The Delay of Principle B Effect (DPBE) and its Absence in Some Languages

The Delay of Principle B Effect (DPBE) has been discussed in various studies that show that children around age 5 seem to violate Principle B of Binding Theory (Chomsky, 1981, and related works), when the antecedent of the pronoun is a name, but not when the antecedent is a quantifier. The analysis we propose can explain the DPBE in languages of the Dutch-English type, and its exemption in languages with (dis)placed pronouns (clitics). In both types of languages, the phenomenon arises when children have to compare two alternative representations for equivalence. The principle that induces the comparison is different in both cases, however. The comparision of children speaking languages with pronouns occurring within the VP is induced by Grodzinsky and Reinhart's (1993) Rule I. However, the comparison of children in languages where the pronouns occur above the VP is induced by Scope Economy. In both cases the result is similar: the children take guesses in the process of interpreting the anaphoric dependency, thereby performing at chance level.

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