First Language Acquisition in Spanish : A Minimalist Approach to Nominal Agreement

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First Language Acquisition in Spanish

Continuum Studies in Theoretical Linguistics Continuum Studies in Theoretical Linguistics publishes work at the forefront of present-day developments in the field. The series is open to studies from all branches of theoretical linguistics and to the full range of theoretical frameworks. Titles in the series present original research that makes a new and significant contribution and are aimed primarily at scholars in the field, but are clear and accessible, making them useful also to students, to new researchers and to scholars in related disciplines. Series Editor: Siobhan Chapman, Reader in English, University of Liverpool, UK. Other titles in the series: Syntax in Functional Grammar, G. David Morley Agreement, Pronominal Clitics and Negation in Tamazight Berber, Hamid Ouali Deviational Syntactic Structures, Hans Götzsche A Neural Network Model of Lexical Organisation, Michael Fortescue The Syntax and Semantics of Discourse Markers, Miriam Urgelles-Coll

First Language Acquisition in Spanish A Minimalist Approach to Nominal Agreement

Gilda M. Socarrás

Continuum Studies in Theoretical Linguistics

Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704 London SE1 7NX New York NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com © Gilda M. Socarrás 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. EISBN: 978-1-4411-90307 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain

To children who hold all the answers if we are willing to wait

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

ix xiii

Chapter 1 Theoretical Foundations

1

Chapter 2 Experimental Methodology

9

Chapter 3 Gender Agreement

27

Chapter 4 Number Agreement

94

Chapter 5 Emergence of Determiner Phrases

151

Chapter 6 Conclusions

176

Appendices

186

Notes

207

Bibliography

214

Index

221

Preface

The aim of this monograph is to present a cross-sectional experimental approach to the study of nominal agreement in Spanish child language with the purpose of complementing previous studies on this subject and in some instances filling the gaps left by them. In particular, this monograph focuses on the acquisition of gender (feminine/masculine) and number (singular/plural) agreement by three monolingual Spanish-speaking children under the age of three. The majority of studies on the acquisition of Spanish as a first language are written in the context of the parametric approach, but I have chosen to adopt the framework of the Minimalist Program (MP) (Chomsky 1995, 2001) for two major reasons. First, the MP offers an elegant analysis of the acquisition of nominal agreement based on a process of matching or checking features (see Chapter 1). Second, it is hoped that the use of this approach will advance the research on Spanish acquisition to the theoretical developments of the past 15 years. Nonetheless, the adoption of a new paradigm is not without its challenges, as will be discussed in the remainder of the book. The present monograph addresses formal aspects such as the availability of functional categories in child language, a vital component in the feature checking or matching process within the MP, as well as issues pertaining to the acquisition process, for example, how gender and number features are acquired. In particular, it explores whether children are able to establish target-like agreement relations between nominals and their determiners (i.e., grammatical agreement), as well as agreement with respect to the actual utterance referent (i.e., semantic agreement), as illustrated in Example 1. Example 1 (a) La casa linda (Referent ‘one house’) ‘The (fem/sg) house (fem/sg) pretty (fem/sg)’ (b) *La casa linda (Referent ‘two houses’)

x

Preface

Determiner Phrases (DPs) in Example 1 are both target-like in terms of grammatical agreement, that is, in both of them the feminine singular features of the determiner la ‘the’ and the adjective linda ‘pretty’ match those of the nominal casa ‘house.’ However, only Example 1(a) is semantically target-like with respect to the intended referent “one house.” In contrast, Example 1(b) illustrates a mismatch in terms of semantic agreement, that is, the use of a singular DP to refer to a plural referent, in this case “two houses.” Although essential to the acquisition process, this aspect has been overlooked in previous studies, to my knowledge. As I will discuss in Chapters 3 and 4, on gender and number agreement respectively, this process has an impact on children’s production. Spanish is an ideal language for the study of nominal agreement acquisition because most nominals and modifiers are marked overtly for gender and number, as illustrated in Example 2. Example 2 (a) El niño exitoso ‘The (masc/sg) boy (masc/sg) successful (masc/sg)’ (b) Las niñas exitosas ‘The (fem/pl) girls (fem/pl) successful (fem/pl)’ (c) El/La estudiante exitoso/a ‘The (masc/sg)/fem/sg) student (unm/sg) successful(masc/sg)/ (fem/sg)’ In Example 2(a) the masculine singular features of the determiner el ‘the’ and the adjective exitoso ‘successful’ match those of the nominal niño ‘boy.’ Similarly, in Example 2(b) the feminine plural features of the determiner las ‘the’ and the adjective exitosas ‘successful’ match those of the nominal niñas ‘girls.’ The majority of nominals in the Spanish language fall into these two groups, or what Harris (1991) calls the core: nominals ending in the word marker –o are masculine, whereas nominals ending in the word marker –a are feminine. Finally, Example 2(c) presents a nominal not overtly marked for gender, that is, ending in the vowel –e. In the case of nominals such as estudiante ‘student’ the only way to know their gender is through the agreement relations they establish with other constituents, that is, the determiner el or la and the adjective exitoso or exitosa. Notice the following contrast between the acquisition of gender and number agreement morphology: while it is possible, although not target-like, to produce a DP without marking its plurality—for example, la casa ‘the house’ instead of la-s casa–s ‘the houses’— it is not possible to produce a DP without marking its

Preface

xi

gender, for example, *el or la cas–. In this fashion, children acquiring Spanish are “forced” to choose between the two values of the gender feature and in doing so, provide us with a window to their underlying system. For this reason, the present study will also address the issue of the availability of initial default values, that is, whether children’s non-target-like production reflects a pattern on the selection of one value over the other one, for example, masculine over feminine gender.1 Any serious study on child language acquisition needs to address the controversial topic of the initial state, what children bring to the acquisition process and how they converge into the target language. On the one side, supporters of the Continuity Hypothesis (Crain & Thornton 1998; Pinker 1984, Valian 2009a, among many others) state that children start the acquisition process guided from the start by Universal Grammar (UG), a language faculty that guides the process. On the other side, supporters of the Discontinuity Hypothesis (Radford 1990, 1994; Tomasello 2000, among others) claim children do not bring any language-specific mechanism to the acquisition process, merely the preexisting cognitive mechanisms and processes. As with any controversy, both sides face their own challenges. Nativists see UG as a theory of the initial state but need to explain children’s less-than-perfect production, and empiricists expect children to produce non-target-like utterances because there are no guiding principles available to them from the onset. In this hypothesis, children build their grammar based on the input they receive. The challenge for discontinuous analyses is to explain how children converge into the target grammar in the short span of three years, given the impoverished input they receive, that is, information present in the input is not enough to account for the acquisition of certain principles (Valian 2009a). The present monograph adopts a version of the Continuity Hypothesis, which assumes that although children come to the acquisition process guided by UG, their production is expected to deviate from the target language as long as it does not violate any principles of UG (Crain 1991 & Thornton 1998, among others). For example, in the present study, the production of singular nominals to refer to plural referents is not interpreted as a deficiency in children’s grammar but as the selection of one of the options available in language. For example, languages such as Chinese do not mark plurality. The present monograph is targeted at my fellow child language researchers and graduate students familiar with the generative linguistics field, as well as to theoretical linguists, given the intrinsic comparative nature of the generative approach. In addition, I also hope the book is accessible to researchers working in other frameworks in fields such as Romance linguistics,

xii

Preface

comparative linguistics, psychology, and second language acquisition. To achieve this goal, the writing style may necessarily be oversimplified for specialists in certain fields for whom certain aspects do not need to be spelt out. To balance this issue, chapters in this book are mostly self-contained to help readers choose topics of interest. That said, the aim of the present monograph is not to explore the theoretical options offered by the different permutations of the MP but to apply its theoretical principles to the acquisition of Spanish. Furthermore, this book is not intended as a textbook on experimental design but as an example of the application of this methodology to the study of Spanish child language (see Crain & Thornton 1998). The organizational structure of the rest of the monograph is described next. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the theoretical linguistics framework adopted in this work, in particular, how agreement is seen within this framework. In addition, this first chapter addresses the controversy over the initial state and the predictions each hypothesis makes regarding acquisition of nominal agreement in Spanish. Chapter 2 describes the experimental design used for the present study, including the tasks developed and the selection of props. Chapter 3 discusses the topic of gender agreement and the use of an initial default value as what I propose, an acquisition strategy. Chapter 4 focuses on the acquisition of number agreement, the production of bare singulars, and an analysis of referentiality. Chapter 5 deals with the topic of the emergence of the DP, from the production of bare nominals, vocalic determiners (Aguirre 1995; Bottari, Cipriani, & Chilosi 1993/1994; López Ornat 1997) to full DPs. Finally, Chapter 6 presents a set of conclusions for the present study as well as areas for further research.

Acknowledgments

Many beings have supported this monograph from its inception to the present form. First, a heartfelt thanks to the Puerto Rican children who participated in this research and who were always ready to “play” with me in those incredibly hot afternoons in the Island. You continue to inspire me! Second, I will always be indebted to my dissertation committee members. To Dr Lardiere, my advisor, many thanks for her professional guidance and patience. My gratitude goes to Dr Thornton, who taught me the beauty of child language research. Thanks! Many thanks to Dr Crain, who believed in the linguist in me and helped me grasp the big picture of language. To Dr Campos, the eternal learner and the example of overall professional excellence. ¡Gracias profesor! Many thanks to all the parents for allowing their children to participate in this research and to the University of Puerto Rico and the Fajardo Montesori School for opening their facilities to conduct my experiment. Special thanks go to my parents, Efraín and Nieves, for their love, support and lifelong example. Los quiero y admiro. And to Yiannis, for his love, faith in me and unconditional support. Ευχαριστώ. To Adriana Merced, who made me believe in miracles.

Chapter 1

Theoretical Foundations

A fundamental goal of the research program developed under the generative tradition is to explain the human language faculty, that is, what does it mean to know a language. This inquiry has produced a vast body of research over the last three decades that seems to bring us closer to understanding language. Closely related to this topic is the issue of the initial state, that is, how do children acquire language and more specifically what, if anything, do they bring to the acquisition process and how do they converge to the target grammar. In this chapter, I address these two topics. The first part of the chapter starts with an overview of the theoretical linguistics framework adopted in this monograph, the Minimalist Program (MP) (Chomsky 1995, 2001) and how this approach can be applied to the acquisition of Spanish nominal agreement. The second part of the chapter focuses on some of the major proposals made in the literature regarding the initial state (continuous vs discontinuous approaches) and their predictions for the present study.

1.1 Agreement in the Minimalist Program The Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2001) assumes a language faculty construct comprised of a cognitive system (which stores information) and a performance system (which access and uses this information). Similarly to the Principles & Parameters Approach (Chomsky 1981), the focus of inquiry in the MP framework is the cognitive system and its two components: the lexicon and the computational system. The lexicon stores Lexical Items (LIs) of a particular language, roughly speaking words, along with their idiosyncratic requirements or specifications. The computational system is where syntactic operations take place. At the heart of the MP approach is the assumption that the locus of language variation is the lexicon (not the syntax), expressed in this system as feature specifications on LIs, for example, the specification of gender

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features in Spanish nominals. Notice that features of LIs may be phonological, semantic, morphological, or syntactic in nature. The MP also assumes that LIs, such as nominals, verbs, and adjectives come inflected and with their features already specified from the lexicon. For example, in the Spanish determiner phrase (DP) la casa bonita ‘the pretty house’ lexical items such as the nominal casa and the adjective bonita come from the lexicon inflected with the word marker –a and with the nominal features, in this example, feminine and singular already specified or what can be represented as [– masculine, + singular]. In contrast, functional items such as the determiner la do not come from the lexicon with these features specified or what can be represented as [masculine, singular]. Notice that in this last case, no values were given to these nominal features.1 For the present study, I assume that adjectives such as bonita come from the lexicon uninflected and with unspecified values for the gender and number features, and when they enter into an agreement relationship with the nominal they modify, the values of these features are inherited or specified to match those of the nominal in question and expressed overtly through morphological affixes.2 Under this assumption, a lexical category such as adjectives will be analyzed in the same fashion as a functional category such as determiners, as suggested by Koehn (1994); that is, both will match their unspecified agreement features to those of the nominal head. Supporting this distinction between nouns and adjectives is the fact that most nouns in Spanish are specified as either feminine or masculine, but they cannot be both, whereas adjectives can be feminine or masculine according to the noun they are modifying or predicating, for example, bonito (masculine) versus bonita (feminine), as pointed out by Aronoff (1994), Harris (1991), and others.3 In the MP, features such as gender and number are assigned in the lexicon the property of interpretability by Universal Grammar (UG), according to the lexical item they are specifying, for example, gender and number are seen as “interpretable” when assigned to a nominal like casa, but they are seen as “uninterpretable” when they are assigned to a functional category, as with the determiner la. Crucially, interpretability has consequences for the derivation: while interpretable features are allowed to stay through the derivation because their content can be “read” by both the Phonological Form, or PF (roughly speaking, language morphophonological component), and the Logical Form, or LF (roughly speaking, language semantic component) interface levels, uninterpretable features need to be checked or deleted for the derivation to converge because their content is superfluous or cannot be interpreted by the interface levels. Now we turn the discussion to the derivation of nominal agreement within the MP framework.


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1.1.1 Nominal Agreement The MP derivation starts with a numeration or selection of the LIs, roughly words, that will be used in the derivation, including how many times they will be used. Then the operation of Merge takes place cyclically, until all items from the numeration are used. This operation creates binary relations between two or more items from the numeration. A consequence of Merge then is the creation of new syntactic objects, for example, the DP la casa. Notice in this analysis Noun Phrases (NPs) are interpreted as DPs, as proposed by Abney’s (1987) DP Hypothesis, which take as a complement an NP.4 In this example, the new syntactic object formed, la casa, has a determiner with unspecified/uninterpretable gender and number features, for example, [masculine, singular], and a nominal with specified/interpretable gender and number features, for example, [– masculine, + singular]. Recall that in this analysis, uninterpretable features need to be eliminated for the derivation to converge. This process is known as Agree(ment) (Chomsky 2001), and in this example, it serves to match or add the feature specification values of nominal casa to those of the determiner la. The outcome of Agree is the removal of the uninterpretable features, in this example from the determiner. Once uninterpretable features are valued and deleted, the derivation can proceed to the interface levels. Agreement then in the MP is understood as a feature-checking process expressed syntactically in a Spec-head configuration (with some exceptions) between α (lexical item with interpretable features) and β (lexical item with uninterpretable features), as illustrated in Example 1.1 for the DP la casa bonita. Example 1.1 [DP D la [FP F casa [AgrP bonita AGR casa [NP casa]]]] In Example 1.1, the nominal head casa raises to the head of the functional projection AgrP to check the agreement features of the adjectival head bonita in a Spec-head configuration.5 In the determiner case, I assume that the agreement features of the N-head are copied (or inherited) by the D-head. Then, the agreement features of the Determiner head are checked by raising the nominal head to the functional category FP, as shown in the example. Notice that in the case of the agreement features of the Determiner head, the checking mechanism does not involve a Spec-head configuration but is checked via percolation, that is, the agreement features of the N-head percolate up from N to D (Radford 1997, among others). For the present monograph, I adopt Cinque’s (1994) and Bosque and Picallo’s (1996)

4


analyses for adjectives and assume that they are generated as specifiers of functional projections, in this case, an Agreement Phrase, as shown in Example 1.1. Furthermore, I assume the availability of a functional projection between the DP and the Nominal Phrase, where Spanish nominals raise to check strong features.6 Notice that N-raising in the example above is motivated within the MP by an additional characteristic of the features, namely, strength. In this framework, a formal feature such as gender or number may or may not be strong, forcing the operation Move (Chomsky 1995). Spanish, among other Romance languages, has been characterized as a language with strong nominal features, hence movement to the appropriate functional head(s) within DP is required for the derivation to converge (Bernstein 1991; Brugè 2002; Cinque 1994; Longobardi 1994; among others). In contrast, languages such as English are presumed to have weak N-features, and therefore no N-movement is required. The notion of feature strength in the MP, although difficult to define in concrete terms, accounts for some cross-linguistic differences between Spanish and English. For example, the attested attributive adjectival placement: in pre-nominal position in English, for example, pretty house, and in post-nominal position in Spanish, for example casa bonita ‘house pretty.’7 That is, in Spanish the noun casa raises to check its strong features, hence appearing before the adjective bonita, whereas in English the noun house does not because it has weak features.8 The overview of agreement within the MP above reveals a puzzling aspect about the agreement process: feature content is added to unspecified constituents and then the same content is deleted later on. Miyagawa (2010) addresses this issue, pointing out the redundant, asymmetric, and apparently irrelevant nature of agreement. For example, in the DP la casa bonita, the relation is asymmetric because only one element, the nominal casa, holds the values for the features that are “copied” to the other elements. Agreement is also redundant because the same information, in this case, the features feminine and singular, is repeated on three constituents: the nominal, the determiner, and the adjective. Furthermore, once the uninterpretable features receive a value specification through agreement, they must be deleted before LF so that they will not receive a semantic interpretation. Therefore, the actual content of agreement seems irrelevant. Miyagawa sheds some light on this matter, proposing that the purpose of Agree is to create functional relations between a functional head and an XP. These relations are critical because they “substantially enhance the expressive power of human language” (Miyagawa 2010, 8). In the example above, the purpose of N-raising or Move is to keep record of the functional


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relation created in the syntax, that is, agreement, so that it can be used by the semantic interpretation or LF.

1.2 The Initial State One of the most fundamental questions in the field of language acquisition refers to the definition of the initial state, that is, what do children bring to the acquisition process and how do they converge into their target language in the short span of three to four years, that is, input available to children is comprised of a finite set of sentences but a language is defined of an infinite set of sentences. These questions, part of what is known as the logical problem of language acquisition (Baker & McCarthy 1981; Pinker 1989) have given rise in the literature to a debate that can be defined as the opposition between continuous versus discontinuous approaches, or between nativist versus empiricist views. In this section, I review some of the proposals put forth in the literature and their predictions for the acquisition of nominal agreement, the focus of this monograph. Pinker (1984) proposes the Continuity Hypothesis, stating that the null hypothesis for an acquisition theory is that the cognitive mechanisms of children and adults are identical, that is, all the various modules of the child’s grammar are present from the beginning of the acquisition process and only require exposure to linguistic data to get activated. Within the Continuity Hypothesis, two major variants have been advanced, namely, Strong continuity versus Weak continuity. Proponents of strong continuity believe that children’s grammar contains all the principles of UG from the onset of acquisition in the form used in the target language (Goodluck 1991; Hyams 1994, 1996, among others). The challenge for this hypothesis is to account for children’s non-adult-like production. Supporters of this view interpret children’s non-target-like utterances or the developmental stages attested in the data as reflections of a deficit in one of the interface levels, that is, the morphophonological or the semantic component. This version of continuity offers a very powerful hypothesis in terms of learnability, that is, children converge to the target grammar in a relatively short period of time because they are not only guided by UG but also select the same options of the grammar in their linguistic community. However, if children’s and adults’ grammars are the same from the onset, this hypothesis needs to posit deficits in other areas to account for children’s less than perfect production, for example, the performance systems. Moreover, it is not clear how children would overcome these issues to converge on the target grammar.

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Proponents of weak continuity also believe that children come to the acquisition process guided by UG but that their grammars do not have to conform necessarily to the target grammar; rather, what is relevant is that their grammar does not violate the principles of UG (Crain & Thornton 1998; Crain & Pietroski 2001, among others). In this version, the difference between child and adult grammars is reduced to the differences existing among languages. Notice also that availability of UG helps learners limit the hypotheses generated regarding the linguistic input, that is, UG constrains linguistic variability to a limited number of parameters or different features within the MP. Evidence in support of a continuous approach should show that children have knowledge of UG principles that could not have been derived from the primary linguistic data (Crain & Thornton 1998; Valian 2009a). Experimental studies have brought support for a continuous analysis. For example, research has shown that children do not violate UG linguistic principles, that is, they have knowledge of constraints in interpretation of (Crain & Thornton 1998) and on structure-dependence (Crain & Nakayama 1987). Furthermore, studies have found that children also have knowledge of abstract principles such as the semantic property known as downward entailment (Chierchia 2004; Crain, Gualmini, & Pietroski 2005) that accounts for a series asymmetries in sentences (subject phrase and predicate phrase) with the universal quantifier every, for example, entailment relations among sentences and the interpretation of disjunction (Gualmini, Meroni, & Crain 2003; Meroni, Gualmini, & Crain 2006). Children’s ability to interpret correctly these asymmetries, which on the surface seem unrelated, brings support for the availability of an underlying system guiding the acquisition process. For the present monograph, I assume a weak continuity version of the initial state. This assumption predicts that children’s production of DPs should be the reflection of a language and as such should not violate the principles of UG. I should point out that several versions of weak continuity have been advanced in the literature to account for the children’s non-adult-like production found in production data. On one hand, some researchers (e.g., Clahsen 1990/1991 and Deprez 1994, among others) assume that functional projections are initially left underspecified in the initial grammar whereas Vainikka (1993/1994) claims that functional projections need to be triggered by the input to be instantiated, hence they develop gradually; that is, children first project Verb Phrase, then Inflectional Phrase, and finally Complementizer Phrase. On the other hand, researchers such as Bloom (1990, 1993) claim that children have performance limitations that affect their production. He argues, for example, that children omit subjects in English due to memory limitations.9


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I now turn my discussion to discontinuous analyses of the initial state, that is, proposals defending the hypothesis that children’s grammars are qualitatively different from adults’ grammars. One of the key advocates of this approach is Radford (1990, 1994) in his Maturational Hypothesis. He states that certain principles mature like any instance of biological maturation. In this analysis, children’s early grammar starts at a lexical or pre-categorical stage that lacks functional projections such as DPs, that is, children’s sentences are projections of the four primary lexical heads (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions). He supports his hypothesis with examples of children’s determinerless utterances, such as Paula good girl (Paula 18) and Open can (Allison 22). Moreover, in this analysis children’s lack of DPs also accounts for their failure to mark genitive case, for example, Mummy [car]. Radford’s maturational account is able to explain the developmental nature observed in the data, but it only provides descriptive adequacy because it cannot account for how the “immature” components mature and why they develop the way they do.10 Moreover, this particular hypothesis removes the theory of UG as a theory of the initial state, as pointed out by Lust (1999) by invoking, for example, the unavailability of certain UG components at the onset of acquisition; UG thus becomes a theory of the final state rather than the initial state. More recently, usage-based approaches to language acquisition, a different version of a discontinuous approach, have become very popular in the literature, such as the Constructivist approach (López Ornat 2003; Pine & Lieven 1997; Tomasello 2000, 2003). In this approach, children come to the acquisition process without any language-specific mechanisms and only with general learning abilities. Language is acquired in a piecemeal fashion through the regularities extracted from the input. With regard to the present study, this approach would argue that children only need to be exposed to the input to acquire nominal agreement in Spanish by extracting the regularities present in the input. Support for this approach is found in recent statistical data analyses of the regularities found in the input to children (Behrens 2006; MacWhinney 2004; Pullum & Scholtz 2002; Smith, Nix, Davey, López Ornat, & Messer 2009). Overall, these studies claim that these regularities seem sufficient to guide the acquisition process without having to posit innateness of linguistic knowledge.11 Notice that continuous approaches recognize regularities present in the input; they differ on the role these regularities play in the acquisition process. Nonetheless, data-driven approaches such as the one discussed here face serious shortcomings in terms of their explanatory adequacy, as pointed out by Crain and Thornton (2006). First, for this approach to work, children need to be able to keep a detailed record of the attested structures in the

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input given the fact that they have no principles or constraints guiding the acquisition process. Second, this hypothesis is very language specific because it relies solely on the input to which a child is exposed in a particular language. Hence, it fails to explain cross-linguistic generalizations, for example, the attested phenomenon of determiner omission in child language and how do children convey to the target language. On the other hand, under the continuity approach, children are guided by UG, and one possible explanation for determiner omission is the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998a, 1998b; Chierchia, Guasti, and Gualmini 2000). This hypothesis accounts for determiner omission cross-linguistically, asserting that children start the acquisition process with a mass-like interpretation of nominals and the primary linguistic data guides them to choose the target-like setting of the parameter. Moreover, this parameter unifies other seemingly unrelated phenomenon present in child language, namely, the production of unmarked plurals. In addition, data-driven accounts of acquisition fail to explain how children acquire knowledge in the absence of experience, for example, the interpretation of anaphoric relations. Continuous approaches on the other hand rely on the availability of linguistic constraints, in this case Binding Theory Principle C.12 For the present monograph, a data-driven analysis predicts that children will be conservative learners and will omit determiners but when they do start producing them, their utterances should match the primary linguistic data, the only source of information available, according to this approach. In contrast, a continuous approach will predict that children’s production should not violate the principles of UG even though it might not match the target language.

Chapter 2

Experimental Methodology

2.1 Data Two major approaches to data collection dominate the field of child language acquisition: the naturalistic and the experimental. In the former, children’s spontaneous speech is recorded, usually during free play, whereas in the latter, particular structures are elicited from children through experimental tasks set within the context of a game. Both approaches can be longitudinal or cross-sectional, and both offer advantages and disadvantages to researchers. The data for the present study was obtained through a series of cross-sectional experimental tasks: two elicited production tasks and one comprehension task. A cross-sectional design was chosen because of time constraints, that is, the experimenter had a time limit of two months to complete the data collection, because the study was conducted abroad in Puerto Rico. Unlike longitudinal studies, this type of research does not provide a picture of how the acquisition process evolves for a particular child. Nonetheless, children at different developmental stages, measured in Mean Length Utterance in words, were included in the study in order to provide a sample of different stages of acquisition. The experimental approach was chosen for several reasons. First, the elicited production technique provides the researcher with greater experimental control in terms of the meaning and context associated with a particular utterance (Crain & Thornton 1998; Thornton 1996). For example, in the present study, the experimenter was able to create a story and select particular toys or props that served to control the context of utterances. Second, this technique is designed to elicit the structures under study, in this case Determiner Phrases (DPs). As a result, the elicited production technique allows for the collection of a more robust data sample within a single experimental session (Crain & Thornton 1998). In particular, this technique allows for the selection of toys with names that are overtly marked for gender, for example, ending in –o for masculine, carr–o ‘car’ or –a for

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feminine, cas–a ‘house,’ and toys with names that are not marked overtly for gender, for example, ending on –e like lech–e ‘milk,’ or on a consonant, like –n in león ‘lion.’ In this manner, the experimenter can explore the existence of initial values in child grammar for nominals that do not provide any morphophonological clues for gender, that is, the gender value assigned to these nominals is not overtly marked for gender. Moreover, the inclusion of nominals that ended in a consonant sound, for example, león, provided the opportunity to assess whether children marked plurality or not with the allomorph –es. This was crucial given the fact that one of the characteristics of the Puerto Rican dialect is the aspiration of the final –s. Notice that this experimental control might have not been possible with the naturalistic approach to data collection, as pointed out by Snyder (2007). He studied the acquisition of DPs, using the data of Juan Linaza from CHILDES (MacWhinney & Snow 1985), finding out that at age 1;7, Juan produced only one instance of a DP. Hence, no conclusions were made regarding this issue (Snyder 1995). The second experimental approach used in the present study was a comprehension task. This task was designed to investigate children’s comprehension of number, that is, singular versus plural, separating the cognitive ability to comprehend the difference between one and more than one from their linguistic ability to produce the plural marker –(e)s. In this task, the child did not have to respond verbally to a request but instead had to select among a number of available objects, for example, one horse, two dogs, or all the cats. This task points to a third advantage of the experimental approach: the evaluation of a particular scientific hypothesis, for example, whether children distinguish between mass and count nominals in their grammars. Nonetheless, experimental tasks have some drawbacks, as stated by Crain and Thornton (1998). As with all experimental techniques, the success of an experimental task relies on its careful design and development, that is what might seem appropriate for the experimenter at the designing stage might result in a task that is boring or uninteresting for children. Second, this type of task is labor intensive, especially with children around the ages of 2;0 years old. It relies on the active participation of the children involved, hence a good rapport between the experimenter and the child is vital to its success, as well as an interesting “game” so that children are compelled to participate in the task. In this respect, the naturalistic approach to data collection is easier to administer because it does not require the subjects to attend to a particular task. However, the output in terms of the robustness of the data is not comparable, as discussed above. The rest of the chapter is presented in three Sections. Section 2.2 provides a description of the children who participated in the present research.


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Section 2.3 discusses the experimental tasks conducted to gather the acquisition data discussed in this monograph. Finally, Section 2.4 describes how the data were transcribed and coded and presents a summary of the data coded by constituents under study.

2.2 Subjects The data for the present study were extracted from the transcripts of three monolingual Spanish-speaking children under the age of three: two boys, Elián (2;1,18) and Alonso (2;2,29), and one girl, Londa (2;9,4); pseudonyms were given to all participants.1 In addition, the data of two other children over the age of three—a girl, Diana (3;6,3) and a boy, Pepe (4;3,10)—were introduced in discussion when interesting. These two older children were included in the experiment for two reasons. First, their data were included to assess the validity of the experimental tasks conducted for this study, that is, to test if these older children were able to complete the tasks. The three experimental tasks posed no problems for them, producing target-like responses in almost all cases. Hence, their data are not analyzed in detail in the present monograph, but they are introduced into the discussion when relevant. Second, their data were included to explore whether children over the age of 3;0 already have acquired the agreement system between determiners and nominals attested to in the literature (Hernández-Pina 1984; Snyder 2007; Pizzutto & Caselli 1992 for Italian, among others). Subjects were recruited informally through family and friends both inside and outside the metropolitan area of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Children were chosen after a first visit or telephone contact with one of the parents. The selection criteria were: (1) the linguistic development of the child, that is, the children selected were at least at the two-word stage, because the main focus of the present study is nominal agreement; and (2) that the children were raised in a monolingual Spanish environment, that is, the childcare provider and/or the home. Of the five children, only Pepe was enrolled in some formal schooling, that being pre-Kindergarten. Table 2.1 summarizes the information for the five subjects involved in the study. Children completed the tasks in two sessions with the exception of Alonso, whose first visit was part of the piloting phase of the study, and Pepe, a 4-year-old who was able to complete all the tasks in one session. Table 2.1 also shows that the mean length utterance (MLUw was calculated in words instead of morphemes).2 First, there is no agreement in the literature regarding what constitutes a morpheme in a highly inflected language


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Table 2.1 Experimental subjects Name

Sex

Age

Number of sessions

MLUw

Elián

Male

2; 1,18

2

1.5

Alonso

Male

2; 2, 29

3

1.9

Londa

Female

2; 9, 4

2

2.2

Diana

Female

3; 6, 3

2

3.1

Pepe

Male

4; 3, 10

1

4.0

like Spanish, as Schnell de Acedo (1994) points out. Second, MLU in words seems to be the preferred method for Romance languages (Bottari, Cipriani, & Chilosi 1993/1994; Caselli, Leonard, Volterra, & Campagnoli 1993; Pizzutto & Caselli 1992; Schnell de Acedo 1994; among others). By using the same measurement, we can compare the results of the present study with the findings of previous studies in Romance.

2.3 Collection Method The children were recorded either at home or in the childcare facility they attended. Video and audio were recorded during two 1-hour sessions per child, with the exception of Pepe, who successfully completed all the tasks in the first hour. Video recordings were made using a JVC-GR-DVM90 digital video camera, and audio was recorded with a Sony-ECM-ZS90 external microphone placed in a floor stand. The camera was placed on a tripod on the side of the room where the tasks were conducted. Audio recordings were also made with a Sony-WM-D6C tape recorder, with the exception of Elián; in his case, the childcare facility did not have more than one electrical outlet available.

2.3.1 Experimental Tasks Experimental sessions started after the recording equipment was in place. Children were introduced to the puppet Monkey and invited to play freely for a few minutes. Three experimental tasks were conducted for the present study and presented to the children as follows: the comprehension task, “The Animal House,” and the two elicited production tasks: “Time to Eat” and “The Race.”


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2.3.1.1 Comprehension Task This task addresses the attested issue of the plural marker (–e)s omission, that is, the production of singular DPs to refer to plural referents. In particular, it explores whether children omit this marker for reasons outside the language module; for example, they lack the cognitive/conceptual development to understand the difference between one versus more than one. This hypothesis makes the following predictions: (1) Children would be able to respond to a singular object request, with one object, a cat for example, and a request for more than one object, for example two dogs, with more than one dog, if they understand the distinction between one versus more than one, even though there is more than one object available; (2) Children would respond in a random manner to all requests if they have not yet developed this cognitive ability, that is, sometimes choosing one object and other times many objects regardless of the request made to them. Crucially, this task disassociates number comprehension, that is, one versus more than one from number production, that is, number marking with -(e)s. The protocol for the comprehension task protocol is illustrated in Example 2.1. Example 2.1 Protocol: “The Animal House” Story: Monkey, the puppet, wants to introduce some of his friends, other animals, to the child. (The animals are inside a bag.) Monkey: ¿Quieres conocer a mis amiguitos? ‘Would you like to meet my little friends?’ (The child responds by approaching Monkey or nodding. The experimenter takes out the first set of animals, for example, three dogs.) Monkey: ¿Qué es eso? ‘What’s that (neuter)?’ Child: Un perro or perro. ‘A dog, or dog.’ Monkey: ¿Me prestas uno? or ¿Puedes encontrar un perro? ‘Would you lend me one?’ or ‘Can you find a dog?’ (The experimenter makes sure that the three dogs are together and visible to the child. In this fashion, the child is given the option of selecting the appropriate number of animals according to the puppet’s request. The task was repeated with the other sets of animals.) Once all the animals were taken out of the bag and Monkey’s requests were made but not necessarily answered, especially by the younger subjects,

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the experimenter took out a toy house big enough for the child to get inside. This served as a break from the experimental situation and allowed the children to play freely, getting in and out of the house. After a few minutes of play, the Comprehension Task was continued with the variation in Example 2.2. Example 2.2 Protocol: “The Animal House:” Follow-up Monkey: Creo que los animales están cansados. Busca dos gatos, tienen que ir a dormir a la casita. ‘I think the animals are tired. Find two cats; they need to go to the little house to sleep.’ (As mentioned earlier, before making a request, the experimenter made sure that the animals, for example, cats, were grouped together by type and in full view of the child.) Child: (Finds the requested animal, for example, the two cats, and takes them to the house to sleep.) As in the case of the first version of this task, children’s comprehension was assessed by their ability to find the appropriate number of animals requested. This task variation was needed with the younger subjects because their attention span was limited and they did not respond to all the requests the first time they were made. In the case of the older children, only one version of the Comprehension Task was required because they were responsive to the requests. The task ended when all the requests were made or the child was no longer receptive to the task. Two criteria were used for the selection of the animals for this task. First, the animals had to be common enough to be recognizable by small children; therefore, if the children did not know the animals requested, it would have affected the output of the task. Second, the noun type was also important to assess comprehension. As discussed above, children were spontaneously naming the animals when the experimenter took them out of the bag. As a result, nominals canonically and non-canonically marked for gender were included in the task to gather more production data, as illustrated in Tables 2.2 and 2.3. Table 2.2 presents a summary of the feminine nouns included in the Comprehension Task. Even though an attempt was made to use a variety of feminine nominals, it was very difficult to find feminine animal nouns unmarked for gender that would be still recognizable to the children. Nonetheless, non-canonically marked feminine nominals were introduced


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Table 2.2 Feminine nouns Comprehension Task

Canonically marked nouns

Non-canonically marked nouns

Ending –a

Number of objects

Request

vaca ‘cow’

2: 1 clean/1 dirty

La vaca sucia ‘the cow dirty’ (the dirty cow)

tortuga ‘turtle’

2: 1 big/1 small

La tortuga grande ‘the turtle big’ (the big turtle)

mariposa ‘butterfly’

4: 2 big/blue 2 small/red

Las mariposas grandes ‘the butterflies big’ (the big butterflies)

Ending –e

Number of objects

Request

serpiente ‘snake’ (culebra)

2: 1 big/1 small

La serpiente grande ‘the snake big’ (the big snake)

through the additional toys presented to the children, for example, llave ‘key,’ leche ‘milk,’ and luz ‘light.’ For a detailed listing of the additional props used in the experiment, refer to the section entitled Other Props. Table 2.2 also shows that adjectives were added to the requests, such as in the example of la vaca sucia ‘the dirty cow.’3 This was done for the purpose of measuring the understanding of the adjectives in this first task because they were going to be elicited in the task: “The Race.” This first task primed the children regarding the differences among objects. The addition of adjectives did not affect children’s response to the request, that is, when children responded, they did it correctly in the majority of cases. In addition to the nominals or animals listed in Example 2.2, other less common animals were presented to the children, given the fact that the study was dealing with children of different age groups. For example, two giraffes ‘jirafa in Spanish,’ were shown to the children. Finally, I would like to point out that even though some of the objects had two characteristics, for example, small blue butterflies, only one adjective at the time was used in the requests, in this case, the request was as follows: Could you find the small butterflies or the blue butterflies? Masculine nominals used in this task are summarized in Table 2.3. In contrast to the feminine nouns presented in Table 2.2, it was easier to find masculine nouns unmarked for gender that were recognizable to the children, for example, pez ‘fish’ and león ‘lion.’

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Table 2.3 Masculine nouns in Comprehension Task



Ending in –o

Number of objects

Request

perro ‘dog’

3: white dogs

Un perro blanco ‘one dog white’ (one white dog)

gato ‘cat’

4: 3 white/1 brown

Dos gatos blancos ‘two cats white’ (two white cats)

caballo ‘horse’

4: 2 big/2 small

Dos caballos grandes ‘two horses big’ (two big horses)

Ending in –e

Number of objects

Request

elefante ‘elephant’

4: 3 blue/1 gray

Los elefantes azules ‘the elephants blue’ (the blue elephants)

Ending in consonant

Number of objects

Request

pez ‘fish’

3: different colors

Los peces ‘the fishes’

león ‘lion’

2: 1 big/ 1 small

El león grande ‘the lion big’ (the big lion)

2.3.1.2 Elicited Production Tasks The two elicited production tasks conducted in the present study were: “Time to Eat,” and “The Race.” The goal of the “Time to Eat” task was to determine if children could distinguish between mass and count nouns, that is, pluralizing count but not mass nominals. In particular, this task addresses the availability of an initial default value for number feature at the beginning of the acquisition process, that is, whether the default value is singular, as claimed by Spanish researchers such as Harris (1991), or mass, as has been proposed by Chierchia (1998b). The translated protocol for this task is illustrated in Example 2.3. Example 2.3 Protocol: “Time to Eat” Story: Puppet tells the child that it is time to eat, to find an animal that she thinks might be hungry. Monkey: Es hora de comer. ¿Tú sabes quién tiene hambre? ‘It is time to eat. Do you know who is hungry?’


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Child:

El caballo or caballo. ‘The horse or horse.’ (Children usually uttered the name of the animal that was hungry while they were looking for it.) Experimenter: Déjame ver qué tengo aquí de comer. ‘Let me see what I have here to eat.’ (Experimenter said as she was taking out the first set of food items, one mass and one count, for example, two piles of rice and four flowers.) Hungry animal: ¡Tengo hambre, tengo hambre! ¿Qué como? ‘I am hungry, I am hungry! What should I eat?’ (Food items would be placed in front of the child to make a selection, for example, rice and flowers.) Child: Arroz or flores. ‘Rice’ or ‘flowers.’ In this task, as the experimenter took out a food item, children instinctively tried to identify it and name it. If they did not say what the item was, the experimenter would take one of the items in her hand and label it for the child, for example, esto es arroz ‘this [neuter] is rice,’ with one of the two piles of rice in her hand. Once the child had identified the food choices, she would make a food selection for the “hungry animal,” for example, rice. On the one hand, if the child has a default value in her grammar of “mass” she is expected to produce all the nouns in the singular number because mass nominals are not pluralized. On the other hand, if the child’s grammar distinguishes between mass nominals (not pluralizable) versus count nominals (pluralizable), the child should produce singular mass nominals and plural count nominals. Crucially, mass nouns were presented in two sets, for example, two piles of rice. In this way, the experiment gave the children the option of pluralizing mass nominals if the distinction between mass and count nominals was not present in their grammar. The task proceeded with the animal (manipulated by the experimenter) eating from the other food group, for example, flowers, and complaining that the food tasted bad, as shown in Example 2.4. Example 2.4 Protocol: “Time to eat” (Continuation) Hungry animal: Ah eso sabe mal. ¿Qué comí? ‘Oh that tastes bad! What did I eat?’ Child: Flores. ‘Flowers’ (four flowers). Hungry animal: ¿Flores? ¿Qué como? ¡Tengo hambre! ‘Flowers? What should I eat? I’m hungry!’ Child: Arroz or arroces. ‘Rice’ or ‘*Rices’ (two piles of rice).

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The child was expected to produce the count nominal in the plural form, for example, flores ‘flowers’ to mark the distinction that in her grammar count nominals are pluralized. Finally, the animal would eat the rice and comment on how good it tasted: Eso sabe bien, ¿qué comí? ‘This tastes good, what did I eat?’ The child was expected to say arroz ‘rice’ and not arroces ‘rices’ if there was a difference between the mass and count nominals in her grammar. If the child did not respond, the experimenter asked the child what did the animal eat, ¿qué comió? The same routine was repeated with several food items since some of the children would identify one item of the mass/count set but not the other. The task would end after all the food items were “eaten” and responses were obtained from the child or when the child was no longer interested in this particular game. The food sets used in this task are listed in Example 2.5. Example 2.5 Mass and Count Nominals Mass Nominals 2 piles of rice 2 chicken legs 2 bunches of grass 2 piles of hair *2 bottles of milk *2 cups

Count Nominals 4 flowers 2 bananas 4 plates 2 balls 2 oranges *2 chairs

In this task what was important was the pairing of two different kinds of nouns, for example, mass versus count, so no strict order was followed regarding the pairing of two specific items, for example, hair was paired with bananas or flowers, for instance. The items in Example 2.5 marked with an asterisk (*) were introduced at the end of the task. These items were presented to the child in the following situations: (1) when the child did not respond to some of the items listed in Example 2.5; or (2) when the child had completed the task but was still interested in the feeding game. In the case of the two bottles of milk, the procedure followed was to make the animal drink first from one bottle and then immediately from the second bottle. Then the child was asked: ¿Qué tomó? ‘What did the animal drink?’ The expected answer was leche ‘milk’ or la leche ‘the milk’ even though there were two bottles given. In the case of the cups, the children immediately pretended to be drinking something. In this context, the experimenter told the child to drink from the two cups and then asked her: ¿qué tomaste?


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‘What did you drink?’ Children’s responses were agua ‘water,’ café ‘coffee.’ None of the children pluralized these particular nouns, even though the possibility is available in the target grammar, that is, two cups of water/coffee, two bottles of milk. Finally, another variation to the main protocol of this task was added to make it more interesting for the children, “Time to Sit Down” (see Example 2.6). Like in the other two versions of the task, two choices were given to the child as the seating place for the doll, for example, a pair of chairs or two bunches of grass. Example 2.6 Protocol: “Time to sit down” Story: A human doll (or the child’s favorite animal) indicated to the child that he was tired and needed to sit down. Doll: Estoy cansado. ¿Dónde me siento? ‘I am tired, where can I sit?’ Child: En la silla or silla. ‘On the chair or chair.’ (Doll sits on the grass and complains.) Doll: ¡Au! ¡Esto pica! ¿Dónde me senté? ‘Ouch! This is itchy! Where did I sit?’ Child: En la hierba/*hierbas ‘On the grass/*grasses’ Doll: Oh, me equivoqué. ¿Dónde me siento? ‘Oh I made a mistake. Where should I sit?’ Child: En la silla. ‘On the chair.’ (Doll would sit first on one of the two chairs and would fall down because it was too small for him; then the experimenter would put the two chairs together indicating to the child that two will hold the doll.) Doll: Esto es más cómodo. ‘This is more comfortable.’ In general, children seemed to enjoy this variation to the task, especially when the doll would complain about the itchy grass. The second elicited production task carried out for this study was “The Race.” This task was designed to elicit DPs with an attributive adjective to explore the nature of agreement relations between the nouns and their modifiers in terms of the features, gender and number. In this task, the experimenter took out two sets of toys, varying in size, color, or degree of cleanliness. For example, four cars were used: two big blue ones and two red small ones. If the child did not identify the objects, for example, cars, the experimenter would ask her: ¿qué es eso? ‘What’s that?’ Once the object(s) was/were identified overtly, the experimenter using the puppet

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told the child that it would be fun to have a race to the house. Usually the children got very excited about participating in a competition. Before the race took place, the child was asked to choose which vehicles she would like to drive, as shown in Example 2.7. Example 2.7 Protocol: “The Race” Story: Monkey likes races and he likes to win. Experimenter: ¿Quieres hacer una carrera para ver quién gana? ‘Do you want to have a race with Monkey to see who wins?’ Child: Sí, yo voy a ganar. ‘Yes, I am going to win.’ Experimenter: Sí, pero primero tienes que escoger qué carros vas a manejar. ‘Yes, but before you have to choose which cars you are going to drive.’ (Experimenter points at the two different sets of cars, for example, big vs small.) Child (expected response): Los grandes/los carros grandes or los chiquitos/ los carros chiquitos. ‘The big ones/the big cars or the small ones/the small cars.’ Monkey: En su marca, listos. . .¡fuera! ‘On your mark, get set, go!’ (The race takes place, and then the experimenter asked the child who won.) Experimenter: ¿Quién ganó? ‘Who won?’ Child (expected response): Los carros grandes or los grandes. ‘The big cars or the big ones.’ (Then the task was repeated with other vehicles, for example, motorcycles and trains.) The production of attributive adjectives from these children was very limited, especially in the case of the younger ones, who preferred to point at the vehicles when asked to choose between the two sets. When the younger children did not produce the adjective after several trials, the experimenter would establish a contrast between the two sets of objects as follows: Mira, yo tengo los grandes. ‘Look, I have the big [ones].’ In some cases this phrase was enough to trigger a response from the child like: Y yo tengo los chiquitos. ‘And I have the small [ones].’ However, if the child did not respond, the experimenter followed up with the question: ¿y tú qué tienes? ‘And what do you have?’ As in this example, the experimenter would always try to choose the unmarked adjective, for example, grand–e instead of chiquit–o, to limit the information given to the child in terms of the agreement needed. As stated


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earlier for the other tasks, the nominals selected for this task had to be objects recognizable to the children and they have to provide a variety of endings, that is, canonically marked and non-canonically marked for gender, as its goal was to explore the nature of the agreement system in children’s grammar. In particular, I want to explore whether children acquiring nominal agreement Spanish are creating agreement relations based on the clues overtly on the morphology, or there is evidence of an underlying agreement system. As a result, an attempt was made to select a variety of noun types and modifying adjectives. Masculine nominals included in this task are listed in Table 2.4. As illustrated in Table 2.4 only one overtly marked masculine nominal was used as a prop for this task, for example, carros ‘cars’ since there were

Table 2.4 Masculine nouns for “The Race” Ending in –o

Number of objects

Possible Determiner Phrases


carr–os ‘cars’

4: 2 big/blue 2 small/red

los (carros) grandes/azules ‘the cars big/blue’ (the big/blue cars) los (carros) chiquitos/rojos ‘the cars small/red’ (the small/red cars)


Ending in –e

Number of objects


nen–e ‘boy’

2: 1 clean 1 dirty

el (nene) limpio ‘the boy clean’ (the clean boy) el (nene) sucio ‘the (boy) dirty [one]’ (the dirty boy)

Ending in consonant

Number of objects


avión ‘airplane’

2: 1 big 1 small

el (avión) grande ‘the airplane big’ (the big airplane) el (avión) chiquito ‘the airplane small’ (the small airplane)

tren ‘train’

4: 2 happy 2 sad

los (trenes) felices ‘the (trains) happy’ (the happy trains) los (trenes) tristes ‘the (trains) sad’ (the sad trains)

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enough of these nominals elicited in the other tasks. Nonetheless, an overtly article marked for gender was used, in this case los ‘the [masculine/plural].’4 In addition, two dolls were used as participants in the race: nene ‘boy,’ a clean one and a dirty one, as illustrated in Table 2.4. This nominal provided an additional unmarked masculine nominal to the experiment since it ends in the vowel –e. Feminine nominals selected for this task are summarized in Table 2.5. In this task, it was also difficult to find feminine nominals (for vehicles) that were unmarked for gender and that would be recognizable to the children. However, adding additional props that were not vehicles solved this

Table 2.5 Feminine nouns for “The Race”



Ending in –a

Number of objects


motora ‘motorcycle’

2: 1 blue 1 red

la (motora) azul ‘the (motorcycle blue) [one]’ (the blue motorcycle) la (motora) roja ‘the (motorcycle) red [one]’ (the red motorcycle)

guagua ‘school bus’

4: 2 big 2 small

guagua ‘pick up truck’

2: 1 black 1 blue

las (guaguas) grandes ‘the (buses) big [ones]’ (the big buses) las (guaguas) chiquitas ‘the (buses) small [ones]’ (the small buses) la (guagua) negra ‘the (bus) black [one]’ (the black bus) la (guagua) azul ‘the (bus) blue [one]’ (the blue bus)

nena ‘girl’

2: 1 combed 1 uncombed

la (nena) limpia ‘the (girl) clean [one]’ (the clean girl) la (nena) sucia ‘the (girl) dirty [one]’ (the dirty girl)

Ending in –e

Number of objects


llave ‘key’

2: 1 big 1 small

la (llave) grande ‘the (key) big [one]’ (the big key) la (llave) chiquita ‘the (key) small {one]’ (the small key)


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issue, for example, llave ‘key,’ as can be seen in Table 2.5. As with the masculine nominals, the vehicle choice made by the child would determine the agreement pattern required. For example, if the child chose to drive la motora roja ‘the red (fem/sg) motorcycle,’ then she would have to create an agreement relation between the nominal motora and an overtly marked adjective, roja.

2.3.1.3 Other Props Additional toys that were not part of a particular task were also introduced to the experiment. Some toys were introduced to balance the overall nominals to be elicited, like in the case of feminine nominals unmarked for gender, for example, no feminine nominal unmarked for gender was found that referred to an animal (“The Animal House”) or to a vehicle (“The Race”). As a result, the following toys were introduced to complete those two tasks: llave ‘key,’ leche ‘milk,’ and luz ‘light.’ These toys were worked into the tasks, for example, the keys were introduced either to open the house or one of the vehicles, while the milk was introduced in the feeding activity. In other instances, additional objects made tasks more interesting for the children by adding variety to the “game,” or served to attract children’s attention again, for example, wagons for the trains, a boat that attached to one of the trucks and two small birdhouses.

2.4 Transcription and Coding The data were transcribed orthographically due to the Spanish language transparency with an almost direct correspondence between its orthography and its phonetics. Since the present monograph focuses on the vowel and consonantal endings, there was no need to transcribe the data phonetically. Nonetheless, special attention was given to the marking of the number feature, namely the final –(e)s. One of the characteristics of the Puerto Rican Spanish dialect is the aspiration of the –s in final position. When it was clear that children were producing an aspiration in lieu of an –s, this sound was marked in the transcription with the phonetic symbol [h]. All the utterances of the three children and the experimenter were transcribed, except interruptions to the task made by other children or other adults. The data extracted from the transcripts of the three children consisted of 893 utterances involving a noun, a determiner, or an adjective. As a result, the data include attributive adjectives (adjectives within DP) as well as predicative ones (adjectives outside the DP). Predicative adjectives were

24


included in the analysis for comparison purposes, that is, to examine if the agreement patterns children created with these adjectives were similar to those established with attributive ones. Finally, the data also include the analysis of the agreement patterns (i.e., number and gender features) of demonstrative pronouns and third person clitics. The structures under study were entered into an Excel spreadsheet to be coded, as illustrated in Example 2.8. Example 2.8 Coding System a. Utterance: actual child production b. Context c. Child behavior: what the child is doing at the moment of the utterance d. Structure e. Agreement: Target-like/Non-Target-like f. Noun marking: Canonical/Non-canonical All utterances pertaining to this study were coded, along with the context in which they occurred and what the child was doing when she uttered a particular structure. This last piece of information was vital for the analysis of the acquisition of the number feature, especially when it came to determining if there was agreement between the referent and the nominal produced by the child. Structures were coded as: (1) Bare Noun Phrases; (2) Determiner Phrase (DP), including structures with full determiners and structures with a Monosyllabic Place Holder; (3) DPs with an adjective, including structures with an overt nominal and those in which the nominal was non-overt; (4) Adjective Phrase; (5) Determiner, referring to demonstrative pronouns produced in isolation; (6) Other, including third person clitics. Furthermore, the agreement relations were coded as target-like or non-target-like in reference to number and gender. Finally, nominal endings were coded as canonical, that is, –o and –a, and non-canonical, that is, –e and final consonant sounds, to examine if there was any relation between the information encoded in the nominal endings and the agreement relations children created. The following were excluded: repetitions of immediately preceding utterances (as well as the child’s immediate exact repetitions of her own utterances, for example, caballo, caballo ‘horse, horse,’ (Alonso); songs and formulaic expressions. Furthermore, ambiguous cases were excluded from the analysis. Ambiguity was found with regard to Monosyllabic Place Holders


25

(i.e., vowels that appeared in front of the nouns; Bottari et al. 1993/1994), in particular a and e as shown in Example 2.9. Example 2.9 (a) A cashita ‘to house’/‘a house or the house’ (Alonso) (b) ee mío ‘(It) is mine’ / ‘the mine’ (the one that belongs to me) (Elián) As illustrated in Example 2.9(a), vowel a can be interpreted in some cases as the preposition a, for example, A cashita ‘to house,’ as a DP in which a is either determiner una ‘a,’ or la ‘the,’ for example, a cashitaa ‘a/one house or the house.’ Example 2.9(b) shows the ambiguity present in the case of vowel e. This vowel can be interpreted as the determiner el ‘the,’ agreeing with the masculine singular feature of the emphatic possessive pronoun mío ‘mine,’ or can also be interpreted as the third person/singular form of the copula, for example, es mío ‘[it] is mine.’ Another case of ambiguity resided with the demonstrative pronouns and adjectives. In some cases it was not possible to determine if a demonstrative was used in isolation or as a compressed form containing other constituents. Specifically, in the case of the short forms of these demonstratives produced by Alonso, for example, se for ese ‘that,’ it was impossible to determine in many cases if the short form was used only as a demonstrative, as in se carito ‘that little car’ or as the compressed form of the demonstrative ese and the copula es, for example, se e carito *‘that is little car.’

