Tomasello- Desarrollo sintáctico temprano.pdf

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ELEVEN

The Item-Based Nature of Children s EarlySyntactic DevelopmentMichael Tomasel lo

Bya llaccoun ts .a ma jorcharac ter i s t i cd i s t i ngui s h ingh u m a n he ings from their nearestprimate relatives isth eu seo 'ianguage . A central question in this regard isho w h u m a nbeings main ta in the conven t ions o f a par t i cu la r Ianguage across gene ra t ions in aspeechcommuni ly . t h a t is to say. how ch i ld renacqu i re a Ianguage .O f special interestto m a ny developmental psycholinguists is the ques t ion of how children acquire th esyntactic structure o' a Ianguage . because they do not hea r an adul l speaking inabstract syntactic categories an d schemas b ul on l y in concrete an d p a r t i c u l a rwordsan d expressions.Th e best known answer to this question - Hrst proposed by Chomsky and morerecently popularized byPinker1 and others istha t ch i ld rendo not have to learnorcons t ruc t abstract syntactic structures at all .b ul rather they a l readypossess them asa part of their innate Ianguage faculty. This so-called c on t i nu i y assurnption ( i nna t esyntactic compe tence is fundamentally the same at all points in ontogeny 2) jusi iesth e use-of adul t - l ike fo rmal g r a m m a r s to describe children's early Ianguage. In t h i sview. th e 5,000 or more n a t u r a l l anguages of th e world each derive from this sameinnate universal g r a m m a r .differing from one a n o t h e r only in the composition of theirlexiconsand in a lew parame tric variat ions ofs y n t a x that are pretigured int h eh u m a ngenome.Recently. however, a nu rnber of emprica l indings tha t cha l lenge th i s majori tyview have emerged. Most important is the discovery that v i r lua l ly all of ch i ld ren ' searly l inguist ic competence is i tem-based. T hat is to say. childre n 's early utterancesare o rgan i /ed a r o u n d concrete and pa r t i c u l a r words and phras es , no t a round a n vsystem-wide syntactic categories or schemas. Abstract and ad u l t - l ik e syn tac t i ccategories an d schemas are observed to emerge only g ra dua l l y and in piecemeall ' ashion during th e preschool years. Tliese nevv da ta ar e most na t u ra l l y accoun tedIbr by a usage-based mode l in which c h i l d re n i m i l a t i v e l v l e a rn concre te l inguislicexpress ions from t h e I a n g u a g e they hear a round ( h e , a n d t h e n - u s i ng th e i rgeneral cognitive an d social-cognit ive s k i l l s categori/e. s chcmat i / e . a nd creativelycombine (hese i n d i v d u a l l y learnei l e \p res s ons a nd s l ruc l u re s l o reach a du l ll i n g u i s l i ccompetence .


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17, Introduction to Grsmmatical Devetopmentfound that Hebrewchildren's irst 20 vcrbformswere almosta ll "rote-learnedo rmorphologically unanalysed" (Ref. d, p. 3 7 ) .Other similar results have beenreported for Hungar ian (Ref. f). Cataln, Germn an d Dutch (Ref. g). Inuktitut(Ref. h),Spanish (Ref.i), and Russian (Ref.j).Refcrencesa Pizutto, E.,& Caselli, C. (1992) .Th e acquisition of Italian morphology./ . Child Lcmg..19 .491-S57.b Pizutto.E .,&Caselli,C .(1994).Theacquisitiono f Italian verb morphology in across-linguistic perspeclive.In Y. Levy ( E d . ) ,Other Children,Other IjmgtiagL's. pp. 137-188.Erlbaum.c Rubino,R.,&Fine.J.(1998) .Subject-verbagreement in Brazilian Portugese:whatlo w

errorraleshide./.Child Lang..25,35-60.d Berman. R.A., &Armon-Lotem.S. (1995). How grammatical are earlyverbs?AnalesLittmiresde l'Universit de Franche-Comt, 631. 17-56.e Berman.R. (1982). Verb-pattern alternation:the interface of morphology,syntax.an dsemantics n Hebrew child language./ . ChildLang.. 9,169-191.f MacWhinney,B .(1978) .The acquisitiono f morphophonology.Monogr. Soc.Res.ChildDev.,No. 43.

g Behrens, H.(1998).H owdifflcult are complex verbs? Evidence from Germn, Dutch.and Engiish. Lingustics, 36 ,679-712.h Alien,S.(1996) .Aspectsof ArgumentStructure AcquisitioninInuktitut.John Benjamins.i Gathecole, V et al. (1999). The early acquisition of Spanish verbal morphology:across-the-board orpiecemealknowledge?Int.} .BingiiaUsm. 3,138-182.j Stoll,S .(1998).The acquisition of Russianaspect.First Lang.. 18. 351-378.

