Facilitation by Variation: Right-to-Left Learning of English Yes/No Questions

This study advances the hypothesis that optional structural variation in language facilitates syntactic learning (facilitation-by-variation). Support for this is provided by a right-to-left-elaboration acquisition model for English yes/no questions (YNQs). Previous studies have focused on the acquisition of ''inverted'' YNQs, a cornerstone of nativist theories of language development. Data from five American children (1;3 to 5;1) and their parents show that children hear a range of adult questions (Coming?You coming?Are you coming?), not all inverted. These variants are ordered from structurally least complex noncanonical forms to complex canonical inverted forms. I use state-of-the-art econometric techniques to estimate breakpoints in YNQ time series and show that noncanonical questions emerge early in children's speech and facilitate acquisition of canonical ones. This incremental structure-building process relies on an adjunction strategy that augments noncanonical questions with initial auxiliaries and subjects. Development proceeds incrementally from right to left to derive auxiliary-initial structures.

[1]  Achim Zeileis,et al.  Strucchange: An R package for testing for structural change in linear regression models , 2002 .

[2]  Rens Bod,et al.  Exemplar-based syntax: How to get productivity from examples , 2006 .

[3]  E. Markman,et al.  Children's use of mutual exclusivity to constrain the meanings of words , 1988, Cognitive Psychology.

[4]  Tiiomas Roeper,et al.  From the Initial State to V2: Acquisition Principles in Action , 1992 .

[5]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory , 1975 .

[6]  U. Bellugi,et al.  Syntactic regularities in the speech of children , 1966 .

[7]  Anna L. Theakston,et al.  Testing the Agreement/Tense Omission Model: why the data on children's use of non-nominative 3psg subjects count against the ATOM , 2005, Journal of Child Language.

[8]  Howard Lasnik,et al.  Syntactic Structures Revisited: Contemporary Lectures on Classic Transformational Theory , 2000 .

[9]  D. Slobin.  Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar , 1973 .

[10]  Robert S. Siegler,et al.  U-Shaped Interest in U-Shaped Development-and What It Means , 2004 .

[11]  Stan A. Kuczaj,et al.  Arguments against Hurford's ‘Aux Copying Rule’ , 1976, Journal of Child Language.

[12]  Hong Gen-wei.  Continuity and Development , 2003 .

[13]  L. Tamir,et al.  Interrogatives in dialogue: Case study of mother and child 16–19 months , 1980, Journal of psycholinguistic research.

[14]  Anna L. Theakston,et al.  Comparing different accounts of inversion errors in children's non-subject wh-questions: ‘What experimental data can tell us?’ , 2006, Journal of Child Language.

[15]  Ewa Dąbrowska,et al.  Towards a lexically specific grammar of children’s question constructions , 2005 .

[16]  Ewa Dabrowska,et al.  From formula to schema: The acquisition of English questions , 2001 .

[17]  Caroline F. Rowland,et al.  Is Structure Dependence an Innate Constraint? New Experimental Evidence From Children's Complex-Question Production , 2008, Cogn. Sci..

[18]  R. Brown.  A First Language , 1973 .

[19]  Morten H. Christiansen,et al.  Uncovering the Richness of the Stimulus: Structure Dependence and Indirect Statistical Evidence , 2005, Cogn. Sci..

[20]  B. MacWhinney.  A multiple process solution to the logical problem of language acquisition , 2004, Journal of Child Language.

[21]  Ursula Bellugi,et al.  The Development of Interrogative Structures in Children's Speech. , 1965 .

[22]  Roger S. Brown,et al.  The development of Wh questions in child speech , 1968 .

[23]  Christine A. Gunlogson.  True to Form: Rising and Falling Declaratives as Questions in English , 2003 .

[24]  Michael P Maratsos,et al.  Initial verbs of yeso questions: A different kind of general grammatical category. , 1983 .

[25]  Noam Chomsky.  Reflections on Language. , 1977 .

[26]  N. J. van Kampen,et al.  E-language, I-language and the order of parameter setting , 2001 .

[27]  J. Elman,et al.  Learnability and the Statistical Structure of Language: Poverty of Stimulus Arguments Revisited , 2004 .

[28]  P. Perron,et al.  Computation and Analysis of Multiple Structural-Change Models , 1998 .

[29]  Catherine E. Snow,et al.  Language acquisition: Conversations with children , 1986 .

[30]  Kirsten Abbot-Smith,et al.  How Known Constructions Influence the Acquisition of Other Constructions: The German Passive and Future Constructions , 2006, Cogn. Sci..

[31]  Eve V. Clark,et al.  The principle of contrast: A constraint on language acquisition. , 1987 .

[32]  B. Lust,et al.  Continuity and development in the acquisition of inversion in yes/no questions: dissociating movement and inflection , 2002, Journal of Child Language.

[33]  Barbara C. Scholz,et al.  Empirical assessment of stimulus poverty arguments , 2002 .

[34]  Justin M. Fitzpatrick.  Deletion Through Movement , 2006 .

[35]  M Nakayama,et al.  Performance factors in subject-auxiliary inversion by children , 1987, Journal of Child Language.

[36]  Barbara C. Scholz,et al.  Irrational nativist exuberance , 2006 .

[37]  J. Pine,et al.  Subject–auxiliary inversion errors and wh-question acquisition: ‘what children do know?’ , 2000, Journal of Child Language.

[38]  Jan Svartvik,et al.  A __ comprehensive grammar of the English language , 1988 .

[39]  William O'Grady,et al.  Syntactic Carpentry: An Emergentist Approach to Syntax , 2005 .

[40]  David Bamman,et al.  Proceedings of the 30th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development , 2006 .

[41]  Jesse Snedeker,et al.  Starting Over , 2007, Psychological science.

[42]  Alexander Clark,et al.  Learning Auxiliary Fronting with Grammatical Inference , 2006, CoNLL.

[43]  Pierre Perron,et al.  Dealing with Structural Breaks , 2005 .

[44]  F. Heny,et al.  An Introduction to the Principles of Transformational Syntax , 1975 .

[45]  Courtney B. Cazden,et al.  Children's Questions: Their Forms, Functions and Roles in Education. , 1970 .

[46]  C. Rowland.  Explaining errors in children’s questions , 2007, Cognition.

[47]  C Snow,et al.  Child language data exchange system , 1984, Journal of Child Language.

[48]  D. Biber,et al.  Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English , 1999 .

[49]  Fernand Gobet,et al.  Modeling the Developmental Patterning of Finiteness Marking in English, Dutch, German, and Spanish Using MOSAIC , 2007, Cogn. Sci..

[50]  N. Stemmer.  A note on empiricism and structure-dependence. , 1981, Journal of child language.

[51]  E. Clark.  Awareness of Language: Some Evidence from what Children Say and Do , 1978 .

[52]  Caroline F. Rowland,et al.  Predicting children's errors with negative questions: Testing a schema-combination account , 2009 .

[53]  S. Crain,et al.  Structure dependence in grammar formation , 1987 .

[54]  Paul Fletcher,et al.  A Child's Learning of English , 1985 .

[55]  Ewa Dabrowska,et al.  Questions with long-distance dependencies: A usage-based perspective , 2008 .

[56]  Jonathan Ginzburg,et al.  Interrogative Investigations: The Form, Meaning, and Use of English Interrogatives , 2001 .

[57]  Michael Tomasello,et al.  A Construction Based Analysis of Child Directed Speech. , 2003 .