2.4.1 The Data The data for the present study consist of 893 utterances containing a noun, a determiner, and/or an adjective. In addition, gender agreement was also analyzed in the production of demonstratives and third person object pronouns. Table 2.6 summarizes the distribution of the utterances included in the present analysis. Table 2.6 shows that overall the most common (44 percent) utterance in the data involved the production of Bare Noun Phrases. Moreover, an analysis of the utterance distribution for each child also reveals that all three children produced more Bare Noun Phrases than any other type of constituents under study. Chi-squared results of the comparison between the production of Bare Noun Phrases and each of the other types of constituents under study resulted in chi-squared values that were larger than the critical value 3.84.

26


Table 2.6 Utterance distribution Elián (2;1,18)

Alonso (2;2,29)

Londa (2;9,4)

Total (%)

76 (55%)

105 (41%)

213 (43%)

394 (44)

8 (6%)

30 (12%)

56 (11%)

94 (11)

38 (27%)

52 (20%)

12 (3%)

102 (11)

10 (7%)

27 (10%)

128 (25%)

165 (18)

Clitics (third person)

4 (3%)

30 (12%)

9 (2%)

43 (5)

Attributive adjectives

2 (1%)

1 (1%)

15 (3%)

18 (2)

Predicative adjectives

1 (1%)

10 (4%)

66 (13%)

77 (9)

139 (100%)

255 (100%)

499 (100%)

893 (100)

Bare noun phrases (Full) Determiner noun phrases Monosyllabic place holders Demonstrative pronouns

Total

Regarding the production of Determiner Phrases (DPs), Table 2.6 displays an even distribution between full DPs and Monosyllabic Place HolderDPs (Bottari et al. 1993/1994), with 94 and 102 utterances respectively, each accounting for 11 percent of the utterances. However, an individual (child) analysis of the utterance distribution for these two types of DPs yields different results. On the one hand, the data show that the two smaller children Elián and Alonso produced significantly higher proportions of nominals with a MPH than with a full determiner, that is for Elián χ2 = 19.56 (p < .01); for Alonso χ2 = 5.90 (p = .015). On the other hand, the proportions for Londa (the child with the higher MLUw in this group) present the opposite results, with a significantly higher production of full DPs than Monosyllabic Place Holder-DPs (χ2 = 31.1, p < .01). This issue will be addressed in Chapter 5. Regarding adjective production, Table 2.6 indicates that the three children produced adjectives in attributive and predicative contexts, with a higher production of adjectives in the latter. Moreover, the overall production of adjectives by Elián and Alonso is rather limited in comparison to that of Londa. In addition, Table 2.6 illustrates the overall production of demonstrative pronouns. In particular, the two younger children’s production was considerably less than the production of the older child, Londa, as in the case of the adjective production (χ2 = 147.9, d.f. = 2, p < .01). Finally, Table 2.6 shows that Alonso produced more than three times the number of clitics than the other two children, that is, Alonso (30), Londa (9), and Elián (4).

Chapter 3

Gender Agreement

3.1 Agreement Spanish nouns possess at least three features: gender, number (the focus of this monograph), and definiteness. Gender and number are marked morphologically on the noun in the form of affixes, for example, –a for feminine as in cas–a ‘house’ and –o for masculine as in castill–o ‘castle,’ whereas definiteness is marked by a prenominal determiner, for example, la casa ‘the house’ or el castillo ‘the castle,’ that also encodes the gender and number features. In addition, gender and number agreement is also marked overtly on constituents such as attributive and predicative adjectives and demonstrative and object pronouns. Koehn (1994) points out the complexity learners face in the acquisition of these two features, stating that it involves at least four tasks: (1) the child has to develop the underlying semantic concept for number, that is, the distinction between one and more than one; (2) the child has to recognize that gender and number are systematically encoded on specific syntactic categories, that is, the corresponding grammatical features have to arise; (3) the appropriate morphophonological realizations of these features have to be acquired; and finally, (4) the appropriate agreement paradigms have to be learned. This chapter examines the acquisition of gender agreement, and it is organized in three major sections. First, Section 3.2 presents an overview of agreement in Spanish, with special focus on gender. Section 3.3 discusses some of the previous studies on the acquisition of gender in Spanish. Finally, Section 3.4 focuses on experimental findings for the present research.

3.2 Agreement in Spanish Determiner Phrases Agreement can be defined as a relationship that is established between two or more constituents. This relationship is based on the repetition of the content of a morphological feature, which can be overtly marked or

28


not and can be expressed (or not expressed) with the same phonetic ending or suffix (Martínez 1999). One of the most salient characteristics of the Spanish language is the redundancy present in terms of its agreement morphology, that is, all nominal modifiers and determiners must agree in gender and number with the noun with which they enter into an agreement relationship. For example, in la casa amarilla ‘the (fem/sg) house (fem/sg) yellow (fem/sg)’ (the yellow house), the nominal casa shares the same word marker –a as the adjective amarill–a and the determiner la. Agreeing constituents within Spanish Determiner Phrases (DPs) include determiners and attributive adjectives. In Spanish, the determiner class encompasses: (a) the definite articles, for example el ‘the (masc/sg)’ or la ‘the (fem/sg)’ and their corresponding plural forms for masculine and feminine respectively: los and las; (b) the indefinites articles, for example, un ‘a (masc/sg)’ and una ‘a (fem/sg);’ and (c) quantifiers such as poco/a ‘few (masc/fem/sg),’ and their plural forms pocos/pocas and todo/a ‘all (masc/fem/sg)’ and the corresponding plurals todos/todas. In addition, demonstrative adjectives are included in the determiner class for the purpose of this study: este/esta ‘this (masc/fem/sg),’ ese/esa ‘that (masc/ fem/sg),’ and aquel/aquella ‘that over there (masc/fem/sg)’ and their corresponding plural forms: estos/estas ‘these,’ esos/esas ‘those,’ and aquellos/ aquellas ‘those over there.’ In general, determiners precede the noun in Spanish, and they play a crucial role in terms of gender agreement when they occur in DPs such as la noche ‘the (fem/sg) night (unm/sg).’ In this example, the nominal noche is not marked for gender overtly; therefore the only overt evidence of the feminine feature of the nominal is encoded in the determiner la. In addition, the monograph will also discuss agreement patterns that children established in the production of demonstrative pronouns. These pronouns, like their adjectival counterparts, have to agree in gender and number with the noun they represent. Table 3.1 shows how each set of demonstrative pronouns, that is, este ‘this (one),’ ese ‘that (one),’ aquel ‘that (one) over there,’ has a unique morphological representation according to the values it encodes for the gender and number features. For example, the demonstrative esta ‘this (one),’ encodes the feminine/singular features whereas the demonstrative ese ‘that (one),’ encodes the masculine/singular features. Moreover, this paradigm also includes one of a few examples of the “neuter” gender in the Spanish language, for example, esto ‘this (abstract idea or situation)’ (see discussion in Section 3.3).

Gender Agreement Table 3.1

29

Demonstrative pronouns Agreement paradigm Singular

Plural

Masculine

Este ‘this’ Ese ‘that’ Aquel ‘that over there’

Estos ‘these’ Esos ‘those’ Aquellos ‘those over there’

Feminine

Esta Esa Aquella

Estas Esas Aquellas

Neuter

Esto Eso Aquello

These pronominals were included in the analysis because they also serve to assess the agreement system available to the children under study, as shown in Example 3.1. Example 3.1 Quiero esta ‘(I) want this [one] (fem/sg).’ In Example 3.1, the demonstrative pronoun esta agrees with the feminine singular features of the nominal it represents. In the agreement analysis of these pronouns, the context of the utterance becomes of utmost importance in determining the grammaticality of a particular token. Another class of agreeing constituents within DP is the qualifying adjectives. Adjectives in Spanish, like determiners, obligatorily agree with the nouns they modify in gender and number, for example, la casa roja ‘the (fem/sg) house (fem/sg) red (fem/sg)’ (the red house). Most adjectives are overtly marked for gender, expressed morphologically with the –o ending in the masculine and the –a ending in the feminine (Harris 1991). But there are also adjectives that lack a word marker, and they are invariable in both genders, for example, el gato inteligente ‘the cat intelligent (masc/sg)’ (the intelligent cat) versus la gata inteligente ‘the cat intelligent (fem/sg).’ In this example, the adjective inteligente has the same morphology for the male and female cat. Spanish qualifying adjectives in attributive position usually occurred in postnominal position, for example, la manzana roja ‘the apple red.’ The prenominal position, although possible, entails a change in


30

the meaning of the DP, for example, la roja manzana ‘the red apple,’ in which the redness of the apple is emphasized (Demonte 1999).1 The present research focuses on postnominal adjectives, the unmarked position for Spanish.2 In addition to the determiners and attributive adjectives, the present monograph will also include a discussion of other constituents produced by the children under study, which are also marked overtly for agreement but are not necessarily within DP, such as predicative adjectives. Predicative adjectives in Spanish, as in English, occur with the copula to be. However, in Spanish the copula has two representations, ser and estar, with contrasting semantic interpretations, as illustrated in Example 3.2. Example 3.2 (a) Pedro es gordo (b) Pedro está gordo

‘Peter is fat’ ‘Peter is fat’

In Example 3.2(a) the adjective gordo ‘fat,’ is interpreted as a stable or permanent characteristic of the subject Pedro, whereas in Example 3.2(b) the adjective is interpreted as an episodic or changeable characteristic of the subject, that is, Pedro has gained weight. This contrast will not be addressed in the present monograph but a comparison between the agreement patterns children establish in this structure versus those of the attributive one is presented. Finally, the data analysis will also include a discussion of the agreement patterns with clitic pronouns produced by the children. Clitic pronouns, Table 3.2 Clitic pronouns Agreement Paradigm Direct object

Indirect object

1st person 2nd person 3rd person

Singular Me ‘me’ Te ‘you’ Lo ‘it (masc)’ La ‘it (fem)’

Me ‘me’ Te ‘you’ Le ‘him/her’

1st person 2nd person 3rd person

Plural Nos ‘us’ Os ‘you’ Los ‘them (masc)’ Las ‘them (fem)’

Nos ‘us’ Os ‘you’ Les ‘them’ (masc/fem)’

Gender Agreement

31

traditionally known as object pronouns, present overt agreement in the third person form, although not as rich as in the case of demonstrative pronouns, for example, Damelo ‘Give it (masc/sg) to me.’ Table 3.2 illustrates the agreement paradigm for clitic pronouns. Table 3.2 shows a morphological contrast between direct object pronouns versus indirect object pronouns; that is, third person direct object pronouns mark both gender and number overtly whereas indirect object pronouns only mark number. Nonetheless, the analysis of these pronouns helps to create a clearer picture of the underlying agreement system as a whole. 3.2.1 Gender Agreement Ambadiang (1999) explains that although number contrast (singular vs plural) in Spanish tends to receive a unique morphological expression (the presence or absence of [–e]s, in the case of gender (masculine vs feminine),3 the contrast is of a diverse nature, involving several factors, including semantic, phonological, and morphological. First, gender assignment can be determined by semantic factors. In the case of animate nominals, it is based on the sex of the referent (male vs female), for example, hermano/ hermana ‘brother/sister,’ whereas in the case of inanimate nominals, it is based on the structure of the lexicon and the lexical classes in which they are distributed, for example, (a) names of languages are masculine: el español, ‘the (masc) Spanish (masc) (language)’; (b) names of letters are feminine: la p ‘the (fem) (letter) p.’ However, other factors are involved in the gender assignment of inanimate nominals. One of these factors, according to Ambadiang, is the phonology of the noun, for example, nominals that start with a stressed a–: el atlas ‘the (masc) atlas (masc),’ el hambre ‘the (masc) hunger (fem).’ In these examples, the phonology of the noun determines the use of the masculine article, regardless of the gender of the nominal involved, that is, in these examples atlas is masculine whereas hambre is feminine. Finally, a third factor involved in determining the gender of inanimate nominals is morphology. Ambadiang points out the strong tendency present in the Spanish language to associate certain nominal endings with a particular value of the gender feature, for example, el libro ‘the (masc) book’ versus la libra ‘the (fem) pound.’ Harris (1991) asserts that these morphological ending associations (i.e., –a for feminine and –o for masculine) are not statistically significant but preferred associations between


32

these Word Markers (WMs) or endings and a particular gender. He states that none of the word markers “occur always and only” (Harris 1991, 28) with a particular meaning, nor any gender with any form, as illustrated in Example 3.3 for WMs –o and –a. Example 3.3 Marker (a) –o

(b) –a

Gender

Example

masc. only fem only masc or fem none fem only masc only masc or fem none

muchacho mano testigo dentro muchacha día turista fuera

‘boy’ ‘hand’ ‘witness’ ‘inside’ ‘girl’ ‘day’ ‘tourist’ ‘outside’

Example 3.3 illustrates Harris’ point that these two markers (–o and –a) can be attached to nominals of either gender, such as muchacho/muchacha, as well as to other constituents, such as the adverbs dentr–o ‘inside’ and fuer–a ‘outside.’ In addition, not all Spanish nominals have a WM; such nominals typically end in –e or in a single coronal consonant and can be of either gender, as illustrated in Example 3.4. Example 3.4 Gender (a) masc. only (b) fem. only (c) masc. or fem. (d) none

Nominal padre sol madre col amante mártir delante atrás

‘father’ ‘sun’ ‘mother’ ‘cabbage’ ‘lover’ ‘martyr’ ‘ahead’ ‘behind’

In Example 3.4, the sequences padr–, madr– in 3.4(a) and 3.4(b), and the –nt– in amant– in 3.4(c) are not permissible codas in Spanish, therefore an epenthetic –e appears after otherwise unsyllabifiable segments (Harris 1991; Klein 1989; among others). On the other hand, words such as col, sol, and atrás are syllabifiable without the addition of a final –e. Nonetheless,

Gender Agreement

33

Harris admits to the availability of certain regularities in gender assignment, which he presents as a three-way separation of words by WMs: (1) inner core, (2) outer core, and (3) residue. The inner core contains words in which the suffix –o is invariably attached to masculine stems and the suffix –a to feminine stems, in words of both animate and inanimate reference, for example, perr–o ‘dog (masc),’ cas–a ‘house (fem).’ The outer core contains what Harris calls slightly deviant cases; it includes words with no WMs, for example, those ending in the vowel –e, such as lech–e ‘milk.’ Finally, the residue contains all words not present in the core. The largest single class in the residue comprises masculine words that take the suffix –a, such as program–a ‘program (masc).’ In contrast, there is only one example of an invariable feminine noun with the WM –o in common use, according to Harris: mano ‘hand.’4 Teschner and Russell’s (1984) study brings support to the idea of a strong relation between certain WMs and the feminine and masculine genders. The authors conducted a gender pattern study using an unpublished, inversed dictionary of Spanish that contained all of the words listed in the 18th (1956) edition of the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española. They found that the word marker –a was overwhelmingly typical of femininegendered nouns, with 96.3 percent of all Ns ending in this marker being feminine, and nominals with the WM –o being 99.87 percent masculine. Teschner and Russell also present statistical data regarding other nominal endings. Specifically, they found in their study significant correlations between certain final word endings and gender, as shown in Example 3.5. Example 3.5 Gender (a) Feminine (b) Masculine

(c) Either

Ending

%

–a –d –o –l –r –i –u –n –z –s

96.30 97.57 99.87 97.85 98.55 93.13 95.10 51.61 (Fem)/48.39 (Masc) 61.63 (Fem)/38.37 (Masc) 42.68 (Fem)/57.32 (Masc)

The statistical data presented in Example 3.5 points to the existence of several patterns regarding gender morphology. First, nominals ending in

34


an –a or –d are overwhelmingly feminine, as shown in Example 3.5(a), whereas nominals ending in the vowels –o, –i and –u and the consonants –l and –r are overwhelmingly masculine, as shown in Example 3.5(b). Second, in Example 3.5(c) we can see that consonantal endings –n, –z and –s appear with nominals of either gender, with –z showing a slight preference for the feminine gender. Interestingly, the examples in Example 3.5(c) point to the fact that the majority of word endings in Spanish are associated with the masculine gender, making feminine the marked value for this feature. Moreover, under the assumption that these correlations are true, they predict that children would have more problems acquiring the gender of nominals in Example 3.5(c) than the nominals in Examples 3.5(a) and 3.4(b); that is, the morphophonological cues provided in the word endings of Examples 3.5(c) will show no consistency regarding gender because these nominals can be of either gender, for example, la síntesi–s ‘the (fem) synthesis’ versus el análisi–s ‘the (masc) analysis’. The discussion on the morphological patterns and their association with a particular gender value raises the issue of the availability of an initial value for the gender feature. In the next section, the topic of default values in child language is discussed. 3.2.2 A Default Value for Gender Traditionally it has been proposed that the unmarked value for the gender feature in Spanish grammar is masculine (Harris 1991). Support for this proposal is found in Teschner and Russell’s (1984) findings on the overwhelming dominance of the masculine gender in the Spanish language. In particular, the authors conducted an inversed dictionary study finding that the majority of morphological endings in Spanish are associated with the masculine gender. In terms of acquisition, a child acquiring Spanish gender agreement has to choose between the two values of this feature, masculine or feminine, because it is not possible to produce a DP in Spanish without marking its gender, for example *cas– instead of la casa ‘the (fem) house (fem).’ This raises a question about the availability of a default value for the gender feature. This would be reflected in the acquisition process as overgeneralizations of one of the possible values of this feature. Some of the previous studies on the acquisition of Spanish have indicated the preponderance of masculine DPs at the beginning stages of the acquisition process and some have pointed to the fact that children’s non-target-like production in terms of gender involves the overgeneralization of the masculine value (see Section 3.3).

Gender Agreement

35

In this monograph, I address the issue of an initial default value for gender from a different perspective, proposing that children’s production of feminine nominals with masculine determiners or masculine pronominals to refer to feminine referents is in fact part of an acquisition strategy in order to converge. Similar proposals on the availability of default values in child language have been advanced in the literature by Phillips (1996) and Borer and Rohrbacher (1997) to account for root infinitives (RIs) in child language. In particular, these researchers propose that the production of RIs is target-like in children’s grammar as a default verbal form (Phillips 1996) or as an avoidance of non-target-like agreement (Borer & Rohrbacher 1997). Phillips argues that RIs produced by 2-year-olds should not be interpreted as evidence of a deficit or lack of functional projections in initial grammars (cf. Clahsen, Eisenbeiss, & Vainikka 1994; Radford 1990, 1994; Wexler 1994). Instead, he states that children have all the syntactic components of an adult structure but they are missing the derivational step, which combines the verb with inflection; that is, children have difficulties in accessing morphological knowledge. Crucially, Phillips distinguishes in his analysis two types of constraints: (a) rigid constraints, or “constraints that must be satisfied or else the sentence is ruled out automatically” (1996, 589); for example, in Germanic V2 languages, wh-questions and topicalizations are Complementizer Phrases (CPs) involving V-raising to C; another example is Case-licensing in V-raising languages, and (b) violable constraints, “which can only be violated if nothing better can be done” (p. 589); for example, V-raising to inflection is not an absolute requirement. Phillips’ first argument for the availability of functional projections (FPs) in initial grammars is the contrast in the production of RIs in V2 languages in declaratives versus their disappearance in wh-questions and topicalizations; that is, analysis of Dutch, German, and Swedish child data showed that although children were producing RIs in declarative structures, RIs disappeared almost completely in wh-questions and topicalizations, structures that require V-raising to C. Phillips argues that if children are lacking FPs (e.g., inflection or C), then we should expect random production of RIs regardless of the structure involved. This prediction was not borne out by the Germanic V2 child data. Moreover, the author points out that when these children produced verbal inflection, their production was target-like. Phillips’ second argument in favor of the availability of FPs in initial grammars is based on the correlation found in the data between the production of RIs and null subjects.5 He found the interaction of finiteness with subject overtness was not uniform across languages, as analyses based on syntactic

36


deficits would predict. In particular, his data analysis of languages that require V-raising for overt subject licensing (e.g., Dutch, Flemish, French, and German) revealed a significant drop in the percentages of overt subjects with RIs. For example, Haegeman’s (1995) analysis of Hein’s early Dutch data showed that 68 percent of Hein’s finite utterances had an overt subject, whereas only 15 percent of his non-finite sentences had an overt subject. Moreover, Phillips points to a cross-linguistic contrast between V-raising languages and languages like English in which Nominative Case-licensing does not require V-raising. Specifically, he found no effect of finiteness in the production of overt subjects in early English, for example, for Eve (Brown 1973): the production rate of null subjects was the same with finite and non-finite verbs, 91 percent and 89 percent, respectively. Based on these two pieces of evidence, Phillips concludes that children’s production of RIs does not have its basis in a morphological or syntactic deficit but in the connection between the two systems. Borer and Rohrbacher (1997) bring support to Phillips’ analysis, claiming that the absence of functional material provides evidence in favor of (not against) the availability of functional structure in early grammar. In particular, they argue that the absence of overt agreement markers reflects an avoidance strategy on the part of the learner of incorrect forms while she completes the acquisition of the morphophonology. The authors provide the contrast in the production of RIs in child language versus the production of RIs in agrammatic patients as evidence of the availability of FPs in early grammars. Borer and Rohrbacher point out that if early grammars lacked functional projections (FPs), then one should find in children’s production random agreement mistakes. This prediction is not supported by their cross-linguistic review of studies on verbal inflection in child language. First, they found that when children produce finite verbal forms, they do so in an overwhelmingly target-like fashion. This result points to the availability of FPs in child language in which agreement relations are checked. Second, the data revealed no overuse of agreement morphology in child language; rather, it revealed what Borer and Rohrbacher called an avoidance of agreement errors by using a minimal non-agreeing (well-formed) default form; for example, in English children use bare verbs (Harris & Wexler 1996), and in French, children use infinitives and participles (Roberge 1990). In contrast to their findings on child language, their review of studies on agrammatic aphasic patients indicates that these patients produced considerably more agreement errors than children; for example, in French, the patients produced non-target-like subject clitics in 5 of 36 cases (14 percent)

Gender Agreement

37

and non-target-like object clitics in 3 of 14 cases (22 percent). In comparison, Roberge (1990) found that when French children produce finite utterances, subject clitics were rare. This is an example of what Borer and Rohrbacher call morphological avoidance, because clitics are considered agreement markers. The researchers interpret this contrast in the production of children and agrammatic patients as evidence of the availability of FPs in the latter but not in the former. Notice that children do not produce random agreement errors (i.e., they produce RIs consistently or else the target agreement form), agrammatic patients do not show any particular preference for a particular verb form as a substitute, as found by Miceli and Mazzuchi (1990) in their study of agrammatic Italian patients. Borer and Rohrbacher propose that children project a full functional structure on the basis of their non-random production of RIs. Furthermore, they argue that the production of non-inflected or minimally inflected forms requires no checking or very little checking; for example, the production of RIs in English requires no checking. For the present study, I will show that children’s non-adult like production in the acquisition of gender agreement mostly involves the production of overgeneralizations of the masculine gender, that is, this seems to be the default value for the children under study. Furthermore, I interpret the application of the default gender value as a converging derivation, following Phillips (1996), in which the default value is inserted as a last-resort strategy; that is, when children are not able to access the target morphological markings, default values for the features will be inserted as a last resort and the derivation will converge. Recall that the same strategy is available in Spanish adult grammar, with the only difference being that children’s early grammar applies this default value more frequently because they are in the process of acquiring the overt morphophonological agreement markers. In other words, when neologisms are introduced to the Spanish language, they tend to adopt the masculine gender in terms of agreement, for example, ‘a computer’ in Spanish is un ordenador (masculine) not una ordenadora (feminine). Support for the hypothesis of the insertion of the default value as an acquisition strategy is found in the overwhelmingly target-like production of the children under study in terms of gender agreement, that is, 83 percent target-like production. If the production of these forms were the result of a deficiency in the children’s grammars, then this result would be unexpected. This proposal finds cross-lingustic support in a study on the acquisition of Greek morphology by Varlokosta, Vainikka, and Rohrbacher (1996).

38


In both the Greek and the Spanish nominal systems, it is not morphologically possible to produce a bare verbal stem, and there are no infinitival forms in this language. Varlokosta et al. found that Greek children initially prefer the verbal forms ending in the third person singular (3sg) suffix –i, for example, anitsi ‘open (3sg.Perf.Subj).’ The authors point out that this form is ambiguous with the participial form, for example, έχω ανοίξει (eho anixi) ‘(I) have opened.’ The children produced the i-form in non-thirdperson contexts, but only when the forms were ambiguous between the third person interpretation and the non-agreeing participial reading. The production of this form can be interpreted as the production of a default verbal form, similar to the default masculine gender argued for in Spanish in the present study.

3.3 Gender Acquisition Research Several studies have addressed the topic of the acquisition of gender agreement in Spanish as a first language. Most of the studies reviewed agree on the gradual nature of the acquisition of gender agreement morphology, which starts with the production of mostly masculine singular DPs and progressively expands to the inclusion of feminine ones (Aguirre 1995; Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 2003; Schnell de Acedo 1994; among others). However, these studies as a whole do not provide a coherent picture regarding the nature of gender agreement in Spanish child language. Discrepancies in research findings arise from several factors, such as the different methodological approaches used (naturalistic vs experimental); the subject’s linguistic development (chronological age vs Mean Length Utterance); and the type of data analysis conducted (qualitative vs quantitative). Researchers such as Hernández Pina (1984) and Maez (1982), for example, present purely descriptive analyses of the acquisition of gender agreement using naturalistic data, whereas Schnell de Acedo (1994) and Snyder (1995, 2007) provide quantitative analyses of the naturalistic data used. Furthermore, the studies reviewed present opposite views on the nature of gender agreement in initial grammars, one of the focuses of the present monograph. On the one hand, some researchers portray an image of the acquisition process with an apparent abundance of non-target-like production until acquisition is achieved (Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 2003; Maez 1982), whereas others present a picture of a virtually errorless process (Aguirre 1995; Schnell de Acedo 1994). This section presents a discussion of these opposite views on the nature of gender agreement.

Gender Agreement

39

Researchers such as Hernández Pina (1984) and Maez (1982) provide descriptive analyses of the acquisition of gender agreement, with emphasis on non-target-like production. First, Hernández Pina presents a longitudinal analysis of her son Rafael’s acquisition of gender agreement, which at first sight seems to be full of non-target-like utterances. She states that Rafael’s first determiners emerged at the two-word stage (between 18 and 19 months) but that there were instances of gender mismatches, for example, el silla ‘the (masc) chair (fem)’; una pájaro ‘a/one (fem) bird (masc).’ These examples are interesting because they may indicate that Rafael is not merely matching nominal endings with a particular determiner but working out the agreement system. According to Hernández Pina, Rafael realized that the gender feature is generalizable at 21 months, and he acquired the gender of animate nominals (semantic gender) during the period of 21–25 months, for example, niño-niña ‘boy/girl.’ In contrast, the researcher states that the child struggled with the acquisition of gender of inanimate nominals as well as with adjectival agreement with these nominals, as shown in the DPs listed in Example 3.6. Example 3.6 Rafael’s production

Target-like

(a) mota rota (b) tierra azula (c) un llave

moto rota tierra azul una llave

‘motorcycle (fem) broken (fem)’ ‘earth(fem) blue (fem)’ ‘a (masc) key (fem)’

A quick review of the DPs in Example 3.6 indicates that Rafael may have been aware of the Spanish canonical feminine morphological marker, namely a final –a. In particular, he tried to regularize the morphological endings of the nominal mot–o (short for motora) to mot–a ‘motorcycle’ in Example 3.6(a) and the invariable adjective azul ‘blue,’ to azula.6 Finally, Example 3.6(c) illustrates the use of the masculine determiner un ‘a/one’ with the unmarked feminine noun llave ‘key.’ This could be an indication that masculine is the unmarked value in Spanish initial grammars. Unfortunately, the researcher does not provide any quantitative data to support her assessment of Rafael’s acquisition of gender agreement. Maez (1982) presents a similar view of the acquisition of gender agreement, namely, a process characterized by great variability and the production of non-target-like utterances. He studied the acquisition of nominal morphology for a period of six months, collecting spontaneous production data every two weeks from three children: Karina, Celena, and Ana, ages 1;6

40


to 2;0. The exhaustive list of non-target-like production with respect to gender is illustrated in Example 3.7. Example 3.7 Age Utterance

Error type

1;7 1;8

*un (una) boca (Celena) ‘a/one mouth’ Masc. Det/Fem. Noun *un (una) cosita (Karina) ‘a/one little thing’ Masc. Det/Fem. Noun *la (el) pan (Karina) ‘the bread’ Fem. Det/ Masc.Noun 1;10 *un (una) leche (Ana) ‘a/one milk’ Masc. Det/Fem. Noun 1;11 *un (una) uva (Ana) ‘a/one grape’ Masc. Det/Fem. Noun 2;0 *el (la) televisión (Celena) ‘the television’ Masc. Det/Fem. Noun *un (una) calabaza (Celena)‘a/one pumpkin’ Masc. Det/Fem. Noun *una (un) jabón (Ana) ‘a/one soap’ Fem. Det/Masc. Noun *lo (la) silla (Celena) ‘the chair’ Neuter Det/Fem. Noun Example 3.7 shows that the most common type of non-target-like agreement utterance with respect to gender (six out of nine) is the production of a masculine determiner with a feminine noun, for example, un calabaza ‘a/one (masc) pumpkin (fem)’; this might be an indication of the availability of an initial value for gender. Example 3.7 also includes two examples of the use of a feminine determiner, la pan ‘the (fem) bread (masc)’ and una jabón ‘a/one (fem) soap (masc).’ Interestingly, Hernández Pina cites similar examples in Rafael’s production; these examples point to the possibility that these children are not merely matching the input heard but working out their own internal agreement system. Notice that these two nominals, jabón and pan, are readily available in the input to these children. The last DP listed in Example 3.7, lo silla ‘the (neuter) chair (fem),’ illustrates the use of the neuter pronoun lo with a feminine noun. This case is interesting because it might reflect an attempt by the child at regularizing the definite article paradigm from el/la to lo/la. I should point out, this neuter pronoun is used only with abstract reference in the target language, for example, lo importante ‘the important (matter).’ As a result, this use might not be part of the primary linguistic data. As in the study by Hernández Pina, Maez’s findings point to an acquisition process in which children are producing non-target-like utterances together with target-like utterances; however, no major conclusions can be drawn given the chosen methodological approach. In contrast with the studies reviewed, Schnell de Acedo (1994) and Aguirre (1995) present a view of a virtually errorless gender acquisition process in terms of the gender agreement relations established by the chil-

Gender Agreement

41

Table 3.3 Morela’s determiner production Definite Singular

Indefinite

Plural

Total

M (el) F (la) M (los) F (las)

Singular

Plural

Total TOTAL

M (un) F (una) M (unos) F (unas)

16

4

0

0

0

4

3

1

0

0

4

8

23

2

5

10

1

18

0

0

0

0

0

18

29

8

13

1

0

22

31

12

2

0

45

67

14

18

11

1

44

34

13

2

0

49

Total

dren under study. First, Schnell de Acedo examines the acquisition of agreement in determiner-noun structures using the longitudinal naturalistic data of a monolingual Venezuelan girl, Morela. The researcher included in her study three recordings: 16, 23, and 29 months. Similarly to Hernández Pina’s findings, Morela’s production of determiners increased in a gradual fashion, as illustrated in Table 3.3. Table 3.3 also shows the agreement patterns present in Morela’s Determiner Phrases (DPs). First, at 16 months with a MLUw of 1.35, most of her DPs are masculine (seven out of eight) and all were target-like with respect to agreement. Morela produced only one instance of a feminine DP, and it was non-target-like: una papá ‘a/one (fem) dad (masc).’ This example is interesting because the nominal has the feminine canonical mark for gender, namely, a final –a. This non-target-like utterance seems to support Pérez-Pereira’s (1991) findings on gender assignment clues. The researcher conducted an experimental study with 160 children, ages 4 to 11 years old, to study the relevance of intralinguistic clues (syntactic and morphophonological) versus extralinguistic ones (male vs female) in children’s recognition of the gender of 22 created nouns. He found that intralinguistic clues are more relevant than extralinguistic ones in terms of comprehension, for example, children better understood items such as una pilín ‘a/one (syntactic clue) pilin (unmarked)’ than items such as dos borales ‘two borales (natural gender clue).’ At 23 months (MLUw = 2.15), Morela produced a total of 18 DPs (12 masculine and 6 feminine), all of them target-like with respect to agreement. This marks a dramatic change in her production, from 8 to 18 and from mostly all masculine to one-third feminine. Finally, at 29 months (MLUw = 2.26), the child produced a total of 67 DPs: 42 masculine and 25 feminine. Schnell de Acedo states that Morela has a complete command of the full inventory of

42


forms at this age. However, this claim does not seem to be supported by Morela’s data, shown in Table 3.3. For example, Morela did not produce the feminine articles in the plural form. Aguirre (1995) brings support for Schnell de Acedo’s findings of an errorless acquisition of gender. In her study on the acquisition of the Spanish determiner, Aguirre finds that the children under study present an almost errorless production of gender, noting only one example of a non-target utterance with respect to gender, for example, un niña ‘a/one (masc/sg) girl.’ Interestingly, the author also reports that children were also producing nominals with the invariant vocalic element a, for example, a niños ‘a children’ and a pollo ‘a chicken.’ This points to an acquisition strategy of using a when they are not able to produce the target determiner, as noted by the researcher. Schnell de Acedo’s findings are at odds with Maez’s and Hernández Pina’s results in terms of the nature of gender agreement in early grammars; that is, the former two stress the fact that children are indeed producing nontarget-like utterances at the beginning stages, but the latter finds only one instance of a non-target-like utterance in her analysis.7 This striking difference between these findings might be the result of a methodological artifact, namely, frequency of recordings. Snyder (1995) presents a more balanced view of gender acquisition within DP, using the corpus of Juan Linaza from CHILDES (MacWhinney & Snow 1985) from ages 1;7 to 3;5. His analysis reveals that even though Juan’s determiners correctly agree with their head nouns in gender in the vast majority of cases from the earliest stages, the child also produces nontarget-like utterances. Juan’s DP production ranges from 83 to 100 percent target-like. In particular, at age 2;0, Juan produces examples of contrastive gender uses of the determiner, for example, el/la ‘the (masc/fem).’ The current review of research on the nature of gender agreement in Spanish early grammar yields inconclusive results. On the one side, researchers agree on the emergence of the masculine DPs, bringing support for the availability of an initial unmarked value for the gender feature, namely the masculine. On the other side, studies disagree on the process of convergence to the target grammar. As mentioned earlier, this might be a result of the different methodological approaches adopted.

3.4 Experimental Approach to Gender Acquisition One of the goals of this monograph is to explore the nature of nominal agreement in Spanish early grammars, that is, to examine the gender and number agreement relations children establish, or fail to establish, within

Gender Agreement

43

Table 3.4 Total utterance distribution Number

Percentage

394

44

(Full) DPs

94

11

MPH/DPs

102

11

Demonstrative pronouns

165

18

Third person clitics

43

5


18

2

Predicative adjectives

77

9

893

100

BNPs

TOTAL

the Determiner Phrase. This chapter focuses on gender agreement acquisition using the experimental data extracted from the transcripts of three monolingual, Spanish-speaking children under the age of 3 (Elián, Alonso, and Londa) from San Juan, Puerto Rico. In addition, the data of two children over the age of 4 (Diana and Pepe) are introduced in the discussion for comparison purposes (see Chapter 2 for details). The data for the present study consist of 893 utterances illustrated in Table 3.4. This table also shows that the most common type of utterance produced by the three children is the Bare Noun Phrase (BNP), that is, a noun produced in isolation. Notice that BNPs in this table include both target-like and non-target-like BNPs, that is, nominals with an obligatory determiner omitted. Moreover, Table 3.4 indicates that the three children under study as a whole produced an equal number (11 percent each) of Full DPs (i.e., a DP consisting of an adult-like determiner and a nominal) and MPH/DPs (i.e., a DP consisting of a vocalic element and a nominal). Furthermore, Table 3.4 demonstrates the fact that children’s attributive adjective production was extremely low, consistent with what some acquisition studies have reported (López Ornat 1997; Mariscal 2008; Snyder 2007). In terms of nominal agreement as a whole, the analysis of the production of the three children under study yielded two major generalizations. First, despite the differences in Mean Length of Utterance in words (MLUw) among the three children (Elián, MLUw = 1.5; Alonso, MLUw = 1.9; and Londa, MLUw = 2.2), they produced a significantly higher number of target-like utterances (83 percent) with regard to agreement (χ2 = 43.56, p < 0.0001) than non-target-like ones (17 percent), as shown in Table 3.5.


44

Table 3.5 Nominal and gender agreement utterances DPsa

MPH/ DPsb

Dem.c

Cliticd

Attrib.e

Pred.f

Total

83 (89%)

87 (85%)

140 (85%)

30 (70%)

12 (67%)

61 (79%)

413 (83%)

Non-target-like 11 (11%)

15 (15%)

25 (15%)

13 (30%)

6 (33%)

16 (21%)

86 (17%)

Target-like

Total a b c d e f *

94 (100%) 102 (100%) 165 (100%) 43 (100%) 18 (100%) 77 (100%) 499 *(100%)

(Full) DPs Monosyllabic Phrase Holder DPs Demonstrative pronouns Third person clitic pronouns Attributive adjective Predicative adjective Notice that Table 3.5 totals do not include the 394 BNPs produced by the children under study. This total was excluded from the table because BNPs occur in isolation, that is, they do not enter into an agreement concord.

The strong target-like production in Table 3.5 points out the fact that children acquiring Spanish are able to establish adult-like agreement relations from the early stages of the acquisition process. Notice that two of the children are below the two-word stage in their production, that is, Elián, MLUw = 1.5 and Alonso, MLUw = 1.9. Moreover, children’s target-like production brings support to previous acquisition studies that claim that the percentage of non-target-like production of children is limited (Aguirre 1995, Snyder 1995, and Schnell de Acedo 1994, for Spanish; Pizzuto & Caselli 1992 for Italian, among others). The second major generalization is in regard to the timing of the acquisition of gender and number features. Specifically, my analysis indicates that gender morphological markings are acquired before number in these structures, as the three children exhibited problems marking the plural number feature in almost all the constituent types under study. The issue of number acquisition is addressed in Chapter 4. These results provide support for previous cross-linguistic and Spanish acquisition studies that claimed that plural number posed difficulties in the acquisition process (Caselli et al. 1993; Koehn 1994; López Ornat 2003; Maez 1982; Marrero & Aguirre 2003). Moreover, this difference between the acquisition of number and gender points to a contrast in the acquisition of grammatical versus semantic feature markings. Children seem to acquire grammatical gender markings before plural (semantic) number markings. Contrary to the present findings, Koehn (1994) argues that Ivar (a child acquiring German and

Gender Agreement

45

French) has no gender distinctions but has acquired the semantic concept of singularity versus plurality, although the development of the grammatical notion of number takes place later on. Similarly, Müller (1994) also claims that grammatical features are unavailable at the beginning of the acquisition process of the two bilingual children under study (German and French). Notice that these discrepancies might be based on the nature of the linguistic systems being acquired: although it is not morphologically possible in Spanish to produce a nominal (or the agreeing constituents) without marking their gender, in German and French the learner has this option, that is, German adjectives can be produced bare and French is not a very morphologically rich language in terms of number and gender. In terms of the overall non-target-like production, the percentages were fairly low in general. However, the nature of the non-target-like utterances produced in each structure was not the same. In particular, the three children seem to have acquired gender agreement between determiners and nouns and (apparently) between nominals and attributive adjectives,8 but they had problems with number agreement in these structures. In contrast, non-target-like utterances in the production of third-person clitics and demonstrative pronouns mostly involved the application of the masculine “default” gender;9 whereas non-target-like predicative adjectives utterances involved mismatches of both gender and number features. 3.4.1 Gender Agreement This section examines the nature of gender agreement acquisition in Spanish DPs. The data analysis on this topic yielded two types of non-target-like utterances with regard to gender. The first type, which I call “default,” refers to the production of a feminine nominal with a masculine determiner and/or adjective or the production of a masculine pronoun to refer to a feminine nominal. An example of a default non-target-like utterance is: tá sucio ‘[it] is dirty (masc/sg).’ In this utterance, Alonso produces the masculine adjective sucio to refer to the feminine nominal bola ‘ball.’ The second type of nontarget-like utterance, which I call “mismatch,” involves the production of feminine marked constituents, such as a determiner, with masculine nominals or the production of a feminine pronoun to refer to a masculine nominal. For example, Londa’s production of the feminine demonstrative esta ‘this (fem/sg) [one]’ to refer to the masculine noun caballo ‘horse,’ illustrates a case involving a feature mismatch. Table 3.6 shows the token distribution of these two types of non-target-like utterances with respect to gender.10

46


Table 3.6 Summary of gender non-target-like tokens Structure

Total production

Non-target-like gender production Mismatch

Default

Total

(Full) DPs

62

1

–

1

MPH/DPs

33

4

–

4


18

–

–

–

Predicative Adjectives

65

–

10

10

118

6

13

19

37

1

8

9

333

12

31

43

Demonstratives Third person clitics Total

The analysis reveals that the majority of non-target-like production with respect to gender involves the production of the masculine default value, with 31 (72 percent) instances out of a total of 43, as shown in Table 3.6. This brings support for the availability of a default value in these children’s grammars, namely, masculine. Furthermore, Table 3.6 points to the following contrast in the acquisition of gender agreement: children are not having problems establishing target-like agreement between determiners and nominals but seem to struggle in establishing target-like agreement in structures involving a pronominal. In particular, Table 3.6 shows that children produced only five non-target-like tokens in Determiner-N structures and 38 non-target-like tokens pertaining to a pronoun: demonstratives, clitics, and predicative adjectives. Now we turn our attention to a detailed analysis of the children’s production of the gender agreement in each of the constituents under study. The discussion is organized in three sections. Section 3.4.1.1 examines agreement findings on Full DPs, and MPH/DPs, the analysis of adjectival agreement is presented in Section 3.4.1.2, whereas Section 3.4.1.3 focuses on gender agreement involving demonstrative and clitic pronouns.

3.4.1.1 DP Gender Agreement The data analysis reveals that the three children under study show no major difficulties in establishing target-like gender agreement relations between determiners and the nominals they precede, as previous acquisition studies have indicated (e.g., Aguirre 1995; López Ornat 1997). This conclusion is

Gender Agreement

47

supported by the contrast between the target-like tokens produced by the children versus the non-target-like ones, as shown in Table 3.6 above and repeated here as Table 3.7. In particular, a close examination of gender agreement in the (full) DP production of the three children reveals a contrast in terms of number of tokens produced, as shown in Table 3.8. At first sight this table illustrates that the distribution of (full) DPs in terms of gender agreement ranging from the lowest production by Elián (5) to the highest by Londa (38). In addition, Table 3.8 shows that out of a total of 62 (full) DP tokens produced by the three children, only one involved the production of a non-target-like DP. This result is striking given the fact that two of the three children under study have MLUs in words below two, that is, Elián’s MLUw = 1.5 and Alonso’s MLUw= 1.9. Moreover, this finding shows that at the earlier combinatory stages children do exhibit target-like gender agreement between determiners and nominals, giving support to previous acquisition studies such as Aguirre (1995), Schnell de Acedo (1994), Snyder (1995), and Mariscal (2008), among others.


Total production


Default

Total

(Full) DPs

62

1

–

1

MPH/DPs

33

4

–

4


18

–

–

–

Predicative Adjectives

65

–

10

10

118

6

13

19

37

1

8

9

333

12

31

43

Demonstratives Third person clitics Total

Table 3.8 Distribution of (full) DP tokens Target /Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total

Target-like

4

19

38

61

Non-target-like

1

0

0

1

Total

5

19

38

62

48


In addition, the data analysis identified individual differences in terms of the gender of the determiners produced in the (full) DPs; hence children’s production is presented separately. In the case of Elián, he produced only five tokens of (full) DPs, as seen in Table 3.8. His production was all feminine, involving the definite determiner la ‘the (fem/sg)’ and the indefinite otra ‘another (fem/sg) [one].’ In terms of gender agreement, he produces the only clear non-target-like utterance in the (full) DP data, as shown in Example 3.8. Example 3.8 Child utterance *la yuguete ‘the (fem/sg) toy (unm/masc/sg)’

Target el juguete ‘the (masc/sg) toy (unm/masc/sg)’

In Example 3.8, Elián utters the feminine determiner la with the masculine nominal juguete, creating what I have called a feature mismatch, that is, the production of a masculine nominal with a feminine determiner. This is an interesting mismatch because the noun juguete is not overtly marked for gender, ending in the vowel –e. As a result, this noun does not offer any overt clues to the language learner regarding the value of its gender feature. In the Spanish language, nominals ending in this vowel can belong to either the masculine or the feminine gender. Although it is tempting to suggest that he is using the feminine gender as the “default” value, given the limited production of DPs by this particular child, no conclusions can be reached regarding this matter. In contrast to Elián’s all feminine production, Alonso exhibited an almost all-masculine determiner production (17 out of 19 tokens), as shown in Table 3.9. Table 3.9 Alonso’s (full) DP tokens Determiner type

Masculine Singular

Feminine

Total

Plural

Singular

Plural

Definite determiner

3

5

2

–

10 (52%)

Indefinite determiner

5

–

–

–

5 (26%)

Demonstrative

2

–

–

–

2 (11%)

Other

2

–

–

–

2 (11%)

Total

12

5

2

–

19 (100%)

Gender Agreement

49

Crucially, the two feminine DPs this child produced were also target-like with respect to gender agreement. Moreover, Alonso’s data reflects a wider variety of DPs in comparison to Elián’s (almost) all definite production, as seen in Table 3.9. The following types of determiners were present in Alonso’s data: (a) definite articles, for example, el caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse;’ (b) indefinite articles, for example, un carro ‘a/one (masc/sg) car;’ (c) demonstrative adjectives, for example, ese guauguau ‘that (masc/sg) dog;’ and (d) the indefinite otro ‘another,’ for example, otro caballo ‘another horse.’ Table 3.9 illustrates the distribution of determiner types produced by Alonso (see Appendix A for a complete list of Alonso’s (full) DP tokens). Table 3.9 also shows that the definite article was the determiner with the highest production frequency: 10 tokens out of a total of 19. However, the difference between the production of definite versus indefinite articles was not found to be statistically significant (χ2 = 1.7, p < 0.20). Moreover, the definite determiner was the only determiner produced also in the feminine form, for example, la comida ‘the (fem/sg) food (fem/sg)’ and la lu ‘the (fem/sg) light (un/fem/sg)’ for la luz. Regarding the indefinite article, it was only produced in the singular masculine form un, for example, un nene ‘a/one (masc/sg) kid (masc/sg).’ Alonso uttered two demonstrative determiner tokens, both in the singular masculine form, for example, ese guauguau ‘that (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg)’ and este caballo ‘this (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg).’ Finally, he also produced two tokens of the indefinite otro ‘another,’ in the masculine singular, for example, otro caballo ‘another (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg).’ Similar to the almost all target-like production of Elián and Alonso with respect to gender agreement, Londa’s (full) DP utterances reflect an adultlike agreement production, as illustrated in Table 3.10. Londa produced 29 instances of masculine nouns (24 singular and 5 plural) and 27 instances of feminine nouns (24 singular and 3 plural), as illustrated in Table 3.10. Notice that in Table 3.10 there is an instance of

Table 3.10 Londa’s (full) DP utterances Masculine

Feminine

Target-like

Non-target-like

Target-like

Non-target-like

24

–

24

1*

Plural

3

2

3

–

Total

27

2

26

1

Singular

50


one “non-target-like” utterance with respect to gender. This utterance is presented in Example 3.9. Example 3.9 Child

Target

*Mira él, pielna ‘Look he/the leg’

Mira las piernas de él/ sus piernas ‘Look (at) the legs of him/his legs’

The child uttered Example 3.9 as she showed the legs of her toy dog to the experimenter. This example is ambiguous because it can be interpreted as the child saying mira el pielna ‘look the (masc) leg (fem)’ in which case there would be an instance of a non-adult-like gender agreement utterance, or what I call default, involving the use of masculine definite determiner el ‘the’ with the feminine nominal pielna ‘leg.’ On the other hand, Example 3.9 can be interpreted as mira él, pielna ‘look at him, leg.’ In this second possible interpretation, el ‘the’ is read as the object pronoun él ‘him.’ Notice that these two constituents, the definite determiner el and the object pronoun él, are homophonous in Spanish, adding to the ambiguity of this utterance. Nonetheless, factors such as the context of this utterance, the pause between él and the nominal pierna and this child’s overall production favor the second interpretation as the intended one. In this interpretation, the child might have omitted the possessive adjective su ‘his’ or simply the definite article la ‘the.’ Moreover, there is evidence in Londa’s data that seem to indicate that she has not acquired yet the (prenominal) possessive markers (e.g., mi ‘my,’ tu ‘your,’ su ‘his/her,’ etc.) and uses the (postnominal) emphatic possessive instead, as illustrated in the dialogue in Example 3.10. Example 3.10 Experimenter: Londa:

¿Con quién hablas? Papá mío

‘With whom are you speaking?’ ‘Dad (of) mine’

The exchange in Example 3.10 occurs as the experimenter and the child pretend to talk on the phone. When the experimenter asks the child with whom she is speaking, Londa responds with the phrase Papá mío ‘Dad (of) mine’ instead of the adult-like mi papá ‘my dad.’ Hence Example 3.9 above might indicate the difficulty the child is having in marking the possessive structures, namely, producing mira su pierna ‘look at his leg’ or mira la pierna de él ‘look at the leg of his.’ Finally, in Table 3.10 we can see that Londa

Gender Agreement

51

Table 3.11 Londa’s (full) DP tokens Determiner Type

Masculine

Feminine

Total

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

Definite determiner

2

1

2

1

6 (16%)

Indefinite determiner

9

3

11

1

24 (63%)

Demonstrative

4

–

2

1

7 (18%)

Other

–

–

1

–

1 (3%)

Total

15

4

16

3

38 (100%)

produced two additional non-target-like utterances. These will be discussed in Chapter 4, as they pertain to the number feature. In contrast to the production of Elián and Alonso, Londa’s (full) DP production regarding gender presents a balanced distribution between masculine and feminine DPs. An analysis of this child’s utterances yielded a total of 38 (full) DP tokens produced in obligatory contexts (excluding repetitions), as illustrated in Table 3.11. A review of the (full) DP tokens in Table 3.11 indicates that Londa’s (full) DP production is evenly split between feminine and masculine DPs, with the production of 19 masculine and 19 feminine (full) DP tokens (see Appendix A for a complete list). Moreover, Table 3.11 shows the distribution of the tokens by determiner type, with significantly (χ2 = 10.8, p < 0.01) higher production of (full) DPs with the indefinite article (63 percent) for example, uno avión ‘an/one airplane.’ This child’s indefinite determiner production seems to indicate that she has acquired the use of this determiner in terms of grammatical agreement. However, as will be discussed in Chapter 4, the analysis of the reference of this child’s indefinite DPs reveals that she still struggles with matching morphological features on the DPs with those of the actual referent. Londa’s (full) DP token distribution contrasts with both Alonso’s and Elián’s, for whom the definite article was the dominant type of determiner, accounting for more than 50 percent and 80 percent respectively of the total DP tokens produced by these children. Notice that the experimental tasks provided the appropriate context for the production of indefinite (full) DPs, for example, when a new object was introduced to the task, as illustrated in Example 3.11.


