Early Object Omission in Child French and English
-
Ana Teresa Pérez-Leroux
Abstract
We examine the syntactic nature of object omissions in child language with a study comparing French and English-speaking children’s elicited production. We adopt a theoretical approach to transitivity where interactions between modules of the grammar create a rich and flexible system of null objects in French (category N or pro); whereas a language like English contains only the former. The different complexity in the input predicts acquisitional differences between the two languages. Children heard stories with an individuated object referent (What did X do with y?) and stories that did not individuate an object referent (What did X do?). Results show that French children had substantially higher rates of omissions in both illicit and optional null object contexts than either French adults or English speaking children. We propose that French children, faced with a variety of null objects in the input, retain the minimal null N, overextending it beyond adult distribution.
Abstract
We examine the syntactic nature of object omissions in child language with a study comparing French and English-speaking children’s elicited production. We adopt a theoretical approach to transitivity where interactions between modules of the grammar create a rich and flexible system of null objects in French (category N or pro); whereas a language like English contains only the former. The different complexity in the input predicts acquisitional differences between the two languages. Children heard stories with an individuated object referent (What did X do with y?) and stories that did not individuate an object referent (What did X do?). Results show that French children had substantially higher rates of omissions in both illicit and optional null object contexts than either French adults or English speaking children. We propose that French children, faced with a variety of null objects in the input, retain the minimal null N, overextending it beyond adult distribution.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
- A Polarity-Sensitive Disjunction 1
- Taking a Closer Look at Romance VN Compounds 13
- Beyond Descriptivism 27
- Do Subjects Have a Place in Spanish? 51
- On the Conceptual Role of Number 67
- The Diachronic Development of a French Indefinite Pronoun 83
- A Syntactic Analysis of Italian Deverbal-Nouns 97
- V-N Compounds In Italian 113
- A Reinterpretation of Quirky Subjects and Related Phenomena in Spanish 127
- Cognitive Constraints on Assertion Scope 143
- Avant que - or Avant de -Clauses 155
- Null Directional Prepositions in Romanian and Spanish 169
- A Unified Account for the Additive and the Scalar Uses of Italian Neppure 187
- Default Morphology in Second Language Spanish 201
- Early Object Omission in Child French and English 213
- Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses 229
- Italian Volerci 247
- Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicate 263
- Subject Index 279
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
- A Polarity-Sensitive Disjunction 1
- Taking a Closer Look at Romance VN Compounds 13
- Beyond Descriptivism 27
- Do Subjects Have a Place in Spanish? 51
- On the Conceptual Role of Number 67
- The Diachronic Development of a French Indefinite Pronoun 83
- A Syntactic Analysis of Italian Deverbal-Nouns 97
- V-N Compounds In Italian 113
- A Reinterpretation of Quirky Subjects and Related Phenomena in Spanish 127
- Cognitive Constraints on Assertion Scope 143
- Avant que - or Avant de -Clauses 155
- Null Directional Prepositions in Romanian and Spanish 169
- A Unified Account for the Additive and the Scalar Uses of Italian Neppure 187
- Default Morphology in Second Language Spanish 201
- Early Object Omission in Child French and English 213
- Agreement Paradigms Across Moods and Tenses 229
- Italian Volerci 247
- Restructuring of Reverse Psychological Predicate 263
- Subject Index 279
