Table Of ContentTHE ACQUISITION OF DIRECT OBJECT SCRAMBLING
AND CLITIC PLACEMENT
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION & LANGUAGE DISORDERS
EDITORS
Harald Clahsen Lydia White
University of Essex McGill University
EDITORIAL BOARD
Anne Baker (University of Amsterdam)
Melissa Bowerman (Max Planck Institut für Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen)
Katherine Demuth (Brown University)
Werner Deutsch (Universität Braunschweig)
Kenji Hakuta (UC Santa Cruz)
Nina Hyams (University of California at Los Angeles)
Peter Jordens (Free University, Amsterdam)
Jürgen Meisel (Universität Hamburg)
Kim Plunkett (Oxford University)
Mabel Rice (University of Kansas)
Michael Sharwood Smith (Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh)
Antonella Sorace (University of Edinburgh)
Karin Stromswold (Rutgers University)
Jürgen Weissenborn (Universität Potsdam)
Helmut Zobl (Carleton University, Ottawa)
Volume 22
Jeannette C. Schaeffer
The Acquisition of Direct Object Scrambling and Clitic Placement
Syntax and Pragmatics
THE ACQUISITION OF DIRECT
OBJECT SCRAMBLING
AND CLITIC PLACEMENT
SYNTAX AND PRAGMATICS
JEANNETTE C. SCHAEFFER
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of Ameri-
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Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schaeffer, Jeannette C.
The acquisition of direct object scrambling and clitic placement : syntax and pragmatics /
Jeannette C. Schaeffer.
p. cm. -- (Language acquisition & language disorders : ISSN 0925-0123; v. 22)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Language acquisition. 2. Grammar, Comparative and general--Direct object.
3. Grammar, Comparative and general--Clitics. I. Title. II. Series.
P118S277 2000
00-034228
ISBN 90 272 2490 0 (Eur.) / 1 55619 840 X (US) (alk. paper)
© 2000 – 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.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA
Table of Contents
ListofTablesandFigures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
C 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 The relevance of the study of first language acquisition . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 What can child language teach us? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.2 Continuity versus Maturation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.3 Parameter (mis-)setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.4 Modularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.1.5 Early clause structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 The verbal and the nominal system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
C 2
ObjectScramblingandCliticization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Object scrambling in Dutch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.2 Object scrambling and referentiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3 Object Clitics in Italian and Dutch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.4 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.1 Referentiality and the structure of DP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.2 Object scrambling and object clitic placement as the same
syntactic process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.5 Implications for acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.5.1 Predictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.5.2 Spontaneous speech studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
vi TABLEOFCONTENTS
C 3
Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2 Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3 Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4 Materials and methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.4.1 Dutch experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.4.2 Italian experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
C 4
ResultsandDiscussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2 Experimental results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.2.1 Data analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4.2.2 Direct object scrambling over negation in child Dutch . . . . . . 69
4.2.3 Direct object clitic placement in child Italian and Dutch . . . . 76
4.3 Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3.1 DP and clitic interpretation in adult language . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3.2 DP and clitic interpretation in the grammar of 2-year olds . . . 89
4.4 Past participle agreement in child Italian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.5 The existence of RefP and DiscP in early grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
C 5
SomeFurtherResults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.2 Bare object nouns and scrambling in Dutch child language . . . . . . . 104
5.3 Object scrambling over low and high adverbs in Dutch child
language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.4 Object clitics across constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.5 Position of the object clitic in child Dutch and Italian . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.6 Contracted plural object clitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
5.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
C 6
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.1 Summary of main results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.2 Implications for acquisition theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
6.2.1 Modularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
TABLEOFCONTENTS vii
6.2.2 Universal Grammar and Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.2.3 Full Clause Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.3 Future research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Scenarios Dutch experiment on direct object scrambling . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
English translation Dutch experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Scenarios Italian experiment on direct object clitic placement . . . . . . . . . 156
English translations Italian experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
SubjectIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
List of Tables and Figures
Tables
Table 1: Description of Dutch subjects 53
Table 2: Description of Italian subjects 53
Table 3: Types and tokens of sentences tested in Dutch experiment 56
Table 4: Types and tokens of sentences tested in Italian experiment 64
Table 5: Placement of definite DP and proper name objects with
respect to negation 69
Table 6: Placement of indefinite direct objects with respect to negation 71
Table 7: Overall proportions of overt direct object clitics, omitted
direct object clitics and full direct objects (in obligatory clitic
contexts) 76
Table 8: Proportions of full objects, demonstrative pronouns, strong
personal pronouns and clitics in Dutch clitic scenarios 80
Table 9: Proportions of pronominal object placement with respect to
negation 82
Table 10: Proportions of incorrect definite DPs used instead of
indefinites in referential and non-referential contexts 91
Table 11: Proportions of scrambled vs. non-scrambled definite DPs
occurring instead of indefinites in referential and non-
referential contexts 92
Table 12: Proportions of overt direct object clitics with agreement errors
and c orrect agreement in passato prossimo 95
Table 13: Proportions of omitted direct object clitics with and without
agreement in passato prossimo 96
Table 14: Proportions of passato prossimo constructions with a full
direct object and (non-)agreement on the past participle 98
Table 15: Proportions of bare object nouns versus full DPs in Dutch
scrambling experiments 104
x LISTOFTABLESANDFIGURES
Table 16: Proportions of (non-)scrambling of bare nouns over negation 105
Table 17: Proportions of full object scrambling over low adverbs 107
Table 18: Proportions of full object scrambling over high adverbs 109
Table 19: Proportions of pronominal object placement with respect to
low adverbs 110
Table 20: Proportions of pronominal objects preceding and following
high adverbs 111
Table 21: Proportions of overt clitics in simple present tense, passato
prossimo and restructuring constructions 112
Table 22: Overall proportions of overt direct object clitics in correct and
incorrect position 114
Table 23: Proportions of correct direct object clitics and contracted
plural object clitics in passato prossimo 117
Figures
Figure 1: Scrambling of definite DP and proper name objects over
negation 70
Figure 2: Scrambling of indefinite direct objects over negation 72
Figure 3: Overall proportions of overt direct object clitics and full
direct objects (in obligatory clitic contexts) 77
Figure 4: Definite DP scrambling over negation in Dutch vs. overt clitic
placement in Italian 79
Figure 5: Object clitic realization in Dutch vs. Italian 80
Figure 6: Pronominal object scrambling over negation 82
Figure 7: Bare object nouns in Dutch scrambling experiments 104
Figure 8: Non-scrambled bare nouns with respect to negation 105
Figure 9: Scrambling of full objects over low adverbs 108
Figure 10: Scrambling of full objects over high adverbs 109
Figure 11: Scrambling of object pronouns over high adverbs 111
Figure 12: Overt object clitics across constructions 113
Figure 13: (Incorrectly) contracted plural object clitics in passato
prossimo 118