52

Example 3.11 Experimenter:

¿Qué es esto? ‘What is this (neuter)?’ (Experimenter asks the child as she is taking out a toy dog from the bag.) Child’ expected response: Un perro ‘a dog’ or Es un perro ‘[It] is a dog.’ In Example 3.11, the felicitous answer is one that includes the indefinite determiner un perro ‘a/one dog.’ However, as will be discussed in Chapter 5, the analysis of the data reveals a significant rate of determiner omissions in the children under study. Nonetheless, the contrast regarding the production of definite versus indefinite determiner type might point to the fact that definite determiners are acquired before indefinite ones. Previous acquisition research on this issue is inconclusive, with some studies stating children are producing only definite determiners at the earliest stages of acquisition (e.g., Mariscal 2008; Schnell de Acedo 1994), and others claiming both types of determiners are present in children’s production from the start of the two-word stage (e.g., Aguirre 1995). Overall, the previous discussion on (full) DPs reveals that the production by the three children under study was almost completely target-like with respect to gender agreement, even though they are at different stages of acquisition, as illustrated in Table 3.12. In particular, Table 3.12 indicates that of a total of 62 full DP tokens produced by the three children, only one token was non-target-like with respect to gender agreement. This finding is very important because it supports the hypothesis on the availability of an adult-like feature-checking mechanism in early grammars. Interestingly, this conclusion finds support in the L2 literature (e.g., Bruhn de Garavito & White 2000). Bruhn de Garavito and White conducted a study on the L2 acquisition of Spanish DPs using as subjects two groups of French speakers. Group 1 consisted of 30 high school students who were finishing their first year of Spanish, and Group 2 consisted of 12 students who were at the end of their second year of Spanish. The researchers found that the two groups had a high accuracy rate on the

Table 3.12 Overall (full) DP token production Masculine

Total

Feminine

Total

Target-like

Non-target-like

Target-like

Non-target-like

36

1

25

–

62

Gender Agreement

53

production of agreement between determiners and nominals. In particular, Group 1 produced 88 percent target-like agreement with definite determiners and 78 percent with indefinite determiners. Group 2, in turn, produced 95 percent target-like agreement with definite determiners and 88 percent with indefinite determiners. In addition, some preliminary conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of the (full) DP production. First, regarding the three children’s production of (full) DPs, the analysis points to three different levels of linguistic development. In particular, Elián seems to be at the lowest level, with the production of only five (full) DP tokens and very little variety in terms of determiner type, that is, he only produces two types of determiners. Regarding Alonso, his production seems to indicate he is at a more advanced stage than Elián, producing 19 (full) DP tokens with a greater variety in terms of determiner type. In contrast with these two children, Londa seems to be at the highest level of linguistic development, with the production of 38 (full) DP tokens, and a wider variety of full determiner type tokens. Second, the DP production of these three children also differed in terms of gender. On the one hand, Elián’s (full) DP tokens are almost all feminine (i.e., four out of five tokens) and almost all definite (i.e., four out of five tokens). Alonso’s (full) DP tokens, on the other hand, are almost all masculine (i.e., 17 out of 19 tokens). As in Elián’s case, the majority of Alonso’s (full) DPs involved the production of the definite article, particularly the masculine one. Londa’s (full) DP tokens present a more balanced production regarding gender, with an even split between feminine and masculine (full) DPs produced. Furthermore, this child produces more DPs with indefinite articles, in contrast with the other two children who produced more definite DPs, an indication that Londa is in the process of acquiring this determiner, at least in the singular form. In the next section, I discuss the production of MPH/DPs, that is, nominals preceded by a vocalic element, for example, e caballo ‘a horse’ for the adult-like form of el caballo ‘the horse.’ 3.4.1.1.1 Monosyllabic Place Holder Determiner Phrases Monosyllabic place holders (Bottari et al. 1993/1994) refer to children’s production of vocalic elements occupying positions that full morphemes would take in adult language. In particular, for the DP structures these vocalic elements surface before nominals in the position that a full determiner would occupy. The presence of these elements in child language is well documented in acquisition research by a variety of cross-linguistic

54


studies (e.g., Aguirre 1995; Bottari et al. 1993/1994; Hernández Pina 1984; Lleó 1997, 2001; López Ornat 1997; Pizzuto & Caselli 1992), but there is disagreement regarding what they really represent in child grammar. On the one side, researchers like Hernández Pina 1984 and López Ornat (1997) interpret the production of these vocalic elements in phrases such as e caballo ‘a horse’ as a reflection of a pre-grammatical stage, whereas researchers such as Lleó (1997, 2001) interpret these vocalic elements as grammatical but unspecified morphophonologically. To determine the nature of these vocalic elements (MPHs) in children’s grammar, an analysis was conducted on the agreement patterns established between MPHs and the nominals they precede. The null hypothesis is that MPHs function as pre-syntactic elements, that is, pre-determiners that hold no features in the earlier stages of acquisition, as claimed by Bottari et al. (1993/1994). The alternative hypothesis is that these vocalic elements might contain some of the same features as their full determiner counterparts. The present analysis of MPHs is based on several assumptions. First, vowel a can be a representation of the feminine determiners la ‘the’ or una ‘a’ and, as such, these pre-determiners might contain some of the same features as the full determiner forms. Second, vowels e and o/os can function as phonetically shortened forms of the masculine determiners el ‘the’ (masculine/singular) and los ‘the’ (masculine/plural). Under the previous assumptions, a target-like utterance is defined as one in which the assumed number and gender features contained in the MPH match those of the accompanying nominal. The analysis of data on the production of MPH/DPs by the three children under study yields a total of 102 utterances containing a Monosyllabic Place Holder (MPH) with a noun, shown in Table 3.13. Overall, Table 3.13 reveals the production of a majority of target-like MPH/DPs by the three children, with the production of 87 target-like (84 percent) MPH/DPs out of a total of 102 utterances and 15 (16 percent) non-target-like. Moreover, Table 3.13 indicates that the production of MPH/ DPs among the three children is not even, with the two younger children,

Table 3.13 Overall distribution of MPH/DPs Target/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total

Target-like (%) Non-target-like (%) Total (%)

35 (92) 3 (8) 38 (100)

40 (77) 12 (23) 52 (100)

12 (100) 0 (0) 12 (100)

87 (84) 15 (16) 102 (100)

Gender Agreement

55

Table 3.14 Overall MPH/DP tokens Nominal endings Masculine Singular

Elián Londa Alonso Total a

Target-like Non-target-like Target-like Non-target-like Target-like Non-target-like

Total Feminine

Plural

Singular

Plural

–o

–otha

–os

–oth

–a

–oth

–as

–oth

3 – – – 3 2 8

4 – 2 – 3 1 10

– – – – 1 – 1

– – – – 1 2 3

2 – 2 – 2 – 6

2 – 1 – 1 – 4

– – – – – – –

– 1 – – – – 1

11 1 5 – 11 5 33

–oth includes the unmarked nominal endings, for example –e, –consonant.

Elián and Alonso, producing higher proportions of these elements than Londa, the older child. In order to take a closer look at the production of the children under study, the 102 instances of MPH/DPs produced by the three children were reduced to a total of 33 tokens after repetitions were excluded, as shown in Table 3.14 (see Appendix B for a list of the MPH/DPs). This table also shows that the analysis of the 33 MPH/DP tokens produced by the three children yields a total of 27 target-like and 6 non-target-like in terms of agreement, both in gender and number. Moreover, Table 3.14 shows the distribution of the endings of the nominals produced in these MPH/DP tokens, a subject that will be addressed later in the discussion. Table 3.14 also reveals several differences in the production of MPH/DP tokens among the three children. First, regarding number of tokens produced, Table 3.14 shows the following distribution: Elián (12), Alonso (16), and Londa (5). However, the difference among the three is not statistically significant (χ2 = 5.6, p = 0.06). Second, the analysis finds a contrast regarding token targetness, whereas Elián and Londa produce target-like tokens regarding gender agreement, Alonso produces a statistically significant number of non-target-like tokens, that is, 5 out of 16 (χ2 = 5.8, p = 0.016). Hence, their production will be examined individually. In the case of Elián, his production was all target-like regarding gender, producing the masculine MPH e with masculine nominals both marked, for example, e pel–o ‘the (masc/sg) hair (masc/sg),’ and unmarked, for example, e bebé ‘the (masc/ sg) baby (masc/sg),’ as well as the feminine MPH a with feminine nominals

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with both marked and unmarked nominals: a bola ‘a/the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’ for una/la bola; a uu (luz) ‘a/the (fem/sg) light (fem/sg)’ for una/la luz. Elián’s MPH/DP production provides more information regarding his gender agreement system. That is, although all of Elián’s full DP production was feminine, his MPH/DP production in both the masculine and feminine genders (all target-like) indicates that he has an operating gender agreement system in place. Londa’s MPH/DP production was very limited in comparison with Elián’s (12) and Alonso’s (16), with only five tokens produced, all in the singular and all target-like, as shown in Table 3.14 above. Her tokens were distributed as follows: two tokens involving the production of the masculine MPH e with masculine nominals not overtly marked for gender (e.g., e guauguau for el guauguau ‘the (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg),’ e lón for el león ‘the (masc/ sg) lion (masc/sg)’); and three tokens involving the production of the feminine MPH a: two with (overtly) gender marked nominals (e.g., a pielna for la pierna ‘the (fem/sg) leg (fem/sg),’ a ñama for la grama ‘the (fem/sg) grass (fem/sg);’ and one with a non-overtly marked nominal: a lu for la luz ‘the(fem/sg) light (fem/sg).’ Londa’s limited production of MPHs seems to indicate that she is already moving away from the production of MPHs instead of full DPs; that is, Londa is at a later stage of development of the determiner system than the other two children. Evidence for this conclusion is demonstrated by the fact that she produced a significantly higher proportion of full DPs in comparison to MPH/DPs (χ2 = 31, p < 0.01). In contrast with the near-perfect MPH/DP production of Elián and Londa, Alonso’s data present a significantly higher number of non-targetlike tokens, that is, 5 out of 16. First, Alonso’s target-like tokens are examined. This child produced a total of 11 target-like MPH/DP tokens, distributed as follows: five singular tokens with the masculine MPH e, divided between canonically marked nominals (e.g., e caballo for el caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’) and non-canonically marked ones (e.g., e bibí for el bibí or biberón ‘the (masc/sg) baby bottle (masc/sg)’); one singular token with the MPH u (e.g., u caballo ‘a/one horse’); and two tokens in the plural. In addition, this child produced three feminine singular tokens with the MPH a: two with canonically marked nominals (e.g., a bola for una/la bola ‘a/the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’); a vaca for una/la vaca ‘a/ the (fem/sg) cow (fem/sg)’) and one with a non-canonically marked nominal (e.g., a mano ‘the (fem/sg) hand (fem/sg).’ Now we turn the discussion to Alonso’s non-target-like production. The non-target-like tokens produced by Alonso can be divided in two types: the first type relates to an apparent mismatch of the gender feature; and

Gender Agreement

57

the second one involves a mismatch of the number feature. Example 3.12 illustrates Alonso’s gender mismatches; plural mismatches are presented in Chapter 4. Example 3.12 Child’s utterance

Target

(a) *a caballo ‘the (fem/sg) horse (masc/sg)’ (b) *a pelo ‘the (fem/sg) hair(masc/sg)’ (c) *a guauguau ‘the (fem/sg) dog (masc/sg)’

el caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’ el pelo ‘the (masc/sg) hair (masc/sg)’ el guauguau ‘the (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg)’

The first three utterances in Example 3.12 involve the production of MPH a with masculine nominals in an apparent gender mismatch. Specifically, in Example 3.12(a) Alonso utters the masculine nominal caballo with the MPH a, which in the present analysis is assumed to carry the feminine gender feature. There were five instances of this token in the data. One of them involved the following alternation: a caballo, e caballo. This immediate alternation between the MPHs a and e seems to be an attempt by the child at self-correction. A second instance of this token occurred in the context illustrated in Example 3.13. Example 3.13 Child: Experimenter: Child: Experimenter: Child:

¿Vao a juar? for ¿Vamos a jugar? Sí, vamos a... ¿A juar? for ¿A jugar Jugar A caballo

‘Are we going to play?’ ‘Yes, we are going to...’ ‘To play?’ ‘Play’ ‘to horse [horses]’

In the dialogue above, the child asks the experimenter if the two of them are going to play together as the experimenter takes out the experimental props. In this particular context, the vowel a seems to be acting not as a determiner but as the preposition in the phrase vamos a jugar a los caballos ‘We are going to play horses.’ The other three instances of a caballo seem to involve the use of the vocalic element a as a determiner. In two cases, the child utters this token in the form of a question as he searches for the horses, for example, ¿Dostá a caballo? ‘Where is the horse?’ for ¿Dónde está el caballo? ‘Where is the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)?’ in what seems to be an

58


appropriate context for a determiner. Finally, the context for the last instance involving this token was as the child offers the horse to an adult, for example, pati, a caballo ‘for you, a/the horse’ instead of para ti, un/el caballo ‘for you, a/the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg).’ To determine the preponderance of these five instances of the token a caballo in the MPH/DP data, the number of instances in which Alonso uttered the nominal caballo ‘horse’ with an MPH was calculated. A total of 30 instances were found, out of which only three were clear cases of nontarget-like uses as we discussed above. Moreover, the child produced the appropriate masculine MPH e with the noun caballo in the majority of instances (25 out of 30 instances). The context of Example 3.12(b) a pelo ‘the hair’ instead of el pelo ‘the (masc/sg) hair (masc/sg)’ is as Alonso looks at himself on the screen of the camera while touching his hair. In this token, the child seems to be using MPH a as a determiner. In Example 3.12(c), we see the production of the MPH a with a non-canonically marked (i.e., ending in –u) masculine noun, for example, guaugua–u ‘dog.’ Alonso produces four instances of this particular token. As in the case of the token a caballo, the vowel a is not used (unambiguously) as a determiner in all of the instances of this token. The context for the first two instances is the child showing toys to other people, for example, mía vaca, a guauguau ‘look cow, the/to dog’ instead of mira una vaca, un guauguau ‘look (at) a (fem/sg) cow, a (masc/sg) dog.’ In this context, the a could be interpreted as the personal a and not the MPH a. Spanish grammar marks the accusative noun object with an a if it is a definite person or personified thing, for example, mira a Margo ‘look at [personal a marker] Margo.’ Alonso might be marking the dog toy with the personal a. The child utters the third instance of this token as he passes one of the dogs to an adult, for example, ¡mía guauguau, pati a guauguau! ‘look dog, for you the dog.’ This utterance seems to involve a mismatch between the MPH a and the masculine nominal. The last instance of this token occurs while the child pretends to talk on the telephone with one dog on each ear, hence the meaning intended is not clear. Alonso also produces two target-like instances of this token with the MPH e, for example, Mira, e guauguau ‘look, the (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg).’ Several hypotheses can be invoked to account for Alonso’s non-targetlike MPH/DP utterances. The most obvious one would be to conclude that MPH a is acting as a default determiner in this child’s grammar. This conclusion, however, is not borne out by Alonso’s overall production. First, as discussed previously, this child’s (full) DP production is all target-like with regard to gender and is almost all masculine, that is, 17 out of 19 full DPs

Gender Agreement

59

produced are masculine. Notice that the two feminine DPs that he produced were also target-like. Second, regarding his MPH/DP production, Alonso utters three target-like feminine MPH/DPs, including a mano ‘the hand.’ As explained in the case of Elián, this token is unique within the Spanish nominal paradigm because it involves the only case of a feminine nominal marked with the canonical masculine word marker –o (in common use), as pointed out by Harris (1991). Nonetheless, Alonso produces this token with the target feminine MPH, an indication that this child has some awareness of the feminine feature. Third, Alonso produces the masculine singular form of demonstrative pronouns, third person clitics, and adjectives to refer to both feminine and masculine nominals, as will be presented in the following sections, that is, evidence of a masculine default value for gender. In light of this evidence, it would be an ad hoc solution to conclude that MPH a is the default value for MPHs. Furthermore, Spanish nominal agreement would be rendered unlearnable for this particular child under the hypothesis that the masculine gender is the default value for all the structures under study except in the case of MPHs.11 Another possible hypothesis is the one proposed by Bottari et al. (1993/1994) for Italian. Interestingly, the authors found that the interpretation of MPH a was ambiguous because it is difficult to discern between a true MPH (void of morphological content) and a phonetic approximation of the feminine determiner la ‘the.’ Notice that Bottari et al. distinguish in their analysis between true MPHs and phonetic approximations. True MPHs are defined as vocalic elements void of morphological value and, as such, display a nearly free distribution, for example, MPH variants [a] and [e] would occur with both feminine and masculine nominals. In contrast, phonetic approximations would occur only in contexts in which full determiners with the same vocalic elements would occur, for example, e in the context of the masculine determiner el ‘the.’ In their data analysis, they found that Italian children produced MPH a with feminine nominals that ended in –a, but also in other contexts that could not be interpreted as the determiner la. Bottari et al. concluded that the utterances involving the MPH a with feminine nominal ending in –a were not cases of target-like agreement, but rather they involved a strategy of phonological matching between the MPH a and the final vocalic element in the nominals, –a. This hypothesis predicts that if a is acting in Alonso’s grammar as a true MPH void of features, the data should exhibit examples in which this MPH occurs in contexts in which functional elements without the vocalic segment a would occur. An analysis of Alonso’s overall production yielded evidence in support of this prediction, as illustrated in Example 3.14.

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Example 3.14 Child

Target

(a) A Wili ‘[personal a] Wili’ (b) A fío ‘(a) cold’ (c) A gusta ‘(A) (it) is pleasing’

Wili ‘Willy’ tiene frío ‘[he] is cold’ te gusta ‘To you [it] is pleasing’

In Example 3.14 the MPH a occupies positions that the determiner la cannot occupy in Spanish. In particular, in Example 3.14(a) the MPH is uttered with the proper noun Wili. The MPH cannot be occupying the place of a determiner because Spanish grammar disallows the use of determiners with proper nouns which are considered arguments. Another possible interpretation of the a could be as an example of the personal a. Alonso produced this particular token a total of six times, out of which four seem to be cases of the personal a. For example, the child utters a Wili as a response to the experimenter’s question: ¿Qué tú tienes ahí? ‘What do you have there?’ The child responds in a target-like fashion, marking the personified toy with the personal a. However, this token could not be interpreted unambiguously as cases of the personal a in two instances. In the first instance, the child lifts the toy Wili and says: a Wili, a Wili ¡volando! ‘(a) Willy, (a) Willy, flying!’ This utterance is ambiguous in terms of interpretation. One possible interpretation is Tengo a Wili volando ‘I have Wili flying.’ In this interpretation, the a would be a case of the personal a, that is, marking the object Willy. However, this utterance is open to another interpretation: Wili está volando ‘Willy is flying.’ In this reading, the a is not functioning as the objective marker because Willy is the subject of the sentence. The other ambiguous instance of this token was A Wili come, am am ‘(A) Willy eats, am am.’ Alonso utters this token while he makes Wili eat up another animal; hence Wili is the subject of the sentence. Interestingly, Dolitsky (1983) points out that David, the child she studied, also used placeholders before proper nouns when he spoke of himself, his sister, or his father. She claims that these placeholders seem to be marking genitive and dative roles for the nouns. Similarly, in Example 3.14(a), we could argue that Alonso has generalized the use of the personal a to all structural positions, as a generic case marker. In Example 3.14(b), the child utters the MPH a with the noun frío ‘cold.’ This utterance occurs as the experimenter indicates to the child not to take

Gender Agreement

61

off a doll’s clothes because then the doll will be cold: ¡Ay qué frío, tiene frío! ‘Oh how cold, [he] is cold!’ First the child indicates that the doll was not cold, saying: no fío ‘not cold.’ Then, as the experimenter introduces a new toy to the task, the child shows the doll without clothes to the experimenter, saying: A fío, a fío for perhaps tiene frío, tiene frío ‘(he) is cold.’ Even though it is not certain that the child substituted a for the verb tiene, he uses the MPH a to fill the structural position of another constituent. In the last utterance listed in Example 3.14, a gusta, the child substitutes the objective pronoun for the MPH a. This token occurs as a response to the experimenter’s question regarding a flower: ¿Te gusta? ‘Do you like (it)?’ The child answers repeating the verb gusta, but substitutes the objective pronoun me for the MPH a. Utterances listed in Example 3.14 lend support to the hypothesis that in this child’s grammar, MPH a acts in some contexts as a true MPH, void of feature content. Nonetheless, to conclude that in all instances this MPH is void of featural content would be too strong a conclusion, given the fact that the interpretation of this MPH is confounded by the homophony present in the Spanish language, that is, it could stand for determiners una ‘a’ or la ‘the,’ for the preposition a as in a jugar ‘to play,’ or for the marker of objective case a. Alonso’s overall production seems to indicate that he is on the process of eliminating the “generic” uses of MPH a for MPHs that have feature content, at least in the case of MPHs used as determiners. The overall analysis of the MPH/DP production data indicates that these vocalic elements are more than pre-grammatical fillers, as claimed by some researchers (Bottari et al. 1993/1994; López Ornat 1997; Mariscal 2008), but rather shortened approximations of adult-like determiners. Support for this conclusion is found in the fact that out of the 33 tokens produced by the three children, 27 were target-like in terms of agreement, that is, these elements reveal the presence of an agreement relation at work. Moreover, I found a strong correlation between the production of MPH e for el ‘the (masc/sg)’ with masculine nouns and MPH a for una ‘a/one’ or la ‘the’ with feminine nouns. Specifically, out of the 14 tokens of MPH e produced by the three children, all of them were with masculine singular nominals, whereas out of the 15 tokens of MPH a produced by the three children, 11 were with feminine singular nominals. Children’s vast production of target-like MPH/DPs could be taken as evidence of the availability of an underlying checking mechanism in early grammars, responsible for this strong target-like production. However, one should be careful not to rush to premature conclusions before taking a careful look at the nature of the agreement patterns these children are establishing. In order to achieve this goal, I conducted a further data analysis

62


to address what Bottari et al. (1993/1994) call the linear agreement hypothesis, that is, whether children are establishing agreement relations between MPHs and nominals by matching the phonological nominal endings with the phonological features of the MPH selected. Notice that this hypothesis, if proven, supports discontinuous analyses of language acquisition such as the usage based, in which children’s linguistic development is solely based on the extraction of input regularities. The linear agreement hypothesis predicts that if there is any agreement present in the MPH/DP production data it would be purely phonological, that is, children would produce MPH o with nouns ending in –o and MHP a with nouns ending in –a. This hypothesis also predicts that children will fail to produce target-like agreement with nominals not overtly marked for gender, as there are no overt clues to guide the matching strategy. In contrast, the continuity hypothesis would predict that children would be successful regardless of the presence of overt morphological markings, as they are guided by an underlying system. In order to test these hypotheses, the 33 MPH/DP tokens were analyzed in terms of the relation between the MPH used and the ending of the nominal, as shown in Table 3.14 and repeated here as Table 3.15. Crucially, the analysis in Table 3.15 shows that children produced MPHs a and e with nominals canonically marked for gender (i.e., masculine nouns ending in –o and feminine nouns ending in –a) as well as with nominals not overly marked for gender (i.e., nouns ending in the vowels e, í, u or consonants s, z, n, m). Moreover, the majority of nouns produced with MPH e involved nominals not overtly marked for gender (i.e., 9 out of a total of 15), whereas the distribution of MPH a was equally divided between nouns

Table 3.15 Overall MPH/DP tokens Nominal endings Masculine Singular

Elián Londa Alonso Total

Target-like Non-target-like Target-like Non-target-like Target Non-target-like

Total Feminine

Plural

Singular

Plural

–o

–otha

–os

–oth

–a

–oth

–as

–oth

3 – – – 3 2 8

4 – 2 – 3 1 11

– – – – 1 – 1

– – – – 1 2 3

2 – 2 – 2 – 6

2 – 1 – 1 – 3

– – – – – – –

– 1 – – – – 1

11 1 5 – 11 5 33

Gender Agreement

63

canonically marked for gender (7) and non-canonically marked for gender (8). In particular, the data analysis points to the conclusion that overt morphological clues do not play a significant role in the agreement relations these children establish, with Londa and Elián uttering an all-targetlike production of MPH/DPs regardless of the nominal ending involved. Interestingly, Alonso’s production of ungrammatical tokens reveals that he was as likely to produce non-target-like MPH/DPs with nominals canonically marked for gender, for example, a caball–o ‘the/a (fem./sg.) horse (masc./sg.),’ as with nominals unmarked for gender, for example, a guauguau ‘the/a fem./sg.) dog (masc./sg.).’ These results support Pizzutto and Caselli’s (1992), Lleó´s (1997, 2001) and Valian’s (2009b) claim that these bare vowels produced with nominals carry some of the adult-like feature information, in this case the gender feature. Moreover, these findings lend support to the hypothesis that children acquiring Spanish exhibit target-like agreement relations that go beyond a phonological matching strategy, for example, a cas–a ‘the house,’ but that they are building their agreement systems on the basis of feature checking mechanism, for example, e guaugua–u ‘the dog,’ a man–o ‘the hand.’ Namely, these children are checking the gender feature of the determiners with that of the nominals they precede. This conclusion brings support to the Weak Continuity Hypothesis adopted in the present research (Borer & Rohrbacher 1997; Crain & Thornton 1998; Crain & Wexler 1999; Phillips 1996; Pinker 1984) in that children start the acquisition process with a grammar governed by the principles of UG, that is, the availability of a checking mechanism and the corresponding functional categories, such as the DP. Support for this conclusion is found in the analysis of the agreement patterns these three children establish in (full) DPs, that is, the three children produced a majority of target-like full DPs with regard to gender agreement regardless of the nominal endings. In the next section, I discuss findings on gender agreement in attributive adjectives, that is, adjectives within the DP, for example, la casa roja ‘the house red’ (the red house). In addition, the discussion will also include children’s production of adjectives in predicative structures. Even though these adjectives are not part of the DP, the agreement patterns children establish in structures outside the DP serve to create a better picture of gender agreement as a whole in Spanish early grammar. 3.4.1.2 Adjectival Agreement This section discusses the gender agreement patterns found in the attributive adjectives data. Children produced a very limited number of attributive

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adjectives for a total of 18 tokens (once repetitions were excluded), as seen in Table 3.6 and repeated here as Table 3.16. Notice also in this table that this was the structure with the lowest production rate. This result brings support to Mariscal’s (2008) findings on children’s limited production of attributive adjectives in her study on gender agreement acquisition. Two major characteristics define the adjective production of the three children under analysis. First, there is a marked contrast between the overall adjectival production of the two younger children (Elián and Alonso) and the production of Londa, as illustrated in Table 3.17. This table reveals that Elián’s and Alonso’s production of attributive adjectives is scarce in comparison with Londa’s significantly higher number of adjective production (χ2 = 116.3, p < 0.01). Table 3.17 also shows that Londa’s production was equally divided between target-like (9) and non-target-like production (χ2 = 1.5, p = 0.22). This finding is at odds with her production of other structures, which was characterized by being mostly target-like. The second factor that characterizes the attributive adjective production is that is highly ambiguous in terms of the structure involved (attributive vs predicative), especially in the case of Elián’s and Alonso’s data, as will be shown in the following discussion. The production of Elián and Alonso


Total production


(Full) DPs MPH/DPs Attributive adjectives Predicative adjectives Demonstratives Third person clitics Total

62 33 18 65 118 37 333

Total

Default

1 4 – – 6 1 12

– – – 10 13 8 31

1 4 – 10 19 9 43

Table 3.17 Distribution of attributive adjectives Target /Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


2 (100) – 2 (100)

1 (100) – 1 (100)

9 (60) 6 (40) 15 (100)

12 (67) 6 (33) 18 (100)

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is examined together because these two children exhibited similar production patterns. Elián and Alonso produced a total of three (potentially) attributive adjectives, as shown in Example 3.15. Example 3.15 Child utterance (a) *Mira gande (Elián) ‘Look (at) big (one)’ (b) Si cayó, ecito (Elián) ‘(he) fell down, poor (masc/sg)’ (c) ¡Mira carito bonito! (Alonso) ‘Look car (dim/masc/sg) pretty (masc./sg.)!’

Target utterance Mira una/la grande ‘Look (at) a/the (fem/sg) big (one)’ Se cayó, pobrecito ‘(he) fell down, poor (masc/sg)’ Mira un carrito bonito ‘Look a (masc/sg) car (dim/ masc/sg) pretty (masc/sg)!’

The examples above illustrate the structural ambiguity present in these children’s adjectival utterances. Elián uttered Example 3.15(a) spontaneously as he picked up the big orange (naranja, or china in the Puerto Rican dialect) and showed it to the experimenter. In terms of agreement, this adjective (grand–e) is not overtly marked for gender, so no agreement information regarding this feature can be obtained from the adjective itself. Recall that in Spanish, adjectives ending in the vowel e are invariable with feminine and masculine nouns. This example can be interpreted as attributive as in mira la grande ‘look the (fem/sg) big (un/sg)[one]’ or mira encontré la grande ‘look [I] found the (fem/sg) big [one].’ In this interpretation, the child omitted the obligatorily determiner la ‘the.’ On the other hand, Example 3.15(a) can also be interpreted as mira, es la grande ‘look [it] is the (fem/sg) big [one].’ However, the context favors the attributive reading. Crucially, in either interpretation, this example involves the omission of the determiner that would serve to mark the gender of the (non-overt) nominal, for example, la grande ‘the (fem/sg) big (unm/sg) [one].’ Elián’s second example in Example 3.15(b) provides more information regarding agreement. The child utters the adjective ecito instead of pobrecito ‘poor (masc/sg) [one]’ (with the masculine word marker –o) to refer to a masculine singular referent, that is, male doll that fell from a chair. This adjective was interpreted as attributive as in se cayó el pobrecito (muñeco) ‘the (masc/sg) poor (masc/sg) [doll] fell down,’ in which the adjective is part of the subject, a context requiring an obligatory determiner. As we have seen, Elián’s limited production does not lead to any major conclusions regarding agreement; however, both examples seem to involve the omission of an


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obligatory determiner. Elián’s determiner omission in this structure is consistent with his production of non-target-like bare nominals, that is, this child omitted determiners in 74 percent of the obligatory contexts, as presented in Chapter 5. In Alonso’s case, he produced only one (potentially) attributive adjective, that is, Example 3.15(c). The child uttered this example spontaneously as he saw the experimenter taking out a toy car. He marked the masculine and singular features of the noun carrito (diminutive/masc/sg) in the adjective bonito ‘pretty’ in a target-like fashion. Nonetheless, Example 3.15(c) also involves the omission of a determiner, in this case the indefinite determiner un ‘a.’ In contrast to the production of those two children, Londa produced a total of 15 instances of attributive adjectives, out of which 9 were targetlike and 6 were non-target-like regarding agreement (see Appendix E for an exhaustive list). Target-like utterances involved the production of adjectives chiquito ‘small,’ grande ‘big,’ feliz ‘happy,’ and azul ‘blue,’ as shown in Example 3.16. Example 3.16 Child (a) No, el quito ‘No, the (masc/sg) small (masc/sg) (one)’ (b) Yo engo gande ‘I have big (unm/sg) (one)’ (c) Tistre ya anó ‘Sad (unm/sg) (one) already won’ (d) Feli[h] ‘Happy (unm/sg) (one)’ (e) Azul ‘Blue (unm/sg) (one)’

Target

Referent

No, el chiquito ‘No, the (masc/sg) small (masc/sg) (one)’

[león]

Yo tengo el grande ‘I have the (masc/sg) big (masc/sg) (one)’ El triste ya ganó ‘The (masc/sg) sad (masc/ sg)(one) already won’ El feliz ‘The (masc/sg) happy (masc/sg) (one)’ El azul ‘The (masc/sg) blue (masc/ sg) (one)’

[teléfono]

[tren]

[tren]

[pez]

The adjectives in 3.16 exhibit a striking characteristic: all of them involve cases of noun-drop, that is, the adjective appears in isolation. Moreover, in eight out of the nine target-like examples with respect to agreement, the child omitted the required determiner, namely, Londa only produced the

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obligatory determiner in Example 3.16(a). This issue will be addressed in the discussion of her non-target-like production. The examples above also show target-like agreement patterns in terms of number; however, regarding gender, the results are not transparent because most of the adjectives produced are not overtly marked for gender (13 out of 15), that is, grand–e ‘big,’ feli–z ‘happy,’ azu–l ‘blue,’ and trist–e ‘sad.’ In Example 3.16(a), Londa produced the adjective chiquito ‘small (masc/sg) [one]’ to refer to a masculine singular nominal. The context of this utterance was the experimenter asking the child: ¿Cuál te gusta? ‘Which [one] do you like?’ referring to two lions, leones. The child answered by pointing at the small lion and saying este ‘this (masc/sg) [one];’ the experimenter followed up by asking the child: ¿El grande? ‘The (masc/sg) big (unm/sg)?’ Crucially, the child marked the nominal as masculine by saying este ‘this (masc/sg) [one]’ before the experimenter used the masculine article el ‘the (masc/sg)’ in the follow-up question. This was the only instance in which Londa produced the required determiner. The rest of her attributive adjective production, illustrated in Example 3.16, yields inconclusive results in terms of gender agreement for two reasons. First, as mentioned above, 13 out of her 15 attributive adjectives are not overtly marked for gender; hence it is not clear if the child is or is not establishing target-like agreement with respect to gender. Second, Londa omits the obligatory determiner in 14 out of the 15 attributive adjective tokens produced. Determiners have a crucial role when they occur in structures involving unmarked or invariable adjectives, namely, they serve to mark gender agreement overtly. In Example 3.16(d), for example, Londa’s production of the adjective feli[h] ‘happy’ is not very informative; in turn the use of the required determiner el ‘the’ in the adult-like production of the same phrase, el feliz ‘the (masc/sg) happy (unm/sg) [one]’ serves to indicate that the underlying gender value of the adjective is masculine. We turn our attention to Londa’s non-target-like attributive adjective production. In her data, two different types of non-target-like instances are found; the first one refers to a mismatch in the agreement features, and the second involves the production of bare adjective phrases, that is, phrases without an obligatory determiner, as mentioned above. All non-target-like tokens with respect to agreement involved a mismatch of the number feature. The discussion of these tokens is presented in Chapter 4. The second type of non-target-like attributive adjective present in the data consists of the production of bare adjectival phrases. As mentioned earlier, Londa produced 14 adjectives without the obligatory determiner out of a total of 15. Interestingly, in 8 out of the 14 instances of determiner omissions, the experimenter provided the required determiner in the question.

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Example 3.16(b) illustrates one of these cases. In this example, Londa produces the adjective grande ‘big (umn/sg)’ to refer to the masculine nominal teléfono ‘telephone.’ The context of this example is the experimenter’s statement: Mira, yo tengo el chiquito ‘Look, I have the (masc/sg) small (masc/sg) [one],’ pointing at a small telephone. The child answered by using the same structure but dropping the determiner, that is, Yo engo gande ‘I have big (unm/sg) [one].’ These results confirm that the child is neither imitating the input heard nor learning the nominal and the determiner as a unit. The analysis of the attributive adjective production reveals several aspects of these structures. First, they are not very common in children’s production, as has been reported in the acquisition literature (e.g., Mariscal 2008; Snyder, Senghas, & Inman 2001); even when they were elicited by a particular task, that is, “The race.” As discussed earlier, the two smaller children barely produced examples of this particular structure, and the older child’s production was higher, although it does not seem very rich. Second, the issue of determiner omission seems to be pervasive in this structure. Specifically, the two younger children produced a total of three utterances and all three involved the omission of the determiner. Regarding Londa, 14 out of 15 instances produced were examples of determiner omissions. These results are consistent with the results obtained for [Det-N] structures in which the three children omitted determiners in 64 percent of the obligatory contexts (see Chapter 5). These general findings on attributive adjectives were compared with the production of the two older children, Diana (3;5,27) and Pepe (4;3,10). Recall the data of these two children are introduced in the discussion when interesting. In this case, they are introduced to assess the attributive adjective production of children above the acquisition age of 3;0. Table 3.18 illustrates their production in terms of agreement. Table 3.18 demonstrates that these two children have already mastered the adjectival agreement system, displaying perfect target-like production. Examples of their target-like production are illustrated in Example 3.17.

Table 3.18 Distribution of attributive adjectives: older children Target/Non-target-like

Diana

Pepe

Total


17 (100) – 17 (100)

20 (100) – 20 (100)

37 (100) – 37 (100)

Gender Agreement Example 3.17 (a) El chiquito ‘The (masc/sg) small (masc/sg) (one)’ (b) La motora roja ‘The (fem/sg) motorcycle (fem/sg) red (fem/pl)’ (c) Un león chiquito ‘A (masc/sg) lion (unm/sg) small (masc/sg)’ (d) La[h] azule[h] ‘The (fem/pl) blue (unm/pl) (ones)’

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(Diana) (Diana) (Pepe) (Pepe)

Example 3.17 shows that the production of these two older children contrasts with that of the three smaller children on several aspects. First, regarding agreement, the examples above show target-like attributive adjective structures both in the masculine, as in Examples 3.17(a) and 3.17(c), as well in the feminine, as in Examples 3.17(b) and 3.17(d). As discussed earlier, Elián, Alonso, and Londa produced attributive structures (overtly marked) only in the masculine singular. In addition, Diana and Pepe produced structures involving N-drop, but with the obligatory determiner, for example, el chiquito ‘the small [one],’ las azules ‘the blue [ones].’ Moreover, in Example 3.17d Pepe produces a target-like utterance in the plural las azules ‘the blue [ones]’ and with the required determiner las. Finally, Diana’s and Pepe’s attributive adjective production (17) and (20) respectively, reveals that these two children produced similar proportions to Londa (15). Regarding the issue of determiner omissions, Diana omitted the obligatory determiner in two instances: Example 3.18 Child (a) *Eh, chiquito ‘Uh, small (masc/sg) [one]’ (b) *Sí, triste[h] ‘Yes, sad (unm/pl)[ones]’

Target El chiquito ‘The (masc/sg) small (masc/sg) (one)’ Sí, los tristes ‘Yes, the (masc/pl) sad (masc/pl) (ones)’

Utterances in Example 3.18 are target-like with respect to agreement, for example, number and gender features; however, they are non-target-like with respect to the obligatory determiners omitted. Diana utters Example 3.18(a) as a response to the experimenter’s question: Ese es grande, ¿y yo qué tengo? ‘That (masc/sg) [one] is big (unm/sg) and what do I have?’ The target-like answer in the attributive structure assumed here should have been el chiquito ‘the small (masc/sg) [one].’ Example 3.18(b) is a repetition

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of the experimenter’s phrase: yo tengo los trenes tristes ‘I have the (masc/pl) trains (unm/pl) sad (masc/pl).’ The child repeats the phrase by dropping both the nominal trenes ‘trains’ (allowed by the grammar) and the determiner los ‘the (masc/pl),’ which is not allowed in the Spanish grammar. I should point out that this example presents a certain level of ambiguity. One could argue for a predicative reading of this particular structure, for example, Sí son/están tristes ‘Yes, [they] are sad (unm/pl),’ an interpretation that will make this example adult-like without the determiner. As we have seen, a comparison between the three children under study with the two older children (over the age of 3;0) yielded several contrasts. First, the production of attributive adjectives is, in general, limited, with the two younger children, Elián and Alonso, barely producing any instances and the other three children, Londa, Diana, and Pepe, producing a maximum of 20 examples each. Second, regarding gender agreement, the data of Diana and Pepe show that these two children have already mastered the nominal agreement system. This finding is consistent with previous studies that have claimed that children acquire agreement around the age of 3;0 (Hernández Pina 1984). Third, the issue of determiner omissions is pervasive in Londa’s production whereas in the production of the older children it is almost non-existent, although there are still some cases in Diana’s production. The next section focuses on the analysis of agreement in predicative adjectival structures, that is, adjectives that occur with the copula ‘to be,’ for example, el caballo es verde ‘the horse is green.’

3.4.1.2.1 Predicative Adjectives This section explores the agreement relations of predicative adjectives in terms of the gender feature, that is, adjectives that occur with the copula ‘to be.’ In Spanish, the copula ‘to be’ has a dual representation, namely ser and estar. Example 3.19 (a) María es feliz (b) María está feliz

‘Mary is happy’ ‘Mary is happy’

In general terms, these two forms of the copula serve to mark the contrast between a characteristic that is perceived as permanent (ser) and one that is perceived as temporary or changeable (estar), that is, ser refers individuallevel predicates whereas estar refers to stage-level predicates (Fernández

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Leborans 1999). In Example 3.19(a) ‘happiness’ is perceived as a permanent characteristic of Mary, whereas in Example 3.19(b) the speaker marks a change in emotions for Mary, ‘she is happy now.’ The acquisition of the contrast between these two structures is beyond the scope of this research. The structure traditionally assumed for predicative adjectives is a Small Clause, as shown in Example 3.20 for the utterance está sucio ‘[it] is dirty (masc/sg).’ Example 3.20 Wili está [SC pro (masc/sg) sucio (masc/sg)] The structure in Example 3.20 shows that predicative adjective agreement involves the projection of the null subject pronoun, or pro. In particular, the gender and number features of the adjective sucio ‘dirty’ need to match the masculine singular features of pro and the nominal Wili. Table 3.19 illustrates the distribution of the predicative adjectives produced by the three children in terms of agreement. This table shows that Elián’s and Alonso’s production of this structure is limited in comparison with that of Londa, that is, (1), (10), and (66) respectively. These two children also show a limited production in attributive structures. In addition, Londa produced a significantly higher number of adjectives in this structure than in the attributive one, that is, 15 attributive adjectives versus 66 predicative ones (χ2 = 32.1, p < 0.01). Table 3.19 Distribution of predicative adjectives utterances Target /Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


1 (100) – 1 (100)

5 (50) 5 (50) 10 (100)

55 (83) 11 (17) 66 (100)

61 (79) 16 (21) 77 (100)

Because the production rates of these three children were so different, each child’s data are discussed on an individual basis. Elián produced only one example of a (potentially) predicative structure.

Example 3.21 Child

Target

Ii cayente está caliente ‘(It) is (permanent) hot (un./sg.)’ ‘(It) is (changeable) hot (unm/sg)’

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The context of Example 3.21 is that the child touched the video camera and ran back to the experimenter complaining that it was hot. In this utterance the long vowel ii could be interpreted as the copula es as in es caliente ‘it is hot.’ The target-like utterance should have been está caliente because the child was referring to a changeable state of the camera, that is, the temperature of the camera. Elián produced two additional instances of this token, but with the adjective in isolation, for example, cayente ‘hot.’ One of them occurred the first time the child touched the camera, that is, it had exactly the same context as the previous example. The second instance occurred in the context of a game: the child told the puppet to sit on a (turned off) light. When the puppet sat on it, the child turned the light on and the puppet screamed. The child produced cayente after the puppet refused to sit on the light saying: ¡No, me quemo! ‘No I will burn (myself)!’ These two adjectives produced in isolation seem to be predicative within the contexts described. However, because this adjective is not marked overtly for gender (i.e., it ends on the vowel –e, which could refer to either gender), it provides no information in terms of the gender agreement. Alonso produced a total of ten predicative adjective utterances, as shown in Table 3.19 above, of which five were target-like and five non-target-like in terms of agreement. His target-like adjectives included three different adjectives: sucio, duro, and caliente, as illustrated in Example 3.22. Example 3.22 Child

Target

(a) Eee sucio Está sucio ‘(It) is (perm) dirty (masc/sg)’ (b) Tá sucio Está sucio ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’ (c) Tá sucio Está sucio ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’ (d) Tá iente Está caliente ‘(It) is (chang) hot (un/sg)’ (e) Tá duro Está duro ‘(It) is hard (masc/sg)’

Referent [muñeco] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’ [Wili] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’ [Alonso] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’ [cámara] [sticker]

Example 3.22 illustrates that Alonso’s target-like production of predicative adjectives includes four instances of masculine adjectives and one instance of an unmarked adjective. Specifically, in 3.22(a) the child gave a target-like response (in terms of agreement) to the experimenter’s question:

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73

¿Está limpio? ‘Is [it] clean (masc/sg)?’ with ee sucio for es sucio ‘[it] is (permanent) dirty (masc/sg)’ instead of está sucio.12 In this context, the targetlike form of the copula is estar because the child is referring to a state of dirtiness that can change. Examples 3.22(b) and 3.22(c) were produced as responses to the experimenter’s follow-up questions: ¿Y Wili? ‘And Wili (is he dirty)?’ and ¿Y Alonso? ‘And Alonso (is he dirty)?’ respectively. In these two cases, the child responded in a target-like fashion regarding agreement and the use of the appropriate form of the copula, the verb estar. In the three examples discussed above, the masculine singular features of the adjective sucio matched the masculine singular features of the modified nominals: muñeco ‘male doll,’ Wili ‘male whale,’ and Alonso ‘the child himself.’ In Example 3.22(d) Alonso uttered the adjective caliente ‘hot (unm/ sg)’ to refer to the video camera. As pointed out in the discussion of Elián’s production, this adjective is not marked overtly for gender, so it provides no agreement information with regard to gender. Finally, the child produced the adjective duro ‘hard (masc/sg)’ in 3.22(e) to refer to the fact that it was hard to unstick a sticker. Notice that all these examples referred to masculine nominals. This is consistent with Alonso’s overall production, in which the vast majority of his data is in the masculine singular form. Alonso produced five non-target-like examples of predicative adjectives, illustrated in Example 3.23. Example 3.23 Child

Target

Referent

(a) *Tá sucio Está sucia [bola ‘ball’] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’ ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (fem/sg)’ (b) *Tá sucio Está sucia [bola ‘ball’] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’ ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (fem/sg)’ (c). *No, ucio No, [está] sucia [media ‘sock’] ‘No, dirty (masc/sg)’ ‘No, (it is –chang.) dirty (fem/sg)’ (d) *tá espierto Está despierta [vaca ‘cow’] ‘(It) is (chang) awake (masc/sg)’ ‘(It)is (chang) awake (fem/sg)’ (e) *Son sucio Están sucios [pies ‘feet’] ‘(They) are (perm) dirty (masc/sg)’ ‘(They) are (chang) dirty (masc/pl)’ In Example 3.23, we can see that Alonso’s non-target-like production involved two different adjectives, sucio ‘dirty (masc/sg)’ and despierto ‘awake (masc/sg).’ In addition, the utterances in Example 3.23 present an interesting case on the use of a particular adjective, sucio ‘dirty (masculine/singular),’

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namely the child used this adjective marked as masculine singular to modify feminine nominals. In Example 3.23(a) the experimenter asked Alonso for the ball: Préstamelo ‘Lend it (neuter/sg) to me,’ and the child refused by saying tá sucio ‘(it) is (changeable) dirty (masc/sg).’ In this particular example, the experimenter used the neuter form of the clitic pronoun lo ‘it’ (instead of the feminine form la ‘it (fem/sg)’) not to mark the nominal bola ‘ball (fem/sg)’ as feminine. In the following Example 3.23(b), the experimenter marked the feminine gender of the nominal bola ‘ball’ in the demonstrative pronoun: ¿Y esa? ‘And that (fem/sg) [one]?’ pointing at another ball. Nonetheless, the child gave exactly the same non-target-like gender response, tá sucio ‘[it] is (changeable) dirty (masc/sg).’ Similarly, in Example 3.23(c), the experimenter asked the child if the sock was clean, marking the feminine gender of the nominal media ‘sock (fem/sg)’ in both the adjective and the clitic: ¿Está limpia? Mírala ‘Is [it] clean (fem/sg)? Look [at] it (fem/sg)’ as the experimenter showed him a dirty sock. Alonso answered no, ucio ‘No, dirty (masc/sg).’ Notice that the nominals involved in these three non-target-like utterances were all canonically marked for the feminine gender, that is, they all ended in the feminine word marker –a: bol–a, medi–a. This finding brings support to the conclusion that at this stage of acquisition the morphophonological clues present in the input are not vital in the process of establishing agreement, as we saw earlier in the case of (full) DPs and MPH/DPs. Moreover, this result contradicts Pérez-Pereira’s (1991) claim that children pay attention to intralinguistic clues such as morphological endings and syntactic agreement morphemes, in gender assignment. The difference in the results might be due to developmental differences between the participants of the two studies. In particular, the children who participated in the Pérez-Pereira’s study ranged in age from 4 to 11 years old, whereas the children in the present study are under the age of 3. It is possible that at this earlier stage of acquisition they are not making use yet of the clues present in the input. Example 3.23(d) illustrates a non-target-like utterance involving a different adjective, that is, the masculine gender feature of the adjective despierto ‘awake’ does not match the feminine feature of the nominal vaca ‘cow (fem/sg).’ In the context of this utterance, the experimenter instructed the child to be quiet because the cow was sleeping: Shh, no lo despiertes ‘Ssh, do not wake him/it up.’ In this utterance, the experimenter used the masculine (also the neuter form) clitic lo ‘him/it’ not to provide the target gender cues to the child. The child responded by picking up the cow and saying: Dame, dame tá despierto ‘Give me, give me [it] is awake (masc/sg).’ The discussion of Alonso’s predicative adjective production brings support for the hypothesis of a masculine default value for the gender feature

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75

in this child’s grammar. This was evidenced in his consistent production of the masculine singular adjective sucio ‘dirty’ to refer to both feminine and masculine nominals. In contrast with the other two children discussed above, Londa produced a high proportion of predicative adjectives (66). An analysis of her production reveals a total of 21 different adjectives produced, some of them were only in the masculine, for example, tá entado for está sentado ‘(he) is seated (masc/sg),’ and others were only in the feminine, for example, tá[h] fea for estás fea ‘[you] are ugly (fem/sg).’ However she produced three adjectives in both genders, as shown in Example 3.24. Example 3.24 (a) chiquito/chiquita Este ee ito for Este es chiquito No, ita for No, chiquita (b) dormido/dormida Tá domío for Está dormido Mira tá domida for está dormida (c) sucio/sucia Tá sucio for Está sucio Tá sucia for Está sucia

‘small (masc/fem)’ ‘This (masc/sg) (one) is small (masc/sg)’ ‘No, small (fem/sg) (one)’ ‘asleep (masc/fem)’ ‘[He] is asleep (masc/sg)’ ‘Look [she] is asleep (fem/sg)’ ‘dirty (masc/fem)’ ‘(He) is dirty (masc/sg)’ ‘(She) is dirty (fem/sg)’

In Example 3.24, Londa uses the three adjectives in both genders in a target-like fashion. Notice that in terms of number all of her adjectives were marked as singular, but not all of them had singular referents. This issue is discussed in Chapter 4. We turn our discussion now to Londa’s non-target-like utterances. Out of a total of 54 predicative adjective tokens (excluding repetitions) found in this child’s data, 11 were non-target-like in terms of agreement. Two types of non-target-like utterances were found in Londa’s data: (a) utterances that involved a gender mismatch and (b) utterances that involved a number mismatch. Example 3.25 illustrates the former, and the latter is presented in Chapter 4. Example 3.25 Child

Target

Referent

(a) *Etá abielto Está abierta boca ‘mouth (fem/sg)’ ‘(It) is opened (masc/sg)’ ‘(It) is opened (fem/sg)’ (b) *Tá jerrado Está cerrada boca ‘mouth (fem/sg)’ ‘[It] is closed (masc/sg)’ ‘[It] is closed (fem/sg)’

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(c) *Toy sentaou ‘I am seated (masc/sg)’ (d) *Yo stoy contento ‘I am happy (masc/sg)’ (e) *Jojo ‘red (masc/sg)’

Estoy sentada Londa herself ‘I am seated (fem/sg)’ Yo estoy contenta Londa herself ‘I am happy (fem/sg)’ Roja paleta ‘lollipop(fem/sg)’ ‘red (fem/sg)’

In Example 3.25, Londa produced masculine marked adjectives to modify feminine nominals. In Examples 3.25(a) and 3.25(b) two masculine adjectives were used to refer to the feminine nominal boca ‘mouth.’ Specifically, Londa uttered Example 3.25(a) as a response to the experimenter’s statement: Y mira ahora ‘And look now’ while opening the mouth of the snake. The child responded by saying etá bielto for está abierto ‘[It] is opened (masc/sg).’ The context of Example 3.25(b) was similar, the experimenter closed the mouth of the snake and asked the child: ¿Y ahora? ‘And now?’ Londa responded with the adjective in the masculine form, for example, tá jerrado for está cerrado ‘[it] is closed (masc/sg).’ There were two other instances of the adjective cerrado ‘closed’ but in those the child produced target-like agreement with a feminine nominal, for example, jerrada for cerrada ‘closed (fem/sg).’ In the first instance, the experimenter marked the gender of the nominal: Y mira la boquita, ¿cómo está? ‘And look [at] the (fem/sg) mouth (diminutive/fem/sg), how is (it)?’ The child responded with the adjective in the feminine singular form jerrada ‘closed.’ In the other instance, the experimenter used the demonstrative pronoun in the masculine gender to refer to the same feminine nominal to see if the child was copying the pattern used in the question: ¿Y este? ‘And this (masc/sg) [one]?’ pointing at the mouth of the fish. The child responded target-like with the feminine marked adjective, for example, tá jerrada for está cerrada ‘[it] is closed (fem/sg).’ The contrast in the production of these target-like instances with the adjective “closed” and the non-target-like ones in Examples 3.25(a) and 3.25(b) seem to indicate the presence of a default value for gender, the masculine one. In Examples 3.25(c) and 3.25(d) Londa produced masculine adjectives to refer to herself. Specifically, in Example 3.25(c) the child indicated that she was seated using the adjective in the masculine form, for example, toy sentao for estoy sentado ‘I am seated (masc/sg)’ instead of estoy sentada ‘I am seated (fem/sg),’ while in 3.25(d) she indicated that she was happy using the masculine ending of the adjective, for example, toy contento ‘I am happy (masc/sg)’ instead of estoy contenta ‘I am happy (fem/sg).’ These two examples seem to indicate that Londa has not yet acquired natural or semantic gender of animate objects and as

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a result she marks the adjectives with the masculine default value. This finding is supported by Londa’s utterances with demonstrative pronouns in which she assigned the wrong gender to the horses, as discussed in the next section. Example 3.26 Child

Target

(a) ése es mamá ésa es la mamá ‘that (masc/sg) (one) is mom (fem/sg)’ ‘that (fem/sg)(one) is the mom’ (b) ésa es papá ése es el papá ‘that (fem/sg) (one) is dad (masc/sg)’ ‘that (masc/sg) is the dad’ In Example 3.26, Londa assigned family roles to a group of toy horses: mother, father, and so on. As a result, the assignment of semantic gender became necessary to match the referents. Londa had difficulty in this task and assigned the incorrect gender to these nominals with natural gender, mamá ‘mom’ and papá ‘dad.’ In particular, in Example 3.26(a) she referred to mamá with the masculine demonstrative ése. This example could be explained if she was saying ‘this horse (masc/sg) is mom.’ However, in Example 3.26(b) she used the feminine demonstrative ésa ‘this [one]’ to refer to the masculine nominal papá ‘dad.’ This result is at odds with Hernández Pina’s (1984) finding that Rafael (her son) acquired natural gender before grammatical gender. One possibility is that Rafael was referring to himself as masculine because he was using the default value not because he actually knew he was a male, that is, in his case the masculine default coincided with his natural gender, namely, male. The last utterance in Example 3.25, presents an interesting case of gender agreement. Specifically, in Example 3.25(e) the child uttered the color adjective jojo ‘red (masc/sg)’ as a response to her mother’s question: ¿De qué color es la paleta? ‘What color is the (fem/sg) lollipop (fem/sg)?’ Even though the noun la paleta ‘the lollipop’ was given to her in the question with its feminine feature overtly marked, the child uttered the adjective in the masculine gender. There was a second instance of this token and the child uttered it as a response to a similar question: Example 3.27 Experimenter: Pero ¿qué motora ganó? ‘But what motorcycle (fem/sg) won?’