Of special note in children's spontaneousspeech are so-called overgeneralizationerrors becauset he child has presumably not heard such errors from adults. Theover-generalizations ofmost intcrest in the contexto f a focus on syntax ar e those involvingbasic sentenceIranes, forexample. "Shefalled me dowu" or "Don't giggle me." in wh ichthe child uses intrans i t ive verbs t ransi t ive ly ( i .e . , a verb normally used v v i t h a subjectonly is used with both a subject and an object). B o w e r m a n 'N documented a numberof such overgenerali/ations in the speech of he r tw oEnglish-speakingchildren. an dPinker9 compiledexamples from other sourcesa s vvel l . The main resul t of intercs t vvast h a t thesechi ldrenproducedvery f'ew


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174 Introduction toGrsmmatical Development14 -,12 -

10 -

o 6-

Ag e yrs)Figure 1 1 . 1 Imilativeproductiono'novel verbs. The numbcro f utteranceschildrenproducedvvi th the novel verb in one condition of the Tomasello and Brooks study.'- Conservative u tter -ances ( l ig l i t gray) were those in which children heard an intransitive use of the novel verband thcn reproduced a similar intransitivo utterance. even when they were encouraged toproduce a transitive utterance. Productive utterances (dark grayIwere those in which childrenused th e novel verb (heard in an intransitive utterance) in a transitive ut terance. (Adaptedl'rom Ref . 12

indeedtheyseem to l'ormsomething k ea category of "concreten o u n " qu i t eearlyi ndevelopment (seealso Ref.1 5 and related studies for ad d i t io n a l evidence.) Second, itmight be t ha t chi ldren's lack ofproductivityint h e novelverb studies does not have lodo vvith th c i r l i ngu i s t i c knowledge . bul only w i th productiond ifculties . Howcver. incomprehension teststheyperformno betlcr. That is. they are lirstlau ght a novel verbin a simplesentencet rame ("Lwk Taininmn 77i/s ixailled tnnwtinii ). and they are askecltoa ct out a t ransi t ive const ruct ion v v i t h t h a tverbI "S/im\'me : f / i c ( / < > < ; xtaniininiitlu-ca").Perhapssurprisingly.ch i ldren younger t h a n 3yearsofage do no be t t e r incomprehen-sion than they do in product ion." '(Thestudy of Naigles1 ' is s omct imes taken to be cus-c repant v v i t h trese in d in g s .b ul in fac it is not re l evan becauseth e t v v osen lenccst h a twerecomparec inthat study were "Thedui'k isiilorpinj /icbiiwiu" and "77ic Ininifi muthe diu'k are glorpiuj" - w i t h o n e p i c t u re clepicting th e duc k do i ng s o m e t h i n g to t h eb u n n y an d t h e o t h e r d e p i c t i n g t h e t v v opa r t i c i pa n t se nga ge d in th esamepa ra lle ac tion .The problem ist h a l c h i l d r e n m i g h t very ue l l have been t i s ing th e vvor c l and as an i n d i -c a t o r o (h ep a ra l l e l ac t io n p i c t u r e . l > -

Children's hsrlySyntactic Development 7Box 11.2 Other experimental studieso fchildren searlyproductivityA number of studies have used the same basic designas Tomasello and Brooks(Ref. a) , but with diffcrent age children and with the novel verbs presented indifieren sentenceframes. Withspecific reference to children'sability to genrateanovel transitive(subject-verb-object; SVO) utterance:

1 Child ren were presented withanovel verbin a presentational constructionsuch as"Thisiscalledgorping." and encouraged v a questionstoproducea transitiveutterance(Refsb.c,d).

2 Children were presented with a novel verb in an imperativeconstructionsuch as "Tam, Arma ",and encouraged vaquestionstoproduce atransi-tiveutterance(Lewisand Tomasello, unpublished data).

3 Childrenwere presented withanovel verb in apassive construction suchas "Ernies getting meeked by the doy," and encouraged v a questions toproduce a transitiveutterance(Ref.e).

In all ofthesestudies the overall finding was that child renbelow3 years of agewere verypooratusing theirnewly learnedverbsin thetransitive construction.with the vast majority of children below this age never producing a singletransitiveutterance.In mostcaseswealsohadcontrol conditions inwhich thosevery same children did produce a transitive utterance (using different objectamesas subject andobject) when theyhadheardanovel verbmodeledforthemin this way.

It isalso noteworthy tha tthe fewnovel verb studies on languages other thanEnglish (although using slightly different syntactic constructions) have foundverysimilar results- ageneral lackofproductivity with novel verbs before3yearsof ag e (Ref.F, Hebrew; Childers an d Tomasello, unpublished data. ChildeanSpanish).

One other study is of speeial importance becauseit did not only show childrenfailingto becreative: itactuallysucceeded ininducing children toproduce non-grammaticalEnglishutterances(which should not be possible ifcertain innateparameters. such as head direction. were already set). Akhtar modeled novelverbs for novel transitive events for young children at 2;8, 3:6.and 4:4years ofage (Ref.g). OneverbwasmodeledincanonicalEnglish SVOorder,as in "Erniemeeking the can,"whereastwoothers werein non-canonical orders, eitherSOV("Ernie thewtamming") or VSO ("Gopping Ernie thecow"). Chi ldren were thenencouraged to use the novel verbs with neutral questions such as "What's hap-pening?" A lmos t all of the children at all three ages produced exclusively SVOutterances withhenovel verb when th atiswhat they heard. However. when theyheardone of the non-canonicalSOV or VSOforms,children behaved differentlyat different ages. Ingeneral,t he olderchi ldren usedt he i rverb-general knowledgeof Engl ish t ransi t ivi ty to "corred" th e non-ca nonica l uses of the novel verbsto canonical SVO l'orm. The younger children. in contras , m u c h more often


