Optional structures in the acquisition of Polish [Elektronische Ressource] : a cross-linguistic perspective / vorgelegt von Almut Klepper-Pang

Informations

• Publié par: universitat_stuttgart
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 23
• Langue: English

Extrait

Optional Structures in the Acquisition of Polish:
A Cross-Linguistic Perspective
Von der Philosophisch-Historischen Fakultät der Universität Stuttgart
zur Erlangung der Würde eines Doktors der
Philosophie (Dr. phil.) genehmigte Abhandlung
Vorgelegt von
Almut Klepper-Pang
aus Minden / Westf.
Hauptberichter: Prof. Ian Roberts, PhD
Mitberichter: Prof. Dr. Christiane Schaner-Wolles
Prof. Dr. Grzegorz Dogil
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 2. Oktober 2003
Institut für Linguistik / Anglistik der Universität Stuttgart
2003A Journey of Thousand Miles
begins with the First Step.
千里之行, 始于足下.
(Chinese Proverb)
To those who joined me on this journey
To my parents, my children Matthias and Julia and my husband Peter.- 3 -
Contents
7Chapter 1: Introductory Remarks................................................................…
13Chapter 2: Reflections on the Course of Language Acquisition……………….
132.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………….
132.1 Concepts of language: E-language vs. I-language…………………………..
162.2 The Innateness Hypothesis and the Poverty of the Stimulus Argument……
182.3 The Principles and Parameters Approach…………………………………..
212.4 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..
23Chapter 3: The Nature of Early Child Grammar: Theories & Hypotheses…..
233.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………….
243.1 Small Children’s Small Grammars: The Small Clause Hypothesis………..
273.2 Functional Categories in Child Grammar: The Full Competence Hypothesis
303.3 Optionality in Child Languages: Properties of Optional Infinitives…………...
353.4 Accounts of Optional Infinitives……………………………………………………
393.5 Open Problems: Implications for the Research Questions of this study……..
423.6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….
43Chapter 4: The Target Language: An Outline of Polish………………………...
434.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………….
444.1 Brief Typological Sketch of Polish…………………………………………...
454.2 Basic Characteristics of Morphology…………………………………………
474.3 The Verbal Paradigm: Finiteness and Verbal Conjugation Patterns………..
514.4 The Pronominal System and the pro drop-Status of Polish………………….
534.5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….- 4 -
Contents
54Chapter 5 The Study: Polish Acquisition Data
545.0 Introduction
545.1 Methodology…………………………………………………………………
555.1.1 Design of the Empirical Study……………………………………………….
565.1.2 Longitudinal Data…………………………………………………………….
575.1.3 Spontaneous Speech Criteria………………………………………………...
585.1.4 Transliteration and Data Annotation………………………………………….
605.2 The Database………………………………………………………………….
615.2.1 The Dagmara-Corpus…………………………………………………………
625.2.2 The Anna-Corpus……………………………………………………………...
645.2.3 The Aleksandra-Corpus……………………………………………………….
665.3 Data Classification, Encoding and Evaluation..................................................
665.3.1 Sorting and Classification of the Data………………………………………...
675.3.2 Variables in the Data Evaluation Scheme…………………………………………
745.3.3 A Two-Dimensional System of Data Analysis………………………………..
755.4 From Counts to Analysis: Research Questions……………………………….
785.5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….
Chapter 6: Results of the Data Analysis……….…………………………………. 79
6.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………... 79
6.1 Optional Infinitives in Polish? – The Distribution of Finiteness……………... 79
6.1.1 Starting Point of the Analysis………………………………………………… 79
6.1.2 Distribution of Finiteness in all three Corpora……………………………….. 80
6.1.3 The Interpretation of Main Clause Infinitives: Context Analyses……………. 86
6.1.4 Summary……………………………………………………………………… 91
6.2 A Glance at the Earliest Stage of Acquisition………………………………... 93
6.2.1 Dealing with Early Speech Data: Aleksandra-Corpus……………………….. 94
6.2.2 The Nature of Earliest Verb Utterances (One- and Two-Word Stage)………. 94
6.2.3 The Development of Subject-Verb Agreement………………………………. 97
6.2.4 Mechanisms in the Early Formation of Grammar:
Cross-linguistic Evidence for Surrogate Verb Forms…………………………… 99- 5 -
Contents
Chapter 6: Results of the Data Analysis (cont.):
1026.3 The Realization of Subjects in the Aleksandra-Corpus……………………..
1036.3.1 The Distribution of Null- vs. Overt Subjects………………………………..
1066.3.2 Subject Type: NP vs. Pronominal Subject…………………………………..
1116.3.3 Comparison with Adult Speech (Control-Group)…………………………...
1146.3.4 Deriving Syntactic Dependencies in the Aleksandra-Corpus……………….
1206.3.5 The Realization of Subjects: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison……………...
1256.4 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..
129Chapter 7: Polish Child Data in a Cross-Linguistic Context…………………
137Appendix:……………………………………………………………………………..
Data Evaluation Scheme……………………………………………………………………… 138
Results of Data Evaluation (Aleksandra-Corpus, files 10-37):
Table 1, files Aleks 10-14…………………………………………………………….. 140
Table 2, files Aleks 15-19…………………………………………………………….. 142
Table 3, files Aleks 20-24…………………………………………………………….. 144
Table 4, files Aleks 25-29…………………………………………………………….. 146
Table 5 files Aleks 30-34…………………………………………………………….. 148
Table 6, files Aleks 35-37…………………………………………………………….. 150
References………………………………………………………………………….. 152
Zusammenfassung………………………………………………………………….. 162
Abstract…………………..…………… 166- 6 -- 7 -
Chapter 1: Introductory Remarks
Much recent research on first language acquisition has focused on the phenomenon of
optionality in early child grammar. The nature of optionality in child grammars is an issue
that is still far from being settled, as the following recent statement by Nina Hyams (in her
talk at BUCLD, see Hyams (2001:34)) illustrates:
In one form or another the issue of optionality has been at the forefront of research
into grammatical development for many years, especially as regards the child’s use of
functional elements. While the adult language may require the overt appearance of
D(et) elements such as subjects and determiners and I(nfl) elements such as auxiliaries
and verbal finiteness, children freely omit them in their speech. Despite the apparent
pervasiveness of optional rules in early grammar, optionality is rather mysterious.
Why is a rule that is obligatory in the adult grammar optional for the child? Optional
rules raise problems both from a linguistic-theoretic perspective and from a
learnability perspective.
Linguistic theory has moved away from the optional rules of the Standard Theory
(Chomsky 1965). Within current theory, optional processes are ruled out by licensing
principles or by economy considerations (Chomsky 1992).
From the perspective of a restrictive continuity hypothesis, we have to ask why the
child’s grammar would allow such rules?
Moreover, optionality raises issues of learnability: if rules which are optional for the
child are obligatory for the adult, the move from the child to adult grammar runs into a
potential subset situation.
This is the puzzle of any study within the framework of optionality.
The idea for the topic of this thesis came up during the “Optional Infinitive Stage” of first
language acquisition studies themselves, so to say, i.e. when research around the Optional
1Infinitive Phenomenon was becoming more and more popular . Following Wexler (1994), a
number of studies have addressed, and are still addressing, different aspects related to the
phenomenon of optionality in different child languages.