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Child:

Esta. ‘This (fem/sg) (one).’ Experimenter: ¿Y de qué color es esa? ‘And what color is that (fem/sg) (one)?’ Child: *Jojo for rojo ‘Red (masc/sg)’ In the dialogue in Example 3.27 the child knew the nominal motora ‘motorcycle (fem/sg)’ was feminine because she has used the feminine form of the demonstrative pronoun ésta ‘this (one)’ to refer to it. Mariscal (2008) reports that the children in her study exhibited similar gender agreement issues with color adjectives. I would like to propose that gender mismatches with the adjective rojo ‘red’ may be due to the child’s lack of understanding of the structure used in the question or a structure misinterpretation (Socarrás 2003). That is, the child does not know the difference between two related structures, or has a parsing preference for one of the possible structures (Crain & Thornton 1998) as in Example 3.28. Example 3.28 (a) La motora es [SC pro (fem/sg) roja (fem/sg)] The motorcycle is [SC pro (fem/sg) red (fem/sg)] (b) La motora es [PP de color (masc/sg) rojo (masc/sg) ] The motorcycle is [PP of color (masc/sg) red (masc/sg)] In Example 3.28(a) the adjective roja ‘red’ has to agree with the feminine noun motora, for example, roja ‘red (fem/sg),’ and in 3.28(b) the adjective agrees with the masculine nominal color ‘color,’ for example, rojo ‘red (masc/sg).’ It seems that Londa is establishing agreement with the nominal color instead of with the nominal motora. In order to explore the validity of the structure misinterpretation hypothesis, Londa’s results were compared with the predicative adjective production of the two older children, Diana and Pepe. Table 3.20 shows that Diana produced a total of 27 tokens (once repetitions were excluded) of predicative adjectives, out of which 24 were targetlike and 3 non-target-like in terms of agreement. In the case of Pepe, Table 3.20 shows that he produced a total of 50 tokens (excluding repetitions) of predicative adjectives, out of which 47 were target-like and 3 were non-target-like. Overall, these two children exhibit an almost perfect production of predicative adjectives in terms of agreement. Hence we can conclude that they have acquired the agreement system in this particular structure.

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Table 3.20 Distribution of predicative adjectives: older children Target/Non-target-like

Diana

Pepe

Total


24 (89) 3 (11) 27 (100)

47 (94) 3 (6) 50 (100)

71 (92) 6 (8) 77 (100)

We turn our attention to the non-target-like production of these two children. Notice that Diana’s three non-target-like tokens involved gender assignment with color adjectives. Example 3.29 (a) Child Target

*Estee ... Ella[h] son amarillo[h] Ellas son amarillas

‘Um..They (fem/pl) are yellow (masc/pl)’ ‘They (fem/pl) are yellow (fem/pl)’

Referent: mariposas ‘butterflies’ (b) Child Target

*De amarilla (Son) amarillas

‘Of [the color] yellow (fem/sg)’ ‘[They] (are) yellow (fem/pl)’

Referent: bolas ‘balls’ (c) Child *Son azul Target (Son) azules Referent: bolas ‘balls’

‘(They) are blue (unm/sg)’ ‘(They) (are) blue (unm/pl)’

Utterances listed in Example 3.29 present two types of non-target-like utterances; the first relates to a gender mismatch, for example, Example 3.29(a), and the second one involves a number mismatch, for example, Examples 3.29(b) and 3.29(c). Specifically, in Example 3.29(a) Diana uttered the masculine plural color adjective amarillo[h] ‘yellow’ to refer to the feminine plural nominal mariposas ‘butterflies.’ This utterance was produced as a response to the experimenter’s question: ¿Y de qué color son? ‘Of what color are (they)?’ (What color (masc/sg) are (they)?) In this example, the child marked the plurality of the nominal with an aspirated s sound h, but failed to mark the appropriate gender of the feminine referent, mariposas ‘butterflies (fem/pl).’ This particular non-target-like utterance is highly unusual in the overall production data, that is, an agreeing element (an adjective in this case) being marked with the target-like plural number but with a


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gender mismatch. Of a total of 46 gender mismatches found in the data, only three involved the target-like marking of the plural number feature but a non-target-like marking of the gender feature. The other two examples of this type involved the production of demonstrative pronouns, as illustrated in Example 3.30. Example 3.30 (a) Child: *Esto[h] son flore[h] Target: (b) Child: Target:

Estas son flores *Esto[h] son uita[h] Estas son uvitas

‘These (masc/pl)are flowers (unm/fem/pl)’ ‘These (fem/pl) are flowers (unm/ fem/pl)’ ‘These (masc/pl) are grapes (dim/ fem/pl)’ ‘These (fem/pl) are grapes (dim/ fem/pl)’

Referent: [uvas ‘grapes’] In these two utterances in Example 3.30 Londa produced the demonstrative pronoun Estos ‘these’ in the plural in a target-like fashion, however, in terms of gender agreement the feminine gender features of the nominals involved do not match the masculine feature of the demonstrative pronoun. Two possible explanations come to mind to account for Example 3.29(a), repeated here as Example 3.31. Example 3.31 *Ella[h] son amarillo[h]

‘They (fem/pl) are yellow (masc/pl).’

First, one could argue that this example is the result of the application of the masculine gender as the default value. However, this hypothesis cannot account for the fact that this default value was only triggered with color adjectives, that is, these were the only non-target-like examples produced by Diana with respect to gender, as discussed earlier. Also notice that in this example, the child marked the feminine gender in a target-like fashion on the pronominal ellas ‘they (fem/pl).’ Another possibility is to argue that the child misinterpreted the structure used in the question to elicit the color adjective, that is, she was interpreting the structure of the question as the one in Example 3.32(a) instead of the one in Example 3.32(b).

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Example 3.32 (a) Las mariposas son [PP de color amarillo] Butterflies are [PP of the color [mas/sg] yellow [mas/sg]] (b) Las mariposas son [SC pro amarillas] Butterflies are [PP pro [fem/pl] yellow [fem/pl]] In Example 3.32(a) the color adjective amarillo ‘yellow (masc/sg)’ agrees with the masculine singular nominal color ‘color,’ and in Example 3.32(b) the adjective in the small clause agrees with the features of the pro, which match the features of the NP las mariposas ‘the butterflies (fem/pl).’ As the reader might recall, similar non-target-like structures were discussed earlier in Londa’s data. The difference in this particular case is that Diana’s grammar is at a later developmental stage, hence she is between the two structural interpretations. In particular, she marked the plural number feature in a target-like fashion, but still marked the nominal as masculine, amarillo[h] ‘yellow (masc/pl).’ Example 3.29(b), *De amarilla ‘Of yellow (fem/sg)’ illustrates a second instance of the same color adjective. In this instance, the adjective agrees with the feminine gender of the nominal bolas ‘balls (fem/pl)’ but there is a mismatch of the number feature. This second instance occurred in the following context: Example 3.33 Experimenter: ¿Bolas qué? ¿de qué color? ‘Balls (fem/pl) what? ¿what color (balls)?’ Child: Este... bola[h] ‘Um... balls (fem/pl)’ Experimenter: ¿Bolas de qué color? ‘Balls (fem/pl) (of) what color?’ Child: *De amarilla ‘Of yellow (fem/sg)’ The dialogue shown in Example 3.33, presents Diana’s target-like response in terms of gender. Interestingly, the child copied the structure of the question in her answer de amarilla ‘of yellow,’ instead of amarilla, that is, she used the preposition de ‘of’ with the color adjective. This utterance seems to indicate that this child’s grammar interprets the structure in the question as the structure in Example 3.32(a) above, hence copying the preposition, that is, las bolas son de color amarillo ‘the balls are of the color yellow.’ Notice that within the prepositional structural interpretation, only the singular

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number is possible, cf. De color amarillo ‘Of color yellow (masc/sg)’ versus *De color amarillos ‘Of color yellow (masc/pl).’ The child produced this type of response with other color adjectives as shown in Example 3.34. Example 3.34 Experimenter: Child: Experimenter: Child:

¿De qué color es? *De azul ¿De azul? De azulito

‘(Of) what color is (it)?’ ‘Of blue (unm/sg) ‘Of blue?’ ‘Of blue (diminutive/masc/sg)’

In the Example 3.34 above, Diana uttered again the preposition de ‘of’ with a color adjective. When the experimenter repeated her response, she confirmed her answer by repeating the adjective azul ‘blue’ this time in the diminutive form azulito ‘blue (dim/masc/sg).’ In her last non-target-like token shown in Example 3.29(c), *son azul ‘[they] are blue (unm/sg),’ Diana uttered the copula in the plural but the adjective azul in the singular to refer to the plural nominal bolas ‘balls (fem/pl).’ This token was produced as an answer to the experimenter’s question: Pero, ¿de qué color? ‘But, (of) what color?’ If our structural misinterpretation hypothesis is correct, this answer can be paraphrased as las bolas son de color azul ‘The balls are of color blue (unm/sg).’ As we have seen, Diana’s production confirms the prediction made by our hypothesis, that children would have problems with color adjectives due to the possible ambiguity in the interpretation of this particular structure, even those that have mastered agreement. Pepe’s non-target-like production is discussed next. The analysis of his production reveals three non-target-like examples with respect to agreement, but only one pertains to the gender feature. Example 3.35 (a) Child: *Y este veide, veide, y amarillo. ‘And this (masc/sg) [one)] green (unm/sg), green (unm/sg) and yellow (masc/sg)’ Target: Y esta (es) verde, verde y amarilla ‘And this (fem/sg) [one] green (um/sg), green (unm/sg) and yellow (fem/sg)’ (b) Child: *Igual a esto[h] ‘Similar (unm/sg) to these (masc/pl)’ Target: Iguales a estos ‘Similar (unm/pl) to these (masc/pl)’

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(c) *Desenmotao ‘[They] (are) disassembled (masc/sg)’ Target: [Están] desmontados ‘[They] (are) disassembled (masc/pl)’ As in the case of Diana, Pepe’s non-target-like production with respect to gender involved a color adjective, for example, Example 3.35(a). In addition, Pepe produced two examples involving a number mismatch, for example, Examples 3.35(b) and 3.35(c), discussed in Chapter 4. In Example 3.35(a) the masculine feature of the demonstrative determiner este ‘this’ and the adjective amarillo ‘yellow’ do not match the feminine feature of the referent, namely the nominal tortuga ‘turtle.’ Notice that Pepe has referred before to this particular nominal in a target-like fashion, for example, dos tortuguita[h],una grande y una chiquita ‘two turtles (dim/fem/pl), one (fem/ sg) big (unm/sg) and one (fem/sg) small (fem/sg).’ Nonetheless the interpretation of Example 3.35(a) presents some ambiguity with the availability of two readings. One possible reading would be one involving the enumeration of the different colors of the turtle: Y este color es verde, este es verde y este es amarillo ‘and this (masc/sg) color is green, this [one] is green and this [one] is yellow (masc/sg),’ in which case it would be target-like with respect to the adjective agreement. The other possible reading would be: Y esta tortuga es verde, verde y amarilla ‘And this (fem/sg) [one] is green, green and yellow (fem/sg),’ in which case Example 3.35(a) would be non-target-like because the masculine gender features of the pronominal este ‘this (one)’ and the adjective amarillo ‘yellow’ do not match the feminine gender feature of the nominal tortuga ‘turtle.’ The context of the utterance favors this second interpretation; Pepe produced Example 3.35(a) as he picked up the turtle, referring to it with the masculine demonstrative pronominal este. Notice that this type of non-target-like utterance is similar to the non-target-like utterances discussed earlier involving color adjectives, for example, both Londa and Diana produced similar non-target-like utterances with color adjectives. The examination of predicative adjective data leads to several generalizations. First, there is a marked contrast between the production levels of Elián and Alonso and the production of Londa (χ2 = 11, p < 0.01). In the former two cases, the production is extremely limited and only in the masculine gender, whereas in the latter, her production is comparable to the production of the two older children, Diana and Pepe, that is, Londa (54 tokens), Diana (27 tokens), and Pepe (50 tokens). Second, regarding the availability of default values for the features gender and number, the data of the three younger children showed evidence for masculine as the

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default value for gender. In particular, Alonso and Londa produced masculine singular predicative adjectives to refer to feminine singular nominals, for example, *Tá sucio (Alonso) ‘[It] is dirty (masc/sg)’ instead of Está sucia ‘[It] is dirty (fem/sg)’ to refer to the feminine nominal media ‘sock.’ Third, the data of the two older children revealed that the vast majority of their utterances were target-like, for example, Diana (3 non-target-like out of 27) and Pepe (3 non-target-like out of 50). This was not true in the data of the younger children; specifically Alonso produced 5 non-target-like utterances out of a total of 10 (50 percent) and Londa produced 11 non-target-like utterances out of 54 tokens (20 percent). In Alonso’s case, the difference between target and non-target-like production is not significant. On the other side, Londa produced a significantly higher number of target-like predicative adjectives (χ2 = 19, p < 0.01). In addition, the analysis showed that non-target-like utterances in this structure pertained to both gender and number mismatches (see Chapter 4). In the former, it involved the application of the masculine default value to both feminine and masculine nominals and the apparent difficulty in the interpretation of the structure used to elicit color adjectives. Notice that this particular result pertaining to a non-target-like gender production was not found in the attributive data, that is, all the non-target-like production involving adjectives in attributive structures involved a number mismatch. This contrast in targetness points to a difference in the acquisition of these two structures, with attributive adjective acquisition preceding predicative one. Moreover, notice that the production data on attributive adjectives patterns with that of full DPs, that is, in both structures non-target-like production was circumscribed to number mismatches. In the case of predicative adjectives, the acquisition data of this structure parallels the acquisition of demonstratives, in which both gender and number mismatches were found. In the next section gender agreement in pronominals is examined; in particular in demonstrative and clitic pronouns produced by children under study. 3.4.1.3 Demonstrative Pronouns and Third Person Clitic Pronouns This section discusses the agreement patterns exhibited in the production of demonstrative pronouns and third person clitic pronouns. These two pronominal constituents were included in the data analysis to collect additional information on initial agreement relations children establish in order to obtain a broader view of agreement in Spanish early grammars. In addition, the analysis of these pronominals sheds some light on the availability of

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default values in Spanish child language. As in the case of the other constituents included in the present analysis, these pronominals also mark overtly the gender and number features, as illustrated in Example 3.36. Example 3.36 (a) esta tiene mucha[h] manchita[h] (Pepe) ‘this (fem/sg) (one) has many spots’ (b) Y este mira (Alonso) ‘And this (masc/sg) (one) look’ (c) A comer eso (Elián) ‘To eat that (neuter)’ Utterances listed in Example 3.36 illustrate how demonstrative pronouns and third person clitics, in particular direct object pronouns, agree with the features of the nominals they refer to. In 3.36(a), the demonstrative esta ‘this [one]’ is marked with the same agreement features of the noun vaca ‘cow (fem/sg),’ whereas in 3.36(b) the demonstrative este ‘this (masc/sg) [one]’ agrees with the nominal it refers to, caballo ‘horse (masc/sg).’ These demonstrative pronouns are also interesting because they offer a third contrast regarding gender, that is, the neuter gender as in shown in Example 3.36(c). In this example, the neuter pronominal esto ‘this (neuter-generic)’ refers to a generic entity, in this case to the grama ‘grass.’ The analysis of this three-way gender contrast (i.e., masculine-feminine-neuter) could shed light on how the children under study treat these neuter forms. On the one hand, they could treat them as the masculine demonstrative form given the fact that these neuter forms have the canonical mark for this gender (namely final –o), for example, est–o ‘this,’ es–o ‘that,’ aquell–o ‘that (over there).’ Moreover, the masculine plural forms are marked with the –os, for example, estos ‘these,’ esos ‘those,’ aquellos ‘those (over there).’ On the other hand, children might treat the neuter gender as a completely distinct gender, namely a gender with a more generic reference. Regarding the third person clitic pronouns, in particular, direct object pronouns, these could also provide information on the agreement relations between these pronouns and the nominals they refer to, as seen in Example 3.37. Example 3.37 (a) ¿Tú lo viste? (b) Sácala (c) Coelo[h]

(Diana) (Alonso) (Alonso)

‘Did you see him (masc/sg)’ ‘Take it (fem/sg) off’ ‘Take them (masc/pl)’

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Third person clitics (direct object pronouns) mark both the number and gender features overtly, as illustrated in Example 3.37. In Example 3.37(a) the masculine singular clitic lo ‘it’ agrees with the masculine singular features of the nominal it refers to, that is, nene ‘boy (masc/sg),’ whereas in 3.37(b) the clitic pronoun la ‘it’ marks overtly the feminine singular features of the noun it refers to, that is, ropa ‘clothing.’ On the other hand, Example 3.37(c) illustrates how the masculine plural feature of the clitic pronoun los ‘them’ agrees with the corresponding features of the nominal caballos ‘horses (masculine/plural).’

3.4.1.3.1 Demonstrative Pronouns The analysis of the demonstrative pronoun production reveals that the children under study produced a total of 165 utterances involving a demonstrative pronoun, as seen in Table 3.21. This table also shows that Londa produced four times more instances than Elián and Alonso, for a total of 128 utterances involving a demonstrative pronoun. Moreover, this table also indicates that the three children produced significantly more target-like demonstrative pronouns than non-target-like ones (χ2 = 80.15, p < 0.0001). An examination of the 165 demonstrative pronouns produced by the three children yielded a total of 119 tokens of demonstrative pronouns (once repetitions were eliminated), out of which 19 (16 percent) were nontarget-like with respect to agreement. Table 3.22 points to the fact that the overall demonstrative pronoun production of the three children can be characterized as mostly masculine and neuter in terms of gender; and singular in terms of number, that is, masculine singular demonstratives represent for 40 percent of utterances and neuter demonstrative pronouns accounted for 45 percent. A possible explanation for the abundant production of neuter demonstratives could be the fact that Spanish allows the use of neuter demonstratives to refer to both masculine and feminine nominals (as well as plural ones) in certain Table 3.21 Distribution of demonstrative pronouns Target/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


8 (80) 2 (20) 10 (100)

21 (78) 6 (22) 27 (100)

111 (88) 17 (12) 128 (100)

140 (85) 25 (15) 165 (100)

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Table 3.22 Demonstrative pronoun tokens Masculine


Elián Alonso Londa Total (%)

Feminine

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

4 1 4 3 29 7 48 (40)

– – 1 – 8 2 11 (9)

– – – – 4 2 6 (5)

– – – – 1 – 1 (1)

Neuter

Total

3 1 13 1 33 2 53 (45)

7 2 18 4 75 13 119 (100)

contexts, given the fact that there are no nominals marked as neuter in this language, for example, esto es un perro ‘this (neut) is a (masc/sg) dog (masc/ sg);’ esto es una silla ‘this (neut) is a (fem/sg) chair (fem/sg).’ The majority of the masculine and neuter pronouns produced were target-like as can be seen in Table 3.22. Specifically, 13 (4.5 percent) out of a total of 59 masculine demonstrative tokens were non-target-like and 4 (13.3 percent) out of 53 neuter demonstrative tokens were non-target-like with respect to agreement. We will turn our attention to the 19 non-target-like demonstrative pronoun tokens produced by the three children. Notice that all the nontarget-like demonstrative tokens involved the gender feature, the focus of the present chapter. In particular, the most common type of non-adult like production involved the use of a masculine demonstrative to refer to a feminine nominal, accounting for 13 out of a total of 19 non-target-like demonstratives produced. First in Elián’s production, two non-target-like demonstratives were found. Example 3.38 Child (a) *Eso ‘That (neut)’ (b) *Ese e una ‘That (masc/sg) (one) is one (fem/sg)’

Target Ese ‘This (masc/sg) (one)’ Esa es una ‘That (fem/sg) (one) is one (fem/sg)’

The context of Example 3.38 was the experimenter asking the child: ¿Cuál quieres? ‘Which one [of the cats] do you want?’ The child responded with


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the demonstrative in the neuter gender *eso ‘that’ as he took one of the cats. The target-like answer should have been a demonstrative in the masculine gender, that is, este ‘this [one]’ or ese ‘that [one].’ A possible explanation for this non-target-like example could be that the child does not understand yet the difference between qué ‘what’ versus cuál ‘which [one].’ Notice that if the question had been ¿qué quieres? ‘what do you want?’ the child’s answer would have been target-like, that is, eso ‘that (neuter-stuff).’ Another possibility is that Elián was using eso instead of the masculine determiner ese in an attempt to regularize the paradigm, that is, the child used the canonical masculine gender mark –o.13 However, no conclusions can be reached given this child’s limited production. The second non-target-like utterance produced by Elián involves a mismatch of the gender feature, as shown in Example 3.38(b). Elián uttered the masculine singular demonstrative *este ‘this [one]’ to refer to mariposa ‘butterfly’ a feminine singular nominal. Notice that in this same example the child produced the feminine pronoun una ‘one’ in agreement with the nominal mariposa. This example might point towards the presence of a default gender value for the demonstrative pronouns, that is, the masculine gender. In the case of Alonso, his four non-target-like utterances were of two kinds as illustrated in Example 3.39. Example 3.39 Child (a) *So[h] Wili ‘This (neut) is Willy’ (b) *Toa, ese[h] tuyo ‘Take, that (masc/sg) [one] is yours (masc/sg)’ (c) *Te[h] tuyo ‘This (masc/sg) [one] is yours (masc/sg)’ (d) *Ese es tuyo ‘That (masc/sg)[one] is yours (masc/sg)’

Target Ese es Wili ‘This (masc/sg) [one] is Willy’ Toma, esa es tuya ‘Take, that (fem/sg) [one] is yours (fem/sg)’ Esta es tuya ‘This (fem/sg)[one] is yours (fem/sg)’ Esa es tuya ‘That (fem/sg)[one] is yours (fem/sg)’

The first type of non-target-like utterance involved the production of the neuter demonstrative eso ‘that [generic reference]’ instead of ese ‘that (masc/sg)(one)’ to refer to his toy Willy, as shown in Example 3.39(a). Alonso produced only one instance of this type. The second type of nontarget-like utterance produced by Alonso, consisted on the use of the masculine demonstrative pronoun to refer to feminine nominals, as illustrated

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in Examples 3.39(b) to 3.39(d). In particular, non-target-like utterances in Examples 3.39(b) and 3.39(c) involved the use of the masculine demonstratives to refer to the feminine nominals serpiente ‘snake’ and flor ‘flower’ respectively. Notice that in these two examples the pronouns referred to feminine nominals that were not overtly marked for gender. In Example 3.39(d), Alonso produced the masculine demonstrative ese ‘that (one)’ to refer to the feminine nominal motora ‘motorcycle.’ Notice that in this case the child uses a masculine pronoun to refer to motora even though the nominal is canonically marked for gender (ending in –a). Alonso’s nontarget-like demonstratives seem to point to the presence of an initial default value for gender, namely, the masculine one. Moreover, there are indications in his production that morphophononological clues present in the input play no decisive role in gender assignment. Londa produced a total of 17 non-target-like demonstrative pronouns (see Appendix C for a list). A total of 13 non-target-like demonstrative tokens were found in her data, once repetitions were eliminated. Three types of non-target-like utterances were found in this child’s data. The first type relates to the use of masculine demonstratives to refer to feminine nominals; the vast majority of utterances (9 out of 13 tokens) were of this type. The second type of non-target-like utterance involves the opposite case, that is the use of a feminine demonstrative to refer to a masculine nominal (two tokens of this type were found). Finally, Londa produced two non-target-like instances involving the use of a neuter pronoun to refer to a masculine nominal, as in the case of the other two children. Example 3.40 Child (a) *Este ona ‘This (masc/sg)[one] works’ (b) *Este e sita ‘This (masc/sg)[one] is house’ (c) *Estos son uitas ‘These (masc/pl) are grapes (dim/fem/pl)’

Target Esta funciona [luz ‘light’] ‘This (fem/sg)[one] works’ Esta es [una] casita [casa ‘house’] ‘This is (a) house (dim/fem/sg)’ Estas son uvitas [uvas ‘grapes’] ‘These (fem/pl) are grapes (dim/ fem/pl)’

(d) *Esa[h] papá Ese es papá [caballo ‘horse’] ‘This (fem/sg) [one] is dad’ ‘This (masc/sg)[one] is the dad’ (e) *Esto Este [pez ‘fish’] ‘This (neuter)’ ‘This (masc/sg) [one]’ (f) *Esto lo senta Este lo siento ‘This (neuter) (he/she) sits him’ ‘This (masc) [one](I) seat him’

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In Examples 3.40(a) to 3.40(c) Londa uses masculine demonstrative pronouns to refer to feminine nominals. Specifically in Example 3.40(a) the child utters este ‘this (one)’ to refer to the feminine noun luz ‘light,’ whereas in 3.40(b) she produces the same masculine pronoun to refer to the feminine nominal casita ‘little house.’ In this particular example, the referent of the utterance was a sad face painted on top of a light, not the light itself. Example 3.40(c) involves the same type of non-target-like utterance, in this case the production of the masculine plural form of the demonstrative pronoun estos ‘these (ones)’ to refer to the feminine plural nominal uvitas ‘little grapes.’ Example 3.40(d) is of a different nature. It involves the use of the feminine demonstrative esa ‘that (one)’ to refer to the masculine nominal papá ‘dad.’ In this particular token, the notion of natural gender is involved in the assignment of the gender feature, that is, the child has assigned prototypical family roles to the horses: mom, dad, babies. In addition to this example, Londa produced a similar one to refer to the mom horse: ese[h] mamá ‘this (masc/sg) is mom.’ In this instance one could argue that the masculine demonstrative is referring to the nominal horse as in ese caballo es la mamá ‘that (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg) is the mom.’ Nonetheless, there is additional evidence that Londa has some difficulties with the assignment of natural gender, as shown in the discussion of predicative adjectives, for example, Londa produced the masculine adjective to refer to herself: toy contento for estoy contento ‘I am happy (masc/sg).’ Finally, in Examples 3.40(e) and 3.40(f) the child uttered the neuter pronoun esto ‘that’ to refer to a specific masculine referent. In particular, Example 3.40(e) was produced as a response to the experimenter’s question ¿cuál es el azul? ‘which is the blue (one)?’ Notice that Elián’s non-target-like utterance with the neuter pronoun involved exactly the same type of question, namely, the wh-element cuál ‘which one.’ As we noted earlier, this might be an indication that children at the earlier stages of acquisition have not established yet the contrast in interpretation between ‘which’ and ‘what.’ In Example 3.40(f) Londa spontaneously referred to a male doll using the neuter pronoun *esto instead of the target masculine pronominal este. This last example could be an overgeneralization of the masculine word marker –o to regularize the demonstrative paradigm from the adult-like este/estos to esto/estos. Londa’s non-target-like examples point to the existence of a default value for gender in her grammar, namely, the masculine value. Moreover, it is interesting that she has produced some of the nominals in Example 3.40 in a target-like fashion both with a full determiner as well as with an MPH, for example, a lu[h] ‘the (fem./sg.) light (fem./sg.);’ una sita ‘a/one *fem/sg)

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small house.’ This contrast might point to the fact that the child’s problem in establishing target-like agreement relations resides on the nature of the agreement with the pronominal demonstratives. The discussion of the production data on demonstrative pronouns consistently supports the masculine value as default for the gender feature. Moreover, these findings are in contrast with those of the full DPs and MPH/DPs; although non-target-like demonstrative pronouns involved a mismatch of the gender feature, non-target-like DPs and MPHs involved a mismatch of the number feature. Regarding reference, no mismatches were found between number feature encoded in the demonstratives and those of the referents. 3.4.1.3.2 Third Person Clitic Pronouns This section focuses on the analysis of the agreement patterns exhibited in the production of third person clitic pronouns, in particular, third person direct object pronouns. A total of 43 clitics was found in the data, distributed as follows: Alonso (30), Londa (9), and Elián (4), as can be seen in Table 3.23. This table also shows that Alonso produced more than three times the number of clitics pronouns in comparison to the other two children. Regarding gender, the majority of clitics produced were masculine (33 out of 43 were masculine). However, not all of them were target-like. Specifically, an analysis of Alonso’s production reveals that 9 out of the 24 masculine clitics produced referred to feminine nominals. In terms of number, the analysis of the data showed that the vast majority of the clitics produced were singular and they referred to singular objects; this issue will be discussed in Chapter 4. Now we will turn our attention to the non-target-like utterances with respect to gender. The three children produced a total of 13 non-targetlike clitic pronouns (see Appendix D for a list). Overall, the most common

Table 3.23 Clitic pronouns production Target/Nontarget-like Target-like (%) Non-target-like (%) Total (100%)

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total

Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine 2 – 2

1 1 2

15 9 24

5 1 6

5 2 7

2 – 2

30 13 43


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type of non-target-like utterance (10 out of 13) was the use of the masculine clitic pronoun lo ‘it’ to refer to a feminine noun, as illustrated in the Example 3.41. Example 3.41 Child (a) Londa: A abilo ‘To open it (masc/sg)’] (b) Londa: Yo lo encendo ‘I turn it (masc/sg) on’ (c) Alonso: Sácalo ‘Take it (masc/sg) [off]’ (d) Alonso: Se lo come ‘[It] eats it (masc/sg)[up]’

Target [Vamos] a abrirla [casa ‘house] ‘[We are going] to open it (fem/sg)’ Yo la enciendo [luz ‘light’] ‘I turn it (fem/sg) on’ Sácala [ropa ‘cloths’] ‘Take it (fem/sg) [off]’ Se la come [serpiente] ‘(It) eats it (fem/sg) [up]’

In the examples above, Alonso and Londa produced the masculine clitic lo ‘it’ to refer to feminine nominals, both canonically marked for gender as in Examples 3.41(a) and 3.41(c), as well as non-canonically marked nominals, as in Examples 3.41(b) and 3.41(d). This points to the fact that these children are not making use of the available linguistic clues in the input. Notice that these children produced target-like utterances with these nominals in other structures, for example, una sita ‘a/one (fem/sg) small house (fem. /sg.),’ (Londa), or in the same type of structure, for example, sácala ‘take it (fem/sg)(out),’ (Alonso). In addition to the non-target-like utterances discussed above, one other instance of non-target-like production was found in the data. Example 3.42 Alonso: Vo gadarla ‘(I) am going to put it (fem/sg)[away]’ Target: Voy a guardarlos ‘(I) am going to put them (masc/pl) [away]’ Referent: *[bloques ‘blocks’] Example 3.42(a) is different than the previous non-target-like utterances because it involves a total mismatch of both the gender and the number features. Alonso utters the feminine singular clitic, la ‘it’ to refer to bloques ‘toy blocks’ a masculine plural nominal. Notice that this nominal is not overtly marked for gender and as a result, could be interpreted by the child as feminine or masculine. However, because the child did not “name” the toy blocks, it is not clear to what nominal he was actually referring to,

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for example, a possibility is cosas ‘things,’ as in Voy a guardarlas ‘I am going to put away the things.’ The analysis of the production data on third person clitic pronouns brings strong support to the hypothesis of the masculine gender as the initial default value for these pronouns in the grammar of the children under study, that is, 10 out of a total of 13 non-target-like utterances involved the production of the masculine clitic lo with feminine nominals, both canonically marked for gender and non-canonically marked. Moreover, the analysis of these pronominals points to the fact that children under the age of 3;0 do not seem to be paying attention to the morphophonological clues available in the input to create target-like agreement relations. This finding does not support the hypothesis that children are acquiring language mostly based on the regularities of the input. In sum, the analysis of the experimental data on gender agreement yielded several overall conclusions regarding the acquisition of this feature. First, the three children under study produced target-like gender agreement in the majority of utterances involving (full) DPs and MPH/DPs. This points to an earlier start in the acquisition process than the one presented in most of the literature reviewed. Second, the children under study established target-like agreement regardless of nominal ending (canonical vs non-canonical), bringing support for the availability of a checking mechanism in early grammars. Third, the present study finds strong evidence for the availability of a gender default value in Spanish early grammars, that is, the majority of gender non-adult-like utterances involved the production of masculine marked constituents to refer to feminine nominals. I proposed that this is an acquisition strategy used by early grammars in order to converge. Fourth, the analysis points to the following contrast in the acquisition of gender agreement: children seem to have acquired gender agreement in structures involving overt nominals (e.g., full DPs and MPH/ DPs), whereas they seem to have difficulties with structures involving nonovert nominals, for example, predicative adjective structures, demonstrative and clitic pronouns. This might reflect the complexity involved in spelling out the non-overt features of these nominals. Finally, the current research brings support to previous research on the pervasive nature of determiner omission in child language, which adds another variable to the complex process of child language data analysis.

Chapter 4

Number Agreement

4.1 Number Agreement The number feature receives two values in Spanish, singular or plural, with plurality being marked formally by the allomorphs (–s, –es) and singularity carrying the zero mark or left unspecified (Alcina & Blecua 1983). This points out a contrast between number and gender morphology in terms of acquisition, namely, children acquiring Spanish need to mark nominals, and their agreeing constituents, with gender morphology, while they have the “option” (although not grammatical) of leaving the number feature unspecified, that is, producing nominals in the singular. Therefore, the referent of the utterance becomes of extremely important in the assessment of the acquisition of number, that is, while singular utterances such as una casa ‘a house’ might be grammatical in terms of morphological agreement, they might be ungrammatical if used to refer to ‘many houses.’ This aspect would be addressed in this chapter. In general the selection between the plural marker allomorphs –s and –es is mostly based on phonological stress patterns of the language. Most nominals in Spanish follow these basic rules of pluralization: (1) words that end in an unstressed vowel take –s as the mark of plural, for example, libro/libro–s ‘book/books;’ (2) words ending in consonants (except –s) or a stressed vowel (except –e) form their plural by adding –es, for example, jamón/ jamon–es ‘ham/hams,’ tabú/tabú–es ‘tabu/tabus;’ (3) nouns ending in a stressed –é form their plural by adding only –s, for example, bebé/bebé–s ‘baby/ babies’ (see Ambadiang 1999 for a complete discussion of number morphology). As a result, a child acquiring Spanish needs to be aware of all these morphophonological restrictions involved in the pluralization process. In addition to the phonological restrictions described, plural formation is a very complex process because it involves the semantics of pluralization, which goes beyond the distinction between ‘one’ and ‘more than one’ depending on the noun type involved, as pointed out by Prado (1989). For example, an

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abstract noun like cólera ‘anger,’ becomes concrete and countable when it is pluralized, acquiring the meaning of ‘acts or instances’ of the abstraction cóleras; a concrete nominal like esposa ‘wife’ suffers a complete change in meaning when pluralized: esposas ‘handcuffs’ or ‘wives.’ Bosque’s (1999) examination of a four-way classification for common nouns illustrates the complexity involved in the pluralization process: (1) count/mass nouns, for example, casa ‘house’ versus aire ‘air;’ (2) nouns that can be numbered/pluralia tantum, for example, libro/dos libros ‘book/ two books’ versus celos ‘jealousy;’ (3) single/collective, for example, árbol ‘tree,’ versus ejército ‘army;’ (4) abstract/concrete, for example, verdad ‘truth’ versus flor ‘flower.’ As Bosque points out, this noun classification is not strict, that is, nominals can belong to more than one classification. Of particular interest for the present research is the distinction between mass and count nominals, that is, whether children distinguish between mass and count nominals by pluralizing the latter but not the former. According to Bosque, the contrast between mass and count nominals has the most syntactic consequences. First, the nature of the nominal determines the presence or absence of a determiner, as shown in Example 4.1. Example 4.1 (a) Esto es *libro (b) Esto es pan (c) Quiero un pan (d) Quiero pan (e) *Cae niño (f) Cae agua (g) *Entra mujer (h) Entra frío

*‘This is book’ (cf. Esto es un libro ‘This is a book’) ‘This is bread’ ‘(I) want a bread’ ‘(I) want bread’ *‘Falls child’ (cf. Cae un/el niño ‘A/the child falls’) ‘Water falls’ ‘Woman enters’ (cf. Una/la mujer entra ‘A/the woman enters’) ‘Cold enters’

Example 4.1 indicates the contrast in grammaticality and interpretation between mass and count nominals with the presence or absence of a determiner. First, Examples 4.1(a) and 4.1(b) show that count singular nominals like libro ‘book’ require the presence of a determiner, while mass nominals like pan ‘bread’ are grammatical without it. Second, Examples 4.1(c) and 4.1(d) illustrate that the presence or absence of the article determines the interpretation of the noun; that is, pan ‘bread’ has a mass interpretation without the determiner quiero pan ‘I want bread,’ whereas it has a count interpretation with the determiner, for example, quiero un pan ‘I want a (loaf of) bread.’

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The previous discussion of number reveals the complexity involved in the acquisition of number, which goes beyond the comprehension of the difference between ‘one’ and ‘more than one.’ First, the learner has to distinguish among the different nominal types, given the fact that the semantics of pluralization are closely linked with the noun type involved in the process. Specifically, a child has to learn the contrast between mass and count nouns and the syntactic and semantic consequences that the use of each of these N-types entails. Among them are singular count nouns that require the use of a determiner and mass nominals that do not. Moreover, the use of a determiner with a mass nominal entails a process of recategorization from mass to count, for example, agua ‘water’ versus tres aguas ‘three waters (meaning three classes of water).’ Furthermore, the acquisition of number is closely related to the acquisition of determiners and the different interpretations that the presence or omission of a determiner conveys, for example, the contrast between generic (e.g., me gustan los caballos ‘I like horses’) versus existential interpretations (e.g., Los caballos tienen patas ‘Horses have legs’). This complexity could explain the delay attested in the acquisition of number (e.g., López Ornat 1997, 2003; Marrero & Aguirre 2003; Pizzuto & Caselli 1992) not because children do not comprehend the concept of plurality per se, but because of the confounding factors involved in the decision of marking the plurality of a nominal. The rest of the chapter is organized in three sections. Section 4.2 discusses the availability of a default value for the number feature, in particular, a Universal Grammar (UG) semantic parameter on noun interpretation, the Nominal Mapping Parameter and its implications for the acquisition of DPs in Spanish (Chierchia 1998a, 1998b) and the experimental results on that issue. Section 4.3 presents previous research on the acquisition of number agreement in Spanish, while Section 4.4 discusses the experimental results of the present research on the nature of number agreement in Spanish early grammars.

4.2 Initial Default Value for Number This section discusses evidence in support of the availability of a default value for the number feature in Spanish early grammar. Two hypotheses are explored regarding the nature of this default value and their explanatory adequacy is addressed. The first one argues that singular is the unmarked value for number in Spanish grammar, as pointed out by Harris (1991), among others. Notice that Harris’ hypothesis only refers to the Spanish

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language as it is based on the morphophonological characteristics specific to Spanish. In terms of acquisition, Harris’ hypothesis predicts that children acquiring Spanish number morphology, will master the singular value first, as it does not carry any overt morphological mark. Moreover, this hypothesis predicts that the acquisition data will show children’s overgeneralization of the singular number feature, expressed as the production of singular DPs to refer to plural referents. Notice this aspect of the acquisition of number has not been addressed by many acquisition studies because it involves a joint analysis of morphological number markings and the utterance referent.1 The present study examines children’s production of unmarked plurals, that is, nominals produced without the plural marker –(e)s to refer to plural referents. Within this topic, the present study first explores children’s comprehension of number, that is, one versus more than one, in order to determine whether children’s non-marking of plurality is cognitive in nature. As we will see in the following sections, the predictions made by Harris’ hypothesis are borne out by the acquisition data. For example, some of the studies conducted on number acquisition in Spanish state that children go through three stages in the acquisition of number: no overt morphological marking stage, only one constituent marked for number, and extension of morphological markings to all constituents involved in the number agreement concord (Marrero & Aguirre 2003). The second hypothesis explored in this chapter is based on a Universal Grammar semantic parameter on noun phrase interpretations, the Noun Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998a, 1998b), and proposes that the initial value for number is mass. Chierchia argues that languages differ in the way the noun category is mapped to its meaning, that is, as predicates or as arguments. He explains that the discourse universe is thought of as a domain U of individuals. Predicates are used to talk about our universe of discourse. In this sense, predicates are not constituents of the world as individuals are; rather they are something that when applied to individuals yield something true or false. In turn, arguments are of two types: individuals and quantifiers, for example, a DP like the cat denotes an individual; and a quantificational DP like a cat, quantifies over individuals.2 Furthermore, Chierchia (1998b) states that while proper names map into individuals, common nouns sometimes play the role of proper names (e.g., they are used in English to refer to kind: gold is abundant); and sometimes they act as predicates (e.g., they are used to restrict the range of quantifiers: every cat). In particular, Chierchia argues that common nouns have three options when they enter the semantic computation, that is, they might

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enter as: (1) kind denoting; (2) predicate denoting; or (3) they might be free to start as either. Each of these three choices corresponds to a major language type. Specifically, in languages like Chinese and Japanese, all nouns appear to be mass-like, exhibiting the morphosyntactic properties of mass nouns, that is, they: (a) do not combine with plural morphology (e.g., grass/*grasses); (b) do not combine with numerals (e.g.,*one grass/two grasses); and (c) need classifier/measure phrases to be quantified (e.g., three plies of grass). Chierchia, Guasti, and Gualmini (2000) provide as an example the noun phrase ‘three tables’ in Chinese, liang zhang zhuozi which literally means ‘three pieces of table.’ Notice that another characteristic of this type of language is that nouns can always occur bare even in argument position. In contrast, languages like English present a mixed system, as they mark the singular/plural contrast, distinguish mass versus count nouns, and allow bare (count) plurals and bare mass nouns in argument position. Finally, languages belonging to the Romance languages type mark the singular/plural and the mass/count distinctions like in English, but bare nominals are either not allowed (e.g., French) or restricted (e.g., Italian). Chierchia et al. (2000) formalize this cross-linguistic classification by proposing the Nominal Mapping Parameter (NMP): Example 4.2 Nominal Mapping Parameter (a) N [+ arg – pred] Classifier languages, for example, Chinese (b) N [+ arg + pred] Germanic languages, for example, English (c) N [– arg + pred] Romance languages, for example, Italian Example 4.2 illustrates the three possible values for the NMP. In languages like Chinese, as in Example 4.2(a), NPs are arguments; therefore, they can occur bare in argument position. Chierchia et al. (2000) argue that in this type of language, when nominals are turned into predicates, they exhibit the same characteristics as mass nouns; for example, nouns show neither plural morphology nor the obligatory use of classifiers with numerals (e.g., ‘three pounds of rice’). On the other hand, Germanic languages like English, present a mixed system, as shown in Example 4.2(b). In these languages, nouns may behave like arguments (e.g., they can occur bare) or predicates (e.g., they require an overt determiner). Finally, in Romance languages, NPs are predicates, as shown in Example 4.2(c). As a result, in Romance languages, bare Ns cannot be arguments; that is, Ns need an overt determiner to turn into an argument in these languages. This proposal accounts for the cross-linguistic distribution of bare nominals and it is

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closely related to the mass/count distinction, that is, NPs in predicative languages share the characteristics as mass nouns, while NPs in argumental languages share similar characteristics with count nominals. Chierchia et al. (2000) extend their proposal to the acquisition process, studying the production of bare nominals in the spontaneous data of 16 children acquiring English, French, Italian, and Swedish. They propose three developmental stages in the acquisition of DP. In the first stage, nominals are predominantly bare as children start the acquisition process with the NMP set like Chinese, that is, all NPs are [+arg –pred]. For example, a child learning Spanish would treat all nominals as kind denoting, uttering phrases like *quiero libro ‘I want book,’ in which the obligatory determiner is omitted.3 Then, on the basis of positive evidence such as plural morphology (articles and numerals produced with nouns), the Spanish learner would re-set the parameter to the Germanic languages value, that is, [+arg + pred]. Crucially, they explain that in this second stage, what might look as optionality in the production of determiners can be interpreted as an inaccurate classification of lexical items as count or mass, for example, the alternation between phrases as *quiero libro ‘I want book’ versus quiero un libro ‘I want a book.’ Finally, at the third stage, the production of bare nominals decreases in the speech of children exposed to Romance. This reduction is explained by children’s realization that an overt determiner is required to turn a predicate into an argument. As a consequence, they re-set the NMP to the value associated with Romance languages, that is, [–arg + pred]. Chierchia et al. argue that the positive evidence that triggers the resetting of the parameter is the use of bare partitives in Italian, for example, dei leoni ‘of the lions,’ and the use of overt plural indefinites in Spanish, for example, unos niños ‘some children.’4 Interestingly, their study found differences in convergence rates between Romance speakers and Germanic speakers. The Romance speakers showed a shorter free-variation stage (second developmental stage) than Germanic speakers; this stage also ended more suddenly for Romance speakers than for Germanic speakers. In particular, determiner omissions decreased abruptly for Italian learners between Mean Length of Utterances (MLU) 2.5 and 3, while for English learners, it decreased less abruptly between MLUs 3.5 and 4. The researchers explain this contrast by stating that the child acquiring Romance can converge faster on the target grammar because the input containing both plural definite and indefinite articles tells them that D must always be projected and filled. Hence, they converge, realizing that every noun must be propertydenoting. In the case of a child acquiring English, the input presents that Ns are either predicative or argumental, which is consistent with non-obligatory

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presence of a determiner. As a result, the child acquiring English has to resolve the ambiguous status of Ns lexical item by lexical item, a time consuming task. This assumption seems too costly in terms of learnability, that is, it seems that it would delay the acquisition of DPs considerably longer. The discussion of the NMP seems to indicate that it can account for the different stages found in the acquisition data. For example, it accounts for the omission of determiners and the production of unmarked plurals in the early stages of acquisition. Furthermore, this parameter also explains how children eventually converge to their particular grammar. Nonetheless, according to this hypothesis all NPs are kind denoting at the initial stage, that is, no determiners should be allowed by their grammar. However, they claim that nouns were “mostly” bare, that is, children were producing some determiners at this stage. Moreover, they excluded from their data the MPHs (Bottari, Cipriani, & Chilosi 1993/1994), vocalic elements that might serve as pre-determiners, because they were too ambiguous. This exclusion might have reduced the number of nominals produced with a determiner in the data. The hypothesis of Chierchia et al. (2000) makes the following prediction for the present study: the children under study should treat all nominals (in particular, the distinction count vs mass) as kind denoting. As a result, the children under study should produce nominals in the singular regardless of the intended referent, because at the earlier stages of acquisition, nominals are mass-like. In sum, the hypotheses of Harris as well as Chierchia et al. make similar predictions in terms of the surface structure of the nominals, namely, that children would produce nominals in the singular number. However, they differ in one major aspect. On the one hand, Harris’ hypothesis is not based on a parametric choice of UG and refers exclusively to a language-particular characteristic of Spanish. On the other hand, Chierchia’s hypothesis is based on a semantic value based in UG that goes beyond predicting a particular value for number; for example, it accounts for determiner omissions in child language. As a result, the NMP is a preferable hypothesis because it is part of UG and as such, it can be applied cross-linguisticallly. Moreover, in terms of learnability, it accounts for the reported determiner omissions in the acquisition data, as well as how children will converge into the target grammar. In the next section, I present the experimental findings from the current study regarding the availability of a default value for the number feature and also discuss which of these two hypotheses best accounts for the acquisition data.

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4.2.1 Experimental Findings This section explores the evidence in support of the availability of a default value for the number feature in Spanish early grammar. In other to explore this issue, a data analysis was carried out on the production of the three children under study to examine which of the two hypotheses discussed is supported by the data, that is, singular versus mass as the default value for number. The results are presented in two sections; Section 4.2.1.1 discusses whether children’s production supports singular as the default value, whereas Section 4.2.1.2 explores the evidence in support of mass as the default value for number. This section also presents the results of the experimental task conducted to explore the distinction in children’s grammar between mass and count nominals, that is, “Time to eat.”

4.2.1.1 Singular as Default The data analysis shows consistent evidence in support of the hypothesis that early grammar’s unmarked number value is singular. First, within the Determiner Phrases, children produced singular-marked (full) DPs to refer to plural referents, for example Elián: *coye la bola ‘take the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’ to refer to many balls. Similarly, the children uttered singular Monosyllabic Place Holder DPs (MPH/DPs) to refer to more than one object, for example, Alonso: *e caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’ to refer to two horses. Further evidence is found in the production of Attributive Adjectives. In particular, all the (number) non-target-like attributive adjectives produced by Londa involved the production of singular adjectives to refer to plural referents, for example, Londa: *Feli[h] ‘Happy (un/ sg)’ to refer to a couple of trains. Moreover, children produced singular nominals to refer to plural referents in 31 percent of the cases. This points to the fact that plural-marking issues in child grammar not only affect the marking of number agreement but also the marking of number on the nominal themselves. Additional support for the hypothesis of singular as the unmarked value is found in the production of the other constituents under study: predicative adjectives and third person clitics. In regard to predicative adjectives, all of Londa’s non-target-like number utterances were productions of singular phrases used to refer to plural referents, for example, Londa: *tá omido ‘(he/she) is asleep (masc/sg)’ instead of están dormidos ‘(they) are asleep (masc/pl).’ Finally, the data analysis on third person clitics also

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supports the singular value as the unmarked one. The three non-target-like tokens with respect to number involved the production of singular clitics used to refer to plural referents, for example, Elián: *la tiele ‘(she/he) has it (fem/sg)’ instead of las tienes ‘[you] have them (fem/pl).’ In sum, the discussion above brings strong support for the availability of singular as the unmarked value in children’s grammar. This was evidenced in almost all the constituents under study (with the exception of demonstrative pronouns) in which the children consistently uttered singular elements to refer to both singular and plural referents. Recall that both hypotheses explored in this research (singular vs mass) are similar in that they make the same prediction regarding number acquisition, that is, the children under study will produce singular DPs to refer to plural referents. In that sense both hypotheses are supported by these results. 4.2.1.2 Mass as Default We turn the discussion to the second hypothesis under consideration, namely, mass as the default value for number in initial grammar. This particular hypothesis was explored in the task “Time to Eat” in which children had to distinguish between count and mass nominals. Specifically, two sets of objects were presented to each child, one set representing a mass nominal, for example, two piles of hair, and one set representing a count nominal, for example, two bananas. Crucially, two sets of objects were presented to the child making possible the plural interpretation of the mass nominal if available in her grammar. Notice that one of the predictions of this particular hypothesis is that children at the beginning stages of acquisition would interpret all nouns as mass; hence, they would not pluralize any nominal. The analysis of the data collected through this task yielded mixed results because not all children produced both types of nominals (mass and count) to allow a comparison on noun interpretation. In the case of Elián, his responses varied according to the objects presented to him. The first set of objects presented to the child consisted of two bananas and two piles of hair. In this activity, the child produced both the mass nominal pelo ‘hair’ and the count nominal, ineo for guineo ‘banana’ in the singular. Hence, no conclusions could be drawn regarding the availability of the distinction between mass and count nominals. A second set of objects was presented to the child, consisting of four flowers and two piles of rice, as illustrated in Example 4.3.

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Example 4.3 Flowers and Rice Experimenter: ¿Qué va a comer papá? ‘What is dad going to eat? (Doll eats from the two piles of rice) Child: Ayián a come arro, oye. ‘Elián to eat (inf) rice, hey’ (Child complains he wants to eat rice himself) Experimenter: ¿Qué comió papá ? ‘What did dad eat?’ [Doll eats from two piles of rice again] Child: La[h] chiore ‘the flowers’ In Example 4.3, the child produced both types of nominals in a targetlike fashion. In particular, two piles of rice and four flowers were presented to the child to elicit plural responses with both types of nominals if allowed by the child’s grammar. As shown in Example 4.3, Elián produced the mass nominal in the singular in a target-like fashion (e.g., arro ‘rice’) and the count nominal in the plural, for example, la[h] chiore for las flores ‘the flowers.’ The third set of objects presented to the child in this task was comprised of two chicken legs and three balls. However, these objects only elicited the mass nominal: mía cane for mira carne ‘look meat.’ Overall, Elián’s production in this task was very limited, therefore he did not provide conclusive evidence regarding the distinction between mass and count nominals, that is, he only produced one of the count nominals in the plural form, that is, la[h] chiore ‘the flowers.’ As mentioned in the discussion of full DPs and MPH/DPs in Section 4.4, Elián produced this particular nominal chiore ‘flowers’ to refer to both singular and plural referents, hence it is not clear if he knows the singular form, namely, flor ‘flower.’ However, this was his only instance of a the plural nominal chiore for flores with an agreeing plural determiner, for example, la[h] chiore ‘the (fem/pl) flowers (fem/ pl).’ Elián’s production in this task might be interpreted as support for the mass hypothesis of Chierchia et al. (2000); that is, Elián treated all nouns as mass-like, hence not pluralizable. However, this conclusion might not be valid given the confounding effect of final –s aspiration in the Puerto Rican dialect under consideration. In other words, it is not clear whether Elián’s production is a reflection of his grammar or simply a result of an incomplete phonological production, –[h]. Interestingly, my findings on Elián’s

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plural morphology are supported by Marrero and Aguirre’s (2003) study on number acquisition. Specifically, the researchers found that the children under study failed to mark plural morphology, producing singular nominals to refer to plural referents. A data comparison between Magín’s number morphology production, one of the children in their study, and Elián’s production reveals similar patterns, that is, at the initial stages of acquisition both children present a predominantly singular production regardless of the utterance context. Crucially, in Magín’s dialect the final –s does not undergo aspiration. Alonso’s production in this task presents different results to the ones discussed for Elián, that is, he did not produce any of the count nominals presented to him, for example, guineos ‘bananas,’ and flores ‘flowers.’ However, when the animal was eating one of the items representing a mass nominal, for example, rice and hair, the child responded with a singular noun in all the instances, as Example 4.4 shows. Example 4.4 Bananas and hair Experimenter: ¿Qué come el caballo? ‘What is the horse eating?’ [The horse eats from two bananas] Child: (Repeats experimenter’s question) Experimenter: ¿Qué come el caballo? ‘What is the horse eating?’ [The horse eats from two bananas] Child: (Child does not answer; makes eating sounds) Experimenter: ¿Qué come el caballo? ‘What is the horse eating?’ (The horse eats from two piles of hair) Child: No pelo, no come ‘No hair, [it] does not eat’ Experimenter: Mira lo que come el caballo ‘Look what the horse is eating’ (hair) Child: Mira pelo ‘Look hair’ In Example 4.4 the child consistently gave the target-like response for the mass nominal pelo ‘hair,’ that is, he did not pluralize the noun even though there were two piles hair to trigger a plural response if available. Notice that in Alonso’s case there is evidence that he knows how to mark plurality on

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nominals. In his overall production, we find examples of (full) DPs in the plural, for example, lo pece ‘the fishes’ for los peces. Moreover, Alonso was the only child that produced plural MPH/DPs, for example, o[h] caballo[h] for los caballos ‘the horses.’ This child’s production seems to point to the fact that he has moved from the initial setting of the parameter to the intermediate stage, in which not all nominals are interpreted as mass-like. Regarding Londa, she produced both count nominals and mass nominals. However, some of the count nominals produced were not pluralized, for example, the child produced eno instead of guineos ‘bananas,’ and china instead of chinas ‘oranges.’ Londa’s production of singular nominals to refer to plural referents is consistent with her overall production, for example, (full) DPs, predicative and attributive adjectives (see Section 4.4 for details). Moreover, Londa was the only child that gave non-target-like responses to all plural requests in the number comprehension task, as presented in Section 4.4.3. Nonetheless, she produced two instances of count nominals in the plural form as shown in Example 4.5. Example 4.5 (a) Experimenter: ¿Qué comió el guauguau? ‘What did the dog eat?’ [Four flowers] Child: Flole[h] ‘Flowers’ (b) Dog: ¿Qué como? ‘What should I eat?’ Child: Esto. ‘This (neuter).’ (Pointing at the two chicken legs) Dog: ¿Qué es esto? ‘What is this (neuter)?’ (Points at the two cups) Child: Tazo[h] ‘Cups’ In the utterances in Example 4.5, the child marked the plural number in the count nominals produced. In particular, in Example 4.5(a) Londa uttered flole[h] ‘flowers’ to refer to the four flowers the dog ate. In Example 4.5(b) she produced the plural noun tazo[h] for tazas ‘cups’ to refer to the two cups present in the activity. Regarding Londa’s mass nominal production, she produced the following nominals: pelo ‘hair,’ cheche for leche ‘milk,’ ama for grama ‘grass,’ and ito for pollito ‘chicken,’ as shown in Example 4.6.