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matchedthe ordcring patternstheyliad heardwiththenovelverb,no matter howbizarre that pa t te rn sounded to adult ears. Interestingly, m a ny of the youngerchildren vacillated betvveenimitation of the oddsentence patterns an d "correc-tion" of these patterns to canonical SVO order. This indicated that they knewenough about English word-order patterns to discern that these were strangeutterances.but not enoughto overeme completely their tendency toimitativelylearn an d reproduce th e basic structure ofwhat th e adult wa s saying with th enovel verb.Referencesa Tomasello,M..&Brooks.P .(1998).Youngchildren's earliesttransitiveand intransitive

constructions. Cognit.Linguist..9 ,379-395.b Olguin. R., &Tomasello, M. (1993). Twenty-five month od children do not have agrammaticaicategory ofverb. Cognit.Dev.,8,245-272.c Akhtar,N.. &Tomasello. M.(1997).Youngchildren'sproductivitywith word order andverbmorphology.Dev. PsychoL,33,952-965.d Dodson.K .,&Tomasello.M .(1998). Acquiringih etransitive construction inEnglish:The role ofanimacy and pronouns. /.ChildLang..2 5 , 5 55-574.e Brooks, R, &Tomasello. M. (1999). Young children learn to produce passives withnonce verbs.Dev.Psijchol, 35,29-44.f Berman. R. (1993). Marking verb transitivity in Hebrew-speaking children./. ChildLang..20.641-670.g Akhtar, N. (1999) . Acquiring basic word order: evideuce for data-driven learning ofsyntacticstructure./ .ChildLang.. 26 . 261-278.

Implications for Theories of Language AcquisitionCombiningt heresults from na tura l i s t ican dexperimental studies,it iscleartha t youngchildren are productivo with their early language in only lirnited ways. They begin byl earn ingto usespecific pieceso f languagean don ly gradua l lycratemore abstrae l in -guisl iccategories and schemas.These(indin gs have impor tan implications for cur rentheories of child langu age acquisit ion.

UnguistcnatvismClassically. as espoused by Chonisky for example, l inguislic na t i v i sm ha s emphasixedt ha t ch ild l a n g u a g eacquisi t ion: ( 1 ) takes place quickly and et 'fortlessly because ch i l -dren have l 'ul l l inguisliccompetencea t bi r tha nd needon lyto learnt oexpress l i l i scom-petence overtlyi nperformance:( 2 )relies only indirectlyon the language chi ldren hea r( i . e . , " i npu t "on ly servesto "trigger"inn ale syntactics t ruc turesorto"sel parameters") ;and 1 5 ) is creaIi ve from early in onlogeny because i is genera led by an abslracgramnii i r .The data j u s t rcviewed ar e clear lva tva r i ancew i t h each of thes ec la ims . an din a d d i t i o n . the data cali i n l o que s l i on a l to g e lh e r the use of a d u l l - l i k e g r a m m a r s lodescribe cli i ld ren 's earlylanguage .

Children's EarlySyntactc Development 77100-

90

7060 -

50 -

40

30 -

P1 P3 P414

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S211 6 A 2 H2 P2

S120 -710- 1 21 4,- ^__

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935 H 3 2A1

2:6 3;0 3;6 i i /4;0 4;6 5;0Ag e yrs;mths)

Figure 11.2 Productive iransitive ut leranees in difieren studies. Percenlage of children(or responsos in some cases - see Table 1) that produced Iransitive utleranees of a novel verbthat wa sheardinsomeo thersentencetrame. The datapointscorrespond to the studies Us t edi nTable 1 1 . 1 .

Th e classic response of l inguist ic na t i v i sm to chi ldren's synlact ie l imitat ions is toinvokehypohesi/ed ( b u tnevermeas uredl performance l imitat ionstha t inhibi l th e l 'ul lexpression of chi ldren's inna tel inguist iccompe tence (e.g.. l imitedwork ing memory).19Many of the control conditions in the ahove experiments. however. pu l performancedemandso n chi ldren very s imi la r lo tlise of the e xpe r i m e n t a l condil ions .b ut chi ldrenexperienced no lea rn ingdiflicullies - forexample. in using a newly learned noun innovel waysa nd n u s i n g a newly lea rned verbi n a t r a n s i t i v eu t t e r a n c e when theyliadheard it modcled in t h a t way.11 isalso noteworthy I h a t chi ldren'spe r formance\vasalsoconserval ive a nd i tem-based inl wodifieren comprehension experiments . which piafem a n y fe\ver pe r formance demandson y o u n gch i ldren .Recenlly. some l i n g u i s t i c n a t i v i s t s ha \realso proposed the idea t h a t chi ldren ar e no lborn w i t h l ' u l lyad u l t - l ik e sy n tac t iccompelence .O n th i s v i e \ v .chi ldren ' s ear ly l anguagedevelopment m i gh lbe i tem-based and piecemeal . bul thegenesfo rm a n y a d u l t - l i k esy ii-l ac l ic s t ruc tures begin lo "Uirn on " s omet ime hetween 1 an d > years of age/" Th eproblem in t h i s case it t h a t . in the e xpe r i m e n t a l da l a rev iewed. the g r a d u a l an d piecc-


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jyg Introduction to Grsmmstlcsl OevelopmentTablc 1 1 1 Researchus ingnovelverbsRelerence11 Data

: i lpo in l Ag e Productiv ity -i ng . 2 l y r s i i n l h s l m

,uistic Ki id l i ng Sc o r in gode q u e s t io nRe. 1-1Re. 1 2Rd'. 4 ?

