Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T08:48:02.042Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Performance factors in subject-auxiliary inversion by children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Mineharu Nakayama
Mineharu Nakayama*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut and Connecticut College
*
U-145, Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268, USA.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Children's reported copying-without-deletion errors, like ‘Whose is that is?’, have often been interpreted as the result of a non-adult rule of subject–aux inversion. By contrast, this study presents a performance account of these errors and supports this account by investigating what factors impede children's performance. Using an elicitation task, 16 test sentences were evoked from 16 3- to 5-year-old children. In particular, errors appeared (1) when the subject NP contained a relative clause, (2) when the relative clause had an object gap, and (3) when the relative clause was long. Since errors occurred in response to some sentence types and not others, and the children who made copying-without-deletion errors produced at least four correct responses, these results were interpreted as support for the performance account.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , February 1987 , pp. 113 - 125
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Part of this paper was presented at the 10th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. I would like to offer special thanks to Stephen Grain, Cecile McKee, Paul Gorrell, Janet Dean Fodor, Howard Lasnik, and anonymous JCL reviewers for their comments and assistance. Also I am very grateful to all of the participants and teachers at the Child Laboratories at the University of Connecticut and Jack'n Jill Day Care Center & Kindergarten in Chaplin, Connecticut.

References

REFERENCES

Grain, S. & Nakayama, M. (1984) Structure-dependence in grammar formation. Unpublished ms., University of Connecticut.Google Scholar
Grain, S. & Shankweiler, D. (1985) Syntactic complexity and reading acquisition. Unpublished ms., University of Connecticut.Google Scholar
Erreich, A., Mayer, J. W. & Valian, V. (1979) Language acquisition hypothesis: a reply to Goodluck and Solan. Cognition 7. 317–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fay, D. (1975) Simplification in children's speech and the formation of movement rules. Texas Linguistic Forum 2. 99–102.Google Scholar
Fay, D. (1978) Transformations as mental operations: a reply to Kuczaj. Journal of Child Language 5. 143–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grodzinsky, Y. (1984) Language deficits and the theory of syntax. Unpublished ms., MIT.Google Scholar
Hamburger, H. & Grain, S. (1982) Relative acquisition. In Kuczaj, S. (ed.), Language development I: Syntax and semantics. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hamburger, H. & Grain, S. (1984) Acquisition of cognitive compiling. Cognition 17. 85–136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hurford, J. (1975) A child and the English question formation rule. Journal of Child Language 2. 299–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maratsos, M. & Kuczaj, S. (1978) Against the transformationalist account: a simpler analysis of auxiliary overmarking. Journal of Child Language 5, 337–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, J. W., Erreich, A. & Valian, V. (1978) Transformations, basic operations and language acquisition. Cognition 6. 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menyuk, P. (1969) Sentences children use. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T.Google Scholar
Sheldon, A. (1974) The role of parallel function in the acquisition of relative clauses in English. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour 13. 272–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tavakolian, S. (1978) The conjoined-clause analysis of relative clauses and other structures. In Goodluck, H. & Solan, L. (eds), Papers in the structure and development of child language. UMass Occasional Paper 4. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.Google Scholar
Wanner, E. & Maratsos, M. (1978) An ATN approach to comprehension. In Halle, M., Bresnan, J. & Miller, G. (eds), Linguistic theory and psychological reality. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T.Google Scholar