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Example 4.6 Milk and Flowers Horse: ¿Qué como? ‘What should I eat?!’ Child: Cheche. ‘Milk.’ Esto e[h] una cheche. ‘This is a milk’ (She explains to the horse with one bottle). (Horse drinks from the two bottles of milk) Experimenter: ¿Qué tomó el caballo? ‘What did the horse drink?’ Child: Esto ‘This (neuter).’ [bottle of milk] Experimenter: Sí, pero ¿qué tomó el caballo? ‘Yes, but what did the horse drink?’ Child: Cheche. ‘Milk.’ Example 4.6 presents an interesting case. On the one hand, the child responded with a singular nominal cheche for leche ‘milk’ even though the horse drank from the two bottles of milk. On the other hand, she produced an indefinite determiner una ‘a/one’ with the mass noun, for example, esto es una leche ‘this is a milk.’ This phrase seems to indicate that Londa is treating this particular mass nominal as a count, that is, it could be quantified with the indefinite determiner ‘a.’ Another possible explanation is that the child quantified the nominal as in “a bottle of milk.” However, no other examples were found of this nature in this child’s data to confirm this hypothesis. Overall the previous discussion showed that all three children produced target-like mass nominals, that is, in the singular. The case of count nominals is confounded by the fact that these children are not marking the plural number in general. Nonetheless, Elián and Londa produced the plural count noun flores, providing some evidence that there is a difference in their grammars between these two types of nominals. Finally, Londa’s production of una leche raises some questions about the true nature of mass nominals in child language. One possibility is that she was quantifying the bottle itself, as mentioned before, and not its contents, that is, the milk. Similar non-target-like utterances are reported in the literature (Chierchia et al. 2000; Gordon 1982). In particular, Gordon found that this type of non-target-like instance accounted for 2 percent of the total production. In addition, Chierchia et al. found examples of mass nouns treated as count

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in the data of the four English children used in their study. They argue that in a language like English with grammaticized count nouns, children are open to misanalyses in the lexicalization of mass nominals given the limited input on collective mass, for example, hair, luggage, and furniture are examples of lexicalized misanalyses in English. In order to assess if the two older children Diana and Pepe have acquired the mass/count distinction, I compared their production with that of the three children under study. The analysis shows that Diana and Pepe successfully produced the mass nominals, as well as the count nominals in the “Time to eat” task. In particular, Diana produced the following count plural nominals: flore[h] ‘flowers,’ silla[h] ‘chairs,’ bola[h] ‘balls,’ and taza[h] ‘cups.’ Regarding the mass nominals she uttered the following examples: pasto ‘pasture,’ grama ‘grass,’ arro[h] ‘rice,’ and café ‘coffee.’ Diana produced two interesting examples with mass nominals, as illustrated in Example 4.7. Example 4.7 (a) Mira se cayó un arroz ‘Look a rice fell down’ (b) Doll: ¿Dónde me senté? ‘Where did I sit down?’ [doll sits on the grass] Child: Aquí. ‘Here’ (She points at the grass) Doll: Pero, ¿qué es eso? ‘But, what is that (neuter)?’ Child: *Un pasto. ‘A/one pasture’ In Example 4.7, Diana uttered mass nominals with the determiner un ‘a/one.’ Specifically, the child produced Example 4.7(a) to refer to a grain of rice that fell from the pile. This example is interesting because it shows that in this child’s grammar the distinction exists between the nominal rice, which cannot be quantified and a grain of rice, which can be quantified, for example, dos granos de arroz ‘two grains of rice.’ Example 4.7(b) presents a different situation. In this case, the child used the determiner un to quantify a mass nominal, for example, pasto ‘pasture.’ Interestingly, the experimenter repeated the routine in Example 4.7(b) several times to check if Diana would repeat the non-target-like utterance, finding that the child would alternate between target-like and non-target-like responses, as illustrated in Example 4.8.

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Example 4.8 Doll: Yo me tengo que sentar. ‘I have to sit down’ Child: En el pasto. ‘On the grass’ (She points at the grass) Doll: ¡Ay, ay...! ¿Dónde me senté, en la silla? ‘Au, au...! Where did I sit, on the chair?’ (Doll sits on the grass and complains) Child: No. *Esto[h] son de caballitos. ‘No. These (masc/pl) belong to [the] small horses.’ Example 4.8 presents how Diana alternated between target-like and nontarget-like production of mass nominals. First, the child responded in a target-like fashion en el pasto ‘on the grass’ using the mass nominal in the singular. In contrast, she referred to the grass with the plural demonstrative pronoun esto[h] ‘these (masc/pl)’ as she explained that the grass was for the small horses. Finally, Diana produced another interesting example pertaining to the mass nominals, as shown in the dialogue in Example 4.9. Example 4.9 Experimenter: O.K, deja ver qué más hay aquí. ‘O.K., lets see what else is here’ Child: ¿Qué son estos? ¿qué esto? ‘What are these (masc/pl)? what [is] this (neut)’ Experimenter: ¿Qué es eso? ‘What is that (neut)?’ Child: Pollo. ‘Chicken.’ In the dialogue illustrated in Example 4.9, Diana first refers to the two pieces of chicken with the plural demonstrative estos ‘these’ perhaps wondering what the prop actually was. Then once she identified the objects, she produced the singular target-like mass nominal pollo ‘chicken.’ However, when the experimenter asked her again what the prop was: ¿Qué es eso? ‘What is that (neuter)?’ the child responded in a non-target-like fashion: *Un pollo . . . lo[h] pollo[h] ‘A chicken . . . the (masc/pl) chickens (masc/pl).’ In her response, the child produced two non-target-like instances, the first one involving a quantified mass nominal and the second one the pluralization of the same nominal. The discussion of Diana’s non-target-like responses points to the production of mass nominals as mass (namely in the

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singular) but also as count, in the sense that they can be both pluralized and quantified. This alternation seems to reflect the difficulty children face in the interpretation of this type of nominals or what Chierchia et al. call the recategorization process. Pepe’s production of nominals in this task was similar to Diana’s production, that is, it included both types of nominals. For example, regarding count nominals, he produced the following: plato[h] ‘plates,’ guineo[h] ‘bananas,’ silla[h] ‘chairs,’ bola[h] ‘balls,’ and taza[h] ‘cups.’ In addition, the child produced the following mass nominals: grama ‘grass,’ pollo ‘chicken,’ and pelo ‘hair.’ Pepe also uttered two interesting examples involving the mass nominal grama ‘grass,’ as shown in Example 4.10. Example 4.10 (a) *Yo la[h] tengo en la pecera pero no son así . . . de larga[h]. ‘I have them (fem/pl) in the aquarium but (they) are not that . . . long (fem/pl)’ (b) ¡Eso[h] son iguale[h]! ‘Those (masc/pl) are equal (masc/pl)’ In the utterances in Example 4.10 Pepe referred to the mass nominal ‘grass’ with pronominals and adjectives in the plural form. Specifically, in Example 4.10(a) Pepe explained to the experimenter that he had grass in his aquarium, but that it was not that long. Notice that he used the plural clitic la[h] ‘them (fem/pl)’ and the adjective larga[h] ‘long (fem/pl)’ to refer to the grass. Interestingly, immediately before Pepe had identified the two pieces of grass in a target-like fashion, for example, grama ‘grass.’ In Example 4.10(b) the child refers again to the grass, this time using a plural demonstrative pronoun eso[h] and a pluralized adjective iguale[h] ‘equal.’ These examples seem to indicate that he interpreted the mass nominal grama ‘grass,’ as a count nominal.5 However, as pointed out by Crain (p.c.), it is logical for a child in the process of acquisition to assume that two bunches of grass are plural not singular. Examples 4.8 to 4.10, although limited in number, pose some empirical problems for the mass hypothesis.6 First, Chierchia et al. (2000) argue that the trigger for resetting the NMP to the target value is the acquisition of Partitive Case, defined by the authors as the acquisition of the indefinite unos/unas ‘some (masc/fem)’ in Spanish. Diana and Pepe were producing these determiners in a target-like fashion; hence, they should have acquired the target setting of the parameter. This finding raises questions about

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indefinite determiners in Spanish as the trigger for resetting the NMP. Moreover, the researchers state that children acquiring Romance languages converge on the target setting of the parameter faster than in Germanic languages, for example, determiner omissions decreased abruptly for Italian learners between MLUs of 2.5 and 3, while for English learners it decreased less abruptly between MLUs 3.5 and 4. In contrast, determiner omissions for the older children in the present study are rare but they are still treating some of the mass nominals as count, that is, produced with a quantifier and in the plural. Their non-target-like production seems to point to a longer intermediate stage for Romance in which children classify nominals as count or mass. Another possibility is that in these children’s grammars the possibility of recategorization of nominals is available, for example, leche ‘milk’ versus una botella de leche ‘a bottle of milk.’ Further research is needed to address this topic. The previous discussion of the “Time to Eat” task data yielded inconclusive results, confounded perhaps by the phonological aspect of the final –s aspiration, that is, the results do not favor or disprove the hypothesis of an initial mass default value. However, on empirical grounds, the NMP accounts for the observed phenomena in the present study. First, it explains why children acquiring Spanish produce unmarked plurals, that is, they are treating nominals as mass-like. As discussed in Section 4.2.1.1, the children under study were having problems marking plurality across all the structures under study. If children are in the process of setting the NMP to the adult-like value in Spanish, the production of unmarked plurals is expected in this transitional grammar. Second, this hypothesis also accounts for the pervasive determiner omissions attested in the data, that is, languages like Chinese with a mass-like nominal interpretation lack determiners. In particular, the children under study omitted determiners in 64 percent of the obligatory contexts (see Chapter 5). This proportion was consistent across the three children: Elián (59 percent), Alonso (65 percent), and Londa (65 percent). Under the NMP determiner omissions are expected in acquisition, as children are interpreting nominals as argumental, instead of the adult-like interpretation in Spanish, as predicates. In this analysis children are “speaking Chinese” in the sense that they are interpreting nominals as in languages like Chinese. In addition from a theoretical standpoint, the NMP, a UG-based parameter, has a strong explanatory power in that it accounts for several aspects of language acquisition. On the one hand, it explains how children start the acquisition process, namely, the initial state, that is, the NMP is set to the value of [+argument, –predicate] like in the Chinese language. On the

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other hand, and most importantly, it also accounts for how children exposed to different languages converge to the target grammar, that is, learnability. In this sense, Chierchia’s hypothesis is preferable over Harris’ (Spanishspecific) singular parameter.

4.3 Acquisition Research A number of studies have addressed the topic of number agreement acquisition and all agree on the fact that there is a delay in the acquisition of this feature. Nonetheless, research on this topic is not very informative with respect to the nature of the number agreement system in early Spanish grammars, that is, we only know children acquiring Spanish are not marking plural number morphology in the initial stages of acquisition. Overall, research studies on the acquisition of number morphology present similar assessments of the process, that is, plural morphology first appears on a few nominals, then it extends to other constituents in the Determiner Phrase but it is not abundant in children’s production (Aguirre 1995; Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 1997; Marrero & Aguirre 2003). In particular, Hernández Pina states that her son Rafael produces nouns in the plural before the age of 24 months but he is not aware of the number feature yet, for example, papas ‘potatoes,’ buzón cartas ‘mailbox letters.’ According to the researcher, these examples are unanalyzed nominals, and should not be considered as evidence of acquisition of plural morphology. Then by the age of 24 months, the child has some mastery of number marking on the noun. Interestingly, she found a difference in the acquisition of the plural allomorphs, –s and –es. Rafael’s pluralization of nominals ending in a vowel was perfect by the age of 26 months, but he had some problems with nominals ending in a consonant, in particular reloj/reloj–es ‘watch-clock/watches-clocks.’ Support for Hernández Pina’s finding is found in studies by Pérez-Pereira (1989) and Marrero and Aguirre (2003). Specifically, Pérez-Pereira’s (1989) study on plural formation reveals that children produced more non-target-like utterances when they were required to use the allomorph –es to form the plural. Marrero and Aguirre’s (2003) study on number acquisition also shows that children were having problems with the plural allomorph –es. According to Hernández Pina, Rafael completes the article inventory in the next stage, starting at 28–29 months, that is, plural article forms appear, for example, los zapatos ‘the (masc/pl/def) shoes (masc/pl),’ las carteras ‘the (fem/pl/def) purses (fem/pl),’ unas sillas ‘some (fem/pl)

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chairs (fem/pl),’ unos nenes ‘some (masc/pl) kids (masc/pl).’ Hernández Pina claims that Rafael uses all articles with ease by the age of 3;0 years. However, the author does not provide any statistical analysis to make any generalizations regarding Rafael’s acquisition process, for example, type and proportion of non-adult-like utterances. Studies by Aguirre (1995), Schnell de Acedo (1994), and López Ornat (1997, 2003) point to the scarcity of pluralization in child data. Aguirre studies the acquisition of determiners using the data of four children and finds that plural marking on determiners is very scarce in the production data. Similarly, Schnell de Acedo’s DP acquisition research shows that the child under study, Morela, produced a very limited number of plural DPs: 0 at 16 months; 11 at 23 months; and 3 at 29 months. Moreover, López Ornat (1997, 2003) states that no examples of plurality were found in her analysis of Det-N structures in Maria’s production at the beginning stages of acquisition; the data used by the author covers the period between the ages of 1;7 to 2;1. Marrero and Aguirre (2003) formalize the process of number acquisition, proposing three developmental stages. In the first stage, the three children under study produce what they call “unanalyzed” plurals, that is, plural morphology is not linked to plural meaning, for example, botas ‘boots.’ In the second stage, the single marker stage, the plural marker surfaces but in only one of the constituents, for example, lo caballo ‘the (pl) horse (sg).’ In this example, plural morphology is only marked on the determiner lo for los. In the third stage, the marker extension stage, the marker extends to other constituents, for example, los caballos ‘the (pl) horses (pl).’ In addition, these researchers provide some insight on the nature of early grammars in terms of number. They analyze non-target-like production and conclude that at the single marker stage children’s production can be characterized as having determiner omissions and/or agreement errors between the nominal and the determiner. However, the authors present the distribution of each error in a graph instead of the actual number, which makes the estimation of error difficult. For example, in the case of one of the children under study, María, her agreement errors are approximately between 25 percent and 30 percent and her omissions are approximately between 45 percent and 50 percent at the age 1;10. The second child under study, Magín, shows different proportions in terms of agreement in Det-N structures, as shown in Table 4.1, extracted from Marrero and Aguirre (2003). Table 4.1 displays how the process of number acquisition proceeds in the case of this particular child, Magín. Specifically, Table 4.1 indicates that at the beginning stages of acquisition the production context for this child is

Number Agreement Table 4.1

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Magín’s number agreement production

Age

Utterances

Target-like

Non-target-like

1;8 1;9 1;10 1;11 2;0

1 11 15 9 42

0 0 1 2 24

1 (100%) 11 (100%) 14 (93%) 7 (78%) 18 (43%)

mostly singular, illustrated by the limited number of utterances requiring plural morphology. Moreover, this table points out that this child is having problems marking plurality in the Det-N structure, with higher proportion of non-target-like utterances produced. Finally, this table seems to indicate that at age 2;0, Magín produces for the first time more target-like utterances, with regard to number agreement, than non-target-like. Marrero and Aguirre’s analysis of Magín’s number acquisition provides some insight on the nature of number agreement in initial grammars with respect to production frequencies and targetness, supported by a quantitative data analysis. The present research addresses the nature of number agreement in initial Spanish grammar, taking into consideration the context of the utterance, that is, the referent, and the types of non-target-like utterances present in the data, as will be presented in the next section.

4.4 Experimental Research This section discusses experimental findings regarding the acquisition of the number feature, in particular, the nature of number agreement in the structures under examination. The data analysis on number agreement points to one major generalization: the children under study seem to have more difficulties marking the plural number feature than the gender feature.7 Support for this conclusion is found not only in the non-target-like production of constituents that enter into an agreement relationship with nominals (e.g., determiners and adjectives), but also in the production of singular nominals to refer to plural referents, that is, nouns without overt plural inflectional morphological makings (–(e)s) on them.8 We turn the discussion to the analysis of number agreement in the structures under study. In the case of Bare Noun Phrases or Bare Nominals (BNs), nominals produced in isolation, the analysis found a total of 394 instances


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Table 4.2 Distribution of BNPs Target-like/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


37 (49) 39 (51) 76 (100)

56 (53) 49 (47) 105 (100)

86 (40) 127 (60) 213 (100)

179 (45) 215 (55) 394 (100)

produced by the three children, distributed as follows: 179 (45 percent) were target-like and 215 (55 percent) were non-target-like, as shown in Table 4.2.9 The chi-squared test revealed that there was no significant difference between the two totals (χ2 = 3.29, p = .07). Table 4.2 also illustrates an almost even split between target-like and nontarget-like production of BNPs in the case of Elián and Alonso, whereas Londa produced a significantly higher number of non-target-like BNPs: 86 target-like versus 127 non-target-like (χ2 = 8.79, p < .01). Target-like utterances included proper names such as Aaaatorio for ‘Antonio’ (Alonso), family names, for example, mamá ‘mom’ (Elián), and mass nouns, for example, pelo ‘hair’ (Londa). Notice that target-like in this respect refers to BNPs that could be used by an adult in the same context. Regarding, non-target-like production of BNPs, the analysis found two types of non-adult-like utterances. The first type involves the omission of the determiner, for example, caballo, toma ‘horse, take;’ these will be presented in Chapter 5. The second type of non-target-like utterance pertains to the number feature and involves the use of a singular nominal to refer to a plural referent, as illustrated in Example 4.11. Example 4.11 Child

Target

*Flol (Londa) ‘flower’ [four flowers]

flores ‘flowers’

In Example 4.11, Londa responds to the experimenter’s question: ¿Qué es esto? ‘What is this (neuter)?’ with flol ‘flower (sg),’ instead of flores ‘flowers (pl)’ or unas flores ‘some flowers,’ to refer to the four flowers presented to her. Table 4.3 provides a distribution summary of the non-target-like BNPs produced by the three children. This table also illustrates that the most common type of non-target-like BNP found in the data refers to determiner omission (with singular nominals) in obligatory contexts,

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Table 4.3 Non-target-like BNPs Singular reference

Plural reference

Ambiguous Total

Determiner omissions Unmarked plurala Bare pluralsb Elián 23 (59%) Alonso 32 (65%) Londa 83 (65%) Total 138 (64%) a b

15 (38%) 16 (33%) 35 (28%) 66 (31%)

– – 2 (2%) 2 (1%)

1 (3%) 1 (2%) 7 (5%) 9 (4%)

39 (100%) 49 (100%) 127 (100%) 215 (100%)

Singular marked nominals that referred to plural referents Determiner omissions with plural marked nominals

Table 4.4 Non-plural marked BNs and plural marked BNs produced: plural referent Non-plural marked Bare Nominals Elián Alonso Londa Total

15 (94%) 16 (80%) 35 (69%) 66 (76%)

Plural marked Bare Nominals 1 (6%) 4 (20%) 16 (31%) 21 (24%)

Total 16 (100%) 20 (100%) 51 (100%) 87 (100%)

accounting for 64 percent (138) of the non-target-like production (see Chapter 5 for details). In terms of number agreement, non-target-like BNPs consisted on the production of non-plural marked BNs to refer to a plural referent,10 and accounted for 31 percent (66) of the non-target-like utterances. In all these instances, the marking of the plural number feature was required, since the children were referring to more than one object. Table 4.4 provides a comparison between the production of these nonplural marked nominals and the production of BNs marked for the plural number. Overall, Table 4.4 shows that the three children produced a significantly higher number of unmarked plurals (χ2 = 23.3, p < .01). In addition, children’s developmental age seems to play a role in the production of BNs overtly marked for the plural number feature. Elián with a mean length utterance in words (MLUw) of 1.5, produced only one nominal overtly marked as plural out of a total of 16 required, while Alonso (MLUw =1.9) produced 4 nominals marked as plural out of 20 required. Londa (MLUw = 2.2) produced 16 out of a total of 51 required. However, a statistical analysis revealed that the proportions of Alonso (20 percent) and Londa (31 percent) were not significantly different from each other (χ2 = 2.37, p < .123).


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Notice that the phenomenon of unmarked plurality is still very strong in the case of the oldest child, Londa, accounting for 69 percent of her nominals produced to refer to a plural entity, as illustrated in Table 4.4. This result regarding number marking on nominals is consistent with my findings for the other structures under study, that is, children do not mark the plural number feature overtly at this stage of the acquisition process. We turn the discussion now to the findings on number agreement, that is, agreement relations between nominals and their agreeing constituents. The presentation of the findings also includes an analysis of reference to determine whether the structures produced by the children under study match the features of the referents. Moreover, number agreement results will be compared to the results obtained for gender agreement to establish a timing in the acquisition of these two features. The data analysis revealed that while children established almost perfect gender agreement relations within Determiner Phrases, this was not the case with respect to number agreement. In particular, the (full) DP data showed that the children produced a total of 62 (full) DP tokens as shown in Table 4.5. This table indicates that out of a total of 62 (full) DP tokens produced by the three children, 8 tokens were non-target-like with respect to agreement. Table 4.5 also shows that the majority of non-target-like utterances (7 out of 8) involved the production of plural masculine nominals. In particular, these utterances pertained to mismatches of the number feature, that is, children either mark the plurality on the determiner or on the nominal, but not in both constituents as required by Spanish grammar. Production of (full) DPs was different across the three children, with the younger children, Elián and Alonso, producing considerably fewer instances of this structure (5 and 19 respectively) than Londa (38 tokens). Hence their production will be analyzed individually. In the case of Elián, he produced only one (full) DP token in the plural, as shown in Example 4.12(a).

Table 4.5 Overall (full) DP token production Masculine

Singular Plural Total

Feminine

Target-like

Non-target-like

Target-like

Non-target-like

27 4 31

1 6 7

20 3 23

– 1 1

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Example 4.12 Child

Target

(a) *es ya flore[h] (Elián) son las flores ‘[it] is the (fem/sg) flowers (un/fem/pl)’ ‘(they) are the (fem/pl) flowers(un/f/pl)’ (b) Coye la bola coge la bola ‘take (imp) the(fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’ ‘take (imp) the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’ In Example 4.12(a) there is a mismatch between the plural feature of the nominal flore[h] ‘flowers’ and the singular feature of the determiner ya for la ‘the.’ However, it is not clear if this mismatch relates to the number feature per se or to phonological factors; in particular, the aspiration of final –s in the Puerto Rican dialect. No conclusions can be drawn given the fact this child only produced one plural (full) DP token. In addition, Elián’s five (full) DP tokens were analyzed with respect to reference, whether the morphological features encoded on the nominals matched those of the intended referents. The analysis found only one clear instance of a (semantic) mismatch, illustrated in Example 4.12(b). This example presents a number mismatch between the singular features of the DP coye la bola ‘take the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’ with the plural referent, two balls, for example, las bolas ‘the balls’. In the case of Alonso, he produced a total of 19 (full) DP tokens, 15 targetlike with respect to agreement and 4 non-target-like. All of Alonso’s non-target-like DPs were related to mismatches on the number feature, as in Example 4.13. Example 4.13 Child

Target

(a) oto pece otros peces ‘other (masc/sg) fishes (masc/pl)’ ‘other (masc/pl) fishes (masc/pl)’ (b) lo juete los juguetes ‘the (masc/pl) toy (masc/sg)’ ‘the (masc/pl) toys (masc/pl)’ (c) lo carro los carros ‘the (masc/pl) car (masc/sg)’ ‘the (masc/pl) cars (masc/pl)’ (d) lo[h] caballo los caballos ‘the (masc/pl) horse (masc/sg)’ ‘the (masc/pl) horses (masc/pl)’

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Overall, utterances in Example 4.13 show that Alonso marked plurality on only one of the constituents in the DP, either on the determiner or on the nominal. Specifically, in Example 4.13(a) Alonso produces a singular determiner oto ‘another’ with a plural nominal pece ‘fishes.’11 Examples 4.13(b) and 4.13(c) involve the production of what seems to be singular nominals, for example, juete ‘toy’ and carro ‘car,’ with the plural determiner lo. Crucially, lo is analyzed in these examples as los, the plural form of el ‘the,’ even though it is missing the final –s, that is, los. Finally, in Example 4.13(d) the child produces the final –s in the determiner lo[h] as the aspirated [h] sound but the accompanying nominal lacks the morphological marker of plurality, caballo. Alonso uttered another instance of this DP in which the number feature was marked in both the determiner and the nominal as a final –[h], for example, lo[h] caballo[h]. Notice that all the utterances in 4.13 involve the production of a nominal (or a determiner) that ends in a vowel and lacks the morphological mark for plural, namely, the final –s. It is not certain that these examples involve a mismatch of the number feature, that is, some of them can be cases of aspiration of the final –s, one of the characteristics of the Spanish dialect this child speaks, that is, the Puerto Rican dialect. Nonetheless, Marrero and Aguirre (2003) also found in their data analysis that children tended to mark plurality in only one of the constituents of the DP, proposing the single marker stage as one of the developmental stages in the acquisition of number. Crucially, the researchers analyzed a Spanish dialect with no final –s aspiration. The reference of the 19 DP tokens produced by Alonso was examined to verify that the grammatical features included in these phrases match those of the object(s) they referred to. First, regarding the 13 singular DP tokens produced, the analysis found that all of them were target-like with regard to gender and 10 of them referred to a singular object, for example, un carro ‘a (masc/sg) car (masc/sg)’ used to refer to a masculine singular object. The referent of the remaining three cases was not as clear, as shown in Example 4.14. Example 4.14 (a) ese guauguau (b) la comida (c) el caballo

‘that(masc/sg) dog (masc/sg)’ ‘the (fem/sg) food (fem/sg)’ ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

The referent of Example 4.14(a) is not clear because Alonso uttered this DP while pretending to talk on the phone with a dog on each ear, that is, it is not clear whether the child was referring to both dogs or to only one.

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Example 4.14(b) la comida ‘the food’ presents an interesting case for the analysis of reference. The child uttered this DP when the experimenter took out four (dinner) plates. In this context it was clear that he was not referring to the plates, but to the food to be put on them. Since there was no food present, the referent of the utterance was abstract not concrete. In the case of Example 4.14(c), Alonso produced this particular token in three separate instances. In two instances, the referent was one horse; hence these were target-like uses. In one of the instances, however, the child uttered this DP, el caballo ‘the horse,’ while holding two horses. This seems to be a case of a number feature mismatch, that is, using a singular DP to refer to more than one object. Regarding the reference examination of Alonso’s six plural (full) DP tokens produced, the analysis found only one case of a semantic number mismatch, as illustrated in Example 4.15(a). Example 4.15 Child (a) Lo[h] caballo[h], el caballo ‘the horses, the horse’ (b) lo pece ‘the fishes’ (c) lo carro ‘the (masc/pl) car (masc/sg)’

Target el caballo ‘the horse’ los peces ‘the fishes’ los carros ‘the (masc/pl) cars (masc/pl)’

In Example 4.15(a) the child uttered a plural DP, lo[h] caballo[h] ‘the horses’ to refer to one horse. Interestingly, he immediately produced the singular DP equivalent el caballo ‘the horse,’ in what appears to be a case of self-correction. The remaining utterances in Example 4.15 were target-like with respect to semantic number agreement. Target-like plural (full) DPs included requests for a particular group of toys, as in Example 4.15(b), that is, the child requests lo pece ‘the fishes.’ Another target-like plural DP is shown in example 4.15(c) lo carro ‘the (masc/pl) car (masc/sg).’ In this example the child uses a definite plural DP to complain about the construction trucks that have been passing outside the house, making a lot of noise. In the target grammar this particular DP would receive a generic interpretation, that is, a non-specific set of cars. However, there is no evidence in Alonso’s data that he has the knowledge of generic interpretations. The discussion of Alonso’s (full) DP production in terms of number, indicates that he had difficulties marking the plurality of the nominals and determiners with the final –s, while he marked successfully segments that


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Table 4.6 Londa’s (full) DP tokens Determiner type

Definite Indefinite Demonstrative Other Total

Masculine

Feminine

Total

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

2 9 4 – 15

1 3 – – 4

2 11 2 1 16

1 1 1 – 3

6 (16%) 24 (63%) 7 (18%) 1 (3%) 38 (100%)

did not involve this marker exclusively, for example, lo pece. This finding points to the conclusion that in these examples the nature of the problem is not grammatical but phonological in nature. This finding seems to be at odds with previous research stating that the acquisition of plural allomorph –es poses more problems for children than final –s (Pérez-Pereira 1989). The analysis of Londa’s (full) DP utterances yielded a total of 38 tokens produced (excluding all repetitions): 19 masculine and 19 feminine, as shown in Table 4.6. This table displays the distribution of (full) DPs in terms of number, with 31 tokens of singular DPs and 7 tokens of plural DPs produced by Londa. This points to the fact that the vast majority of (full) DPs was in the singular. The data analysis found that Londa produced three non-target-like utterances with regard to (grammatical) number agreement, one pertained to a gender mismatch, and two to number mismatches. The two non-target-like utterances involving a number mismatch are illustrated in Example 4.16: Example 4.16 Child (a) *¡Uno ece! ‘A (masc/sg/indef)/some (masc/pl/indef) fishes’ (b) *Lo duce ‘The (masc/pl) candy (sg/pl)’

Target ¡Unos peces! ‘Some (masc/pl) fishes (masc/pl)’ Los dulces ‘The (masc/pl) candies (masc/pl)’

In examples 4.16(a) and 4.16(b) there is an apparent mismatch of the number feature between the determiners and the nouns. Specifically, in Example 4.16(a) the mismatch is between the singular indefinite article uno ‘a’ and the plural noun peces ‘fishes,’ whereas in Example 4.16(b), the

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mismatch is between the plural definite article lo ‘the’ and the singular noun dulce ‘candy.’ As discussed in Alonso’s case, these two examples could be two instances of the final –s plural marker aspiration, that is, uno for unos, and dulce for dulces, and in that case there would be no mismatch present. The production of uno can be interpreted as a shortened form of the plural determiner unos ‘some,’ however in this child’s case this inference cannot be done because she produces all singular indefinite articles as uno instead of un (cf. Appendix A for a listing of Londa’s DP tokens). In terms of the analysis of reference, an evaluation of the 38 tokens yielded 6 cases in which the grammatical features marked on the DPs did not match those of the referent, as can be seen in Example 4.17. Example 4.17 Child (a) Mira él, pielna ‘Look at him, leg (sg)’ (b) Una flor ‘A /one (sg) flower (sg)’ (c) Una aita ‘A/one (sg) wing (sg)’ (d) Un dente ‘A/one (sg) tooth (sg)’ (e) Es un carro ‘(It) is a/one (sg) car (sg)’ (f) Ese ee uno ijo ‘this (sg) is a/one lizard’

Target Mira las/sus piernas *(Two legs) ‘Look the (pl)/his (3rd pers/pl) legs (pl)’ Unas flores *(Four flowers) ‘Some (pl) flowers (pl)’ Unas alitas *(Two pairs of wings) ‘Some (pl) wings (pl)’ Unos dientes *(Teeth) ‘Some (pl) teeth (pl)’ Son unos carros *(Many cars) ‘(They) are some (pl) cars (pl)’ Estos son unos lagartijos *(Two snakes) ‘These are some lizards’

All the utterances listed in Example 4.17 are of the same nature, that is, they involve the production of a singular nominal to refer to a plural referent. In Example 4.17(a) the child showed two of the dog’s legs to the experimenter but spontaneously uttered the nominal in the singular, pielna ‘ leg’ instead of piernas ‘legs.’ Examples 4.17(a) to 4.17(e) were produced as responses to the experimenter’s inquiry, for example, ¿Qué es esto? ‘What is this (neuter)?’ In particular, in Example 4.17(b) the child answered with una flor ‘a flower’ as the experimenter showed her four flowers, a clear (semantic) number mismatch between the singular DP and the plural referent. The context of Example 4.17(c) was the experimenter pointing out to the child the wings of two bees drawn in one of the toy houses. Even though there were two pairs of wings present, the child uttered the nominal

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in the singular, for example, una aita ‘a/one little wing.’ Example 4.17(d) was uttered as the experimenter showed the child the teeth of a toy snake. As in the previous example, even though there were many teeth present the child may have been referring to only one of them. The context of Example 4.17(e) was the experimenter taking out two cars and asking the child: ¿Qué es esto? ‘What is this (neuter)?’ The child responded with the singular DP: es un carro ‘(it) is a car.’ Finally, in Example 4.17(f) the experimenter took out two snakes (one big and one small), then the child identified them as a lizard saying este ee uno ijo ‘this (sg) is a/one lizard.’ One possible explanation for these semantic mismatches between the DP features and the objects they referred to, can be that the child at this stage of acquisition does not pay attention to the number of objects present, but to the object itself, that is, the child is identifying the object type or labeling it, and not specifying the amount of objects present. Another explanation could be related to the acquisition of the feature definiteness, involving the contrast between definite versus indefinite. In all but one of these examples (i.e., 4.17(a)), the target-like answer required the plural indefinite unos/ unas ‘some.’ If this hypothesis on the acquisition of determiners is on the right track, these non-target-like examples would be explained by the inability of this child to mark the contrast definite versus indefinite, that is, Londa’s grammar initially may be set initially with the definite value for this feature. Then, in this analysis singular examples with the determiner uno ‘a’ for un would be explained as instances of the quantifier one and not as the indefinite determiner ‘a.’ The discussion of number agreement in the (full) DP data points to the fact that marking plurality is problematic for these children (confounded by phonological factors) while gender is not. Notice that even though the majority of DPs produced were in the singular, (48) versus (14) in the plural, the majority of non-target-like utterances in terms of agreement pertained to the number feature. This result seems to indicate an order in the acquisition of these features, that is, gender precedes the acquisition of number in Spanish, or grammatical features are acquired before semantic features in this case. Further support for a delay in the acquisition of the number feature is found in the MPH/DPs, that is, vocalic elements produced in the slot a determiner would occupy in the adult language (Bottari et al. 1993/1994). An evaluation of the 102 instances of MPH/DPs, produced by the three children, yielded a total of 33 tokens once repetitions were excluded, as shown in Table 4.7.

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Table 4.7 Overall MPH/DP token production Nominal endings Masculine

Elián Londa Alonso


Total

Total Feminine

Singular

Plural

7 – 2 – 6 3 18

– – – – 2 2 4

Singular

Plural

4 – 3 – 3 – 10

– 1 – – – – 1

11 1 5 – 11 5 33

Table 4.7 displays the distribution of target-like versus non-target-like tokens produced by the three children in terms of nominal agreement, with a total of 27 target-like MPH/DPs and 6 non-target-like (see Appendix B for a list). In addition, Table 4.7 illustrates that the production of MPH/ DPs varies among the three children with the following distribution: Elián (12), Alonso (16), and Londa (5). However, the difference among the three is not statistically significant (χ2 = 5.6, p = 0.06). The analysis of the six non-target-like MPH/DP tokens revealed that three of them pertained to a number mismatch, as seen in Example 4.18. Example 4.18 (a) *a fore[h] ‘a/the (fem/sg) flowers (un/fem/pl)’ (b) *o pie ‘the (masc/pl) foot (masc/sg)’

las flores ‘the (fem/pl) flowers (un/fem/pl)’ los pies ‘the (masc/pl) feet (masc/sg)’ (c) *a pece los peces ‘the (fem/sg) fishes (masc/pl)’ ‘the (masc/pl) fishes (masc/pl)’

[Elián]

[Alonso]

[Alonso]

Example 4.18(a) illustrates the only non-target-like token in Elián’s production, that is, a fore[h] ‘the (fem/sg) flowers (fem/pl)’ for las flores. This token involves a mismatch of the singular number feature of the MPH a and the plural number feature of the nominal flore[h]. This particular token could be a case of an aspiration of the final –s, typical of the Puerto Rican


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dialect the children under study speak. A similar non-target-like utterance was discussed in Elián’s DP data involving the production of the nominal flores ‘flowers’ in the plural and the determiner in the singular, that is, es ya fore[h] ‘(it) is the (fem/sg) flowers (unm/fem/pl).’ Alonso produced two non-target-like MPH/DPs with respect to number agreement, as seen in Examples 4.18(b) and 4.18(c). In particular, in Example 4.18(b), o pie ‘the (masc/pl) foot (unm/masc/sg)’ the MPH o is interpreted in the present monograph as a shortened form of the plural masculine article los ‘the,’ in which case there is a mismatch between the number features of this plural masculine determiner and the singular noun pie ‘foot.’ These non-marked plurals can be triggered by the aspiration of the final –s plural marker, characteristic of this child’s dialect, as mentioned in the previous sections. In Example 4.18(c), a pece, there is a complete mismatch of both the number and gender features. In this example, the child uttered the MPH a with the masculine plural nominal pece ‘fishes.’ The context of this utterance was as the child requested the experimenter to take out the toy fishes. Interestingly, Alonso had produced a grammatical utterance of this DP with a full determiner, lo pece ‘the (masculine plural) fishes (masculine plural),’ immediately before he produced this particular utterance (see Chapter 3 for a discussion of MPH a). In contrast to Elián’s and Alonso’s MPH/DP production, Londa uttered only five MPH/DPs, all were target-like and all singular. This child’s limited production of DPs with vocalic elements seems to point to a more advanced stage in the acquisition process, as it is discussed in Chapter 5. Next, the topic of reference appropriateness in the production of MPH/ DPs is addressed. An analysis of reference of the 102 utterances of Monosyllabic Place Holder DPs found 11 instances involving a mismatch between the number and gender features of the MPH Determiner Phrases and their referents.12 The 11 utterances with a clear mismatch between the features of the MPH/DPs and their referents involved six tokens (once repetitions were eliminated). Example 4.19 Child

Target

Referent

(a) e lón (Londa) ‘the (masc/sg) lion (masc/sg)’

unos leones *[Two lions] ‘some (masc/pl) lions (masc/pl)’

(b) a caballo [Alonso] ‘the (fem/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

los caballos ‘the (masc/pl) horses (masc/pl)’

*[Two horses]

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(c) e caballo [Alonso] ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’


*[Two horses]

(d) e guauguau [Alonso] ‘the (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg)’

los gatos ‘the (masc/pl) cats (masc/pl)’

*[Four cats]

(e) a fore[h] [Elián]

las flores

*[Four flowers; holds one]

‘the (fem/sg) flowers (fem/pl)’ (f) o[h] pece [Alonso] ‘the (masc/pl) fishes (masc/pl)’

‘the (fem/pl) flowers (fem/pl)’ el crocodilo *[One crocodile] ‘the (masc/sg) crocodile (masc/sg)’

The utterances in Example 4.19 present two types of non-target-like production with respect to semantic agreement. The first one involves the use of a singular MPH/DP to refer to more than one object (e.g., Examples 4.19(a) to 4.19(d)); and the second one, pertains to the use of a plural MPH/DP to refer to a singular object (e.g., Examples 4.19(e) and 4.19(f)). In Example 4.19(a) Londa produces e lón ‘the lion’ to refer two lions. The child uttered this token four times; the first time was as a response to the experimenter’s statement: Aquí hay otras cositas ‘Here there are other (fem/pl) things (diminutive/fem/pl),’ as the experimenter showed the child two lions. In two other instances the child gave the same response to the experimenter’s question: ¿Qué son estos? ‘What are (3rd pl) these (masc/pl)?’ Notice that the experimenter gave Londa both the gender and number cues in the question, namely, the use of the masculine plural demonstrative estos. The last instance of this token was target-like involving the production of the singular DP e lón to refer to one lion. This child’s consistent singular response to refer to plural objects might be an indication of the presence of a default value for the number feature, reflected in her production as singular morphology. Support for this conclusion is found in Londa’s (full) DP production, that is, this child produced five non-target-like tokens in terms of reference, all of them involving the use of a singular DP to refer to a plural referent. In addition, it should be pointed out that Londa produced the MPH e (interpreted as a phonetic approximation of the masculine definite determiner el ‘the’) instead of the indefinite determiner unos in a context that only allows the indefinite reading, that is, the introduction of a new object. This may indicate that in this child’s grammar the contrast of definite versus indefinite is not yet available. In Examples 4.19(b) and 4.19(c), Alonso utters a singular MPH/DP even though he is holding two horses in his hand. The context of 4.19(d) was the

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experimenter showing four cats to Alonso while telling him: ¿Qué habrá aquí? ‘I wonder what is in here;’ his answer was: mia, e guauguau ‘look, the (masc/sg) dog.’ Notice that as in Example 4.19(d), the child uses the MPH e interpreted as the definite article el ‘the’ instead of the indefinite one to identify a new object, un. There was another instance of this token and it was target-like in terms of reference because the child was asking for another dog. The last two utterances in Example 4.19 involve a different type of mismatch, namely the use of a plural MPH/DP to refer to a single object. Specifically, in Example 4.19(e), Elián produces a plural MPH/DP even though he is holding one flower in his hand. One possible explanation for this token is that the child might only know the plural form of the nominal, that is, flore[h] ‘flowers.’ Evidence for this hypothesis was found in the analysis of Elián’s DP production, in particular the non-target-like utterance es ya flore[h] ‘(it) is the (fem/sg) flowers (unm/fem/pl).’ In this utterance all the constituents are in the singular except the nominal flore[h], perhaps because it is the only form of this particular noun that the child knows. Finally, in Example 4.19(f) Alonso produces a plural DP even though he is presented with only one object, in this particular case a crocodile. The context of this last utterance was the child requesting the fishes and anticipating that the experimenter was going to take them out of the bag at any moment. In this context, the child might have uttered the plural DP o[h] pece prior to seeing the actual fishes being taken out. In this child’s data, there is evidence that he knows both the singular and the plural forms of this particular nominal, that is, he produced pece ‘fishes’ and pe[h] ‘fish.’ The discussion of the MPH/DP data with respect to number agreement reveals that children were not having many issues establishing target-like agreement between the MPHs and the nominals they precede, that is, children produce only three non-target-like tokens with regard to number agreement. In contrast, the analysis of semantic agreement showed that the three children were having problems matching the number features of the referent with the corresponding morphological features. We turn the discussion to the analysis of number agreement in attributive adjective structures. Children’s production of attributive adjectives was very limited, with a total of 18 utterances, as seen in Table 4.8. Moreover, this table reveals a marked contrast between the production of the two younger children and the production of Londa: Elián (2), Alonso (1), and Londa (15). Table 4.8 also shows that Elián’s and Alonso’s production was all target-like. In contrast, Londa produced six non-target-like attributive adjective utterances, all of them involving a mismatch of the number feature.

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Table 4.8 Distribution of attributive adjectives Target-like/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


2 (100) – 2 (100)

1 (100) – 1 (100)

9 (60) 6 (40) 15 (100)

12 (67) 6 (33) 18 (100)

Example 4.20 illustrates Londa’s three non-target-like tokens (once repetitions were eliminated). Example 4.20 Child

Target

(a) *No, anaron feli[h] (Two times) No, ganaron los felices [trenes] ‘No, happy (unm/sg) [one] won’ ‘No, the (masc/pl) happy (masc/pl) [ones] won’ (b) *Tistre Los tristes [trenes] ‘Sad (unm/sg) [one]’ ‘The (masc/pl) sad (masc/pl) [ones]’ (c) *Azul (Three times) Los azules [carros] ‘Blue (unm/sg) [one]’ ‘The (masc/sg) blue (masc/pl) [ones]’ Example 4.20 shows that Londa’s non-target-like attributive adjective production involved two different types of issues; the first one involves the production of bare adjective phrases, that is, attributive adjectives without an obligatory determiner. This type of non-target-like attributive adjectives production is examined in Chapter 5. The second refers to a mismatch in the number agreement features. In particular, Londa uttered Example 4.20(a) in the following context: Example 4.21 Experimenter: ¿Quién ganó? Child: Yo Experimenter: ¿Los tristes?

Child:

‘Who won?’ ‘I’ ‘ The (masc/pl) sad (unm/pl) [ones]?’ ¿Ganaron los tristes? ‘The (masc/pl) sad (unm/pl) [ones] won?’ No, anaron feli[h] ‘No, sad (unm/sg) [one] won.’

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In the dialogue in Example 4.21 the child uttered the singular adjective feli[h] ‘happy’ to refer to the happy trains that won the race, even though the experimenter marked the plurality of the nominal in the second question, that is, ¿Ganaron los tristes? ‘The (masc/pl) sad (masc/pl) (ones) won (3rd pers/pl)?’ The child produced a second instance of the adjective feli[h] ‘happy’ after the experimenter explained to her that she had to choose two trains, either the two happy ones or the two sad ones: Estos dos, tienes que escoger los dos ‘These (masc/pl) two, (you) have to choose the (masc/pl) two (trains).’ After listening to the indications of the experimenter, the child made her selection by saying feli[h] instead of los felices ‘the (masc/pl) happy (unm/pl) (ones).’ As in the previous instance of this token, Londa produced a singular adjective even though the experimenter provided her with plurality cues in the instructions. One could argue that the child interpreted the final –s of the singular adjective feli–z ‘happy’ as a plural marker. However, Londa’s overall production does not support this conclusion, that is, this child had problems marking the plural number feature in all constituents under study. Example 4.20(b) was produced as the child completed the experimenter’s sentence: Y yo voy a llevar . . . ‘And I am going to carry . . .’ The child finished the experimenter’s sentence by saying tistre ‘sad (unm/sg)’ instead of los tristes ‘the (masc/pl) sad (un/pl)(ones)’ to refer to the two trains with sad faces that the experimenter was going to play with. In this context, the attributive reading seems more appropriate given the fact that the child was completing the experimenter’s sentence. The last non-target-like adjective token produced by Londa was azul ‘blue (unm/sg) (one).’ The child uttered this token three times as responses to the experimenter’s questions, as shown in Example 4.22. Example 4.22 (a) Experimenter: Mira, yo tengo los rojos, ¿cuál tú tienes? ‘Look, I have the (masc/pl) red (masc/pl) [ones], which [one] do you have?’ Child: Azul, azul. ‘Blue (unm/sg) [one], blue (unm/sg) [one]’ (b) Experimenter: Yo tengo los rojos, ¿cuál tú tienes? ‘ ‘I have the (masc/pl) red (masc/pl) [ones], which [one] do you have?’ Child: Azul ‘Blue (unm/sg) [one]’ (c) Experimenter: ¿Qué carros ganaron? ‘What cars (masc/pl) won (3rd pl)?’

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Child: (She points at the blue cars) Experimenter: ¿Los rojos? ‘The (masc/pl) red (masc/pl) [ones]?’ Child: No, azul ‘No, blue (unm/sg) [one]’ In the three exchanges illustrated in Example 4.22 the child responded consistently with the adjective azul ‘blue (unm/sg) (one)’ in the singular to refer to the two trains, in spite of the number cues provided by the experimenter in the questions to the child. As we have seen, all of Londa’s nonadult utterances regarding agreement involved the production of singular adjectives to refer to plural nominals. This finding is consistent with our findings on (full) DPs and BNs, that is, in these structures Londa also produced singular nominals to refer to plural objects. The analysis of the attributive adjective production reveals several aspects about these structures. First, they are not very common in children’s production, as has been reported in the acquisition literature (e.g., Mariscal 2008; Snyder et al. 2001); even when they were elicited by a particular task, that is, “The race.” As discussed earlier, the two smaller children barely produced examples of this particular structure and the older child’s production was higher although it does not seem very rich. Second, we saw in Londa’s data that all her non-target-like utterances regarding agreement involved the use of a singular adjective to modify a plural nominal. In particular, the adjective feliz ‘happy (sg)’ was used instead of felices (pl). One possible explanation is that the child interpreted the final –s sound of this adjective in the singular as a mark of plurality. However, she uttered all the other adjectives (with different endings) in the singular too, for example, triste ‘sad (unm/ sg)’ instead of tristes (unm/pl) to refer to plural nominals. As we have discussed before, this could have been due to the aspiration of the final –s characteristic of the Puerto Rican dialect. Finally, regarding the adjective azul ‘blue (unm/sg) (one)’ it is not clear why the child did not mark its plurality, that is, azules. One possibility is that the child does not know how to mark the plurality of this particular adjective that ends in the consonant sound –l. However this conclusion is not supported by Londa’s overall production, as she produced nominals that ended in consonantal sounds successfully in the plural, for example, flole[h] for flores ‘flowers.’ These results point to the presence of a default value for the number feature in this child grammar, reflected morphologically as the zero mark or the singular number form. These general findings on attributive adjectives were compared with the production of the two older children, Diana (3;5,27) and Pepe (4;3,10). Table 4.9 illustrates their production in terms of agreement.

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First Language Acquisition in Spanish Table 4.9 Distribution of attributive adjectives: older children Target-like/Non-target-like

Diana

Pepe

Total


17 (100) – 17 (100)

20 (100) – 20 (100)

37 (100) – 37 (100)

Table 4.10 Distribution of predicative adjectives Target-like/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


1 (100) – 1 (100)

5 (50) 5 (50) 10 (100)

55 (83) 11 (17) 66 (100)

61 (79) 16 (21) 77 (100)

Table 4.9 demonstrates that these two children have already mastered the adjectival agreement in attributive structures, displaying perfect target-like production, for example, el chiquito ‘the small (one),’ las azules ‘the blue (ones).’ Interestingly, Diana’s and Pepe’s attributive adjective production (17) and (20) respectively, reveal that these two children produced similar proportions to Londa (15), that is, Diana, Pepe, and Londa produced less than 20 attributive utterances. This limited production supports the finding that these structures are limited in child language; hence, further research should include a larger subject pool to be able to extract a more robust data set. We turn our discussion to the analysis of number agreement in the other constituents under study, namely predicative adjectives, and demonstrative and third person (direct) object clitic pronouns. These additional constituents were included in the agreement analysis to have a more global understanding of agreement in the grammar of the children under study. In the case of predicative adjectives, the children under study produced a total of 77 utterances with a predicate adjective, 61 target-like and 16 nontarget-like in terms of nominal agreement. Table 4.10 illustrates the distribution of the predicative adjectives produced by the three children. Table 4.10 also shows that Elián’s and Alonso’s production of this structure was scarce, as in the case of attributive adjective data, in comparison to Londa’s production, that is, (1), (10), and (66) respectively. Specifically, Elián only produced one predicative adjective utterance and it was in the singular, for example, Ii cayente ‘[It] is hot (unm/sg)’ for está caliente to

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refer to the video camera; hence no conclusions can be drawn regarding predicative adjective number agreement for this child. In the case of Alonso, he produced ten predicative adjective utterances, five target-like, for example, tá sucio ‘[it] is dirty (masc/sg),’ and five nontarget-like with respect to agreement. Regarding number, the analysis found one non-target-like utterance, as seen in Example 4.23. Example 4.23 Child

Target

*Son sucio ‘(They) are (perm) dirty (masc/sg)’

Están sucios [pies] ‘(They) are (chang) dirty (masc/pl)’

Example 4.23 involves a mismatch between the singular number feature of the adjective sucio ‘dirty’ and the plural feature of the nominal pies ‘feet.’ The context of this utterance was as shown in Example 4.24. Example 4.24 Experimenter: ¿Y eso qué es? ‘And that (neuter) what is (it)?’ Child: ¡Mira oo pie! ‘Look the feet!’ Experimenter: Pies, sí. ‘Feet, yes.’ Child: Son sucio. ‘(They) are dirty (masc/sg)’ In the dialogue in Example 4.24, the experimenter pointed at a pair of socks Alonso had taken off a doll and asked him what they were. The child, in turn, paid attention to the feet of the doll saying oo pie for los pies ‘the feet.’ Once the experimenter asserted that those were the feet of the doll by repeating pies ‘feet (unm/pl),’ the child spontaneously claimed that the feet were dirty, son sucio. In this particular context, there was evidence that the child knew the plurality of the nominal feet even though he did not mark it overtly in all the constituents produced. In his response in Example 4.24, Alonso produced the MPH oo for los with the singular nominal pie and in his second response he marked the plurality of feet in the copula son (third person pl). This non-target-like utterance seems to be another case of not marking overtly the plural marker –s due to a failure to produce the aspiration typical of this Spanish dialect, that is [h].13


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In contrast with Elián’s and Alonso’s limited production of predicative adjectives, Londa produced the vast majority of predicative adjective utterances found in the data, accounting for 71 percent of the total. An examination of the data revealed that out of a total of 47 predicative adjectives (once repetitions were excluded) found in Londa’s data, 11 were non-target-like in terms of agreement. Regarding number agreement, six non-target-like tokens were found in her data, as shown in Example 4.25. Example 4.25 Child

Target

(a) *Flole ande (Son) flores grandes ‘Flowers (unm/pl) big (unm/sg)’ ‘[They] are big (unm/pl) flowers (unm/pl)’ (b) *Ello ya antado Ellos ya están levantados ‘They already awake (masc/sg)’ ‘They are already awake (masc/pl)’ (c) *Tá omido Están dormidos ‘[It] is asleep (masc/sg)’ ‘(They) are asleep (masc/pl)’ (d) *Tá tistre (two times) Están tristes ‘[it]is sad (unm/sg)’ ‘(They) are sad (unm/pl)’ (e) *Feli[h] (Están) felices ‘Happy (unm/sg)’ ‘(They) are happy (unm/pl)’ (f) *No, ita No, son chiquitas ‘No, small (fem/sg)’ ‘No, (they) are small (fem/pl)’ Overall, Example 4.25 demonstrates that Londa produced singular marked adjectives to modify plural nominals. Specifically, in Example 4.25(a) Londa uttered the plural noun flole for flores ‘flowers’ with the singular adjective ande for grande ‘big (unm/sg)’ as a response to the experimenter’s question: ¿Y qué es esto? ‘And what is this (neuter)?’ This example could be phonological in nature, that is, the child did not mark the final aspiration of the plural marker –s, that is, [h]. Notice that we have evidence of the plurality of the nominal flores because the final (epenthetic) –e in flor–e, that is, the child produced only the vowel of the plural marker –es. In Examples 4.25(b) and 4.25(c) Londa produced singular adjectives to modify the plural nominal caballos ‘horses (masc/pl).’ In particular, in Example 4.25(b) the child marked the plurality of referent caballos ‘horses (masc/pl)’ with the pronominal ello for ellos ‘they (masc/pl).’ This number mismatch can also be phonological, namely, she did not mark the final –s aspiration on the adjective antado for levantado ‘awake (masc/sg).’ In contrast, the child produced Example 4.25(c) entirely in the singular, tá omido for está dormido ‘[he] is asleep (masc/sg)’ to refer to the sleeping horses.