Ke f . I8Re'. 59Ref. 40

n ch i ld ren

', ,ch i ld ren%eh i ld ren";, c h i ld re n

Ref. 38

Ref. 1 1

Ref. 10Ref.4 1

Ref. 42

K e l . 44

121314

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1-12

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4:63 :1 05: 16:17:1 15:02:83:64:42:9

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l ' r e s e n t i t io n a l Ne u t ra l

I n t r ans i t i ve A g e n tIknv freq.Hnglish ve rbsPassive A gen t

In r a n M iv e AgentSOV an d \'S() N eu tra l

I n t r ans i l i ve Sentence(Hebreivl completion1st or 3rd Ne u t ra lpersnn verbSpan ish )

c h i ld re n

i re sponses

, responses( ac t i on verbs)

% chi l dr eni , c h i ld re n

% responsos"uc h i l d r e n

m e a l d ev e lo p men la l process \viis a l l \ \ i i h i n t h e s a m e s v n t a c l i c s l r u e tu r e . n amely . ih el inglish t r a n s i t i v o c o n s t r u c t i o n . Ch i l d r e n who can u se ih e simple ' t ra ns i l i ve c o n s t r u c -t i o n Ib rf a m i l i a r verbsp r csu mab ly a l r ead v h av c th e r eq u i r ed g en e l iebases i n p lace, andso itbeeomes a m vs t e ry xvhy t hey e a n n o l use thesesame genel cbases lo use novelverbs in t r a n s i t i v o H t e n m e o s in ex p er imen ta lc o n t e x t s .

179Finally, it isalso possible lo posi t Iha t eh i ldren ' s early l anguage is i tom-based. bu lt ha l after "su l ie ient" l i n g u i s t i e t r ig g er in g exper ionces. it beeomes l inked \ v i t l i th ei n n a t o un i \ ' e r s a l g r a m m a r .21 Th e problem in t h i s ease ist h a t t ho re is only ones e r ioustheory o' hovv t h i s l i n k i n gm ight t ako p l aee - l ' i nke r ' s t heory o f i nna t o l i n k i n gru l e s "- and th i s t heorydoes n ot li t \ v i t h th o e m p r i c a data"2 ' (seo Ref .24 on problemso fhypothosi / ing l inguis t ie universals). In general, it isvery d i f t icu l t to envision ho\v ai ii nna t ou n i v e r s a l g r a m m a r eould be b io logieallyprop a red ahoad of t i m o to l i n k u p it s

speeilic oatogorios and sehemaslo the pa r t i c u l a rsyn t a c t i cconvent ions of t hemanydif-lerent l anguages of the \vorld (o.g.. ergalive-ahsolutive vorsusnominat ive-accusa t ivesvstems).Usage-based accounts

Usage-based approaches to l anguage acqui s i t i on a t t empt to cha rac t e r i / e eh i ldren ' sl anguage nol in lerrns of inna to , a du l t - l i ke , formal g r a m m a r s . bu l r a l h e r in lermso fth e cognitive a nd c om m uni c a t i veprocesses involved . V V i t h rcspecl to the da t a revievvedabove. tho hypothesis would be t h a t eh i ldren ' s ea r l i e s l l angua geisbased on thospeei l icl inguistie tems and express ionstheycomprehend and produce. Children begint o forman abs tracl category of "concreto noun" qui te early. and this al lows them to uso anysymbol eategori/ed in t h i sway productvely in awide rangoo f l inguis t ie contexts . Ittakes some t ime Cor chi ldren to categrico or schematize the relational-syntacticstructureof thoirvarious i tem-based (verbi s l and)constructions.hoivever. and therob yto becomoproduc t ivo\vi th t he i r l anguage in more adult- l ike vvays.The adul t endpoin tofthisdeve lopmenta lprocessis nol an abstrae form al grammar. but rather an "inven-tory of symbolic resources" i nc l ud i ng eve ry th ing from vvords an d morphemos towholeg rammat ica l construcl ions as kind of l inguis t iegesta l t s21 (seopapers in Ref. 26) .This developmental t rajoctory depends on cognitive and social-cognitive processescommon to a l lhuman beings (and . of course. on experient ia lhuman universals likegrowing up in the midst of l anguage us ors ) .Three of these processes are especiallyimpor t an t .Firsti n im por t ance i s cu l tura l l ea rn ing or . more specifically. imitat ivel earn ing in thespecific sense used by Tomaselloot al.2 On this view, imitativelearning is not simplyrepeat ing or mimicking the surface form of a d u l tu t l e rances . Ra the r . it is the a t t e m p tby c h i l d r e ntoreproducet he l a n g u a g ea d u l t sproduceand for the samo co mn iu n ica l iv ot 'unct ion - the reprod uct ion is of bo l h (h e l inguistie form and i ts conven tional com-munic a t ive func t ion . Al on e levol of a na l ys i s . t h i s absolu to ly mus be t r u cbecaus ea llchi ldren l ea r n th e l a n g u a g e to \vh ic h t hey ar e exposed. and for a l ln o n - c a n o n i c a laspeisof l anguage s l rue tu re - a l lid io ms . lex ica l t e ms , qu i rkyc o n s t r u c t i o n s . a n d t h elike- nobody has ever proposed any mechan ism o ther t h a n some form of imi t a t ivel ea r n in g . ( F o r o x amp le , only by obs e rv ing an d r e p roduc i ng p a r t i c u l a r l i ngu i s t i esymbols can one l e a r n Ihat. in F.nglish, "Tlnit won't jo dinvu well witli um" m o a n s t h a the u 'o n ' t l ike t h a l . I Th e cur ren propos a l ss imp ly t h a t . i n i t i a l l y . i m i t a t i v ol e a r n i n g isnllIh a t children do for a l l l i n g u i s t i e c o n s t r u c l i o n s . c a non ic a l a nd qu i rky a l i ke . Tl i isa pproa c h t h u sh i g h l i g h t s the rolo of (he l a n g u a g etha l c h i ld re n h e a ra r o u n dl l i e m. an dila l s o t akesser iously th e poss ihi l i ty of i n d i \ ' i d u a l di l e rences haseil bo lh on eh i ld r en ' spo te n l i a l ly differenl pe rceptua l an d cogni l ive sk i l l s and on thoir po le n t i a l l \ ' differontl a ngua i e l e a r n n < > cm i romne n t s .2N


