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The developmental pathway of nominal functional categories in early child Mandarin

Language specific features and other driving factors
  • Meiyun Chang-Smith
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The Development of Grammar
This chapter is in the book The Development of Grammar

Abstract

Longitudinal data from a monolingual Mandarin-speaking child (1;8.22–2;2.25) is examined focusing on acquisition of nominal functional categories: Determiner Phrase (DP), Number Phrase (NumP) and Classifier Phrase (ClP). Analysis reveals that in the latter two-word stage the functional heads D and Cl – but not Num – within definite nominal expressions are instantiated. Feature compositions of these heads appear to be under-specified – the complement-feature (or its associated grammatical properties) of the head Cl was still lacking during this stage. Mandarin nominal functional categories are thus instantiated incrementally and likewise the grammatical features of the functional heads. The Weak Continuity perspective appears most appropriate to account for these results.

Abstract

Longitudinal data from a monolingual Mandarin-speaking child (1;8.22–2;2.25) is examined focusing on acquisition of nominal functional categories: Determiner Phrase (DP), Number Phrase (NumP) and Classifier Phrase (ClP). Analysis reveals that in the latter two-word stage the functional heads D and Cl – but not Num – within definite nominal expressions are instantiated. Feature compositions of these heads appear to be under-specified – the complement-feature (or its associated grammatical properties) of the head Cl was still lacking during this stage. Mandarin nominal functional categories are thus instantiated incrementally and likewise the grammatical features of the functional heads. The Weak Continuity perspective appears most appropriate to account for these results.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. (2)L1 versus L2 versus child L2
  5. ‘Acquisition’ in grammatical development 19
  6. Tense and Aspect in early French development in aL2, 2L1 and cL2 learners 47
  7. Subject clitics in child L2 acquisition of French 75
  8. Placement of infinitives in successive child language acquisition 105
  9. Part II. The acquisition of sentence structure and functional categories
  10. The developmental pathway of nominal functional categories in early child Mandarin 125
  11. The emergence of CP in child Basque 151
  12. Some directions for the systematic investigation of the acquisition of Cypriot Greek 179
  13. Strict Interfaces and three kinds of Multiple Grammar 205
  14. Part III. Autonomous development vs. crosslinguistic influence in bilingual first language acquisition
  15. Delay and acceleration in bilingual first language acquisition 231
  16. Intonation targets of yes/no questions by Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual children 263
  17. Perception of German vowels by bilingual Portuguese-German returnees 287
  18. Part IV. Language acquisition, language contact and diachronic change
  19. Acquisition in the context of language change 309
  20. On the diachronic reanalysis of null subjects and null objects in Brazilian Portuguese 331
  21. On the decrease in subject-verb inversion in French declaratives 355
  22. On the relation between acceptability and frequency 383
  23. Name index 405
  24. Subject index 409
https://doi.org/10.1075/hsm.11.08cha

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. (2)L1 versus L2 versus child L2
  5. ‘Acquisition’ in grammatical development 19
  6. Tense and Aspect in early French development in aL2, 2L1 and cL2 learners 47
  7. Subject clitics in child L2 acquisition of French 75
  8. Placement of infinitives in successive child language acquisition 105
  9. Part II. The acquisition of sentence structure and functional categories
  10. The developmental pathway of nominal functional categories in early child Mandarin 125
  11. The emergence of CP in child Basque 151
  12. Some directions for the systematic investigation of the acquisition of Cypriot Greek 179
  13. Strict Interfaces and three kinds of Multiple Grammar 205
  14. Part III. Autonomous development vs. crosslinguistic influence in bilingual first language acquisition
  15. Delay and acceleration in bilingual first language acquisition 231
  16. Intonation targets of yes/no questions by Spanish and German monolingual and bilingual children 263
  17. Perception of German vowels by bilingual Portuguese-German returnees 287
  18. Part IV. Language acquisition, language contact and diachronic change
  19. Acquisition in the context of language change 309
  20. On the diachronic reanalysis of null subjects and null objects in Brazilian Portuguese 331
  21. On the decrease in subject-verb inversion in French declaratives 355
  22. On the relation between acceptability and frequency 383
  23. Name index 405
  24. Subject index 409
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