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This particular example points to the availability of a default value for the number feature, expressed morphologically as the singular form. Examples 4.25(d) and 4.25(e) illustrate the use of the singular adjectives triste ‘sad (unm/sg)’ and feliz ‘happy (unm/sg)’ to refer to a pair of trains. These two examples are very interesting because Londa produced consistently singular utterances even though the experimenter (overtly) marked the plurality of the nominal in the questions. The two examples had the context shown in Example 4.26. Example 4.26 (a) Experimenter: ¿Y estos dos? ‘And these (masc/pl) two?’ Child: Tá tiste ‘(it) is sad (unm/sg)’ (b) Experimenter: ¿Y estos, estos dos? ‘And these (masc/pl), these (masc/pl) two?’ Child: Feli[h] ‘Happy (unm/sg)’ In the two dialogues shown in Example 4.26 the experimenter stressed the plurality of the nominal modified by the adjectives by using the plural demonstrative pronoun estos ‘these (masc/pl) (ones)’ and the quantifier dos ‘two.’ Nonetheless, the child answered consistently with adjectives in the singular. These examples bring support for the existence of an initial default value for the number feature. Moreover, as discussed earlier, Londa also produced these two adjectives in a non-target-like fashion in attributive structures, that is, singular adjectives to modify plural nominals. Londa’s last non-target-like utterance is illustrated in Example 4.25(f). The child uttered this example as a response to the experimenter’s question: ¿Y esas son grandes? ‘And those (fem/pl) are big (unm/pl)?’ As in the case of the examples discussed before, Londa produced a singular adjective to refer to plural nominals, in this case mariposas ‘butterflies (fem/pl),’ no, ita ‘no, small (fem/sg).’ The analysis of Londa’s number mismatches can be explained for by two factors. The first one is phonological in nature, consisting of the child marking the plurality of the noun in only one constituent, for example, either the nominal or the adjective. Similar results were found in her production of full DPs, that is, the child marked the plurality either on the determiner or in the nominal, for example, lo[h] caballo ‘the (masc/pl) horse (masc/sg).’ The second one relates to a default value in operation,


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Table 4.11 Distribution of predicative adjectives: older children Target-like/Non-target-like

Diana

Pepe

Total


24 (89) 3 (11) 27 (100)

47 (94) 3 (6) 50 (100)

71 (92) 6 (8) 77 (100)

that is, the child responded entirely in the singular form even when plural cues were provided in the input. This issue is addressed in Chapter 5. The results obtained from the data of the three children under study were compared with the predicative adjective production of the two older children, Diana and Pepe. Table 4.11 displays the almost completely target-like production of Diana and Pepe, with only six non-target-like utterances produced. In the case of Diana, two non-target-like utterances were found with respect to number agreement, as seen in Example 4.27. Example 4.27 Child (a) *De amarilla ‘Of yellow (fem/sg)’ (b) *Son azul ‘(They) are blue (unm/sg)’

Target

Referent

(Son) amarillas [bolas] ‘(They) (are) yellow (fem/pl)’ (Son) azules [bolas] ‘(They) (are) blue (unm/pl)’

Example 4.27(a), *De amarilla ‘Of yellow (fem/sg)’ illustrates a number mismatch between the plural number feature of the referent bolas ‘balls (fem/pl)’ and the singular number feature of the adjective amarilla. The context of this utterance is shown in Example 4.28. Example 4.28 Experimenter: ¿Bolas qué? ¿de qué color? ‘Balls (fem/pl) what? What color (balls)?’ Child: Este . . . bola[h] ‘Um... balls (fem/pl)’ Experimenter: ¿Bolas de qué color? ‘Balls (fem/pl) (of) what color?’ Child: *De amarilla ‘Of yellow (fem/sg)’

Number Agreement

135

In Example 4.28 the child responded in a target-like fashion terms of gender but non-target-like in terms of number, that is, the singular feature of the adjective amarilla ‘yellow’ does not match the plural feature of the nominal bolas ‘balls (fem/pl).’ Interestingly, the child copied the structure of the question used by the experimenter in her answer de amarilla ‘of yellow,’ that is, she used the preposition de ‘of’ with the color adjective. As discussed in Chapter 3 on gender agreement, color adjectives in predicative structures presented an interpretation challenge for the children under study (even the older ones) between two possible structures, as seen in Example 4.29. Example 4.29 (a) Las bolas son [PP de color amarillo] The balls are [PP of the color [mas/sg] yellow [mas/sg]] (b) Las bolas son [SC pro amarillas] The balls are [PP pro [fem/pl] yellow [fem/pl]] In Example 4.29(a) the adjective amarillo ‘yellow’ agrees with the masculine singular features of the nominal color ‘color,’ whereas in Example 4.29(b), it agrees with the plural feminine features of the nominal bolas. Example 4.27(a), then seems to indicate that this child’s grammar interprets the structure in the question as in Example 4.29(a) and as a result, she copies the preposition, that is, las bolas son de color amarillo ‘the balls are of the color yellow.’ Notice that within the prepositional structural interpretation, only the singular number is possible, cf. De color amarillo ‘Of color yellow (masc/ sg)’ versus *De color amarillos ‘Of color yellow (masc/pl).’ In the second non-target-like token shown in Example 4.27(b), *son azul ‘(they) are blue (unm/sg),’ Diana uttered the copula in the plural but the adjective azul in the singular to refer to the nominal bolas ‘balls (fem/pl).’ This token was produced as an answer to the experimenter’s question: Pero, ¿de qué color? ‘But, (of) what color?’ If the structural misinterpretation hypothesis is correct, this answer can be paraphrased as las bolas son de color azul ‘The balls are of color blue (unm/sg)’ and as such is target-like in this child’s grammar. Pepe’s non-target-like production is discussed next. Three non-target-like examples (regarding agreement) were found in his data, two of them pertained to a mismatch of the number feature, as seen in Example 4.30. Example 4.30 Child (a) *Igual a esto[h] ‘Similar (unm/sg) to these (masc/pl) [ones]’

Target Iguales a estos ‘Similar (unm/pl) to these (masc/pl) [ones]’

136


(b) *Desenmotao (Están) desmontados ‘[They] (are) disassembled (masc/sg)’ ‘[They] (are) disassembled (masc/pl)’ In Examples 4.30(a) and 4.30(b) Pepe produced singular adjectives to refer to plural nominals. Specifically, the child uttered the adjective igual ‘similar (unm/sg)’ in the singular while comparing two giraffes to two horses. Nonetheless, in the same example, he produced the pronominal esto[h] ‘these (masc/pl) (ones)’ in the plural to refer to the caballos ‘horses (masc/pl).’ We should point out that Pepe produced the adjective igual in other five instances, and all of them were target-like, for example, Esto[h] son iguale[h] ‘These (masc/pl) (ones) are similar (unm/pl),’ to refer to gatos ‘cats (masc/pl).’ The last non-target-like token shown in Example 4.30(b) was uttered as the answer to the experimenter’s question: ¿Cómo están estos? ‘How are these (masc/pl) (ones)?’ pointing at the happy faces of two trains. The child answered by saying desenmotao for desmontado ‘disassembled (masc/sg)’ instead of [están] desmontados ‘(they) (are) disassembled (masc/pl).’ In his answer, the child was referring to the fact that the wagons were not attached to the trains. An explanation for this number mismatch could be phonological in nature, that is, the child did not mark the aspiration of the final –s. The examination of predicative adjective data revealed a marked contrast between the production levels of the two younger children (Elián and Alonso) and the production of Londa; similar results were found in the production of adjectives in attributive structures. In addition, the data analysis (mostly of Londa’s production) showed that all non-target-like utterances involved unmarked plurals, that is, the production of singular adjectives to refer to plural nominals. This result is consistent with Londa’s non-target-like attributive adjective production which involved the production of singular adjectives to refer to plural nominals, for example, *azul ‘blue (unm/sg)’ instead of azules ‘blue (unm/pl).’ In addition, similar results were found in the full DP data, that is, the three children produced nontarget-like examples in terms of number that involved the production of a plural nominal with a singular determiner or vice versa, for example, *es ya flore[h] (Elián) ‘[it] is the (fem/sg) flowers (fem/pl)’ instead of son las flores ‘[they] are the (fem/pl) flowers (fem/pl).’ Now we turn the discussion to the examination of number agreement in demonstrative and third person (direct) object clitic pronouns. In the case of demonstrative pronouns, the analysis showed that the children under

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Table 4.12 Distribution of demonstrative pronouns Target-like/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


8 (80) 2 (20) 10 (100)

21 (78) 6 (22) 27 (100)

111 (88) 17 (12) 128 (100)

140 (85) 25 (15) 165 (100)

Table 4.13 Clitic pronouns production Target-like/ Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total

Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Masculine Feminine Target-like (%) 2 Non-target-like (%) – Total (%) 2

1 1 2

15 9 24

5 1 6

5 2 7

2 – 2

30 (70) 13 (30) 43 (100)

study (mostly Londa) produced a total of 165 utterances involving a demonstrative pronoun, 85 percent target-like and 15 percent non-target-like in terms of agreement, as shown in Table 4.12. Interestingly, all non-target-like utterances produced pertained to the gender feature. Moreover, the examination of reference yielded no mismatches between the number feature encoded in the demonstrative pronouns and that of the referents. These results are in contrast with those of the full DPs and MPH/DPs: while non-target-like demonstrative pronouns involved a mismatch of the gender feature, non-target-like DPs and MPHs involved a mismatch of the number feature. Finally, we present the results of the data analysis on third person direct object clitics. The children under study produced a total of 43 clitics, distributed as follows: Alonso (30), Londa (9), and Elián (4), as can be seen in Table 4.13. This table also shows that Alonso produced more than three times the number of clitics than other two children. In addition, Table 4.13 indicates that clitic production was 70 percent target-like and 30 percent non-target-like with regard to agreement. In particular, the analysis of number agreement revealed that the vast majority of the clitics produced were singular and they referred to singular objects. Only two clitics were uttered in the plural out of a total of 43 clitics produced by the three children, for example, Ponla[h] aquí ‘Put them (fem/pl) here.’


138

The data analysis shows that the three children produced a total of 13 non-target-like clitics, but only three instances involved a number mismatch, as shown in Example 4.31. Example 4.31 Child

Target

Referent

(a) Vo gadarla (Alonso) ‘(I) am going to put it (fem/sg)[away]’

Voy a guardarlos *[bloques] ‘(I) am going to put them (masc/pl) [away]’

(b) Coelo (Alonso) ‘Take it (masc/sg)’

Cógelos ‘Take them (masc/pl)’

*[zapatos]

(c) La tiele (Elián) Las tienes *[mariposas] ‘[He/she] has it (fem/sg)’ ‘[You] have them (fem/pl)’ Example 4.31(a) displays a total mismatch of both the gender and the number features. Alonso utters the feminine singular clitic, la ‘it’ to refer to bloques ‘toy blocks’ a masculine plural nominal. Examples 4.31(b) and 4.31(c) involve a mismatch of the number feature. Specifically, in Example 4.31(b) Alonso produced the masculine singular clitic lo to refer to zapatos ‘shoes’ a masculine plural nominal; while in 4.31(c) Elián utters the feminine singular clitic la to refer to the feminine plural nominal mariposas ‘butterflies.’ As discussed previously, these examples may be a product of phonology not featural mismatch, given the phonological context for aspiration, namely, final vowel + –s. However, this explanation seems plausible in the case of Alonso because there is evidence in his production of plurality. In the case of Elián, no conclusions can be drawn given his limited and mostly singular production. 4.4.1 Preliminary Conclusions The overall discussion of number points to a contrast in the acquisition of the features, gender and number. On the one hand, we observed an almost perfect gender agreement production within the DP structure, but children were having difficulties (overtly) marking the plural number. On the other hand, the analysis of predicative adjectives, demonstrative pronouns, and third person clitics seems to point to the opposite result; namely, children were having more problems with gender agreement than with number agreement. However, as I pointed out previously, the limited plural contexts for these constituents in particular might have affected the final results.

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139

Finally, the hypothesis of a delay in the acquisition of number finds support from the data on Bare Nominal Phrases (BNPs), that is, nominals uttered in isolation. The examination of BNPs produced showed that out of a total of 87 nominals that were required to be marked with plural morphology, only 21 (24 percent) were overtly marked as such. This result indicates that the difference found in the acquisition of the number feature (in comparison to the gender feature) goes beyond establishing grammatical agreement. In fact, it is of a semantic nature; namely, children were having problems matching the number of referents with the grammatical number inflection of the nominals. In the next section I will discuss the contrast between semantic and grammatical number agreement and its consequences for the acquisition of the number feature. 4.4.2 Grammatical versus Semantic Agreement The overall analysis of number agreement supports the hypothesis of a delay in the acquisition of number morphology. I would like to argue that the difficulty children encounter with the marking of number feature has its basis in the complexity involved in the acquisition of this feature. On the one hand, the learner has to acquire the morphological markers for number, recognize that this feature is encoded in specific syntactic categories, and create the corresponding grammatical agreement relations between the nominal and the agreeing constituents, as in the case of the gender feature (Koehn 1994). On the other hand, the acquisition of number not only pertains to the cognitive task of understanding the difference between one versus more than one, but it also involves a semantic analysis of reference on the part of the learner, namely, the complex task of matching the actual number of (nominal) referents with the corresponding number morphology, for example, Londa utters es un carro ‘it is a/one (masc/ sg) car (masc/sg)’ to refer to four cars. In this example, the (grammatical) singular number feature of the determiner un matches the singular number feature of the nominal carro, but it does not match the intended plural referent, namely, four cars. This contrast points out the need for further analysis of plurality. Specifically, the distinction between grammatical number agreement (e.g., between a determiner and a noun) and semantic number agreement for example, between the number feature encoded in a particular DP and the number of objects it refers to). Notice that gender agreement in turn does not involve the analysis of the features of the actual referent, with the exception of natural gender. In order to better understand children’s acquisition of number, utterance tokens with plural referents were analyzed in terms of their semantic

140


Table 4.14 Summary of number non-target-like tokens Structure

Plural referents

Non-target-like number production Grammaticala

(Full) DPs MPH/DPs Attributive adjectives Predicative adjectives Demonstratives Third person clitics Total a

b

21 9 6 6 11 5 58

7 3 1 2 – 1 14

Total

Semanticb 8 5 5 4 – 2 24

15 8 6 6 – 3 38

Grammatical non-target-like number refers to a number mismatch between the nominals and the agreeing constituents. Semantic non-target-like number refers to a mismatch between the number morphology of the DP and the number of objects it refers to.

and grammatical agreement patterns. Table 4.14 provides a summary of the non-target-like number utterances pertaining to grammatical and semantic agreement. Overall, Table 4.14 shows that out of a total of 58 tokens with a plural referent, only 20 (34 percent) were marked for plurality in a target-like fashion; the remaining 38 tokens involved a number mismatch, either semantic or grammatical. In addition, Table 4.14 illustrates that the children produced significantly more semantic number mismatches (24) than grammatical ones (14). This difference was found significant (χ2 = 5.58, p = 0.018). This contrast supports my hypothesis that children’s pluralization problem pertains to the semantic aspect of the number feature. Moreover, we can see in Table 4.16 that children had difficulties marking plural number in almost all the structures under study, with the exception of the demonstrative pronouns. Finally, the analysis of BNPs revealed that 31 percent of the non-target-like BNP utterances produced by the three children under study refer to a semantic mismatch, that is, the production of singular BNPs to refer to more than one object.

4.4.3 Number Comprehension This section examines the results obtained in the Number Comprehension Task, “The Animal House.” The goal of this task was to explore whether the cognitive component of number acquisition was one of the factors responsible for the delay in the acquisition of number. Specifically, this task focused

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on whether the children understood the contrast between one versus more than one. The protocol for this task was that one (or more than one) animal was sleepy and needed to go to the house to sleep. Then the experimenter would ask the child, using a puppet, for one (or more) animal to take to the house. Crucially animal props were set up in front of the child for her to choose from, for example, two cats or three cows. Once a request was made, children responded by selecting from the set of animals and taking to the house or giving it to the puppet. Notice that this task separates the cognitive aspect of number comprehension from the production aspect, that is, children were responding by acting not speaking (see Chapter 2 for details). Children’s responses were coded in two categories: (1) responsive, defined as the child responding by giving a toy or toys to the experimenter or selecting the appropriate number of objects even if she did not pass them to the experimenter; (2) non-responsive, defined as the child not giving anything at all. The non-responsive category includes the following behaviors: refusals (the child overtly refuses to give the requested toy); other responses (includes behaviors such as hitting the puppet, asking for clarification for example, ¿ah? ‘uh?,’ or simply pretending not to have heard the request); and no response (the child is distracted at play). The results for this task are summarized in Table 4.15. This table also illustrates that the type of response varies from child to child, for example, Londa never refused to give a toy or toys away, whereas Elián and Adolfo frequently responded with an overt refusal. Hence, the results of each child would be discussed on an individual basis. In the case of Elián, his responses were distributed as follows: 10 responsive and 26 non-responsive, as illustrated in Table 4.15. Of the ten responsive acts carried out by Elián, eight were target-like, that is, the child gave the number

Table 4.15 Comprehension: singular versus plural

Responsive Non-responsive refusals Other response No answer Total a b c

Elián

Alonso

Londa

10 10 12 4 36a

15 15 14 12 56b

8 – 5 – 13c

A total of 10 different requests were made, excluding repetitions. A total of 9 different requests were made, excluding repetitions. A total of 8 different requests were made, excluding repetitions.

Total 31 31 29 14 103

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of objects requested, and two were non-target-like, that is, the child gave an incorrect number of objects. Target-like responses were distributed as follows: two responses were to feminine singular nouns, three to masculine singular nouns, three to feminine plural nouns, whereas non-target-like responses involved requests for two masculine plural nouns. This distribution points to the fact that this child was as likely to respond to requests with feminine nominals as to requests with masculine ones, that is, five responses to feminine requests and five to masculine ones. Regarding Elián’s two non-target-like responses, both of them involved the experimenter’s request for two objects, as shown in Example 4.32. Example 4.32 (a) Experimenter: Dame dos, yo quiero dos (three cats available). ‘Give me two, I want two.’ Child: (responds by giving one cat) (b) Experimenter: Dame dos de esos, vamos a guardarlos, dame dos. ‘Give me two of those (masc/pl), lets put them (masc/pl) [away], give me two’ (pointing at the three cats). Child: (responds by giving one cat). In Example 4.32(a) the experimenter requested two cats (of the three cats present) from the child, while the child played with one. Elián responded by giving the cat he was holding. In 4.32(b) the same request was repeated, this time the three cats were inside the toy car the child was driving. Again the child responded by giving only one cat. A possible explanation for the non-target-like responses is that this child did not understand the numeral “two” or perhaps he was more interested in playing than responding to the experimenter’s requests. Another possibility is that the child did not understand the difference between one and more than one. However, there is evidence that the child understood a different kind of plural request, as illustrated in Example 4.33. Example 4.33 (a) Experimenter: ¿Dónde están las grandes? Dame las grandes. ‘Where are the (fem/pl) big (unm/pl) [ones]? Give me the (fem/pl) big (unm/pl) [ones].’ Child: (responds by giving three butterflies). (b) Experimenter: Búscalas ‘Find them (fem/pl).’ Child: (responds by picking up two of the batteries).

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Experimenter: ¿Dónde están las otras? Busca las otras. ‘Where are the (fem/pl) other (fem/pl) [ones]? Find the (fem/pl) other (fem/pl) [ones]’ Child: (brings the missing batteries). Elián responded in a target-like fashion to the plural requests made in Example 4.33. In particular, in Example 4.33(a) the experimenter asked Elián for las grandes ‘the big [ones]’ referring to the butterflies and the child responded by bringing three butterflies, two big and one small. This response is target-like because the task was assessing number comprehension and not the comprehension of adjectives like big and small. In Example 4.32(b) the child responded correctly to the experimenter’s plural requests. First, the experimenter asked the child to find the batteries (four batteries available) that he just has dropped. The child reacted immediately by picking up two of the batteries. Then the experimenter told him busca las otras ‘find the others’ and he responded by finding the remaining two batteries and bringing them to the experimenter. Utterances in Example 4.33 suggest that this child understands plural requests. Perhaps, he has not yet acquired the numerals like dos ‘two.’ In general, Elián’s responses seem to indicate that he understands the difference between a singular request and a plural one, responding in a target-like fashion by bringing one object in response to singular requests (five instances) and several objects in response to plural ones (three instances). In Alonso’s case, his responses were distributed as follows: 15 responsive and 41 non-responsive, as shown in Table 4.15. Of the 15 responsive behaviors carried out by Alonso, 14 were target-like, that is, the child gave the number of objects requested, and 1 was non-target-like, that is, the child gave an incorrect number of objects. Alonso’s 14 target-like responses were distributed as follows: 8 responses were for masculine singular nouns, 3 to feminine singular nouns, 2 to masculine plural nouns and to a feminine plural noun. His aunt made one of the three plural requests (involving a plural masculine noun): Traile juguetes a Antonio ‘Bring toys for Antonio [to play with].’ In this request she used a bare plural with an existential interpretation, that is, bringing one or more than one toys would be considered appropriate response to this request. In this case the child chose to give one toy. The distribution of Alonso’s responses seems to indicate that this child was more likely to respond to masculine requests than to feminine ones, that is, 10 responses to masculine nouns while 4 to feminine. This distribution is consistent with this child’s overall data because the overwhelming majority of his utterances involved masculine nominals.

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As mentioned above, Alonso responded in a non-target-like fashion in only one instance, as seen in Example 4.34. Example 4.34 (a) Experimenter: Mira las mariposas. Dame las grandes. ‘Look at the (fem/pl) butterflies (fem/pl). Give me the (fem/pl) big (unm/fem) [ones].’ Child: ¿La[h] grande[h]? ‘The (fem/pl) big (unm/pl) [ones]?’ (repeats the request; hands the big snake). In the dialogue in Example 4.34 the experimenter requested the big butterflies; there were four butterflies available, two big and two small. Notice that when the request was made Alonso was not in front of the butterflies. His immediate reaction was to repeat the request in the form of a question, ¿la[h] grande[h]? ‘the big [ones]?’ and then he proceeded to bring a big snake instead of the big butterflies. Interestingly enough, the noun serpiente ‘snake’ matches the feminine gender features of the noun ‘butterflies.’ Since the noun ‘butterflies’ was dropped (or omitted) in this request, the child might have chosen a different referent that matched the gender features of the request. However, there was no other big snake to bring to the experimenter to match the plural number feature of the requested object. The child never uttered the nominal serpiente or culebra ‘snake’ so in fact, we have no evidence that he actually knows it. This response could be an error due to the limited attention span of the child or simply a response that shows his preference for particular toys. These results seem to point to the fact that this child has some awareness of the difference between one and more than one, as illustrated by his responses. Londa’s behavior in this task contrasted from the behavior of the two children discussed. First, neither “overt refusals” nor “no answers” to the experimenter’s requests were found in her data. This might reflect a social maturation factor, that is, this child was willing to participate in the task sharing “her” toys, unlike the other two children. Londa’s responses were distributed as follows: eight responsive answers and five other responses. Of the eight responsive behaviors, five were target-like and three were non-target-like. All her target-like responses were to singular requests: two responses to feminine nouns and three responses to masculine nouns. Regarding this child’s three non-target responses, all of them involved a request for more than one object and the child responding by giving one object, as illustrated in Example 4.35.

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Example 4.35 (a) Experimenter: Me puedes dar las grandes. ¿Dónde están las grandes? ‘Can you give me the (fem/pl) big (unm/pl) [ones]?’ Where are the (fem/pl) big (unm/pl) [ones]? Child: Aquí (pointing at the butterflies). ‘Here.’ Experimenter: Dámelas. ‘Give them (fem/pl) to me.’ Child: Toa (for toma). ‘Take.’ (gave one big butterfly to the experimenter). Experimenter: ¿Hay más? ‘Are there (any) more?’ Child: Mía for mira. ‘Look’ (gave the other one to the experimenter). (b) Experimenter: ¿Me das los azules? [Blue elephants] ‘Would you give me the (masc/pl) blue (unm/pl) [ones]?’ Child: Sí. ‘Yes.’ Experimenter: ¿Dónde están los azules? ‘Where are the (masc/pl) blue (unm/pl) (ones)?’ Child: Aquí. ‘Here’ (gave one blue elephant to the experimenter). Experimenter: ¿Hay más? ‘Are there (any) more?’ Child: Aquí. ‘Here’ (gave another blue elephant). Experimenter: ¿Hay más o no? ‘Are there [any] more or not?’ Child: Sí ira for mira. ‘Yes look’ (gave the last blue elephant). Utterances in Example 4.35 illustrate the nature of Londa’s non-target-like responses. Specifically, in Example 4.35(a) the experimenter requested las grandes ‘the big [ones]’ referring to the butterflies. There were four butterflies available: two big and two small. Londa responded by giving only one of the possible two big butterflies. Then the experimenter followed up by asking the child if there were any more butterflies: ¿hay más? The child reacted by giving the other big butterfly to the experimenter. Example 4.35(b) is similar to the previous example. In this case the experimenter asked the child for los azules ‘the blue [ones],’ in reference to the elephants. There were three blue elephants and one gray. Once more the child responded by giving only one elephant to the experimenter. Interestingly, every time the experimenter asked the child if there were any more, the child gave the correct “type” of objects requested. The third non-target-like response was similar to the two illustrated in Example 4.35. In this instance,

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the experimenter requested two white cats: ¿Me das dos gatos blancos? ‘Would you give me two white (masc/pl) cats (masc/pl)?’ Londa gave only one cat (of the three available) to the experimenter. The analysis of Londa’s data revealed that she had problems interpreting the plural requests, that is, out of the three plural requests made all of them received a singular object as a response. One possibility is to conclude that this child does not understand the difference between singular and plural. However, this conclusion would be precipitous in light of her overall production. First, Londa produced several target-like plural DPs that referred to plural referents, as in Example 4.36. Example 4.36 (a) uno[h] dulce[h] (b) una[h] llave[h

‘some candies’ ‘some keys’

Utterances in Example 4.36 show Londa’s target-like use of plurality. Specifically, she produced Example 4.36(a) to refer to the balls inside a toy that look to her like candy, and Example 4.36(b) to refer to two keys. Second, Londa spontaneously indicated in a target-like fashion that there were two objects of the same kind. Example 4.37 (a) Child: Experimenter: Child: (b) Child: Experimenter: Child:

sita for casita ¿Y quién vive ahí? Estos do[h] Mira do[h] pielna[h] ¿Qué tiene? Do[h] pielna[h].

‘house (diminutive/fem/sg)’ ‘And who lives there?’ ‘These (masc/pl) two.’ ‘Look two legs’ ‘What does (he) have?’ ‘Two legs.’

Utterances in Example 4.37 show that Londa understands the concept of plurality by using the numeral two to refer to two objects. In particular, the child uttered Example 4.37(a) as a response to the experimenter’s question regarding who lived in the little house. The child indicated that the two snakes (she called them lagartijo ‘lizard’) lived in the small house, while pointing at the two snakes. Example 4.37(b) illustrates a spontaneous utterance of the child in which she indicated the parts of the body of her dog. Specifically, he stated that the dog had two legs in the back: mira dos pielna[h]. Moreover, in another instance the experimenter asked the child to count the bananas available showing her two bananas: ¿Y cuántos hay aquí mira? ‘And how many are here, look?’ The child responded in a target-like fashion saying: Dos ‘Two.’

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Another possibility to account for her non-target-like responses to plural requests is to posit that in this child’s grammar the interpretation of plurality is defined in a different fashion than in the target grammar. In particular, Londa’s concept of plurality is not defined as a totality of objects (i.e., collective interpretation) but as a group of individual units, that is, a distributive interpretation. That is, in her grammar a phrase like “the blue elephants” is interpreted as: “one blue elephant + one blue elephant + one blue elephant” instead of the summation of all the elephants, that is, “three blue elephants.” This hypothesis finds support in her overall production. Example 4.38 (a) Child:

Tá tistre, este tá feli[h], este tá feli[h] ‘[It] is sad, this [one] is happy, this [one] is happy’ Target: Está triste, estos están felices ‘[It] is sad, these [ones] are happy’ (b) Experimenter: ¿Y estos dos? And these two?’ Child: Este es bebé, bebé ‘This [one] is baby, baby’ Target: Estos son los bebés ‘These two are the babies’ The examples above illustrate Londa’s distributive plurality concept. In particular, the child produced 4.38(a) to refer to the toy fishes. Notice that instead of using the plural to include the two fishes that were happy the child repeated the singular predicative structure pointing at each fish individually. The target utterance should have been as illustrated in Example 4.38(a): estos están felices ‘these are happy (unm/pl).’ The context of the dialogue in Example 4.38(b) was the child assigning family roles to the four horses available. Then the experimenter asked the child about the two small horses: ¿Y éstos dos? ‘And these two?’ Once more, the child responded by naming each small horse individually: este es bebé, bebé. Crucially, the child pointed at each horse as she repeated the nominal. The target utterance should have been the nominal in the plural: estos son los bebés ‘these are the babies.’ Interestingly, Pepe, one of the two oldest children included in the present study, also produced this type of “plural” utterances, as shown in Example 4.39. Example 4.39 un cocodrilo, un delfín y una ballena y una ballena ‘a crocodile, a dolphin and a whale and a whale’

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In Example 4.39, Pepe repeats the singular DP una ballena instead of using the plural form of the DP, dos ballenas ‘two whales’ or unas ballenas ‘some whales.’ Notice that this type of utterance is available in the target grammar when the objects to be named are different (e.g., este es el grande y éste es el chiquito ‘this is the big one and this is the small one’) or when the speaker wants to emphasize the components of a group, for example, este no me gustó, este no me gustó pero este sí ‘this one I did not like, this one I did not like but this one I liked.’ Londa’s non-target-like responses might point to a parsing preference in this child’s early grammar, the distributive interpretation. Miyamoto and Crain (1991) conducted an experiment the distinction in child grammar between the collective and the distributive readings of plural NPs, using 24 children between the ages of 3;0 and 6;0. The experiment presented the children ambiguous situations in two parts to determine if they had access to the collective and distributive interpretations. In the first situation, two characters (Ernie and Big Bird) participated in a lifting competition that ended with each character succeeding in lifting two cans each, that is, the distributive condition. Then Kermit the Frog described what he thought has taken place, saying: They are lifting four cans. This statement was false pragmatically. In the second part, Ernie still wanted to win the competition and tried to lift four cans by himself but they were too heavy. Then Big Bird helped him and together they managed to lift the four cans. Once more, Kermit stated what occurred: They are holding four cans, that is, the collective condition. Kermit’s statement was pragmatically true. The study found that children responded affirmatively to the collective interpretation 89 percent of the time, while they rejected Kermit’s false statement 70 percent of the time. Miyamoto and Crain concluded that children can access both interpretations. Interestingly, they found that children younger than 5 rejected Kermit’s false statement in 84 percent of the instances, that is, compared with 70 percent for all children. They interpret this result as an indication that younger children might prefer the distributive interpretation over the collective interpretation. I speculate that this is the case in Londa’s grammar, even in the case of unambiguous plural requests. Another possibility is that she did not understand her expected response in this particular task. The discussion of the “Animal House” task findings revealed several aspects regarding number. First, none of three children had problems comprehending the singular number requests. Second, all the non-target-like responses involved giving a singular object to a plural request. In particular, Elián seemed to have difficulties understanding the numeral dos ‘two’ but

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Table 4.16 Comprehension: singular versus plural Diana Singular request Responsive Non-responsive Total

3 – 3

Pepe Plural request 3 – 3

Singular request 2 – 2

Plural request 3 – 3

his target-like responses to other plural requests seem to indicate that he does understand the difference between one and more than one. In Alonso’s case, his non-target-like response could be due to a short attention span; this particular child was very physically active. Nonetheless, he responded target-like to other plural requests. Londa’s data presented different results regarding the understanding of plural requests, that is, the three plural requests made by the experimenter received non-target-like responses. It was argued that in this child’s grammar had a distributive parsing preference, that is, plurality is interpreted as comprised of individual objects seen as independent units, and not as a sum. Evidence for this hypothesis was found in her overall production, for example, Londa repeated singular nominals instead of using a plural phrase to refer to a group of objects with the same characteristics. These findings on the Comprehension Task were compared with the responses of the two older children, Diana and Pepe, to the same task. Diana’s and Pepe’s responses to this task were all target-like. In particular, they responded to both singular and plural requests without any difficulty, as shown in Table 4.16. This table illustrates that these two children had no problems completing the Comprehension task. In particular, Diana’s responses were all “responsive” and target-like. Her responses were distributed as follows: three responses to singular requests and three responses to plural requests. Similarly, Pepe responded to all the requests in a target-like fashion. Specifically, his answers were distributed as follows: two responses to singular requests and three responses to plural requests. This points to the fact that these two children have no difficulties in number comprehension at this stage of acquisition.

4.4.3.1 Overall Conclusions The discussion of number indicates that the acquisition of this feature does not take place uniformly, that is, the analysis revealed that learners differed

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in the acquisition of different aspects of number. In terms of the grammatical and morphological aspects, the data analysis found that the children tended to produce singular marked Determiner Phrases (and Bare Nominals) to refer to plural referents. However, I should point out that when Alonso and Londa did mark plural number, they did so in a target-like fashion, with the exception of the phonological context for final –s aspiration, namely, a final vocalic segment. In contrast, Elián’s production can be characterized as all singular. In terms of the cognitive aspect of number, namely number comprehension, the data showed that while Elián and Alonso responded in a target-like fashion to some of the plural requests made, Londa’s responses to plural requests were all non-target-like. Nonetheless, I found evidence in her overall production that she had an awareness of number distinctions. Finally, the data showed that the three children were having problems with the semantic aspect of number; that is, they were having difficulties matching the plurality encoded in the referents with the grammatical features of the nominals. I have argued that it is this part of number acquisition that might cause the delay exhibited in the marking of the plural number feature.

Chapter 5

Emergence of Determiner Phrases

One of the central aims of the present monograph is to define the nature of nominal in Spanish early grammars, within the framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2001). In this framework, agreement is seen as a feature checking process, in which functional categories, such as Determiner Phrases, play a key role. In this chapter I explore the emergence of the Determiner Phrase in the production of the three children under study (Elián, Alonso, and Londa) and in doing so, I examine the evidence in support of the availability of functional projections in Spanish early grammars. In particular, the analysis will be focused on the data on determiner omissions or Bare Nominals, Monosyllabic Place Holders (Bottari, Cipriani, & Chilosi 1993/1994) Determiner Phrases, and (full) Determiner Phrases (DPs), and the interaction among these structures in child language. In addition, I will address in this chapter the debate about the initial state, namely, continuous versus discontinuous approaches to language acquisition. The focus of the discussion will be on the explanatory adequacy of these two approaches to language acquisition, that is, their ability to account for the data produced by the children as well as to explain how these children will converge into the target grammar. Notice that continuous and discontinuous approaches make different predictions regarding the initial state; and in particular, the availability of functional categories such as the DP. On the one hand, continuous approaches, specifically the Weak Continuity Hypothesis, state that children’s grammar is qualitatively the same as adult’s grammar in that they are both guided by Universal Grammar (UG). As a result, children’s production may vary from the target grammar but should not violate any principles of UG (Crain & Pietrosky 2001; Pinker 1984). Crucially, continuous approaches to language acquisition do not predict instantaneous acquisition because children still have to map their abstract linguistic knowledge to the primary linguistic data, as pointed by Valian, Solt, and Stewart (2009). For the present study on the acquisition of nominal agreement, children are assumed to have the abstract category

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of determiner but they will need to map it to the specification of the Spanish language, for example, strong agreement features and Case requirements. Nonetheless, this version of the Weak Continuity Hypothesis predicts that in the course of the acquisition process children’s non-target-like production will be acceptable in a language because they are guided by UG. Specifically, this hypothesis assumes that children would be as successful establishing target-like agreement relations with nominals canonically marked for gender (i.e., masculine nouns ending in the word maker –o, and feminine nouns ending in the word marker –a), as well as with nominals non-canonically marked (e.g., nominals ending in the vowel –e or a consonant), because children are not matching endings but checking features like the adult grammar does. On the other hand, discontinuous approaches, such as the usage-based approach (e.g., Pine & Lieven 1997; Tomasello 2000, 2003) state that children start the acquisition process with no language-specific knowledge but with the general cognitive learning mechanisms. In this approach, children build or construct their grammar in a piecemeal fashion, based on the regularities extracted from the input. This hypothesis predicts that children’s output will match the primary linguistic input because that is the basis of the grammar they are constructing. Furthermore, children are expected to extract the regularities available in the input to build their grammar, such as masculine nominals in Spanish end in the word marker –o and feminine nominals in the word marker –a. Then, this hypothesis predicts that children would be more successful establishing target-like gender agreement with nominals canonically marked for gender than with nominals noncanonically marked because of the abundance in the input of examples exhibiting these agreement patterns, that is, children would be able to make the connection between these particular endings and their associated gender in general. We turn the discussion now to the emergence of DP in the grammar of the children under study.

5.1 DPs in Spanish Child Language Studies on the acquisition of Spanish DPs have described the initial stages of acquisition of this functional category as being characterized by the omission of the obligatory determiners; the production of a vocalic element in the slot a determiner would occupy in adult language; and a limited production of adult-like DPs (e.g., Aguirre 1995; Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 1997, 2003; among others). Although these acquisition studies mostly

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agree on this characterization, they differ on the interpretation given to these linguistic phenomena. On the one hand, some researchers interpret children’s non-adult-like production as a deficit in initial grammar or as evidence of the lack of abstract knowledge (e.g., Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 2003; Tomasello 2003), for example, determiner omissions are interpreted as evidence of a lack of this functional projection in the grammar. On the other hand, others explain them as part of the process of mapping abstract representations to the primary linguistic data (Chierchia, Guasti, & Gualmini 2000; Crain & Thornton 1998; Lleó 1997, 2001). At the heart of these different interpretations of the data are the assumptions made by the researchers regarding the initial state, one in which there is continuity between the child’s grammar and the adult’s grammar or one in which the two systems are qualitatively different, hence discontinuous. In what follows I examine the issue of the availability of functional categories in the context of these two approaches, using the experimental data produced by the three children under study: Elián, Alonso, and Londa. The analysis of the data produced by the three children under study yielded a total of 394 Bare Nominal Phrases or Bare Nominal utterances, that is, nominals produced in isolation. The production of Bare Nominals (BNs) was distributed as follows: 179 (45 percent) target-like and 215 (55 percent) non-target-like, as illustrated in Table 5.1. The chi-squared test revealed that there was no significant difference between the two totals (χ2 = 3.29, p = .07). This result seems to indicate that children were as likely to produce a target-like BN as a non-target-like BN. Notice that the expression ‘target-like’ with respect to BNs means that the utterance is acceptable in the target language. I should point out, that not all the 215 non-target-like BNs produced by the children pertained to the omission of the determiner. Two major types of non-target-like BN utterances were produced by the children under study. The first one involved the production of a non-plural marked BN to refer to a plural referent, for example, flol ‘flower’ instead of flores ‘flowers’ to refer to the four flowers present in the context (see Chapter 4 for discussion). The second type of

Table 5.1 Distribution of Bare Nominal production Target-like/Non-target-like Target-like (%) Non-target-like (%) Total (%)

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total

37 (49) 39 (51) 76 (100)

56 (53) 49 (47) 105 (100)

86 (40) 127 (60) 213 (100)

179 (45) 215 (55) 394 (100)

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Table 5.2 Non-target-like BNPs produced Singular reference

Plural reference

Ambiguous

Total

1 (3%) 1 (2%) 7 (5%) 9 (4%)

39 (100%) 49 (100%) 127 (100%) 215 (100%)

Determiner omissions Unmarked plurala Bare pluralsb Elián Alonso Londa Total a b

23 (59%) 32 (65%) 83 (65%) 138 (64%)

15 (38%) 16 (33%) 35 (28%) 66 (31%)

2 (2%) 2 (1%)

Singular nominals that referred to plural referents. Determiner omissions with plural marked nominals.

non-target-like BN produced by the three children consisted of the production of a Bare Nominal Phrase, that is, a noun without the obligatory determiner, for example, casha (for casa) ‘house’ instead of una casa ‘a house.’ The distribution of these two types of non-target-like utterances is presented in Table 5.2. Of particular interest here is the issue of determiner omission in obligatory contexts, as shown in Table 5.2. Overall, the omission of the determiner (with singular nominals) is the most common type of non-target-like Bare Nominal found in the data, accounting for 64 percent (138) of the total non-target-like production, as seen in Table 5.2. The individual proportions per child support the previous generalization; determiner omissions accounted for about two-thirds of the non-target-like BNs produced by each child: Elián (59 percent), Alonso (65 percent), and Londa (65 percent). These results are consistent with Pizutto and Caselli’s (1992) findings for the acquisition of the Italian determiner. The researchers found that the most common non-adult production of the children under study was the omission of the obligatory determiners. In order to assess how pervasive determiner omissions were in the production of these three children, the number of the nominals produced with a (full) determiner in obligatory contexts was calculated, that is, the target-like utterances. Table 5.3 illustrates a comparison between the determiner omission proportions versus the production of (full) determiners in obligatory contexts. The analysis shows that out of a total of 212 obligatory contexts for determiners, in only 74 (35 percent) cases children produced a (full) determiner, that is, children omitted the determiner in about two-thirds of the obligatory contexts (65 percent). Interestingly, the three children exhibit similar proportions between Bare Nominal Phrases (BNPs) and nominals

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Table 5.3 Determiner omission and production in obligatory contexts: singular referent Determiner omission Elián Alonso Londa Total a *

(Full) determiner production 8 (1)a (26%) 18 (0) (36%) 48 (1) (37%) 74 (2) (35%)

23 (74%) 32 (64%) 83 (63%) 138 (65%)

Total 31 (100%) 50 (100%) 131 (100%) 212 (100%)

Number in parentheses indicates non-target-like production.* The two non-target-like DP utterances were: (a) *ía la juguete ‘look the (fem/sg) toy (masc/sg)’ for mira el juguete ‘look the (masc/sg) toy (masc/sg);’ and b)*mira él/el pielna ‘look (at) he/the(masc/sg) leg (fem/sg)’ for mira las/sus piernas ‘look (at) the(fem/pl)/his legs (fem/pl).’ See Chapter 3 for a discussion of these examples.

Table 5.4 Non-target-like BNs produced: plural referent Singular reference

Plural reference

Determiner omissions Unmarked plural Elián Alonso Londa Total a b

23 (59%) 32 (65%) 83 (65%) 138 (64%)

15 (38%) 16 (33%) 35 (28%) 66 (31%)

a

Bare plurals – – 2 (2%) 2 (1%)

Ambiguous

Total

1 (3%) 1 (2%) 7 (5%) 9 (4%)

39 (100%) 49 (100%) 127 (100%) 215 (100%)

b

Singular nominals that referred to plural referents. Determiner omissions with plural marked nominals.

produced with a determiner, with Elián showing a slightly higher rate of omission (74 percent) than the other two children, Alonso (64 percent) and Londa (63 percent). We turn the discussion to the analysis of the other non-target-like BNs produced by the children under study in terms of the use of an obligatory determiner. These additional non-target-like BNs include the production of unmarked plurals (i.e., singular nominals used to refer to a plural referent) and bare plurals (i.e., plural nominals used without an obligatory determiner), as shown in Table 5.2 above, repeated here as Table 5.4. Table 5.4 shows that the three children produced 66 utterances involving unmarked plurals. The analysis of the obligatoriness of a determiner in these cases is not as transparent as it was in the case of nouns with a singular referent. The complexity relies on the fact that Spanish grammar allows for plural BNs, except in subject position. In order to examine whether determiners were obligatory in these structures or not, the structural position in


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which the 66 utterances occurred was analyzed. The structural analysis revealed that in ten instances a determiner was required. These ten cases were distributed as follows: seven utterances involved nominals in the subject position, two involved nominals referring to specific objects, and one involved a nominal with a generic reading, as illustrated in Example 5.1. Example 5.1 Child (a) *Se cayó caballo (Alonso) ‘Fell (3rd person sg) horse’ (b) *Eso es bebé (Londa) ‘That (neut) is baby’ (c) *A ve batía (Elián) ‘To see battery’

Target Se cayeron los caballos ‘Fell (3rd person pl) the (masc/sg) horses’ Esos son los bebés ‘Those (masc/pl) are the (fem/pl) babies’ [Vamos] a ver las baterías ‘(Lets) (to) see the (fem/pl) batteries’

The Bare Noun Phrases (BNPs) in Example 5.1 are non-target-like for two reasons. First, the children used a singular noun to refer to a plural referent, as discussed in Chapter 4. Second, these examples are non-adult-like because Spanish grammar does not allow BNPs in these particular contexts. Specifically, in Example 5.1(a) Alonso utters a singular BNP in subject position to refer to the two horses that fell down, that is, caballo ‘horse’ instead of los caballos ‘the horses,’ whereas in Example 5.1(b) Londa identifies the two small horses that the experimenter is holding as bebé instead of los bebés ‘the (fem/pl) babies (fem/pl).’ Finally, in Example 5.1(c) Elián uses a BNP to refer to a generic group of objects, batteries. Notice that Spanish marks generic groups such as batteries, with use of the definite determiner, for example, las baterías ‘the (fem/pl) batteries (fem/pl).’ In terms of the non-target-like Bare Plurals (BPs) produced, that is, plural nominals produced without an obligatory determiner, only two examples were found in the data, as shown in Table 5.4. In these examples Londa produced a BP in structures that required the production of the definite determiner, as presented in Example 5.2. Example 5.2 Child (a) *Flole[h] ‘Flowers (fem/pl)’

Target las flores ‘the (fem/pl) flowers (fem/pl)’

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(b) *A él le gusta china[h] A él le gustan las chinas ‘To him oranges (fem/pl) is pleasing’ ‘To him oranges are pleasing’ In Example 5.2(a) the child utters this BP as an answer to the experimenter’s question: ¿Qué se comió? ‘What did he eat up?’ The target-like response should have been las flores ‘the flowers’ in this particular case because of the presence of the emphatic clitic se, that is used in the grammar to mark totality. If the question had been phrased as ¿Qué comió? ‘What did (he) eat?’ the child’s answer flore[h] would have been target-like, that is, a BP occurring in object position is allowed by the Spanish grammar. It might be the case that in this child’s grammar this BP is allowed because the distinction between comer ‘to eat’ and comerse ‘to eat up’ has not been established yet in her lexicon. Example 5.2(b) illustrates the second non-target-like BP produced by Londa. In this case, the BP is produced with the verb gustar ‘to be pleasing,’ which belongs to the verb class in Spanish known as “affective verbs.” This particular type of verb takes an inanimate subject, for example, las chinas ‘the oranges,’ that affects an indirect object experiencer, for example, él ‘him,’ as pointed out by Gutiérrez Ordónez (1999). This example is non-target-like because the child uses a BP in subject position, which is not allowed in the Spanish grammar. However, this particular structure with the unaccusative verb gustar is marked in the Spanish grammar as it does not follow the canonical word order in Spanish, namely Subject-Verb-Object as in a structure such as yo como chinas ‘I eat oranges.’ The structure with the verb gustar follows a marked word order instead: Indirect Object-VerbSubject. It could be the case that in this child’s grammar this structure with gustar is not yet available. As a result, she generates it following the canonical structure, that is, “He likes oranges” instead of “Oranges are pleasing to him.” If this analysis is on the right track, it would explain the fact that the child utters the verb gustar in the singular form, for example, gusta, agreeing with the singular indirect object (él ‘him’) and not with the plural subject las chinas. The previous discussion points out that the analysis of BNs in child language is a complex task that involves the examination of syntactic components, such as structural position, and the analysis of whether determiners are obligatory or not. Overall, the examination of the BN data showed that determiner omission is a pervasive phenomenon among the three children, which is consistent with findings from previous studies (Pizzutto & Caselli 1992 for the acquisition of Italian; Schnell de Acedo 1994; Snyder 1995, 2007 for Spanish). Support for the previous conclusion is found in the production of adjectives in attributive structures. Production of attributive adjectives by the three children under study was very scarce, as illustrated in Table 5.5.


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Table 5.5 Distribution of attributive adjectives Target-like/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


2 (100) – 2 (100)

1 (100) – 1 (100)

9 (60) 6 (40) 15 (100)

12 (67) 6 (33) 18 (100)

Table 5.5 illustrates that the two younger children barely produced any utterances with an attributive adjective, for a total of three utterances produced, as seen in Example 5.3. Example 5.3 Child utterance

Target utterance

(a) *Mira gande (Elián) ‘Look (at) big [one]’

Mira una/la grande ‘Look (at) a/the (fem/sg) big [one]’ (b) Si cayó, ecito (Elián) Se cayó, pobrecito ‘[he] fell down, poor (masc/sg)’ ‘[he] fell down, poor (masc/sg)’ (c) ¡Mira carito bonito! (Alonso) Mira un carrito bonito ‘Look car (dim/masc/sg) ‘Look a (masc/sg) car (dim/ pretty (masc/sg)!’ masc/sg) pretty (masc./sg.)!’ The analysis of the utterances in Example 5.3 points to the fact that all of them involve the omission of an obligatory determiner, as discussed in Chapter 3. In particular, Example 5.3(a) shows that Elián omitted the obligatory determiner as he pointed at one orange, for example, mira gande ‘look big’ instead of mira una/la grande ‘look [at] a/the big (one),’ while in Example 5.3(b), he omitted the determiner el ‘the’ to refer to a doll, el pobrecito ‘the poor [one].’ Similarly, in Example 5.3(c) Alonso was excited to see a toy car and produced the attributive adjective mira carito bonito ‘look pretty car’ instead of mira un carrito bonito ‘look a pretty car’ with the obligatory determiner. In contrast to the limited production of the two younger children, Londa produced 15 attributive adjective utterances, as shown in Table 5.5. Interestingly, Londa’s production reflects a pervasive omission of obligatory determiners, that is, she produced 1 out of the 15 determiners required. Example 5.4 illustrates some of the utterances produced by this child.