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]QO Introduction toGrammsical DevelopmentSecondly.chi ldrengobeyotidthescearlytem-bascd construct ionsn eluecourse.T heonly wa y t he y can do th i s is to i ind p a t tc r n s in the l a ngua gc t he y ar e h e a r i n g . an dthereby to ornsomek indso f abstrae categoriesa nd s chemas . C h i ld re n do th i s in thecase of the category ofconcreten o n n qu i t e early.B ul in ad d i t io nthey abstrae across

more complcxr e la t io n a ls t ruc tures a s well.for example. ivholeconstructionssuch asthe s imple t r a n s i t i v e co n s l r u c t io n . A l t h o u g h there are no good da t a on ho w they dot h i s . t h e vrork of l i e n t nc r on a na l ogy an d " s t ruc t u re map p in g " p r o v id es some in te r -estinghypothescs.'"The ideai st ha t ch ildren m u s t se eb o t h t h e s t r u c t u r a l and the func-t ionalsimilarities inu t t e r a n c e s s u c h as"lilmwtmi." "Shekissednie." "I liit ]effrei, "Yonuit] Monimii," "iiiiiic kickincj hill." in t e rmsof the i r r e l a t iona l s t ruc t u re . independentofth e speclic \vords involved.A reasonablea ssum pt i on s t ha t there m us t besome "cri t -iealmass" ofexemplarso f particularu t t e rancetypesnecessary for the human cogni-tiveapparatusto beablet om a k eth erequisi tea na l og i e sa ndsubse quent categoriesandschemas." Itm ay be that the cri t ica factor ist h e n u m b e r of d i ffe rent verbs hea rd inth e const ruct ion - becauseverbsare the cent ra l organiz inge l ement in ut teranee-levelcons t ruc t ionsa nd because manyexemplars vvith onlyone or a lewverbs vvouldseemto be a very inadequate basis fo rgeneral i / ing th econstruction.12Third an d tinally. ch ildren a lso combine various kinds of l inguis t ic c ons t ruc t i onscreatively. involv ingboth concretea ndabstract constructions of va ry ingleviso com-plexity.They combinem u c h morec om pl e x s t ruc t u re sthan ustwordso rword classes.As o ne ex amp le , on e ch ild 's ear lies t u t t e rances vvith threeo rmore words were t h i n g sl ike ".Vt' Daddy's car." Bu t previously this ch i ld ha d said t h i ngs like ".SV?hall" and "SeeMomimi." on the one hand, and also things like"Daddy's shirt" and "Daddy'spen," onthe other. So, the likelihood isthat sh e creatively c om bi ne dsomething like a "See"schema \vi th a "Daddy's " s chema . N o te t h a t to do th i s she had to understand that"Daddy's car"as acomplex expressionw asnsome sense equiva l en to theother thingsshe previously had been ta lkingabout seeing (Ball andMommy), and so this combina-t ion ind calessomeknowledge of the func t iona l equivalence ofthesedifferent referr ingexpress ions . It should benoted (hat manydifferentproceduresmay beusedt ocombineestablished c ons t ruc t i onsi ntheseways . Forexample.achild might combine an i tem-based construction with a more abstract construction. or she might combine twoi tem-basedor twoabst rac t c ons t ruc t i onswitho neanother. Diessel and Tomasel lo"reportafurther i l l u s t r a t i o n ofthese processes in more complex constructions (.e.. those w i thsententia complements:see Box 1 1 . 3 ) .

Conclusin11 g r amm at ica l s t r u c tu r es d o n otcomed i rec l ly (rom the h u m a ng e n o m e . as the above-reported d a t a suggesl they donot.a nd if c h i ld re n do nol in \r en t t he m de novo, as t he yclear ly ca n not.then it is l eg i t ma te to ask, Where do g ra m m a t i c a l structures comefrom? Th e answer ist h a t . in the lirst in s tan ce , t he vcome l'romprocesses of g r a m m a t i -ca l i xa t i on in l an g u ag e his tory.Th a t is to say.a t some point in h u m a n e v o l u l i o n . Homosuirii'jia e\ 'olvecl th e a b i l i l y to c o m m u n c a l e w i t h on e a n o t h e r sy mb o i ica l lv .H \ V h e nh u m a n beings c o m n i u n i c a t e s ymbo l i c a l ly u i t h o n e a n o t h e r in extended discoursenterac t ions. the st r ingingt oge the ro symbols begins tobecome g r ammal ica l x cd :f or

Children's EarlySyntsctic Developtnent j,Box 11.3 Amorecomplex exampleof structurecombiningAsamorecomplex example of structurecombining,Diessel and Tomasello(Ref.a) looked at the earliest complex sentenceswith sententialcomplementsof sixchildren.Theyfoundthat virtually all early complement sentences arecomposedof asimplesentenceschemathat thechild hasalready mastered,combined withone of ahandfulofmatrixverbs(see alsoRef.b).

Thesematrixverbsare of twotypes.Firstareepistemic verbssuchasthinkandknow. fn almost allcases children and /think to indcate their own uncertaintyabout something, and they basically neverused the verb think inanything butthis first-person form (i.e.,noexamplesof "Hethinks. . .,""She thinks . . .,"etc.).This formwasalsovirtuallynevernegated (noexamples of "Idon't think ."),virtually never used inanything other than the present tense (noexamplesof"Z thought..."),and neverwith a complementizer(noexamplesof "Jthink that. .."). Itthusappears that/thinki s a relativelyfixed phrase mean ingsomethinglikemay he.The child pieces together thisfixedphrasewith afullsentence,but thispiecing together doesnotamount to "sentenceembedding"as it istypically por-trayedinmoreformal analyses- it ismorelikesimpleconcatenationbecausethemain verb (think) is not really acting as a verb. Second. children also useattention-getting verbs likelookand see inconjunction with fullsentences.In thiscase,they use themalmost exclusively in imperativeform (again no negations,no non-present tenses, no complementizers).Therefore, these early complexsentencesdo notappearto be abstract sentenceembeddings,bu t ratherconcate-nationsof a formlaleexpression and a fullsentence.