1 I would like to thank Sten Vikner and Ken Wexler for encouraging me to tackle this project in the first place.
Special thanks to Sten for passing his enthusiasm for linguistics on to me (and many others who attended his
lectures), and to Ken for showing so much interest in my work which he accompanied with many helpful
comments and inspiring discussion, and for sending me all the current research papers from MIT.
I would also like to thank my supervisors Ian Roberts, Chris Schaner-Wolles and Grzegorz Dogil for their
support and encouragement, as well as for many fruitful discussions and comments.- 8 -
A major case of optionality can be found in verbal inflection: there seems to be a stage
(around the age of 2;0) in which two verbal forms appear to exist in declarative main clauses:
the adult-like finite form and an optional (root) infinitive that is ungrammatical in the target
language. This stage, which is generally referred to as Optional Infinitive (OI) Stage (Wexler
(1994)), has been observed in a number of languages, for instance Dutch, English, German
and French. On the other hand, there are languages (such as Italian, Spanish and Tamil) which
do not show the Optional Infinitive phenomenon.
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the cross-linguistic discussion on OIs by providing
empirical evidence from Polish, a rich-agreement language, which has not yet been analysed
in this respect. Essentially, each form of the verbal paradigm in Polish is distinctly marked for
person, number, and, in some tenses, also gender. In contrast to the Germanic languages, the
infinitive represents a highly marked form in the Polish paradigm. Therefore, the study of the
OI phenomenon in Polish seems to be of both empirical and theoretical interest: in addition to
extending the previous empirical findings to a Slavic language, it might also shed light on the
theoretical cross-linguistic OI-generalization proposed in the literat