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Example 5.4 Child (a) Yo engo gande ‘I have big (unm/sg) [one]’ (b) Tistre ya anó ‘Sad (unm/sg) [one] already won’ (c) Feli[h] ‘Happy (unm/sg) [one]’ (d) Azul ‘Blue (unm/sg) [one]’

Target

Referent

Yo tengo el grande [teléfono] ‘I have the (masc/sg) big (masc/sg) [one]’ El triste ya ganó [tren] ‘The (masc/sg) sad (masc/sg) [one] already won’ El feliz [tren] ‘The (masc/sg) happy (masc/sg) [one]’ El azul [pez] ‘The (masc/sg) blue (masc/sg) [one]’

Utterances in Example 5.4 illustrate Londa’s determiner omissions, all of them characterized by the production of the adjective without the obligatory determiner el ‘the.’ Furthermore, all the utterances in Example 5.4 involve N-drop, that is, the adjective appears in isolation, for example, Azul ‘Blue,’ instead of El (tren) azul ‘the (train) blue’ (see Chapter 3 for a complete discussion). The phenomenon of determiner omission in the production of the three children under study could be interpreted in terms of acquisition as evidence that these children are not projecting a DP in Spanish initial grammar. Notice that a comparison between determiner omission and production yielded a rate of omission in obligatory contexts of 65 percent. Furthermore, within the usage-based approach to language acquisition, children construct structure on the basis of the input in a piecemeal fashion. We could argue that in the case of the children under study, they have not yet acquired the determiner category and as a result they produce bare nominals. Then this approach needs to explain how children will converge into the target language, as they are expected to construct abstract categories on the basis of the input they are exposed to. One could speculate that they will start with a few nominals and the corresponding determiner and then be able to expand to the projection of the category itself. However, it is not clear how children would keep a record of the nominals already linked to a particular determiner. This presents a cumbersome task in terms of learnability, as pointed out by Crain and Thornton (2006). Moreover, since

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usage-based approaches assume no underlying linguistic knowledge, it is not clear how children would parse the input for determiners if they do not have the abstract concept of this category. In contrast, a continuous approach to language acquisition expects children to deviate from the language of their community as long as they do not violate the principles of UG. The (weak) continuity hypothesis would interpret determiner omission in obligatory contexts as evidence that children are speaking a different language, not as a deficit in children’s grammar. In particular, we could argue that the three children under study are “speaking Chinese” because this language lacks determiners, as proposed by Chierchia, Guasti, and Gualmini (2000). The researchers proposed a UG-based semantic parameter on noun interpretations, the Nominal Mapping Parameter. According to this analysis, nouns can be interpreted in three different ways, as illustrated in Example 5.5. Example 5.5 Nominal Mapping Parameter (a) N [+ arg – pred] Classifier languages, for example, Chinese (b) N [+ arg + pred] Germanic languages, for example, English (c) N [– arg + pred] Romance languages, for example, Italian Example 5.5 illustrates the three possible values for the NMP. In languages like Chinese, as shown in Example 5.5(a), NPs are arguments; therefore, they can occur bare in argument position, whereas Germanic languages like English, present a mixed system, as shown in 5.5(b). In these languages, nouns may behave like arguments (e.g., they can occur bare) or predicates (e.g., they require an overt determiner). Finally, in Romance languages such as Spanish, NPs are predicates, as shown in 5.5(c). As a result, in Romance languages, BNs cannot be arguments; that is, nominals need an overt determiner to turn into an argument in these languages (see Chapter 4 for further details). According to this proposal, children would start the acquisition process with the NMP set to the value of languages like Chinese, hence accounting for the cross-linguistic phenomenon of determiner omissions in child language. In the case of children acquiring a Romance language like Spanish, they will reset the NMP to the Romance value on the basis of the primary linguistic input. Notice that this proposal accounts for children’s non-adult production by acknowledging that it falls within the possibilities allowed by UG, namely, the value of a parameter set to a different value than the target language. This proposal has received cross-linguistic support by researchers

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such as Snape (2008) for the L2 acquisition of English by Japanese and Spanish speakers; Guasti, de Lange, Gavarró, and Caprin (2008) for the acquisition of Catalan, Dutch, and Italian, among others. I will continue to explore the validity of this proposal for the acquisition of Spanish in Section 5.2.1 We turn our attention to the analysis of Monosyllabic Place Holders (Bottari et al. 1993/1994), vocalic elements that appear in the position a determiner would appear in adult language. Although Monosyllabic Place Holders (MPHs) have been attested cross-linguistically in acquisition research, their status in child grammar is controversial (e.g., Bottari et al. 1993/1994, Pizutto & Caselli (1992) for Italian; Aguirre 1995, Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 2003 for Spanish; Lleó 2001 for German and Spanish). On the one side, some researchers interpret MPHs as pre-grammatical (e.g., Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 2003), unanalyzed amalgams with no content or merely as filler syllables (Peters & Menn 1993; Peters 2001). On the other hand, some researchers interpret these elements as grammatical but lacking the full phonological specification (Lleó 1997, 2001; Pizutto & Caselli 1992). The analysis of the production of the three children under study yielded a total of 102 utterances containing an MPH with a noun, out of which 87 (85 percent) were target-like and 15 (15 percent) were non-target-like with respect to agreement, as shown in Table 5.6. Targetness in Table 5.6 was determined on the basis of the following assumptions. First, vowel a can be a representation of the feminine determiners la ‘the’ or una ‘a’ and, as such, these pre-determiners contain some of the same features as the full determiner forms. Second, vowels e and o/os can function as phonetically shortened forms of the masculine determiners el ‘the’ (masculine singular) and los ‘the’ (masculine plural). Under the previous assumptions, a target-like utterance is defined as one in which the assumed number and gender features contained in the MPH match those of the accompanying nominal. As illustrated in Table 5.6, the three children under study produced a majority (84 percent) of target-like MPHs in terms of gender and number agreement. Table 5.6 Overall distribution of MPHs Target-like/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


35 (92) 3 (8) 38 (100)

40 (77) 12 (23) 52 (100)

12 (100) 0 (0) 12 (100)

87 (84) 15 (16) 102 (100)


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In terms of acquisition theory, these results could be interpreted as support for a continuous approach to language acquisition, stating that children’s grammar is qualitatively the same as the adult grammar. Specifically, children’s target-like production brings support for the availability of an underlying checking mechanism. In contrast, usage-based approaches may argue that children’s target-like production is just a reflection of what they have encountered in the primary linguistic data. In particular, children have extracted from the input the strong regularities present in the Spanish language with respect to gender assignment, that is, word marker –o for masculine nominals such as gato ‘cat,’ and word marker –a for feminine nominals such as mesa ‘table.’ Notice that if this hypothesis is on the right track, children’s production should reflect a higher rate of target-like utterances with these canonically marked nominals than with the non-canonically marked nominals, for example, nominals ending in the vowel –e or a consonant. In order to test this prediction a more detailed analysis of the 33 MPH tokens (once repetitions were eliminated) was conducted. First, nominals produced by the three children were classified as feminine or masculine, and then they were divided according to their endings, that is, canonically marked for gender –o, –os, –a, –as, versus non-canonically marked, that is, ending in the vowel –e or a consonant. These nominal endings then were compared with the choice of MPH made by the children in the production of MPH/DPs in order to assess whether children were more likely to choose MPH e with nouns ending in –o, such as e caballo ‘the horse,’ than with nouns ending in a consonant, for example, e avión ‘the airplane.’ Table 5.7 shows the results of the analysis. Table 5.7

Overall MPH/DP tokens Nominal endings Masculine Singular

Elián Londa Alonso Total a


Feminine

Plural a

Total

Singular

Plural

–o

–oth

–os

–oth

–a

–oth

–as

3 – – – 3 2 8

4 – 2 – 3 1 10

– – – – 1 – 1

– – – – 1 2 3

2 – 2 – 2 – 6

2 – 1 – 1 – 4

– – – – – – –

–oth includes the unmarked nominal endings, that is, –e and consonants.

–oth – 1 – – – – 1

11 1 5 – 11 5 33

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Specifically, Table 5.7 illustrates the distribution of target-like utterances with respect to nominal endings, for example, canonical endings in –o and –a for masculine and feminine nominals respectively, and non-canonical endings, vowel –e and a consonant. Recall targetness in Table 5.7 is defined as the use of the MPHs e and –os with masculine nominals and the MPHs –a and –as with feminine nominals. Overall, Table 5.7 shows that children produced more target-like MPHs than non target-like, with 27 (82 percent) out of a total of 33 MPH tokens produced being target-like. Furthermore, the analysis points to the fact that nominal ending has no effect on the production of target-like agreement. In particular, the majority of nouns produced with MPH e involved nominals not overtly marked for gender (i.e., 9 out of a total of 15), while the distribution of MPH a was equally divided between nouns canonically marked for gender (7) and non-canonically marked ones (8). These results do not support the hypothesis that children are establishing agreement patterns between the nominals and the MPHs on the basis of their distributional regularity or a phonological matching strategy. Nonetheless these results shed light on the nature of these MPHs in Spanish early grammars, that is, they function in the grammar of these children as determiners with their feature specifications and not as pregrammatical elements. This result brings support to cross-linguistic research that claims these vocalic elements are indeed shortened versions of full determiners (Lleó 1998, 2001; Guasti et al. 2008; Pizutto & Caselli 1992). Finally, the analysis of these MPH/DPs revealed that acquisition of nominal agreement in Spanish child language starts at an even earlier stage than reported in the Spanish acquisition literature reviewed, that is, before the attested two-word stage (e.g., Hernández Pina 1984; López Ornat 1997, 2003). Notice that two of the children under study are below Mean Length Utterance in words of 2.0, Elián (MLUw = 1.5) and Alonso (MLUw = 1.9). Support for this result is found in the study conducted by Guasti et al. (2008) in which the researchers concluded that children acquiring Romance languages such as Catalan and Italian, start the process before they have acquired the full form of the determiner system, that is, with these vocalic elements. The target-like production of MPH/DPs in initial Spanish grammar may also explain why when children start producing (full) DPs they do so in a target-like fashion, that is, they have already started to map abstract features of the nominals to the corresponding categories within the MPH/ DP structure. Now we turn the focus of the discussion to the examination of the (full) DPs found in the data. The data analysis found a total of 94 (full) DPs produced by the children under study, as shown in Table 5.8.

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First Language Acquisition in Spanish Table 5.8 Distribution of (full) DPs Target-like/Non-target-like

Elián

Alonso

Londa

Total


6 (75) 2 (25) 8 (100)

24 (80) 6 (20) 30 (100)

53 (95) 3 (5) 56 (100)

83 (89) 11 (11) 94 (100)

Table 5.8 shows that the children under study produced a majority of target-like (full) DP utterances with respect to agreement for a total of 89 percent, as discussed in Chapters 3 and 4. These findings bring support to previous studies claiming that when children acquiring Spanish produce DPs they do so in a target-like manner (e.g., Aguirre 1995; Schnell de Acedo 1994; Snyder 1995). Moreover, the analysis of the non-target-like utterances revealed that the majority of non-target-like (full) DP utterances pertained to a number mismatch involving either the production of a singular DP to refer to a plural referent, for example, uno dente ‘one/a tooth’ instead of unos dientes ‘some teeth;’ or marking the plural feature in only one of the constituents involved in the agreement relation, for example, lo duce ‘the (pl) candy (sg).’ As discussed in Chapter 4, this second type of non-targetlike production may be a reflection of the phonological factors present in the linguistic context of the children, namely the aspiration final –s.3 These results are consistent with those obtained in the analysis of both MPH/DPs and Bare Nominals, that is, non-target-like production pertained to the number feature. Regarding the nature of the initial grammar, the production of (full) DPs in an almost all target-like fashion, brings support to a continuous approach to language acquisition, that is, the availability of a checking mechanism in children’s grammars from the initial stages of acquisition. Furthermore, as in the case of MPH/DPs, the analysis found that children establish target-like gender agreement in (full) DP structures regardless of nominal endings. Specifically, out of a total of 62 (full) DP tokens (once repetitions were eliminated) produced, 35 involved nominals not overtly marked for gender (i.e., nouns ending in the vowel –e or a consonant) and all but one were target-like in terms of gender agreement. This points to the fact that the three children under study were as likely to create target-like gender agreement with overtly (gender) marked nominals as well as with non-overtly marked nominals (χ2 = 1.03, p = 0.31). These findings provide additional evidence in support of the hypothesis that children are not simply matching nominal endings but they are checking the abstract agreement features of the nominals and their agreeing determiners and modifiers.

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In contrast, usage-based approaches would have to say that children have learned these particular pairings of Determiner-Noun (Det-N), but they have not acquired yet the category of determiners itself, because they are omitting them consistently, as discussed earlier. Moreover, it is not clear how these children will move from the initial (learned) list of Det-N pairings to the final projection of the determiner category. Finally, this approach predicted that children would perform better in establishing agreement relations with nominals canonically marked for gender, given their abundance and pattern regularity in the input. This prediction is not supported by the (full) DP data. In sum, the discussion of the emergence of DPs in the grammar of the three children under study points to the fact that the acquisition of DP is best explained by a continuous approach to language acquisition. In particular, children’s production (target and non-target-like) falls within the hypothesis space provided by UG in that it does not violate any of its principles. I assume that the children under study project a DP and an intermediate Agreement projection where nominal features are checked, as illustrated in Example 5.6. Example 5.6 [DP la [AGRP AGR [FP bonita F [NP casa]]]] ‘the (fem/sg) pretty (fem/sg) house (fem/sg)’ Recall from Chapter 1, I argued for a weaker version of the Lexicalist Hypothesis (Chomsky 1995), stating that only nominals have inherent features in the lexicon (Koehn 1994). In this fashion, both determiners and adjectives would inherit the nominal features from the nominal head in the checking process. Following Cinque (1994), I assume that attributive adjectives, such as bonita ‘pretty’ in Example 5.6, are generated as specifiers of a functional projection FP. The nature of the FP in child language is not clear. Several proposals have been put forth in the literature arguing for the projection of an intermediate Number Phrase (Bernstein 1993; Ritter 1991, 1993, among others); however, it is not obvious that these children are projecting a Number Phrase. What is clear is that there is a checking process carried out by their grammar given their significantly higher target-like production. Table 5.9 provides an overview of the three children’s production across the structures discussed in this chapter: BNPs, MPH/DPs and (full) DPs. Several generalizations can be drawn about the developmental stages of the children under study from an analysis of the production distribution displayed in Table 5.9. First, Table 5.9 shows that half of Elián’s and Alonso’s

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Table 5.9 Determiner production and omission in obligatory contexts

Determiner omissions (BNPs) MPH/DPs (Full) Determiner noun phrases Total

Elián MLUw= 1.5

Alonso MLUw= 1.9

Londa MLUw= 2.2

Total (%)

23 (33%) 38 (55%) 8 (12%) 69 (100%)

32 (28%) 52 (46%) 30 (26%) 114 (100%)

85 (55%) 12 (8%) 56 (37%) 153 (100%)

140 (42) 102 (30) 94 (28) 336 (100)

production consisted of MPH/DPs. This finding points to the fact these children are working on the nominal agreement system at an early stage of acquisition process, that is, at MLUw levels below 2. A second generalization that can be made is that even though Elián´s production was limited in comparison to the other two children in the study, it was mostly target-like. This finding supports Borer and Rohrbacher’s (1997) avoidance hypothesis, or the more recent proposal by Snyder (2007), the grammatical conservatism hypothesis. These two hypotheses share the idea that children are conservative learners in the sense that they avoid producing structures they have not acquired yet, for example, the production of infinitival verbal forms instead of the adult-like inflected forms. As a result, their production is characterized by errors of omission and not commission. This seems to be the case of Elián’s limited but mostly target-like production. The third generalization regarding the production distribution on Table 5.9 refers to Alonso’s overall production. The production of this child reveals an almost even split between the production of (full) DPs and the BNPs, that is, the omission of obligatory determiners, with the proportions of 26 percent and 28 percent respectively. This even distribution seems to point to a developmental stage in this child’s grammar in which these two structures are in competition; I address this issue in the Section 5.2. Nonetheless, the analysis of his (full) DP production shows a predominantly target-like production of DPs in terms of agreement, that is, Alonso produced a total of 19 DP tokens out of which 4 were non-target-like and all related to the marking of plural morphology, as discussed in Chapter 4. As we can see, Alonso’s production is similar to Elián’s production in that both children seem to be avoiding the commission of non-target-like utterances, specifically, Alonso produced BNPs instead of the adult-like (full) DPs. The fourth generalization drawn from the analysis of the overall production in Table 5.9 refers to Londa’s developmental stage. In particular, her production distribution clearly points to the fact that she is at a more

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advanced developmental stage than the other two children under study. Evidence for this conclusion is found in her limited production of MPH/ DPs (8 percent) and her higher production of (full) DPs. Nonetheless, Londa has the highest rate of BNPs, or determiner omissions in obligatory contexts. Notice that Londa’s overall production seems contradictory at first sight. On the one hand, her production seems to indicate that she is in the process of mastering nominal agreement with an almost all target-like production of (full) DPs and a variety of determiners used. On the other hand, her high rate of determiner omissions is at odds with her overall linguistic development. This issue is addressed in Section 5.2. Note that usage-based approaches will have difficulties explaining the production distribution in Table 5.9. On the one hand, children are producing target-like utterances, but on the other hand, there is a high rate of omissions. Moreover, a quick review of the data shows that children’s production of one nominal can alternate among the three possibilities shown in Table 5.9, that is, BNP, MPH/DP and (full) DP. Example 5.7 illustrates Alonso’s production alternation of the nominal caballo. Example 5.7 (a) el caballo (b) e caballo (c) *caballo (d) *a caballo

‘the horse’ ‘the (MPH) horse’ ‘horse’ ‘a (MPH) horse’

It would be very difficult to account for the variability displayed in Example 5.7 within the usage-based approach. That is, on the one side children seem to be matching the input in Examples 5.7(a) and 5.7(b); on the other side, Examples 5.7(c) and 5.7(d) are not found in the input. One possibility is to interpret this variability as evidence of different underlying representations, as proposed by López Ornat (2003). In this analysis, children would project four different structures for the same semantic concept of /the horse/. As pointed out by Montrul (2004) this isomorphic analysis assumes that production is a mirror of the underlying representation and as a result creates problems in terms of learnability. It is not clear how a child who is projecting endless representations for the same concept (given the variability present in children’s utterances) would be able to converge into the target grammar. In the next section I discuss the evidence in support of the availability of default values for the gender and number features in the context of children’s non-adult production.

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5.2 Initial Values for Gender and Number The generative framework perceives the language learner as starting the acquisition process equipped with a set of invariable principles or UG. In this framework, language acquisition then encompasses the process of setting a series of parameters, or more recently in Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995), as the acquisition of values (strength) of a set of morphological features based on limited linguistic input. Crucially, the notion of a finite set of features limits the possible set of grammars the learner can generate; however, it is not enough to account for language learnability; that is, the learner has to know that Spanish has strong agreement features, but must also decide which value to assign to gender: masculine or feminine. This query has led to the formulation of multiple hypotheses in the literature to account for the problem of language acquisition. Of interest here is the Theory of Markedness. Chomsky (1981) defines markedness as the initial set of hypotheses available to the language learner. This theory states that a child acquiring a Romance language, such as Spanish, is equipped by UG with the nominal agreement features, but she has to learn (among other things) that these features are marked overtly morphologically and are strong in Spanish (Brugè 2002, Cinque 1994; among many) and as a result, need to be checked before Spell-Out. Furthermore, children acquiring Spanish have to choose between the two possible values of the features gender and number because in this language nominals (and their modifiers and determiners) need to agree in gender and number, for example, el libro ‘the (masc/sg) book (masc/sg).’ Fodor (1998) explains that default values provide the learner with a syntactic mechanism that allows her to partially parse the input she receives and also to deal with the ambiguity characteristic of natural language. Then it is in the learner’s consistent selection of one set of values (e.g., masculine/singular) over another that we find evidence of the availability of unmarked or default values in child language. Children acquiring gender agreement in Spanish are “forced” to assign a gender value to nominals and the agreeing constituents in order to speak, *libr– versus el libro ‘book (masc/sg).’ This is due to the fact that it is not possible in Spanish to produce a nominal and its agreeing constituents without marking their gender. I have defined in Chapter 3 default in the case of the gender feature, as the most frequent or least marked value in the Spanish language, namely, the masculine value (Harris 1991; Trask 1993). Moreover, I have proposed that the application of the masculine default value by the children under study should be analyzed as an acquisition strategy for the derivation to converge.

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In particular, children insert the masculine value as a last resort operation when they cannot access the adult-like morphological specifications. Crucially, the insertion of this value does not constitute a non-target-like utterance in child language (Phillips 1996). Notice that this strategy is also available in the target language but rarely applied, for example, neologisms. The masculine value is assigned to new words introduced in the Spanish language when their morphology does not favor the assignment of a particular gender, as in the case of words like estrés ‘stress.’ This particular word has a final –s, therefore it can belong to either gender. However, the default masculine value has been assigned to it, for example, el estrés. In the case of children acquiring gender agreement, it is expected for them to have more issues regarding gender assignment as they have not acquired yet all the different morphological representations of this particular feature and their exceptions. This hypothesis predicts that when children produce non-target-like utterances in terms of gender, they should consistently select the masculine value of this feature. This hypothesis is borne out by the distribution of the three children’s non-target-like gender production, as seen in Table 5.10. This table illustrates the type of non-target-like tokens found in the data. In particular, out of a total of 43 non-target-like gender utterances, 31 involved the production of masculine marked constituents to refer to a feminine nominal; this difference was found to be statistically significant (χ2 = 8.40, p = 0.003). The remaining non-target-like utterances were distributed as follows: eight pertained to the production of feminine marked constituents to refer to masculine nominals, and four to the production of a neuter demonstrative to refer to specific masculine nominals. The overall

Table 5.10 Non-target-like gender distribution Structures

Masculine (default)

Femininea

Neuterb

Total

(Full) DPs MPH/DPs Attributive adjectives Predicative adjectives Demonstrative pronouns Third person clitics Total

– – – 10 13 8 31

1 (4)c – – 2 1 8

– – – – 4 – 4

1 (4) – 10 19 9 43

a b c

Feminine refers to the use of feminine marked constituents to refer to masculine nominals. Neuter refer to the use of the neuter demonstrative pronoun to refer to masculine nominals. These 4 tokens are between parenthesis to mark that they were not considered gender mismatches as such but place holders void of any feature content.

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distribution of non-target-like utterances provides strong evidence for the existence of a masculine default value; that is, the significant majority of non-target-like gender utterances involved the production of masculine marked constituents to refer to feminine nominals. Specifically, I found evidence of a masculine default value in the production of demonstrative pronouns, third person clitic pronouns, and predicative adjectives. In the case of demonstrative pronouns, the analysis found that children produced masculine marked pronominals to refer to both masculine and feminine nouns. Notice that this was one of the most common types of gender mismatches found in the data, accounting for 30 percent (13 instances) of the overall non-target-like utterances. In addition, the demonstrative pronoun offers a three-way gender contrast, that is, masculine-feminine-neuter. Interestingly, the three children produced approximately the same number of neuter pronominals tokens (52) as masculine ones (59). I should point out that neuter demonstratives can be used to refer to both feminine and masculine nominals, and that the intention of the speaker determines their use, for example, the contrast between me gusta eso ‘I like that (neuter)(stuff)’ versus me gustan esos/esas ‘I like those (masc/fem) (ones).’ Furthermore, since there are no neuter nominals in Spanish, when these pronouns enter into an agreement relation with other constituents, the constituents take the masculine gender mark. The availability of neuter demonstratives in the Spanish grammar provides children with the possibility of establishing agreement relations using constituents marked with the default value, namely the masculine one. However, this remains an empirical question since it was not possible to determine children’s intended meaning behind their production of neuter demonstratives. Nonetheless, each of the three children produced at least one clear non-target-like example of a neuter demonstrative, and all involved the production of the neuter demonstratives to refer to a specific object, for example, Alonso: *Soh Wili for *Eso es Wili ‘That (neuter) (stuff) is Wili.’ In this example, Alonso uttered the neuter demonstrative to refer to a specific object instead of the masculine one ese ‘this (masc/sg) (one).’ This might be an indication of the overuse of these pronominals by the children, perhaps hidden by the possibility of using them with both masculine and feminine nominals. In addition, I should point out that when new objects were introduced in the experimental setting, the children used the neuter demonstratives to ask the experimenter what the toys were, for example, Alonso: ¿Quéeso? for ¿Qué es eso? ‘What is that (neuter) (stuff)?’ This could be interpreted as evidence that these neuter pronouns are underspecified in the lexicon, as Farkas (1990) proposes for neuter nouns in Romanian.

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Then, when these demonstratives enter into an agreement relation, they take the gender default value, namely, the masculine. Further evidence for the existence of a masculine default value in Spanish early grammar is found in the children’s production of third person (direct object) clitic pronominals; that is, eight out of a total of nine non-target-like clitics produced by Alonso and Londa involved the production of the masculine clitic lo ‘it (masc/sg)’ to refer to feminine nominals, for example, Londa: *A abilo ‘to open (inf) it (masc/sg)’ instead of [vamos] a abrirla ‘[We are going)] to open (inf) it (fem/sg)’ to refer to the feminine nominal casa ‘house (fem/sg).’ Notice that Londa marked the feminine gender of this particular nominal in a target-like fashion in a different instance una sita for una casita ‘a/one (fem/sg) house (dim/fem/sg),’ perhaps pointing to the fact that the child had difficulties with the clitic pronoun and resorted to the use of the masculine default value. Interestingly, Caselli et al. (1993) found in their comprehension study that the most problematic grammatical morpheme for Italian children between the ages of 2;6 to 3;0 was the clitics, with the following mean percentages on correct comprehension: 63 for the singular and 63 for the plural ones. Moreover, the authors found that the children in this age group were also more likely to refuse to respond to clitics than to other types of items. Notice that even the oldest group in their study, ranging in age between 4;6 and 5;0, did not achieve full comprehension of clitics, with percentages of 76 for singular and 75 for plural. The findings of Caselli et al. support our conclusion that clitic pronouns pose difficulties in the acquisition process perhaps due to their pronominal nature for which the referent is not clear for early grammars. In addition, the predicative adjective data provide support for the availability of a masculine default value. In particular, out of the ten non-targetlike (gender) predicative adjective utterances produced by Alonso and Londa, ten involved the production of masculine marked adjectives to modify feminine nominals, for example, Alonso: *Ta sucio ‘(it) is dirty (masc/sg)’ to refer to bola ‘ball (fem/sg);’ Londa: *Tá cerrado ‘(it) is closed (masc/sg)’ to refer to boca ‘mouth (fem/sg).’ Notice that both children have marked the feminine feature of these nominals in a target-like fashion in other instances: Alonso: a bola ‘the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’ and Londa: cerrada ‘closed (fem/sg)’ to refer to boca. The previous discussion focused on what was found in the production data of the three children under study in terms of the availability of a gender default value, namely, the use of the masculine gender as default. However, for language acquisition research, it is equally important to discuss what was not found in the data: in this particular case, the use of the

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feminine gender to refer to masculine nouns. As I mentioned earlier, eight instances of possible non-target-like uses of the feminine gender were found, out of which only four are clear cases of a gender mismatch.4 One of the examples was produced by Elián and pertained to the production of the feminine determiner la ‘the’ with the masculine (unmarked) nominal yuguete for juguete ‘toy.’ Another example involved the production of the feminine/singular clitic la ‘it’ to refer to a masculine/plural referent bloques ‘blocks.’ The other two cases of non-target-like feminine tokens involved the marking of natural gender. In particular, Londa assigned family roles to the horses during the experiment and then referred to the horse that was “the dad” with the feminine demonstrative, for example, esa[h] papá ‘that (one) (fem/sg) is dad (masc/sg).’ In the second example, the child pointed at the horse while uttering the feminine demonstrative esta ‘this (fem/sg) (one).’ These two examples support my claim that the acquisition of grammatical features, in this case gender, takes precedence over the acquisition of semantic features, that is, natural gender (see Chapter 3 for details). If the present analysis is on the right track, then these children’s nontarget-like gender production seems to be mostly limited to the use of the masculine gender to refer to feminine nominals, which provides further support for the masculine gender as the default value. We turn the discussion now to the availability of a default value for the number feature. The data analysis shows consistent evidence in support of the hypothesis that in Spanish early grammars the unmarked number value is expressed morphologically with the zero singular mark. Specifically, with regard to Determiner Phrases, children produced singular-marked (full) DPs to refer to plural referents, for example, Elián: *coye la bola ‘take the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’ to refer to many balls. Similarly, the children uttered singular MPH/DPs to refer to more than one object, for example, Alonso: *e caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’ to refer to two horses. Further evidence in support of the singular form as the unmarked value in Spanish child language is found in the production of attributive adjectives. In particular, all the (number) non-target-like attributive adjectives uttered by Londa involved the production of singular adjectives to refer to plural referents, for example, Londa: *Feli[h] ‘Happy (un/sg)’ to refer to a couple of trains. Additional support for the hypothesis of singular as the unmarked value is found in the production of the other constituents under study: predicative adjectives and third person clitics. In regard to predicative adjectives, all of Londa’s non-target-like number utterances were productions of singular phrases used to refer to plural referents, for example, Londa: *tá omido

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‘[he/she] is asleep (masc/sg)’ instead of están dormidos ‘[they] are asleep (masc/pl)’ to refer to a couple of horses. Finally, the data on third person clitics also support the singular value as the unmarked one. In particular, the three non-target-like tokens with respect to number involved the production of singular clitics used to refer to plural referents, for example, Elián: *la tiele ‘[she/he] has it (fem/sg)’ instead of las tienes ‘[you] have them (fem/pl).’ In sum, the previous discussion brings strong support for the availability of the singular zero mark as the default value in the grammar of the three children under study. This was evidenced in almost all the constituents under study (with the exception of demonstrative pronouns) in which the children consistently uttered singular constituents to refer to both singular and plural referents. Notice that the hypothesis that singular is the unmarked value for the number feature is highly descriptive at best and language specific. Moreover, although it accounts for the production data in terms of number agreement, it lacks explanatory adequacy, that is, how children acquiring Spanish would eventually converge to the target language. In turn, the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998a, 1998b; Chierchia et al. 2000), a UG-based parameter, provides an explanation for children’s non-adult-like utterances and also it serves to unify a number of phenomena attested in the production of the three children under study, that is, production of unmarked plurals and BNPs. Recall from the discussion in the previous section that the Nominal Mapping Parameter (NMP ) pertains to the semantic interpretation of nominals. In particular, nominals can be interpreted as arguments, as in languages like Chinese; as predicates, as in Romance languages; and finally, as both, the choice being lexically specified. Notice that the selection of one of these parametric values has morphosyntactic consequences in terms of number marking and determiner use, for example, the selection of the argument interpretation would predict the production of Bare Nominals in the singular, as nouns are interpreted as kind denoting. Crucially, Chierchia et al. (2000) argue that children may start with a parametric choice different from the target language and in order to converge to the setting of their linguistic community they will need to reset the NMP on the basis of exposure to the primary linguistic data. In regard to the acquisition of the number feature in Spanish, this parameter is not in conflict with the previous prediction that children will produce singular constituents to refer to plural referents. On the contrary, this non-adult-like production is explained by the selection of one of the three

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available UG parametric choices, namely, the [+ argument, –predicate]. The selection of this particular parametric choice predicts that children would not mark plurality on nominals because they are interpreting them as kind-denoting or mass-like, which in turn means they are not pluralizable. Chierchia et al. argue that this is the default value of this parameter and that convergence to a particular language will entail the resetting of the parameter according to specifications of each particular language. Thus far, the NMP has been able to account for the three children’s production of the singular form to refer to plural referents by positing the selection of a parametric choice different from the one present in the target language. As a result, all the evidence in support of the singular form as the default value for number, also applies for the NMP, although for different reasons. Let’s return to the analysis of the three children overall production presented in the previous section in Table 5.9, repeated here as Table 5.11. Overall Table 5.11 shows that the three children under study produce determiners in 58 percent of obligatory contexts (30 percent MPH/DP and 28 percent (full) DP production) but omit them in 42 percent of obligatory contexts. Table 5.11 also shows that Alonso was as likely to produce a (full) DP (26 percent) as a BNP (28 percent). As mentioned in the previous section, this distribution seems contradictory especially when Alonso’s production of (full) DPs (and MPH/DPs) was mostly target-like. The assumption of the availability of the NMP explains these otherwise contradictory findings as a result of a parametric choice. In particular, Alonso’s overall production point to the fact that he has set the parameter to the value of [+ argument, + predicate], characteristic of Germanic languages. This parametric choice allows for the production of both BNPs and (full) DPs; therefore we expect children to produce DPs as well as to omit them until they reset the parameter to the Romance value of [–argument, + predicate]. In this fashion, the

Table 5.11 Determiner production and omission in obligatory contexts

Determiner omissions (BNPs) MPH/DPs (Full) determiner noun phrases Total

Elián MLUw= 1.5

Alonso MLUw= 1.9

Londa MLUw= 2.2

Total (%)

23 (33%) 38 (55%) 8 (12%) 69 (100%)

32 (28%) 52 (46%) 30 (26%) 114 (100%)

85 (55%) 12 (8%) 56 (37%) 153 (100%)

140 (42) 102 (30) 94 (28) 336 (100)

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NMP accounts for this intermediate stage of acquisition in which children’s production fluctuate between target-like versus non-target-like with respect to the production of obligatory determiners. Similarly, the NMP accounts for Londa’s high production of BNPs (55 percent) along with (full) DPs (45 percent). Crucially, Chierchia et al. argue that children acquiring a Romance language need to recategorize nominals on a one per one basis in order to reset the parameter to the target value. Londa’s production seems to point to the difficulty of this task of recategorization of nominals from predicates to arguments. As we have seen, the examination of the production of the three children under study points to the availability of initial default values for the features gender and number. In the case of gender, the data analysis found strong evidence for the masculine value as the default value in the grammar of the three children under study, with the consistent insertion of this value as a default in what I have proposed to be a last resort acquisition strategy for the derivation to converge. In regard to number, the examination of the data revealed that the singular form is the default form in these children’s grammar but it is a reflection of a UG parametric choice on noun interpretation; roughly, nominals are interpreted as mass-like. Finally, the adoption of the NMP proposal also accounts for the consistent production of unmarked plurals by the three children under study, that is, mass-like nominals are not pluralizable.

Chapter 6

Conclusions

The main goal of this monograph was to explore the nature of nominal agreement in Spanish early grammars, that is, to examine the gender and number agreement relations children establish (or fail to establish) in the Determiner Phrase, within the framework of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2001). At the heart of this exploration, is the controversy about the initial state or the continuity versus the discontinuity approaches to language acquisition, that is, whether there is evidence in support of the availability of an underlying feature checking mechanism like the one posited for the adult grammar (Continuity) or there is evidence that children are just matching the input heard because they lack any a priori linguistic specifications (Discontinuity). With these goals in mind, a set of experimental tasks were administered to three monolingual, Spanishspeaking children under the age of 3 (Elián, Alonso, and Londa) in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Utterances involving a noun, a determiner or an adjective were included in the analysis. In addition, predicative adjectives and demonstrative and clitic pronouns were also analyzed in the present study to obtain a more complete picture of the agreement system in early grammars. This inquiry yielded answers to some of the questions posed yet it raised several questions for future research. In regard to the nature of nominal agreement, the analysis of the production of the three children under study produced three major generalizations: (1) Children’s production was mostly target-like in terms of agreement; (2) Non-target-like production followed a principled selection pattern of initial default values for the gender and number features; and (3) A delay in the acquisition of number was attested in the data analysis. Regarding the first generalization, the three children under study produced a significantly higher number of target-like utterances (83 percent) with regard to agreement (χ2 = 43.56, p < 0.0001) than non-target-like, despite the differences in Mean Length of Utterance in words among them: Elián, MLUw = 1.5; Alonso, MLUw = 1.9; and Londa, MLUw = 2.2. Notice that two of the

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children, Elián and Alonso, are below the two-word stage in their production, pointing to the fact that children acquiring Spanish are able to establish target-like agreement relations from the early stages of the acquisition process. In particular, Table 6.1 illustrates that the three children’s overall production was predominantly target-like across all the structures under examination, with target-like percentages ranging from a high of 94 percent for the production of attributive adjectives to a low of 73 percent for the production of third person direct object clitics. This finding confirms previous acquisition studies stating that the percentage of non-target-like production of children acquiring Spanish is limited (e.g., Aguirre 1995, Schnell de Acedo 1994, Snyder 1995, 2007 for Spanish; Pizzuto & Caselli 1992 for Italian). Furthermore, children’s overall target-like production seems to indicate the availability of a feature-checking mechanism in Spanish early grammars. Support for this conclusion is found in the results of a detailed analysis on the agreement patterns children established with respect to nominal word markers. Specifically, the data analysis showed that children were able to establish target-like agreement relations with nominals canonically marked for gender (i.e., masculine nominals ending in –o and feminine nominals ending in –a), as well as with nominals non-canonically marked for gender (e.g., nominals ending in the vowel –e or a consonant).1 These findings bring support to the Weak Continuity Hypothesis (Crain & Pietrosky 2002; Crain & Thornton 1998, Pinker 1984, among others), indicating the availability of a feature-checking mechanism in initial grammars, that is, the children under study are not merely matching the input but they are checking features as hypothesized for the adult grammar. For the present monograph, I adopted Cinque’s (1994) and Brugè’s (2002) N-raising analyses for

Table 6.1 Agreement findings summary Structure

Target-like

Non-Target-likea

(Full) DPs MPH/DPs Attributive adjectives Predicative adjectives Demonstrative pronouns Third person clitics Total

54 (87%) 26 (79%) 17 (94%) 53 (82%) 99 (84%) 27 (73%) 276 (83%)

8 (13%) 7 (21%) 1 (6%) 12 (18%) 19 (16%) 10 (27%) 57 (17%)

a

Total 62 (100%) 33 (100%) 18 (100%) 65 (100%) 118 (100%) 37 (100%) 333 (100%)

Non-target-like tokens include only utterances with gender and number grammatical agreement mismatches.

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Determiner Phrases and proposed that children, like adults, project intermediate functional categories in which the strong nominal agreement features are checked. In contrast, these findings do not support a usage-based approach to acquisition in which children will match the input they hear. In particular, if children are expected to build categories by extracting regularities from the input, then this approach predicts that they will be more successful establishing target-like agreement relations with canonically marked nominals than with non-canonically marked nominals, given the regular pattern these nominals exhibit with respect to agreement. This prediction was not borne out by the data. Further support for the availability of a checking mechanism in Spanish early grammars is found in children’s production of MPH (Bottari et al. 1993/1994) DPs, that is, nominals with a vocalic element in the place a determiner occupies in adult language. The examination of these vocalic elements showed that they function as reduced forms of the (full) determiners with which the children established target-like agreement relations, especially in regard to gender. Notice that children were not matching MPHs with nominal endings, as predicted in a usage-based approach, but they established target-like agreement relations regardless of the nominal ending, that is, canonical (ending in –o for masculine and –a for feminine) versus non-canonically marked (ending in the vowel –e or consonant). This finding sets the beginning of the acquisition of DP in Spanish at an earlier stage than the one reported in the literature reviewed (Hernández Pina 1984; Schnell de Acedo 1991; Snyder 1995), as pointed out by Guasti et al. 2008 for the acquisition of Italian. Notice that studies by Hernández Pina (1984) and López Ornat (1997, 2003) have analyzed these vocalic elements as amalgams or unanalyzed segments void of any feature content. As a result, they have not been considered as the starting point in the acquisition of Spanish nominal agreement. Moreover, the production of MPHs at the beginning of the acquisition process instead of (full) DP forms explains why once children start to produce (full) Determiners, they do it in a target-like fashion; that is, they have already worked out the morphological agreement markings with the MPHs. Finally, the production of MPH/DPs and their status as reduced versions of the full determiners with feature content, brings support to the hypothesis that children have an awareness of functional categories before they have learned the full phonological inventory of Determiner forms. In terms of the second generalization pertaining to the availability of initial default values for the gender and number features, the analysis revealed

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that non-target-like utterances involved a systematic selection of a particular set of values for these features. In order to assess the availability of initial default values in the production of the children under study, a detailed examination of their non-target-like production was carried out. First, regarding the gender feature, I proposed the availability of a gender default value as an acquisition strategy, applied as a “last resort” by the children under study for the derivation to converge. Recall that children acquiring Spanish are “forced” to choose between the two values available for the gender feature in order to produce the nominals and their agreeing constituents (e.g., La casa ‘the (fem/sg) house (fem/sg)’ vs *cas–. In this fashion, the insertion of the default gender value would take place when they could not access the adult-like morphological specifications. This hypothesis predicted that when children produce non-target-like utterances in terms of gender, they would consistently select (or insert) the default value of this feature in order for the derivation to converge. This hypothesis was borne out by the data, as shown in Table 6.2. This table illustrates the types of non-target-like tokens found in the data with respect to gender agreement. In particular, out of a total of 43 non-target-like gender utterances, 31 (72 percent) involved the production of masculine marked constituents to refer to a feminine nominal; this difference was found to be statistically significant (χ2 = 8.40, p = 0.003). This result brings strong support to the availability of a masculine default value in the grammar of the three children under study. The remaining non-target-like utterances were distributed as follows: 8 (19 percent) pertained to mismatches between feminine marked constituents produced to refer to masculine nominals, and 4 (9 percent) to the production of a neuter demonstrative to refer to specific

Table 6.2

Non-target-like gender distribution

Structures (full) DPs MPH/DPs Attributive adjectives Predicative adjectives Demonstrative pronouns Third person clitics Total a

Masculine (default) – – – 10 13 8 31 (72%)

Mismatch

Neuter

Total

1 (4)a – – 2 1 8 (19%)

– – – – 4 – 4 (9%)

1 (4) – 10 19 9 43 (100%)

These four instances involved the production of the MPH a with masculine nominals. The analysis found out that these did not constitute instances of gender mismatches but the production of a true MPH, as proposed by Bottari et al. (1993/1994).

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masculine nominals. In particular, out of the eight mismatches listed on Table 6.2 only four were clear instances of feature mismatches. Interestingly, two of the four examples involved the assignment of natural gender to toy horses, hence the difficult task of matching morphological specifications to actual referents. Finally, the four non-target-like uses of the neuter pronoun to refer to specific masculine nominals might be an attempt on the part of the child to regularize the demonstrative paradigm from este/ estos ‘this/these’ to esto/estos. In sum, the overall distribution of the nontarget-like utterances with respect to gender provides strong evidence for the existence of a masculine default value in the grammar of the three children under study; that is, the significant majority of non-target-like gender utterances involved the production of masculine marked constituents to refer to feminine nominals. In terms of the number feature, I explored the traditional hypothesis of singular as the default value in Spanish grammar, together with the Nominal Mapping Parameter (NMP) (Chierchia 1998a, 1998b), that is, UGbased parameter on noun interpretation. A detailed examination of the non-target-like utterances with respect to number agreement brought support for the availability of the singular surface “form” as the representation of the initial value for this feature. Table 6.3 summarizes the children’s nontarget-like production related to number. This table presents the two types of non-target-like number utterances found in the production of the three children under study: (1) Grammatical (e.g., agreement between a determiner and a noun) and (2) Semantic agreement (e.g., agreement between the number feature encoded in a

Table 6.3 Summary of number non-target-like tokens Structure

Plural referents

Non-target-like number production a

Grammatical (full) DPs MPH/DPs Attributive adjectives Predicative adjectives Demonstratives Third person clitics Total a

b

21 9 6 6 11 5 58

7 3 1 2 – 1 14

Semantic 8 5 5 4 – 2 24

Total

b

15 8 6 6 – 3 38

Grammatical non-target-like number refers to a mismatch of the number between the nominals and the agreeing constituents. Semantic non-target-like number refers to a mismatch between the number feature of the DP and the number of objects it refers to.

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particular DP and the number of objects it refers to). Overall, Table 6.3 shows that out of a total of 58 tokens required to be marked as plural, only 20 (34 percent) were marked for plurality in a target-like fashion; the remaining 38 (66 percent) tokens involved a number mismatch, semantic or grammatical. This brings support for the availability of a default value for the number feature that surfaces as the singular zero mark. In addition, the present research explored the evidence in support of the availability of the NMP at work in the grammar of the children under study. The examination of the non-target-like production with regard to the number feature provides some support in favor of this parameter. In particular, the availability of this parameter accounts for children’s production of unmarked plurals (i.e., singular nominals to refer to plural referents) across all the structures under study, that is, children are interpreting nominals as kind-denoting and therefore they cannot be pluralized. The production of Bare Nominal Phrases by the three children under study brings additional support for the availability of the NMP. Specifically, the three children omitted obligatory determiners in 64 percent of the required contexts. According to this parameter, determiner omissions are expected in the acquisition process as children set this parameter to a value different than the language of the linguistic community. In particular, the data analysis provided evidence that the children under study had set the NMP to the [+ argument, + predicate] value, as in languages like English in which Bare Nominals and DPs are allowed, according to their lexical specifications. As a result, the children were producing target-like DPs, along with Bare Nominals.2 The availability of this parameter brings support to the Weak Continuity Hypothesis by accounting for children’s non-adult production as one of the options provided by UG, namely, the setting of a parameter to a value different from the linguistic community. Crucially, according to this analysis, children will converge to the target language once they reset the parameter to the Romance value [– argument, + predicate] on the basis of the primary linguistic input. Notice that usage-based approaches to acquisition will have a difficult time explaining children’s target-like production alongside with omission of determiners in obligatory contexts. On the one side, one could state that children have learned the Det-N pairings in the case of the target-like DP production. On the other side, it would be difficult for this approach to explain the variability found in the production data in which one particular nominal could appear bare (e.g. *Caballo ‘Horse’), in a (full) DP (e.g. Un caballo ‘A horse’ or in a MPH/DP E caballo ‘E horse.’ In contrast these alternations are accounted for as options available in UG, or as Crain and Pietroski (2002) explained it, children are speaking a different language.

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Another issue explored in the present study related to the acquisition of number was the cognitive aspect of number, that is, the comprehension of one versus more than one. This issue was examined through the comprehension task “The Animal House,” by asking children to respond to requests by giving one or more than one animal to the experimenter. Overall, the three children had no problems responding to singular requests; that is, all singular requests were answered by giving one object. This finding brings support to the hypothesis that singular is the unmarked value for number. In regard to plural requests, the two younger children, Elián and Alonso, responded target-like to two out of a total of three plural requests made. Their target-like responses in this task and their overall production seem to indicate that they comprehend the difference between singular and plural. In contrast, Londa responded to all plural requests by giving one object. I argued that in this child’s grammar plurality has distributive interpretation consisting of individual objects, for example (car 1, car 2, car 3,. . .) not a collective one, namely, the summation of individual objects, for example, los carros ‘the (masc/pl) cars (masc/pl).’ These results point to the fact that comprehension is not one of the factors involved in the delay in the acquisition of the number feature. The third generalization drawn from the present research involves the timing of acquisition of the gender and number features; in particular, a delay in the acquisition of number. In general, the data analysis revealed that while children were establishing almost perfect gender agreement relations within DPs, they were having problems with number agreement. Support for this overall conclusion is found in the distribution of the 15 non-target-like (full) DP utterances produced by the three children: 1 pertained to the gender feature while 14 involved a grammatical or semantic number agreement mismatch. Moreover, the children marked plurality in a target-like fashion in only 6 (29 percent) of a total of 21 contexts in which a plural DP was required. To assess whether the final –s aspiration, typical of the Puerto Rican Spanish dialect the children under study are speaking, had any detrimental effect in the analysis all utterances involving the context for aspiration were eliminated. Nonetheless, about 50 percent of the utterances with a plural referent were not marked overtly for number. These results point to the fact that children are having problems marking plurality independently of the phonological phenomenon of aspiration, bringing support to Marrero and Aguirre’s (2003) claim that children acquiring Spanish experience difficulties marking plural morphology. Further support for a delay in the acquisition of number is found in the MPH/DP data. The data analysis revealed that only one out of the nine

Conclusions

183

tokens with a plural referent was marked for plurality.3 In addition, the examination of the attributive adjective production follows the same pattern as the (full) DPs and MPH/DPs. In particular, there were no gender mismatches; and six out of six non-target-like utterances involved a number mismatch. Finally, the data on Bare Nominal Phrases (i.e., nominals produced in isolation) provide further support for a delay in the acquisition of the number feature. Specifically, the review of the BNPs produced showed that out of the 87 nominals that refer to a plural referent, only 21 (24 percent) were marked overtly as plural. This indicates that the contrast in the acquisition of number and gender go beyond grammatical agreement. These results bring support to previous research in Spanish that have stated that gender is acquired before number (e.g., Hernández Pina 1984; Marrero & Aguirre 2003; Schnell de Acedo 1994; Snyder 1995). In the present study I have proposed that part of the reason for this delay is semantic in nature, that is, the complex process of matching morphological features on the DP with the features of the referent, for example, la casa ‘the house’ with “one house.” In order to assess this hypothesis a detailed analysis of utterance referent was conducted and the results are illustrated in Table 6.3 above. To my knowledge this is the first attempt to address the semantic aspect of number acquisition in Spanish early grammars. Table 6.3 shows that the three children under study produced more semantic number mismatches (63 percent), that is, the use of a singular DP to refer to a plural entity, than grammatical mismatches (37 percent), a mismatch of the number feature within the DP. This difference was found significant (χ2 = 5.58, p = 0.018). These results provide strong support for the hypothesis that the delay on the acquisition of the number feature has its basis on the semantic or referential aspect of this feature. Furthermore, the adoption of the NMP entails that children need to reset this parameter to the Romance value, and in doing so, they have to recategorize nominals from arguments to predicates on a one by one basis (Chierchia et al. 2000). This process adds another layer to the complexity involved in the acquisition of number. The present research inquiry has pointed out several areas of further research. First, regarding gender, research is needed on the role of phonological cues in gender assignment. For the present study, these cues did not seem to play a significant role. This raises the question of at what point in the acquisition process children are ready to make use of this information. Notice that Pérez-Pereira (1991) found that children between the ages of 4 to 11 were using intralinguistic cues for gender assignment. Second, further research is needed in the area of acquisition of adjectival agreement. In particular, the present study had difficulty collecting enough

184


production data on attributive adjectives, due to the children’s limited production of this structure, as pointed out by Mariscal (2008). In addition, the cross-sectional experimental set up used in the present study limited the number of opportunities to collect additional data on this particular structure. A longitudinal experimental study would be ideal in order to expand the number of sessions per child. Moreover, future research should address children’s structural interpretation of color adjective agreement question, for example, ¿De qué color es la bola? ‘Of what color (masc/sg) is the (fem/ sg) ball (fem/sg).’ The present study seems to indicate that children have a parsing preference in the interpretation of this ambiguous structure; specifically they seem to prefer to interpret this structure as one where the masculine nominal “color” enters into an agreement relation with the color adjective, for example, la bola es de color rojo ‘the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg) is of the (masc/sg) color (masc/sg) red (masc/sg)’ instead of the preferred interpretation by adult grammar of la silla es roja ‘the (fem/sg) chair (fem/ sg) is red (fem/sg).’ Furthermore, future research should address the contrast found in the acquisition of attributive adjectives versus predicative adjectives, while children produced target-like agreement with respect to gender in the former, they have more difficulties creating target-like gender agreement in the latter. Regarding the number feature, several issues are open for future research. First, the present findings on number agreement should be replicated using a non-aspirating Spanish dialect to discard phonological aspects as confounding factors in the morphological overt marking of this feature. Nonetheless a comparison with Marrero and Aguirre’s (2003) results yielded comparable results in terms of children’s overt marking of the number feature. In addition, the results of the experimental task on the interpretation of mass versus count nominals were inconclusive, due to the fact that some children did not produce both types of nominals in the experimental task. This issue could be addressed by extending the length of the experimental study to have more opportunities to repeat the task. Further research is needed to address whether this contrast mass versus count is available in children’s grammar. Recall that even the older children had some problems with the interpretation of mass nominals, pluralizing them as count. Moreover, future research should address children’s interpretation of plurality. Londa’s interpretation of plurality points to a distributive analysis in which the elements of a group are analyzed individually not as a sum. Future research should address the issue of plurality interpretation in child

Conclusions

185

language as collective (the sum of a group) versus distributive (individual units of a group). Notice that in the distributive interpretation, members of the group are taken individually and as a result, no pluralization is needed. Another issue pertaining to number acquisition in Spanish refers to the NMP (Chierchia 1998a, 1998b). Although evidence was found in support of the availability of this parameter in Spanish child grammar, it is not clear what would constitute the trigger for the resetting of the parameter to the Romance value. In particular, Chierchia et al. (2000) have proposed the acquisition of the plural indefinite unos/unas as the trigger. However, Londa’s production shows that this child has acquired this particular determiner but she has not yet converged into the target setting of the parameter. Further research is needed to fine-tune the specific trigger or triggers for convergence. One possibility is that the trigger is linked to the contrast between specific and generic interpretation as expressed in the use of definite vs indefinite determiners in child language. The present study seems to point to the acquisition of the definite determiners takes place before the acquisition of the indefinite ones. Finally, the contrast between the acquisition of grammatical versus semantic features should be addressed in future studies. In particular, future research should look at a comparison between the acquisition of natural gender agreement (vs grammatical gender agreement) in tandem with semantic number agreement (vs grammatical number agreement) to see if they follow they same agreement patterns, as they both involve the matching of morphological specifications with actual referents. The present study seems to indicate that grammatical agreement precedes semantic agreement.

Appendices

Appendix A: Determiner Phrase Tokens Elián (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

*ía la yuguete ‘look the (fem/sg) toy (un/masc/sg)’1

mira el juguete ‘look the (masc/sg) toy (un/masc/sg)’

[Unknown]

2.

e va ya uu ‘(refl)goes the (fem/sg) light (un/fem/sg)’

se va la luz ‘(refl)goes the (fem/sg) light un/fem/sg)’

[Unknown]

3.

coyee la bola ‘take the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’

coge las bolas ‘take the (fem/pl) balls (fem/pl)’

*[Two bolas]

4.

*es ya flore[h] ‘(it) is the (fem/sg) flowers (un/fem/pl)’

son las flores ‘(they) are the (fem/pl) flowers (un/fem/pl)’

[Ambiguous]

4(a) la[h]chiore[h] ‘the (fem/pl) flowers (fem/pl)’

las flores ‘the (fem/pl) flowers (fem/pl)’

[flores]

5.

más, otra vez ‘another (fem/sg) time (un/fem/sg)’

[N/A]

ma[h], ota ve ‘another (fem/sg) time (un/fem/sg)’

Alonso

1.