Examples fromSarah:/thinkhe'sgonethinkit's inhere/thinkmydaddy tookitIthinkIsaw oneIt's acrazybone.I thinkIthinkdis is debowl

References

Examples fromNina:See thatmonkey cryingSee Becca s leepngSeethatgoSee myhands are washedSee he bite meSe ehimlie down

a Diessel. H.. & Tomasello. M. Wh y complement clauses do not have a that comple-mentizer in earlychild language.Berkcley LinyuisticsSociety fi n press).b Bloom,L.(1992).LanguageDevelopment from Two toThree.Cambridge UniversityPress.

example . contenwordssuc ha sn o u n sa nd verbsbecomefunc t ionwords sucha sprepo-s i t i ons an d a u x l i a r i e s . an d loosely c onc a t e na l e d sy mb o ls acq u i r e s yn ta c l i c re l a t ion -ships in 'o lv ingc o n s t i t u e n c y an d de pe nde nc y (seeBox I 1 . 4 ) .Thesc( r a n s f o r m a t i o ns ofl inguistics tructur e occura s a rcsu lt of social-interacl iveprocesses n \vh ich ( 1 )speak-er s try to abbrevia te l i ngu i s t i c expression as m u c h as t h e vcan.an d 11\ l is leners tr v to


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} Z Introduction toGrammatical DevelopmentBox 11.4 GrammaticalizationEach of the 5,000 or more languagesof the world has its own inventoryoflinguistic conventions, including syntactic conventions. which aliow its usersto shareexperience with on e another symbolically. This inventory of symboiicconventions isgrounded in universal structures of human cogni t ion , humancommunication,and the mechanics of thevocal-auditory apparatus. Th e pecu-liarities ofparticular languages come from differences in the kinds of thingsthat different speech communit ies think it important to talk about and thewaysthey thinkituseful totalkaboutthem- alongwith various histrica "acci-dents." All of the conventions an d constructions of a given language areno t invented at one time, ofcourse. an d once invented they often do not staythe sameforvery long, but rather they evolve, change, and accumulate overtime ashumans use them with on e another.Thisset ofprocessesis called gram-maticalization. and it involves such well-attested phenomena as free-standingwordsevolvinginto grammatical markers.andloseandredundantly organizeddiscourse structures congealing into tight and less redundantly organized syn-tactic constructions (see Refs a.b for some recent research). Some examplesare asfollows:1 Thefuture tensemarker inmany languages isgrammaticized Irom free-standing words fo rsuch things as volition or movement to a goal. So inEnglishtheoriginalverbwaswl,as in "IwiUtohappen," and thisbecamegrammaticized into " w l happen" (with th e volitional componen

"bleached" out) . Similarly, the original use of gowas formovement ("J'mgoingto the store")an d this was gramrnaticiziedinto "I'm going todie someday" (witht he movement bleached out).

2 TheEnglishpastperfective,usinghave,isverylikelyderivedfromsentencessuch as "have abrokenfinger" or "havetheprsoners bound" (inwhichhaveisaverbo fpossession) into something like"/havebroken afinger" on whichthe possessionmeaningo fhaveisbleached out and it only now indicatesperfectiveaspect).3 Englishphrasessuchas"on the topof" and "in thesideo f" evolved into "ontopof " and "insideof " and eventually into "atop" and "inside." Insome lan-guages relator words such asthese spatial prepositions have also becomeattached tonounsascase markers in this instanceaspossible locativemarkers.4 Lose discourse sequences such as "He piiiled the door and it opened"ma y become syntacticized into "le pulled the door open" (a resultativeconstruction).5 Lose discourse sequences such as "Mi/ boyfriend. , . heplays piano. . . heplays in aband" may become "Mi/ boyfriend plays pianoin abatid." Or,simi-la r ly."M y boyfriend . . . herdeshorses.. . hebetsonthem" may become "Myboyfriend. wlw rideshorses. betsonthem."

Chlldren's Early Syntactic Development )f6 Similarly.isomeone expressesthe belief that Mary willwedJohn, another

person might respond with an assent "Ibelieve that." followedb y a repeti-tion of the expressed belief that "Mary will wedJohn" - which becomesyntacticized intot he singlestatement "believe that Mary will wedJohn."7 Complexsentences ma y also derive fromdiscoursesequences of initially

seprateutterances, as in " want it 1 buy it" evolving into"/ wanttobny it."

