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Early or late acquisition of inflected infinitives in European Portuguese?

Evidence from spontaneous production data
  • Ana Lúcia Santos , Jason Rothman , Acrisio Pires and Inês Duarte
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Generative Linguistics and Acquisition
This chapter is in the book Generative Linguistics and Acquisition

Abstract

Building on our previous experimental work examining the acquisition of inflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP) L1 acquisition (e.g. Pires, Rothman & Santos 2010, 2011; Santos, Duarte, Pires & Rothman 2011), the present study investigates the emergence of inflected infinitives in young EP children’s spontaneous production data. EP children produce inflected infinitives as early as age 1;11, although early production is first exclusively restricted to para ‘for’ purpose clauses. We argue that EP inflected infinitives first emerge as complements of para ‘for’ because the derivation of those structures, resulting from Merge of a complementizer in C, is formally less complex than the derivation of other inflected infinitive contexts which involve V-to-C movement. As such, we maintain that the present evidence is consistent with and thus supportive of Jakubowicz’s (2005, 2011) Derivational Complexity Hypothesis. Keywords: inflected infinitive; European Portuguese; Derivational Complexity; V-to-C; purpose clauses

Abstract

Building on our previous experimental work examining the acquisition of inflected infinitives in European Portuguese (EP) L1 acquisition (e.g. Pires, Rothman & Santos 2010, 2011; Santos, Duarte, Pires & Rothman 2011), the present study investigates the emergence of inflected infinitives in young EP children’s spontaneous production data. EP children produce inflected infinitives as early as age 1;11, although early production is first exclusively restricted to para ‘for’ purpose clauses. We argue that EP inflected infinitives first emerge as complements of para ‘for’ because the derivation of those structures, resulting from Merge of a complementizer in C, is formally less complex than the derivation of other inflected infinitive contexts which involve V-to-C movement. As such, we maintain that the present evidence is consistent with and thus supportive of Jakubowicz’s (2005, 2011) Derivational Complexity Hypothesis. Keywords: inflected infinitive; European Portuguese; Derivational Complexity; V-to-C; purpose clauses

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Argument structure and clause-internal syntax in children
  5. Animacy, argument structure and unaccusatives in child English 13
  6. Remarks on theoretical accounts of Japanese children’s passive acquisition 35
  7. Early or late acquisition of inflected infinitives in European Portuguese? 65
  8. The relationship between determiner omission and root infinitives in child English 89
  9. The semantics of the tense deficit in child Spanish SLI 107
  10. Part II. The DP domain
  11. The acquisition of reflexives and pronouns by Faroese children 131
  12. Pronouns vs. definite descriptions 157
  13. An L2 study on the production of stress patterns in English compounds 185
  14. The syntactic domain of content 205
  15. Part III. Learning theory
  16. There-insertion 251
  17. Metalinguistic skills of children 271
  18. Children’s Grammatical Conservatism 291
  19. Contributing to linguistic theory, language description and the characterization of language development through experimental studies 309
  20. A new theory of null-subjects of finite verbs in young children 325
  21. Index 357
https://doi.org/10.1075/lald.54.03san

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Argument structure and clause-internal syntax in children
  5. Animacy, argument structure and unaccusatives in child English 13
  6. Remarks on theoretical accounts of Japanese children’s passive acquisition 35
  7. Early or late acquisition of inflected infinitives in European Portuguese? 65
  8. The relationship between determiner omission and root infinitives in child English 89
  9. The semantics of the tense deficit in child Spanish SLI 107
  10. Part II. The DP domain
  11. The acquisition of reflexives and pronouns by Faroese children 131
  12. Pronouns vs. definite descriptions 157
  13. An L2 study on the production of stress patterns in English compounds 185
  14. The syntactic domain of content 205
  15. Part III. Learning theory
  16. There-insertion 251
  17. Metalinguistic skills of children 271
  18. Children’s Grammatical Conservatism 291
  19. Contributing to linguistic theory, language description and the characterization of language development through experimental studies 309
  20. A new theory of null-subjects of finite verbs in young children 325
  21. Index 357
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