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

el caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

el caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

[caballo]


*[caballos]

1(a) el caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

Appendices

187

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

2.

el otro ‘the (masc/sg) other (one) (masc/sg)’

el otro

[caballo]

3.

el guaguá ‘the (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

el guauguau

[perro]

4.

la comida ‘the (fem/sg) food (fem/sg)’

la comida

[Not present]

5.

la lu ‘the (fem/sg) light (un/fem/sg)’

la luz

[luz]

6.

un caballo ‘a/one (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

un caballo

[caballo]

7.

un guauguau ‘a/one (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

un guauguau

[perro]

8.

un nene ‘a/one (masc/sg) kid (un/masc/sg)’

un nene

[muñeco]

9.

un vión ‘an/one (masc/sg) airplane (un/masc/sg)’

un avión

[avión]

10.

un carro ‘a/one (masc/sg) car (masc/sg)’

un carro

[carro]

11.

ese guauguau ‘that (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

ese guauguau

[Ambiguous]

12.

este caballo ‘this (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

este caballo

[caballo]

13.

oto caballo ‘another (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

otro caballo

[caballo]

14.

*lo[h] caballo ‘the (masc/pl) horse (masc/sg)’

los caballos ‘the (masc/pl)horse (masc/pl)’

[caballos]


188

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

14(a) lo[h] caballo[h], el caballo ‘the (masc/pl) horses (masc/pl)’ 15. *lo carro ‘the (masc/pl) car (masc/sg)’

el caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’ los carros ‘the (masc/pl) cars (masc/pl)’

[caballo]

16.

*lo juete ‘the (masc/pl) toy (un/masc/sg)’

los juguetes ‘the (masc/pl) toys (un/masc/pl)’

[juguetes]

17.

lo pece ‘the (masc/pl) fishes (un/masc/pl)’

los peces ‘the (masc/pl) fishes (un/masc/pl)’

[Request]

18.

lo pie[h] ‘the (masc/pl) feet (un/masc/pl)’

los pies ‘the (masc(pl) feet(un/masc/pl)’

[Two pies]

19.

*oto pece ‘another (masc/sg) fishes (un/masc/pl)’

otros peces [Request] ‘another (masc/pl) fishes (un/masc/pl)’

[carros]

Londa Masculine Determiner Phrases (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

uno guauguau ‘a/one (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

un guauguau

[perro]

2.

uno mono ‘a/one (masc/sg) monkey (masc/sg)’

un mono

[mono]

3.

uno perro ‘a/one (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg)’ un allo ‘a/one (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

un perro

[perro]

un caballo

[caballo]

un avión

[avión]

4.

5.

uno avión ‘an/one (masc/sg) airplane (un/masc/sg)’

Appendices

189

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

6.

uno ijo ‘a/one (masc/sg) lizard (masc/sg)’

unos lagartijos ‘some (masc/pl) lizards (masc/pl)’

*[serpientes]

7.

un dente ‘a/one (masc/sg) tooth (un/masc/sg)’

unos dientes *[dientes] ‘some (masc/pl) teeth (masc/pl)’

8.

un carro ‘a/one (masc/sg) car (masc/sg)’

unos carros ‘some (masc/sg) cars (masc/sg)’

*[Four carros]

9.

uno chuchu-tren ‘a/one (masc/sg) choo choo train (un/masc/sg)’

un tren

[tren]

10. este allo ‘this (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

este caballo

[caballo]

11. este guauguau ‘this (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

este guauguau

[perro]

12. ese kerro ío ‘that (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg) of mine (masc/sg)’

ese perro mío

[perro]

13. ese nene ‘that (masc/sg) boy (un/masc/sg)’

ese nene

[muñeco]

14. el león ‘the (masc/sg) lion (un/masc/sg)’

el león

[león]

15. el guauguau ‘the (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

el guauguau

[perro]

16. uno[h] dulce[h] ‘some (masc/pl) candies (un/masc/pl)’

unos dulces

[bolas]

17. *uno ece ‘a (masc/sg) fishes (un/masc/pl)’

unos peces [Three peces] ‘some (masc/pl) fishes(un/masc/pl)’

18. uno[h] carro[h] ‘some (masc/pl) cars (masc/pl)’

unos carros

[Four carros]


190

(Child) 19. *lo duce ‘the (masc/pl) candy (un/masc/sg)’

(Target)

(Referent)

los dulces [bolas] ‘the (masc/pl) candies(un/masc/pl)’

Feminine Determiner Phrases (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

una Balbie ‘a/one (fem/sg) Barbie (un/fem/sg)’

una Barbie

[muñeca]

2.

una tenza ‘a/one (fem/sg) braid (fem/sg)’

una trenza

[trenza]

3.

una sita ‘a/one (fem/sg) (small) house (fem/sg)’

una casita

[casa]

4.

una flor ‘a/one (fem/sg) flower (un/fem/sg)’

unas flores ‘some (fem/pl) flowers (fem/pl)’

*[Four flores]

5.

una cheche ‘a/one (fem/sg) milk (un/fem/sg)’

una botella de leche ‘a (fem/sg) bottle (fem/sg) of milk’

[botella]

6.

una bebé ‘a/one (fem/sg) baby (girl) (un/fem/sg)’

una bebé

[muñeca]

7.

una eta ‘a/one (fem/sg) lollypop (fem/sg)’

una paleta

[paleta]

8.

una ola ‘a/one (fem/sg) tail (fem/sg)’

una cola

[cola]

9.

una aita ‘a/one (fem/sg) (small) wing (fem/sg)’

unas alitas ‘some (fem/pl) wings (fem/pl)’

*[alas]

una canastita

[canasta]

10. una tita ‘a/one (fem/sg) (little) basket (fem/sg)’

Appendices (Child)

(Target)

191

(Referent)

11. una nena una nena ‘a/one (fem/sg) girl (fem/sg)’

[muñeco]

12. la lu[h] ‘the (fem/sg) light (un/fem/sg)’

la luz

[luz]

13. mira él, pielna

mira las piernas de él/ sus piernas ‘look (at) the legs of him/ his legs’

*[patas]

‘look (at) the(masc/sg)/ him, leg’

14. esa ida esa comida ‘that (fem/sg) food (fem/sg)’

[comida]

15. esa lu ‘that (fem/sg) light (un/fem/sg)’

esa luz

[luz]

16. oa ve[h] ‘another (fem/sg) time (un/fem/sg)’

otra vez

[N/A]

17. una[h] llave[h] ‘some (fem/pl) keys (un/fem/pl)’

unas llaves

[Two llaves]

18. esa[h] llave[h] ‘those (fem/pl) keys (un/fem/pl)’

esas llaves

[Two llaves]

19. la[h] flole ‘the (fem/pl) flowers (un/fem/pl)’

las flores

[Four flores]

Appendix B: Monosyllabic Place Holder DP Tokens Elián (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

e bebó el bebé ‘the (masc/sg) baby (masc/sg)’

(mono)

2.

e fono ‘the (masc/sg) telephone (masc/sg)’

(teléfono)

el teléfono


192

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

3.

e pelo el pelo ‘the (masc/sg) hair (masc/sg)’

[pelo]

4.

e bebé ‘the (masc/sg) baby (un/masc/sg)’

el bebé

[mono]

5.

e brum-brum ‘the (masc/sg) car (un/masc/sg)’

el carro

[carro]

6.

e allu ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

el caballo

[caballo]

7.

e papá ‘the (masc/sg) dad (F/masc/sg)’2

el papá

[muñeco]

8.

a bola una/la bola ‘a/the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’

[bola]

9.

a toya ‘a/the (fem/sg) motorcycle (fem/sg)’

una/la motora

[motora]

10.

a uu ‘a/the (fem/sg) light (un/fem/sg)’

una/la luz

[request]

11.

a mano ‘a/the (fem/sg) hand (M/fem/sg)’3 *a fore[h] ‘a/the (fem/sg) flowers (un/fem/pl)’

una/la mano

[mano]

las flores ‘the (fem/pl) flowers (un/fem/pl)’

[flores]

la flor ‘the (fem/sg) flowers (un/fem/sg)’

*[flor]

12.

12(a) *a fore[h] ‘a/the (fem/sg) flowers (un/fem/pl)’ Alonso

1.

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

u caballo ‘a/one (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

un caballo

[caballo]

Appendices

2.

193

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

e caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

el caballo

[caballo]

2(a) e caballo ‘the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

los caballos *[caballos] ‘the (masc/pl) horses (masc/pl)’

3.

e carrito ‘the (masc/sg) (little) car (masc/sg)’

el carrito

[tren]

4.

e guauguau ‘the (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

los guauguaus

*[Four gatos]

5.

e bibí ‘the (masc/sg) bottle (un/masc/sg)’

el bibí

[biberón]

6.

e pipí ‘the (masc/sg) heinie (un/masc/sg)’

el pipí

[pipí]

7.

a bola una/la bola ‘a/the (fem/sg) ball (fem/sg)’

[bola]

8.

a vaca ‘a/the (fem/sg) cow (fem/sg)’

una/la vaca

[vaca]

9.

a mano ‘a/the (fem/sg) hand (un/fem/sg)’

la mano

[mano]

10.

*a caballo ‘a/the (UNM) horse (masc/sg)’

un/el caballo [caballo] ‘a/the (masc/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

10(a) *a caballo ‘a/the (fem/sg) horse (masc/sg)’

unos/los caballos ‘some/the (masc/pl) horses (masc/pl)’

*[caballos]

11.

*a pelo el pelo ‘a/the (UNM) hair (masc/sg)’ ‘the (masc/sg) hair (masc/sg)’

[pelo]

12.

*a guauguau ‘a/the (UNM) dog (un/masc/sg)’

[perro]

el guauguau ‘the (masc/sg) dog (masc/sg)’


194

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

13.

*a pece ‘a/the (UNM) fishes (un/masc/sg)’

los peces ‘the (masc/pl) fishes (masc/pl)’

[Request]

14.

*oo pie ‘the (masc/pl) foot (un/masc/sg)’

los pies ‘the (masc/pl) feet (masc/pl)’

[pies]

15.

o[h] caballo[h] ‘the (masc/pl) horses (masc/pl)’

los caballos

[caballos]

16.

o[h] pece ‘the (masc/pl) fishes (un/masc/pl)’

los peces ‘the (masc/pl) fish (masc/pl)’

*[cocodrilo]

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

e guauguau ‘the (masc/sg) dog (un/masc/sg)’

el guauguau

[perro]

2.

e lón ‘the (masc/sg) lion (un/masc/sg)’

el león

[león]

Londa

2(a) e lón ‘the (masc/sg) lion (un/masc/sg)’

los leones *[leones] ‘the lion/ the (masc/ pl) lions (masc/pl)’

3.

a pielna una/la pierna ‘a/the (fem/sg) leg (fem/sg)’

[pierna]

4.

a ñama la grama ‘a/the (fem/sg) grass (fem/sg)’

[grama]

5.

a lu[h] ‘a/the (fem/sg) light (un/fem/sg)’

[luz]

una/la luz

Appendices

195

Appendix C: Non-Target Demonstrative Pronouns Elián (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

eso ‘that (neut)’

ese *[gato] ‘that (masc/sg) (one)’

2.

*este ee una ‘this (masc/sg) (one) is one (fem/sg)’

esta es una [mariposa] ‘this (fem/sg) (one) is one (fem/sg)’

Alonso (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

*So[h] Wili ‘That (neut) is Wili’

Ese es Wili ‘That (masc/sg) (one) is Wili’

[Wili]

2.

Toa, ese e tuyo ‘Take (it), this (masc/sg) is yours (masc/sg)’

Toma, esa es tuya ‘Take (it), this (fem/ sg) is yours (fem/ sg)’

*[serpiente]

3.

Ese es tuyo ‘This (masc/sg) is yours (masc/sg)’

Esa es tuya ‘This (fem/sg) is yours (fem/sg)’

*[motora]

4.

Tee[h] tuyo ‘This (masc/sg) is yours (masc/sg)’

Esta es tuya ‘This (fem/sg) is yours (fem/sg)’

*[flor]

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

Este está tistre ‘This (masc/sg)(one) is sad (un/sg.)’

Esta está triste *[luz] ‘This (fem/sg) (one) is sad (un/sg)’

2.

¿Pasa a este? ‘(What) is happening to this (masc/sg)(one)?’

¿Qué le pasa a esta? *[luz] ‘(What) is happening to this(fem/sg)?’

Londa


196

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

3.

Este ona ‘This (masc/sg)(one) works’

Esta funciona ‘This (fem/sg)(one) works’

*[luz]

4.

Este tá feli[h] ‘This (masc/sg)(one) is happy (un/fem/pl)’

Esta está feliz *[luz] ‘This (fem/sg) (one) is happy (un/fem/sg)’

5.

Este ya tansó Esta ya (se) cansó *[luz] ‘This (masc/sg) (one) already ‘This (fem/sg) (one) got tired’ already got tired’

6.

Este ee sita Esta es (una) casita ‘This (masc/sg)(one) is house ‘This (fem/sg) is a (dim/fem/sg)’ house (dim/ fem/sg)’

7.

*Este es hija ‘This (masc/sg)(one) is daughter (fem/sg)’

Esta es la hija [niña] ‘This (fem/sg) is the (fem/sg) daughter’

8.

Anó este ‘This (masc/sg)(one) won’

Ganó esta ‘This (fem/sg)(one) won’

9.

Ese ‘That (masc/sg)(one)’

Esa *[motora] ‘That (fem/sg)(one)’

10.

Ese ‘That (masc/sg) (one)’

Esa *[vaca] ‘That (fem/sg) (one)’

11.

*Ese[h] mamá Esa es la mamá [caballo] ‘That (masc/sg)(one) is mom ‘That (fem/sg)(one) (fem/sg)’ is the (fem/sg) mom’

12.

Esta ‘This (fem/sg)(one)’

Este ‘This (masc/sg) (one)’

13.

*Esa[h] papá ‘That (fem/sg)(one) is dad (masc/sg)’

Ese es el papá [caballo] ‘That (masc/sg)(one) is the (masc/sg) dad’

14.

Esto ‘That (neuter)’

Este ‘This (masc/sg) (one)’

*[pez]

15.

Esto lo senta ‘This (neut) sits him (masc/sg)’

Este lo siento ‘This (masc/sg) (I) sit him down’

*[muñeco]

[casa]

*[motora]

*[caballo]

Appendices

197

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

16.

*Esto[h] son flore[h] ‘These (masc/pl)are flowers (un/fem/pl)’

Estas son flores [flores] ‘These (fem/pl) are flowers (un/fem/pl)’

17.

*Esto[h] son uita[h] ‘These (masc/pl) are grapes (dim/fem/pl)’

Estas son uvitas [uvas] ‘These (fem/pl) are grapes (dim/fem/pl)’

Appendix D: Third Person Clitics Elián (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

Mílalo ‘Look at it (masc/sg)’

Míralo

[bebé]

2.

Lo piso ‘(I) step on it (masc/sg)’

Lo piso

[avión]

3.

Mía a aquí ‘Look at it (fem/sg) here’

Mírala aquí

[tortuga]

4.

La tiele ‘(he/she) has it (fem/sg)’

Las tienes ‘(you) have them (fem/pl)’

*[mariposas]

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

Damedo ‘Give to me it (masc./sg.)’

Dámelo

[Unknown]

2.

Coelo ‘Take it (masc./sg.)’

Cógelo

[caballo]

3.

Ábrelo ‘Open it (masc/sg)’

Ábrelo

[lazo]

4.

Ábolo ‘Open it (masc/sg)’

Ábrelo

[teléfono]

5.

Ábelo

Ábrelo/la

[stickerpegatina]

‘Open it (masc/sg)’

‘Open it (masc/sg)/ (fem/sg)’

Alonso


198

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

Ábrelo

[muñeco]

Guárdalo

[teléfono]

Aquí ponlo

[guauguau]

9.

Ábolo ‘Open it (masc/sg)’ Guadalo ‘Put it (masc/sg) away’ Aquí ponlo ‘Put it (masc/sg) here’ A ponlo aquí

Ponlo aquí

[muñeco]

10.

‘Put it (masc/sg) here’ Sácalo

Sácalo/la

[stickerpegatina]

6. 7. 8.

‘Take it (masc/sg) out’

‘Take it (masc/sg)/ (fem/sg) out’

11.

Lo como ‘(I) eat it (masc/sg)’

Me lo como [elefante] ‘(I) eat it (masc/sg) up’

12.

Coelo[h] ‘Take them (masc/pl)’

Cógelos

[caballos]

13.

Yo la abro ‘I open it (fem/sg)’

Yo la abro

[casa]

14.

Sácala ‘Take it(fem/sg) off’

Sácasela ‘Take it (fem/sg) off (from her)’

[ropa]

15.

Míala ‘Look at it (fem/sg)’

Mírala

[bola]

16.

Ponla[h] aquí ‘Put them (fem/pl) here’

Ponlas aquí

[motoras]

Non-Target Tokens 17.

Coelo ‘Take it (masc/sg)’

18.

Se lo come Se la come *[serpiente] ‘(he/she) eats him (masc/sg)’ ‘(She) eats her (fem/sg)’ Lo guado La guardo *[vaca] ‘(I) put it (masc/sg) away’ ‘I put it (fem/sg) away’

19.

Cógelos *[zapatos] ‘Take them (masc/pl)’

20.

Ábreco ‘Open it (masc/sg)’

Ábrela ‘Open it (fem/sg)’

*[bolsa]

21.

Vo gadarla ‘(I) am going to put it (fem/sg) away’

Voy a guardarlos *[bloques] ‘(I) am going to put them (masc/pl) away’

Appendices

199

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

22.

Lo apeto ‘(I) press it (masc/sg)’

La aprieto *[luz] ‘(I) press it (fem/sg)’

23.

Guadalo ‘Put it(masc/sg) away’

Guárdala *[silla] ‘Put it (fem/sg) away’

24.

Sácalo ‘Take it (masc/sg) off’

Sácasela ‘Take it (fem/sg) off (from him)’

*[ropa]

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

Ponlo así ‘Put it (masc/sg) this way’

Ponlo así

[caballo]

2.

Esto a darselo ‘This to give it (masc/sg) to him’

Londa

3.

4.

(Vamos) A darle esto [pelo] ‘(We are going) to give it to him’ Esto lo senta Este lo siento [muñeco] ‘This (neut) sits him (masc/sg)’ ‘This (masc/sg) (I) sit him down’ Míralo Míralo [lagartijo] ‘Look at it (masc/sg)’

5.

A hacel lo ‘To do it (masc/sg)’

(Vamos) a hacerlo [Activity] ‘(We are going) to do it (masc/sg)’

6.

La tá pendiendo La está prendiendo ‘(She) is turning it (fem/sg) on’

7.

costarla ‘Put her (fem/sg) to sleep’

[luz]

(Vamos) a acostarla [muñeca] ‘(We are going) to put her to sleep’

Non-Target Tokens (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

8.

*A abilo ‘To open it (masc/sg)’

(Vamos) a abrirla ‘(We are going) to open it (fem/sg)’

*[casa]

9.

*Yo lo encendo ‘I turn it (un/masc/sg) on’

Yo la enciendo *[luz] ‘I turn it (un/fem/sg) on’


200

Appendix E: Attributive Adjectives Elián (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

Mira gande ‘Look big (one)(un/sg)’

Mira la grande [naranja] ‘Look the (fem/sg) big (un/sg) (one)’

2.

Si cayó, ecito ‘(He) fell down, poor (masc/sg)’

Se cayó, pobrecito

[muñeco]

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

Mira carito bonito ‘Look car pretty (masc/sg)’

Mira un carrito bonito [carro] ‘Look a (masc/sg) car pretty (masc/sg)’

Alonso

1.

Londa (Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

1.

No, el quito No, el chiquito ‘No, the small (one) (masc/sg)’

[león]

2.

No, a mí me gusta ito

No, a mí me gusta el [lagartijo] chiquito ‘(I) like small (one) (masc/sg)’ ‘(I) like the (masc/sg) small (one) (masc/sg)’

3.

ande no cabe El grande no cabe ‘Big (one) (un/sg) does not fit’ ‘The (masc/sg) does not fit’

[lagartijo]

4.

Yo engo gande ‘I have big (un/sg) (one)’

Yo tengo el grande ‘I have the (masc/sg) big (un/sg) (one)’

[teléfono]

5.

Feli[h] (2 times) ‘Happy (un/sg) (one)’

El feliz ‘The (un/sg) happy (un/sg) (one)’

[tren]

6.

Tistre ya anó ‘Sad (un/sg) (one) already won’

El triste ya ganó ‘The (masc/sg) sad (un/sg) (one) already won’

[tren]

Appendices

201

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

7.

Tistre ‘Sad (un/sg) (one)

El triste ‘The (masc/sg) sad (un/sg) (one)’

[tren]

8.

Azul ‘Blue (un/sg) (one)’

El azul ‘The (masc/sg) blue (un/sg) (one)’

[pez]

Non-Target Tokens 9.

Feli[h] ‘Happy (one)(un/sg)’

Los felices *[trenes] ‘The (masc/pl) happy (un/pl) (ones)’

10.

*No, anaron feli[h] ‘No, won (3rd pers.pl) happy (un/sg)’

No, ganaron los felices [trenes] ‘No, won the (masc/ pl) happy (un/pl) (ones)’

11.

Tistre ‘Sad (un/sg)(one)’

Los tristes ‘The (masc/pl) sad (un/pl)(ones)’

12.

Azul, azul ‘Blue (un/sg)(one), blue (un/sg)(one)’

Los azules *[carros] ‘The (masc/pl) blue (un/pl) (ones)’

13.

Azul ‘Blue (un/sg)(one)’

Los azules *[carros] ‘The (masc/pl) blue (un/pl)(ones)’

14.

No, azul ‘No, blue (un/sg)(one)’

No, los azules *[carros] ‘No, the (masc/pl) blue (un/pl)(ones)’

*[trenes]

Appendix F: Predicative Adjectives4 Elián

1.

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

Ii cayente ‘(It) is (permanent) hot (un/sg)’

está caliente [cámara] ‘(It) is (changeable) hot (unm/sg)’


202

Alonso (Child)

(Target)

1.

Eee sucio ‘(It) is (perm) dirty (masc/sg)’

Está sucio [muñeco] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’

2.

Tá sucio ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’

Está sucio [Wili] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’

3.


Está sucio [Alonso] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’

4.

Tá iente ‘(It) is (chang) hot (un/sg)’

Está caliente

[cámara]

5.

Tá duro ‘It is (chang) hard (masc/sg)’

Está duro

[sticker]

6.


Está sucia *[bola] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (fem/sg)’

7.


Está sucia *[bola] ‘(It) is (chang) dirty (fem/sg)’

8.

No, ucio ‘No, dirty (masc/sg)’

No, (está) sucia *[media] ‘No, (it is (chang)) dirty (fem/sg)’

9.

*Son sucio Están sucios [pies] ‘(They) are (perm) dirty (masc/sg)’ ‘(They) are (chang) dirty (masc/pl)’

10. tá espierto ‘(It) is (chang) awake (masc./sg.)’

Está despierta ‘(It) is (chang) awake (fem/sg)’

(Referent)

*[vaca]

Londa (Tokens) Masculine APs

1.

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

avión ito ‘Airplane small (masc/sg)’

el avión chiquito ‘the airplane small (masc/sg)’

[avión]

Appendices

203

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

2.

ito ‘small (masc/sg)’

(es)chiquito [caballo] ‘(it is) small (masc/sg)’

3.

tá entado está sentado ‘(it) is (chang) seated (masc/sg)’

[mono]

4.

tá aostado ‘(it) is (chang) laying down (masc/sg)’

está acostado

[perro]

5.

No, gande ‘No, big (un/sg)’

No (es) grande [caballo] ‘No, (it is) big (un/sg)’

6.

tá domío ‘(it) is (chang) asleep (masc/sg)’

está dormido

[caballo]

7.

Este ee gande ‘This (masc/sg) is (perm) big (un/sg)’

Este es grande

[avión]

8.

ee sucio está sucio ‘(it) is (perm) dirty (masc/sg)’ ‘(it) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’

[nene]

9.

tá sucio está sucio ‘(it) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’

[nene]

10. tá omido ‘(it) is (chang) asleep (masc/sg)’

está dormido

[perro]

11. él no es malo ‘he is (perm) not bad (masc/sg)’

él no es malo

[not visible]

12. tá andado ‘(it) is (chang) put away (masc/sg)’

está guardado

[león]

13. Este ee ito ‘This (masc/sg) is (perm) small (masc/sg)’

Este es chiquito

[lagartijo]

14. ande ‘Big (un/sg)’

(es) grande (it is) big (un/sg)’

[lagartijo]

15. tá tistre ‘(it) is (chang) sad (un/sg)’

está triste

[pez]

16. este tá feli[h] ‘this (masc/sg) is (chang) happy (un/sg)’

este está feliz

[pez]


204

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

17. azul ‘Blue (un/sg)’

(es) azul

[camión]

18. Está tistre ‘(It) is (chang) sad (un/sg)’

Está triste

[elefante]

19. tistre ‘Sad (un/sg)’

(Está) triste

[tren]

20. tá feli[h] está feliz ‘(it) is (chang) happy (un/sg)’

[tren]

21. es tistre ‘(it) is (perm) sad (un/sg)’

[tren]

está triste

22. tá sucio está sucio ‘(it) is (chang) dirty (masc/sg)’

[teléfono]

23. azul ‘blue (un/sg)’

(es) azul

[carro]

24. tá ontento ‘(it) is (chang) happy (masc/sg)’

está contento

[muñeco]

25. Este tá tistre Este está triste ‘This (masc/sg) is (chang) sad (un/sg)’

[muñeco]

Feminine APs 26. No, ita ‘No, small (fem/sg)’

No (es) chiquita

[mariposa]

27. está tistre ‘(it) is (chang) sad (un/sg)’

está triste

[luz]

28. es tistre ‘(it) is (perm) sad (un/sg)’

está triste

[luz]

29. tá feli[h] está feliz ‘(it) is (chang) happy (un/sg)’

[luz]

30. No, tá sucia ‘No, (it) is (chang) dirty (fem/sg)’

[nena]

No, está sucia

31. tá inda está linda ‘(it) is (chang) pretty (fem/sg)’ 32. tás fea estás fea ‘(you) are (chang) ugly (fem/sg)’

[muñeca] [experimenter]

Appendices (Child)

205

(Target)

(Referent)

33. inda ‘pretty (fem/sg)’

(estás) linda

[experimenter]

34. Mira tá domida ‘Look (she) is (chang) asleep (fem/sg)’

Mira está dormida

[muñeca]

35. Bebé tá omida ‘Baby is (chang) asleep (fem/sg)’

La bebé está dormida ‘The baby is (chang) asleep (fem/sg)’

[muñeca]

36. muzada ‘uncombed (fem/sg)’

(estoy) esmoruzada ‘(I am) uncombed (fem/sg)’

[Londa]

37. azul ‘blue (un/sg)’

(es) azul

[blusa]

38. cerrada ‘closed (fem/sg)’

(está) cerrada

[boca]

39. tá cerrada está cerrada ‘(it) is (chang) closed (fem/sg)’

[boca]

40. eta ‘violet (invariable/sg)’

(es) violeta

[motora]

41. ¿Tá limpia? ‘Is (chang)(it) cleaned (fem/sg)?’

¿Está limpia?

[media]

42. tá sucia está sucia ‘(it) is (chang) dirty (fem/sg)’

[media]

43. yeya sucia (es) una media sucia ‘Dirty (fem/sg) sock (fem/sg)’

[media]

Non-target APs 44. rojo ‘red (masc/sg)’

(es) roja ‘(it) is (perm) red (fem/sg)’

*[paleta]

45. rojo ‘red (masc/sg)’

(es) roja ‘(it is (perm)) red (fem/sg)’

*[motora]

46. etá bielto ‘(it) is (chang) opened (masc/sg)’

está abierta *[boca] ‘(it) is (chang) opened (fem/sg)’


206

(Child)

(Target)

(Referent)

47. tá cerrado ‘(it) is (chang) closed (masc/sg)’

está cerrada ‘(it) is (chang) closed (fem/sg)’

*[boca]

48. *Yo estoy contento ‘I am happy (masc/sg)’

Yo estoy contenta ‘I am happy (fem/sg)’

*[Londa]

49. *Toy sentaou ‘(I) am seated (masc/sg)’

Estoy sentada ‘(I) am seated (fem/sg)’

*[Londa]

50. tá omido ‘(it) is (chang) asleep (masc/sg)’

están dormidos *[caballos] ‘(They) are (chang) asleep (masc/pl)’

51. *Ello[h]ya antado

Ellos ya están levantados ‘They already are (chang) awake (masc/pl)’

‘They already awake (masc/ sg)’

*[caballos]

52. *flole gande ‘big (un/sg) flowers (un/pl)’

flores grandes [flores] ‘big (un/pl) flowers (un/pl)’

53. feli[h] ‘Happy (un/sg)’

(están) felices ‘(they are (chang)) happy (un/pl)’

*[trenes]

54. tá tistre ‘(it) is (chang) sad (un/sg)’

están tristes ‘(they) are (chang) sad (un/pl)’

*[trenes]

Notes

Preface 1

Notice that the term ‘default’ is used in this instance to refer to a language-specific initial feature value, for example, Harris’ (1991) proposal of masculine and singular as default values for Spanish.

Chapter 1 1

2

3

4 5

6

For the present analysis, I have chosen the masculine and singular to label the nominal features gender and number for expository purposes, because Spanish only has two values for these features. The same analysis could be applied to languages with more than one gender by simply labeling these features as [gender, number]. Farkas (1990) proposes a similar analysis based on the underspecification of the gender feature for neuter gender nominals in Romanian. Some nominals in Spanish are not morphologically marked for a specific gender, for example, el/la estudiante (the (masc/fem) student). For these cases, I assumed that they come from the lexicon already specified for the gender feature as either masculine or feminine and that this specification becomes transparent when they enter into an agreement relationship in the derivation. See Bruening (2009) for arguments against the DP-Hypothesis. I should point out that structures in this monograph are illustrated as projecting X-bar levels for expository purposes. However, under the bare phrase structure (Chomsky 1995), there are no bar levels. As we have seen, functional categories are a vital component in the Minimalist framework because of their presumed role in feature checking. Consequently, several intermediate functional projections have been proposed in the literature to account for gender and number agreement within DP. Among them, Ritter (1993) proposes a non-unified treatment of gender and number features using a comparative analysis of Hebrew and three Romance languages, including Spanish. In her proposal, number projects its own functional phrase that serves as the complement of D, whereas gender is a feature whose position varies cross-linguistically. Similarly, Bernstein (1991, 1993) finds support for the availability of a Number Phrase as the intermediate projection between the Determiner Phrase and the Nominal Phrase in her analysis of prenominal adjectives in Walloon, a Romance language spoken in Belgium. In contrast, Picallo (1991) states that both gender and number should project their own functional projections following Pollock’s

Notes

208

7

8

9

10 11

12

(1989) Functional XP Hypothesis. Using data from Catalan DPs, she proposes a cyclical derivation of nominal agreement, involving N-raising to Gender and then to Number. Implicit in this analysis is the assumption that the base order of these constituents is [determiner + adjective + noun], as has been advanced in the literature, among others by Bernstein (1991), Valois (1991), Picallo (1991), and Cinque (1994). We should point out that word-order relations between the noun and the adjective are more flexible in Spanish than in English. For example, qualifying adjectives, such as those referring to colors, can occur also in prenominal position in Spanish, for example, rojo abrigo ‘red coat,’ as well as in other Romance languages, such as Italian and French. However, as Demonte (1999) explains, color adjectives in prenominal position carry a change in the meaning of the nominal phrase: the use of prenominal color adjectives is literary, for example, in this case it stresses the redness of the coat. Other interesting variants of the weak continuity variation of the Continuity Hypothesis are the Structure Building Model (Radford 1995, 2000) and the Lexical Learning Approach (Clahsen, Parodi, & Penke 1993/1994; Clahsen, Eisenbeiss, & Penke 1996). These two hypotheses argue that children are guided by UG principles as they build syntactic structures but the process is a gradual one based on lexical learning and the interaction of abstract knowledge. These hypotheses, although interesting, will not be discussed in the present monograph as the focus is the continuity versus the usage-based approaches controversy. See Bohnacker (1997) for a discussion of Radford’s Maturational Hypothesis. Yang (2004) presents evidence against these analyses, stating that this statistical mechanism cannot segment sequences of monosyllabic words, which are abundant in the input directed to children acquiring English. See Crain and Thornton (2006) for a complete discussion of the inadequacies of data-driven hypotheses.

Chapter 2 1

2

3

A total 15 subjects participated in the study but not all of them completed all tasks due to illness. Another cause for data loss was equipment malfunction. The original values of the MLU in words were calculated following Brown’s (1973) criteria, that is, all repetitions were included in the calculation. The values found were as follows: Elián (MLUw=1.6); Alonso (MLUw= 2.3); Londa (MLUw= 2.4); Diana (MLUw= 3.2); and Pepe (MLUw= 4.3). However, a second calculation was carried out eliminating all repetitions from the data resulting in the lower MLUw values shown in Table 2.1 above. This second calculation was motivated by the fact that Alonso’s prevalent repetitions altered considerably his MLUw from a value of 2.3 to a value of 1.9. A revision was made regarding the adjectives included in the tasks. In the designing phase of the study adjectives listed in (i) were selected from the Spanish transcripts in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney & Snow 1985): (i) (a) Size: Chiquito Grande

‘small’ ‘big’

(marked for gender, final –o or –a) (unmarked for gender, –e)

Notes (b) State: Mojado Seco Limpio Sucio Peinado Despeinado (c) Emotion: Feliz Triste

4

209

‘wet’ ‘dry’ ‘clean’ ‘dirty’ ‘combed’ ‘uncombed’

(marked for gender) (marked for gender) (marked for gender) (marked for gender) (marked for gender) (marked for gender)

‘happy ‘sad’

‘(unmarked for gender) (unmarked for gender)

Only three adjectives unmarked for gender were found to be appropriate to use for children these ages, grande ‘big,’ feliz ‘happy’ and triste ‘sad.’ Of these three adjectives, all children recognized the contrast between grande/chiquito ‘big/ small’ consistently in the props, for example, a big phone versus a small phone. The other two adjectives, feliz and triste, seemed to be obvious for the girls but not so obvious for the boys. Similarly, we found gender differences regarding the perception of the cleanliness of a toy, while boys seemed not to worry about the cleanliness of a particular toy, girls, would immediately voice their concerns about the dirty toy. The adjectives mojado/seco ‘dry/wet’ were eliminated because it was not obvious to the children that a particular item was wet. The use of these articles did not seem to have an effect on the children’s production, since their answers would vary many times from the information provided, as see in (i): (i) Experimenter: Tengo los grandes ‘I have the (masc/pl) big (unm/pl) (ones) (two cars)’ Child: *Y yo chiquito ‘And I small (masc/sg) (one) (two cars)’ Moreover, within the UG framework the underlying assumption is that children do not acquire grammar by imitating the input but by testing different hypotheses on how the system works. These responses were not cases of immediate repetitions.

Chapter 3 1

2

Demonte (1999) states that qualifying adjectives can be classified in several types: (1) dimension/size, for example, largo/corto ‘long/short,’ (2) velocity or speed, for example, rápido/lento ‘fast/slow;’ (3) physical characteristic, for example, redondo/cóncavo ‘round/concave;’ (4) color and shape: for example, blanco/alargado ‘white/elongated;’ (5) age: for example, antiguo/moderno ‘old/modern;’ (6) valuation or evaluative: for example, excelente/horrible ‘excellent/horrible;’ and (7) human aptitudes and predispositions: for example, capaz/emotivo ‘capable/ emotional.’ Recall from Chapter 1, I am adopting Cinque’s (1993) adjectival analysis, in which adjectives are generated in prenominal position as specifiers of the functional projection Agreement Phrase. In this analysis, the postnominal position of the adjective in Spanish is the result of N-raising to check strong features.

210 3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Notes

Spanish gender paradigm assumes that there are two genders (masculine and feminine); however, there is a third possibility: neuter. This third gender is overtly expressed in the following five forms: the demonstratives esto ‘this,’ eso ‘that,’ aquello ‘that,’ and the pronouns ello ‘it,’ and lo ‘it.’ These neuter forms are problematic because they stand in isolation from the rest of the constituents; that is, there are no other constituents in Spanish marked as such. In addition, when these “neuter” forms surface with other constituents, such as nouns or adjectives, they take the agreement markings of the masculine gender, for example, lo buen–o ‘the (neuter) quality of good.’ Researchers seem to agree that these forms do not constitute a third gender in Spanish (Harris 1991; Klein 1989; Leonetti 1999, among others). Several proposals have been made to account for these anomalous members of Spanish gender paradigm. Harris affirms that neuter can only be considered a subgender, because there are no neuter nominals in Spanish. Klein (1989) proposes to analyze neuter as abstract reference, whereas Ojeda (1984) proposes a reclassification of these elements as [–count]. Leonetti (1999) states that the neuter forms do not oppose the rest of the paradigm morphologically but by a semantic feature, that is, their ability to denote only inanimate entities or their ability to refer to non-countable referents. Harris’ word classification is motivated by several factors: (1) numerical preponderance: he states that the vast number of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs belong to the core; (2) productivity: inner and outer cores are productive and accept loanwords and other types of neologisms; and (3) historical shift: over time residue constituents have moved to the core. Phillips assumes that case-licensing is a rigid constraint, that is verb-raising must take place. The author further assumes that case-licensing is regulated by the Generalized Visibility Condition (Baker 1991; Shlonsky 1987), which states that phonetically interpreted NPs are case-licensed by PF but semantically interpreted NPs are case-licensed by LF. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for children in the beginning stages of acquisition to shorten words; in this case mota could just be a shortened version of the motora. Notice that Schnell de Acedo also analyzes in her study the percentage of determiner omissions in obligatory contexts, a variable that was not taken into account in the studies reviewed. I address the issue of determiner omission in Chapter 5. No major conclusions can be drawn with respect to agreement in attributive adjectival structures given the reduced number of utterances present in the data. I should point out that the use of “default” with respect to the masculine gender feature represents the most frequent or least marked value of this feature in the Spanish language (Harris 1991; Teschner & Russell 1984; Trask 1993). In this sense, this is a language-particular characteristic and as such, it is not specified within UG. The analysis of the data throughout the discussion is presented in the format of utterances, which include all instances produced by the children, and tokens, which reflect children’s production without repetitions. This conclusion is based under the assumption MPH a has encoded the feminine features. I interpreted the long sound of the e as a shortened form of the copula es ‘is’ and not está, because Alonso produced the form tá for está consistently in the data.

Notes

13

211

In addition, Example 3.22(e) provides evidence for the presence of this alternation between ser and estar, that is, Alonso produces son sucio instead of están sucios. These two examples seem to indicate that this child has not yet acquired the distinction between these two representations of the copula ‘to be.’ Another possibility is that the child was referring to all the cats available and he did not pronounce the plural marker, namely the final s, for example, esos ‘these (ones)’ (masculine/plural). In this case the paradigm is regular, with the masculine plural demonstrative marked canonically with os, for example, esos ‘these (ones).’

Chapter 4 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Marrero and Aguirre state that children in their study produce singulars to refer to plural referents at the pre-morphological stage. However, they do not provide a clear assessment of how pervasive this issue was in the production data. Notice that in this analysis individuals and quantifiers are considered argumental because of their association with constituents occupying argument positions in clauses, for example, subject, object. The researchers argue that the initial default value is the Chinese one because it is the more restrictive in the sense that this type of language lacks determiners, numerals, and plural morphology. Rigau (1999) states that in Spanish the partitive article formed by [de + definite article] as in Italian and French, was lost. She argues that Spanish does not possess a partitive explicit determiner, that is, the partitive determiner appears as an article without phonological content. The plural las gramas ‘the grasses’ is available in the Spanish grammar but it is used to refer to different types of grass, for example, Kentucky grass versus blue grass. In this particular example the child is not referring to different kinds of grass. Recall that according to the Nominal Mapping Parameter (Chierchia 1998a; 1998b; Chierchia et al. 2000), children start the acquisition process with the parameter set to the Chinese language value; that is, they would treat all nominals as mass. Hence, this parameter predicts that at the initial stages of acquisition, children will not pluralize any nominals (e.g., Chinese), nor will they produce any determiners since nouns in this setting are arguments. Then, the learner would reset the NMP to the value of Germanic languages on the basis of positive evidence; that is, nominals would be treated as both arguments and predicates. In this stage, the NMP predicts that children would produce nominals with and without determiners as they start classifying them as count or mass. Finally, children acquiring a language like Spanish would converge to the Romance target setting in which the nominals are predicates; that is, nominals in general need to have an overt determiner to become arguments. Notice that this conclusion contrasts with our findings on gender, that is, children exhibited no problems marking gender inflection on nominals. This brings support to the hypothesis that the nominals come from the lexicon with their gender morphology specified. This result does not support Pizzutto and Caselli’s (1992) finding for Italian regarding bound morphology. In particular they found that the acquisition

212

9

10

11

12

13

Notes

of bound morphology precedes that of free suppletive morphemes such as articles. Perhaps this is the case in Italian because of the difficulties Italian children face concerning the acquisition of the complex article paradigm in that language. Notice that Bare Noun Phrases in the present analysis include both target-like Bare Nominals (BNs) and non-target-like BNs. This chapter addresses only target-like BNs and those non-target-like BNs which involve a number mismatch, whereas non-target-like BNs pertaining determiner omissions are discussed in Chapter 5. I should point out the ambiguity present in this particular type of non-target-like utterances, although it is clear that the referent is plural, for example, caballos ‘horses,’ the child’s intended meaning, definite or indefinite, is not transparent. Spanish grammar marks this contrast as follows: by using the definite article with the noun for example, mira los caballos ‘look (at) the horses,’ the child will mark the definiteness feature on his utterance; on the other hand, by using a bare plural, for example, mira caballos ‘look horses,’ the child will mark the generic nature of his referent, specifically the existence of horses. However, as illustrated above, either choice requires the marking of the feature number in the noun, for example, caballo–s. Nominals like pez ‘fish,’ and flor ‘flower’ that end in a final consonant in the singular, were included in the study because they form the plural by adding –es instead of –s, for example, peces and flores. In this fashion, even if the children omit the final –s, a characteristic of the Puerto Rican dialect, we would have evidence of the number feature by the presence of the epenthetic vowel –e, for example, pece, flore. The remaining 92 instances were distributed as follows: 48 instances of target-like reference; 26 requests for objects not present; and 17 instances of undetermined referents, that is, instances in which the intended referent was not clear. This is another example in which the child used the copula ser ‘to be (permanent)’ instead of estar ‘to be (changeable)’ to mark a changeable state.

Chapter 5 1

Another proposal put forth in the literature to account for the phenomenon of determiner omission in child language is the Number Underspecification Hypothesis (Hoekstra & Hyams 1995; Hoekstra, Hyams, & Becker 1997). Proponents of the Underspecification Hypothesis state that determiner omissions in early grammars result from the optional underspecification of Number. In this analysis, articles are the realization of the feature number: when this feature is specified (e.g., [+ sg, –pl]), then D is filled by an overt article, but when it is left underspecified, D would be empty and children would produce Bare Noun Phrases. Crucially within this hypothesis, D is always projected in child language. This hypothesis presents the advantage of assuming that children’s grammars always project a DP, equating them with adults’ grammars. However, it does not explain why children leave number underspecified, nor does it explain the process of convergence on the target grammar.

Notes 2

3

4

213

Notice though that Marrero and Aguirre’s (2003) study found similar results even though some of the children in their study spoke a dialect with no final –s aspiration. The remaining four instances involved Alonso’s production of the MPH (Bottari et al. 1993/1994) a (considered to mark the feminine gender in the present analysis) with masculine nouns. However, the analysis presented in Chapter 3 provided evidence that these four cases did not involve gender mismatches; rather, they were instances of vocalic place holders, void of any featural content. The remaining four instances involved Alonso’s production of the MPH (Bottari et al. 1993/1994) a (considered to mark the feminine gender in the present analysis) with masculine nouns. However, the analysis presented in Chapter 3 provided evidence that these four cases did not involve gender mismatches; rather, they were instances of vocalic place holders, void of any featural content.

Chapter 6 1

2

3

This points to the fact that children at the beginning stages of acquisition do not make use of the morphophonological cues available in the input, contrary to PérezPereira’s (1991) findings for children between the ages of 4 and 11. The children in his study paid attention to intralinguistic cues in the assignment of gender. Although Elián’s production can be characterized as singular, he seems to have set the NMP parameter to the same value as Alonso and Londa because he is producing target-like MPH/DPs. Notice that I analyzed the four gender mismatches found in the MPH/DP production not as the feminine MPH a but as true place holders without a gender specification. As a result, they do not involve a gender mismatch.

Appendices 1

2

3

4

In the examples above the following abbreviations were used: masc masculine N/A Not applicable fem feminine un unmarked overtly for gender sg singular pl plural The ‘F’ indicates that this nominal has the canonical mark of feminine nouns even though it is masculine. The ‘M’ indicates that this nominal has the canonical mark of masculine nouns even though it is feminine. The copula ‘to be’ has two representations in Spanish, ser and estar which serve to mark the contrast between an attribute perceived as permanent (or individual predicate) in the case of the former, versus one perceived as changeable (or a stage level predicate) in the case of the latter. In the text the abbreviations ‘chang.’ and ‘perm.’ refer to changeable attribute and permanent attribute respectively.

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Index

Page numbers in bold denote tables

Abney, S. P. 3 acquisition strategy proposal 35, 37, 42, 93, 168, 175, 179 masculine value as last resort 169 agreement 27 in Spanish Determiner Phrases 27–31 demonstrative pronouns 29 Aguirre, C. 38, 40, 42, 44, 46–7, 52, 54, 96–7, 104, 111–12, 118, 152, 161, 164, 177, 182–4, 211n. 1, 213n. 2 Alcina, F. J. 94 Ambadiang, T. 30–1, 94 Aronoff, M. 2 Baker, C. L. 5 Bare Noun Phrase (BNP) 43, 113, 139, 153 distribution of 114 non-target-like BNPs 115 Becker, M. 212n. 1 Behrens, H. 7 Bernstein, J. 4, 207n. 6, 208n. 7 Blecua, J. M. 94 Bloom, P. 6 Bohnacker, U. 208n. 10 Borer, H. 35–6, 63, 166 Bosque, I. 3, 95 Bottari, P. 12, 25, 53–4, 59, 61–2, 100, 122, 151, 161, 178, 213n. 3 Brown, R. 36 Bruening, B. 207n. 4 Brugè, L. 4, 168, 177 Bruhn de Garavito, J. 52 Campagnoli, M. G. 12 Caprin, C. 161

Caselli, M. C. 11–12, 44, 54, 63, 96, 154, 157, 161, 163, 171, 177, 211n. 8 Chierchia, G. 6, 8, 16, 96–100, 103, 106, 109, 111, 153, 160, 173–5, 180, 183, 185, 211n. 6 Chilosi, A. M. 12, 100, 151 Chomsky, N. 1, 3–4, 151, 168, 176, 207n. 5 Cinque, G. 3–4, 168, 177, 208n. 7, 209n. 2 Cipriani, P. 12, 100, 151 Clahsen, H. 6, 35, 208n. 9 Continuity Hypothesis 5 strong continuity versus weak continuity 5–6 Crain, S. 6–7, 9–10, 63, 78, 148, 151, 153, 159, 177, 208n. 12 Davey, N. 7 de Lange, M. J. 161 Demonte, V. 30, 208n. 8, 209n. 1 Deprez, V. 6 determiner phrase (DP) 2–3, 7, 9 initial values for gender and number 168–75 in Spanish child language 152–67 Dolitsky, M. 60 Eisenbeiss, S. 35 experimental methodology 9–26 naturalistic vs. experimental 38 tasks 12–23 data 9–11 elicited production tasks 16–23, 21–2 number comprehension task 13–16, 16 other props 23

222

Index

experimental methodology (Cont’d) subjects 11–12, 12 transcription and coding 23–6 data 25–6, 26 explanatory adequacy 7, 96, 151, 173 Farkas, D. 170, 207n. 2 features checking/copy 52, 63, 93, 151–2, 176–7 interpretable vs. uninterpretable 2–4 strong vs weak 4 Fernández Leborans, M. J. 71 Fodor, J. D. 168 functional projections (FPs) 36 Gavarró, A. 161 gender acquisition 38–45 experimental approach to 42–5 research in 38–42 gender agreement 31–4, 45–6 adjectival agreement 63–84 attributive adjectives 63–70 predicative adjectives 70–84 default value for gender 34–8 demonstrative pronouns 86–91 DP gender agreement 46–53 Monosyllabic Place Holder Determiner Phrases 53–63 MPHs 54, 56–7, 59, 61–2 gender mismatches 39, 57, 78, 80, 170, 183 grammatical vs semantic agreement 139–40 third person clitic pronouns 91–3 Goodluck, H. 5 Gordon, P. 106 grammatical conservatism 166 Gualmini, A. 6, 8, 98, 153, 160 Guasti, M. T. 8, 98, 153, 160–1, 163, 178 Gutiérrez Ordónez, S. 157 Haegeman, L. 36 Harris, J. W. 2, 16, 29, 31–4, 36, 59, 96–7, 100, 111, 168, 210n. 3, n. 4, n. 9

Hernández-Pina, F. 11, 38–42, 54, 70, 111–12, 152–3, 161, 163, 178, 183 Hoekstra, T. N. 212n. 1 Hyams, N. 5, 212n. 1 initial state, the (in language acquisition) 5–8 Continuity Hypothesis 5–6 Strong continuity versus Weak continuity 5–6 discontinuous analyses of 7 usage based approaches 7, 160, 162, 165, 167, 181 initial values gender and number features 168–75 Inman, K. 68 Klein, P. W. 32, 210n. 3 Koehn, C. 2, 27, 44, 139 learnability 5, 100, 111, 159, 167–8 Leonetti, M. 210n. 3 Lexicalist Hypothesis 165 Lexical Items (LIs) 1, 3 Lieven, E. M. 7, 152 Lleó, C. 54, 63, 153, 161, 163 Logical Form (LF) 2 Longobardi, G. 4 López Ornat, S. 7, 38, 43–4, 46, 54, 61, 96, 111–12, 152–3, 161, 163, 167, 178 Lust, B. 7 MacWhinney, B. 7, 10 Maez, L. 38–9, 42, 44 Mariscal, S. 43, 47, 52, 61, 64, 68, 78, 129 Marrero, V. 44, 96, 97, 104, 111–12, 118, 182–4, 211n. 1, 213n. 2 Martínez, J. A. 28 Maturational Hypothesis 7 Mazzuchi, A. 37 McCarthy, J. 5 Mean Length of Utterances (MLU) 11–12, 26, 41, 43–4, 47, 99, 110, 115, 163, 166, 174, 176 in words 12, 208n. 2

Index Menn, L. 161 Merge 3 Meroni, L. 6 Messer, D. 7 Miceli, G. 37 Minimalist Program (MP) 1, 176 agreement in 1–5 checking relation 3 features see features last resort 37, 169, 175, 179 N-movement 4 nominal agreement 3–5 Miyagawa, S. 4 Miyamoto, Y. 148 Montrul, S. A. 167 morphophonological cues 34, 212n. 1 Müller, N. 45 Nakayama, M. 6 Nix, A. 7 Nominal Mapping Parameter (NMP) 98, 173 Noun Phrases (NPs) 3 number agreement 94–6 acquisition research 111–13 delay on number acquisition 96, 111, 122, 139–40, 176, 182–3 experimental research 113–50 grammatical versus semantic agreement 139–40 number comprehension 140–9 initial default value 96–111 mass as default 102–11 singular as default 101–2

223

Picallo, C. 3, 207n. 6, 208n. 7 Pietroski, P. 6, 151, 177 Pine, J. M. 7, 152 Pinker, S. 5, 63, 151, 177 Pizzutto, E. 11–12, 44, 54, 63, 96, 154, 157, 161, 163, 177, 211n. 8 Pollock, J. Y. 207n. 6 Prado, M. 94 Principles & Parameters Approach 1 Puerto Rican Spanish dialect 23, 103, 212n. 11 Pullum, G. 7 Radford, A. 3, 7, 35, 208n. 10 Rigau, G. 211n. 4 Ritter, E. 207n. 6 Roberge, Y. 36–7 Rohrbacher, B. 35–7, 63, 166 Russell, W. M. 33–4, 210n. 9 Schnell de Acedo, B. 12, 38, 40–2, 44, 47, 52, 112, 157, 164, 177–8, 183, 210n. 7 Scholz, B. 7 Senghas, A. 68 Shlonsky, U. 210n. 5 Smith, P. 7 Snape, N. 161 Snow, C. 10 Snyder, W. 10–11, 38, 42–4, 47, 68, 129, 157, 164, 166, 177–8, 183 Socarrás, G. M. 78 Solt, S. 151 Stewart, J. 151

Ojeda, A. 210n. 3 Parodi, T. 208n. 9 parsing preference 78, 148–9, 184 collective interpretation 147–8 color adjectives 135, 184 Penke, M. 208n. 9 Pérez Pereira, M. 41, 74, 111, 120, 183, 213n. 1 Peters, A. 161 Phillips, C. 35, 37, 63, 169 Phonological Form (PF) 2

tasks elicited production 1, 9, 12, 16–23 number comprehension 1, 13–16 Teschner, R. V. 33–4, 210n. 9 Thornton, R. 6–7, 9–10, 63, 78, 153, 159, 177, 208n. 12 timing of acquisition gender vs. number 44, 116, 182 Tomasello, M. 7, 152–3 Trask, R. L. 168, 210n. 9

224 Universal Grammar (UG) 2, 5–6, 96, 152, 160 usage-based approaches 7, 152, 159–60, 162, 165, 167, 178, 181 linear matching hypothesis 62 Vainikka, A. 6, 35, 37 Valian, V. 6, 63, 151 Valois, D. 208

Index Varlokosta, S. 37–8 Volterra, V. 12 Weak Continuity Hypothesis 152 Wexler, K. 35–6, 63 White, L. 52 Word Markers (WMs) 32 Yang, C. D. 208n. 11

First Language Acquisition in Spanish : A Minimalist Approach to Nominal Agreement

First Language Acquisition in Spanish: A Minimalist Approach to Nominal Agreement (Continuum Studies in Theoretical Linguistics)

Development of Nominal Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective (Studies on Language Acquisition)

Development of Nominal Inflection in First Language Acquisition: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective (Studies on Language Acquisition)