Referencesa Traugott, E..&Heine,B.( 1991). Approaches toGrammaticalization (Vals 1 and 2). JohnBenjamins.b Hopper.R, & Traugott, E.(1993) .Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press.

makesure t ha lspeakers do not go so far in th is direction tha t the message becomesincomprehensible. Grammaticalization processes are well attested in the wr i t t enrecords of numerous languages in t he i r relatively recent pasts, and it is a reasonableassumption that the same processes were at work in the origin an d early evolut iono flanguage, t u r n i n g loosely organized sequences of s ingle symbols i n tog r a m m a t i c i ze dlinguisticconstructions.'"Even so . g rammat ica l i za tion by i t s e l f s not enough becausei tdoes no t a c c o u n t fo rth e abstractnesso f l inguis t ic stru cture s. Abstrae ness.as Chomsky recognizedi n evenbi searliest writings. mu st be contr ibuted by the m i n d s of individual children as theyacquire the use of pa r t i cu l a rpieceso f pa r t i cu l a r lang uage s. It s possible - albeit verydifficult - to imagine that children make thiscontributionbysimply l ink ingan inna teuniversal grammar wi th the pa r t i cu l a rs t ruc tu re s of the pa r t i cu l a r language they arelearning.However. it isalsopossible. and more in accord with recent data, toimaginetha t chi ldren make t h i s contribution in more extended developmental processes inwhich they apply their general cognitive. social-eognitive, and vocal-auditory process-in g skills to the histrica producs of grammatical izat ion.'7 Ovcrall . then, we mayhypothesize t h a t h u m a n l a n g u a g eoriginated ul t imute ly from a species-unique biol-gica adapta t i on fo rsymboi icc o m m u n i c a t i o n . but the ac tua l g r a m m a t i c a ls t ruc tu resof modern languages wereh u m a n l ycreatedt h r o u g h processes of grammaticalizationdur ing p a r t i c u l a r cu l tu ra l histories, and through processes of c u l t u ra l lea rn ing .schema formation. an d s t ruc turecombin ing du r ing pa r t icu la r individualontogenies.

Ou t s t a nd i n gQuestionsWhenchi ld ren imitat ivcly learn somecompicx l i n g u i s t i cexpress ion.h ow d o fhe ycome lo unders tand th e c o m m u n i c a t i v e l imclions of t l i e d i l ' l c r e n l c ons t i t ue n t sinvolved-On \ \ h a l basis do ch i ld r en make ana logies or form schemas as lliey abst rac lacross l l i e i r verb i s l a n d an d o lher r e la t io n a l l i n g u i s l i cs chemas ?


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J4 introduction to Grammatical Development' V V h a t pr incip ies govern the waysi n \vh ich ch ildren c o m b i n e estab lished l i ngu i s -ti c co n s t r u c t io n s x v i t h on e a n o t h e rcrcatively? Ho\v doc h i l d r e n select \ \ h a t th ey nred (rom al l t h e l an g u ag e t hey l ieara r o u n dt hc m ? V V h a t is the n a t u r e of the cross- li nguist ic and ind iv idua l d if ferences that can beobserved in ch i ld r en acq u i r in g n a tu r a l l an g u ag es?

cknowledgementsTh ea u t h o r \vould like t o t ha nk Hiena Lieven. HeikeBchrcns . Holger Dicsscl, NameeraAkhtar . an d Pat ty Brooksf orhe l p i ng to devclop th e ideas and the s tudies reportcd inth ispapen

eferences1 Pinker.S . ( 1994) .The Language Instincl: Hmv the\Iind C'rcntcsLanguage. Morrow.2 Pinker, S. ( 1 9 8 4 ) . Language Learnahilij and Language Dm'lopment. Harvard UniversilyPress.5 Braine. M.D.S ( 1 9 7 1 ) . On t\vo types of models of the nternalization of g ra mma rs . InD . I . Slobn ( h d . ) . TheOntognesiso f Gramimir, pp. 1S3-186. AcademicPress.4 Tomasello.M. ( 19 9 2 ) .FirstVerbs:ACase StudiinEarh/ Grammatical Development. CambridgeI.'niversity rress.5 Licvcn. E . e t a l . (1997) . Lexically-based learning an d early grammatical development./. CliillLuifi.. 24 . 187-220.6 Pine. J..&Lieven. E.( 1997). Slot and trame pat terns in the development of the determinercategory.Appl. Psyilwlmgiiist.. I K . 123-138 .7 Bowerm an, M.( 1982) . Reorganizationai processesi nlexical and syntacticdevelopment. In

L. Cilei tman. & E.Wa nne r ( E d s . ) , Langiuige Acqdsitlon: The State of tliert. pp. 319-34IS.Cambridge Kniversi ty Press.8 Bowerman. M. ( 1988) . The "no negat ive evidence" problem: how do chi ldrcn avoid con-st ruc l ing an overgeneral g r am m ar ? I n ).A. Hawkins ( E d . ) . Explaining Language Universals.pp . 73 - l O l . B as i l B l ackw e l l .9 Pinke r. S. ( 1 9 8 9 ) . Learnabit and Cognition: The Acquisition of Verb-argumenl Structwe.H ar va r d Universi ty Press.10 Maratsos.M. et al.( 1987) . A s tudy in novelvvordlearning: theproductivi tyof thecausat ive .In B.MaeWhinney (Ed.).Medmnisms of LanguageAcquisition.pp. 89-1 14. Erlbaum.11 Pinker. S. et al. ( 1 9 8 7 ) . Product ivi ty and const raint s in the acqui s i t i on of the passive.Cognition. 26 . 195-267.12 Tomasello. M.. & Brooks. P.( 1 9 9 8 ) . Young ehildren's ear l iest t ransi t ive and in t rans i l iveconst ruct ions . Cognit.Litigis .. l>. 379-595 .

1 3 Tomasello. M.,i Olgu in . R. (1 9 93 ).Twenty-three-month-old chi ldren l iavc a g r a mma t i c a lcategory oI n o u n . Cot/nil. I)e\'., N. 451164.14 Tomasello. M. el al. ( 1 9 9 7 1 . D i f f e r e n t i a l product ivi ty n young eh i l d r en ' suse of n o u n s an dverts. /.Cliill Laiig..2 4. 573- 387 .1 5 Taylor. M. . & C i c l n K i n . S. I 19881. Adjecliu 's an d n o u n s : chi ldren ' s s t r a l egies fo r l ea r n i n gncu-vvords. CliildDcv.. 5 9 . 4 1 1-419.

