracts is to move to C and attracts what to move to spec-CP, so

forming the structure shown below:

(i)

[CP What [C is] [TP the man [T is] [VP [V doing] what]]]

In the PF component, the inverted auxiliary is can cliticise onto what,

and if this happens it is spelled out in its clitic form ’s.

The derivation of sentence (4b) is similar to that of (4a) in many respects but differs in that the former contains no finite auxiliary is and

so is a non-finite clause which shows wh-movement but no auxiliary

inversion (because it contains no auxiliary). This being so, (4b) will have the structure (ii):

(ii) [

φ

φ

CP What [C

] [TP the man [T ] [VP [V doing] what]]]

Given Hoekstra and Hyams’s claim that a non-finite T allows a finite

or non-finite DP as its subject, we precisely expect that the null

non-finite T in (ii) can have a finite DP subject like the man – as in (4b).

Children’s sentences

365

5.

Children sometimes produce auxiliary/verb structures which are

different in nature from their adult counterparts. Below are listed

examples of a variety of such structures produced by a number of

different two- and three-year-old children (the children’s names being

indicated in parentheses):

(a) What did you doed? (Eve)

(b) I did locked it (Peter)

(c) He doesn’t likes to be unhappy (Ross)

(d) He was cried (Nina)

(e) Don’t know who is she (Adam)

(f) Does it be around it? (Adam)

(g) Would I may be excused? (Mark)

(h) Is the clock is working? (Shem)

(i) Does it doesn’t move? (Nina)

(j) Did you made a mistake? (Adam)

(k) Where this comes from? (Jessie)

(l) What number I’m gonna be on my birthday? (Abe)

Identify the nature of the errors made by the children in the above

sentences.

Hints

Each of the above sentences involves one or more of the following

errors.

1. Wrongly assuming that a verb has to agree in person/number/tense

with an auxiliary.

2. Wrongly using Do-support in a context where it is not allowed, or

not using it in a context where it is required.

3. Wrongly using auxiliary inversion in a complement clause ques-

tion, or failing to use it in a main clause question.

4. Wrongly assuming that a modal auxiliary has non-finite (e.g. infini-

tival) forms.

5. Failing to delete a copy of a moved constituent.

6. Overregularisation – i.e. treating an irregular verb as if it were

regular.

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Sentence processing

In section 14, we discussed how words are accessed and retrieved from the mental lexicon. In this section, we shall look into the processing of sentences, focusing on sentence comprehension. Notice firstly that there is a fundamental difference between lexical and syntactic processing: the lexemes in a language, being finite in number, are stored in the mental lexicon. Sentences, however, typically are not stored (if they were, then we would be unable to produce any new sentences, i.e. sentences that we have never heard or read before). Indeed, sentence repetition and sentence recognition experiments have shown that normally syntactic structures are extremely transient: memory for syntax is unreliable only half a minute after a sentence has been heard or read (was the second sentence in this paragraph Focusing on sentence comprehension, in this section, we shall look into the

processing of sentences or In this section, we shall look into the processing of sentences, focusing on sentence comprehension?). Hence, whereas word recognition can be described as a retrieval process with the goal of finding an entry in the mental lexicon, sentence processing does not involve accessing and retrieving entries from a mental repository.