Child Language and Developmental Dysphasia: Linguistic studies of the acquisition of German

361 Pages·1991·15.06 MB·English

by  Harald Clahsen

CHILD LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPMENTAL DYSPHASIA
STUDIES IN
SPEECH PATHOLOGY AND CLINICAL LINGUISTICS
SERIES EDITORS
Martin J. Ball Raymond D. Kent
Dept. of Behavioural Dept. of Communicative
& Communication Studies Disorders
Polytechnic of Wales University of Wisconsin
Pontypridd 1975 Willow Drive
CF37 1DL Madison
UK Wisconsin 53706, USA
EDITORIAL BOARD
Christopher Code (Leicester Polytechnic, UK)
Alvirda Farmer (San Jose State University, USA)
John H. V. Gilbert (University of British Columbia, Can.)
Yvan Lebrun (Vrije Universiteit, Belgium)
Lise Menn (University of Colorado at Boulder, USA)
AIMS AND SCOPE
The establishment of this series reflects the growth of both interest and research into
disorders of speech and language. It is intended that the series will provide a plat­
form for the development of academic debate and enquiry into the related fields of
speech pathology and clinical linguistics.
To this end, the series will publish book length studies or collections of papers on
aspects of disordered communication, and the relation between language theory and
language pathology.
Volume 2
Harald Clahsen
Child Language and Developmental Dysphasia
CHILD LANGUAGE AND
DEVELOPMENTAL DYSPHASIA
Linguistic Studies of the Acquisition of German
HARALD CLAHSEN
University of Düsseldorf
Translated by
KARIN RICHMAN
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1991
Autorisierte Übersetzung nach der deutschen Originalausgabe: Harald Clahsen,
Normale und gestörte Kindersprache.
® John Benjamins Publishing Co., Amsterdam 1988
The translation of this book into English was supported by Inter Nationes, Bonn.
Germany.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clahsen, Harald.
[Normale und gestörte Kindersprache. English]
Child language and developmental dysphasia : linguistic studies of the acquisition of
German / Harald Clahsen : translated by Karin Richman.
p. cm. - (Studies in speech pathology and clinical linguistics ; v. 2)
Translation of: Normale und gestörte Kindersprache.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Language acquisition. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general. 3. German language --
Acquisition. 4. Language disorders in children. I. Title. II. Series.
[DNLM: 1. Aphasia, Childhood. 2. Language Development — in infancy & child­
hood. WL 340.5 C584n]
P118.C5413 1991
401.93 -- dc20
DNLM/DLC 91-22437
ISBN 90 272 4332 8 (Eur.) / 1-55619-388-2 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
® Copyright 1991 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
Preface
This book is a slightly revised version of my postdoctoral thesis (Habilita­
tionsschrift) as submitted to the faculty of philosophy at the University of
Düsseldorf in January 1987. The study was written and researched mainly
in 1985 and 1986.I am grateful that the John Benjamins Publishing Com­
pany makes this book available to the English-speaking reader. The book
does not squeeze all that goes under the rubrics of 'child language' and
'developmental dysphasia'; its focus is rather on the acquisition of German
with particular reference to the research situation in West Germany. I
hope that the book is of some interest for the English-speaking reader.
Some passages from the original which had to do with my work on second
language development have been omitted in the translated version, since
in the meantime this work has been published at other places.
The present study owes its existence to the assistance and support of
several people. First of all, I want to thank Dieter Wunderlich who was my
supervisor and ensured that the circumstances for my research at the
institute in Düsseldorf were always optimal. Many thanks also to Tilman
Höhle who spent considerable time discussing the present work with me.
The data on dysphasia to be analysed in the following were gathered and
transcribed for the most part by the members of our research group.
Earlier members of the project included Birgit Mohnhaus, Beate Uzare-
wicz, Andreas Collings, Detlef Hansen, Karin Martens and Andreas
Schubert; the present members of the project are Monika Rothweiler,
Stefan Schmitz, Jutta Pollmann and Andreas Woest. Further data came
from institutes working in collaboration with our project: the Institute for
Speech Therapy in Aachen and the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry in
Munich. In addition, Frieder Dannenbauer, Iris Füssenich and Hildegard
Heidtmann made data from dysphasic children available to me.
My thanks to all the aforementioned.
vi CHILD LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPMENTAL DYSPHASIA
The research was supported by a grant from the Max-Planck-Institute for
Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen and by the German Science Foundation
which sponsors our projects on language acquisition and on dysphasia
financially. A computer was donated by the Rank Xerox Company, Düs­
seldorf, for the analysis of language data. The preparation of the English
translation was supported by a grant from 'Inter Nationes'. I also gratefully
acknowledge having received an award from the 'Society of Friends and
Supporters of the University of Düsseldorf for the present study.
Düsseldorf, January 1991 Harald Clahsen
Table of Contents
Preface v
Introduction 1
PART I: FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
1. Theoretical approaches in language acquisition research 7
1.1 The functionalist approach 8
1.2 The theory of Operating Principles 12
1.2.1 A sketch of Slobin's model 12
1.2.2 On the analysis of transitivity markers 14
1.2.3 On the theoretical status of Operating Principles 18
1.3 Learnability theory 19
1.3.1 Learnability constraints 20
1.3.2 Grammatical theory and learnability 24
1.3.3 On the structure of the language acquisition device 28
2. Early child grammars 35
2.1 Some features of Stage I in German child language 38
2.2 A phrase structure grammar for phase II 43
2.3 Learnability considerations on syntactic categorisation 47
2.4 Parameter theory and the acquisition of word order 53
2.4.1 Pinker's analysis 53
2.4.2 An alternative solution within GB-theory 55
viii CHILD LANGUAGE AND DEVELOPMENTAL DYSPHASIA
3. The grammar of a three year-old 67
3.1 Some features of phase IV in German child language 67
3.2 Syntactic structures in phase IV 74
3.3 Learning mechanisms for inflectional elements 76
3.3.1 On the construction of morphological paradigms 78
3.3.2 Verb inflection in German child language 87
PART II: DEVELOPMENTAL DYSPHASIA
4. Grammar acquisition and dysphasia (with particular reference 101
to the research situation in West Germany)
4.1 Linguistic features 103
4.2 Psycholinguistic aspects 108
4.3 Aims and basic hypotheses 111
4.4 On the design of the empirical investigation 116
4.4.1 Selecting the children 118
4.4.2 Analysing the linguistic data 118
4.4.3 Overview of the data investigated 122
5. Grammatical units 127
5.1 Nominal elements and the structure of the noun phrase 127
5.2 Adverbial elements and prepositional phrases 135
5.3 Verbal elements 139
5.4 Conjunctions 145
6. Selected areas of the inflectional system 153
6.1 Case markings 153
6.1.1 On the form and function of case markings in German 153
6.1.2 Case markings in dysphasia 155
6.1.3 A comparison with the acquisition of case morphology in 161
normal children
6.2 Verb inflection 165
6.2.1 On subject-verb agreement in dysphasia 165
6.2.2 Functional analyses of the inflection of verbs 178
in dysphasia
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
7. Word order 187
7.1 Verb placement 188
7.1.1 Overview: V1, V2 and verb-final patterns 189
7.1.2 Verb placement and verb inflection 195
7.1.3 Verb placement and verbal elements 202
7.2 Argument order 210
7.3 The position of the negator 215
8. Learnability theory and the acquisition of grammar 223
8.1 Child language development 223
8.2 Developmental dysphasia 226
9. Appendix 235
9.1 Profile charts 236
9.2 Transcripts 253
Bibliography 337
Index 345