Children's Early Syntactic Development ]&$16 Akh tar. ,Y. &Tomasel lo,M .( 1 9 9 7 ) .Youngchildren 'sproduet ivi .y withwordordera nd verbmorphology. Oev. Psuchol. i ? . 9 5 2 - 9 6 5 .

Naigles.L (1990) .C h i l d r enu s e s y n t a xlolean,verbmeanings./.ChildLang.. I 7. 557~5-4Olguin. R. . &Tomasello. M. ( 19 9 3 ) . Twenty-five-month-old chi ldrend on ot have agrilm-mat icalcategory of verb. Cognit. On1.. X.2 4 5 - 2 7 2 .19 Valan . V.( 1 9 9 1 i. Syntact ic subjec t s in the early speeeh of American an d I t a l i a nch i l d r en

C ocinilMii. 40. 2 1 - 8 1 .20 Boerer. H. . & Wexler. K. ( 1 9 9 2 ) . Bi -uniquc relal ions and the m a t u r a l i o n ofg r a m m a t i c a lpr inc ip ies . .Vn . hing.l.inijitixl Tlieori/. I). 1 4 7 - 1 8 7 .21 Hyams. \. ( 1 9 9 4 ) . Non-discreteness an d var i a t ion in child language: impl i ca t ions fo rPrincipie and pa ra me te r models of l anguage acqu isi l ion . In V.I.evv ( K d . l . Ollicr Clnhtn-n.OtherLanguages. pp. 1 1-40. Er lbau m.

Bowerman. M . ( 1 9 9 0 ) . Mapp i ng ( h e ma t e roles onto syntactic functions: are chi ldrenclped bym n a t e l i n k i n grules? Lingitistics. 2 rwliolog, of Language Cognitive and FimclionalApproaches. E r l baum .

Tomasello. M. et al. ( 1 9 9 3 ) . C u l t u r a l learning. Bchm: Bram ScL. /6 .4 9 5 - 5 1 1 .28 Lieven. E. ( 1 9 9 7 ) . Variat ion in i cross- l inguis l ic context . In D. Slobin ( E d . ) . The Cross-linguistic Stud/ of LanauageAcquisition (Vo l . 5).p p. 2 33-287 E r l baum29 Tomasello. M.. & Brooks. P 1 1 9 9 9 ) . Early syntactic development. In M.Barret t ( E d . ) . TlwDevelopment oj Language. pp. 161-190. l'CLPress.30 Gentner. D.. & Ma rk m a n . A. ( 1 9 9 7 ) . Struc ture mapping in ana logv an d s imilar i tv . AmPsi/chol. 52.4-1-56.31 Ma rc h m a n . V.. &Bates . E. (1994) . Cont inui ty in lexicala nd morphological development :a test o the cri t ical m a ss hypothesi s ./ . Child Lana..2 1. 3 3 9 - 3 6 6 .32 Bybee. |. ( 1 9 8 5 ) .Morplwlogu. John Benjamins .33 Diessel.H ..&Tomasello. M. V V hycomplement clausesdo not havea /m-complementizer inearlychi ld language. Berkeleii Limmislics Socielii (in press).Deacon.T.1 1998) . TheSumbolicSpecies. Harvard l 'niversity Press.3- 5 Traugott . F...& I le ine . 15.( 1 9 9 1 ) . Approaches to Grammatimli:ation (Vo l s 1 and 2). J ohnBenjamins .36 Civn. T. 1 1 9 9 5 ) . Fimctitiniilixm imd C.nunina. John BenjaminsTomasello. M. , 1 9 9 9 ) . Th e Cultural Origins of Uwnan Cogniton. Harvard Lnivers i lv3H I n g h a m . R. ( I 99 51 . C r i t i c a l in l luences o n t h e acqu isi t ion of verb t r a n s i t i v i l y . I n I ) . Messer,

& t. Turner ( E d s . l . Critical Infhences o, Child Langnage Acquisition and Developinenl. pp.19-38.Maximi l l ian Press,-iy Dodson. K .. & Tomasello. M . ( 1 9 9 8 ) . A cqu i r i ng th e Iransitive const ruct ion in H n g l i s h :U le role of animacv and p ro n o u n s ./ . ChihlLang.. 25 . 5 5 5 - 5 7 4 .40 Brooks.P , t Tomasello. M. (1 999) . Young chi ldren learn lo p r oduce passix'es l lh nonce\ e rbs . )ev. l'si/cliol., J 5 . 29 44.

A k h t a r . \. ( 1 9 9 9 ) . Acc|u r ing basic vvord order : evidence for d a l a - d r i v en l earn ing o syntact ic s t ructure. / .Child .mu/.. 26 . 2 6 1 - 3 7 8 .


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\S>6 Introduccin to Gratnmatical Developmetit42 He r m n . R. ( 1995 ).Mar k i ng verb I r a n s i l i v i l y in H ebr ew - s peak ing chi ldren . /. C' /n 'W Lniiij..

20 . Ci41-670.4 ? l.ewis. I. . .&Tomasello. M. C'hikiren's ih i l i ty lo gfi ierai ixe no\ 'el verbs useci in impeai l ives .l ' npub l i s he r ma n u s c r i p t .44 C l i i l d t - r s . ].. & Tomiisello. M. Spanish-speaking chi ldrcn's ah i l i ly lo general ice nonc e \-erhslo nevv construc t ions. Submit led .

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